and affluent, St. Denis is the place to go seeking—a dress, silver earrings, a mate, a one-night stand. The street of dreams. Most cities have one. Montreal has two: Crescent for the English, St. Denis for the French.
I thought about Alsa as I waited for the light at De Maisonneuve. Bailey was probably right. Ahead and to my right sat the bus station. Whoever had killed her hadn’t gone far to ditch the body. That suggested a local.
I watched a young couple emerge from the Berri-UQAM Métro station. They ran through the rain, clinging together like socks just out of the dryer.
Or it could have been a commuter. Right, Brennan, grab a monkey, take the Métro home, whack it, cut it up, then haul it back on the Métro and leave it at the bus station. Great thinking.
The light turned green. I crossed St. Denis and walked west on De Maisonneuve, still thinking about my conversation with Bailey. What was it about him that bothered me? Did he show too much emotion for his student? Too little for the monkey? Why had he seemed so—what?—negative about the Alsa project? Why didn’t he know about the hand? Hadn’t Pelletier told me Bailey inspected the cadaver? Wouldn’t he have noticed the missing hand? The remains had been released to him, and he’d taken them from the lab.
“Shit,” I said aloud, mentally smacking my forehead.
A man in coveralls turned to look at me, registering apprehension. He wore no shirt or shoes and carried a shopping bag in both arms, its torn paper handles pointing at odd angles. I smiled to reassure him, and he shuffled on, shaking his head at the state of humanity and the universe.
You’re a regular Columbo, I berated myself. You didn’t even ask Bailey what he did with the body! Good job.
Having chastised myself, I made amends by proposing consumption of a hot dog.
Knowing I wouldn’t sleep anyway, I accepted. That way I could blame it on the food. I went into the Chien Chaud on St. Dominique, ordered a dog all dressed, fries, and a Diet Coke. “No Coke, Pepsi,” I was told by a John Belushi look-alike with thick black hair and a heavy accent. Life really does imitate art.
I ate my food in a red-and-white plastic booth, contemplating travel posters peeling from the walls. That would do, I thought, gazing at the too blue skies and blindingly white buildings of Paros, Santorini, Mykonos. Yes. That would do nicely. Cars began to crowd the wet pavement outside. The Main was revving up.
A man arrived and engaged Belushi in loud conversation, presumably Greek. His clothes were damp and smelled of smoke and fat and a spice I didn’t recognize. Droplets sparkled in his thick hair. When I glanced over he smiled at me, cocked one bushy eyebrow and ran his tongue slowly along his upper lip. He might as well have shown me his hemorrhoid. Matching his maturity level, I showed him middle man, and turned my attention to the scene outside the window.
Through rain-streaked glass I could make out a row of shops across the street, dark and silent on the eve of a holiday. La Cordonnerie la Fleur. Why would a shoemaker call his shop “The Flower”?
La Boulangerie Nan. I wondered if that was the name of the bakery, the name of the owner, or just an ad for Indian bread. Through the windows I could see empty shelves, ready for the morning’s harvest. Do bakers bake on national holidays?
La Boucherie St. Dominique. Its windows were covered with news of weekly specials. Lapin frais. Boeuf. Agneau. Poulet. Saucisse. Fresh rabbit. Beef. Lamb. Chicken. Sausage. Monkey.
That’s it. You’re out of here. I wadded the wrapper into the paper tray that had held my hot dog. The things for which we kill trees. I added my Pepsi can, threw the whole mess into the trash, and left.
The car was where I’d left it and as I’d left it. Driving, my brain looped back to the murders.
Each slap of the wipers brought up a new image. Alsa’s truncated arm. Slap. Morisette-Champoux’s hand lying on her kitchen floor. Slap. Chantale Trottier’s tendons. Slap. Arm bones with cleanly cut lower ends. Slap.
Was it always the same hand? Couldn’t remember. Have to check. No human hand had been missing. Just coincidence? Was Claudel right? Was I getting paranoid? Maybe Alsa’s abductor collected animal paws. Was he just an over-zealous Poe fan? Slap. Or she?
At eleven-fifteen I pulled into my garage. Even my