by Kathy Reichs
During my absence in Chicago, window frames, bookshelves, cabinet doors, and refrigerators had been transformed. Each work area now reflected the sugarplum vision of its decorator. Plastic pine garlands. Lace doily snowflakes. Père Noël with his sack of goodies, reindeer, and sleigh.
My desk was heaped and my phone was flashing. Ignoring the hysterical red message light, I slipped my purse into a drawer and headed for the locker room.
Showered and dressed in surgical scrubs, I returned to the lab for case forms, calipers, and a clipboard. Then I took another elevator offering the same limited choices: LSJML, coroner, morgue.
In the basement, through another secure door, a long, narrow corridor shoots the length of the building. To the left are an X-ray room and four autopsy suites, three with single tables, one with a pair. To the right are drying racks, computer stations, and wheeled tubs and carts for transporting specimens to the various departments on high.
Through a small glass window in each door, I could see that here, too, nothing was happening. No police photographers, no autopsy techs, no pathologists. Some of the bulletin boards were decked out like the labs upstairs.
’Tis the season, I thought glumly, wishing I were home with Katy and Birdie.
I went directly to salle d’autopsie number four—my salle, specially ventilated for decomps, floaters, mummified corpses, and other aromatics.
As does each of the others, autopsy room four has double doors leading to parallel morgue bays divided into refrigerated compartments. Small white cards mark the presence of temporary residents.
But I didn’t have to go there. The Oka victim lay on a gurney on the autopsy room side of the doors. Paperwork peeked from below the body bag.
A quick glance showed that the remains had been assigned LSJML and morgue numbers, and that Hubert had filled out a request for an anthropology consult.
I began by entering pertinent information into my anthropology case form. Numéro de morgue: 38107. Numéro de LSJML: 45736. Coroner: Jean-Claude Hubert. Enquêteur: Lieutenant-détective Andrew Ryan, Section des crimes contre la personne, Sûreté du Québec. Nom: Inconnu. Unknown.
Last, I wrote the date and a brief summary of facts.
Tossing my clipboard onto the counter, I located a camera and checked to be sure the battery was charged. Next I pulled a plastic apron from one drawer, gloves and a mask from another, and put them on. Costumed and ready, I rolled the gurney to one side of the stainless steel table floor-bolted in the center of the room.
As a precaution, I took shots of the body bag closed, then unzipped with contents revealed. The bra and panties were visible, folded and tucked into one corner.
I checked undie labels, but the printing was faded beyond legibility. After measuring waist and chest circumferences and shooting a few more pics, I spread the garments on the counter.
Prelims finished, I began reassembling the skeleton. I’d completed an inventory at graveside, distinguishing lefts from rights, so the process went quickly until I got to the fingers and toes. Since individuation is so dreadfully tedious, those bones I’d merely counted and bagged.
A normal adult human has fifty-six phalanges. The thumbs and halluces, or big toes, have two rows each, proximal and distal. Every other digit has three rows, proximal, middle, and distal.
First, I separated hands from feet. Piece of cake for les premiers. Big toe phalanges are distinctly shaped and heftier than those in a thumb.
The reverse is true for pointer, middleman, ringman, and pinky. In those digits, finger phalanges are larger than toe phalanges. They are also flatter on their palm surfaces and more rounded on their backs, and their shafts are shorter and less laterally compressed.
Row position is all about joints. At its proximal end, a first-row phalange has a single facet, or concave oval surface for articulation with a metatarsal in the foot or a metacarpal in the hand. At its distal end are double knobs. A second-row phalange has double knobs at the distal end and double facets at the proximal end. A third-row phalange has a double facet at the near end, a tapered point at the far.
Setting the twenty-eight finger bones aside, I sorted toe phalanges by position. That done, I determined specific digits, two through five. Then I separated lefts from rights.
See what I mean by tedious?
By the time I finished with the feet my back was kinked and my face was itchy from the mask. I was doing overhead arm stretches when I thought I heard movement somewhere down the hall.
