Bones Are Forever (3 page)

“Please ask the transport driver to wait,” I said. “And tell Pomier. He’s accompanying the remains to the morgue.”

“You’ve got it.”

As Caron led Pepper out, Ryan and I crossed to the closet.

The enclosure was no more than three feet by five. I pulled a chain to light the bare bulb overhead.

An iron rod held hangers, the solid kind that must have been decades old. They’d been bunched to one side, I assumed by Demers.

A wooden shelf ran the length of the closet above the rod. A collection of magazines had been transferred to the bedroom floor. Like the shelf, the door, the rod, and the knob, they were coated with Demers’s fingerprint powder.

Ryan and I spotted the vent simultaneously. It was on the ceiling, roughly centered in the closet. As our eyes met, Gioretti appeared in the doorway.

“You photograph in here?” I asked.

Gioretti nodded.

“We’re going to need a ladder and the snakehead camera.”

While we waited, Ryan filled me in on the landlord. “Stephan Paxton.” He switched to English. “The guy’ll never be addressing a Harvard graduation.”

“Meaning?”

“He’s got the brainpower of a moth. Beats me how he owns three buildings.” Ryan shook his head. “The tenant here is Alma Rogers. Paxton says she pays cash, usually three or four months in advance. Has for at least three years.”

“Rogers used an alias at the hospital?”

“Or here. But it’s the same gal. Paxton’s physical description matches that of the ER doc.”

“Yet she gave her actual address.”

“Apparently.”

I found that odd but let it go. “Is there a lease?”

“Rogers moved in with a guy named Smith. Paxton thinks maybe Smith signed something at the outset, but he’s not so good at keeping records. Says the cash in advance was lease enough for him.”

“Does Rogers work?”

“Paxton hadn’t a clue.”

“Smith?”

Ryan shrugged.

“What about the neighbors?”

“Bédard’s still making the rounds.”

At that moment the equipment arrived. As Demers positioned the ladder, Gioretti connected an apparatus that looked like a plumber’s snake to a portable DVR unit. He pushed a button, and the monitor beeped to life.

While Ryan held the ladder, Demers climbed the rungs and tested the grate with one finger. It wiggled, and plaster dust cascaded down.

Demers pulled a screwdriver from his belt. A couple of twists, and the screws came loose. More plaster dropped as he removed and handed down the grate. He drew a mask up over his mouth, then reached a hand into the dark rectangle in the ceiling. Palm flat, he gingerly explored. “There’s a beam.”

I held my breath as his arm went this way and that.

“Insulation.” Finally, Demers shook his head. “I’ll need the camera.”

Gioretti handed up the snakelike tool. The tip held a fiber-optic image sensor with a lens under four millimeters across. The tiny camera would take pictures inside the wall and allow us to view images in real time.

Demers thumbed a switch, and a bright beam shot into the darkness. After adjusting its curvature, he inserted the snake into the recess. A blurry gray image appeared on the monitor down below.

“We’re reading you.” Gioretti turned a dial, and the gray blur crystallized into a wooden beam. Below the beam was what looked like old-fashioned vermiculite insulation.

“Must be a ceiling joist,” Ryan said.

We watched the camera inch right along the joist, on-screen.

“Try the other way,” Ryan said. “You should hit a wall stud and a rafter.”

Demers reversed direction.

Ryan was right. Two and a half feet beyond the vent’s left end, beams joined the joist from below and above.

Tucked in the upper V was another towel-wrapped bundle.

“Sonofabitch,” Gioretti said.

*  *  *

Ninety minutes later, the closet ceiling was gone, and the third baby lay zipped inside its thirty-six-by-ninety-inch pouch.

Fortunately, the small attic produced no other infants.

Pepper had not alerted outside the building.

The three body bags lay side by side in the hearse, each with a pitifully small bulge in the middle.

Up the block, the journalists were practically wetting themselves. They maintained their distance. I wondered what Ryan had threatened to keep them in check.

I stood at the hearse’s back bumper. I’d removed my jumpsuit, and the sun felt warm on my shoulders and head.

