The same recorded voice smarmed the same directive. After dictating a second message, I recradled the receiver. Gently.
Staff meeting was the arctic affair it had been on Monday. No smiles. No jokes. No one wanting to be there.
Briel was absent. I learned shed begun teaching a course at the med school in Laval.
As we dispersed, I pulled Ayers aside to ask why everyone seemed so down. Mumbling about fatigue and overwork, she hurried off to cut a Y in Marilyn Keisers chest.
Back at my desk, I called the coroners office. A new secretary picked up. I began my request. Stopped. Asked the womans name. Adele.
I identified myself. Adele and I exchanged pleasantries. The new me.
Has the Gouvrard file come in?
Un instant, sil vous plaît.
I heard a clunk. Computer keys. A rush of air as the receiver was raised to an ear.
Oui
. Dr. Briel has it.
What? Sharp.
Silence.
I took a breath. Sorry, Adele, but Im confused. Why was the file sent to Dr. Briel?
According to the record shes handling the case.
That is an error. So very polite. Please replace Dr. Briels name with mine.
Adele said nothing.
If you have questions, please speak with Monsieur Hubert.
Two requests. Two pleases.
Adele hesitated, then, Shall I collect the dossier and deliver it to you?
Thank you for offering. Thats not necessary.
I was disconnecting when Joe stuck his head into my office.
Anything for me?
I started to ask for X-rays of the maybe-Gouvrard family. Remembered. Smiled.
Joe waited, face set in neutral.
Southern women are famous for knowing the right things to say. For conjuring words and phrases that put others at ease. Its a skill I admire but do not possess. Thats being generous. When it comes to small talk, I suck.
At a loss for common conversational ground, I glommed onto a comment from yesterdays cookie enticement.
Tell me something. A good Dixie girl opener. You said youll spend the weekend exploring. I find that intriguing. I didnt. My mind was on the Lac Saint-Jean bones. Exploring what?
Joe didnt turn away, but didnt exactly clamor for eye contact.
Its just a hobby.
It wasnt really an answer.
But the weathers so cold. What do you explore?
Shoulder shrug. Just stuff.
The dolt wasnt making this easy.
Caves? Mines? Alternate dimensions?
Underground stuff. Its called drainsploring. Its no big deal. Do you want that girl poking around in the storage closet?
The quick-change threw me.
What girl?
Some chicks rummaging through your old cases.
So much for bonding.
X-ray the Lac Saint-Jean vics.
Shooting to my feet, I crossed the hall to my lab.
The chicks back was to the door as she examined the contents of a box. Its label said LSJML-28723.
Excuse me?
When the girl whirled, two margarine braids whipped below a triangular bandana tied at the back of her head. Though easily six feet tall, she weighed about the same as your average middle-schooler.
You startled me. Hand to chest.
I crossed my arms. Considered, but didnt tap a foot.
And you would be?
Solange Duclos.
The name meant nothing. My face clearly said it.
Dr. Briels research assistant. Almost a whisper.
The Université de Montréal student. Id completely forgotten.
Who let you in here?
Dr. Briel gave me a key. She held it up.
I extended an upturned palm. Duclos dropped the key into it.
Dr. Briel suggested I familiarize myself with dentition by going through old cases. Ducloss was the reddest lipstick Id ever seen. Probably named Passionate Poppy or Chili Pepper Red.
I gestured Duclos out of the closet. Snatching up a spiral-bound reference, she scurried past me, book flat to her almost nonexistent breasts. After locking the door, I joined her.
Dont take it out on the kid.
Did you check in with Dr. Morin?
Duclos nodded, crimson lips twisted sideways.
Other than
familiarizing
, did Dr. Briel leave further instruction for you?
Duclos shook her head.
Great. Briel had a novice on the floor but wasnt even in the building.
Duclos held up a battered copy of Basss
Human Osteology
.
She gave me this. The chapter on dentition is really good. I know the teeth, of course, incisors, canines, molars, premolars, but I need to brush up on details. Not stammering, but close. Im shaky on mandibular versus maxillary, left versus right.
Sit. I pointed at the only surface in the room not covered with bones. There.
Duclos rolled a chair to the spot Id indicated. As she folded into it I returned to the closet. Using a small round key on my personal chain, I unlocked a metal cabinet and withdrew a plastic tub.
Duclos watched my return with Frisbee eyes.
Practice on these. Divide by categories, then sides, then uppers versus lowers.
The tub hit the counter with a crack.
After coffeeing up, I tried Schechter again.
Nope.
Next, I went to Briels office. A gray envelope lay on her desk, return address SQ, Chicoutimi.
I humped back to my lab.
Psyched.
But not for long.
The Gouvrard records made the Villejoin file look rich in comparison. There wasnt a single X-ray. The medical and dental data were negligible. The typed reports were faded and smeared, probably the product of carbon copying. The handwritten notes were barely legible.
After three and a half hours of squinting and magnifying and translating from colloquial French, I had nothing more than when Id started.
Achille, the father, had suffered from hypertension and eczema, conditions for which hed taken medication. Hed stood five feet nine inches tall. Useless. I had no complete long bones. Hed broken three toes in an industrial accident at age thirty-seven. I had no foot bones.
An absence of dental records suggested Daddy wasnt into regular checkups.
Vivienne, the mother, had no medical condition that would have affected her skeleton. Shed had trouble with what would now be called acid reflux. Shed suffered from migraines. Shed lost a baby two months into a pregnancy three years prior to her elder sons birth. No height was recorded.
Mommy had undergone root canals in her first and second lower left molars. Both those teeth had been lost postmortem.
Serge, the elder brother, had fractured his right ulna at age six. That
bone had not been recovered. Hed had measles at seven and chicken pox at nine. On his eleventh birthday, hed suffered a mild concussion by falling from a tree.
