206 Bones

by Kathy Reichs

  “Joe stole Christelle Villejoin’s phalanges for her.”

  “No, that was Briel’s handiwork. She overheard your conversation with the Villejoins’ doctor, figured the finger bones would be important because of the camptodactyly.”

  I thought back to that day. “Briel pinched them while I was upstairs getting a Diet Coke.”

  “She reasoned that since the phalanges would be ‘discovered’ during her follow-up dig, no harm no foul.”

  “How did she know Hubert would send her to Oka?”

  “If not, she planned to find the phalanges in the lab. Either way, you’d look bad.”

  “Briel also swapped out the Lac Saint-Jean teeth?”

  “Yep. Read Valentin Gouvrard’s antemorts, remembered Duclos mentioning a dental collection with brown baby teeth. Joe let her into the cabinet containing Bergeron’s tub, she found the stained deciduous molars, palmed and planted them with the remains. Who cares after all these years?”

  “Decades-old bones, case going nowhere, what’s the difference, right?”

  “Exactly her thinking.”

  “That’s what tipped me in the sewer that my attacker was Joe. I realized Briel had to have gotten access through him. Only Bergeron, Joe, and I had keys. That and the long spider legs.”

  “Long spider legs?”

  “Never mind.”

  Ryan let it go. “Both with Oka and Lac Saint-Jean, Briel felt she could make herself dazzle while doing no harm.”

  “Except to me.”

  “Another plus.”

  “Did Briel call Edward Allen Jurmain?”

  “She had Raines do that. Wanted it to be a male voice in case anyone asked Edward Allen. He used a pay phone at the gare Centrale to avoid blowback on either of them.”

  “Did she shoot the bullet into Marilyn Keiser’s corpse?”

  “Briel insists that was all Joe. Says she’d never do anything to compromise a police investigation. Claims she was horrified by Joe’s action. I suspect it was a joint effort. Joe wouldn’t have known anything about that kind of bullet track. Briel remembers Richie Cunningham’s case in Chicago—”

  “His name is Chris Corcoran.”

  “—sees another chance to shine. Three-month-old homicide, probably never be solved. If it is, so what if cause of death’s a little off. I’m thinking she held the body while Joe fired the shot. She dissects out the bullet, announces the track, voilà, she’s a hero.”

  A nurse entered the room, rubber sole squeaked to the bed. She took my pulse, then stuck a thermometer into my mouth, strapped my arm with a blood pressure collar, and pumped the little black ball.

  “Those flowers must go into a vase.” Without looking at either Ryan or me.

  “Of course.” Ryan offered his most engaging grin. “Would you possibly happen to have an old one lying around?”

  We all waited out my thermal performance.

  The nurse entered vitals into my chart, hurried off.

  “Don’t cross that woman,” Ryan said.

  “Not a chance,” I said.

  “Did Briel write the Go home damn American note?”

  “That was Joe’s little touch.”

  “Nice. I suppose she leaked the Keiser ID to the press.”

  “How better to score tube time.”

  “What happened Tuesday night? Where was I?”

  Ryan’s brows definitely rose. “You explained it to me, sweet pea. Don’t you remember?”

  Sweet pea? That was a new one. Or was that a medical reference? I did have a catheter and tinkle bag.

  I shook my head.

  “I found you in a sewer below Alexandre-de-Sève. You’d crawled along a semi-abandoned collector to its junction with a main line. You’d broken out of an old tomb below Veterans Park. Searchers learned about that today.”

  “Part of the Old Military Burying Ground,” I said. “But that cemetery was relocated long ago.”

  “Right you are.” Ryan assumed a professorial tone. “At one time, acreage around what is now Veterans Park served as a final resting place for both the British military garrison, and for a fairly large number of civilians.” Ryan broke character. “Average joes and janes got planted there, too.” Back to Herr Professor. “From 1797 until the mid-nineteenth century, more than one thousand soldiers and their families were interred in what became known as the Old Military Burying Ground. Over the years, neglect and vandalism took their toll, and the cemetery became an eyesore. In 1944, the British soldiers were disinterred and moved to the Field of Honour in Pointe-Claire.

