by Kathy Reichs
At the southern tip of IOP, beneath the bridge to Sullivan’s Island, a pod of dolphins executed slow, lazy loops in Breach Inlet. Their skin gleamed silvery gray each time their backs broke the surface.
The quick two-mile jog helped to clear my mind. Leaving my sandy shoes on the deck, I showered, threw on shorts and my favorite UNCC jersey, and descended for a session with the Jura X8, a coffee-brewing extravaganza that may have cost more than my car. I was working on Herrin’s report, and my third cup, when my hostess stumbled through the door.
Mornings are not prime time for Anne. Even midmornings. Disheveled didn’t capture the wild disarray of her hair. Her mascara was a war zone around her eyes.
“You look lovely,” I said.
“Mm,” Anne said.
“I made coffee.”
Anne raised one finger in acknowledgment, then moved toward the miraculous machine. I heard a cabinet open, some rattling, then the toaster.
I was entering one final detail on AF21-986, when Anne joined me at the table. Her toast was coated with something dark and gelatinous that looked like it should never be on toast.
“What is that?”
“Vegemite. Super nutritious.”
“Only if you’re Australian and stranded in the Outback.”
“You should try some. It’s made from veggies.”
“They’re a dangerous breed, mate.”
“What?”
“Never mind. Let me ask you something.”
The black-smudged eyes rolled up to mine.
“I’ve been considering your suggestion.”
“About the Vegemite?”
“About the open case in Montreal.”
She said nothing.
“Would you mind if I left tomorrow? I’d like to head north earlier than planned.”
“You’re no longer needed in Charleston?”
“I’ll check with Vislosky and Herrin. And my boss in Charlotte.”
“I think it’s a splendid idea. Lord knows you’re not doing me any good here.” Smeary L’Oréal wink. “And it will definitely jangle Ryan’s jockeys.”
I gave her an eye roll, then spent the next half hour on the phone.
Herrin said a report would be plenty. Vislosky asked a few questions, offered zero new intel. Nguyen had nothing requiring my attention, promised to phone or email should that change. Each advised me to go.
Laying aside my mobile, I felt relieved. And a bit unloved.
Until I dialed Ryan. I could hear his jockeys jangling.
After calling American Airlines, I gathered my belongings and assorted feline paraphernalia, then went in search of the cat.
Like Anne, Birdie is uncannily skilled at reading my mind. And at decoding my actions. It took forty minutes to locate him under a bed, inside the torn lining of a box spring.
The drive to Charlotte was irritatingly noisy with my back-seat passenger persistently voicing his indignation. To drown out the meowing, I listened to the local NPR station, curious about whether Thursday’s discovery might make the news.
There was no mention of the bin or the bodies, which didn’t surprise me. Neither Herrin nor Vislosky struck me as the media-friendly sort. Or perhaps the case had already dropped from the cycle.
One story did catch my attention, a brief report on the rising number of capnocytophaga deaths in South Carolina. While listening, I thought of Walter Klopp and the man he’d autopsied two days earlier.
According to the newscaster, although the CDC hadn’t yet designated it an official cluster, medical authorities were monitoring the regional incidence of capno. I wondered what count was needed to make the CDC scoreboard.
An interesting side note to the piece was a reported increase in gun sales in the state. Those interviewed said they’d heard capno came from pets. Apparently, Joe Citizen was arming up to blast anyone trying to impound Fluffy or Fido.
At the annex, I unpacked and did laundry. Then I phoned Archie, the twelve-year-old who looks after Birdie when I travel.
First glitch. Archie’s mother said he was away at his school’s fall mountain camp.
I tried my neighbor Walter.
Second glitch. Walter’s niece Rhonda was visiting from Colorado. Rhonda was severely allergic to cats.
“Crap!” Belted with such vehemence, Birdie braced for flight.
I looked at the cat. He looked at me, offered no suggestion.
For the rest of that day and into the evening, I read with greater care the documents Ryan had sent.
What I found was not promising.
