206 Bones

by Kathy Reichs

  “Look, I ain’t who I used to be. I’ve got gainful employment now.”

  “Spare me your Eagle Scout bullshit.”

  O’Keefe jabbed a thumb at the folder. “You got my sheet. I played some cons. Did snatch-and-drops. Credit cards. I ain’t your guy.”

  “Where were you on May four, 2008?”

  “Fuck would I know? Where were you?”

  Ryan again used silence.

  O’Keefe flipped his tuque, flipped it again. Smoothed it with one hand. Then, “This guy Grellier’s a crackpot. You got nothing. Screw you.”

  “Screw me?” Quietly.

  O’Keefe lunged forward, temples pulsing with tiny veins. “You reading me on this? I don’t know no one named Grellier. Got nothing to do with dead old ladies. I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about murder, you dumb shit.”

  “You can wipe your ass with any more questions.”

  The two men glared at each other, noses inches apart. Tense silence crammed the tiny room. This time Ryan broke it.

  “An officer will bring you pen and paper. You can write, can’t you, Red? Don’t sweat the spelling and punctuation.”

  O’Keefe slumped back and kicked out his feet. The hooded eyes again crawled to me.

  “Your little friend don’t say much, but she’s smokin’.”

  Ryan scribbled in his spiral, tore off the sheet, and slapped it on the table.

  “I’ll need proof of your whereabouts on these dates.” Pure ice. “Take your time. I know your social calendar probably stays packed.”

  Ryan got to his feet. I followed.

  “And don’t make travel plans.”

  A reptilian smile curled O’Keefe’s lips. “That was good.” Pointing at Ryan. “Got that Horatio Caine thing going. Get you some aviator shades, you’re on your way.”

  Ryan and I walked to the door.

  O’Keefe spoke again to our retreating backs.

  “Smokin’ doc, you come to the station I’ll slip you a wax job.”

  26

  “IMPRESSION?” RYAN ASKED.

  “I need a shower.”

  “He said you were smokin’.”

  “The guy has good hair.”

  “Yeah. I noted that. Walmart clothes. Wall Street do.”

  It was past two, and the cafeteria was deserted. Ryan and I had just bought vending machine sandwiches. My ham salad looked like it might have been made during the Tet Offensive.

  “Volatile personality.”

  “Agreed. The guy’s coolness itself, then suddenly the temper slips its leash.”

  “Do you think he’s dirty?”

  Ryan set his briefcase on a table by the machine, pulled out and opened a file.

  “O’Keefe was straight up on one thing. He’s got no history of violence. There are some sealed juvies in here. I could get those if I need them. His first arrest was in ’sixty-eight. Purse snatching. Got probation.” He flipped pages. “Busted in ’seventy-two for passing bad paper, more probation. Did his first slap in Bordeaux from ’seventy-five to ’seventy-eight. Credit card fraud.” More pages. “Bump in the late eighties in Halifax, another in the early nineties in Edmonton. Credit cards both times. Last jolt was back here in Quebec, ’ninety-six to ’ninety-seven.”

  “Where’s O’Keefe from?”

  “Moncton. Real name’s Samuel Caffrey.”

  “What does he do when he’s not serving time?”

  “Works various cons. Picks up jobs at day labor centers. Doing shift work for factories, working for local moving companies. Occasionally takes on part-time employment, like pumping gas.”

  “He ain’t who he used to be.” I mimicked O’Keefe.

  “Imagine that.”

  We had the thought simultaneously.

  “I’ll check to see if anyone moved in or out of the Villejoin neighborhood around the time of the attack,” Ryan said.

  “Or had their house painted.”

  “Or roof repaired.”

  “M. Keith.” As we crossed toward the elevators. “The name’s not that common in Quebec.”

  “No it isn’t. I plan to float O’Keefe’s picture around Pointe-Calumet, see if any of the Villejoin neighbors remember him.”

  I told Ryan about my conversation with Ayers.

  “Is Briel really that good?” First the phalanges, now the bullet track. He didn’t say it.

  “She blew it on sorting the Lac Saint-Jean vics.”

  “How’s that going?”

