"Minor setback." Ryan jammed his cigarette into an urn of sand beside the door.
Outside, the cold hit me like an icy explosion. Sun roared down from a clear blue sky.
Ryan"s car was idling at the curb.
I got in and buckled my seat belt.
Ryan got in, turned to me, and raised the shades up onto his head. A dark crescent hung below each azure eye.
"Something"s on your mind."
I said nothing.
"It"s obvious you"re upset."
I said nothing, louder this time.
"I suspect you"re unhappy with me." Though he smiled, there was tension in his jaw and around his eyes.
"I know you consider yourself a hot property, Ryan, but I have other things to think about besides you."
And your niece. I felt like one raw nerve.
"Do you want to talk?" Ryan asked.
"I want to drive," I said, not trusting my voice with anything more.
We did.
In brittle silence.
Claudia Bastillo answered the bell at the Candiac house. Slapping on a fraudulent smile, I greeted her warmly.
Rose Fisher was sitting alone, staring at the venetian blinds. She wore a green rayon dress dotted with poppies. The orange hair was pushed up in back with a plastic clip-comb. If possible, the makeup was more extravagant than on the previous evening.
"t.i.t Ange was on a roll with "Frere Jacques."
Fisher didn"t stir when we entered the living room. Hearing her daughter"s voice, she turned and looked at us, puzzled, as if trying to figure out who we might be.
"It"s the cop. And the coroner."
With that less than accurate introduction, Bastillo withdrew.
Ryan and I a.s.sumed our positions flanking Fisher. "The cop" gestured to "the coroner" to proceed.
"I hope you"re feeling better today, ma"am."
Fisher nodded almost imperceptibly.
"Mrs. Fisher, I"m wondering about some calls your sister placed to me at my lab."
The garish eyes dropped.
"When?"
"Last week."
"About what?" Fisher"s focus remained downwardly fixed.
"Mrs. Parent-"
"Louise never married."
"Miss Parent spoke of a building on rue Ste-Catherine."
The sausage fingers closed and opened.
"She said she was bothered by events that had taken place there."
Fisher"s fidgeting intensified.
"Your sister stated that she felt morally obligated to share certain information with the authorities."
"She called you?" Fisher looked up, eyes wide in the artlessly recreated face.
"Twice. Do you know why?"
"I didn"t think she"d actually do it."
"What did your sister want to discuss with me?"
At that moment Bastillo arrived and took the chair opposite the couch. The c.o.c.katiel shifted from chirping to shrilling short, strident notes.
""t.i.t Ange!" Bastillo barked.
The c.o.c.katiel did another series of power shrills.
"Cut it out!"
The c.o.c.katiel said "pretty bird" in English and French, then began investigating the contents of its seed basin.
"He"s mimicking the smoke detector," Bastilllo explained. "Little cretin picked it up when he was alone one weekend and the batteries failed."
"He"s very talented," I said. "And bilingual."
"He"s a pip." Bastillo was clearly not fond of the bird.
"Trilingual."
We all looked at Fisher.
"English, French, and c.o.c.katiel. Louise used to laugh about that." Fisher"s voice made abrupt stops and starts as her chest clutched. "She was a translator, you know."
"No, ma"am. I didn"t."
Fisher nodded and the chins joined hands.
"Translated books from French to English. And the other way round."
"That"s very difficult work," I said, then turned to Bastillo.
"We were asking your mother about calls your aunt placed to my lab shortly before she died."
"There"s a connection?"
"We"re not sure."
"Are you suggesting my aunt"s death may not have been natural?"
"We want to investigate every possibility," Ryan said.
"Do you suspect us?" Shrill as the bird.
"Of course not." Ryan"s voice was rea.s.surance itself. "We"d simply like to know what was on your aunt"s mind."
Ryan addressed Fisher.
"Do you know what Miss Parent intended to tell Dr. Brennan?"
When Fisher nodded, lattice bands of sunlight slid over her cheek.
"t.i.t Ange whistled a line from Camelot. Camelot.
Rose Fisher drew a deep breath.
"Louise lived on Ste-Catherine for almost seventeen years. When my husband pa.s.sed away in ninety-four, I persuaded her to move in with me. Her building was one of those big things, with businesses on the street level and people living on the floors above. Too noisy for me, but Louise liked it. She had a two-bedroom apartment overlooking the street, loved looking out the window as she worked at her desk. Called herself the neighborhood snoop."
"What kind of businesses occupied the building?" I urged gently.
"There was a whole string. A luggage lady. A butcher. Then this guy opened a p.a.w.nshop."
Fisher looked down.
"Louise didn"t like him. Really Really didn"t like him." didn"t like him."
"What was his name?"
"Started with an M. Maynard? Martin? Louise might have said he was American. I don"t remember. This was years ago."
Stephane Menard. The guy on Cyr"s list. The guy who"d rented s.p.a.ce in Cyr"s building from eighty-nine to ninety-eight.
"Why did your sister dislike this man?"
"Don"t get me wrong. Louise usually liked everybody. But she had a bad feeling about this guy."
"Do you know why?"
Fisher looked at Bastillo. Bastillo nodded.
"She saw him carry a sleeping girl into his shop one night. 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 p.a.w.nbroker fellow shot into the street and dragged her back inside."
"When was this?"
Fisher misunderstood my question. "Late at night."
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 p.a.w.nbroker 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 p.a.w.nbroker 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?"
"t.i.t Ange chirped and rang his bell.