AM OF THE OPINION THAT HOSPITALS ARE TO BE AVOIDED. PEOPLE die there.

Ten hours after arriving by ambulance, I rose, pulled on the sweats Charbonneau had given me at Catts’s house the previous night, and left General.

How? I walked out. Like McGee and Pomerleau. Piece of cake.

Unlike McGee and Pomerleau, I scribbled a farewell note absolving my care providers from any responsibility. Tough duty with both hands greased and bandaged.

A taxi had me home in ten minutes.

Ryan was on the line in twenty.

“Are you crazy?”

“I’ve suffered a few burns and a minor bump. Canadians going south have, on occasion, been more severely blistered by the sun.”

“You need rest.”

“I’ll sleep better here.”

“Did your accomplice make a run for it, too?”

The smile felt like shrapnel scoring my face. “Anne has a concussion. She’s not a flight risk.”

“Anne’s obviously the brains of the outfit.”

“She’ll be released tomorrow. Friday we fly to Charlotte.”

“Where winter is viewed as a passing unpleasantry.”

“No mittens. No shovels.”

“Did she actually do the ‘get thee to a nunnery’ bit?”

“Anne wanted solitude. Cheap. The convent offers clean rooms, decent meals, and all the solitude one could wish.”

Memory rewind.

Sleet on my back. Ice under my belly. Fire. Charbonneau barking orders. Claudel covering me with something warm and soft.

“Any word on Pomerleau?” I asked.

“She won’t get far.”

“She could be in Ontario by now, or over the border.”

“We found an old scooter in Catts’s shed. That was probably her main means of transportation.”

“How do you suppose she got McGee from General to the Point?”

“Taxi. Bus. Metro. Thumb.”

“Where’s McGee now?”

“Back at General.”

“What’s happening on de Sébastopol?”

“SIJ found a second false wall in the cellar.”

“Where Pomerleau hid McGee during the follow-up search.”

“Probably. Anne’s laptop and camera were stashed there.”

“Pomerleau trashed my condo.”

“Looks that way. Maybe Catts helped.”

“To scare me off the pizza basement case?”

“That would be my guess. She may have spotted the computer and camera while creeping your place, thought they were yours, and figured they held evidence pertaining to the skeletons. She’ll roll on the story when we net her.”

“How could she have known where I live?”

“Thanks to La Presse, it’s no secret what you look like or where you work. Pomerleau had the scooter. She could have waited outside Wilfrid-Derome, followed you to your building, and watched to see which lights went on.”

“I think Pomerleau has a mirror phobia.”

“The lady has issues more serious than glass.”

“Pretty cunning the way she misdirected us.”

“Buckle on a collar, strip, and play the victim.”

“I believed it, Ryan. When I saw her in that dungeon, I wanted to cry.”

“We all fell for it. Did you get the bouquet?”

I turned and looked at my dining room table. The “bouquet” was the size of Laramie, Wyoming.

“It’s beautiful. I’m having Hydro-Quebec run an extra water-line.”

I felt my reserves dwindling. Ryan heard the fatigue in my voice.

“Claudel and Charbonneau have a lot to tell you when you’re feeling up to it. For now, eat something, kill the phone, and hit the rack, hot stuff.”

I did. And slept until midafternoon.

Waking was like crossing an event horizon. I felt zestful. Invigorated. Charged with water-walking, omnipotent vitality.

Until I looked in the mirror.

My face was scraped and blotchy. My hair was singed. What remained of my brows and lashes were crinkly little sprigs.

Showering helped little, makeup even less.

I imagined Katy’s reaction on Friday. I pictured Claudel with his razor-sharp styling and advert-perfect creases.

“Bloody hell.”

Rebandaging my hands, I headed to CUM headquarters.

“Sergeant-détective Charbonneau ou Claudel, s’il vous plaît,” I requested of the lobby receptionist.

“Busy night,” the receptionist said in English, poker-faced.

“A real pip.”

I pictured myself panty-mooning the sky. Great. Word was out. My PC-challenged male colleagues would have a field day.

Charbonneau came down to escort me through security. He asked how I was, then he led me to the squad room, eyes straight ahead.

I entered to whistling and applause.

Sergeant-détective Alain Tibo dug a bag from his desk, popped to his feet, and crossed to me. He looked the type that would play the bulldog in a Disney flick.

“This ain’t Dixie, Doc. It gets real cold in Quebec.” I knew Tibo’s sense of humor. If the squad needed a clown, he’d be elected. “We chipped in and got you some proper gear.”

Tibo offered the bag with solemn ceremony.

The sweatshirt was blue, the wording bright red.

There’s no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothing.

— Old Scottish fisherman’s proverb

Below the proverb, a woman built a snowman in a blizzard of flakes. Her hair was orange, her skin pink. The snowman wore a hat. The woman wore nothing but stilettos, bra, and panties.

