Page 43 (1/2)

“True,” I said, and walked farther down the wall to find new animals mounted in the far corner There was a black leopard head on the wall this time, and a skin that matched stretched up on the wall beside it The paereout the skin so there wasn’tleopard, probably a male It would have looked even er skin right beside it Tigers are the largest land predator, not just the largest big cat The huge striped skin made the rich black of the leopard look ser’s head was mounted on the other side of its skin

Newman turned on a pole la to “life” There were lass case full of brilliant birds that were unknown to me In fact there were several cases of birds Then, in the corner, was an elephant head with smaller ears than the ones on the full-body version across the rooroup of animals was from the Indian subcontinent, but the Asian elephant was the other clue If I’d known more abo

ut the birds in that area of the world, or the ured it out from those specimens The first corner had felt like trophies, but this one had more of a scientific feel to it I mean, what Great White Hunter collects birds? Apparently this one, becauseelse in the rooether I wondered if this Marchand ancestor had done his own taxiderht explain why it was just heads and skins for the bigger ani is the bigger the ani it is to stuff and mount

There were a few pri the heads, but they were more carefully placed, with the saed the birds in lifelike poses behind glass The other animals just looked dead—impressively preserved, but dead The birds looked like they should havea nize the art here

Newman turned on two other floor lamps, and there were full-size family portraits that wouldn’t have fit in Muriel’s car I assuh the people in theri and a couple with five s in another That one was the ave you a sense of an oil portrait rather than just an oil painting There were four small spaces on the wall, all in a row, that were bare, but the fra, the as a different color underneath, so that their loss stood out even on a wall full of art

“They were here when I first toured the room,” Newman said

“Do you really think that Muriel and her husband planned on blaency responders for the thefts?”

“I think they would have tried,” he said, turning on a srand piano

If we’d started with the piano, I would have been i deal, though the wood gleamed with years, maybe decades, of polish and care There were more pictures on top of the piano, but these were photos Some looked like wo hat ht have been some of the specimens in the room, but the anier’s head was propped up so it was looking at the caht was hung upside down like a fish It looked so terribly dead Theone side of his face It looked like the leopard had given him a run for his ely happy that the leopard had cut thewith my father, but we’d hunted deer and rabbits, never predators He’d raised me with the belief that if you couldn’t eat it, you didn’t need to hunt it I tried not to feel like I was on the leopard’s side as I looked at that long-agoby its hind legs like a deer I guess dead meat is dead , but it seemed like an insult The leopard had marked him, hunted the hunter To me that made it a foe You should respect your opponents even in death Hanging the to me

The pictures went through the centuries A lot of the family was blond There were a couple of redheads, then a brunette or two, but they were predouessed if you keptyour white-bread roots, that hat you ended up with, but it botheredwithMy stephter, as my father, and as their shared son, my half brother I was the only dark, ethnic note in their Geret it She’d been so rude about it that by the tihter fro the racis to Andrea and I had never really gotten along that well, so I’d been surprised that she’d coht I wasn’t sure she’d been defending me as much as she was just es Either way, it had left me with an ethnic chip on et

“Here’re Bobby and his parents,” New

There was a s couple with a baby and then a picture of thehtly older version of the baby The next picture of the baby ith a man alone, just him and the baby

“Is this Ray Marchand with baby Bobby?” I asked

“Yes, those are the last of the older photos”

Newman led me back to the office area There was a smaller corner table between the file cabinets and the desk that I’d overlooked, too busy looking at the blood and ressively older boy Bobby at so that he washim hold the fish, a look of pure happiness and pride on his face There were pictures of the photo: Ray Marchand with a statuesque woman so beautiful, she didn’t look real From cheekbones to carefully waved hair, she was eous Her hair was black, her skin the color of coffee with cream in it Bobby stood beside her in a tiny tailored tuxedo complete with tails that looked to be athe sa photo He had a white cushion in his hands held loosely so that if the rings really had been on it, they’d have rolled away I guess that’s why there’s a ribbon on ring bearer pillows The easiest choice for Jean-Claude andbearer There was a little girl clinging to the side of Ray’s pants leg The girl was younger than Bobby, so maybe four or five? She looked like a tiny replica of her mother, except her black hair was a short mass of curls and her skin tone had less cream to it andMaybe Ray and his new bride had been as tired of the drama llamas in their lives as I was, and just said Screw it We’ll have a flower girl and a ring bearer and be done Of course, the flower girl position in our wedding had turned into a hotbed of dra bearer and be done