Déjà Dead

by Kathy Reichs

  The next several shots focused on the exterior of one of the red-brick buildings. Small details caught my attention. Plaques over a pair of second-story doors bore the numbers 1407 and 1409. Someone had planted flowers below one of the ground-floor windows in front. I could make out three forlorn marigolds huddled together, their huge yellow heads shriveled and drooping in identical arcs, solitary blooms coaxed into life and abandoned. A bicycle leaned against the rusted iron fence that surrounded the tiny front yard. A rusty sign angled from the grass, leaning low to the ground, as if to hide the message: À VENDRE. FOR SALE.

  Despite the attempts at individualization, the building looked like all the others lining the street. Same stairs, same balcony, same double doors, same lace curtains. I wondered: Why this one? Why did tragedy visit this place? Why not 1405? Or across the street? Or down the block?

  One by one the photos took me closer, like a microscope shifting to higher and higher magnification. The next series showed the condo’s interior, and, again, it was the minutiae that I found arresting. Small rooms. Cheap furniture. The inevitable TV. A living room. A dining room. A boy’s bedroom, walls hung with hockey posters. A book lying on the single bed: How the World Works. Another stab of pain. I doubted the book would explain this.

  Margaret Adkins had liked blue. Every door and inch of woodwork had been painted a bright, Santorini blue.

  Finally, the victim. The body lay in a tiny room to the left of the front entrance. From it, doors gave on to a second bedroom and the kitchen. Through the entrance to the kitchen I could see a Formica table set with plastic place mats. The cramped space where Adkins had died held only a TV, a sofa, and a sideboard. Her body lay centered between them.

  She lay on her back, her legs spread wide. She was fully dressed, but the top of her sweat suit had been yanked up, covering her face. The sweatshirt pinned her wrists together above her head, elbows out, hands hanging limp. Third position, like a novice ballerina at her first recital.

  The gash in her chest gaped raw and bloody, only partially camouflaged by the darkening film that surrounded the body and seemed to cover everything. A crimson square marked the place where her left breast had been, its borders formed by overlapping incisions, the long, perpendicular slashes crossing each other at ninety-degree angles at the corners. The wound reminded me of trephinations I’d seen on the skulls of ancient Mayans. But this mutilation had not been done to relieve the victim’s pain, or to release imagined phantoms from her body. If any imprisoned spirit had been set free, it had not been hers. Margaret Adkins was made the trapdoor through which some stranger’s twisted, tormented soul sought relief.

  The bottom of her sweats had been pulled down around her spread knees, the elastic waist stretched taut. Blood trickled from between her legs and pooled below her. She’d died still wearing her sneakers and socks.

  Wordlessly, I replaced the photos and handed the envelope to Charbonneau.

  “It’s a nasty one, eh?” he asked. He removed a speck from his lower lip, inspected and flicked it.

  “Yes.”

  “Asshole thinks he’s a goddamn surgeon. Real blade cowboy.” He shook his head.

  I was about to answer when Daniel returned with the X rays and began to clamp them to the light box on the wall. Each made a sound like distant thunder as it bowed in his hand.

  We inspected them in sequence, our collective gaze moving from left to right, from her head to her feet. The frontal and lateral X rays of the skull showed multiple fractures. The shoulders, arms, and rib cage were normal. There was nothing extraordinary until we arrived at the radiograph of her abdomen and pelvis. Everyone saw it at once.

  “Holy shit,” said Charbonneau.

  “Christ.”

  “Tabarnouche.”

  A small human form glowed from the depths of Margaret Adkins’s abdomen. We all stared at it, mute. There was but one explanation. The figure had been thrust through the vagina and high into the viscera with enough force to conceal it completely from external view. On seeing it, I felt as if a hot poker had pierced my gut. Involuntarily, I clutched my belly, as my heart hammered against my ribs. I stared at the film. I saw a statue.

  Framed by the broad pelvic bones, the silhouette stood out in sharp contrast to the organs in which it was embedded. Surrounded by the grays of her intestines, the stark white figure stood with one foot forward, hands outstretched. It appeared to be a religious statue. The figure’s head was bowed, like a paleolithic Venus figurine.

