About the Book
A nine-year-old girl is killed in crossfire on her way to ballet class. Soon afterwards, the body of a teenager killed in North Carolina is found hundreds of miles away.
Forensic anthropologist Dr Temperance Brennan knows she must stay professional, but when the young girl’s body is wheeled into the morgue she cannot help but react.
And when an exhumation reveals the bones of yet another innocent in a hidden grave close to a biker gang headquarters, Tempe begins a lone and risky investigation into the lawless underworld of organised crime.
Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Kathy Reichs
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Copyright
This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781448106608
www.randomhouse.co.uk
Reissued by Arrow Books in 2011
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Copyright © Temperance Brennan LP 2000
Kathy Reichs has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
This is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Published by arrangement with the original publisher, Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
First published in Great Britain in 2000 by William Heinemann
First published in paperback in 2001 by
Arrow Books
The Random House Group Limited
20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, SW1V 2SA
www.randomhouse.co.uk
Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm
The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-0-099-55653-4
Dedicated with love
to the Carolina Beach Bunch
About the Author
Kathy Reichs is vice president of the American Academy of Forensic Scientists; a member of the RCMP National Police Services Advisory Council; forensic anthropologist to the province of Quebec; and a professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte.
Her first book, Deja Dead, catapulted her to fame when it became a New York Times bestseller and won the 1997 Ellis Award for Best First Novel. Her most recent novels are Flash and Bones and Bones Are Forever. All of her Temperance Brennan novels have been Sunday Times No. 1 bestsellers. For more information visit www.kathyreichs.com.
Also by Kathy Reichs
Déjà Dead
Death du Jour
Fatal Voyage
Grave Secrets
Bare Bones
Monday Mourning
Cross Bones
Break No Bones
Bones to Ashes
Devil Bones
Spider Bones (published as Mortal Remains in hardback in the UK)
Flash and Bones
Bones are Forever
The Virals Series
with Brendan Reichs
Virals
Seizure
Code
Acknowledgements
Many people helped me in writing Deadly Décisions. Particularly patient were my colleagues in forensic science and law enforcement. I owe heartfelt thanks to Sergeant Guy Ouelette, Division of Organized Crime Unit, Sûreté du Québec, and to Captain Steven Chabot, Sergent Yves Trudel, Caporal Jacques Morin, and Constable Jean Ratté at Opération Carcajou in Montreal.
Among the Communauté Urbaine de Montréal Police, Lieutenant-détective Jean-François Martin, Division des Crimes Majeurs; Sergent-détective Johanne Bérubé, Division Agressions Sexuelles; and Commandant André Bouchard, Moralité, Alcool, et Stupéfiant, Centre Opérational Sud, patiently answered my questions and explained the functioning of police units. Special thanks must go to Sergent-détective Stephen Rudman, Superviseur, Analyse et Liaison, Centre Opérational Sud, who answered many questions, provided maps, and took me through the jail.
Of my colleagues at the Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale I must thank Dr Claude Pothel for comments on pathology, and François Julien, Section de Biologie, for his demonstration of blood-spatter patterning. Pat Laturnus, Bloodstain Pattern Analyst at the Canadian Police College in Ottawa, also helped with this expertise, and provided photos for cover design.
In North Carolina, I would like to thank Captain Terry Sult of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Intelligence Unit; Roger Thompson, Director of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Crime Laboratory; Pam Stephenson, Senior Analyst, Intelligence and Technical Services, North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation; Gretchen C. F. Shappert, United States Attorney General’s Office; and Dr Norman J. Kramer, Mecklenburg Medical Group.
Others who gave of their time and knowledge include Dr G. Clark Davenport, Geophysicist with Necro-Search International; Dr Wayne Lord, National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, FBI Academy, Quantico, Virginia; and Victor Svoboda, Director of Communication for the Montreal Neurological Institute and the Montreal Neurological Hospital. Dr David Taub was my Harley-Davidson guru.
I am indebted to Yves St. Marie, Directeur, Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale; Dr André Lauzon, Responsable, Laboratoire de Médecine Légale; and to Dr James Woodward, Chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte for their continued support.
Special thanks go to Paul Reichs for his valuable comments on the manuscript.
As always I want to thank my extraordinary editors, Susanne Kirk at Scribner, and Lynne Drew at Random House, and my slam-dunk agent, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh.
Though I benefited greatly from the advice of experts, any errors in Deadly Décisions are strictly of my making.
HER NAME WAS Emily Anne. She was nine years old, with black ringlets, long lashes, and caramel-colored skin. Her ears were pierced with tiny gold loops. Her forehead was pierced by two slugs from a Cobra 9-mm semiautomatic.
It was a Saturday, and I was working by special request of my boss, Pierre LaManche. I’d been at the lab for four hours, sorting badly mangled tissue, when the door to the large autopsy room opened and Sergeant-Detective Luc Claudel came striding in.
Claudel and I had worked together in the past, and though he’d come to tolerate, perhaps even appreciate me, one would not infer that from his brusque manner.