Though it was past two and I’d eaten nothing since dawn, I had no appetite. I kept staring at the bags, wondering about the woman who had done this thing. Did she feel remorse over murdering her newborns? Or did she proceed with her life, not reflecting at all on the enormity of her crimes?

Images kept intruding from my past. Unbidden. Unwanted.

My baby brother, Kevin, dead of leukemia at age three. I wasn’t allowed to see Kevin’s body. To my eight-year-old mind, his death had somehow seemed unreal. One day he was with us, then he wasn’t.

In my child’s way, I’d understood that Kevin was sick, that his life would end too soon. Still, when it happened, I was left bewildered. I’d needed to say good-bye.

Up the street, Ryan was talking to Bédard. Again.

Earlier the corporal had reported that so far, the canvas had turned up only one person who recalled ever seeing Alma Rogers. The aged widow Robertina Hurteau lived in the building opposite and kept watch on the block through her living room blinds.

The old woman described her across-the-way neighbor as
ordinaire
. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Rogers enter or leave the apartment. She’d occasionally seen her with a man but never a baby. The man was
barbu
.

What about a dog?
I wondered. Or was it a cat? Had anyone asked? The missing pet bothered me. Where was it? Had Roberts/Rogers taken it with her? Had she abandoned or killed it as she had her own offspring?

Three dead babies and I was worried about a missing pet. Go figure.

You’re out there somewhere
, I thought. Amy Roberts, Alma Rogers. Traveling unnoticed. In a car? On a bus or train? Alone? With the father of your poor dead children? One of them? How many fathers were there?

I hoped Ryan was getting new information.

Demers and Gioretti were packing their gear. As I watched idly, a green Kia pulled to the curb behind their truck. The driver’s door swung open, and a man hauled himself out. He wore jeans and a tank that revealed way too much flesh. His hair was lank, his face flushed and splotchy above an unkept beard.

Arm-draping the car door, the man scanned the vehicles lining the street. Then he turned and slid back behind the wheel.

My weary brain coughed up a translation.

Barbu
.

Bearded.

I turned to call out.

Ryan was already sprinting up the sidewalk.

R
YAN HIT THE KIA AS THE DRIVER SLAMMED THE DOOR
. Reaching through the open window, Ryan snatched the key from the ignition.

Halfway up the block, I heard “What the fuck?”

Bédard arrived as Ryan badged the guy.

“What the fuck?”

The driver was Anglophone. With a limited vocabulary.

“Move!” Ryan yanked the handle.

“What the—”

“Now!”

Sandaled feet swung out, followed by a beluga body.

As Bédard drew his Glock, Ryan spun Beluga, pushed him to the Kia, kicked his legs wide, and frisked him.

“What? You’re not going to buy me a few drinks first?”

Ryan didn’t laugh at Beluga’s wit.

A rear jeans pocket produced a canvas wallet. Satisfied that his suspect was unarmed, Ryan stepped back and began checking its contents. Bédard stood with his feet spread, gun double-grip pointed at Beluga.

“Turn around, but keep the hands up.”

Beluga did as ordered.

“Ralph Trees?” Ryan looked up from a plastic card I assumed to be a license to its bearer’s face.

Beluga stood in sullen silence, hands above his head. Hair crawled from his armpits down the sides of his rib cage.

“You Ralph Trees?”

Still, Beluga said nothing.

Ryan reached back and unclipped cuffs from his belt.

“What the shit?” Beluga splayed beefy fingers. “OK. OK. But it’s Rocky, not Ralph.”

“What are you doing here?”

“What are
you
doing here?”

“You’re a really funny guy, Rocky.”

“How about you tell Dirty Harry over there to ease up on the firepower.”

Ryan nodded to Bédard. The corporal lowered but did not holster his weapon.

Ryan turned back to Trees and waggled the license. Trees mumbled an answer I couldn’t hear.

I walked toward the trio. They paid no attention to me.

Up close, I could see that Trees’s eyes were spiderwebbed with tiny red veins. I guessed his height at six-four, his weight at 350 or more. Tattooed between his lower lip and the top of his beard was an inverted smile composed of teeth. Classy.