Rolling my eyes, I jammed the shirt back into the bag. Charbonneau and I crossed to Claudel, weaving through desks and dodging wastebaskets and outthrust feet.

“Claudel bills you for the overcoat,” said a voice behind us. “Slide it by the captain as a business chit.”

“The leopard skin a Tuesday motif, Doc?” Tibo asked.

“I hear Wednesdays it’s circus day,” another voice answered.

I cocked what remained of one eyebrow at Charbonneau.

He started to speak, but Tibo cut him off.

“Don’t worry, Doc. Claudel’s got a whole set of boxers with them little smiley-face things. Keeps his ass beaming while the rest of him sulks.”

Scooping a file from his in-basket, Claudel rose, and the three of us trooped to an interview room.

“I see my panties have been entered as evidence.” My voice could have kept ice cream solid for a week.

“Word spreads,” said Claudel.

“Indeed.”

“It didn’t come from us, Doc,” added Charbonneau. “Honest to God.”

Somehow, I believed that.

We took chairs around a battered government-issue table.

“I trust you are feeling better,” Claudel said.

“Yes.” Claudel had sacrificed his pricey cashmere to warm me? “Thank you for the use of your coat.”

Claudel nodded.

A beat went by.

“Menard is dead?” I asked.

Claudel nodded again.

“How can you be certain?”

Claudel opened his file and slid a photo across the table. “We discovered this in Menard’s house in Vermont.”

The picture was black-and-white, the image off angle on the page, like an amateur, homemade print. Despite some fading, the subject was clear. A tall, thin man in a shallow grave, knees flexed, wrists tethered to ankles. Though distorted in death, Menard’s face was unmistakable.

I flipped the print. On the back someone had written the initials S.M., and the date 9/26/85.

“Catts killed Menard in California in September 1985? And kept a photo of the body?”

“The sheriff’s going to do some digging around Catts’s old trailer,” Claudel said.

“Angela Robinson disappeared in October eighty-five,” I said. “According to neighbors, Menard returned to Vermont the following January.”

“Only it wasn’t Menard.” Charbonneau placed both forearms on the table and leaned forward. “We’re thinking Catts got the idea for his little horror show by following the Cameron Hooker–Colleen Stan media coverage. The shithead was in Yuba City, right down the road from Red Bluff. The press was hemorrhaging stories on ‘the Girl in the Box.’”

“About that same time Catts was getting chummy with Stephen Menard,” Claudel cut in. “Catts didn’t want to repeat Hooker’s mistake of remaining close to the scene of the abduction, so Menard’s farm was the perfect solution for playing out his fantasies. Catts killed Menard, then waited for his prey.”

“Angie Robinson,” I said.

“Catts abducted Robinson and transported her to Vermont,” Clauel continued. “Once there, he exploited his resemblance to the Menard kid.”

“Grew flaming orange dreadlocks and beard and stayed clear of the locals,” I said.

“You’ve got it.” Charbonneau jabbed the air with a finger, then slouched back in his chair.

“Why leave Vermont?” I asked.

“Maybe Catts was getting jumpy. Must have been a few people around who actually knew Menard,” Claudel suggested. “Maybe Angie died.”

“According to my estimate, Angie lived until she was around eighteen. That would bring us up to 1988, the year Grandma and Grandpa Corneau were killed.”

“Yeah,” Charbonneau snorted. “We’re gonna look into that wreck.”

“Maybe Catts liked the idea of a country without capital punishment. Maybe he thought a border would make him harder to track. Probably figured no one in Montreal knew Menard. For whatever reason, he pulled up stakes and headed north.” Claudel.

“With Angie or her body,” I said.

“The squirrel fools the probate people with his impostor act, goes French, becomes Stéphane Ménard, rents from Cyr, and opens a shop like the one in Yuba City.” Charbonneau.

“Collectibles,” I said.

“The perverted bastard was a collector all right.”

Claudel slid a second picture across the table.

An SIJ label identified the shot as a crime scene photo. The central object was a felt-covered board. The board displayed three human ears, two complete, one partial. The ears had been stretched and mounted like insects on pins.

My stomach soured.

“The sick little twist was keeping body parts from his victims.” Charbonneau.

I recalled the cut marks on the skulls in my lab.

“Souvenir taking may have been Pomerleau’s idea.”

“Yeah?”

I pointed to the partial ear. “Angie Robinson’s ear was removed long after she died, when the bone had had time to dry, so Catts initially had not done that. The others were taken while the bone was fresh.”

“You can tell that from the cut marks?”

I nodded, swallowed.

“Nine years passed between the abductions of Pomerleau and McGee. During that time I believe the balance of power shifted between captor and captive.”

“Reverse Stockholm.” Charbonneau shot his hair with one hand.