  For a few moments no one spoke. The room was absolutely silent.

  “I’ve seen those,” Daniel said at last. With a stabbing motion he pushed his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose. A tic squeezed his features like a rubber toy.

  “It’s our lady of something. You know. The Virgin. Mary.”

  We all examined the opaque shape on the X ray. Somehow it seemed to compound the offense, making it all the more obscene.

  “This sonofabitch’s a real sick bastard,” said Charbonneau, the practiced nonchalance of the homicide detective overridden by the emotion of the moment.

  His vehemence surprised me. I was unsure if the atrocity alone had stirred something in him, or if the religious nature of the offending object was contributing to his reaction. Like most Québecois, Charbonneau had no doubt had a childhood permeated with traditional Catholicism, the rhythm of his daily life inextricably ruled by church dogma. Though many of us throw off the outward trappings, reverence for the symbols often lingers. A man might refuse to wear a scapular, but neither will he burn it. I understood. Different city, different language, but I, too, was a member of the tribe. Atavistic emotions die hard.

  There was another long silence. Finally, LaManche spoke, choosing his words carefully. I couldn’t tell if he realized the full implications of what we were seeing. I wasn’t sure I did. Though he used milder tones than I’d have chosen, he voiced my thoughts perfectly.

  “Monsieur Charbonneau, I believe you and your partner need to meet with Dr. Brennan and me. As I am sure you know, there are some unsettling aspects to this case and several others.”

  He paused to allow that to sink in, and to consult a mental calendar.

  “I will have the results of this autopsy by later tonight. Tomorrow is a holiday. Would Monday morning be convenient?”

  The detective looked at him, then at me. His face was neutral. I couldn’t tell if he understood LaManche’s meaning, or if he was truly unaware of the other cases. It was not beyond Claudel to have dismissed my comments without sharing them with his partner. If so, Charbonneau could not admit his ignorance.

  “Yeah. Okay. I’ll see what I can do.”

  LaManche held his melancholy eyes on Charbonneau and waited.

  “Okay. Okay. We’ll be here. Now I better get my ass back on the street and start looking for this shithook. If Claudel turns up, tell him I’ll meet him back at headquarters around eight.”

  He was rattled. He’d failed to switch over to French when addressing LaManche. It was clear he would have a long talk with his partner.

  LaManche resumed the autopsy before the door closed behind Charbonneau. The rest was routine. The chest was opened with a Y-shaped incision. The organs were removed, weighed, sliced, and inspected. The statue’s position was determined, the internal damage assessed and described. Using a scalpel, Daniel cut the skin across the crown of the head, peeled the face forward and the scalp backward, and removed a section of skullcap with a Stryker saw. I took a step backward and held my breath as the air filled with the whine of the saw and the smell of burnt bone. The brain was structurally normal. Here and there gelatinous globs clung to its surface, like black jellyfish on a slick, gray globe. Subdural hematoma from the blows to her head.

  I knew what the essence of LaManche’s report would be. The victim was a healthy young woman with no abnormalities or signs of disease. Then, that day, someone had bludgeoned her head with enough force to fracture her skull and cause her cerebral vessels to bleed i
nto her brain. At least five times. He had then rammed a statue into her vagina, partially disemboweled her, and slashed off her breast.

  A shudder ran through me as I considered her ordeal. The wounds to her vagina were vital. Her torn flesh had bled extensively. The statue had been inserted while her heart still beat. While she was alive.

  “… tell Daniel what you want, Temperance.”

  I hadn’t been listening. LaManche’s voice brought me back to the present. He’d finished, and was suggesting I take my bone samples. The sternum and front portions of the ribs had been removed early in the autopsy, so I told Daniel they were to be sent upstairs for soaking and cleaning.

  I stepped close to the body and peered into the thoracic cavity. A number of small gashes meandered up the belly side of the vertebral bodies. They appeared as a trail of faint slits in the tough sheath covering the spine.

  “I want the vertebrae from about here to here. Ribs, too.” I indicated the segment containing the gashes. “Send it up to Denis. Tell him to soak it, no boiling. And be very careful in removing it. Don’t touch it with any kind of blade.”

