Part 47 (1/2)

”She said Dom didn't believe in Antichrists.”

Ryan was quiet a long time. Then, ”I talked to the guys who worked the Solar Temple deaths in Canada. Do you know what went down in Morin Heights?”

”Just that five people died. I was in Charlotte, and the American media focused mostly on Switzerland. The Canadian end got very little press.”

”I'll tell you what happened. Joseph DiMambro sent a team of a.s.sa.s.sins to kill a baby.” He paused to let that sink in. ”Morin Heights was the kickoff for the fireworks overseas. Seems this kid's birth hadn't been approved by Big Daddy, so he viewed him as the Antichrist. Once the tyke was dead the faithful were free to make the crossing.”

”Jesus Christ. Do you think Owens really is one of these Solar Temple fanatics?”

Ryan shrugged again. ”Or it could be some sort of copycat shuck. It's hard to know what the Adler Lyons babble means until the psychologists work it out.”

A treatise had been found at the compound on Saint Helena. And a map of Quebec Province.

”But I don't give a hog's t.i.t which looney is in the lead if innocent people are trailing along to their deaths. I'm going to catch this b.a.s.t.a.r.d and gut him and fry him up myself.”

His jaw muscles bunched as he picked up the magazine.

I closed my eyes and tried to rest, but the images wouldn't settle.

Harry, buoyant and full of life. Harry in sweats and no makeup.

Sam, unnerved by the invasion of his island.

Malachy. Mathias. Jennifer Cannon. Carole Comptois. A charred cat. The contents of the package at my feet.

Kathryn, eyes pleading. As if I could help her. As if I could take her life and somehow make it better.

Or was Ryan right? Had I been set up? Was Kathryn sent for some sinister purpose of which I was unaware? Was Owens responsible for the slaughtered cat?

Harry had spoken of order. Her life sucked and the order was going to pull her clear. So had Kathryn. She said the order affects everyone. Brian and Heidi had broken it. What order? Cosmic order? An order from on high? The Order of the Solar Temple?

I felt like a moth in a jar, batting against the gla.s.s with random thought after random thought, but unable to escape the cognitive restraints of my own jumbled thinking.

Brennan, you're making yourself crazy! There's nothing you can do at thirty-seven thousand feet.

I decided to break free by dropping back a hundred years.

I opened my briefcase, pulled out a Belanger diary, and skipped to December of 1844, hoping the holidays had put Louis-Philippe in a better mood.

The good doctor enjoyed Christmas dinner at the Nicolet house, liked his new pipe, but did not approve of his sister's plan for a return to the stage. Eugenie had been invited to sing in Europe.

What he lacked in humor, Louis-Philippe made up for in tenacity. His sister's name was written often in the early months of 1845. He apparently expressed his views frequently. But, much to the doctor's annoyance, Eugenie would not be dissuaded. She was leaving in April, would do concerts in Paris and Brussels, then spend the summer in France, returning to Montreal at the end of July.

A voice ordered trays and chair backs into full upright and locked position for landing in Pittsburgh.

An hour later, again airborne, I skimmed through the spring of 1845. Louis-Philippe was busy with hospital and city affairs, but made weekly visits to his brother-in-law. Alain Nicolet, it appears, did not travel to Europe with his wife.

I wondered how Eugenie's tour had gone. Apparently Uncle Louis-Philippe had not, since she was mentioned little during those months. Then an entry caught my eye.

July 17, 1845. Due to irregular circ.u.mstances, Eugenie's stay in France would be prolonged. Arrangements had been made, but Louis-Philippe was vague as to their nature.

I stared at the whiteness outside my window. What ”irregular circ.u.mstances” had kept Eugenie in France? I calculated. elisabeth was born in January. Oh, boy.

Throughout the summer and fall Louis-Philippe made only brief reference to his sister. Letter from Eugenie. Doing well.

As our wheels touched pavement at Dorval Airport, Eugenie reappeared. She, too, had returned to Montreal. April 16, 1846. Her baby was three months old.

There it was.

elisabeth Nicolet was born in France. Alain could not be her father. But who was?

Ryan and I deplaned in silence. He checked his messages while I waited for the baggage. When he returned his face told me the news was not good.

”They found the vans near Charleston.”

”Empty.”

He nodded.

Eugenie and her baby faded into another century.

The sky was nickel and a light rain blew across the headlights as Ryan and I drove east along Highway 20. According to the pilot, Montreal was a balmy thirty-eight degrees Fahrenheit.

We rode in silence having already agreed on our courses of action. I wanted to rush home, to find my sister and relieve myself of a building sense of foreboding. Instead, I would do as Ryan asked. Then I would pursue a plan of my own.

We parked in the lot at Parthenais and Ryan and I picked our way toward the building. The air smelled of malt from the Molson brewery. Oil filmed the pools of rainwater collecting on the uneven pavement.

Ryan got off on the first floor and I continued to my office on the fifth. After removing my coat, I dialed an inside extension. They'd gotten my message and we could begin as soon as I was ready. I went at once to the lab.

I gathered scalpel, ruler, glue, and a two-foot length of rubber eraser material and set them on my worktable. Then I opened my carry-on package, unwrapped and inspected the contents.

The skull and mandible of the unknown Murtry victim had made the trip undamaged. I often wonder what the airport scanner operators think when my skeletal parts go through. I placed the skull on a cork ring in the middle of the table. Then I squeezed glue into the temporomandibular joint and fixed the jaw in place.

While the Elmer's dried, I found a chart of facial tissue thicknesses for white American females. When the jaw felt firm I slid the skull onto a holder, adjusted the height, and secured it with clamps. The empty orbits stared directly into my eyes as I measured and cut seventeen tiny rubber cylinders and glued them onto the facial bones.

Twenty minutes later I took the skull to a small room down the corridor. A plaque identified the section as Section d'Imagerie. A technician greeted me and indicated that the system was up and running.

Wasting no time, I placed the skull on a copy stand, captured images of it with a video camera, and sent them to the PC. I evaluated the digitized views on the monitor and chose a frontal orientation. Then, using a stylus and drawing tablet attached to the computer, I connected the rubber markers projecting from the skull. As I directed the crosshairs around the screen a macabre silhouette began to emerge.

When satisfied with the facial contour, I moved on. Using the bony architecture as a guide I sampled eyes, ears, noses, and lips from the program's database, and fitted predrawn features onto the skull.