Monday Mourning

”

“How far is that from Montreal?”

“It’s a neighborhood just west of Centre-ville.”

Anne’s wineglass froze in midair. As in my kitchen that morning, the other hand came up, palm skyward.

“There you go.”

“That’s three, Annie.”

Exasperated look.

“Your next step. Give Cyr a call. Better yet. If he’s that close, how ’bout a surprise drop-in? The Cagney and Lacey thing’s been kind of a bust for me so far. Let’s solve this case.”

My eyes swung to the phone by my plate. The little screen offered nothing but my name and the time.

It was obvious neither Claudel nor Charbonneau was answering my page.

I raised my Coke. Anne raised her wine.

“Archaeological research,” I said, clinking my glass to hers.

“With one slight modification.” Anne drained her chardonnay. “We’re digging for dirt instead of in it.”

Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, or NDG, is a quiet residential neighborhood two circles out from Centre-ville. Not the Westmount of the well-heeled English, or the Outremont of their hotsy-totsy French counterparts, but nice.

Richard Cyr lived in a redbrick duplex on Coronation, within spitting distance of the Loyola Campus of Concordia University. It took twenty minutes to get there, another five to size the place up.

Faded metal awning over a small front porch. Postage-stamp yards in front and back. Driveway leading nowhere. Blue Ford Falcon.

“Monsieur Cyr doesn’t step and fetch to the call of the shovel,” Anne noted.

In winter, Montreal homeowners either clear their own walks or hire a company or neighborhood kid for the task.

Anne and I had to watch our footing as we made our way to the steps and up onto the porch. When I pressed the bell, an elaborate chime sounded somewhere deep in the house.

A full minute later, no one had answered.

I rang again.

Nothing but chimes.

“Cyr must be physically impaired and the tightest miser on the planet,” Anne observed, almost losing her footing.

“Maybe he spends his money on other things.”

“There’s a happy thought. This peckerhead’s on his yacht in Barbados while we’re trying not to kill ourselves navigating his front steps.”

“Car’s here,” I observed.

Anne turned to look. “Guess he doesn’t drop the bucks on glitzy wheels.”

I was raising my hand for another go at the chimes, when the inner door opened.