“Where’s LaManche?” he demanded, glancing at the gurney in front of me, then quickly away.
I said nothing. When Claudel was in one of his moods, I ignored him.
“Has Dr LaManche arrived?” The detective avoided looking at my greasy gloves.
“It’s Saturday, Monsieur Claudel. He doesn’t wo—”
At that moment Michel Charbonneau stuck his head into the room. Through the opening I could hear the whir and clank of the electric door at the back of the building.
“Le cadavre est arrivé,” Charbonneau told his partner.
What cadaver? Why were two homicide detectives at the morgue on a Saturday afternoon?
Charbonneau greeted me in English. He was a large man, with spiky hair that resembled a hedgehog’s.
“Hey, Doc.”
“What’s going on?” I asked, pulling off my gloves and lowering my mask.
Claudel answered, his face tense, his eyes cheerless in the harsh fluorescent light.
“Dr LaManche will be here shortly. He can explain.”
Already sweat glistened on his forehead, and his mouth was compressed into a thin, tight line. Claudel detested autopsies and avoided the morgue as much as possible. Without another word he pulled the door wide and brushed past his partner. Charbonneau watched him walk down the corridor, then turned back to me.
“This is hard for him. He has kids.”
“Kids?” I felt something cold in my chest.
“The Heathens struck this morning. Ever hear of Richard Marcotte?”
The name was vaguely familiar.
“Maybe you know him as Araignée. Spider.” He curled his fingers like a child doing the waterspout rhyme. “Great guy. And an elected official in the outlaw biker set. Spider is the Vipers sergeant at arms, but he had a real bad day today. When he set out for the gym around eight this morning the Heathens blasted him in a drive-by while his ole lady dove for cover in a lilac bush.”
Charbonneau ran a hand backward through his hair, swallowed.
I waited.
“In the process they also killed a child.”
“Oh, God.” My fingers tightened around the gloves.
“A little girl. They took her to the Montréal Children’s Hospital, but she didn’t make it. They’re bringing her here now. Marcotte was DOA. He’s out back.”
“LaManche is coming in?”
Charbonneau nodded.
The five pathologists at the lab take turns being on call. Rarely does it happen, but if an off-hours autopsy or visit to a death scene is deemed necessary, someone is always available. Today that was LaManche.
A child. I could feel the familiar surge of emotions and needed to get away.
My watch said twelve-forty. I tore off my plastic apron, balled it together with the mask and latex gloves, and threw everything into a biological waste container. Then I washed my hands and rode the elevator to the twelfth floor.
I don’t know how long I sat in my office, staring at the St Lawrence and ignoring my carton of yogurt. At one point I thought I heard LaManche’s door, then the swish of the glass security doors that separate portions of our wing.
Being a forensic anthropologist, I’ve developed some immunity to violent death. Since the medical examiner turns to me to derive information from the bones of the mutilated, burned, or decomposed, I’ve seen the worst. My workplaces are the morgue and autopsy room, so I know how a corpse looks and smells, how it feels when handled or cut with a scalpel. I’m accustomed to bloody clothing drying on racks, to the sound of a Stryker saw cutting through bone, to the sight of organs floating in numbered specimen jars.
But I have always been unsettled by the sight of dead children. The shaken baby, the battered toddler, the emaciated child of religious zealots, the preteen victim of a violent pedophile. The violation of young innocents has never failed to agitate and distress me.
Not long ago I had worked a case involving infants, twin boys killed and mutilated. It had been one of the most difficult encounters of my career, and I didn’t want to reboard that emotional merry-go-round.
Then again that case had been a source of satisfaction. When the fanatic responsible was locked up and could order no more executions, I felt a genuine sense of having accomplished something good.
I peeled back the cover and stirred the yogurt.
Images of those babies hovered in my mind. I remembered my feelings in the morgue that day, the flashbacks to my infant daughter.
Dear God, why such insanity? The mutilated men I had left downstairs had also died as a result of the current biker war.
Don’t get despondent, Brennan. Get angry. Get coldly, resolutely angry. Then apply your science to help nail the bastards.
“Yep,” I agreed with myself aloud.
I finished the yogurt, drained my drink, and headed downstairs.
Charbonneau was in the anteroom of one of the small autopsy suites, flipping pages in a spiral notebook. His large frame overflowed a vinyl chair opposite the desk. Claudel was nowhere to be seen.
“What’s her name?” I asked.
“Emily Anne Toussaint. She was on her way to dance class.”
“Where?”
“Verdun.” He tipped his head toward the adjoining room. “LaManche has begun the post.”
I slipped past the detective into the autopsy room.
A photographer was taking pictures while the pathologist made notes and shot Polaroid backups.
I watched LaManche grasp a camera by its side handles, then raise and lower it above the body. As the lens moved in and out of focus a small dot blurred then condensed over one of the wounds in the child’s forehead. When the perimeter of the dot grew sharp, LaManche depressed the shutter release. A white square slid out and he pulled it free and added it to a collection on the side counter.
