Monday Mourning

Who was that victim?

Using multiple search engines, most of which sent me through infuriating, labyrinthine back alley cyberloops, I finally found the name.

More searching.

Archives of the Red Bluff Daily News.

Archives of the Chico Examiner.

The normal sounds of night receded to the edge of my hearing. Birdie slumbered on.

Hours later, I sat back, numb with the horror of what I was unraveling.

I understood what was going on.

30

I LASTED UNTIL SEVEN A.M. BEFORE PHONING RYAN. HE ANSWERED quickly, sounding alert but tired.

“Am I waking you?”

“I had to get up anyway to answer the phone.”

“Old joke, Ryan.”

“You sound wired. What’s up?”

I laid out my theory and told him what I’d discovered in my cyber research.

“Holy shit.”

“We need to get into that house, Ryan.”

“The pizza parlor bust isn’t my case.”

“The Louise Parent homicide is. Menard-whoever probably killed Parent to keep her from talking to me.”

I heard a match, then slow exhalation.

“I want Claudel and Charbonneau to hear this. You going to be there awhile?”

“I’ll wait.”

Ryan called back at nine to tell me they’d rendezvous at my place at eleven.

“Claudel agreed?”

“Luc’s a good cop.”

“With all the charisma of the Night Stalker. I’ll make coffee.”"

"Knowing Claudel would be hard to convince, I spent the next hour online arming myself with as much information as possible.

Claudel arrived first, wearing his usual arrogant frown.

“Bonjour,” I said, gesturing him to the sofa.

“Bonjour.”

Claudel removed his overcoat. I took it.

Claudel tugged each Armani sleeve to cover each antiseptically white Burberry cuff, then sat and crossed his legs.

“Café?” I offered.

“No.” Claudel made a show of checking his watch. “Merci.”

Ryan and Charbonneau showed up within minutes of each other, each in faded jeans and sweater. Ryan had hit a patisserie on his way.

I filled mugs of coffee for Ryan and Charbonneau, then the three of us helped ourselves to pastries. Throughout, Claudel maintained his this-better-be-good detachment.

Ryan kick-started the meeting.

“Tempe, tell these guys what you told me.” He turned to Claudel. “Luc, I want you to hear her out.”

I started churning out the words.

“On May 19, 1977, a twenty-year-old woman named Colleen Stan set out to hitchhike from Eugene, Oregon, to Westwood, California. After several rides she was picked up by Cameron Hooker and his wife, Jan. The Hookers drove Stan to the Lassen National Forest, handcuffed, blindfolded, bound, and gagged her, and took her to their home.”

Birdie strolled in, sniffed two pairs of boots and one pair of loafers, made his choice.

“The little guy likes you, Luc.” Charbonneau winked at his partner.

“Sorry.” I jumped up and removed my cat from Claudel’s lap.

Birdie, in as much as cats are capable, looked offended.

“Cameron Hooker kept Colleen Stan sealed in total darkness, subjected to complete sensory deprivation, for up to twenty-three hours per day. For seven years.”

“Sonovabitch,” Charbonneau said.

“Hooker imprisoned Stan in a series of boxes he designed specifically for that purpose. When it suited him, he took her out, hung her from pipes, stretched her on a rack, whipped her, shocked her with electrical wires, starved, raped, and terrorized her.”

Claudel picked a cat hair from his sleeve.

“Hooker’s wife ultimately set Stan free. Hooker was arrested in November 1984. The following fall he was convicted of kidnap, rape, sodomy, and a number of other charges. Media coverage turned into blood sport.”

“What is the relevance of this?” Claudel sighed.

“Colleen Stan’s ordeal took place in Red Bluff, California. Red Bluff is forty miles from Chico.”

“Stephen Menard was a grad student in Chico in 1985,” Charbonneau said, reaching for his second doughnut.

I nodded.

Birdie sidled to the couch, arched, then brushed Claudel’s leg. Going bipedal, he placed both forepaws on Claudel’s knee.

Again apologizing, I scooped the cat up and secured him in my bedroom.

“But the mutt here in Montreal isn’t Menard,” Charbonneau said when I returned.

“I’m using the name for convenience.”

“So where’s the real Menard?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he was killed by the man living in Pointe-St-Charles. That’s your job.”

“Go on,” Ryan urged.

“The Stan case was all over the news from the fall of eighty-four through the fall of eighty-five. The press loved it, called it the Girl in the Box Case. Then the Sex Slave Case.”

Claudel looked at his watch.

“In 1985 a fourteen-year-old girl named Angie Robinson disappeared from Corning, California. Corning is located between Chico and Red Bluff.” I paused for emphasis. “I have reason to believe one of the three pizza basement skeletons is that of Angie Robinson.”

Charbonneau’s doughnut stopped in its trajectory to his mouth.