Monday Mourning

“So Parent’s last meal must have been dinner.”

“The soup would have been evacuated from the stomach after three hours, the Ambien after two,” LaManche said. “The sleeping aid would have been dissolved in the tea.”

“According to the niece, Parent usually ate around seven. Assuming she did so on Friday, that brings us up to ten P.M.,” Ryan calculated. “Assuming she took the Ambien at bedtime, that brings us up to eleven or midnight. So death must have occurred in the early hours of Saturday morning.”

“That is consistent with the state of decomposition,” LaManche said.

“My offer’s still on the table,” Ryan said, when LaManche had gone.

“When did you learn about the phone calls?” I asked.

“Today. It’s one of the things I was going to tell you. Hurley’s?”

I looked at Ryan a long, long time, then wrenched my lips into a smile.

“With one condition.”

Ryan spread his palms.

“The check’s mine.”

“Hee-haw!” Ryan said.

Hurley’s Irish Pub is on rue Crescent just below rue Ste-Catherine. Driving there, I debated my choices: Park at home and risk hypothermia walking.

I opted for parking over thermal equilibrium. Scurrying along Ste-Catherine, I questioned the wisdom of that decision.

Ryan was seated in the snug when I arrived, a half-drunk pint on the table in front of him. I ordered lamb stew and a Perrier with lemon. He ordered chicken St-Ambroise.

While awaiting our food, Ryan and I circled each other warily. We both tried jokes. Most fell flat.

Around us swirled the usual Saturday night throng of drinkers. Some looked happy. Others desperate. Others merely blank. I couldn’t imagine their myriad problems and relationships.

Beside us, a young couple sat pressed together closer than socks from a dryer. He wore red felt reindeer antlers. She wore a Christmas sweater.

As I stared, reindeer antlers nuzzled Christmas sweater’s neck. She laughed.

They looked so happy, so comfortable with each other.

Christmas sweater’s eyes met mine.

Bienvenue. Welcome. Fáilte. Someone had draped a pine garland across the top edge.

A girl wormed past our table, moving with the exaggerated care one uses to mask inebriation. She had pale skin and a long black braid.

I thought of Anique Pomerleau. Where had she been for almost fifteen years? Why was she now with the man who was using Menard’s name?

The waitress brought our dinners. Ryan ordered another pint.