Emily Anne’s body bore evidence of the intensive effort to save her life. Her head was partly bandaged, but I could see a clear tube protruding from her scalp, inserted to monitor intracranial pressure. An endotracheal tube ran down her throat and into her trachea and esophagus, placed in order to oxygenate the lungs and to block regurgitation from the stomach. Catheters for IV infusion remained in her subclavian, inguinal, and femoral vessels, and the circular white patches for EKG electrodes were still pasted to her chest.
Such a frantic intervention, almost like an assault. I closed my eyes and felt tears burn the backs of my lids.
I dragged my eyes back to the small body. Emily Anne wore nothing but a plastic hospital bracelet. Next to her lay a pale green hospital gown, bundled clothing, a pink backpack, and a pair of high-top red sneakers.
The harsh fluorescent light. The shining steel and tile. The cold, sterile surgical instruments. A little girl did not belong here.
When I looked up, LaManche’s sad eyes met mine. Though neither of us made reference to what lay on the stainless steel, I knew his thoughts. Another child. Another autopsy in this same room.
Putting a choke hold on my emotions, I described the progress I was making with my own cases, reassembling the corpses of two bikers who’d been blown apart by their own folly, and asked when antemortem medical records would be available. LaManche told me that the files had been requested and should arrive on Monday.
I thanked him and went to resume my own grim task. As I sorted tissue, I remembered my previous day’s conversation with LaManche, and wished I were still in the Virginia woods. Was it only yesterday LaManche had called me there? Emily Anne was alive then.
So much can change in twenty-four hours.
THE DAY BEFORE I had been in Quantico teaching a body recovery workshop at the FBI Academy. My team of evidence recovery technicians was unearthing and mapping its skeleton when I looked up to see a special agent approaching through the trees. He reported that a Dr LaManche urgently wished to speak to me. Feeling uneasy, I left my team and started out of the woods.
As I threaded my way toward the road, I thought about LaManche and the news his call might bring. I began consulting for the Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale after going to Montreal in the early nineties as part of a faculty exchange between McGill and my home university in Charlotte. Knowing I was certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology, LaManche had been curious as to whether I could be of any use to him.
Quebec Province had a centralized coroner system, with sophisticated crime and medico-legal labs, but no board-certified forensic anthropologist. Then, as now, I served as consultant to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in North Carolina, and LaManche wanted me for the LSJML. The ministry funded an anthropology lab, and I enrolled in an immersion course in French. For more than a decade now, the skeletonized, decomposed, mummified, burned, or mutilated cadavers of Quebec Province have come to me for analysis and identification. When a conventional autopsy is of no use, I tease what I can from the bones.
Rarely had LaManche left me a message marked urgent. When he had, it had never been good.
Within minutes I crossed to a van parked on the side of a gravel road. I released my hair and ran my fingers backward across my scalp.
No ticks.
After reclipping the barrette, I dug my pack from the back of the van and fished out my cell phone. The tiny screen told me I had missed three calls. I punched up the list of numbers. All three had come from the lab.
I tried dialing, but the signal cut in and out. That’s why I’d left the phone in the van. Damn. Though my French had become fluent over the past ten years, background noise and bad connections often caused me problems. Between the language exchange and the weak signal, I’d never get the message straight on this phone. I had to hike down to headquarters.
I unzipped my Tyvek jumpsuit and threw it in a box in the back of the van. Slinging my pack over my shoulder, I headed downhill.
High above the trees a hawk circled some falconid target. The sky was a brilliant blue, with randomly spaced cotton puff clouds drifting leisurely. The course is usually held in May, and we’d worried that this year’s April scheduling might mean rain or cooler temperatures. No problem. The mercury was in the high seventies.
As I walked, I took in the sounds around me. My boots crunching on gravel. Birdsong. The whumping of helicopter blades low overhead. The pop of distant gunfire. The FBI shares Quantico with other federal police agencies and with the Marine Corps, and the activity is constant and very earnest.
The gravel road met blacktop at Hogan’s Alley, just below the simulated town square used by the FBI, DEA, ATF, and others. I skirted far to the left to avoid intruding on a hostage rescue exercise and turned right on Hoover Road downhill to the closest module of a concrete complex of gray and tan with antennae jutting from the highest roofs like new shoots in an old hedge. Crossing a small parking area to the Forensic Science Research and Training Center, I rang a bell at the loading dock.
A side door parted and a man’s face appeared in the crack. Though young, he was completely bald, and looked as if he’d been that way for some time.
“Finishing early?”
“No. I need to call my lab.”
“You can use my office.”
“Thanks, Craig. I’ll only be a minute.” I hope.
“I’m checking equipment, so take your time.”
The academy is often compared to a hamster cage because of the labyrinth of tunnels and corridors connecting its various buildings. But the upper floors are nothing compared with the maze below.
