Monday Mourning

Anne weighed a thousand pounds. I tried to reassure her, gagged.

I hadn’t taken time to check for a pulse. Was she alive?

Please, God!

I tugged at my homemade travois, gaining inches with each burst. My arms and legs turned to rubber.

I heaved and heaved, coughing and panting, every cell shrieking for air. Now and then I flinched as something exploded or crashed in the house. Backing into the parlor, I twisted my head up and around for a quick assessment. Through the smoke I could see flames working up the walls. Only a narrow path down the center remained fire free.

Hours after setting out, I made the turn into the front hall. My eyes burned. My chest burned. My stomach burned.

Leaning a hand on the doorframe, I bent and vomited more bile. I wanted to sit down, to curl into a ball and sleep.

When my stomach settled, I regripped the blanket. My arms and legs trembled as I lurched backward, blindly pulling with all my strength.

The parlor was now an inferno. Flames crawled the woodwork, devoured the secretary, engulfed the couch. Things popped and spit, sending sparks toward the front hall and foyer. I was past feeling. Past thinking. I knew only to pull, back up a foot or two, and pull again.

The front entrance lay five yards behind me.

Three.

Two.

My mind chanted a mantra, urging my body not to fail.

Get through the foyer.

Over the jamb.

Onto the stoop.

When Anne’s legs cleared the doorway, I dropped to the ground and placed my fingertips on her throat.

No palpable pulse.

I collapsed onto Anne.

“You’ll be fine, old friend.”

Black dots swirled behind my eyelids.

Sleet pelted my back. The ground felt icy against my knees.

Around me, a cacophony of noise. I struggled to make sense of it.

Sobbing.

Was that Anne? Katy?

The yawing and spitting of flames.

Ticking.

Rain on the magnolia? No. Montreal. De Sébastopol. Sleet on the tankers in the rail yard.

What rail yard?

The rumble of distant engines.

Muted honking.

Coyotes wailing far off in the desert.

Not coyotes. Sirens.

The dots congealed into solid black.

38

I AM OF THE OPINION THAT HOSPITALS ARE TO BE AVOIDED. PEOPLE die there.

Ten hours after arriving by ambulance, I rose, pulled on the sweats Charbonneau had given me at Catts’s house the previous night, and left General.

How? I walked out. Like McGee and Pomerleau. Piece of cake.

Unlike McGee and Pomerleau, I scribbled a farewell note absolving my care providers from any responsibility. Tough duty with both hands greased and bandaged.

A taxi had me home in ten minutes.

Ryan was on the line in twenty.

“Are you crazy?”

“I’ve suffered a few burns and a minor bump. Canadians going south have, on occasion, been more severely blistered by the sun.”

“You need rest.”

“I’ll sleep better here.”

“Did your accomplice make a run for it, too?”

The smile felt like shrapnel scoring my face. “Anne has a concussion. She’s not a flight risk.”

“Anne’s obviously the brains of the outfit.”

“She’ll be released tomorrow. Friday we fly to Charlotte.”

“Where winter is viewed as a passing unpleasantry.”

“No mittens. No shovels.”

“Did she actually do the ‘get thee to a nunnery’ bit?”

“Anne wanted solitude. Cheap. The convent offers clean rooms, decent meals, and all the solitude one could wish.”

Memory rewind.

Sleet on my back. Ice under my belly. Fire. Charbonneau barking orders. Claudel covering me with something warm and soft.

“Any word on Pomerleau?” I asked.

“She won’t get far.”

“She could be in Ontario by now, or over the border.”

“We found an old scooter in Catts’s shed. That was probably her main means of transportation.”

“How do you suppose she got McGee from General to the Point?”

“Taxi. Bus. Metro. Thumb.”

“Where’s McGee now?”

“Back at General.”

“What’s happening on de Sébastopol?”

“SIJ found a second false wall in the cellar.”

“Where Pomerleau hid McGee during the follow-up search.”

“Probably. Anne’s laptop and camera were stashed there.”

“Pomerleau trashed my condo.”

“Looks that way. Maybe Catts helped.”

“To scare me off the pizza basement case?”

“That would be my guess. She may have spotted the computer and camera while creeping your place, thought they were yours, and figured they held evidence pertaining to the skeletons. She’ll roll on the story when we net her.”

“How could she have known where I live?”

“Thanks to La Presse, it’s no secret what you look like or where you work. Pomerleau had the scooter. She could have waited outside Wilfrid-Derome, followed you to your building, and watched to see which lights went on.”

“I think Pomerleau has a mirror phobia.”

“The lady has issues more serious than glass.”

“Pretty cunning the way she misdirected us.”

“Buckle on a collar, strip, and play the victim.”

“I believed it, Ryan. When I saw her in that dungeon, I wanted to cry.”

“We all fell for it. Did you get the bouquet?”

I turned and looked at my dining room table. The “bouquet” was the size of Laramie, Wyoming.

“It’s beautiful. I’m having Hydro-Quebec run an extra water-line.”

I felt my reserves dwindling. Ryan heard the fatigue in my voice.