I checked the wall clock. 6:40.
I peered out the door in both directions.
Not a soul.
Back to the table.
Saturday-night loser. Scrooge neurons taunted from deep in my brain.
“Fa la la la la.” My song rang cheerless in the empty room.
After another muscle stretch, I dived into the hand bones.
Proximal, middle, distal.
I was sorting digits when I heard the muted clink of metal on metal.
Again, I checked the hall.
Again, it was empty.
Printer recalibrating? Cooler kicking on?
The ghost of Christmas future coming to kick butt?
Achy and cranky, I turned back to the phalanges. I wanted to finish as quickly as possible. To go home, eat supper, maybe read a good book. Alexander McCall Smith. Or Nora Roberts. A story distant from this parallel universe of death.
Then I remembered. I didn’t have a car because I’d ridden with Ryan. I’d have to take the metro.
Crap.
And it was probably a billion degrees below zero.
Crap. Crap.
As I worked, my mood grew blacker and blacker. I remembered there was no food at the condo. Dinner would be a frozen tourtière.
And I’d eat it alone. Birdie was in North Carolina. So was Katy. Since I wasn’t supposed to be in Montreal, Ryan had Charlie at his place.
Where was Ryan? Probably out wining and dining with friends. Or maybe cocooned by a fire with his ex.
But Ryan swore he and Lutetia were history again. Were they?
Didn’t matter. That ship had sailed.
Had it?
My eyes were burning and my back was seriously cramped. I had to force myself to concentrate.
Unbidden, lyrics came winging through my brain.
I’ll have a blue Christmas without you. . . .
My eyes swept the room. Not a stocking or jolly Saint Nick in sight.
I was alone in a morgue ten days before Christmas.
I’d be alone at home.
Screw that. I vowed to call Ryan in the morning to ask for my bird. A cockatiel was better than no company at all. Maybe he and I could carol together.
“Four calling birds, three French hens . . .” I sang.
Screw tinsel and holly. What did Dickens say? Honor Christmas in your heart. Fine. I’d follow Old Charlie’s advice.
Whoa.
Charlie. Charlie.
Until that moment, I hadn’t noticed the coincidence.
Charlie, my cockatiel. Charlie, my old high school crush, now a lawyer in the Mecklenburg County Public Defender’s office in Charlotte.
Charlie and I had barely started seeing each other when I left North Carolina for my late-November rotation in Montreal. And, to be honest, our first date had not gone well.
That’s being charitable. I’d nose-dived from the wagon, binged on Merlot, then blown the guy off for a week.
I pictured Charlie Hunt, NBA tall, cinnamon skin, eyes the color of Christmas holly.
The vision did nothing to improve my mood.
Why was I stuck in this basement slogging through bones? What could I possibly accomplish tonight? I couldn’t establish ID. Hubert hadn’t bothered to provide Christelle Villejoin’s antemortem records.
“Weenie’s probably out swilling eggnog. Parked under mistletoe waiting for a mark.”
I was now in full self-pity mode.
“Two turtle doves . . .”
Sighing, I snatched up another phalange.
Both joint surfaces were dense and polished, their edges lacy with bony overgrowth. Arthritis. Moving that finger would have hurt like hell.
My mind shot to the same tableau as in the woods. An old woman, trembling by a pit in her skivvies and bare feet.
The image morphed. I saw Gran’s face the day she got lost at SouthPark Mall. The panic in her eyes. The relief upon seeing me.
Guilt drop-kicked self-pity into the night.
“So this is Christmas,” I sang Lennon. “. . . and what have you done?”
I positioned the phalange.
I was selecting another when my mobile shattered the silence. I jumped, and the phalange flew from my hand.
My eyes flicked to the clock. Eight ten.
I checked caller ID.
Ryan.
Removing one glove, I snatched up the phone and clicked on.
“Brennan.”
“Where are you?”
“Where are you?”
“I called your condo.” Did Ryan sound annoyed?
“I’m not there.”
