Grave Secrets

Katy was a fifth-year undergraduate at the University of Virginia. Though bright, witty, attractive, and blonde, my daughter was uncertain what life was offering her, and had yet to settle on a game plan.

What wasn’t life offering her? I agreed with my estranged husband on this one.

“What were you looking at?” I asked, shifting gears to ooze forward seventeen inches.

“The effects of Cheez Whiz on rat memory.”

Katy’s current major was psychology.

“And?”

“They love the stuff.”

“Did you enroll for next term?”

“Yep.”

“Home stretch?” Pete and I were bankrolling our daughter twelve semesters to allow her to discover the meaning of life.

“Yep.”

“Are you at your dad’s place?”

“Actually, I’m at yours.”

“Oh?” Katy usually preferred her childhood home to my tiny townhouse.

“Boyd’s with me. Hope that’s O.K.”

“Sure. Where’s Birdie?”

I leapt forward two yards.

“On my lap. Your cat’s not crazy about Boyd.”

“No.”

“He stays permanently fluffed.”

“Is your dad out of town?”

“Yeah, but they’re coming back today.”

They?

“Oops.”

“It’s O.K.”

“He’s got a new girlfriend.”

“That’s nice.”

“I think her bra size exceeds her IQ.”

“She can’t help that.”

“She doesn’t like dogs.”

“She can help that.”

“Where are you?”

“Montreal.”

“Are you in a car?”

“Flashing along at the speed of light.”

I was now rolling at twelve miles per hour.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

I told her.

“Why not use the real skull?”

I told her about Díaz and Lucas and the purloined skeleton.

“I had a sociology professor named Lucas. Richard Lucas.”

“This one’s a Hector.”

I knew what was coming as soon as I said it. Katy adored one nursery rhyme the entire year she was four. She recited it now in a singsong voice.

Hector Protector was dressed all in green;

Hector Protector was sent to the queen…

“Hector dissector should be hung by his spleen,” I cut in.

“That’s bad.”

“It’s a first draft.”

“Don’t do a second. Poetry shouldn’t be made to suffer because you’re frustrated.”

“Hector Protector is not Coleridge.”

“When will you be back in Charlotte, Mom?”

“I’m not sure. I want to finish what I started in Guatemala.”

“Good luck.”

“Got a summer job yet?”

“I’m working on it.”

“Good luck.”

Gagné called as I was turning into my driveway.

“We’ve got a match.”

His words made no sense.

“What are you talking about?”

I dived toward the underground garage.

“We’re just bringing our mitochondrial technology online, so I decided to play around with that. Thought we might have better luck if the septic tank sample was badly degraded.”

I depressed the button on my remote. The door rattled, rose. As I pulled into the garage, Gagné’s voice grew distant, began cutting in and out.

“Two of your samples match.”

“But I only gave you one.”

“There were four samples in the package.” I heard paper rustle.

“Paraíso, Specter, Eduardo, Gerardi.”

Minos must have misunderstood my request. When I’d asked for hair, I meant that taken from the septic tank jeans. He’d included samples from all four cats.

I could hardly get the question out.

“Which samples match, M. Gagné?”

Behind me, the garage door clicked, began chugging downward.

Gagné’s answer was garbled. I strained to make out his words. My handset gave a series of beeps.

I was listening to silence.

19

SLINGING MY LAPTOP AND BRIEFCASE OVER MY SHOULDERS, I grabbed the package containing Susanne’s cast and hurried to the elevator. The doors were barely open when I shot out.

And slammed into Andrew Ryan.

“Whoa, whoa. Where’s the fire?”

As usual, my first reaction was irritation.

“Nice cliché.”

“I do my best. What’s in the box?”

I moved to circle him, but he stepped left, blocking my path. At that moment, a neighbor entered the lobby through the front door.

“Bonjour.” The old man touched cane to cap, nodded to Ryan, then to me.

“Bonjour, Monsieur Gravel,” I said.

M. Gravel shuffled to the mailboxes.

I stepped left. Ryan stepped right. Susanne’s box filled the space between our chests.

I heard a mailbox open, shut, then a walking stick tap across marble.

“I have to make a phone call, Ryan.”

“What’s in the carton?”

“The head from the septic tank.”

The walking stick stopped dead.

Ryan laid both hands on the box.

“Please, please don’t do this,” he pleaded in a loud, warbly voice.

M. Gravel inhaled so sharply it sounded like a backfire.

I glared at Ryan.

Ryan smiled at me, his back to my neighbor.

“Follow me,” I said, lips barely moving.

Heading toward my hallway, I heard Ryan turn, and knew he was winking at M. Gravel. The irritation escalated.

Inside my condo, I set everything on the table and picked up the portable.

“Gagné just phoned with DNA results on feline hair I brought from Guatemala.”

“It’s Krazy Kat.”

“He’s found a match between two of the four samples.”

“What four samples?”

I explained how Minos had packaged hair from the Specter, Eduardo, and Gerardi homes, along with some that I’d taken from the Paraíso jeans. Then I hit speakerphone and punched in the lab number.