  “But here’s the catch.” Simple Ryan-speak. “There was never any systematic attempt to unearth Jane and Joe. The gravestones went away, but many ordinary citizens were left behind.”

  So were some soldiers, I thought, remembering my fellow tomb occupants.

  “Every now and then a stiff surfaces, much to the dismay of public utility and construction crews.”

  Ryan smiled, exceedingly pleased with himself.

  “How do you know all this?” I asked.

  “We contacted an archaeologist at U of M and an historian at the McCord. The former agreed to go down with the SIJ team. The latter declined. The archaeologist thinks burials were probably unearthed when the sewer was constructed, sometime around the turn of the century. He hypothesizes that, unnerved, workers slapped up a quickie tomb, sealed the displaced corpses inside, and moved along. Being geographically apart, the makeshift crypt was missed when the cemetery was moved in the forties.”

  “At first I thought Raines was my attacker,” I said. “He’d know about historic tombs and burial grounds. Then I zoned in on Joe. He stumbled on the tomb while drainsploring, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Joe planned to have me simply disappear. No body. No explanation. Just gone.”

  “Yes.” Ryan’s grip tightened and his thumb moved more rapidly across my knuckles. Stopped. We both waited out an arterial ice crystal assault. Nothing.

  “Was Joe acting for Briel?”

  “Again, she says it was all Joe all the way. Denies knowledge of any plan to harm you.”

  “Where is he, anyway?”

  “Enjoying a cage and a bright orange jumpsuit. While I searched for you, my backup team fished him out of the sewer.”

  “Did Joe give a reason for wanting to kill me?”

  “He says Briel danced around the subject, but that her meaning was clear. Says she constantly mentioned things would go smoother without you. Hinted it would be nice if you went away and never came back.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “Around eleven, I called your condo and your cell, got no answer. I found that odd, since you’d just told me you planned to stay home with the cat. After phoning repeatedly, I began to worry that you were sick again, so I decided to swing by your place. The emergency exit was jammed with a shoe. Your front door was unlocked. Your watch lay smashed on the floor. Your jacket was there but you were gone.”

  Watch on the floor? I guess I had Birdie to thank for that.

  “You’d just told me your suspicions concerning Briel, and described Raines’s temper and sketchy past. You’d also just had a nasty encounter with your neighbor.”

  I’d forgotten all about Sparky.

  “I called Claudel and told him to net Briel and her hubby. I found your neighbor asleep in his recliner. Sparky’s boss vouched that he’d been filling potholes on the Décarie Expressway until eleven. By the way, Sparky admitted to smashing your window.”

  “How?”

  “Metal baseball bat. He’ll pay damages. But that’s a story for another day.”

  “That sonovabitch.”

  “Briel and Raines stonewalled at first, but Claudel came down hard and they cracked under threats of multicount indictments. Briel agreed to phone Joe.

  “Needless to say, we were listening. Joe said he’d seen you rifling drawers in Briel’s office, overheard you talking about the Lac Saint-Jean teeth and the SEM and EDS tests you
intended to run. To protect Briel and his future at Body Find, he told her he’d taken you out.”

  Ryan’s jaw muscles bunched and the pressure on my hand increased.

  “Joe bragged that he’d buried you alive in a place you’d never be found. Briel asked where you were. Joe refused to disclose the location. She begged. He held firm. As per our prearranged plan, she demanded he meet her at the lab.

  “When Joe arrived, Briel told him you had something she desperately needed. Otherwise her deceit would be uncovered, her reputation ruined, and Body Find destroyed. She asked again where you were. Joe still refused to tell her.

  “Acting distraught—very convincingly, I might add—Briel begged that he retrieve a bag of teeth she knew you were carrying on your person. Threatened to have nothing further to do with him if he refused.”

  “The dolt really thought I was toting evidence around?” I couldn’t believe anyone could be that stupid.

  “Briel said you’d called and accused her of professional misconduct, said you’d claimed to have proof in your jeans pocket. She told Joe she’d checked her filing cabinet and found teeth missing. Incriminating teeth. It rang true. Joe had seen you take something from Briel’s office.”

