Grave Secrets

by Kathy Reichs

  LaManche looked up, half-moon glasses on the end of his nose. Long nose. Long ears. Long face, with long, vertical creases. Mr. Ed in reading specs.

  “Temperance.” Only LaManche used my full name. In his proper, formal French, the last syllable rhymed with sconce. “Comment ça va?”

  I assured him I was well.

  “Please, come in.” He flapped a huge, freckled hand at two chairs opposite his desk. “Sit down.”

  “Thanks.” I balanced my coffee on the armrest.

  “How was Guatemala?”

  How do you summarize Chupan Ya?

  “Difficult.”

  “On many levels.”

  “Yes.”

  “The Guatemalan police were eager to have you.”

  “Not everyone shared that enthusiasm.”

  “Oh?”

  “How much do you want to know?”

  He removed the half-moons, tossed them onto the desktop, and leaned back.

  I told him about the Paraíso investigation, and about Díaz’s efforts to block my participation.

  “Yet this man did not interfere with your participation in the Claudia de la Alda case?”

  “Never saw him.”

  “Are there any suspects in that murder?”

  I shook my head.

  “The ambassador’s daughter and her friend are here, so only one young woman remains missing?”

  “Patricia Eduardo.”

  “And the septic tank victim.”

  “Yes. Though that could be Patricia.”

  Embarrassment must have shown on my face.

  “You had no power to stop this Díaz.”

  “I could have done a more thorough exam while I had the chance.”

  We were silent for a moment.

  “But I do have a couple of ideas.”

  I told him about the cat hair sample.

  “What do you hope to accomplish?”

  “A profile might prove useful if a suspect is found.”

  “Yes.” Noncommital.

  “Dog hair nailed Wayne Williams for the Atlanta child murders.”

  “Don’t be defensive, Temperance. I am agreeing with you.”

  I swirled my coffee.

  “It’s probably a dead end.”

  “But if Monsieur Gagné is willing to profile the hair, why not?”

  I told him my plans for the CT scans.

  “That sounds more promising.”

  I hoped so.

  “Did you find the two requests I left on your desk?”

  LaManche referred to the Demande d’Expertise en Anthropologie, the form I receive as entrée into every case. Filled out by the requesting pathologist, it specifies the type of exam required, lists the personnel involved, and provides a brief overview of facts.

  “The skull may not be human. In any case, it does not appear to be a recent death. The torso is another story. Please begin with that.”

  “Any possibles?”

  “Robert Clément is a small-time drug dealer in western Quebec who recently branched out on his own.”

  “Without paying kickback to the Angels.”

  LaManche nodded. “Can’t allow that.”

  “Bad for business.”

  “Clément came to Montreal in early May and vanished shortly thereafter. He was reported missing ten days ago.”

  I raised my eyebrows. Bikers normally shunned the attention of law enforcement.

  “An anonymous female caller.”

  “I’ll get to it right away.”

  * * *

  Back in my office, I phoned Susanne Jean. She was not in, so I left a message.

  Next I took the Paraíso sample to the DNA section. Gagné listened to my request, absently clicking a ballpoint pen.

  “Intriguing question.”

  “Yes.”

  “Never done a cat.”

  “Could be a place to make your name.”

  “King of the Feline Double Helix.”

  “Open niche.”

  “Could call it Project Felix Helix.” The name of the cartoon cat sounded strange in French.

  Gagné reached for Minos’s plastic container. “Shall I hold back a subsample?”

  “Run everything. The Guatemalan lab has more.”

  “Mind if I play around a bit, test a few techniques?”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  We signed evidence transfer forms, and I hurried back to my office.

  Before facing the head and torso, I spent several minutes sifting through the mound on my blotter. I located LaManche’s request sheets, fished out the pink telephone slips, and shoved the rest aside. I was hoping for some sort of message from Ryan. Bienvenue. Welcome back. Glad you’re here. There’d been nothing at home.

  Detectives. Students. Journalists. One prosecutor had phoned four times.

  Zip from Ryan.

  Great. Ryan had his sources. I had no doubt Sherlock knew I was back.

