OMEONE STAYED HERE.”

Six puzzled eyes stared at my face.

I spoke to Otto.

“Your mother kept her belongings precisely sorted and arranged. In her apartment closet, all garments hang exactly two inches apart, utilizing the whole length of the rod. On her bureau, on the mantel, on the book shelves, every object is positioned equidistant from its neighbors, and every bit of surface is utilized.”

Otto nodded slowly, brows pinched into a frown. “That sounds right. She’d get upset if we moved stuff.”

“Your mother’s paintings are studies in symmetry. Everything is balanced, even.”

“Where are you going with this?” Claudel, too, was frowning.

I gestured at the closet.

The men took in the clothing shoved to one side.

Claudel started to speak. I cut him off.

“Follow me.”

In the bathroom, Keiser’s toiletries were bunched together on one half of a shelf flanking the sink. The other half was empty.

Claudel did one of those air poochy things he does with his lips.

“I suspect Mrs. Keiser was OCD. Her compulsion involved keeping objects spatially ordered. If so, she’d have been incapable of breaking that pattern.”

“You’re suggesting someone pushed Mom’s stuff aside to make room for their own?”

“I am.”

“SIJ and arson teams tossed this place.” Claudel. “They probably moved things.”

“I don’t think so.” I told them about the painting supplies. “But it’s easy enough to check the scene photos.”

Claudel’s lips tightened.

“Supposedly, only one person knew about this cabin,” Ryan said.

“Lu Castiglioni,” I said.

“Who?” Otto asked.

“The super at your mother’s building.”

“What about Myron Pinsker?”

Good question, Otto.

My eyes drifted to the easel. The paints. The sideboard.

Sudden head-smack thought.

“Otto, when you were growing up did your mother keep cash at home?”

“A few bucks in her wallet. Maybe a grocery fund. No big deal.”

“Did she ever talk about pulling her money out of the bank? Express concern about the safety of her deposits?”

“Mom was born in the thirties, had that Depression mentality. Banks scared the crap out of her.”

“Did she ever act on those fears?”

“Yeah, actually she did. When she took a jolt in the market in ’eighty-seven, she sold all her stocks and put the cash into a savings account. After nine-eleven she threatened to withdraw every penny. It was one of the few times we’d talked in recent years. I didn’t take her seriously. The markets were in chaos. Everyone was freaked. And, as I said, Mom was a flake.”

“But did she do it?”

Otto shrugged. Who knows?

“Your mother wasn’t one for locks, though, was she?”

Otto looked puzzled.

“At the apartment, she had a wall cabinet and a jewelry box, both with keys. She locked neither.” I turned to Ryan. “Got a penlight?”

Ryan pulled a small flash from his pocket. Crossing to the sideboard, I squatted to inspect the doors. Close up, lit by the small beam, the gouging and splintering appeared fresh.

“This damage is new.” I looked up. “I think Mrs. Keiser kept something locked in this compartment.”

“The doors were jimmied.” Ryan finished my thought.

“By this mysterious houseguest.” Claudel’s cynicism was starting to grate on my nerves.

I stood. “Who may have kept her prisoner until he got what he wanted.”

Otto looked as though he’d been slapped.

“I’m sorry.” I was. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“How far back did you go with Keiser’s financials?” Ryan asked Claudel.

Claudel was staring at the empty compartment. Ryan’s question brought his face around to us. For an instant he looked as if he’d been caught off guard. Then he nodded and yanked his mobile from his belt.

“Tabarnouche. I’m getting no signal on this piece of crap. Charbonneau’s working that angle. Once I’m on the road and back in range, I’ll call and see what he’s dug up. When I know, you’ll know.”

Ryan’s mobile rang as we were entering Hurley’s Irish Pub for lunch. He clicked on.

“Ryan.”

As we took seats in the main room, in Mitzi’s booth, I noticed that one small wrong had been righted. The name plate dedicating the corner to Bill Hurley’s mother had been stolen one busy night. The little plaque was now back in place.

Really. How low can you go?

As Ryan listened, I mouthed the name Claudel. He nodded.

The waitress brought menus. I ordered lamb stew. Ryan gestured that he wanted the same.

The waitress collected the menus and left.

Ryan contributed a lot of “oui’s” and “tabarnac’s” to the phone conversation. Queried a location. A date. An amount. He was smiling when he disconnected.

“We got us a motive.”

“Really?”

“Between the fall of 2001 and the spring of 2003 Marilyn Keiser withdrew approximately two hundred thousand dollars from her savings account at Scotiabank. There is no record of a deposit elsewhere.”

