Grave Secrets

AS ON THE MORNING AFTER THE ATTACK IN SOLOLÁ, I AWOKE with an ill-formed feeling of dread. In an instant the scene flooded back to me. I relived the explosion of Nordstern’s chest. Heard the crack of Ryan’s gun. Saw the shooter’s inert body, his blood oozing across the pavement. Though I’d been given no official word, I was certain both men were dead.

I rubbed my hands up and down on my face, then closed my eyes and pulled the blanket over my head. Would there be no end to the killing?

In my mind’s eye I saw Chantale, cheeks streaked with tears, body rigid with terror. A shiver ran through me as I thought of how close she and I had come to being injured or killed. How could I ever have told her mother?

I imagined how devastated Katy would be should someone deliver news of my death. Thank God that would not be necessary.

I remembered Nordstern in Guatemala City, and in the bar at Jillian’s minutes before his death. I felt a wave of remorse. I had disliked the man, had not been kind to him. But I’d never imagined him dead.

Dead.

Jesus! What had Nordstern discovered? What was so big that it had gotten him blasted on a Montreal street?

My thoughts circled back to Chantale. What impact would these events have on her? There were so many directions a troubled adolescent could take. Repentance? Flight? Escape through drugs?

Though tough on the outside, I suspected Chantale had an interior as fragile as a butterfly wing. Vowing I would stand by her, appreciated or not, I flung back the covers and headed for the shower.

The summer that had dropped in so unexpectedly had bolted during the night. I exited my garage to a steady drizzle and temperatures in the forties. C’est la vie québécoise.

The morning staff meeting was mercifully short and produced no anthropology cases. I spent the next hour cutting segments of eraser to proper lengths and gluing them to Susanne’s replica of the Paraíso skull. Except for some shine and subtle layering, her model looked exactly like the real thing.

By 10 A.M. I was seated at a monitor in Imagerie, the section responsible for photography and computer imaging. Lucien, our graphics guru, was positioning the Paraíso model before a video camera when Ryan entered.

“What’s sticking out all over that skull?”

“Tissue depth markers.”

“Of course.”

“Each marker shows how much flesh there was at a specific point on the face or skull,’’ Lucien piped up. “Dr. Brennan cut them using standards for a Mongoloid female. Right?”

I nodded.

“We’ve done gobs of facial reproductions like this.” He adjusted a light. “Though this is the first with a plastic skull.”

Gobs?

“Let me guess. The camera captures the image, sends it to the PC, and you connect the dots.”

Ryan had a way of making complex things sound kindergarten simple.

“There’s a bit more to it than that. But, yes, once I’ve drawn facial contours using the markers, I’ll choose features from the program’s database, find the best fit, and paste them in.”

“This the technique you used for one of the Inner Life Empowerment bodies?”

Ryan referred to a case he and I had worked several years back. A number of McGill students were recruited into a fringe sect led by a sociopath with delusions of immortality. When a skeleton turned up in a shallow grave near the group’s South Carolina commune, Lucien and I did a sketch to establish that the remains were those of a missing coed.

“Yes. What’s up with Chantale?”

“The judge agreed to give her another chance at home detention.”

Last evening, while Ryan stayed to explain the shooting, I’d taken Chantale home. This morning he’d done a follow-up to be sure she was still there.

“Think Mommy will keep a closer watch?” I asked.

“I suspect Manuel Noriega enjoys more freedom than Chantale can hope for in the near future.”

“She was pretty subdued last night,” I said.

“The fuck-off-and-leave-me-alone demeanor has definitely lightened.”

“How are you doing?” I asked, noticing the tension in his face.

In Montreal, an internal investigation is mandated following every police shooting. To maintain impartiality, the CUM homicide section looks into shootings by SQ officers, and the SQ investigates incidents involving the CUM. As I was leaving with Chantale, I saw Ryan hand his gun to a CUM cop.

Ryan shrugged. “Two DOAs. One was mine.”

“It was a good shoot, Ryan. They know that.”

“I turned Ste-Catherine into the O.K. Corral.”

“The guy killed Nordstern and was about to take a hostage.”

“Have you been called?”

“Not yet.”

“Something to look forward to.”

“I’ll tell them exactly what went down. Have you got an ID on the shooter?”

“Carlos Vicente. Held a Guatemalan passport.”

“The moron carried his passport to a hit?”

Ryan shook his head. “A key from the Days Inn on Guy. We tossed the room, found the passport in a carry-on bag.”

“Doesn’t sound like a pro.”

“We also found two thousand U.S. dollars and an airline ticket to Phoenix.”

“Anything else?”

“Dirty shorts.”

I gave him the look.