* * *
A word about my schizoid cross-border life.
For eons, I have taught biological and forensic anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Decades back, a notice about the National Faculty Exchange made the agenda at a departmental faculty meeting. The NFE, a program in which a professor from one institution changes places for an academic year with a professor from another institution, had a gentleman in Canada wanting to come to UNCC.
What fun, I thought. And off I went.
While teaching at Concordia and McGill, the two English-language universities in Montreal, I was approached by the director of the Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale, the central crime and medico-legal lab for the province of Quebec. The LSJML, which went by a shorter name and acronym in those days, needed an anthropologue judiciaire. There were two prerequisites for the position: certification by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology and French language skills.
Though far from fluent at the time, I got the job.
Fantastique!
At the end of my NFE year, the LSJML was happy with me, and I was happy with them. Though I returned to Charlotte, we struck up an arrangement whereby I’d commute to Montreal every couple of months. With the understanding that I’d be immediately available should a disaster occur, a case prove urgent, or court testimony be needed.
That’s been my life ever since.
* * *
At ten the next morning, Birdie and I were at the Charlotte Douglas International Airport. The flight boarded on time but took off twenty minutes late. Which did nothing to improve the cat’s disposition. He was already out of sorts, and the delay goosed his protests to what may have been a personal best.
By the time we landed at Pierre Elliott Trudeau International in Dorval, I was the second least popular passenger on the plane. My under-the-seat companion took first prize.
Now for the promised intel on Andrew Ryan.
As I mentioned earlier, when he and I met, Lieutenant-Détective Ryan was assigned to the crimes-against-persons unit of the provincial police, the Sûreté du Québec. Since the SQ is headquartered in the same building as the LSJML, and my lab, it was inevitable that our paths would cross.
For years, Ryan and I investigated homicide cases together, strictly professional. Colleagues totally focused on murder.
Eventually, Ryan began sweet-talking for more. Eventually, he got it.
We dated. A long, long time.
Recently, Ryan had proposed marriage.
Whoa, boy!
I agreed to try cohabitation.
To demonstrate my commitment to this new arrangement, I built an addition to the annex in Charlotte and sold my beloved condo in Montreal’s Centreville. Ryan and I purchased a unit in a spiffy new high-rise, also downtown. Though blocks from my comfortable old garden-level home, the new place is a galaxy distant in every other way.
I gave my rue Sherbrooke address to the Uber driver, André. Eyeing the cat with distaste, André muscled my suitcase into the trunk of his Maxima, and off we went.
Given the lack of rush-hour traffic on Autoroute 20, the trip into town was reasonably quick. But not quick enough for Birdie.
Arriving at our building, André couldn’t get rid of us fast enough. After yanking my bag out onto the sidewalk, he scowled at the cat and gunned off, gutter gravel and dead leaves spitting from his tires.
Th
e doorman, Sylvain, relieved me of both the pet carrier and my Buick-sized bag, then helped me into an elevator. I was too frazzled to object. Not Bird.
“Grande paire de poumons,” Sylvain said.
“Oui,” I agreed. Great pair of lungs.
We whooshed up in the sleek new elevator car, and Birdie and I entered our sleek new digs.
I had to laugh out loud.
Ryan had hung balloons, draped crepe-paper streamers, and taped a big glittery sign to one wall. Bienvenue!
After rolling my suitcase to the bedroom, I released my exceedingly unhappy traveling companion. Stepping from his prison, Birdie looked around, still irked but curious about the new place. Silent at last.
I was checking the contents of the refrigerator when a text pinged on my mobile.
Safely arrived?
Yes.
Cat happy?
No comment.
Relax. I’ll bring dinner.
Love the balloons.
See you soon.
First off, I set up Birdie’s feline hygiene station. He used it. Didn’t thank me but did a superb job camouflaging his deposit by rearranging litter.
I’d just finished unpacking when I heard the front-door lock click.
“Where are you, sugar lump?” Ryan sang out.
