Free Bones to Ashes by Kathy Reichs Page A

lose that slug?”
    I sipped my Coke.
    “It doesn’t look good, does it?” Gil resembled an aging French version of the Fonz.
    “She may turn up,” I said.
    “They think some bugger nipped her?” Black Jim.
    “I don’t know.”
    “Can you imagine what her poor parents are going through?” Gil.
    “They catch the bastard, I’ll volunteer to cut off his dick, bye.” Chantal.
    I stared into my mug, rethinking my decision to delay going home. I’d wanted to shed the mantle of sorrow and death, arrive home diverted and refreshed, but it seemed there would be no relief tonight.
    What
had
happened to Phoebe? Was she out there on the streets, alone but stubbornly following her own play? Or was she being held in some dark place, helpless and terrified? Was she even alive? How were her parents surviving the endless hours of uncertainty?
    And what about the corpse from Lac des Deux Montagnes? Who was she? Had she been murdered?
    And the other girl in my lab. Hippo’s girl. When had she died? An irrational leap of thought. Could the skeleton be Évangéline Landry? Where was Évangéline?
    I realized Bill was talking to me. “Sorry. What?”
    “I asked where Ryan is.”
    Obviously, word hadn’t reached the pub that Ryan and I had split. Or whatever it was we’d done.
    “I don’t know.”
    “You OK? You look beat.”
    “It’s been a tough couple of days.”
    “Fuckin’ hell,” said Chantal.
    I listened to the conversation a few minutes longer. Then I downed my Coke and set out for home.
     
     
    Friday morning brought no new anthropology cases. I was composing a report on the Iqaluit cranium when Ryan showed up in my lab.
    “Nice do.”
    My left hand did an automatic hair-behind-the-ears tuck, then I realized Ryan’s remark was directed at the skull. It was sun-baked white, its crown capped with dried green moss.
    “It’s been lying on the tundra a very long time.”
    Normally Ryan would have asked how long. He didn’t. I waited for him to get to the point of his visit.
    “Got a call from Hippo Gallant this morning. Guy named Joseph Beaumont is doing a nickel to dime at Bordeaux.”
    Bordeaux is the largest of Quebec’s correctional facilities.
    “Last night the CFCF six o’clock aired a story on Phoebe Quincy. Included footage on Kelly Sicard and Anne Girardin.”
    “Only those two?”
    Ryan raised palms in a “who knows why?” gesture. “Beaumont caught the report, requested a sit-down with the warden. Claims he knows where Sicard is buried.”
    “Is he credible?”
    “Beaumont could just be a con looking to better his life. But the guy can’t be discounted.”
    “What’s he saying?”
    “Let’s make a deal.”
    “And?”
    “We’re negotiating. Wanted to give you a heads-up. If the tip’s legit, a team will go out immediately. We’ll want to move before the press scents blood.”
    “I’ll be ready.”
    I was checking my field kit when Ryan phoned.
    “We’re on.”
    “When?”
    “CSU truck’s already on the move.”
    “Meet you in the lobby in five.”
     
     
    Ryan took Autoroute 15 northwest out of the city, cut east, then north toward Saint-Louis-de-Terrebonne. Midday traffic was light. He briefed me as he drove.
    “Beaumont settled for getting his mail privileges reinstated. Three months back the dolt received a copy of
Catch-22
with LSD mixed into the binding glue.”
    “Creative pals. What’s his story?”
    “Six years ago, Beaumont shared a cell with a guy named Harky Grissom. Claims Grissom told him about a kid he’d waxed back in ninety-seven. Said he picked her up at a bus stop in the middle of the night, took her home, abused her, then smashed her skull with a socket wrench.”
    “Beaumont could have read about or listened to reports of Sicard’s disappearance.”
    “Grissom told Beaumont the kid he killed was crazy for NASCAR. Claims he lured her with promises she’d meet Mario Gosselin.”
    I watched the yellow center line click up Ryan’s shades.
    “The