by Kathy Reichs
“Are you ready to release the Cowboy?”
“I’m on my way up.”
“Bon. Sister’s busting her bloomers for a burial.”
When I disconnected and turned, the hall was empty. Fine. I’d give the photo to Ryan. He’d have a copy of the list of observers. If he wanted to follow up, he could get contact information for Kessler.
I pressed for the elevator.
* * *
By noon I’d completed my report on Charles Bellemare, concluding that, however strange the circumstances, the Cowboy’s last ride had been the result of his own folly. Turn on. Tune in. Drop out. Or down, in Bellemare’s case. What had he been doing up there?
At lunch, LaManche informed me there’d be difficulty viewing Ferris’s head wounds in situ. X-rays showed only one bullet fragment, and indicated the back of the skull and the left half of the face were shattered. He also informed me that my analysis would be critical since mutilation by the cats had distorted the patterning of metallic trace observable on X-ray.
In addition, Ferris had fallen with his hands beneath him. Decomposition had rendered gunshot-residue testing inconclusive.
At one-thirty I descended again to the morgue.
Ferris’s torso was now open from throat to pubis, and his organs floated in covered containers. The stench in the room had kicked into the red zone.
Ryan and the photographer were there, along with two of the morning’s four observers. LaManche waited five minutes, then nodded a go-ahead to his autopsy tech.
Lisa made incisions behind Ferris’s ears and across his crown. Using scalpel and fingers, she then teased off the scalp, working from the top toward the back of the skull, stopping periodically to position the case label for photographs. As fragments were freed, LaManche and I observed, diagrammed, then gathered them into containers.
When we’d finished with the top and back of Ferris’s head, Lisa retracted the skin from his face, and LaManche and I repeated the procedure, examining, sketching, stepping back for pics. Slowly, we extracted the wreckage that had been Ferris’s maxillary, zygomatic, nasal, and temporal bones.
By four what remained of Ferris’s face was back in position, and Y-shaped stitching held his belly and chest. The photographer had five rolls of film. LaManche had a ream of diagrams and notes. I had four tubs of bloody shards.
I was cleaning bone fragments when Ryan appeared in the corridor outside my lab. I watched his approach through the window above my sink.
Craggy face, eyes too blue for his own good.
Or mine.
Seeing me, Ryan pressed his palms and nose to the glass. I flicked water at him.
He pushed back and pointed at my door. I mouthed “open,” and waved him through, a goofy smile spreading across my face.
Okay. Maybe Ryan isn’t so bad for me.
But I had reached that opinion only recently.
For almost a decade Ryan and I had butted heads in an on-again, off-again nonrelationship. Up-down. Yes-no. Hot-cold.
Hot-hot.
I’ve been attracted to Ryan since the get-go, but there have been more obstacles to acting on that attraction than there were signers of the Declaration.
I believe in the separation of job from play. No watercooler romance for this señorita. No way.
Ryan works homicide. I work the morgue. Professional exclusion clause applies. Obstacle one.
Then there was Ryan himself. Everyone knew his bio. Born in Nova Scotia of Irish parents, young Andrew ended up on the wrong end of a biker’s shattered Budweiser bottle. Switching from the dark side, the boy signed on with the good guys and rose to the rank of lieutenant-detective with the provincial police. Grown-up Andrew is kind, intelligent, and strictly straight arrow where his work is concerned.
And widely known as the squad room Lothario. Stud muffin exclusion clause applies. Obstacle two.
But Ryan sweet-talked the loopholes, and, after years of resistance, I finally jumped through. Then obstacle three roared in with the Yule.
Lily. A nineteen-year-old daughter, complete with iPod, belly ring, and Bahamian mother, a flesh-and-blood memento of Ryan’s long-ago ride with the Wild Ones.
Though mystified and somewhat daunted by the prospect, Ryan embraced the product of his past and made some decisions about his future. Last Christmas he’d committed to long-distance parenting. That same week he’d asked me to be his roomie.
