Monday Mourning

”

“How can that be?”

LaManche lifted one shoulder and both brows.

Charbonneau rounded out my morning’s list of callers.

“Menard and Catts knew each other,” he said without preamble.

“Really.”

“I managed to locate one of Menard’s former profs at Cal State–Chico. Guy’s been teaching since Truman started redecorating the White House, but his memory’s primo. He put me onto one of Menard’s old girlfriends. Woman named Carla Greenberg.”

The name meant nothing to me.

“Greenberg’s on faculty at some small college in Pennsylvania. Says she and Menard dated their first year of grad school, then she left for Belize. Menard didn’t land a job on the dig, or on any other project, for that matter, so he stayed in Chico that summer. When Greenberg got back Menard was spending most of his time with some guy in Yuba City.”

“Catts?”

“Our hero.”

“How did Catts and Menard hook up?”

“They look alike.”

“Come on.”

Charbonneau held up a hand. “I’m not making this up, Doc. According to Greenberg, people kept telling Menard some pawnbroker in Yuba City was his dead-ringer double. The archaeology students liked to prowl this guy’s shop, being as he wasn’t overly rigid about laws pertaining to antiquities, if you catch my meaning.”

“And?”

“Menard went for a look-see and the two became buds. At least that’s the story Menard laid on Greenberg.”

“That sounds preposterous.”

“Greenberg e-mailed this.”

Charbonneau handed me a color photo printed on computer paper. In it three people stood arm in arm on a pier.

The woman was squat and muscular, with straight brown hair and wide-set eyes. The men flanking her looked like bookends. Both were tall and thin, with wild red hair and freckles gone mad.

“I’ll be damned.”

“According to Greenberg, Menard spent less and less time in Chico, eventually blew off the program. She was wrapped up in her thesis that fall and never really gave him much thought.”

“Could you find anyone in Yuba City who remembered Catts?”

“One old couple. Still live in a trailer next to the one Catts rented.”

“Let me guess. Nice young man. Quiet. Kept to himself.”

“You’ve got it.”

Charbonneau reclaimed Greenberg’s picture and looked at it as one might look at a turd on the lawn.

“Luc and I are going to spin down to Vermont, flash the pic, see if we can goose a few memories.”

After Charbonneau left, I dialed Anne’s cell. “We’re sorry. The party…”

I tried working my way through the journals the librarian had pulled for me. British Journal of Psychiatry. Behavioral Sciences and the Law. Medicine and Law. Bulletin of the American Academy of Science and the Law.

It was no good. My mind kept wandering.

I phoned Anne again. Her cell was still off.

I phoned Tom. No word from his wife.

I phoned Anne’s brothers in Mississippi. No Anne. No call.

I forced myself back to the stack.

One article focused on Leonard Lake and Charles Ng, the California geniuses who’d built underground bunkers to house female sex slaves.

At trial, Ng’s lawyers argued that their client was a mere bystander, a dependent personality waiting to be led. According to the defense, Lake’s ex-wife was the real heavy.

Right, Charlie. You were a victim. Like poor little Karla Homolka.

In 1991, Leslie Mahaffy, fourteen, was found dismembered and encased in concrete in an Ontario lake. The following year, Kristin French, fifteen, turned up naked and dead in a ditch. Both had been brutalized, raped, and murdered.

Paul Bernardo and his wife, Karla Homolka, were subsequently arrested. Young and blond and beautiful, the press dubbed the couple the Ken and Barbie Killers.

In exchange for testimony against her ex-husband, Homolka was allowed to plead guilty to manslaughter. Bernardo was convicted of murder one, aggravated sexual assault, forcible confinement, kidnapping, and performing an indignity on a human body."

"Like Lake and Ng, the Bernardos filmed their little orgies. When the tapes finally surfaced, footage showed bride and groom as equal enthusiasts in the torture and murder. But Karla had already cut her deal.

I was moving on to the next article, when my phone rang again.

“They’re gone.” Ryan sounded like he was calling from Uranus.

“Who’s gone?”

“Anique Pomerleau and Tawny McGee.”

34

“HOW CAN THEY BE GONE?”

“When the day nurse checked, their beds were empty.”

“There was no guard?”

“We told Feldman security wasn’t an issue.”

“Had they been released?”

“No.”

“Were they alone?”

“No one saw them leave.”

“Had they had visitors?” My voice was too loud. “A family member?”

“We’ve yet to locate any of Pomerleau’s relatives. McGee’s sister flew east from Alberta last night. Sandra something. She and the mother are en route from Maniwaki now.”

Adrenaline surge.

“Menard!”

“I floated his description around the floor.