I did the math. Sabine would be eighty-two now, her husband eighty-seven.
“Is Jacques still alive?”
“Kicked in ’06.”
I wondered if the miracle child’s infamy had contributed to her daddy’s demise. Kept the thought to myself.
We’d just parked in front of a two-story gray stone semi-detached in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighborhood when my iPhone buzzed. As I dug it from my purse, Ryan pantomimed smoking by placing two fingers to his lips. He got out of the Jeep, and I clicked on. “Brennan.”
“I coulda better spent the time flossing.”
An image of Slidell working his teeth at a mirror was not one I welcomed. “You talked to Tehama County?”
“The high sheriff himself. Willis Trout. The guy’s got the brainpower—”
“Did Trout remember Angela Robinson?”
“I doubt he’d remember how to sneeze without prompting.” I waited.
“No. But once I convinced fish boy I wasn’t a crank, he agreed to look for the file. I just got a callback. You’re gonna love this.” Slidell allowed another theatrical pause. “It’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“Robinson disappeared in ’85. In those days everything was still on paper. When the case chilled, the file ended up in a basement. Which turns out to be real bad planning, since the Sacramento River gets frisky every few years and floods the whole friggin’ county.”
“The file was destroyed?”
“The basement took hits in ’99 and ’04.”
“Did you ask Trout about Menard and Catts?”
“Let’s see. How’d he put it? Given that both are dead, have been for years, and will remain so in the future, he couldn’t waste time researching their bios.”
For a very long moment, empty air filled the line. Through the windshield, I could see Ryan talking on his mobile. Then Slidell shared the only good news I’d heard in a while.
“We may get lucky with Leal’s computer. The IT guy’s using some sort of mojo recovery software, getting fragments, whatever the hell that means.”
“Pieces of the browser history.”
“Yeah. He says the deletions were amateur-hour. Thinks he might be able to nail some sites the kid visited.”
“That’s fantastic.”
“Or a big waste of time.”
“I have a feeling something is there. Otherwise why would somebody want the child’s Internet history destroyed?”
“Eeyuh.”
I told Slidell what Ryan and I were doing.
“The media’s screaming for blood down here. So far it’s staying local.”
“How’s it going with Tinker?”
“You gotta go ask that and wreck my day?”
“Keep me in the loop,” I said.
I joined Ryan on the sidewalk. He’d finished his call and was surveying our surroundings. The block was a quiet one shaded by large trees, now bare, and lined with what appeared to be single-family homes. Each home was fronted by a well-kept lawn, now brown, and burlap-wrapped bushes and shrubs. Several had the portable plastic garages that les Montrealais call abris tempos.
I looked at the conjoined structure at our backs, then at Ryan.
“The place was converted into a nursing home back in the eighties,” he said.
“The PC term is ‘assisted living.’ ”
“More like assisted dying.”
Nothing like witty repartee to buoy one’s soul.
Steps rose from a short walk to a wooden door at the left end of a porch spanning the width of the building. On the porch were six Adirondack chairs, each painted a different color, probably at the time of the home’s conversion. A second-floor balcony provided overhead shelter from rain or snow. The upper balcony held four more weathered chairs. In one, bundled like an Inuit hunter, was an elderly man with his face tipped to the sun.
Ryan and I climbed up and let ourselves in.
The house’s interior was cloyingly warm and smelled of disinfectant and urine and years of institutional food. To the right was a small waiting room, once a parlor, to the left a staircase. Ahead were a dining room and a hall leading straight back to what looked like a sunroom. Doors opened off both sides of the hall, all closed.
A signal must have sounded when Ryan opened the door. As he closed it, a woman was already coming toward us. Her skin was chocolate, her hair thick and silver and braided on top of her head. She wore a generic white uniform, size large. A small brass rectangle above her right breast said M. Simone, LPN.
“Puis-je t’aider?” May I help you? A broad smile revealed teeth way too white to be real.
“We’re here to see Sabine Pomerleau,” Ryan responded in French.
“Are you family?” Undoubtedly knowing we weren’t.
Ryan held up his badge. Simone eyed it. Then, “I’m afraid Madame Pomerleau is asleep at the moment.”
“I’m afraid we’ll have to wake her.” No attempt at the old Ryan charm.
“Disruptions are unhealthy.”
“She set the alarm for an early shift at the plant?”
I detected a flash of annoyance beneath Simone’s sunny demeanor. A flash of something. But the smile held. “Does this have to do with her daughter?”
Ryan just looked at her.
“I will warn you. Conversations with Madame Pomerleau can be problematic. She has Alzheimer’s, and a recent stroke has compromised her speech.”
“Noted.”
“Wait here, please.”
Simone returned in less than five minutes and led us to a tiny second-floor room holding two beds, two dressers, and two straight-back chairs. Faded green floral wallpaper made the cramped space feel as claustrophobic as possible.
The room’s sole occupant sat propped in bed, a ratty stuffed cat cradled in one arm. As she stroked the doll, the bones visible below the sleeves and at the collar of her pink flannel gown looked as fragile and weightless as those of a bird.
“You have visitors.” Simone had the volume on high.
Sabine’s face was wrinkled, her cheeks flecked with tiny red and blue capillaries. The watery green eyes registered nothing.
“I’ll be back in ten minutes.” Simone spoke to Ryan.
“We’ll be careful not to upset her,” I said.
“You won’t.” With that odd comment, Simone hurried off.
Ryan and I maneuvered both chairs to the bed and sat.
“J’espère que vous allez bien.”
Getting no response, Ryan asked in English if she was well.
Still no indication that she’d heard.
“We’d like to discuss Anique.”
Not so much as a blink.
Ryan amped up the decibels and switched back to French. “Perhaps you’ve heard from Anique.”
One hand continued stroking the cat, blue veins snaking like night crawlers beneath the liver-spotted skin.
A full minute passed. Ryan tried again, with the same result.
I signaled that I’d give it a go.
“Madame Pomerleau, we are hoping you can help us locate your daughter.” I spoke loudly but soothingly. “Perhaps you’ve heard from Anique?”
Silence. I noticed that the cat had no whiskers on the left side of its snout.
“Perhaps you have ideas where Anique might have gone following the troubles?”
I may as well have been speaking to the gargoyle in my garden.
I posed several more questions, slowly and forcefully.
No go.
I looked at Ryan. He shook his head.
As I checked my watch, footsteps sounded on the stairs. I tried one last time. “We fear Anique may come to harm if we don’t find her soon.”
It was as though we weren’t there.
Simone appeared in the doorway, a “Told you so” expression dulling the snowy smile. Ryan and I replaced our chairs, then crossed to her.
The voice was raspy and deep. Over a phone, I’d have pegged it as male.
“Avec les saints. Saint-Jean.” Then, in heavily accented English, “Buried.”
Ryan and I turned. The ancient hand had stilled on the ragtag toy.