There was a beat of silence. I listened but could hear no background noise.
“Are you still here?” Ryan asked.
“My answer would require knowledge of your present location.” I retrieved the phalange and placed it on the table.
“You’re in the morgue, right?”
“Technically, no. I’m in an autopsy room.”
Rationally, I knew my discontent was not due to Ryan. But he was on the line, so he was taking the hit.
“It’s Saturday night,” Ryan said.
“Just eleven days left, Kmart shoppers.”
Ryan ignored my sarcasm. “You’ve been here since three.”
“And?”
“You working the Oka ID?”
“No, I’m knitting the old gal a sweater.”
“You can be an Olympic pain in the ass, Brennan.”
“Practice pays.”
Pause.
“What’s so urgent it can’t wait a day?” Ryan asked.
“Once I finish the skeletal inventory, I can construct the biological profile and analyze the trauma. Then I can hike my hiney to a latitude where the mercury stands tall.”
“Have you eaten?”
Ryan’s question goosed my already significant irritation.
“Why this sudden interest in my diet?”
“Have you?”
“Yes,” I lied.
“Would you like a ride home?”
I did.
“No, thanks.”
“It’s snowing.”
“Joy to the friggin’ world,” I said.
“I’m upstairs.”
“So I’m not the only loser lacking a life.”
“What would it take to get you to ride with me?” Patient.
“Chloroform.”
“Good one.”
“Thanks.”
There was a long silence before Ryan spoke again.
“I’m now primary on Villejoin, so I’ve been going through the file. I can fill you in.”
I said nothing.
“Fatigue fosters sloppy thinking,” he added.
Ryan’s point was a good one. And I did want background on the Villejoin investigation.
I glanced at the disarticulated skeleton. Of the two hundred and six bones, only the hand phalanges remained unincorporated.
Tomorrow was Sunday. Barring a major disaster, the table would not be needed. The room was a secure area. I’d left remains overnight before.
And I was tired.
“I’ll meet you in the lobby in ten,” I said.
It was a decision I’d come to regret.
14
RYAN GOT HIS WAY BECAUSE I WAS TOO WEARY TO argue. And too hungry. That realization dawned as I was changing into the sweats I keep at the lab.
When asked my preference, I replied with the first foodstuff that popped to mind. Fish.
Ryan suggested Molivos. I agreed. It was a short walk to my condo from there.
Fifteen minutes after disconnecting we were slip-sliding along Avenue de Lorimier toward the Ville Marie Tunnel. The wipers were metronoming the windshield. Not a blizzard, but heavy enough snow.
While Ryan focused on driving, I checked e-mail on my BlackBerry.
Amazon wanted to sell me books. Abe’s of Maine wanted to sell me appliances. Boston Proper wanted to sell me clothes. Delete. Delete. Delete.
The Humane Society wanted me to donate more money. Fair enough. Save.
A colleague wanted me to speak at a conference in Turkey. Save for polite refusal.
Katy reported that Pete and Summer had left for a week in the Turks and Caicos. She asked when I’d return to Charlotte. I replied that I’d definitely be there in time for our trip to Belize on the twenty-first.
I’d also received two offers of products guaranteed to please my genitalia, and three proposals to make millions through African banks.
As I slid the device into its holder, Ryan exited the tunnel onto Atwater. At rue Sainte-Catherine he turned right, then left onto Guy. The few pedestrians hurried with shoulders hunched, heads bowed. Sidewalks, sills, and steps were already blanketed, and car roofs and street signs wore fuzzy white caps.
Ryan parked in a stretch legal only on alternate Wednesdays from April through August between the hours of two fourteen and four twenty-seven a.m. For firemen and Freemasons. Or something like that.
Voilà, le parking, Montréal-style.
Ryan and I jaywalked across Guy, then hurried downhill. Inside the restaurant, a man with pockmarked skin and a wandering eye ushered us to a table for two.
“Two days, two tavernas.” Ryan grinned. “Do I see a pattern?”