Whoa, bucko. I gave that plan a veto.
Though I still bunk with my feline compadre, Birdie, Ryan and I are dancing around a preliminary draft of a working arrangement.
So far the dance has been good.
And strictly home turf. We keep it to ourselves.
“How’s it going, cupcake?” Ryan asked, coming through the door.
“Good.” I added a fragment to those drying on the corkboard.
“That the chimney stiff?” Ryan was eyeing the box holding Charles Bellemare.
“Happy trails for the Cowboy,” I said.
“Guy take a hit?”
I shook my head. “Looks like he leaned to when he should have leaned fro. No idea why he was sitting on a chimney ledge.” I stripped off my gloves and squeezed soap onto my hands. “Who’s the blond guy downstairs?”
“Birch. He’ll be working Ferris with me.”
“New partner?”
Ryan shook his head. “Loan-over. You think Ferris offed himself?”
I turned and shot Ryan a you-know-better-than-that look.
Ryan gave me an expression of choirboy innocence. “Not trying to rush you.”
Yanking paper towels from the holder, I said, “Tell me about him.”
Ryan nudged Bellemare aside and rested one haunch on my worktable.
“Family’s Orthodox.”
“Really?” Mock surprise.
“The Fab Four were here to ensure a kosher autopsy.”
“Who were they?” I wadded and tossed the paper towels.
“Rabbi, members of the temple, one brother. You want names?”
I shook my head.
“Ferris was a bit more secular than his kin. Operated an import business from a warehouse out near Mirabel airport. Told the wife he’d be out of town on Thursday and Friday. According to . . .” Ryan pulled out and glanced at a spiral pad.
“Miriam,” I supplied.
“Right.” Ryan gave me an odd look. “According to Miriam, Ferris was trying to expand the business. He called around four on Wednesday, said he was heading out, and that he’d be back late on Friday. When he didn’t arrive by sundown, Miriam figured he’d been delayed and preferred not to drive on the Sabbath.”
“Had that happened before?
Ryan nodded. “Ferris wasn’t in the habit of phoning home. When he hadn’t shown up Saturday night, Miriam started working the speed dial. No one in the family had seen him. Neither had his secretary. Miriam didn’t know which accounts he was planning to hit, so she decided to sit tight. Sunday morning she checked the warehouse. Sunday afternoon she filed a missing person report. Cops said they’d investigate if hubby hadn’t surfaced by Monday morning.”
“Grown man extending his business trip?”
Ryan shrugged one shoulder. “Happens.”
“Ferris never left Montreal?”
“LaManche thinks he died not long after his call to Miriam.”
“Miriam’s story checks out?”
“So far.”
“The body was found in a closet?”
Ryan nodded. “Blood and brains all over the walls.”
“What kind of closet?”
“Small storage space off an upstairs office.”
“Why would cats be in there with him?”
“The door’s outfitted with one of those little two-way flaps. Ferris kept food and litter in there.”
“He gathered the cats to shoot himself?”
“Maybe they were in there when he took the bullet, maybe they slipped in later. Ferris may have died sitting on a stool, the
n tumbled off. Somehow his feet ended up jamming the kitty door.”
I thought about that.
“Miriam didn’t check the closet when she visited on Sunday?”
“No.”
“She didn’t hear scratching or meowing?”
“The missus is not a cat lover. That’s why Ferris kept them at work.”
“She didn’t notice any odor?”
“Apparently Ferris wasn’t real fastidious about feline toilette. Miriam said if she’d smelled anything she’d have figured it was Kitty Litter.”
“She didn’t find the building overly warm?”
“Nope. But if a cat brushed the thermostat after her visit, Ferris would still have been cooking from Sunday till Tuesday.”
“Did Ferris have other employees besides the secretary?”
“Nope.” Ryan consulted the notes in his spiral. “Courtney Purviance. Miriam calls her a secretary. Purviance prefers the term ‘associate.’”
“Is the wife downgrading, or the help upgrading?”