  He listened, holding his gloved hands out. His nose and upper lip jumped as he tried to adjust his glasses. He nodded continuously.

  When I stopped speaking he looked at LaManche.

  “Then close?” he asked.

  “Close her up after that,” LaManche responded.

  Daniel set to the task. He would remove the bone segments, then replace the organs and close the midsection. Finally, he would restore the skullcap, reposition the face, and sew the severed borders of the scalp. Save for the Y-shaped seam down her front, Margaret Adkins would appear untouched. She would be ready for her funeral.

  • • •

  I returned to my office, determined to regroup mentally before driving home. The fifth floor was totally deserted. I swiveled my chair, put my feet on the window ledge, and looked out at my river world. On my shore, the Miron complex resembled a Lego creation, its eccentric gray buildings connected by a horizontal latticework of steel. Beyond the cement factory, a boat moved slowly upriver, its running lights barely visible behind the gray veil of dusk.

  The building was absolutely still, but the spooky quiet failed to relax me. My thoughts were black as the river. I wondered briefly if there was someone looking back at me from the factory, someone who was equally alone, equally unnerved by the after-hours solitude that rings so loudly in an empty office building.

  I was having trouble sleeping and had been up since 6:30 A.M. I should have been tired. Instead I was agitated. I found myself absently playing with my right eyebrow, a nervous gesture that had profoundly irritated my husband. Years of his criticism had never broken me of the habit. Separation has its advantages. I can now fidget to my heart’s content.

  Pete. Our last year together. Katy’s face when we’d told her about the split. Shouldn’t be too traumatic, we thought, she’s away at college. How wrong we’d been. The tears had almost made me reverse the decision. Margaret Adkins, her hands curled in death. She’d painted her doors blue with those hands. She’d hung her son’s posters. The killer. Was he out there right now? Was he relishing what he’d done today? Was his blood lust satiated, or was his need to kill heightened by the act itself?

  The phone rang, splitting the silence like a sonic boom and yanking me back from whatever private grotto I’d entered. I was so startled I jumped, upending the pencil holder with my elbow. Bics and Scripto markers went flying.

  “Dr. Bren—”

  “Tempe. Oh, thank God! I tried your apartment but ya weren’t there. Obviously.” Her laugh was high and strained. “I thought I’d try this number just for the hell of it. Didn’t really think I’d find ya.”

  I recognized her voice, but it had a quality I’d never heard before. It was stretched taught with fear. The tone was elevated, the cadence spiky. Her words rushed at me, breathy and urgent, like a whisper carried on sharply expelled breath. My stomach muscles contracted once again.

  “Gabby, I haven’t heard from you in three weeks. Why haven’t y—”

  “I couldn’t. I’ve been—involved—in something. Tempe, I need help.”

  A soft scraping and clattering came over the line as she repositioned the receiver. In the background I could hear the hollow sound of a public place. It was punctuated by a staccato of muffled voices and metallic clangs. In my mind’s eye I could see her standing at a pay phone, scanning her surroundings, her eyes never resting, broadcasting fear like Radio Free Europe.

  “Where are you?” I selected a pen from the Pick-Up Sticks tumble on my desk and began to twirl it.

  “I’m at a restaurant. La Belle Province. It’s at the corner of Ste. Catherine and St. Laurent. Come get me, Temp. I can’t go out there.”

  The rattling increased. She was becoming more agitated.

  “Gabby, it’s been a very long day here. You’re only a few blocks from your apartment. Couldn’t you—”

  “He’s going to kill me! I can’t control it anymore. I thought I could, but I can’t. I can’t shield him anymore. I have to protect myself. He’s not right. He’s dangerous. He’s—completement fou!”

  Her voice had been rising steadily, treading upward on a staircase of hysteria. It stopped suddenly, the break accentuated by the abrupt shift to French. I stopped twirling the pen and looked at my watch—9:15 P.M. Shit.

  “Okay. I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes. Watch for me. I’ll come across Ste. Catherine.”

