Deja Dead Page 0,142

door. Ryan gestured me back with the same move he’d used in the hall, then slid along the wall, shoulders hunched, knees bent, back pressed to the plaster. He inched up to the door, paused, then shot a foot hard against the wood.

The door flew in, hit the wall, and recoiled toward the frame, then came to rest half open. I strained for sounds of movement, my heart beating with the erratic buzzing. Bzzzzzzt. Bzt. Bzt. Bzzzzt. Da dum dum dum. Da dum. Da dum dum.

An eerie glow seeped from behind the half-open door, accompanied by a soft gurgling.

“Found the fish,” said Ryan, moving through the door.

He flicked a switch with his pen and the room was thrown into brightness. Standard bedroom. Single bed, Indian print spread. Nightstand, lamp, alarm, nasal spray. Dresser, no mirror. Tiny bath to the rear. One window. Heavy drapes blocked a view of a brick wall.

The only uncommon items were the tanks that lined the back wall. Mathieu was right, they were fantastique. Electric blues, canary yellows, and black-and-white stripes darted in and out of rose and white coral and foliage of every shade of green imaginable. Each tiny ecosystem was illuminated in aquamarine and lulled by a rolling oxygen sonata.

I watched, mesmerized, feeling an idea about to form. Coaxing it. What? Fish? What? Nothing.

Ryan moved around me, using his pen to sweep back the shower curtain, open the medicine cabinet, poke among the food and nets surrounding the tanks. He used a hanky to open dresser drawers, then the pen to leaf through underwear, socks, shirts, and sweaters.

Forget the fish, Brennan. Whatever idea was in my mind, it was as elusive as the bubbles in the tanks, rising toward the surface only to disappear.

“Anything?”

He shook his head. “Nothing obvious. Don’t want to piss off recovery, so I’m just doing a quick check. Let’s case the other rooms, then I’ll turn it over to Gilbert. Pretty clear Tanguay’s elsewhere. We’ll nail his ass, but in the meantime we might as well find out what he has here.”

Back in the living room Bertrand was inspecting the TV.

“State of the art,” he said. “Boy likes his tube.”

“Probably needs a regular Cousteau fix,” said Ryan absently, body tense, eyes scanning the gloom around us. No one would surprise us today.

I wandered to the shelves containing the books. The range of topics was impressive, and, like the TV, the books looked new. I scanned the titles. Ecology. Ichthyology. Ornithology. Psychology. Sex. Lots of science, but the guy’s taste was eclectic. Buddhism. Scientology. Archaeology. Maori art. Kwakiutl wood carving. Samurai warriors. World War II artifacts. Cannibalism.

The shelves held hundreds of paperbacks, including modern fiction, both French and English. Many of my favorites were present. Vonnegut. Irving. McMurtry. But the majority were crime fiction novels. Brutal murderers. Deranged stalkers. Violent psychopaths. Heartless cities. I could quote their cover blurbs without even reading them. There was also an entire shelf of nonfiction devoted to the lives of serial and spree killers. Manson. Bundy. Ramirez. Boden.

“I think Tanguay and St. Jacques belong to the same book club,” I said.

“This butt wipe probably is St. Jacques,” said Bertrand.

“No, this guy brushes his teeth,” said Ryan.

“Yeah. When he’s Tanguay.”

“If he reads this stuff, his interests are incredibly broad,” I said. “And he’s bilingual.” I glanced over the collection again. “And he’s compulsive as hell.”

“What are you now, Dr. Ruth?” asked Bertrand.

“Look at this.”

They joined me.

“Everything’s arranged by topic, alphabetically.” I pointed to several shelves. “Then by author within each category, again alphabetically. Then by year of publication for each author.”

“Doesn’t everyone do that?”

Ryan and I looked at him. Bertrand was not a reader.

“Look how every book is aligned with the edge of the shelf.”

“He does the same with his shorts and socks. Must use a square edge to stack them,” said Ryan.

Ryan voiced my thoughts.

“Fits the profile.”

“Maybe he just keeps the books for show. Wants his friends to think he’s an intellectual,” said Bertrand.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “They’re not dusty. Also, look at the little yellow slips. He not only reads this stuff, he marks certain things to go back to. Let’s point that out to Gilbert and his commandos so they don’t lose the markers. Could be useful.”

“I’ll have them seal the books before they dust.”

“Something else about Monsieur Tanguay.”

They stared at the shelves.

“He reads some weird shit,” said Bertrand.

“Besides the crime stories, what interests him most?” I asked. “Look at the very top shelf.”

They looked again.

“Shit,” said Ryan. “Gray’s Anatomy. Cunningham’s