Death Du Jour tb-2

by Reichs, Kathy

  His face went rigid.

  “There could still be hot spots down there, lady. You don’t want one flaring up in your face, do you?”

  I had to admit I didn’t.

  “And that guy’s past caring.”

  Inside my hard hat I could feel a throbbing along the side of my pretty skull.

  “If the victim is as burned as you suggest, your colleagues could be obliterating major body parts.”

  His jaw muscle bunched as he looked past me for support. LaManche said nothing.

  “The chief’s probably not gonna let you in there, anyway,” he said.

  “I need to get in now to stabilize what’s there. Especially the teeth.” I thought of baby boys. I hoped for teeth. Lots of them. All adult. “If there are any left.”

  The fireman gave me a head to toe, sizing up my five-foot-five, one-hundred-twenty-pound frame. Though the thermal outfitting disguised my shape and the hard hat hid my long hair, he saw enough to convince himself I belonged elsewhere.

  “She’s not really going down there?” He looked to LaManche for an ally.

  “Dr. Brennan will be doing the recovery.”

  “Estidecolistabernac!”

  This time I didn’t need translation. Fireman Macho thought the job required testicles.

  “Hot spots are no problem,” I said, looking him dead in the eye. “In fact, I usually prefer to work right in the flames. I find it warmer.”

  With that he gripped the side rails, swung onto the ladder, and slid down, never touching the rungs with his feet.

  Great. He also does tricks. I could imagine what he was scripting for the chief.

  “These are volunteers,” said LaManche, almost smiling. He looked like Mr. Ed in a hard hat. “I must finish upstairs, but I will rejoin you shortly.”

  I watched him weave a path to the door, his large, hooded frame hunched in concentration. Seconds later the chief emerged on the ladder. It was the same man who’d directed us to the upstairs bodies.

  “You’re Dr. Brennan?” he asked in English.

  I nodded once, ready for a fight.

  “Luc Grenier. I head up the St-Jovite volunteer squad.” He unsnapped his chin strap and let it dangle. He was older than his misogynous teammate.

  “We’re going to need another ten, fifteen minutes to secure the lower level. This was the last section we put down, so there could still be hot spots.” The strap jumped as he talked. “This was a pisser, and we don’t want a flare-up.” He pointed behind me. “See how that pipe’s deformed?”

  I turned to look.

  “That’s copper. To melt copper you’ve got to get up over eleven hundred degrees centigrade.” He shook his head, and the strap swung back and forth. “This was a real pisser.”

  “Do you know how it started?” I asked.

  He pointed to a propane tank near my feet. “So far we’ve counted twelve of those suckers. Either someone knew exactly what he was doing, or he really fucked up the family barbecue.” His face reddened slightly. “Sorry.”

  “Arson?”

  Chief Grenier shrugged both shoulders and raised his eyebrows. “Not my call.” He snapped his chin strap and gripped the sides of the ladder. “All we’re doing is moving debris to be sure the fire’s completely cold. This kitchen was full of junk. That’s what provided the fuel to burn right through the floor. We’ll take extra care around the bones. I’ll give a whistle when it’s safe.”

  “Don’t spray any water on the remains,” I said.

  He gave a hand salute and disappeared down the ladder.

  It took thirty minutes before I was allowed into the basement. During that time I went to the crime scene truck to collect my equipment and arrange for a photographer. I located Pierre Gilbert and asked to have a screen and spotlight set up below.

  The basement was one large open space, dark and damp and colder than Yellowknife in January. At the far end loomed a furnace, its pipes rising, black and gnarled, like the limbs of a giant dead oak. It reminded me of another cellar I’d visited not long ago. That one had hidden a serial killer.

  The walls were cinder block. Most of the large debris had been cleared and heaped against them, exposing a dirt floor. In places the fire had turned it reddish brown. In others it was black and rock-hard, like ceramic tile fired in an oven. Everything was covered by a thin membrane of frost.

  Chief Grenier took me to a spot on the right edge of the floor collapse. He said that no victims had been found elsewhere. I hoped he was right. The thought of sifting the entire basement almost made me weep. Wishing me good luck, he left to rejoin his men.