We wound our way through an area stacked with crates and cardboard boxes, old computer screens, and metal equipment trunks, down one corridor, then along two others to an office barely large enough to hold a desk, chair, filing cabinet, and bookshelf. Craig Beacham worked for the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, NCAVC, one of the major components of the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group, CIRG. For a time the entity had been called the Child Abduction and Serial Killer Unit, CASKU, but had recently reverted to the original name. Since the training of evidence recovery technicians, or ERT’s, is one of the functions of NCAVC, it is this unit that organizes the annual course.
When dealing with the FBI, one must be alphabet savvy.
Craig gathered folders from his desk and stacked them on the cabinet.
“At least that will give you some space to take notes. Do you need to close the door?”
“No, thanks. I’m fine.”
My host nodded, then disappeared down the hall.
I took a deep breath, made a mental shift to French, and dialed.
“Bonjour, Temperance.” Only LaManche and the priest who baptized me have ever used the formal version. The rest of the world calls me Tempe. “Comment ça va?”
I told him I was fine.
“Thank you for calling back. I fear we have a grisly situation up here and I am going to need your help.”
“Oui?” Grisly? LaManche was not prone to overstatement.
“Les motards. Two more are dead.”
Les motards. Bikers. For more than a decade rival outlaw motorcycle gangs had been battling for control of the drug trade in Quebec. I’d worked on several motard cases, gunshot victims who had also been burned beyond recognition.
“Oui?”
“So far, this is what the police have reconstructed. Last night three members of the Heathens drove to the Vipers’ clubhouse with a powerful homemade bomb. The Viper working the surveillance cameras spotted a pair approaching with a large bundle between them. He took a shot and the bomb exploded.” LaManche paused. “The driver is in the hospital in critical condition. For the other two, the largest portion of tissue recovered weighs nine pounds.”
Ouch.
“Temperance, I’ve been trying to get in touch with Constable Martin Quickwater. He’s there in Quantico, but he’s been in a case-review meeting all day.”
“Quickwater?” It was not a typical québécois name.
“He’s Native. Cree, I think.”
“Is he with Carcajou?”
Opération Carcajou is a multijurisdictional task force created to investigate criminal activities among outlaw motorcycle gangs in the province.
“Oui.”
“What would you like me to do?”
“Please tell Constable Quickwater what I have told you, and have him contact me. Then I would like you to come here as quickly as possible. We may have difficulty with these identifications.”
“Have they recovered printable digits or dental fragments?”
“No. And it is not likely.”
“DNA?”
“There may be problems with that. The situation is complicated and I would rather not discuss it by phone. Is it possible for you to return earlier than you had planned?”
Following my normal pattern, I’d wrapped up the spring term at UNC-Charlotte in time to teach the FBI course. Now I only had to read the final exams. I’d been looking forward to a brief stay with friends in D.C. before flying to Montreal for the summer. The visit would have to wait.
“I’ll be there tomorrow.”
“Merci.”
He continued in his very precise French, either sadness or fatigue deepening the timbre of his rich, bass voice.
“This does not look good, Temperance. The Heathens will undoubtedly retaliate. Then the Vipers will draw more blood.” I heard him pull a long breath, then exhale slowly. “I fear the situation is escalating to full-scale war in which innocents may perish.”
We hung up and I called US Airways to arrange for a morning flight. As I was replacing the receiver Craig Beacham appeared in the doorway. I explained about Quickwater.
“Constable?”
“He’s RCMP. Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Or GRC if you prefer French. Gendarmerie royale du Canada.”
“Um. Huh.”
Craig punched in a number and asked about the constable’s whereabouts. After a pause he jotted something down and hung up.
“Your guy’s in a major case management session in one of the conference rooms down here.” He offered the number he’d written, then gave me directions. “Just slide in and take a seat. They’ll probably break at three.”
I thanked him, and wormed my way through the halls until I’d located the room. Muffled voices came through the closed door.
My watch said two-twenty. I turned the knob and slipped in.
The room was dark save for the beam of a projector and the apricot glow of an illuminated slide. I could make out half a dozen figures seated around a central table. Some heads turned in my direction as I eased into a chair against the side wall. Most eyes stayed fixed on the screen.
For the next thirty minutes I saw LaManche’s premonition brought to life in horrifying detail. A bombed-out bungalow, tissue spattered on the walls, body parts strewn across the lawn. A female torso, face a red mass, skull bones mushroomed by a shotgun blast. The blackened chassis of a sports utility vehicle, one charred hand dangling from a rear window.
A man seated to the right of the projector commented about biker gang wars in Chicago as he clicked through the presentation. The voice was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t make out the features.
More shootings. Explosions. Stabbings. Now and then I scanned the silhouettes around the table. Only one had hair that was not closely cropped.
Finally, the screen blazed white. The projector hummed and dust motes floated in its beam. Chairs squeaked as their occupants stretched and reoriented toward one another.
The speaker rose and crossed to the wall. When the overhead lights came on I recognized him as Special Agent Frank Tulio, a graduate of the recovery course from years back. He spotted me, and a smile spread across his face.
“Tempe. How’s it hanging?”
Everything about Frank was precise, from his razor-cut gray hair, to his compact body, to his immaculate Italian-made shoes. Unlike the rest of us, throughout the bug and body exercises Frank had remained perpetually well groomed.