Though the boy had visited a dentist and been treated for cavities, I had none of his teeth.
I looked at the clock. One ten.
Across the lab, Solange was still sorting and studying dentition. The neon lips made me think of the print theyd leave on a glass.
I tried Schechter again, left a third message.
Then I headed to lunch.
Natalie Ayers was in the cafeteria. She pointed to an empty chair opposite hers. I sat. Sensitive to the earlier brush-off, I avoided the subject of staff morale.
Done with Keiser?
Ayers nodded, teeth embedded in an egg salad sandwich.
I assume it
was
Keiser.
Yeah. Thanks to decomp and burning, her face and dentition were history. Fortunately, she wore a bridge. That survived. We got the antemorts. The thing was a match.
What killed her?
Who knows? The internal organs were mush. X-rays showed no fractures, bullets, or foreign objects. I sent samples to tox, but Im not optimistic.
Did you find smoke in the lungs or trachea?
Ayers waggled a hand. Maybe yes, maybe no. So it was unclear if Keiser was alive when the fire started.
Was she a smoker?
According to Claudel, yes.
Ayers worked on the second half of her sandwich. I ate the remainder of my salad, then switched subjects.
Briels student is here but Briels in Laval educating young minds.
Ayers snorted air through her nose. No shes not. Our wunderkind is downstairs educating herself.
Oh?
She came in as I was leaving, asked if she could look at Keiser. For the experience.
Shes something. I laughed.
She is. No trace of a chuckle.
Ayers stirred her coffee. Tapped the rim of her cup. Laid down her spoon. Sorry about earlier.
No problem, I said.
Youre right, though. The atmosphere in our section has turned to shit.
Because LaManche is gone?
Ayers considered. No. Thats not it.
Then why?
I dont want to tell tales. But I will say office tension is the reason Emily quit to work for the coroner.
What do you mean?
Ayers shook her head. Ask Emily.
She called me last week. Told me about Briel and Joe going back out to Oka, then urged me to get back up here fast. Never mentioned leaving the lab.
Talk to her.
I vowed to do that as soon as possible.
Then events started crashing and the world seemed to veer off its orbit.
23
WHEN I RETURNED TO MY LAB, YOUNG SOLANGE DUCLOS WAS gone. Either Briel had corralled her, or the kid had left for the day. I didnt much care. I had tables full of bones and a coroner with a shortage of patience.
Naturally, it was an afternoon of interruptions.
Id hardly stowed my purse when Claudel appeared. Anxious to resume my analysis of the Lac Saint-Jean vics, I asked few questions, just let him talk.
Léquipe du service dincendie
has finished with Keisers cabin.
Claudel referred to the arson boys, members of the chemistry section who determined cause and point of origin in suspicious fires.
They picked up traces of accelerant on the carpet and sofa.
Arson.
What was used?
Theyre working on it.
Ayers couldnt tell if Keiser was breathing when the place went up, I said.
This is not my first homicide. Dr. Ayers and I have discussed her findings.
Well, hot damn for you. I didnt say it.
I was settling with the Lac Saint-Jean vics when my cell phone buzzed in my lab coat pocket. I checked caller ID.
Perry Schechter. So badgering
can
pay off.
Unfortunately, the lawyers confidential information was not the breakthrough for which Id been hoping. While sorting Edward Allens papers, Schechter had found a scribbled note containing a phone number beginning with a 514 area code. The accompanying message consisted of one word.
Rose
.
After disconnecting, I did a reverse look-up using [http://whitepages.com] whitepages.com. The number came back unpublished or unlisted.
I called a contact at the SQ. He said hed run the line and get back to me.
Ten minutes later he did. The number traced to a pay phone at the gare Centrale on rue de la Gauchetičre Ouest.
Great. Montreals downtown railroad station.
But Schechters info wasnt totally useless. It told me two things.
Thing one: la gare Centrale accommodated both long-distance VIA rail routes and hookups to city and suburban metro lines. So my accuser could be a commuter, an out-of-towner, or a local desiring anonymity. Now I was getting somewhere.
Thing two: pay phones still exist. Who knew?
It was four fifteen when I finally got to refocus on the Lac Saint-Jean vics.
The lull didnt last.
I was opening the file of the younger son, Valentin, when male laughter razored into my concentration.
Ryan.
Joe.
Since the pathology, histology, and anthropology-odontology labs are all interconnected, I figured Ryan had entered at the far end and was cutting through toward my domain.
Rustling over the past hour had signaled that Joe was doing paperwork at his desk, directly in Ryans path. I assumed the two were discussing carburetors or sports scores, or enjoying one of those frat-boy jokes that elicit the singularly annoying conspiratorial Y-chromosome guffaw.
The younger Lac Saint-Jean child, perhaps Valentin Gouvrard, was represented by two vertebrae, three partial long bones, a calcaneous, a handful of cranial fragments, and three isolated teeth. Ignoring the buddy-boy sniggers drifting in from next door, I arranged the sparse little collection.
Preservation was awful. A combination of soaking and wave action had
removed most identifiable anatomical landmarks, and breakage had rendered accurate measurement impossible.
But the teeth allowed confirmation of my age estimate of six to eight. Heres why.
Unlike sharks or gators, humans are granted only two sets of choppers. Kids sport twenty. Grown-ups expand the assemblage to thirty-two by adding premolars and wisdom teeth.
Replacement goes thus. Around age six, the first permanent molars join the kiddy lineup. Around eleven or twelve the eight baby molars give way to eight adult premolars. During the teens and early twenties, two more adult molars join the back of each arch. No need to describe the incisor and canine action up front. We all know how that mess unfolds.