  Little of the kitchen sun made it this far back, so I took a high-powered flashlight from my kit and shone it around me. One look caused adrenaline to report for duty. This was not what I’d expected.

  The remains were strewn over an area at least ten feet in length. They were largely skeletonized, and showed varying degrees of heat exposure.

  In one cluster I could see a head surrounded by fragments of differing shapes and sizes. Some were black and shiny, like the skull. Others were chalky white and looked ready to crumble. Which is exactly what they would do if not handled properly. Calcined bone is featherlight and extremely fragile. Yes. This would be a difficult recovery.

  Five feet south of the skull an assortment of vertebrae, ribs, and long bones lay in rough anatomical position. Also white and fully calcined. I noted the orientation of the vertebrae and the position of the arm bones. The remains were lying faceup, one arm crossing the chest, the other flung above the head.

  Below the upper arms and chest lay a heart-shaped black mass with two fractured long bones projecting distally. The pelvis. Beyond this, I could see the charred and fragmented bones of the legs and feet.

  I felt relief, but some confusion. This was a single, fully grown victim. Or was it? Infant bones are tiny and extremely fragile. They could easily be hidden below. I prayed I’d find none when I sifted through the ash and sediment.

  I made notes, took Polaroids, then began to sweep away soil and ash using a soft-bristle paintbrush. Slowly, I exposed more and more bone, carefully inspecting the displaced debris, collecting it for later screening.

  LaManche returned as I was clearing the last of the muck that lay in direct contact with the bones. He watched silently as I took four stakes, a ball of string, and three retractable measuring tapes from my kit.

  I hammered a stake into the ground just above the cranial cluster, and hooked the ends of two tapes onto a nail I’d driven into the top. I ran one tape ten feet south and pounded in a second stake.

  LaManche held that tape at the second stake while I went back to the first and ran the other tape perpendicular, ten feet toward the east. Using the third tape, I measured off a hypotenuse of fourteen feet one and three-quarter inches from LaManche’s stake to the northeast corner. Where the second and third tapes met, I hammered in a third stake. Thanks to Pythagoras, I now had a perfect right triangle with two ten-foot sides.

  I unhooked the second tape from the first stake, hooked it to the northeast stake, and ran it ten feet south. LaManche brought his tape ten feet east. Where these tapes met I hammered in the fourth stake.

  I ran a string around the four stakes, enclosing the remains in a ten-by-ten-foot square with ninety-degree corners. I would triangulate from the stakes when taking measurements. If needed, I could divide the square into quadrants, or break it into grid units for more precise observations.

  Two evidence recovery techs arrived as I was placing a north arrow near the cranial cluster. They wore dark blue arctic suits, SECTION D’IDENTITÉ JUDICIAIRE stamped on their backs. I envied them. The damp cold in the basement was like a knife, cutting right through my clothes and into my flesh.

  I’d worked with Claude Martineau before. The other tech was new to me. We introduced ourselves as they set up the screen and portable light.

  “It’s going to take some time to process this,” I said, indicating the staked-out squar
e. “I want to locate any teeth that might have survived, and stabilize them if necessary. I may also have to treat the pubes and rib ends if I find any. Who’s going to shoot pics?”

  “Halloran is coming,” said Sincennes, the second tech.

  “O.K. Chief Grenier says there’s nobody else down here, but it wouldn’t hurt to walk off the basement.”

  “There were supposed to be kids living in this house,” said Martineau, his face grim. He had two of his own.

  “I’d suggest a grid search.”

  I looked to LaManche. He nodded agreement.

  “You’ve got it,” said Martineau. He and his partner flicked on the lights on their hard hats, then moved to the far end of the basement. They would walk back and forth in parallel lines, first proceeding north to south, then crisscrossing east to west. When they’d finished, every inch of floor would have been searched twice.