  “I plan to finish with the younger kid tout de suite.”

  I was punching for an elevator when a question occurred to me.

  “You said the Villejoins had a savings account, right?”

  Ryan nodded.

  “How did they pay the bills they recorded in their ledger?”

  “I can find out. Why?”

  “We know they didn’t have credit cards or a checking account. They didn’t use the Internet. Maybe they kept cash in the house.”

  “Go on.”

  “Say they hire a handyman, pay him. He sees the stash in the cookie jar, decides to return later and help himself. Maybe one of the sisters surprises him, things go south—”

  I let the thought hang.

  A ghost of a smile played Ryan’s lips.

  “Not bad, Brennan.”

  * * *

  It was as if the gods were conspiring against me. Or at least one among them had a grievance.

  Arriving upstairs, I found Duclos in my lab, idly thumbing through her osteology manual. Today the beyond-yellow hair was pulled into dual ponies, one sprouting from each side of her head. The lipstick was mauve.

  I set down my half-eaten sandwich.

  “Where is Dr. Briel?”

  “Preparing for her interview.” Perhaps in deference to her boss’s upcoming appearance on CTV, Duclos was speaking English. “Is that cool, or what?”

  “Two words, Ms. Duclos. Self starter.”

  Duclos’s face went utterly blank.

  “Is there nothing you could be doing?”

  “Oh.” Nervous giggle. “The teeth are in the cabinet. I couldn’t get to them.”

  Valid point. Though no one gave a rat’s petootie about Bergeron’s dental collection, he insisted on keeping it under lock and key. Only Joe and I were privileged. Should one of Bergeron’s students need entrée in his absence we’d each been granted access to the treasure. Woo-hoo!

  I dug in my purse, then went to the closet to liberate the tub.

  Duclos looked up at me, awaiting direction.

  “Compare deciduous to permanent.” Terse. Duclos was not my responsibility. Having to mentor her was making me cranky.

  “Baby molars have bulbous crowns and slender, divergent roots.” She spoke as though reading text.

  “Yes.” I dug an example from the tub and handed it to her.

  Pointing the crown north and the roots south, she wiggled the molar through the air. “The itsy bitsy spider went up the waterspout.” The nursery rhyme sounded strange in her accented English.

  I finished the last of my sandwich, bunched the cellophane.

  “The front teeth have scallopy biting edges, right?”

  I shook my head, wondering what seasoning had been used in the ham salad.

  “Not always.” I tapped a finger on the Bass book.

  “No sweat. I’ll look it up.”

  I turned to the youngest Lac Saint-Jean kid.

  More frustration. Joe had X-rayed the bones but had failed to take films of the teeth. After twenty minutes of searching, I found him in the break room downstairs, outside the morgue.

  I was probably too abrupt. What the hell? It was late, and so far I’d gotten little accomplished.

  Joe agreed to shoot apicals. Coolly.

  Back to the twelfth floor.

  Duclos and I worked side by side in silence. Now and then my stomach rumbled. Once she offered gum. I declined.

  Some folks suffer hea
daches, others allergies, others gastric distress. I occasionally trip paths A and B. Never C. Thus, when hit with digestive symptoms, I’m totally flummoxed.

  By late afternoon I needed something.

  After trying Ayers, the secretaries, and the receptionist, I finally bummed an antacid from Morin. He insisted on describing the autopsy he’d just completed. It was three ten when I finally got back to the Lac Saint-Jean vics.

  Joe had yet to collect the dentition for X-ray.

  Feeling guilty about my brusqueness, I arranged the teeth on trays, separated by person. Twelve for the adult female, all in the lower jaw. Twenty-one for the adult male, some in mandibular, some in maxillary fragments. None for the older child. Three for the younger child, all isolated.

  There. I’d gone the extra mile. Saved Joe ten minutes.

  I was sliding the skeletal X-rays from their sleeve when my cell phone rang. Chicago area code. I clicked on.

  “Tempe, it’s Chris Corcoran.”

  “Hey.” By now the sandwich was really kicking in. I tried to stifle a belch. It came out sounding like a guinea pig grunt.

  “You OK?”

  “Mm.”

  “You sound odd.”