It was true. Same wooden furnishings. Same fishing nets. Same murals showing ruins or toga-clad deities. Here the tablecloths were blue-and-white checked.
“This place is fish,” I said. “Chicago was lamb.”
“I had the seafood combo.”
“You failed to exercise good judgment.”
“We should go to Greece.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Mykonos has some primo nude beaches.” Exaggerated wink.
“In your dreams, Ryan.”
“Oh, yeah.”
Wandering Eye brought menus and inquired about beverages. Ryan asked for a Moosehead. I went with Perrier and lime. When the drinks came I ordered Mediterranean bass. Ryan chose snapper.
“Tell me about the Villejoin investigation,” I said, wanting to avoid the perilous terrain of personal issues. Or shared nudity.
Ryan’s smile morphed to a frown. He took a pull of beer and set down his mug.
“Anne-Isabelle was eighty-six. Christelle was eighty-three. Both were spinsters.”
“Unmarried,” I corrected.
“Right. They had lived with their parents in Pointe-Calumet. Serge Villejoin died in ’sixty-nine, Corine in ’seventy-seven. At that time the property went to the sisters.”
I couldn’t imagine an entire life played out in one house. Did I find such stability depressing or reassuring? I was too exhausted to gauge.
“Both worked as nurses’ assistants. Anne-Isabelle retired in ’ninety-three, Christelle in ’ninety-six. After that the ladies pretty much stayed home, puttering in their garden, raising cats, crocheting gewgaws for church bazaars.”
“What church?”
“Sainte-Marie du Lac in Pointe-Calumet.”
Our fish arrived. We squeezed lemon, helped ourselves to beans and veggies, then ate in silence. Ryan broke it.
“A bazaar took place on May four, 2008. That was a Saturday. Normally the sisters would have walked the two blocks to the church, but they had a box of items for donation, so a neighbor offered to pick them up.” Reaching back, Ryan pulled a small spiral notebook from his jacket and checked a name. “Yves Renaud. Forty-seven. A nurse at the Jewish General.”
I waited while Ryan took several forkful
s of fish.
“According to Renaud’s statement, he arrived at the Villejoin house around noon. He found it odd that two cats were wandering loose in the yard, since the animals were strictly indoor pets. He called out, got no answer, knocked, peeked through a window, yadda, yadda. Finally he tried the front door and found it unlocked.”
“Were the women security conscious?”
“Renaud didn’t know.”
“Did they have an alarm system?”
“No. Renaud entered the foyer, called out again, heard nothing. He was about to leave when a third cat strolled by with blood on its nose. Suspicious, he looked around. The vic was on the kitchen floor with a pulverized face.”
I noticed the subtle shift. Anne-Isabelle was now the vic. It was a distancing technique employed by cops. No names. I could tell the case disturbed Ryan greatly.
“Did you view the photos?” I asked gently.
Ryan nodded then wagged his head, as though movement could dislodge the horrific images.
“The room looked like a scene from a slasher movie.”
“Recover a weapon?”
Ryan snorted his disgust. “The bastard beat her to death with her own cane.”
“The perp brought nothing with him. That could suggest lack of premeditation.”
“But a savage level of anger, which was triggered by something. Every bone in the woman’s face was broken. So were the jaw, the right collarbone, most ribs, and both lower-right arm bones. But you probably know that. This was carnage beyond just killing.”
We fell silent, thoughts pointed at the same ugly question. What monster could savage an eighty-year-old woman?
“I assume there was follow-up on Renaud?”
“LaManche did the post. Based on stomach contents and state of decomp, he put time of death at twenty-four to thirty hours. Renaud worked that Friday from seven until four. Coworkers and patients put him at the Jewish all day.”
Ryan refocused on snapper. Through a window behind him, I watched flakes swirl light coning from a streetlamp on Guy.
When Ryan’s fish was only bone, he laid down his utensils and leaned back. “The younger sister simply vanished.”
“She didn’t just vanish. Something was done to her. I remember the search. The publicity was massive.”