“Can’t complain. Are you still with the Chicago office?”
“Up until last year. I’m here now, assigned to CIRG.”
Every eye was focused on us, and I was suddenly conscious of my current state of cleanliness and coiffure. Frank turned to his colleagues.
“Does everyone know the great bone doctor?”
As Frank made introductions, those around the table smiled and nodded. Some I recognized, others I did not. One or two made jokes about past episodes in which I’d played a role.
Two of those present were not affiliated with the academy. The fuller hair I’d spotted belonged to Kate Brophy, supervisor of the Intelligence Unit of North Carolina’s State Bureau of Investigation. Kate had been the SBI’s expert on outlaw motorcycle gangs for as long as I could remember. We’d met in the early eighties when the Outlaws and Hells Angels were at war in the Carolinas. I’d identified two of the victims.
At the far end of the table a young woman typed on what looked like a stenotype machine. Next to her Martin Quickwater sat behind a laptop computer. His face was broad, with high cheekbones, and eyebrows that angled up at the ends. His skin was the color of fired brick.
“I’m sure you two foreigners know each other,” said Frank.
“Actually, we don’t,” I said. “But that’s why I’m intruding. I need to speak to Constable Quickwater.”
Quickwater graced me with approximately five seconds of attention, then his eyes went back to his computer screen.
“Good timing. We’re ready for a break.” Frank looked at his watch, then crossed back to click off the projector. “Let’s get some caffeine and regroup at three-thirty.”
As the agents filed past me one of the members of NCAVC made an exaggerated show of squaring his fingers and peering through, as though focusing on me through a viewfinder. We’d been friends a decade and I knew what was coming.
“Nice do, Brennan. Do you get a deal from your lawn man? Hedges and hair trims, one price?”
“Some of us do real work, Agent Stoneham.”
He moved on, laughing.
When only Quickwater and I were left, I smiled and began a fuller introduction.
“I know who you are,” said Quickwater in softly accented English.
His abruptness surprised me, and I fought back an equally impolite rejoinder. Perhaps being sweaty and uncombed had made me touchy.
When I explained that LaManche had been trying to reach him, Quickwater slipped his pager from his belt, checked the screen, then tapped it hard against his hand. Shaking his head and sighing, he reattached the device to his waistband.
“Batteries,” he said.
The constable watched me intently as I repeated what LaManche had said. His eyes were so deeply brown it was impossible to see a boundary between pupil and iris. When I’d finished, he nodded, then turned and left the room.
I stood a moment, wondering at the man’s odd demeanor. Terrific. I not only had two vaporized bikers to piece together, I now had Constable Congenial as an associate.
I picked up my pack and headed back to the woods.
No problem, Mr Quickwater. I’ve cracked tougher nuts than you.
THE TRIP TO Montreal was uneventful, except for an overt snub by Martin Quickwater. Though we were on the same flight, he did not speak to me or move to one of the empty seats in my row. We nodded at Washington-Reagan, then again as we waited in the customs line at Montreal’s Dorval. His coolness suited me. I really didn’t want to deal with the man.
I took a taxi to my condo in Centre-ville, offloaded luggage, and zapped a frozen burrito. My old Mazda turned over after three tries, and I headed to the city’s east side.
For years the forensic lab had been located on the fifth floor of a structure known as the SQ building. The provincial police, or Sûreté du Québec, had the rest of the floors, except for my office and a detention center on the twelfth and thirteenth. The morgue and autopsy rooms were in the basement.
The Quebec government had recently spent millions to renovate the building. The jail was relocated, and the medico-legal and crime labs now sprawled throughout the top two floors. It had been months since the move, but I still couldn’t believe the change. My new office had a spectacular view of the St Lawrence River, and my lab was first-rate.
At three-thirty on Friday the normal weekday hustle and bustle were beginning to taper off. One by one doors were closing, and the army of lab-coated scientists and technicians was dwindling.
I unlocked my office and hung my jacket on the wooden hall tree. Three white forms lay on my desk. I selected the one with LaManche’s signature.
The “Demande d’Expertise en Anthropologie” is often my first introduction to a case. Filled out by the requesting pathologist, it provides data critical to tracking a file.
My eyes drifted down the right-hand column. Lab number. Morgue number. Police incident number. Clinical and efficient. The body is tagged and archived until the wheels of justice have run their course.
I shifted to the left column. Pathologist. Coroner. Investigating officer. Violent death is the final intrusion, and those who investigate it are the ultimate voyeurs. Though I participate, I am never comfortable with the indifference with which the system approaches the deceased and the death investigation. Even though a sense of detachment is a must to maintain emotional equilibrium, I always have the feeling that the victim deserves something more passionate, more personal.
I scanned the summary of known facts. It differed from LaManche’s telephone account in only one respect. To date, two hundred and fifteen remnants of flesh and bone had been recovered. The largest weighed eleven pounds.
Ignoring the other forms and a stack of phone messages, I went to find the director.