“Call me that again, I won’t be here long.”
Ryan appeared at the bedroom door, a pizza in one hand, a small furry rodent in the other.
“An Angela spécial for us.” Raising the pie. “A trinket for your friend.”
“Birdie’s affections can’t be bought.”
“The little guy already idolizes me.”
After setting the toy and the pie on the nightstand, Ryan swooped in and wrapped me in a crushing bear hug. Followed the embrace with a very long, very heartfelt kiss.
Have I mentioned that Ryan is rock-solid fit and five-star good-looking? And that we hadn’t seen each other for almost a month?
I felt a lurch in my stomach. Or, more precisely, somewhere to its south.
I didn’t push him away.
* * *
Over pizza, grown cold during our romp in the sheets, Ryan and I discussed the container case. And the reasons the file was so slim.
“The vics had been dead for years. Without names, we couldn’t contact family or known associates. There were no witnesses, no persons of interest. No one knew zip.”
“Or admitted to knowing zip,” I said.
Ryan angled his bottle of Moosehead to acknowledge my point.
“The container washed ashore in a trailer park in Saint-Anicet,” I said.
“Correct. We interviewed the guy who found it.”
“Not one of God’s more intelligent creatures.”
“Basically, a brain stem on two legs. We talked to all the residents of the park and to people living in town and on the neighboring farms. We canvassed every yacht club up and down the shore, ran the owner of every boat registered in the province.”
“Thinking the container had been tossed overboard into the river.”
“We contacted every school in the area. Hell, every school in the province, and then some.”
“There were very few entries on the evidence and property forms,” I said. “The polyethylene sheeting and eighteen-gauge electrical wire were identical to the materials used in Charleston.”
“Here we had the kid’s ring,” Ryan said. “There you found no personal items.”
The buried image rolled over and raised its head. I denied it entry into my higher centers.
“Yes,” I agreed. Then, anticipating Ryan’s question, “No prints on anything. Ditto for the container.”
Ryan reached over to thumb sauce from my upper lip. Maybe cheese.
“Thanks.” Not minding that his hand lingered far too long. “An analysis was done on stones found at the bottom of the container.”
“I forgot about that. Any joy?”
“Common river rocks, found in a bazillion locations.”
“Wasn’t there a snail in there, too?”
“Black and of indeterminate species.” I quoted the malacologist’s summation. “The expert on river hydraulics was equally unhelpful.”
“Lots of parallels to your Charleston vics?”
I laid them all out.
Together we cleared the dishes and ziplocked the leftover pizza. Ryan popped the cap on another Moosehead, and I made myself tea.
We moved to two easy chairs facing the glass wall overlooking the skyline stretching all the way down to the river. Twelve floors below, the windows along Sherbrooke winked copper in the warm rays of the waning day.
“Will you be busy while I’m here?” I asked.
“A guy in Montpelier wants me to look into an auto fatality.”
“Sounds rather dull.”
“Mm.” Ryan’s thoughts were not on a crash in Vermont. After chugging the last of his beer, he swiveled my chair, leaned forward, and started kneading my neck and shoulders.
I set down my tea. For the first time in a while, began to relax.
Ryan’s hands moved lower, his thumbs working deep circles in the muscles paralleling my spine.
Full disclosure. I am a sucker for a good back rub. Or a bad back rub. Massage me properly, I will disclose the location of every nuke in the U.S. arsenal.
Ryan’s hand slid inside the waistband of my jeans.
“Twice in one night? How easy do you think I am?”
“We can debate that later.”
His fingers slipped lower.
Advantage Ryan.
10
MONDAY, OCTOBER 11
I awoke to the smell of coffee. And an empty bed.
A Post-it note graced the door of the sleek, state-of-the-art Sub-Zero stainless-steel fridge. Blushing, I crumbled and tossed Ryan’s art.
Birdie was glued to the living-room window, tail flicking each time a pigeon dropped into view on a downward swoop from the roof. Ryan was nowhere to be seen.
