Monday Mourning

“Catts abducted Robinson and transported her to Vermont,” Clauel continued. “Once there, he exploited his resemblance to the Menard kid.”

“Grew flaming orange dreadlocks and beard and stayed clear of the locals,” I said.

“You’ve got it.” Charbonneau jabbed the air with a finger, then slouched back in his chair.

“Why leave Vermont?” I asked."

"“Maybe Catts was getting jumpy. Must have been a few people around who actually knew Menard,” Claudel suggested. “Maybe Angie died.”

“According to my estimate, Angie lived until she was around eighteen.

“Yeah,” Charbonneau snorted. “We’re gonna look into that wreck.”

“Maybe Catts liked the idea of a country without capital punishment. Maybe he thought a border would make him harder to track. Probably figured no one in Montreal knew Menard. For whatever reason, he pulled up stakes and headed north.” Claudel.

“With Angie or her body,” I said.

“The squirrel fools the probate people with his impostor act, goes French, becomes Stéphane Ménard, rents from Cyr, and opens a shop like the one in Yuba City.

“Collectibles,” I said.

“The perverted bastard was a collector all right.”

Claudel slid a second picture across the table.

An SIJ label identified the shot as a crime scene photo. The central object was a felt-covered board. The board displayed three human ears, two complete, one partial. The ears had been stretched and mounted like insects on pins.

My stomach soured.

“The sick little twist was keeping body parts from his victims.” Charbonneau.

I recalled the cut marks on the skulls in my lab.

“Souvenir taking may have been Pomerleau’s idea.”

“Yeah?”

I pointed to the partial ear. “Angie Robinson’s ear was removed long after she died, when the bone had had time to dry, so Catts initially had not done that. The others were taken while the bone was fresh.”

“You can tell that from the cut marks?”

I nodded, swallowed.

“Nine years passed between the abductions of Pomerleau and McGee.

“Reverse Stockholm.” Charbonneau shot his hair with one hand.

“Patty Hearst was locked in a closet for eight weeks,” I said. “Colleen Stan was locked in a box for seven years. Anique Pomerleau was taken in 1990. She was only fifteen.”

We fell silent, contemplating the unspeakable damage possible in that amount of time.

Claudel spoke first.