I’d rarely seen Pierre LaManche in anything but lab-coat white or surgical green. I couldn’t imagine him laughing or wearing plaid. He was somber and kind, and strictly tweed. And the best forensic pathologist I knew.
I spotted him through the rectangle of glass beside his office door. His rangy form was hunched over a desk heaped with papers, journals, books, and a stack of files in all the primary colors. When I tapped he looked up and gestured me in.
The office, like its occupant, smelled faintly of pipe tobacco. LaManche had a manner of moving silently, and sometimes the scent was my first clue to his presence.
“Temperance.” He accented the final syllable and made it rhyme with France. “Thank you so much for returning early. Please, sit down.”
Always the perfect French, with never a contraction or word of slang.
We took places at a small table in front of his desk. On it lay a number of large brown envelopes.
“I know it is too late to begin analysis now, but perhaps you are willing to come in tomorrow?”
The face was army mule long with deep, vertical creases. When he raised his brows in a question, the furrows paralleling his eyes elongated and veered toward the midline.
“Yes. Of course.”
“You might want to begin with the X rays.”
He indicated the envelopes, then swiveled to his desk.
“And here are the scene and autopsy photos.” He handed me a stack of smaller brown envelopes and a videocassette.
“The two bikers carrying the bomb to the Vipers’ clubhouse were pulverized, their remains scattered over an enormous area. A lot of what the recovery team is finding is stuck to walls and caught in bushes and tree branches. Amazingly, the largest fragments retrieved so far have come from the clubhouse roof. One chunk of thorax has a partial tattoo that will be useful for establishing identity.”
“What about the driver?”
“He died in the hospital this morning.”
“The shooter?”
“He is in custody, but these people are never helpful. He will go to jail rather than give anything to the police.”
“Even information about a rival gang?”
“If he talks, he is probably a dead man.”
“Are there still no dentals or prints?”
“Nothing.”
LaManche ran a hand over his face, raised and lowered his shoulders, then laced his fingers in his lap.
“I fear we will never get all the tissue sorted out.”
“Can’t we use DNA?”
“Have you heard the names Ronald and Donald Vaillancourt?”
I shook my head.
“The Vaillancourt brothers, Le Clic and Le Clac. Both are full patch members of the Heathens. One was implicated a few years back in the execution of Claude ‘Le Couteau’ Dubé. I don’t remember which.”
“The police think the Vaillancourts are the victims?”
“Yes.”
The melancholy eyes looked into mine.
“Clic and Clac are identical twins.”
By seven that evening I’d examined everything but the video. Using a magnifier I’d gone over scores of photos showing hundreds of bone fragments and bloody masses of varying shapes and sizes. In shot after shot arrows pointed to red and yellow globs lying in grass, entangled in branches, and flattened against cinder blocks, broken glass, tar-paper roofing, and corrugated metal.
The remains had arrived at the morgue in large black plastic bags, each containing a collection of Ziploc bags. Each bag was numbered and held an assortment of body parts, dirt, fabric, metal, and unidentifiable debris. The autopsy photos moved from the unopened bags, to shots of the small plastic sacks grouped on autopsy tables, to views of the contents sorted by categories.
In the final photos the flesh lay in rows, like meat arranged in a butcher’s case. I spotted pieces of skull, a fragment of tibia, a femoral head, and a portion of scalp with a complete right ear. Some close-ups revealed the jagged edges of shattered bone, others showed hairs, fibers, and scraps of fabric adhering to the flesh. The tattoo LaManche had mentioned was clearly visible on a flap of skin. It depicted three skulls, bony hands covering eyes, ears, and mouths. The irony was priceless. This guy would be seeing, hearing, and saying nothing.
After examining the prints and X rays I’d come to agree with LaManche. I could see bone in the photos, and the radiographs revealed the presence of more. That would allow me to determine the anatomical origin of some tissue. But sorting the jumble of flesh into specific brothers was going to be tough.
Separating commingled bodies is always hard, especially if the remains are badly damaged or incomplete. The process is infinitely more difficult when the dead are of the same gender, age, and race. I’d once spent weeks examining the bones and decomposing flesh of seven male prostitutes excavated from a crawl space beneath their killer’s home. All were white and in their teens. DNA sequencing had been invaluable in determining who was who.
In this case that might not work. If the victims were monozygous twins they had developed from a single egg. Their DNA would be identical.
LaManche was right. It seemed unlikely I’d be able to divide the fragments into separate bodies and attach a name to each.
A gastric growl suggested it was time to quit. Tired and discouraged, I grabbed my purse, zipped my jacket, and headed out.
Back home, the flashing light told me I had a message. I spread my take-out sushi on the table, popped a Diet Coke, and hit the button.
My nephew Kit was driving from Texas to Vermont with his father. Intent on bonding, they were coming north to fish for whatever it is one hooks in inland waters in the spring. Since my cat prefers the space and comfort of a motor home to the efficiency of air travel, Kit and Howie had promised to pick him up at my home in Charlotte and transport him to Montreal. The message was that they and Birdie would arrive the next day.