  “All this time you’re waiting in the wings.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Joe led me to you. The rest is history.”

  “How the hell did he get me into that tomb?”

  “There’s a manhole just yards past the tomb opening. You went the wrong way, though you wouldn’t have been able to see the manhole from inside in the dark.”

  “Figures. How did he seal the damn door so effectively, and why?”

  “Quikrete Exterior Use Anchoring Cement.”

  Ryan beamed. I waited for the explanation.

  “You can buy the stuff at any hardware store. Joe hid a ten-pound bucket in the sewer and brought hot water with him. After shoving you inside the tomb, he mixed the cement, jammed the plank into place, and filled the gap. The stuff sets up in thirty minutes, reaches a compression strength of two hundred psi in two hours, four hundred psi in twenty-four. You probably started banging away around two or three a.m. By that time the pull-out strength would have been pretty impressive. He probably sealed it because he didn’t want another drainsplorer getting in there and finding a modern body.”

  I thought a moment.

  “Why not use the same manhole when he returned?”

  “When Joe arrived, shortly before dawn, a street crew was setting up over his original entrance point. Undaunted, he hied himself to the next manhole, donned his drainsploring waders, and headed down. With yours truly close on his tail, of course.”

  In the corridor, a bell bonged softly. A cart rolled by. A voice paged Dr. Someone. Behind me machines beeped softly.

  “Thanks for being there, Ryan.”

  “My pleasure.”

  Pleasure?

  “It was a sewer.”

  “You were in it.”

  The nurse entered, placed a vase on my bedside table, cranked her lips into something that looked like a smile. Ryan and I both thanked her.

  “I remember one thing,” I said when she’d gone.

  “What?”

  “You were wearing really bad headgear.”

  “My tassle tuque?” Feigned affront.

  “The thing has a pom-pom.”

  “It’s a man tassle. I love that hat.”

  43

  SATURDAY MORNING, RYAN HELPED ME CHECK OUT OF the hospital. Drove me home. Settled me on my couch. Lit a fire. Made lunch.

  My ankle ached. My cheek was congealed tar. I had a lump on my occipital that could wrestle as a heavyweight. The Weeki Wachee Mermaids were still doing wheelies in my brain.

  What the hell? I needed nurturing.

  Over tomato soup and peanut butter on toast, we treaded safe conversational ground.

  Ryan told me that on Wednesday results had come back on my Lac Saint-Jean vics. The adult female’s femur had produced sufficient organic material to sequence mitochondrial DNA.

  “Did the brother provide a sample?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And?”

  “Being congenial pays off. You have a reputation for being congenial. People like you.”

  “Ryan.” I gave him the steely-eyed look. Squinting irritated the scab on my face.

  “In deference to your recent excellent adventure, an SQ officer drove the sample from Sainte-Monique to Montreal personally. The DNA boys leapfrogged it to the front of the queue.”

  “And?”

  A grin spread over Ryan’s face.

  “Tell me.”

  The grin widened.

  Leaning forward, I punched Ryan’s bicep.

  “Give the lady a gold star.”

  “Yes.” I arm-pumped the air. It hurt. “The Clemenceaus and Blackwater, not the Gouvrards.”

  Mostly, we discussed the growing evidence against Adamski.

  A warrant had been served and an SIJ team had tossed Poppy’s condo in Saint-Eustache. Much to her displeasure.

  “A hollow beneath a waterbed produced a duffel containing two thousand dollars.”

  “From the Villejoins’ pantry?”

  “Could be. Someone’s checking for prints, looking for trace DNA.”

  “Prints would be good. Trace DNA is a long shot.”

  “Better than—”

  “No shot at all. Poppy didn’t know about the money?”

  “You think she’d have left it there after Adamski’s arrest?”

  “Did SIJ find anything else?”

  “A shovel in the garage. A sedimentologist is comparing dirt from the blade to samples you collected from Christelle’s grave at Oka.”

  “Any blood?”

