Monday Mourning

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 pawnshop.”

Fisher looked down.

“Louise didn’t like him. Really 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.”

Stéphane Ménard. The guy on Cyr’s list. The guy who’d rented space 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 pawnbroker 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 pawnbroker 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 pawnbroker 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?”

’Tit Ange chirped and rang his bell.

25

RYAN CONTINUED HIS INTERROGATION OF ROSE FISHER. Bastillo hovered nearby. I slipped outside and dialed Claudel.

Astoundingly, he picked up on the second ring.

I repeated Fisher’s story.

“I’ve already run him while working Cyr’s list of tenants. Ménard’s a saint.”

“No record at all?”

“Officially, the guy never even spit on the street.”

“Is he still in Montreal?”

“Owns a house in Pointe-St-Charles.”

“What does he do now?”

“Nothing, as far as I can tell.”

“Ménard operated the pawnshop from eighty-nine until ninety-eight. What was he into before that?”

Slight pause.

“The record is unclear.”

“Unclear?”

“It stops in eighty-nine.”

“What do you mean, it stops?”

“There is nothing on Stéphane Ménard before 1989.”

“No birth certificate, tax return, credit report, medical record? Nothing?”

Silence."

"“Rose Fisher thought her sister said Ménard was American. Did you send the name south?”

I waited for Claudel to speak. When he didn’t I said, “I’ll phone Monsieur Authier and tell him we have a lead.”

Explain your lack of enthusiasm to the chief coroner, Monsieur Claudel.

After disconnecting, I returned to the living room. While Ryan spent another thirty minutes questioning Fisher, I observed quietly.

In my absence, tears had again wreaked havoc on the vivid maquillage. Fisher’s anguish was heartbreaking.

Bastillo was another story. Her spine remained rigid, her stare fixed and devoid of compassion for her mother’s grief. From time to time the younger woman would recross her legs, or refold her arms across her chest. Otherwise, she sat motionless and without comment.

At last Ryan finished.

We both rose, repeated our regrets to Fisher and her daughter, and took our leave.

Back in the car, Ryan suggested we grab a sandwich.

“No, thank you.”

My stomach chose that moment to growl.

“I’ll take that as a metabolic veto of your decision not to lunch.”

Without further discussion, Ryan pulled into the parking lot of a Lafleur, Montreal’s answer to fast food. Rounding the car, he opened my door, bowed at the waist, and made a sweeping gesture with his free hand.

What the hell. I was hungry.

Lafleur is famous for its steamed hot dogs and fries. Steamé et frites. Though regulars register blood cholesterol counts that would classify them as solids, now and then every Montrealer eats at Lafleur.