I dipped a slice of maki roll and popped it in my mouth. I was going for another when the doorbell sounded. Puzzled, I went to the security screen.
The monitor showed Andrew Ryan leaning against the wall in my hallway. He wore faded blue jeans, running shoes, and a bomber jacket over a black T-shirt. At six foot two, with his blue eyes and angular features, he looked like a cross between Cal Ripkin and Indiana Jones.
I looked like Phyllis Diller before her makeover.
Great.
Sighing, I opened the door.
“Hey, Ryan. What’s up?”
“Saw your light and figured you might be back early.”
He gave me an appraising look.
“Rough day?”
“I spent today traveling and sorting flesh,” I said defensively, then tucked my hair behind my ears. “Coming in?”
“Can’t stay.” I noticed he was wearing his pager and gun. “Just thought I’d inquire as to your dinner plans for tomorrow night.”
“I’ll be sorting bomb victims all day tomorrow, so I may be a little zonked.”
“You will have to eat.”
“I will have to eat.”
He placed one hand on my shoulder and twirled a strand of my hair with the other.
“If you’re tired we could skip dinner and just relax,” he said in a low voice.
“Hmm.”
“Broaden our horizons?”
He swept back the hair and brushed his lips across my ear.
Oh yes.
“Sure, Ryan. I’ll wear my thong panties.”
“I always encourage that.”
I gave him my “yeah, right” look.
“Will you spring for Chinese?”
“Chinese is good,” he said, drawing my hair upward and swirling it into a topknot. Then he let it fall and wrapped both arms around my back. Before I could object he pulled me close and kissed me, his tongue teasing the edges of my lips, then gently probing the inside of my mouth.
His lips felt soft, his chest hard against mine. I started to push away, but knew that was not what I wanted to do. Sighing, I relaxed and my body molded to his. The horrors of the day evaporated, and for that moment I was safe from the madness of bombs and murdered children.
Eventually we needed air.
“You’re sure you don’t want to come in?” I asked, stepping back and holding the door open. My knees felt like Jell-O salad.
Ryan looked at his watch.
“I’m sure a half hour won’t matter.”
At that moment his pager sounded. He checked the number.
“Shit.”
Shit.
He rehooked the pager to the waist of his jeans.
“Sorry,” he said, grinning sheepishly. “You know I’d really rath—”
“Go.” Smiling, I placed two palms on his chest and shoved him gently. “I’ll see you tomorrow night. Seven-thirty.”
“Think about me,” he said, as he turned and headed down the hall.
When he’d gone I went back to the sushi, definitely thinking about Andrew Ryan.
Ryan is SQ, a homicide detective, and occasionally we work the same cases. Though he’d been asking for years, only recently had I started seeing him socially. It had taken some self-persuasion, but I’d come around to his point of view. Technically, we didn’t work together, so my “no office romance rule” didn’t apply unless I wanted it to.
Nevertheless, the arrangement made me edgy. After 20 years of marriage, and several as a not-so-swinging single, new relationships just weren’t that easy for me. But I enjoyed Ryan’s company, so I’d decided to give it a whirl. To “date” him, as my sister would say.
Oh, God. Dating.
I had to admit that I found Ryan sexy as hell. Most women did. Wherever we went, I’d notice female eyes checking him out. Wondering, no doubt.
I was wondering, too. But at the moment that ship was still in port, the engines stoked and ready to go. The Jell-O knees had just reconfirmed that. Dinner out was definitely a better idea.
The phone rang as I was clearing the table.
“Mon Dieu, you’re back.” Deep, throaty English with a heavy French accent.
“Hi, Isabelle. What’s up?”
Though I’d known Isabelle Caillé only two years, in that time we’d grown quite close. We’d met during a difficult time in my life. In the space of one bleak summer I was targeted by a violent psychopath, my best friend was murdered, and I was finally forced to face the reality of a failed marriage. In a display of self-indulgence, I had booked a single at a Club Med, and flown off to play tennis and overeat.
I’d met Isabelle on the flight to Nassau, and we were later paired for doubles. We won, discovered we were there for similar reasons, and passed an enjoyable week together. We’d been friends ever since.
“I didn’t expect you until next week. I was going to leave a message about getting together, but since you are home, what about dinner tomorrow?”
I told her about Ryan.
“That one’s a keeper, Tempe. You get tired of that chevalier, you send him over and I’ll give him something to think about. Why are you back early?”
I explained about the bombing.
“Ah, oui. I read about that in La Presse. Is it just terribly gruesome?”
“The victims are not in good shape,” I said.
“Les motards. If you ask me, these outlaw bikers get what they deserve.”
Isabelle never lacked opinions, and was rarely hesitant to share them.
“The police should just let these gangsters blow each other up. Then we wouldn’t have to look at their dirty bodies with filthy tattoos anymore.”
“Hm.”
“I mean, it’s not like they’re murdering babies.”
“No,” I agreed. “It’s not.”