  I took several more Polaroids, then began to clear the square. Using a trowel, a dental pick, and a plastic dustpan, I loosened and dislodged the filth that encased the skeleton, leaving each bone in place. Every pan of dirt went into the screen. There I separated silt, cinders, fabric, nails, wood, and plaster from bone fragments. The latter I placed on surgical cotton in sealed plastic containers, noting their provenance in my notes. At some point, Halloran arrived and began shooting.

  Now and then I glanced at LaManche. He watched silently, his face its usual solemn mask. In the time I’d known the chief, I’d rarely seen him express emotion. LaManche has witnessed so much over the years, perhaps sentiment is just too costly for him. After some time, he spoke.

  “If there is nothing for me to do here, Temperance, I will be upstairs.”

  “Sure,” I responded, thinking of the warming sun. “I’ll be at this awhile.”

  I looked at my watch. Ten past eleven. Behind LaManche I could see Sincennes and Martineau, creeping along shoulder to shoulder, heads down, like miners seeking a rich vein.

  “Do you require anything?”

  “I’m going to need a body bag with a clean white sheet inside. Be sure they put a flat board or a gurney tray under it. Once I get these fragments out I don’t want everything slumping together in transport.”

  “Of course.”

  I went back to troweling and screening. I was so cold I was shaking all over, and had to stop now and then to warm my hands. At one point the morgue transport team brought the tray and body bag. The last firemen left. The basement grew quiet.

  Eventually, I had exposed the entire skeleton. I made notes and sketched its disposition, while Halloran took photos.

  “Mind if I grab a coffee?” he asked when we’d finished.

  “No. I’ll holler if I need you. I’ll just be transferring bones for a while.”

  When he left I began to move the remains to the body bag, starting at the feet and working toward the head. The pelvis was in good condition. I picked it up and placed it on the sheet. The pubic symphyses were embedded in charred tissue. They would not need stabilizing.

  The leg and arm bones I left encased in sediment. It would hold them together until I could clean and sort them in the autopsy room. I did the same with the thoracic region, carefully lifting out sections with a flat-blade shovel. Nothing of the anterior rib cage had survived, so I did not have to worry about damaging the ends. For now I left the skull in place.

  When I had removed the skeleton, I began to screen the top six inches of sediment, starting at the southwest stake and working northeast. I was finishing the last corner of the square when I spotted it, approximately a foot and a half east of the skull, at a depth of two inches. My stomach did a little flip. Yes!

  The jaw. Gingerly, I teased away soil and ash to reveal a complete right ascending ramus, a fragment of the left ramus, and a portion of the mandibular body. The latter contained seven teeth.

  The outer bone was checked by a latticework of cracks. It was thin and powdery white. The spongy interior looked pale and brittle, as if each filament had been spun by a Lilliputian spider then left to air dry. The enamel on the teeth was already splintering, and I knew the whole thing would crumble if disturbed.

  I took a bottle of liquid from my kit, shook it, and checked to be sure no crystals remained in the solution. I dug out a handful of five-milliliter disposable pipettes.

  Working on hands and knees, I opened the bottle, unwrapped a pipette, and dipped it in. I squeezed the bulb to fill the pipette with solution, then allowed the fluid to drip onto the jaw. Drop by drop I soaked each fragment, watching to be sure I was getting good penetration. I lost all track of time.

  “Nice angle.” English.

  My hand jumped, splattering Vinac on the sleeve of my jacket. My back was stiff, my knees and ankles locked, so lowering my rear quickly was not an option. Slowly, I sat back on my haunches. I didn’t have to look.

  “Thank you, Detective Ryan.”

  He circled to the far side of the grid and looked down at me. Even in the dim light of the basement I could see that his eyes were as blue as I remembered. He wore a black cashmere coat and a red wool muffler.

  “Long see, no time,” he said.

  “Yes. No time. When was it?”

  “The courthouse.”

  “The Fortier trial.” We’d both been waiting to testify.

  “Still dating Perry Mason?”

  I ignored the question. The previous fall I’d briefly dated a defense attorney I’d met through my Tai Chi course.

  “Isn’t that fraternizing with the enemy?”

