Monday Mourning

Or was it some malevolent sociopath with an issue specifically related to me?

What did the buttons mean?

Why hadn’t Claudel or Charbonneau returned my calls?

Where was Ryan? Why hadn’t he phoned?

Did I give a rat’s ass? Of course I did.

Saturday morning Anne made a trip to Le Faubourg while I dealt with the glass repairman. By noon a new pane was in, the refrigerator was stocked, and the place was reasonably clean.

For reasons my subconscious chooses not share with me, there are certain items I am incapable of discarding. Prescription medicines. National Geographic s. American Academy of Forensic Sciences directories. Phone books.

Hey, you never know.

After tomato, cheese, and mayo sandwiches with Anne, I collected every phone book in the house and stacked them beside my computer. Then I pulled out Cyr’s list. Where to begin locating tenants? Work backward or forward?

I started with Cyr’s earliest renters.

From 1976 until 1982 a luggage shop had occupied the space currently in use by Matoub’s pizzeria. The proprietor had been a woman named Sylvie Vasco.

The number on Cyr’s list was answered by a college student living in the McGill ghetto. He had no idea what I was talking about.

Neither the computer nor any directory listed a Sylvie, but together they coughed up seven S. Vascos. One number had been disconnected. Two went unanswered. My fourth call got me a lawyer’s office. My last three were picked up by women. None was named Sylvie or knew of a Vasco named Sylvie or Sylvia.

Circling the two unanswered numbers, I moved on."

"From 1982 until 1987 the pizza parlor space had been occupied by a butcher shop named Boucherie Lehaim. Cyr had written the name Abraham Cohen, then made a notation “sp?”

The White Pages listed a zillion Cohens in and around Montreal. They too suggested alternate spellings, including Coen, Cohen, Cohn, Kohen, and Kohn.

Great.

The Yellow Pages listed a Boucherie Lehaim in Hampstead.

No one answered the Boucherie’s phone.

Back to Cyr’s list.

Patrick Ockleman and Ilya Fabian had been Cyr’s tenants from 1987 to 1988. The old man had penned the words “queer” and “travel” next to their names.

I found nothing in any directory for the name Ockleman.

Ilya Fabian was listed at an Amherst address in the Gay Village. The phone was answered on the first ring.

I introduced myself and asked if I was speaking with Ilya Fabian.

I was.

I asked if the gentleman was the same Ilya Fabian who had operated a travel agency on Ste-Catherine in the late eighties.

“Yes.” Wary.

I asked if Ockleman and his partner had used or visited the basement of the property during their tenancy.

“You said you’re with the coroner?” Wariness now edged with distaste.

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh my God. Was someone dead down there? Was there a body in that cellar?”

What to tell him?

“I’m investigating bones found buried below the floor.”

“Oh my Gawd!”

“The material is probably quite old.”

“Oh my Gawd! Like The Exorcist. No, no. What was that movie with the little girl? The one where they built the house over the cemetery? Yes! Poltergeist.”

“Mr. Fabian—”

“I’m not surprised about that basement. Patrick and I took one look at that wretched, stinking, filthy cesspool and never set foot in it again. Made my skin crawl every time I thought about all that creeping and breeding going on below my feet.” Fabian gave “creeping” and “breeding” at least four e’s each. “That basement was alive with vermin.” Four i’s to “alive.” “And now you’re telling me there were corpses down there?”

“Did you ever use the cellar for storage?”

“God forbid.” In my mind I saw a theatrical shudder.

Bit squeamish for a tour operator, I thought.

“Did your agency specialize in any particular world area, Mr. Fabian?”

“Patrick and I arranged gay travel packages to sacred places.” Sniff. “The era was a bear market for spiritual journeys. We folded in eighteen months.”

“Patrick Ockleman?”

“Yes.”

“Where is Mr. Ockleman now?”

“Dead.”

I waited for Fabian to elaborate. He didn’t.

“May I ask how and when your partner died?”

“He was run over by a bus, of all things. A tour bus.” Whiny. “In Stowe, Vermont, four years ago. Wheels squashed his head like an overripe—”

“Thank you, Mr. Fabian. If follow-up is needed we’ll be back in touch.”

I disconnected. Fabian and Ockleman seemed unlikely candidates for serial killers, but I underlined the number and made a few notes.

The next name listed was S. Ménard. Beside it Cyr had written “pawnshop” and the dates 1989 to 1998.

I found four pages of Ménards in the Montreal phone book, seventy-eight listed with the initial S.

After forty-two calls I decided Ménard was a job for a detective.

Next.

Phan Loc Truong’s nail salon had occupied Cyr’s property from 1998 until 1999.