Monday Mourning

Manon Violette had disappeared nine years earlier after leaving her home in Longueuil to take a bus to Centre-ville.

Violette was white.

Violette was fifteen years old.

The next entry punched me in the sternum.

Manon Violette stood only fifty-eight inches tall.

Damn!

I’d estimated the Dr. Energy girl’s stature at sixty-two inches.

Could I have been that far off?

I fired into the lab and checked.

Nope. Dr. Energy’s girl was tiny. But not that tiny. Even considering the error factor, 38426 was too tall.

What about 38427? I’d estimated her age at fifteen to seventeen, her height at sixty-four to sixty-seven inches.

I pulled out the skull and checked the teeth.

An orthodontist’s dream. Perfect alignment. No rotations.

Back to the list.

An hour later I sat back, frustrated.

I hated to admit it, but Claudel was right. There were no matches. If height fit, age didn’t. If age and height were consistent with one of the skeletons, racial background or some other trait excluded the candidate.

None of the MPs from Quebec and only one from California had suffered a Colles’ fracture of the right radius.

Claudel had referenced the girl from California in our earlier conversation. I read through her stats.

In 1985, Leonard Alexander Robinson filed a missing person report with the Tehama County Sheriff’s Department. Robinson’s daughter, Angela, a white female, age fourteen years and nine months, left home on the night of October 21 and was never seen again.

Angela Robinson, “Angie,” had fallen from a swing at age eight, fracturing her right wrist.

Angie stood five foot two.

Back to the lab to double-check myself.

Angie Robinson was too young to be the girl in the leather shroud.

And too short.

I was discouraged, and my headache could have pounded the golden spike in Ogden. What if Angie had lived for a time after her disappearance? She would have aged. Perhaps grown.

Again, my subconscious seemed to be crooking a finger.

What?

The clock said five-ten. I decided to call it a day.

Returning to my office, I again tried Anne.

Still no answer.

I was replacing the receiver, when someone tapped on my door.

“Hey, Doc.” Charbonneau was in polyester from stem to stern. And cowboy boots.

“Hi.”

“I was on my way out, thought I’d pop up and give you the current lore.”

With what remained of my brain, I tried to decipher that.