Monday Mourning

Instead of Charbonneau, we saw a scarecrow man in a knee-length sweater, baggy jeans, and dirty blue Nikes. Pigtails wormed from the lower edge of a red bandanna wrapped his head.

The man was crouched in the doorway, pointing a throwaway Kodak in my direction.

Claudel’s V narrowed and his parrot nose went a deeper red. “Tabernac!”

Two more clicks, then bandanna man scrabbled sideways.

Holstering his weapon, Claudel grabbed the wooden railing. “Until SIJ returns, throw rocks.”

SIJ—Section d’Identité Judiciaire. The Quebec equivalent of Crime Scene Recovery.

I watched Claudel’s perfectly fitted buttocks disappear through the small rectangular opening. Though tempted, I pegged not a single rock.

Upstairs, muted voices, the clump of boots. Downstairs, just the hum of the generator for the portable lights.

Breath suspended, I listened to the shadows around me.

No squeaking. No scratching. No scurrying feet.

Quick scan.

No beady eyes. No naked, scaly tails.

The little buggers were probably regrouping for another offensive.

Though I disagreed with Claudel’s approach to the problem, I was with him on one thing: I could do without the rodents.

Satisfied that I was alone for the moment, I refocused on the moldy crate at my feet. Dr. Energy’s Power Tonic. Dead tired? Dr. Energy’s makes your bones want to get up and dance.

Not these bones, Doc.

I gazed at the crate’s grisly contents.

Though most of the skeleton remained caked, dirt had been brushed from some bones. Their outer surfaces looked chestnut under the harsh illumination of the portable lights. A clavicle. Ribs. A pelvis.

A human skull.

Damn.

Though I’d said it a half dozen times, reiteration couldn’t hurt. I’d come from Charlotte to Montreal a day early to prepare for court on Tuesday. A man had been accused of killing and dismembering his wife. I’d be testifying on the saw mark analysis I’d done on her skeleton. It was complicated material and I’d wanted to review my case file. Instead, I was freezing my ass digging up the basement of a pizza parlor.

Pierre LaManche had visited my office early this morning. I’d recognized the look, correctly guessed what was coming as soon as I saw him.

Bones had been found in the cellar of a pizza-by-the-slice joint, my boss had told me. The owner had called the police. The police had called the coroner. The coroner had called the medicolegal lab.

LaManche wanted me to check it out.

“Today?”

“S’il vous plaît.”

“I’m on the stand tomorrow.”

“The Pétit trial?”

I nodded.

“The remains are probably those of animals,” LaManche said in his precise, Parisian French. “It should not take you long.”

“Where?” I reached for a tablet.

LaManche read the address from a paper in his hand. Rue Ste-Catherine, a few blocks east of Centre-ville.

CUM turf.

Claudel.

The thought of working with Claudel had triggered the morning’s first “damn.”

There are some small-town departments around the island city of Montreal, but the two main players in law enforcement are the SQ and the CUM. La Sûreté du Québec is the provincial force. The SQ rules in the boonies, and in towns lacking municipal departments. The Police de la Communauté Urbaine de Montréal, or CUM, are the city cops. The island belongs to the CUM.

Luc Claudel and Michel Charbonneau are detectives with the Major Crimes Division of the CUM. As forensic anthropologist for the province of Quebec, I’ve worked with both over the years. With Charbonneau, the experience is always a pleasure. With his partner, the experience is always an experience. Though a good cop, Luc Claudel has the patience of a firecracker, the sensitivity of Vlad the Impaler, and a persistent skepticism as to the value of forensic anthropology.

Snappy dresser, though.

Dr. Energy’s crate had already been loaded with loose bones when I’d arrived in the basement two hours earlier. Though Claudel had yet to provide many details, I assumed the bone collecting had been done by the owner, perhaps with the assistance of the hapless plumber. My job had been to determine if the remains were human.

They were.

That finding had generated the morning’s second “damn.”

My next task had been to determine whether anyone else lay in repose beneath the surface of the cellar. I’d started with three exploratory techniques.

Side lighting the floor with a flashlight beam had shown depressions in the dirt. Probing had located resistance below each depression, suggesting the presence of subsurface objects. Test trenching had produced human bones.

Bad news for a leisurely review of the Pétit file.

When I’d rendered my opinion, Claudel and Charbonneau had contributed to “damn”s three through five. A few quebecois expletives had been added for emphasis.