The next morning Emily Anne Toussaint died while walking to her ballet lesson.
HOWARD AND KIT had arrived at seven, left Birdie, and continued on their way. Birdie was ignoring me and checking the condo for canine intruders when I left for the lab at eight to resume work on the bomb victims.
Emily Anne had arrived shortly after noon.
Since I needed space, I’d chosen the large autopsy room. I’d rolled the gurneys with the bomb victim remains to the center of the room and was attempting to construct corpses on two tables. Being Saturday, I had the place to myself.
I had identified and sorted all visible bone fragments. Then, using the X rays, I’d pulled the fragments containing bone, and dissected the tissue to search for landmarks. Wherever I found duplicates I divided them between the tables. Two left pubic tubercles, or mastoid processes, or femoral condyles meant two different individuals.
I’d also spotted evidence of a childhood growth problem in some of the long bone fragments. When health is compromised, a child stops growing and skeletal development goes on hold. Such interruptions are usually caused by disease, or by periods of inadequate diet. When things get better, growth resumes, but the stoppages leave permanent markers.
The X rays were showing opaque lines on numerous splinters of arm and leg bones. The narrow bands ran transversely across the shafts and indicated periods of arrested growth. I placed tissue with affected fragments on one table, and tissue with normal bone on the other.
One of the tangles of shattered flesh contained several hand bones. When I teased them out I spotted two metacarpals with irregular shafts. These lumpy areas showed increased density when X-rayed, suggesting one of the victims had broken these fingers at some time in the past. I set that tissue aside.
Tissue without bone was a different matter. With that I studied the adherent fabric, working backward from the sorted tissue, matching threads and fibers from one table or the other to the pieces of tissue remaining on the gurneys. I thought I could make out a woven plaid, khaki of the kind found in work pants, denim, and white cotton. Later, experts from the hair and fiber section would do a full analysis to see if they could corroborate my matches.
Following lunch and my discussion with LaManche, I went back to the bomb victims. By five-fifteen I’d divided approximately two thirds of the tissue. Without DNA I saw no hope of associating the remaining fragments with specific individuals. I’d done what I could do.
I’d also set a goal for myself.
As I’d waded through the Vaillancourt body parts I’d found it hard to empathize with the persons I was reconstructing. In fact, I felt annoyance at having to do it. These men had been blown up while preparing to blow up others. A rough justice had prevailed, and I felt more bafflement than regret.
Not so with little Emily Anne. She was lying on LaManche’s autopsy table because she’d been walking to dance class. That reality was not acceptable. The death of an innocent child could not be dismissed as an incidental casualty of maniacal warfare.
Vipers could kill Heathens, and Outlaws murder Bandidos. Or Pagans. Or Hells Angels. But they must not kill the innocent. I pledged to myself that I would apply every forensic skill I could muster, and however many hours I was able, to develop evidence to identify and convict these homicidal sociopaths. Children had a right to walk the streets of the city without being cut down by bullets.
I transferred the sorted remains back to the gurneys, rolled them to refrigerated compartments, scrubbed, and changed to street clothes. Then I rode the elevator to search out my boss.
“I want to work this,” I said, my voice calm and steady. “I want to nail these bastard child killers.”
The tired old eyes stared at me for what seemed a very long time. We’d been discussing Emily Anne Toussaint. And the other youngster. A boy.
Olivier Fontaine had been on his way to hockey practice when he pedaled too close to a Jeep Cherokee just as the driver turned the key. The bomb exploded with enough force to blast shrapnel into Olivier’s body, killing him instantly. It happened on his twelfth birthday.
Until seeing Emily Anne I’d forgotten about the Fontaine murder. That incident had taken place in December of 1995 on the West Island, and involved the Hells Angels and the Rock Machine. Olivier’s death had raised a cry of public outrage, which led to the creation of Opération Carcajou, the multiagency task force devoted to the investigation of biker crime.
“Temperance, I can’t—”
“I’ll do whatever is needed. I’ll work on my own time, between cases. If Carcajou is like everyone else they’re probably short-handed. I could do data entry or historic case searches. I could liaison among agencies, maybe work links to intelligence units in the U.S. I cou—”
“Temperance, slow down.” He held up a hand. “This is not something I am in a position to do. I will speak with Monsieur Patineau.”
Stefan Patineau was director of the LSJML. He made final decisions for the crime and medico-legal labs.
“I will not let any involvement with Carcajou interfere with my normal duties.”
“I know that. I promise I will speak with the director first thing Monday morning. Now go home. Bonne fin de semaine.”
I wished him a good weekend, too.
Quebec winters end much differently from those in the Carolina Piedmont. Back home spring slips in gently, and by the end of March and the beginning of April flowers begin to bloom and the air is soft with the warmth of summertime emerging.
Les québécois wait six weeks longer to plant their gardens and window boxes. Much of April is cool and gray, and the streets and sidewalks glisten with melted ice and snow. But when spring appears it does so with breathtaking showmanship. The season explodes, and the populace responds with an enthusiasm unmatched on the planet.