  “I’m fine.” Feeling a twinge, I pressed a hand to my belly.

  “Good news. The cops think they’ve caught a break in the Tot case.”

  “Oh?” I felt bad about not having asked. I’d meant to for a week.

  “An inmate at Stateville is looking to cut a deal for transfer to Pontiac.” Corcoran referred to two of Illinois’s maximum-security correctional facilities.

  “What’s so great about Pontiac?” Snappish.

  “Ouch. You sure you’re OK?”

  “Sorry, I’m a little tired.” I swallowed. “Go on.”

  “The guy says his cellmate’s been bragging that he and a buddy rolled a kid and dumped his body in a quarry.”

  “When?”

  Through the window I saw Briel power-stride up the corridor and into her office. Duclos shot from her seat and bolted out the door.

  “The guy doesn’t want to arouse suspicion by asking questions. So far he’s just listening. But he’s agreed to wear a wire.”

  “What’s the cellmate in for?”

  “Armed robbery.”

  My desk phone rang.

  “Gotta go, Chris. Keep me in the loop.”

  I disconnected one line and picked up the other.

  “Brennan.”

  “You nailed it. The kid who mowed the lawn and shoveled the walks for the Villejoin sisters says they always paid cash. Says the vics kept money in the pantry.”

  “A lot?” Feeling a sudden rush of heat, I pressed a hand to one cheek.

  “He didn’t know.”

  “How old is this kid?” I shifted the hand. My forehead felt clammy.

  “Fifteen.”

  “That would make him what, twelve when the Villejoins were killed? Probably too young.”

  “And the kid’s about the size of a meerkat. A small one. He wouldn’t have had the strength.”

  “Or the wheels to get him to an ATM on the east side of Montreal or out to Oka,” I agreed. “Any moving or painting crews in the neighborhood that week?”

  “Dead end on that, but I’m checking with the day labor centers. The kid’s father said they do get the occasional person hustling work door-to-door. I’m taking O’Keefe’s picture to Pointe-Calumet now. Want to tag along?”

  My stomach made a sound impossible to describe.

  “You feeling OK?” I asked Ryan.

  “Tip-top.”

  “What kind of sandwich did you buy from the machine?”

  “Cheese.”

  “I’ll pass. Let me know if you have any luck with the photo.”

  Palming another antacid into my mouth, I popped the first few X-rays onto the light box, unsure what I was hoping for. The Gouvrard antemorts suggested no condition or injury that would affect bone. At least not the bone that I had.

  I was halfway through the films when my gut signaled again. Forget twinge. This was a card-carrying cramp.

  My gaze drifted to the trays I’d organized for Joe.

  I looked at the clock. Four thirty-five. Had he actually left without taking the films?

  “Joe,” I called around the corner.

  What the hell?

  “Joe!” I barked.

  The top of my head flew off and my innards lurched.

  I looked at the teeth. The bones. The useless X-rays.

  These people had been dead for decades. They could wait another day.

  Flicking off the light box, I locked up and headed out.

  * * *

  By the time I reached home the evil ham salad was goose-stepping across my gut, bellowing threats of a holocaust to come.

  Entering the kitchen only to fill Birdie’s dish, I stripped, yanked on a nightshirt, and fell into bed. Minutes later I was up and lunging for the bathroom.

  The vomiting continued well past the emptying point. When it ended, my mouth tasted of bile and my intercostals and abdominals ached from the strain.

  But I felt better.

  Not for long.

  The microbes ran me in twenty-minute loops. Hurl. Recover. Renauseate. Hurl.

  By ten I was shaking and drained. Literally. My thermoregulators had long since thrown up their hands, leaving my body on its own to decide whether to shiver or sweat. At times it did both.

  I was crawling under the covers after a session with the porcelain prince when my eyes wandered to my bedside clock. Eleven twenty-five. My pounding brain managed a cogent recollection.

  Briel.

  Clawing the remote into my palm, I clicked on the TV and found the right station.

  The interview was a feature spot, one of those long pieces in which an unusual job or profession is highlighted. The interviewer was a tweed-jacketed guy who looked like he’d just finished high school. Maybe.