  “Biology is looking at a stain. Trace evidence has some hairs. The garage was also home to a lovely little chain saw. A botanist is comparing gunk from the teeth to pine logs stacked in the Villejoins’ backyard.”

  “Wowzer.”

  “Wowzer. If Adamski’s confession is kicked, the crown prosecutor wants beaucoup backup.”

  The buzzer sounded. Again. Ryan answered the door, returned bearing yet another gift. I’d already received a gazillion flowers, a pajama-gram from Ayers, and a fruit basket from Santangelo. This time it was a floral arrangement the size of Denver.

  Ryan set the vase on the table and handed me the card.

  “Claudel,” I read.

  “What’s he say?”

  “Claudel.”

  “See. He likes you.”

  Ryan took our dishes to the kitchen, then we rifled Santangelo’s basket. A clementine for me, a banana for Ryan.

  “Adamski admitted to forging Keiser’s old-age pension checks. Discovered all three in her purse. After cashing them, he tossed the purse into a Dumpster on Saint-Laurent and found himself a bar.”

  “Open a tab. It’s on my dead wife.” My voice conveyed the disgust I felt.

  “He’s holding firm on Rose Jurmain. Denies killing her. Adamantly.”

  “So the original coroner’s finding was probably correct. Rose overdrank, underdressed, wandered off, and died of exposure.”

  “Adamski’s only admission concerning Jurmain is that her disappearance triggered the idea of going after his former wife. That and news coverage of elderly victims in upstate New York.”

  “And getting away with murdering the Villejoins.”

  “And that.”

  “What’s happening on the Joe-Briel-Raines front?”

  “They’ve turned on each other like hyenas on a carcass. Ballistics is checking out a Browning twenty-two semiautomatic pistol found in Briel’s condo. They’ll all go down.”

  “Was Raines involved?”

  “Indirectly. Body Find was his baby. He brainwashed Briel into believing that if she gained celebrity status it would get the venture off the ground. Also, he called Edward Allen.”

  “Briel’s a viper,” I said.

  “Let’s not be overly harsh. Br
iel believed she was neither setting a criminal free nor convicting an innocent person. She was knifing some colleagues to promote herself, but that doesn’t make her Adamski, unless you think she really did want Joe to kill you. Also, once the jig was up, she was instrumental in your rescue.”

  “Probably to avoid being an accessory to murder.”

  “Probably.”

  The fire had died to embers. Ryan got up to poke them.

  “It’s people like Briel who give forensic science a bad name,” I said.

  “Adamski’s dirty and he’s going away for a very long time, but Briel’s actions make you wonder.” Ryan spoke without turning to face me. “How many guilty have gone free, and how many innocent have been convicted because of bad police or forensic work?”

  “You’ve heard of the Innocence Project?”

  Ryan nodded.

  “In the last twenty years there have been over two hundred exonerations in the U.S., some involving inmates on death row. More than a quarter, fifty-five cases with sixty-six defendants, involved forensic testing or testimony that was flawed. And those stats don’t begin to tell the whole story.”

  Ryan added a log. Embers spiraled, Lilliputian fireworks in the dim hearth.

  “Forensic science is popular right now, and people with minimal or no training are hot to be players. Briel is a perfect example. She learned a little about bones and hung out her shingle as an anthropologist.”

  “With predictable results,” Ryan said.

  “Whether it’s bad methodology, sloppy performance, or intentional misconduct, jurors can’t always spot junk science. If an expert wears the white lab coat, it’s science.”

  Returning to the couch, Ryan sat closer.

  “Cops and lawyers have the same problem,” he said. “How are we average joes supposed to know who’s legit?”

  “That’s the point of board certification. Every field has it now. The American Board of Forensic Anthropology, Engineering, Entomology, Odontology, Pathology, Toxicology, etc. Accreditation is a rigorous process.

  “Board certification isn’t a perfect answer, Ryan. Sure, some incompetents slip through, just as in law or medicine. But it’s a start. Those letters behind a scientist’s name aren’t just for show. They’re hard-earned. And they’re a message that an expert has undergone peer scrutiny and meets a high set of ethical standards. And being certified in one field doesn’t mean you’re an expert in another.”