“Patty Hearst was locked in a closet for eight weeks,” I said. “Colleen Stan was locked in a box for seven years. Anique Pomerleau was taken in 1990. She was only fifteen.”

We fell silent, contemplating the unspeakable damage possible in that amount of time.

Claudel spoke first.

“Pomerleau was tortured, tried to please Catts, maybe suggested another victim.”

“Or maybe new meat was Catts’s idea. Maybe he got greedy and decided to expand his collection,” Charbonneau picked up. “Pomerleau saw the newcomer as a step up the food chain: by abusing McGee she pleased Catts. Eventually she started getting her own rocks off.”

“The controlled became the controller,” I said. “Or Pomerleau and Catts just melded.”

Like Homolka and Bernardo, I thought.

“Catts took at least two more captives between Pomerleau and McGee,” I reminded. “Local girls, according to strontium isotope analysis.”

“We will find out who these girls were.” Claudel’s jaw muscles bunched, relaxed. “You can take that to the bank.”

“I’ve got a question, Doc.” Charbonneau again leaned onto the table. “Angie Robinson was Catts’s earliest capture. Why were hers the only bones with that grave wax stuff?”

I’d posed that question to myself.

“The tannic acid in leather acts as a preservative, altering the rate of decomposition. And Angie may have been buried elsewhere initially, in a place with more moisture than the pizza basement cellar.”

“That’s our thinking.” Charbonneau cocked his chin at Claudel. “We figure the kid died in Vermont, Catts buried her there, later went back for her corpse. But we’ve been busting our brains trying to figure out why he’d bother. Your ear thing may be the missing piece.”

“Catts went back for the ear, but ended up bringing the whole body to Montreal? Why?”

“Maybe he felt safer having her right underfoot.”

“But Cyr gave Catts the boot in ninety-eight. If he’d already dug up and moved Angie Robinson once, why leave her and two others behind in that building?”

Charbonneau shrugged. “Catts’s had been skating since he grabbed Robinson in eighty-five. Maybe he’d come to feel invincible. Besides, where else could he bury bodies? He couldn’t dig graves in the Corneaus’ front yard.”

“And the cellar was otherwise committed,” I said bitterly.

There was a moment of silence as we thought about that. I broke it.

“Who do you suppose Louise Parent saw?”

“Perhaps Pomerleau. Perhaps one of the others. Catts may have kept girls under the pawnshop while preparing his little welcome wagon over in the Point,” Charbonneau said.

“Pomerleau admitted that she’d killed Parent,” I said.

“No doubt she was in it up to her eyeballs. SIJ found Rose Fisher’s address in the de Sébastopol basement. But the Parent murder may have gone down at Catts’s instigation. He probably told Pomerleau that the old lady had spotted him with captives at the pawnshop. They must have been keeping track of Parent, and when the bodies were discovered they figured they needed to move before she did.” Charbonneau shook his head. “Ironic, isn’t it? They tried to hide everything in the de Sébastopol basement, and that’s the only thing that survived the fire.”

“That may be why your friend wasn’t down there,” Claudel said. “Pomerleau probably planned to drag Madame Turnip to the cellar, then changed her mind, fearing the fire wouldn’t penetrate that far.”

“Or maybe she just grew tired and dumped her.” I felt my hands curl into fists.

“You were correct about the buttons.” Claudel looked me dead in the eye. “Undoubtedly Catts dropped them while in the pizza parlor basement. They were unrelated to the bodies.”

I felt no satisfaction at being right, just a deep aching sorrow.

And weariness. My strength was unraveling like the top of an old sock.

I relaxed my hands and laced my fingers. There was one last answer I needed.

“When did you learn I’d gone to de Sébastopol?”

“I retrieved your message on the drive back from Vermont,” Charbonneau said. “We’d learned from the photo that Menard was dead and that Catts had killed him. We knew that Pomerleau and McGee were in the wind. We knew Catts was dead. Luc and I went directly to headquarters and found a report stating that Pomerleau’s prints were on the gun Catts used to blow out his lights.”

“And no prints from Catts,” I guessed.

“Nada. And Doc LaManche said Catts’s hands were residue-free. We remembered what you’d told us about brainwashing, put two and two together, and hauled ass for de Sébastopol, gambling that we’d get there before you found Pomerleau and came to grief.”

“Thank you.”

“The line of duty, ma’am.” Charbonneau grinned.

I turned to Claudel.

“Thank you, Detective. And I truly am sorry about your coat.”

Claudel nodded. “You showed great resourcefulness and courage.”

“Thanks again. To both of you.” We all rose and I started for the door.

“Dr. Brennan.”

I turned back to Claudel.

“I have never been an admirer.” The corners of Claudel’s mouth quivered toward something verging on a grin. “But you have given me a new appreciation for leopard skin.”