“More likely the former. Appears Purviance played a pretty big role in running the business.”
“Where was Purviance on Wednesday?”
“Left early. Bad sinuses.”
“Why didn’t Purviance find Ferris on Monday?”
“Monday was some kind of Jewish holiday. Purviance took the day off to plant trees.”
“Tu B’Shvat.”
“Et tu, Brute.”
“The festival of trees. Was anything missing?”
“Purviance insists there’s nothing in the place worth stealing. Computer’s old. Radio’s older. Inventory’s not valuable. But she’s checking.”
“How long has she worked for Ferris?”
“Since ninety-eight.”
“Anything suspicious in Ferris’s background? Known associates? Enemies? Gambling debts? Jilted girlfriend? Boyfriend?”
Ryan shook his head.
“Anything to suggest he was suicidal?”
“I’m digging, but so far zip. Stable marriage. Took the little woman to Boca in January. Business wasn’t blazing, but it was producing a steady living. Especially since Purviance hired on, a fact she’s not hesitant to mention. According to the family, there were no signs of depression, but Purviance thought he’d been unusually moody in recent weeks.”
I remembered Kessler and slipped the photo from the pocket of my lab coat.
“A gift from one of the Fab Four.” I held it out. “He thinks it’s the reason Ferris is dead.”
“Meaning?”
“He thinks it’s the reason Ferris is dead.”
“You can be a real pain in the ass, Brennan.”
“I work at it.”
Ryan studied the photo.
“Which of the Fab Four?”
“Kessler.”
Floating a brow, Ryan laid down the photo and flipped a page in his spiral.
“You sure?”
“That’s the name he gave me.”
When Ryan looked up the brow had settled.
“No one named Kessler was cleared for that autopsy.”
3
“I’M CERTAIN KESSLER’S THE NAME HE GAVE.”
“He was an authorized observer?”
“As opposed to one of the multitudes of Hasidim who haunt these halls?”
Ryan ignored my sarcasm.
“Did Kessler say that’s why he was here?”
“No.” For some reason Ryan’s questions were irking me.
“You’d seen Kessler earlier in the autopsy room?”
“I—”
I’d been distressed over Miriam and Dora Ferris, then distracted by Pelletier’s call. Kessler had glasses, a beard, and a black suit. My mind had settled for a cultural stereotype.
I wasn’t irked at Ryan. I was irked at myself.
“I just assumed.”
“Let’s take it from the top.”
I told Ryan about the incident in the downstairs corridor.
“So Kessler was in the hall when you left the family room.”
“Yes.”
“Did you see where he came from?”
“No.”
“Where he went?”
“I thought he was going to join Dora and Miriam.”
“Did you actually see him enter the family room?”
“I was speaking to Pelletier.” It came out sharper than I intended.
“Don’t be defensive.”
“That was not defensive,” I said defensively, and did a two-handed pull to unsnap my lab coat. “That was enlargement of detail.”
Ryan picked up Kessler’s print.
“What am I looking at?”
“A skeleton.”
Ryan’s eyes rolled up.
“Kessler—” I stopped. “The mysterious bearded stranger told me it came from Israel.”
“The photo came from Israel, or was shot there?”
Another screw-up on my part.
“The picture’s over forty years old. It’s probably meaningless.”
“When someone says it caused a death, it’s not meaningless.”
I reddened.
Ryan flipped the photo as I had. “What’s M de 1 H?”
“You think that’s an M?”
Ryan ignored my question.
“What was going on in October of sixty-three?” he asked, more of himself than of me.
“Oswald’s thoughts were on JFK.”
“Brennan, you can be a real—”
“We’ve established that.”
Crossing to Ryan, I reversed the photo and pointed at the object to the left of the leg bones.
“See that?” I asked.
“It’s a paintbrush.”
“It’s a cocked-up north arrow.”
“Meaning?”
“Old archaeologist’s trick. If you don’t have an official marker to indicate scale and direction, place something in the shot and point it north.”