  The headache swirled behind my right eye.

  Giving up on the desk, I grabbed the Demande d’Expertise forms, slipped into a lab coat, and headed for the door. I was halfway there when my phone rang.

  It was Dominique Specter.

  “Il fait chaud.”

  “It’s very hot,” I agreed, scanning one of LaManche’s forms.

  “They say we may set a record today.”

  “Yes,” I said absently. The skull had been found in a trunk. LaManche noted badly chipped teeth, and a cord laced through the tongue.

  “It always seems so much hotter in the city. I do hope you have air-conditioning.”

  “Yes,” I answered, my mind on something more macabre than the weather.

  “You are busy?”

  “I’ve been away almost three weeks.”

  “Of course. I do apologize for intruding on your time.” She paused, indicating appropriate contrition. “We can see Chantale at one o’clock.”

  “Where is she?”

  “At a police station on Guy near boulevard René Lévesque.”

  Op South. It was just blocks from my condo.

  “Shall we pick you up?”

  “I’ll meet you there.”

  I’d hardly replaced the receiver when the phone rang again. It was Susanne Jean. She would be with Volvo engineers all morning, had a lunch meeting at Bombardier, but could see me in the afternoon. We agreed to meet at three.

  Crossing to the lab, I prepared folders for each case, and quickly scanned the torso request. Adult male. Arms, legs, and head missing. Advanced state of decomposition. Discovered in a culvert at Lac des DeuxMontagnes. Coroner: Leo Henry. Pathologist: Pierre LaManche. Investigating officer: Lieutenant-détective Andrew Ryan, Sûreté du Québec.

  Well, well.

  The remains were downstairs, so I took the secure elevator, swiped my card, and punched the lowest of the three buttons: LSJML. Coroner. Morgue.

  In the basement, I entered another restricted area. On the left, doors opened into autopsy rooms, three containing single tables, the largest containing two.

  Through the small window in the door of the central suite, I spotted a woman in surgical scrubs. She had long, curly hair, secured with a barrette at the back of her head. Pretty and thirty-something, with a quick smile and 36Ds, Lisa was a perennial favorite with the homicide detectives.

  She was a perennial favorite with me for preferring to speak English.

  Hearing the door, she turned and did that.

  “Good morning. I thought you were in Guatemala.”

  “I’ll be going back down.”

  “R and R?”

  “Not exactly. I’d like to look at LaManche’s torso.”

  She pulled a face.

  “He’s sixty-four, Dr. Brennan.”

  “Everyone’s a comedian.”

  “Morgue number?”

  I read it aloud from the request form.

  “Room four?”

  “Please.”

  She disappeared through double doors. Beyond la
y one of five morgue bays, each divided into fourteen refrigerated compartments secured by stainless steel doors. Small white cards announced the presence of occupants. Red stickers warned of HIV-positive status. The morgue number would tell Lisa behind which door the torso lay.

  I proceeded to suite four, a room specially outfitted for extra ventilation. The room for floaters and bloaters. The room for crispers. The room in which I usually worked.

  I’d barely gloved and masked when Lisa rolled a gurney through swinging doors identical to those in the central suite. When I unzipped the body bag, a nauseating odor filled the air.

  “I think he’s done.”

  “And then some.”

  Lisa and I slid the torso onto the table. Though swollen and disfigured, the genitals were intact.

  “It’s a boy.” Lisa Lavigne, obstetrical nurse.

  “Unquestionably.”

  I made notes while Lisa retrieved the X rays ordered by LaManche. They revealed vertebral arthritis, and three to four inches of bone in each of the severed limbs.

  Using a scalpel, I removed the soft tissue overlying the breastbone, and Lisa revved up a Stryker saw to buzz through the sternal ends of the third, fourth, and fifth ribs. We did the same for the pelvis, dissecting out then cutting free the frontal portions where the two halves meet along the midline.

  All six ribs and the pubic symphyses showed porosity and lots of erratic bone. This guy looked like he was up there in years.

  Sex was indicated by the genitalia. The rib ends and symphyses would allow me to estimate the man’s age. Ancestry would be a tough call.