“I come to see my lady. Last I checked, that ain’t a crime.”

“Murder is.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?’

“Who’s your girlfriend?”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“You’re starting to piss me off, Rocky.”

“Look, I bang her when I’m horny. Don’t mean I send her chocolates on Valentine’s Day.”

Ryan just looked at him.

“Alva Rodriguez.” The bloodshot eyes flicked from Ryan to Bédard and back. “That it? Someone offed Alva?”

“When’s the last time you saw or talked to Ms. Rodriguez?”

“Shit, I don’t know. A couple, three weeks ago.”

“Try a little harder.”

“This is harassment.”

“File a complaint.”

Trees’s gaze shifted to me. “Who’s the chick?”

“You just focus here.”

“This is bullshit.”

“When’s the last time you had contact with Ms. Rodriguez?”

Trees made a show of giving the question some thought. His jittery eyes and sweaty hairline suggested the bravado was an act. “Two weeks Thursday. No, Wednesday. I was just back from a ride out to Calgary.”

“Why Calgary?”

“I do some long-haul driving for my brother-in-law.”

“Where is Ms. Rodriguez now?”

“Man, can I lower my arms?”

“No.”

“How the hell should I know? She don’t check in with me. Like I said, I come by, I get laid, I go about my business.”

“You pay for these little rendezvous?”

“Me? You gotta be kiddin’.” The oily smirk made me crave a very hot shower. “I bring the bitch a bottle, she’s grateful. Ya know what I mean?”

“You also bring her a little toot?”

“I don’t roll with that stuff. Just sauce.”

“You know what, Rocky? I think maybe you’re lying to me. I look at you, I see a guy who enjoys his flake. Maybe a guy who deals. What do you say I toss that funny little car of yours?”

“You can’t do that.”

“What do you think, Corporal Bédard?” Ryan’s eyes remained on Trees. “You think we can do that?”

“We can do that.”

Ryan passed the license to Bédard. “How about you check ole Romeo out, see if he’s got any interesting history.”

Bédard holstered his gun and strode to his cruiser. While he ran Trees’s name through the system, Ryan and I waited in silence. Like many under stress, Trees felt the need to fill it. “Look, I’m telling you what I know. It’s jack shit. Alva and I didn’t spend our time talking.”

“Where does Ms. Rodriguez work?” Ryan asked.

“You’re not listening to me.”

“She have a steady income? A way to pay the rent?”

Trees shrugged—as well as he could with his hands in the air.

“You maybe turn her out, Rocky? Hook her on snow so she’s
there when you need a quick jolt? Is that the business you’re talking about? You pimp more women than Rodriguez?”

“No way. I watched out for her. Alva isn’t what you’d call a genius.”

Ryan started firing questions, shifting topics to keep Trees off balance. “You know of her using a name other than Rodriguez?”

Trees shook his head.

“Where did she live before coming here?”

“She’s Mexican, right? Or one of those.”

“Why do you think that?”

“The name. And she had a sort of accent. Not French. I figured it was Mexican. Didn’t matter to me.”

“That’s touching, you being so open-minded and all.”

Trees rolled his eyes skyward. His forearms were now V-ing down, hanging deadweight from his upraised elbows.

“You the baby daddy?”

“What?”

“You help her kill them?”

“Kill what?”

“You crank up some tunes to drown out their crying?”

“Are you out of your fucking mind?”

“Or did she do the babies herself because you gave the word?”

Trees’s eyes bounced from Ryan to me to his car, repeated the circuit. I wondered if he was about to bolt.

“Three, Rocky. Three newborns. Presently on their way to the morgue.”

“You’re freakin’ nuts. Alva wasn’t pregnant. Isn’t pregnant. Where the hell is she?” Trees forgot all about hands-up. Both palms slapped his chest. “What do you want from me?”

“We believe Ms. Rodriguez gave birth early Sunday morning.” Ryan tipped his head toward the three-flat in which we’d spent our day. “We found the baby under the bathroom sink. Two others hidden in the apartment.”