Asylum Read Online Free PDF

appearance.
    Annie Desmarchais had celebrated her sixty-fourth birthday a mere two weeks before she had been murdered, back in the early summer. She was attractive, slightly plump, with a warm smile and exquisite grooming; but she was still, undoubtedly, a woman of a certain age.
    I pulled Danielle’s picture out from the first folder, put the two women side by side, and frowned. Aside from the twinkle that managed to penetrate the lens of a camera, there was nothing that I could see that the two had in common. Flipping open the other two folders, I looked at the faces of Isabelle Hubert—one of the most beautiful women I’d seen, and this in a city of extraordinarily beautiful women—and Caroline Richards, who wore glasses and had slightly crooked teeth. Nothing in common, but there had to be something, hadn’t there? Didn’t serial killers run to a type?
    What was it that their killer had seen in them that I wasn’t seeing?
    “You won’t see any similarities,” a voice said from behind me, making me jump. “There aren’t any.” The chair next to me was pulled out and a young man sat down. “Mind if I join you?”
    “Not at all,” I said, hoping he couldn’t hear my heart pounding. Maybe it was just because I was new to this murder stuff, but having someone creep up on you when you’re looking at pictures of dead people is enough to make you seriously come apart at the seams.
    The young man looking at me was clearly and unabashedly Anglophone, a rarity in a police department run by an ardent card-carrying member of the Parti Québecois , the political party advocating endlessly and repetitively for secession from Canada. “I’m Julian,” he said, almost apologetically. “Julian Fletcher.”
    “Martine LeDuc,” I said automatically, putting out my hand to shake his. “You’re not in public relations, are you?”
    He snorted. “Public relations? Not if the chief has anything to do with it. I’m kept strictly under wraps. Not politically correct enough.” He grinned vividly. “In fact, he’d probably get rid of me altogether if I wasn’t so good at what I do.”
    “Which is…?”
    “Detective,” he said. “ Détective-lieutenant , actually. There are still enclaves in this city where speaking English isn’t regarded as heresy, and I know everybody in them.”
    A light was dawning. “Oh, my God. Fletcher…”
    He nodded. “Yep. That Fletcher. One of the Westmount Fletchers .” He sketched quotation marks around the name with his fingers. Westmount was the oldest and wealthiest—and most Anglophone—section of Montréal. “I’m the proverbial black sheep in the famous family. Silly boy who chose public service over commerce. Never to be spoken of again in the hallowed halls of the family mansion on the hill.” He grinned suddenly, vividly, and I found myself smiling back. “The name comes in useful, though, and no one in this building has ever discarded anything that might be remotely useful.” His tone was brisk, suggesting that he didn’t altogether mind being a black sheep. “So,” he went on, nodding at the papers spread out in front of me, “what is it you want to know?”
    I gestured helplessly. “Everything. I’m not seeing a connection, and I’m only on the second folder.”
    Julian sat back in his chair. “You’re taking it in the wrong order,” he said, frankly. “You should start at the beginning. That’s where he started.”
    “You’re sure it’s a he?”
    He shrugged. “Even if all the odds weren’t with it being a he—and almost all serial killers are male, so there are your odds—there was a sexual component to all of them. Didn’t you know?” He slanted a look and saw my face. “They were all raped,” he said gently. “I’m sorry. I guess no one’s been talking about that part.”
    I swallowed. “I guess not.”
    He sighed, drummed his fingers on the edge of the table for a moment. I had the impression of a great deal of energy pulsing