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LaManche phoned at two and again at three. Each time I reported that nothing more had been found. On the second call, he encouraged me to return to the LSJML, but was persuaded by my suggestion that I remain on scene in case questions arose.
Good decision. In the next five hours the basin yielded seven additional hunks of algae-coated flesh. Three were human. Four were not, and of questionable species affiliation. Possibly the partial fore and hind legs of a pig.
Ryan rang at five. I told him I planned to hang in as long as the divers kept working. Said I’d text when leaving the port. He promised a home-cooked dinner. Other services of a much more personal nature.
At eight, the team leader, a tall skinny guy named Pen Olsen, ordered a halt until morning. I was disappointed that we’d recovered so little. Still, I was hot, tired, and grubby. Not really unhappy to call it a day.
I drove toward home in a thickening dusk. A perk of summer at the forty-fifth latitude north. The sun lingers late, often departs with the splashy brilliance of a Rothko.
Beyond my windshield, the city was turning itself over to night. Windows oozed yellow from the two- and three-flats in Griffintown, eerie blue from the Centreville skyscrapers rising beyond them. Neon beckoned its gaudy welcome from overhanging signs and tubes surrounding tavern doors and windows along the way.
Hooking a left onto Boulevard René-Lévesque, I sensed the usual thoughts and emotions coloring my outlook. I felt sadness for the person surfacing piecemeal from the river. But also hope that the new day would prove more fruitful.
A series of images flitted at the edge of my consciousness. A figure. A bridge. Ruptured webs of lightning writhing overhead and sparking tentacles earthward.
The body parts that I’d bagged and tagged—the foot, the segments of a leg and an arm—suggested a fully-grown adult. The bone visible below the bloated and mangled flesh looked robust, but not overly so. I was unsure if we were recovering a male or a female. Was it the man struck down during Clémence? Or was the river yielding some other unfortunate fallen from a boat, shoreline, or bridge?
I also felt compassion for those whose lives would forever be changed by news of this death. I knew how that would go. I’d witnessed—and at times participated in—the heartbreaking telling. I’d seen the initial look of perplexity, denial, or disbelief. Eventually, the widened eyes. With comprehension, the stoic silence, tears, or physical collapse. There is no proper or predictable response. Reactions to loss are as varied as the swirls and ridges on a human thumb.
Finally, I felt the resolve that comes with each new case. I didn’t know this victim. Had no idea his or her appearance. His or her hopes and dreams, accomplishments, or failures. But already I was committed to unraveling the mystery of his or her passing.
As I plunged into my building’s underground garage, my stomachgrowled at a pitch probably heard in the Carolinas. My thoughts shifted from corpses to cuisine.
Sylvain greeted me, epaulettes overreaching the span of his bony shoulders.
“Bon soir, Dr. Brennan. Long day, eh?” Like Legalt and many Francophone Montrealers, Sylvain speaks to Anglophones in a mélange of French and English. Franglaise.
“A very long day,” I agreed.
Sylvain walked to a bank of elevators and thumbed a button. Waited the millisecond it took for a car to arrive. Smiled me through the immaculate mirrored doors.
I ascended to the fifteenth floor and crossed to our condo.
That last—a simple declarative sentence—is loaded with a double-barreled whammy about major changes in my life. Let’s parse.
First barrel: Fifteenth floor. For decades I occupied a small, ground-level apartment with a shotgun kitchen and French doors accessing a courtyard on one side and a tiny lawn on the other. I am now co-owner of a three-bedroom condo in a posh new high-rise complete with marble-floored lobby and uniformed doorman.
Second barrel: Our. Except for my cat, Birdie, and the occasional encampment by my daughter, Katy, I’ve lived solo since separating from my ex some time back in the Neolithic. I now have a roommate on both ends of my geographically complicated life. That roommate is Andrew Ryan.
How did this happen, you wonder?
After years of ducking Ryan’s pressure for greater commitment from me—including repeated marriage proposals—I finally succumbed and agreed to cohabitation.
As proof of my pledge to this new living arrangement, I gave notice to the landlord of my beloved wee flat. Ryan sold his pad atHabitat 67. I undertook construction of an addition to the annex in Charlotte, andle monsieurand I began looking at condos in Montreal.
Endless condos.
After a multitude of fruitless realtor-guided outings, and swayed by the glorious floor-to-ceiling windows spanning the unit’s entire south side, we purchased a property that significantly exceeded our agreed-upon budget. More burgers and fewer steaks, we told ourselves. Nights at home not out on the town.
As with my previous address, my current one is squarely in Centreville, a precondition upon which I’d been inflexible. No burbs for this uptown gal. But beyond that single commonality, the new digs are light-years distant in terms of amenities. Stainless-steel appliances. TV embedded in my bathroom mirror. Built-in espresso extravaganza. Smart panels that do everything but brush my teeth.
Lollapalooza view that is worth every penny.
And the available pennies have been more than anticipated. My income, though far from colossal, is solid. Ryan’s PI business, formed in partnership with former Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department homicide detective Erskine “Skinny” Slidell, is doing quite well.
Life offers few pleasures greater than the aroma of simmering food when arriving home at the end of a grueling day. That pleasure greeted me upon opening the door of 1532. Garlic? Maybe oranges? Definitely bread.
“Honey, I’m home!” Dorky, I know. But Ryan and I never tire of using the weary old meme.