When we purchased the condo, its price alarmingly above our budget, Ryan and I decided to splurge further on a pair of in-house parking spots. Retired from the SQ, he no longer had access to a city ride and relied on the Jeep he’d owned for years. Having ponied up for a new car in Charlotte, I now kept my old Mazda in Montreal for use during my bimonthly visits.
What the hell? You only live once.
When I arrived in the garage, Ryan’s slot was empty. Off to see a man about a crash, I presumed.
Emerging from the underground, I wound my way toward the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district, a working-class hood just a bump east of Centreville. A ten-minute prowl through the maze of narrow streets brought me to a gap between cars lining one curb. With much strenuous wheel twisting and back-and-forth maneuvering, I wedged myself in, leaving a good twelve inches at each bumper.
Winded and a bit sweaty, I got out and checked the three signs listing restrictions for that side of the street on that weekday in that month for drivers lacking a resident’s permit or an edict of exemption from the pan-galactic tribunal on temporary vehicular storage. Don’t get me started on Montreal parking regs.
Reasonably satisfied that the spot was legal, I wheep-wheeped the locks and started walking. The day was chilly, the sky leaden, the air heavy with the smell of dead leaves and exhaust. Now and then, a hint of oil and dead fish was carried up from the river.
In minutes, I arrived at a T-shaped high-rise jutting inharmoniously from the warren of one- and two-story walk-ups surrounding it. The Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale occupies the top two floors, the Bureau du Coroner is on eleven, and the morgue is in the basement. Since the remaining footage belongs to the provincial police, the structure, though officially named the Édifice Wilfrid-Derome, is still referred to by old-timers as the SQ building.
I swiped my security card, passed through metal gates, and entered the restricted LSJML/Coroner elevator, then swiped again and ascended with a dozen others, some of the more
perky mumbling “Bonjour” and “Comment ça va?” Hi. How are you?
It was all anyone could manage early on a Monday morning.
Four of us exited on the twelfth floor. After crossing the lobby, I swiped a second security card and passed into the lab’s working area. Through observation windows and open doors, I could see secretaries booting computers, techs flipping dials, scientists and analysts shrugging into lab coats.
I swiped one last time. Glass doors whooshed, admitting me to the medico-legal wing.
The board showed three of five pathologists present. The box beside Emily Santangelo’s name said Témoignage: Joliette. Testimony in Joliette. Natalie Ayers was on congé personnel. Personal leave.
Continuing along the corridor, I passed pathology, histology, and anthropology/odontology labs on my left, pathologists’ offices on my right. LaManche. Pelletier. Morin. Santangelo. Ayers. Mine was the last in the row.
More security. Old-school lock and key.
I’d been away two weeks. My office looked like I’d been gone since the wall went down in Berlin.
Workers, probably floor polishers, had displaced every freestanding item onto my desk. The wastebasket, my chair, the hall tree with clean lab coats still on hangers. My CSU kit and boots had been jammed onto the windowsill, along with a potted barrel cactus, DOA. But the tile at my feet shone brightly.
After muscling the furnishings back into place, I settled into my squeaky old chair.
The blotter was mounded with enough paper to have cost several trees their lives. I tossed the flyers and ads, saved the following: the latest copy of Voir Dire, the LSJML gossip sheet; a medical dossier from a hospital in Saint-Jérôme; a packet of photos from a Section d’Identité Judiciaire photographer; a letter from an attorney in Quebec City; two demande d’expertise en anthropologie forms.
Antediluvian, granted, but I keep all hard copy from my cases. In addition to the photos and final reports, which go into the system, I retain my handwritten notes and diagrams and the forms I fill out while doing an analysis.
Ignoring the survivors of my triage, I crossed to a disturbingly hefty file cabinet, which tends to lurch forward when the top two drawers are opened simultaneously, and dug out the folders for LSJML-41207 and LSJML-41208. Fifteen years old meant the bottom drawer—safe turf vis-à-vis the gravity thing.
