Deja Dead Page 0,112

Trottier, I too had thoughts that would not lie quiet in my mind.

27

IWOKE TO THE SOUND OF THE MORNING NEWS. JULY 5. I’D SLIPPED through Independence Day and not even noticed. No apple pie. No “Stars and Stripes Forever.” Not a single sparkler. Somehow the thought depressed me. Every American anywhere on the globe should stand up and strut on the Fourth. I had allowed myself to become a Canadian spectator of American culture. I made plans to go to the ball park at the next opportunity and cheer for whichever American team was in town.

I showered, made coffee and toast, and scanned the Gazette. Endless talk of separation. What would happen to the economy? To aboriginals? To English speakers? The want ads embodied the fear. Everyone selling, no one buying. Maybe I should go home. What was I accomplishing here?

Brennan. Stow it. You’re surly because you have to take the car in.

It was true. I hate errands. I hate the minutiae of making do in a techno-nation-state in the closing years of the second millennium. Passport. Driver’s license. Work permit. Income tax. Rabies shot. Dry cleaning. Dental appointment. Pap smear. My pattern: put it off until unavoidable. Today the car had to be serviced.

I am a daughter of America in my attitude toward the automobile. I feel incomplete without one, cut off and vulnerable. How will I escape an invasion? What if I want to leave the party early, or stay after the Métro stops? Go to the country? Haul a dresser? Gotta have wheels. But I am not a worshiper. I want a car that will start when I turn the key, get me where I want to go, keep doing it for at least a decade, and not require a lot of pampering.

Still no sounds from Gabby’s room. Must be nice. I packed my gear and left.

The car was in the shop and I was on the Métro by nine. The morning rush was over, the railcar relatively empty. Bored, I grazed through the ads. See a play at Le Théâtre St. Denis. Improve your job skills at Le Collège O’Sullivan. Buy jeans at Guess, Chanel perfume at La Baie, color at Benetton.

My eyes drifted to the Métro map. Colored lines crossed like the wiring on a motherboard, white dots marked the stops.

I traced my route eastward along the green line from Guy-Concordia to Papineau. The orange line looped around the mountain, north-south on its eastern slope, east-west below the green line, then north-south again on the west side of the city. Yellow dived below the river, emerging on Île Ste. Hélène and at Longueuil on the south shore. At Berri-UQAM the orange and yellow lines crossed the green. Big dot. Major switching point.

The train hummed as it slithered through its underground tunnel. I counted my stops. Seven dots.

Compulsive, Brennan. Want to wash your hands?

My eyes moved north along the orange line, visualizing the changing landscape of the city. Berri-UQAM. Sherbrooke. Mount Royal. Eventually, Jean-Talon near St. Édouard. Isabelle Gagnon had lived in that neighborhood.

Oh?

I looked for Margaret Adkins’s neighborhood. Green line. Which station? Pie IX. I counted from Berri-UQAM. Six stops east.

How many was Gagnon? Back to orange. Six.

Tiny hairs tingled at the back of my neck.

Morisette-Champoux. Georges-Vanier Métro. Orange. Six stops west from Berri-UQAM.

Jesus.

Trottier? No. The Métro doesn’t go to Ste. Anne-de-Bellevue.

Damas? Parc Extension. Close to the Laurier and Rosemont stations. Third and fourth stops from Berri-UQAM.

I stared at the map. Three victims lived exactly six stops from the Berri-UQAM station. Coincidence?

“Papineau,” said a mechanical voice.

I grabbed my things and bolted onto the platform.

Ten minutes later I heard the phone as I unlocked my office door.

“Dr. Brennan.”

“What the hell are you doing, Brennan?”

“Good morning, Ryan. What can I help you with?”

“Claudel’s trying to nail my butt to the wall because of you. Says you’ve been running around bothering victims’ families.”

He waited for me to say something but I didn’t.

“Brennan, I’ve been defending you because I respect you. But I can see what’s shaping up here. Your prying could really hang me up on this case.”

“I asked a few questions. That’s not illegal.” I did nothing to defuse his anger.

“You didn’t tell anyone. You didn’t coordinate. You just went off knocking on doors.” I could hear breath being drawn through nostrils. They sounded clenched.

“I called first.” Not quite true for Geneviève Trottier.

“You’re not an investigator.”

“They agreed to see me.”

“You’re confusing yourself with Mickey Spillane. It’s not your job.”

“A well-read detective.”

“Christ, Brennan, you are pissing me off!”

Squad