“You think this was taken by an archaeologist?”
“Yes.”
“What site?”
“A site with burials.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere.”
“Look, this Kessler’s probably a crackpot. Find him and grill him. Or talk to Miriam Ferris.” I flapped a hand at the print. “Maybe she knows why her husband was freaked over this thing.” I slipped off my lab coat. “If he was freaked over the thing.”
Ryan studied the photo for a full minute. Then he looked up and said, “Did you buy the tap pants?”
My cheeks flamed. “No.”
“Red satin. Sexy as hell.”
I narrowed my eyes in a “not here” warning look. “I’m calling it a day.”
Crossing to the closet, I hung up my lab coat and emptied the pockets. Emptied my libido.
When I returned, Ryan was on his feet, but again staring at Kessler’s photo.
“Think any of your paleo pals might recognize this?”
“I can make a few calls.”
“Couldn’t hurt.”
At the door Ryan turned and flashed his brows.
“See you later?”
“Wednesday’s my tai chi night.”
“Tomorrow?”
“You’re on.”
Ryan pointed one finger and winked. “Tap pants.”
* * *
My Montreal condo is on the ground floor of a U-shaped low-rise. One bedroom, one study, two baths, living-dining room, a walk-through kitchen narrow enough to stand at the sink and pivot to reach the fridge behind you.
Through one kitchen archway, I cross a hall to French doors opening onto a central courtyard. Through the other kitchen archway, I cross through a living room to French doors opening onto a tiny enclosed yard.
Stone fireplace. Nice woodwork. Ample closets. Underground parking.
Nothing fancy. The building’s selling point is that it’s smack downtown. Centre-ville. Everything I need is within two blocks of my bed.
Birdie didn’t appear a
t the sound of my key.
“Hey, Bird.”
No cat.
“Chirp.”
“Hey, Charlie.”
“Chirp. Chirp.”
“Birdie?”
“Chirp. Chirp. Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.” Wolf whistle.
Stuffing my coat into the closet, I dropped my laptop in the study, deposited my take-out lasagna in the kitchen, and continued through the far archway.
Birdie was in his sphinx pose, legs tucked, head up, front paws curled inward. When I joined him on the love seat, he glanced up, then refocused on the cage to his right.
Charlie tipped his head and eyed me through the bars.
“How are my boys?” I asked.
Birdie ignored me.
Charlie hopped to his seed dish and gave another wolf whistle followed by a chirp.
“My day? Tiring, but disaster-free.” I didn’t mention Kessler.
Charlie cocked his head and viewed me with his left eye.
Nothing from the cat.
“Glad you two are getting along.”
And they were.
The cockatiel was this year’s Christmas present from Ryan. Though I’d been less than enthused, given my cross-border lifestyle, Birdie had been smitten at first sight.
Upon my rejection of his bid for cohabitation, Ryan had proposed joint custody. When I was in Montreal, Charlie would be mine. When I was in Charlotte, Charlie and Ryan would batch it. Birdie usually traveled with me.
This arrangement was working, and cat and cockatiel were firmly bonded.
I moved to the kitchen.
“Road trip,” Charlie squawked. “Don’t forget the bird.”
I was lousy at tai chi that night, but afterward I slept like a rock. Okay, lasagna isn’t great for “Grasp Sparrow’s Tail” or “White Crane Spreads Its Wings,” but it kicks ass for “Internal Stillness.”
I was up at seven the next morning, in the lab by eight.
I spent my first hour identifying, marking, and inventorying the fragments from Avram Ferris’s head. I wasn’t yet undertaking an in-depth examination, but I was noticing details, and a picture was emerging. A baffling picture.
That morning’s staff meeting ran the usual roster of the brainless, the brutal, and the sadly banal.
A twenty-seven-year-old male electrocuted himself by urinating in the track bed at the Lucien-L’Allier metro.
A Boisbriand carpenter bludgeoned his wife of thirty years during an argument over who would go out for logs.