  Tweed Jacket introduced Briel as though she were Our Lady of Forensics. He might even have said that. I was so ill by that time, looking back, I’m never sure.

  Briel wore a white cotton blouse and black pants that showed far too much ankle. Her hair was pulled back and tied with a bow. The perpetual frown was firmly in place.

  If the sandwich hadn’t already laid me low, my colleague’s grandstanding certainly would have. With Tweed Jacket lobbing softball questions, Briel spoke of her brief but illustrious career.

  An exhumation in France. A case involving a mysterious poison. The elusive cause of death for Marilyn Keiser. Though Briel’s face remained neutral, her tone was one of smug satisfaction.

  To my horror, toward the wrap-up, discussion turned to Christelle Villejoin’s missing phalanges.

  “Do you know Dr. Temperance Brennan?” Tweed Jacket asked.

  “She is my colleague.”

  “Her training is in anthropology, correct?”

  “Yes. As is mine.”

  I shot to a sit.

  “A short course! You took a bloody short course!”

  “Isn’t Dr. Brennan usually responsible for coroner-ordered exhumations?”

  “Yes.” Just the slightest hesitation. The winging down of brows. For effect? “Dr. Brennan led the initial recovery at Oka. The phalanges were missed.”

  Though I was chilled and shaking, my face burned.

  Had I? Had I really missed them? I must have. But how?

  My queasy brain scraped together an image of the tent. The pit. The earth-stained bones.

  “—specialty training in forensic archaeology. What is needed in such situations is a team approach, the utilization of experts in excavation methodology, taphonomy and decomposition, and human soft and hard tissue anatomy and pathology.”

  “Do such teams exist in Quebec?”

  “One. A private company called Body Find. Corps découvert. I am—”

  My poisoned gut arced full cycle.

  I stumbled to the bathroom on shaky legs.

 
; When the retching stopped, I staggered back to bed.

  Shivering uncontrollably, I killed the TV and light and pulled the covers to my chin.

  27

  THOUGH COLD-NUMBED AND ALMOST USELESS, MY hands explored the skull. From habit, my brain catalogued detail.

  Large mastoids and brow ridges. Male. Edentulous.

  “Who the bloody hell cares?” I screamed in frustration.

  My cry sounded flat, deadened by brick and trapped silence.

  I looked at my watch. The glowing hands now formed an acute angle pointing left. Two twenty? Four ten? Afternoon? Night?

  I thought of my daughter. Wondered what Katy was doing at that moment. Harry. Ryan. Tried to imagine what was happening at the lab.

  Surely I’d been missed by now. Surely a team was coming. Right, coming where?

  “Help! Please!”

  My throat felt raw. I coughed.

  “Hello! Anyone!”

  A bout of trembling gripped me. I hugged my body, felt my arm bones knock my ribs. My skin was cold and clammy to the touch.

  Like a corpse at the morgue.

  Panic flared anew.

  I’m going to die. Alone in a dark tomb. No one will know where I went. Where the flesh is rotting from my bones.

  I thought of the tweaker who’d frozen to death on his porch. How long could I survive before hypothermia killed me?

  I hated my captor. Hated him for me. For Katy. For Harry. Hated him with a fury born of years spent with the battered dead. Hated him for the throat-slashed wives. The cigarette-burned babies. The bedsored grannies.

  “Who are you?” I shrieked.

  Forget him. Activity brings warmth. Warmth brings life. Use the anger. Move. Get out.

  I took a deep breath.

  Took another, shifting to my nose.

  The musty smell was stronger here. Mold. Mildew. Creatures long dead.

  Setting the skull on the floor, I rolled to my belly and began dragging myself forward, using the odor as a guide.

  My raw elbows screamed. My injured leg spasmed.

  Ignore the pain.

  Arm-thrust. Pull.

  Arm-thrust. Pull.

  Soft echoes suggested a more enclosed space. A wall ahead?

  Six thrusts, then my chest landed on bulk. Propping on my right elbow, I explored the object with my left hand. Gingerly. Careful not to move it.

  Lumpy L, scaly with mold. Underside flat with a heel-shaped protuberance at one end.