Monday Mourning

Louise said he was kinda cradling her, like a baby.”

“A child?”

“Teenager.”

“His daughter?”

“Louise said he’d told her he regretted never marrying and having kids. My sister had a real knack for getting people to open up. Five minutes and Louise knew your whole life story.”

“Anything else?” My heart was picking up extra beats.

“There was this other time Louise saw a girl run out of the shop. This pawnbroker fellow shot into the street and dragged her back inside.”

“When was this?”

Fisher misunderstood my question.

I looked at Ryan. He looked as keyed up as I felt.

“Louise kept it to herself until she moved here, then her conscience began bothering her and she told me what she’d seen.”

“Did your sister ever speak to the pawnbroker about these incidents?”

Fisher nodded. “Louise said she asked about the girls several times, you know, not right out, but kinda subtle. She said this pawnbroker always sidestepped her questions, eventually got pretty hostile over the whole thing. So she dropped it.

Fisher’s eyes came up and fastened on mine.

“Louise kept agonizing over whether she should call the cops. You know, so someone could check it out. I told her to mind her own business. Not get involved.”

“These incidents took place before 1994?”

Fisher nodded. “Do you think I gave my sister bad advice?”

’Tit Ange chirped and rang his bell.

25

RYAN CONTINUED HIS INTERROGATION OF ROSE FISHER. Bastillo hovered nearby. I slipped outside and dialed Claudel.

Astoundingly, he picked up on the second ring.

I repeated Fisher’s story.

“I’ve already run him while working Cyr’s list of tenants. Ménard’s a saint.”

“No record at all?”

“Officially, the guy never even spit on the street.”

“Is he still in Montreal?”

“Owns a house in Pointe-St-Charles.”

“What does he do now?”

“Nothing, as far as I can tell.”

“Ménard operated the pawnshop from eighty-nine until ninety-eight. What was he into before that?”

Slight pause.

“The record is unclear.”

“Unclear?”

“It stops in eighty-nine.

“What do you mean, it stops?”

“There is nothing on Stéphane Ménard before 1989.”

“No birth certificate, tax return, credit report, medical record? Nothing?”

Silence."

"“Rose Fisher thought her sister said Ménard was American. Did you send the name south?”

I waited for Claudel to speak. When he didn’t I said, “I’ll phone Monsieur Authier and tell him we have a lead.”

Explain your lack of enthusiasm to the chief coroner, Monsieur Claudel.