Monday Mourning

” I pictured the bones of the girl in the leather shroud, the molar root closure on her dental X-rays. “Maybe as young as eighteen, but there’s no way she was fifteen.”

“My point precisely.”

“Of course date of disappearance need not be the date of death. Did you learn anything else?”

“Battalions of girls go missing each year.”

Hang up, a voice warned. Hang up now or Claudel’s going to suffer another direct hit.

My doorbell doesn’t ring. It twitters. At that moment, it did so.

“I’d like a printout of every female aged fifteen to twenty-two reported missing in Quebec over the past twenty years.

“You’re talking dozens. Most’ll turn out to be runaways who eventually slunk back to Mommy or Daddy when they got tired of eating Beanie Weenies and sleeping on the floor.”

Easy.

“It would be helpful to me to know which ones didn’t.”

More twittering.

“Madame, th—”

“Detective Ryan is here. I have to go.”

“Andrew Ryan?”

“We are going to interview Louise Parent’s sister.”

“The DOA in Candiac?”

“Yes.”

“The old lady that was burning up your phone line?”

“She called me.

“Wanting what?”

“That is exactly what I intend to find out.”

“When did the sister surface?”

“Yesterday.”

“Where?”

“At her home.”

“Where was the old biddy hiding out?”

“Pointe-aux-Pics.” Icy. “I’d like that printout as soon as it’s ready.”

“Sacrifice.”

“Merci.” Asshole.

I shot to the bathroom. One side of my hair was fine. The other hung in damp spirals. I reached for the dryer.

Twittering. With talons.

“Terrific.”

Birdie was watching from the doorway.

I jammed the dryer into its holder, pulled on a tuque, and headed out.

Ryan was waiting in the outer lobby, face ruddy from the cold. Brown-tinted shades. Bomber jacket.

Libido liftoff.

Though the previous night’s call still held a stranglehold on my emotions, apparently lust had pulled a Houdini.

“Did I wake you, cupcake?” Big Ryan grin.

“You did not wake me.

“Are we testy this morning?”

“Are we smoking this morning?”

“Minor setback.” Ryan jammed his cigarette into an urn of sand beside the door.

Outside, the cold hit me like an icy explosion. Sun roared down from a clear blue sky.

Ryan’s car was idling at the curb.

I got in and buckled my seat belt.

Ryan got in, turned to me, and raised the shades up onto his head. A dark crescent hung below each azure eye.