“I knew it. She kept it in shoe boxes at the cabin.”

“Not sure about the boxes, but, yes, your cabin theory skews right. And, by the way, Claudel is impressed.”

“He is?”

Ryan was looking for the waitress, who had vanished.

“What did he say?”

“I’m impressed.”

“Seriously.”

“I’ve got to use the men’s.” Ryan slid from the booth. “Order me a beer.”

“What kind?’

“The usual.” He was gone.

The usual? I’d seen the man drink about every brand ever brewed.

Across the room, beer tap handles ran the length of the bar. Round ones, oval ones, wooden ones, green ones. I read the logos.

First the OCD. Then the locked sideboard.

Was it Wednesday and Thursday’s purging? Had clearing my system enabled me to think better? Heightened awareness born of my battle with microbes? A third dot connected with an almost audible click.

Oh, baby, I was on a roll.

I was poking at the idea a second time when Ryan returned.

“This is nutso, Ryan. Wild barking mad.”

“Where’s my beer?”

I could barely sit still.

“Listen to me.” I pointed two palms at Ryan. “Just hear me out before you scoff.”

“I never scoff at you, buttercup.”

“The floral endearment is scoffing.”

Ryan made a give-it-to-me gesture with his hand.

The waitress arrived with our food. Ryan ordered a Sam Adams.

“That’s it!” My palm smacked the table.

The waitress backed off.

“What are Red O’Keefe–Bud Keith’s other aliases?”

“All of them?”

I nodded.

Ryan pulled his spiral from a jacket pocket, flipped pages. “Red O’Keefe. Bud Keith. Sam Caffrey. Alex Carling.”

“He’s using beer brands!”

Two kids at the next table slid glances our way.

I lowered my voice.

“He mixes and matches. Red—Red Stripe. Bud—Budweiser. O’Keefe—O’Keefe’s. Keith and Alex—Alexander Keith’s. Carling— Carling’s Black Label.”

“Sonovabitch.”

“But listen.” Again the stop sign hands. “Listen.”

“I’m listening.”

“Sam Adams.”

Ryan raised his mug.

“Sam Adamski.”

“Keiser’s third husband?”

I nodded.

“He’s dead.”

“What if he’s not?”

The mug halted en route to Ryan’s mouth.

“According to Otto, Adamski’s body was never recovered. What if he’s alive?”

“What if he is?”

“Keiser and Adamski married in ’ninety-eight. What if she talked to him about sewing her money into the bedroom drapes? What if he looked her up this fall to check things out?”

“The drowning was staged?”

“Or the accident was real, but he survived. Maybe he saw his death as an opportunity to be exploited.”

“Where’s he been since 2000?”

“Maybe he changed his identity and hid out, left the country, got busted and did time under another name. Who knows? Adamski reemerges, needs bread, decides to look up his former wife.”

“Why now?”

I ignored Ryan’s question. I was spitting ideas as they came into my head.

“Or maybe the two kept in contact all along. Maybe they met at the cabin. Adamski knew about it. He built it, for God’s sake.”

“Why keep it secret that he’s alive?”

“The kids hated him.”

“They hated him throughout the marriage.”

“OK. Maybe they weren’t in contact. Maybe he shows up, holds her captive, smacks her around until she tells him about the money. Then he kills her.”

“Take a breath.”

I did.

“Otto said something this morning that got my wheels turning.”

“What?” I asked.

“He remembered that Adamski drowned somewhere in La Mauricie.”

“It was a boating accident. Do you suppose Adamski went down in the Saint-Maurice River?”

“I don’t know. I’ll find out. That’s not important. You know what else is right there, not far from Trois Rivières?”

I shook my head.

“A little place called La Tuque.”

It took me a nanosecond to make the connection.

“Bud Keith’s alibi. He wasn’t at L’Auberge des Neiges when Rose Jurmain was killed. He was off bear hunting at La Tuque.”

Things were falling into place.

M. Keith, the Villejoins’ tree removal man.

Bud Keith–Red O’Keefe, Grellier’s bar braggart with knowledge of Christelle’s hidden grave.

Bud Keith, the kitchen worker at Rose Jurmain’s auberge.

Sam Adamski, Marilyn Keiser’s third husband.

For the longest time Ryan and I just stared at each other.

Could Caffrey/Keith/O’Keefe/Carling/Adamski have killed all four women?

Why?

Means and motive didn’t matter for now. We had the common link. The explanation of how the victims’ lives touched.

Ryan reached for his mobile.