  Skin color is meaningless, since a body can darken, blanch, or colorize, depending upon postmortem conditions. This gentleman had chosen a camouflage motif: mottled brown and green. I could take a few postcranial measurements, but with no head or limbs, racial assessment would be almost impossible.

  Next, I detached the fifth cervical vertebra, the most superior of those remaining in the neck. I retracted soupy flesh from what was left of the arm and leg stumps, and Lisa cut a sample from the severed end of each humerus and femur.

  A quick survey showed significant chipping, and deep L-shaped striations across every cut surface. I suspected I had a chain saw case.

  Thanking Lisa, I took the samples to the twelfth floor and turned them over to the lab technician. Denis would soak the bones, then slowly tease off the remaining flesh and cartilage. In days I would have viewable specimens.

  A McGill clock sits on my office windowsill, presented in appreciation for a guest lecture to the alumni association. Beside the clock is a framed snapshot of Katy and me, taken one summer at the Outer Banks. Entering the office my eyes fell on the photo. I felt the usual pain, followed by a rush of love so intense it hurt.

  For the millionth time, I pondered why the photo triggered such emotion. Loneliness for my daughter? Guilt over being so often away? Grief for the friend with whose corpse it had lain?

  I recalled finding the photo in my friend’s grave, remembered the terror, the burning rage. I pictured her killer, wondered if he thought of me during his long prison days and nights.

  Why did I keep the photo?

  No explanation.

  Why here?

  I didn’t have a clue.

  Or did I? Didn’t I understand, at some subconscious level? Amid the numbing madness of murder, mutilation, and self-destruction, the cracked and faded snapshot reminded me that I had feelings. It triggered emotions.

  Year after year, the photo remained on my windowsill.

  I shifted my gaze to the McGill clock. Twelve forty-five. I had to hurry.

  16

  OUTSIDE THE SQ, THE AIR FELT HEAVY AND HUMID. A breeze off the St. Lawrence was providing only small relief. The brewery stench had dissipated, but the smell of the river was now strong. As I walked to the car a seagull screeched overhead, protesting or celebrating the premature tickle of summer.

  Policing is complicated in Quebec. The SQ is responsible for all parts of the province not under the jurisdiction of municipal forces, of which there are many in the Montreal suburbs. The island itself is protected by the Police de la Communauté Urbaine de Montréal, or CUM.

  The CUM is divided into four sections: Operations North, South, East, and West. Not creative, but geographically correct. Each section has a headquarters housing investigative, intervention, and analysis divisions. Each also hosts a detention center.

  Suspects arrested for crimes other than murder and sexual assault await arraignment at one of these four sectional jails. For shoplifting at the MusiGo store in Le Faubourg on rue Ste-Catherine, Chantale Specter and Lucy Gerardi were taken to Op South.

  Op South, which includes my neighborhood, is as varied as a chunk of urban geography can be. Though predominantly French and English, it is also Greek, Italian, Lebanese, Chinese, Spanish, Parsi, and a dozen other dialects. It is McGill University and Wanda’s strip club, the Sun Life Building and Hurley’s Pub, the Cathédrale Marie-Reine-du-Monde and the Crescent Street condom shop.

  Op South is home to separatists and federalists, to drug dealers and bankers, to wealthy widows and penniless students. It is a playground for hockey fans and for singles looking to mingle, a workplace for suburban commuters, a bedroom for vagrants who drink from brown bags and sleep on the walks. Over the years I’ve been involved in numerous murder investigations originating within its borders.

  Reversing my morning route, I headed west through the tunnel, took the Atwater exit, shot north on St-Marc, turned right on Ste-Catherine, right again on Guy. At one point I was meters from home, wishing I could make that cutoff instead of continuing to my scheduled rendezvous.

  As I drove, I thought about the parents of Chantale and Lucy. Señor Gerardi, arrogant and overbearing. His cowed wife. Mrs. Specter, with her colorized eyes and painted nails. The absent Mr. Specter. They were the fortunate ones. Their daughters were alive.