  I still didn’t answer. Obviously my sex life was a topic of interest to the homicide squad.

  “How have you been?”

  “Great. You?”

  “Can’t complain. If I did, no one would listen.”

  “Get a pet.”

  “Could try that. What’s in the eyedropper?” he asked, pointing a leather-gloved finger at my hand.

  “Vinac. It’s a solution of a polyvinyl acetate resin and methanol. The mandible is toast and I’m trying to keep it intact.”

  “And that will do it?”

  “As long as the bone is dry this will penetrate and hold things together pretty well.”

  “And if it’s not dry?”

  “Vinac won’t mix with water, so it’ll just stay on the surface and turn white. The bones will come out looking like they’ve been sprayed with latex.”

  “How long does it take to dry?”

  I felt like Mr. Wizard.

  “It dries quickly through evaporation of the alcohol, usually in thirty to sixty minutes. Although being in the subarctic won’t speed things up.”

  I checked the jaw fragments, hit one with a few more drops, then rested the pipette on the solution jar cover. Ryan came around and held out a hand. I took it and rose to my feet, wrapping my arms around my middle and tucking my hands under my pits. I could feel nothing in my fingers, and suspected my nose was the shade of Ryan’s scarf. And running.

  “It’s colder than a witch’s tit down here,” he agreed, surveying the basement. He held one arm behind him at an odd angle. “How long have you been down here?”

  I looked at my watch. No wonder I was hypothermic. One-fifteen.

  “Over four hours.”

  “Che-rist. You’re going to need a transfusion.”

  It suddenly dawned. Ryan worked homicide.

  “So it’s arson?”

  “Probably.”

  He pulled a white bag from behind his back, withdrew a Styrofoam cup and a machine sandwich, and waggled them in front of me.

  I lunged. He backed up.

  “You’ll owe me.”

  “It’s in the mail.”

  Soggy bologna and lukewarm coffee. It was wonderful. We talked while I ate.

  “Tell me why you think it’s arson,” I said as I chewed.

  “Tell me what you’ve got here.”

  O.K. He was a sandwich up.

  “One person. Could be young, but it’s not a little kid.”

&nb
sp; “No babies?”

  “No babies. Your turn.”

  “Looks like someone used the old tried and true. The fire burned in trails way down between the floorboards. Where there still are floorboards, that is. That means liquid accelerant, probably gasoline. We found dozens of empty gas cans.”

  “That’s it?” I finished the sandwich.

  “The fire had more than one point of origin. Once it started it burned like a son of a bitch, because it set off the world’s largest indoor collection of propane tanks. Big boom every time one went. Another tank, another big boom.”

  “How many?”

  “Fourteen.”

  “It started in the kitchen?”

  “And the adjoining room. Whatever that was. Hard to tell now.”

  I thought it over.

  “That explains the head and jaw.”

  “What about the head and jaw?”

  “They were about five feet away from the rest of the body. If a propane tank fell through with the victim and exploded later, that could have caused the head to relocate after it burned away from the trunk. Same with the jaw.”

  I finished the coffee, wishing I had another sandwich.

  “Could the tanks have ignited accidentally?”

  “Anything’s possible.”

  I flicked crumbs from my jacket and thought of LaManche’s doughnuts. Ryan fished in the bag and handed me a napkin.

  “O.K. The fire had multiple points of origin and there’s evidence of an accelerant. It’s arson. Why?”

  “Got me.” He gestured at the body bag. “Who’s this?”

  “Got me.”

  Ryan headed upstairs, and I went back to the recovery. The jaw was not quite dry, so I turned my attention to the skull.

  The brain contains a large amount of water. When exposed to fire, it boils and expands, setting up hydrostatic pressure inside the head. Given enough heat, the cranial vault may crack or even explode. This person was in pretty good shape. Though the face was gone and the outer bone was charred and flaking, large segments of the skull were intact. I was surprised, given the intensity of this fire.

  When I cleaned away the mud and ash and looked closely, I saw why. For a moment I just stared. I rolled the skull over and inspected the frontal bone.