  My heart was racing and my hands were trembling. I locked the office and practically ran to the car on wobbly legs. I felt as if I were on an eight-cup coffee high.

  DURING THE DRIVE MY EMOTIONS DID ACROBATICS. IT HAD TURNED dark, but the city was fully lit. Apartment windows glowed softly in the east end neighborhood surrounding the SQ building, and here and there a television flickered blue light into the summer night. People sat on balconies and stoops, clustered in chairs dragged outside for summer curtain calls. They talked and sipped cold drinks, having piloted the thick heat of afternoon into the renewing cool of evening.

  I coveted their quiet domesticity, just wanted to go home, share a tuna sandwich with Birdie, and sleep. I wanted Gabby to be all right, but I wanted her to take a taxi home. I dreaded dealing with her hysteria. I felt relief at hearing from her. Fear for her safety. Annoyance at having to go into the Main. It was not a good mix.

  I took René Lévesque to St. Laurent and hung a right, turning my back on Chinatown. That neighborhood was closing for the night, the last of the shop owners packing up their crates and display bins and dragging them inside.

  The Main sprawled ahead of me, stretching north from Chinatown along Boulevard St. Laurent. The Main is a close-packed quarter of small shops, bistros, and cheap cafés, with St. Laurent as its main commercial artery. From there it radiates out into a network of narrow, back streets packed with cramped, low-rent housing. Though French in temperament, the Main has always been a polycultural mosaic, a zone in which the languages and ethnic identities coexist but fail to blend, like the distinct smells that waft from its dozens of shops and bakeries. The Italians, the Portuguese, the Greeks, the Poles, and the Chinese cluster in enclaves along St. Laurent as it climbs its way from the port to the mountain.

  The Main was once Montreal’s principal switching station for immigrants, the newcomers attracted by the cheap housing and the comforting proximity of fellow countrymen. They settled there to learn the ways of Canada, each group of rookies banding together to ease its disorientation, and to buoy its confidence in the face of an alien culture. Some learned French and English, prospered, and moved on. Others stayed, either because they preferred the security of the familiar, or because they lacked the ability to get out. Today this nucleus of conservatives and losers is joined by an assortment of dropouts and predators, by a legion of the powerless, discarded by society, and by those who prey on them. Outsiders come to the Main in search of many things: wholesale bargains, cheap di
nners, drugs, booze, and sex. They come to buy, to gawk, to laugh, but they don’t stay.

  Ste. Catherine forms the southern boundary of the Main. Here I turned right, and pulled to the curb where Gabby and I had sat almost three weeks before. It was earlier now, and the hookers were just beginning to divvy up their patches. The bikers hadn’t arrived.

  Gabby must have been watching. When I glanced in the rearview mirror, she was already halfway across the street, running, her briefcase clutched to her chest. Though her terror wasn’t enough to launch her into full flight, her fear was evident. She ran in the manner of adults long estranged from the unfettered gallop of childhood, her long legs slightly bent, her head lowered, her shoulder bag swinging in rhythm to her stilted stride.

  She circled the car, got in, and sat with eyes closed, chest heaving. She was obviously struggling for composure, clenching her hands tightly in an attempt to stop the trembling. I’d never seen her like this and it frightened me. Gabby had always had a flare for the dramatic as she threaded her way through perpetual crises, both real and imagined, but nothing had ever undone her to this extent before.

  For a few moments I said nothing. Though the night was warm, I felt a chill, and my breathing became thin and shallow. Outside on the street, horns blared and a hooker cajoled a passing car. Her voice rode the summer evening like a toy plane, rising and falling in loops and spirals.

  “Let’s go.”

  It was so quiet I almost missed it. Déjà vu.

  “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” I asked.

  She raised a hand as if to ward off a scolding. It trembled, and she placed it flat against her chest. From across the car I could sense the fear. Her body was warm with the smell of sandalwood and perspiration.

  “I will. I will. Just give me a minute.”

  “Don’t jerk me around, Gabby,” I said, more harshly than I’d intended.

  “I’m sorry. Let’s just get the hell out of here,” she said, dropping her head into her hands.