  I imagined Señora Eduardo, still frantic, wondering what had befallen Patricia. I envisioned the De la Aldas, despondent over Claudia’s death, perhaps burdened with guilt that they couldn’t prevent it.

  I pulled into the lot and parked between two cruisers. Claude was leaning against the quarter panel of the Specter Mercedes, arms and ankles crossed. He nodded as I passed.

  Entering the station at the main door, I stepped to the counter, showed ID, and explained the purpose of my visit. The guard studied the photo, checked me for a match, then ran her finger down a list. Satisfied, she looked back up.

  “The lawyer and the mother have gone ahead. Leave your things.”

  I slipped my purse from my shoulder and handed it across the counter. The guard secured it in a locker, scribbled something in a ledger, and turned it toward me.

  As I entered the time and my name, she picked up a phone and spoke a few words. In moments a second guard appeared through a green metal door to my left. Guard number two swept me with a handheld metal detector, indicated that I should follow. Our movements were tracked by overhead cameras as he led me down a fluorescent-lit corridor.

  The drunk tank lay straight ahead, its occupants lounging, sleeping, or clinging to the bars. Beyond the tank, another green metal door. Beyond the door, the cell block. Across from the tank, a counter. Behind the counter, a wooden grid, hat-check station for incoming prisoners. Standard jailhouse design.

  We passed several doors marked ENTREVUE DÉTENU. From previous visits I knew that each opened into a tiny cubicle with wall phone, bolted stool, counter, and window looking into a mirror-image visitor cubicle. Conversations took place across plateglass and phone line.

  Conversations with detainees who were not ambassadorial offspring.

  Bypassing the prisoner interview rooms, the guard stopped at a door marked ENTREVUE AVOCAT and gestured me to enter. I’d never been to the lawyers’ side, and wondered what to expect. Red leather chairs? Brandy snifters? Prints of people playing golf in Scotland?

  Though larger, the room was as stark a
s those allotted to prisoners’ girlfriends and families. Aside from a phone, a metal table and chairs were the only furnishings.

  Around the table sat Mrs. Specter, her daughter, and a man I assumed to be the family lawyer. He was tall, with a girth almost as great as his height. A fringe of gray hair ringed his head and curled up the collar of his two-K suit. His face and crown were high-gloss pink.

  Mrs. Specter had switched to her summer color chart. She wore an ecru linen suit, off-white panty hose, and open-toed pumps. A gold band studded with delicate seed pearls held back the copper curls. Seeing me, she gave a taut, flickery smile, then her face receded behind its perfect Estée Lauder mask.

  “Dr. Brennan, I would like you to meet Ihor Lywyckij,” she said.

  Lywyckij half rose and extended a hand. The man’s face, once muscular, had been softened by years of rich food and liquor. I smiled into it as we shook. His meaty grip registered a four.

  “Tempe Brennan.”

  “Delighted.”

  “Mr. Lywyckij will be representing Chantale.”

  “Ooh, yeah. Don’t send me to the big house.” Chantale’s voice oozed sarcasm.

  I turned to her. The ambassador’s daughter sat with legs splayed, eyes down, hands jammed into the pockets of a sleeveless denim jacket.

  “You must be Chantale.”

  “No. I’m Snow Fucking White.”

  “Chantale!”

  Mrs. Specter laid a hand on her daughter’s head. Chan-tale shrugged it off.

  “This is bullshit. I’m innocent.”

  Chantale looked as innocent as the Boston Strangler. The blonde hair was now shoe-polish black. Below the jacket she wore a pink lace bustier. A black Spandex miniskirt, black tights, black engineer boots, and black makeup completed the ensemble.

  I took a chair opposite the wrongly accused.

  “The security guard found five CDs in your backpack, Miss Specter.” Lywyckij.

  “Fuck you.”

  “Chantale!” This time Mrs. Specter’s hand went to her own forehead.

  “I’m here to help you, miss. I can’t do that if you fight me.” Lywyckij sounded like Mr. Rogers.

  “You’re here to send me to some fucking concentration camp.”

  When Chantale looked up, I felt as if I was gazing into pure hatred.