KATHY REICHS: DEJA DEAD

?Okay.? He hopped backward, pivoted, and disappeared down the hall.

I flipped the goggles onto the counter, withdrew a white paper sheet from a drawer below the side counter, unfolded it, and covered the body. After washing my hands I returned to my office on the fifth floor, changed into street clothes, and went out for lunch. This was rare for me, but today I needed the sunshine.

Claudel was true to his word. When I returned at one-thirty he was already in my office. He sat opposite my desk, his attention focused on the reconstructed skull on my worktable. He turned his head when he heard me, but said nothing. I hung my coat on the back of the door and moved past him and into my chair.

? Bonjour , Monsieur Claudel. Comment #231;a va? ? I smiled at him across my desk.

? Bonjour .? Apparently, he was uninterested in how I was doing. Okay. I waited. I would not succumb to his charm.

A folder lay on the desk in front of him. He placed his hand on it and looked at me. His face brought to mind a parrot. The features angled sharply from his ears to the midline, plunging forward into a beaklike nose. Along this apex his chin, his mouth, and the tip of his nose pointed downward in a series of V?s. When he smiled, which was rare, the V of his mouth sharpened, and the lips drew in, rather than back.

He sighed. He was being very patient with me. I hadn?t worked with Claudel before, but knew his reputation. He thought himself an exceptionally intelligent man.

?I have several names,? he said. ?Possibles. They all disappeared within the last six months.?

We?d already discussed the question of time since death. My morning?s work hadn?t changed my mind. I was certain she?d been dead less than three months. That would place the murder in March or later. Winters are cold in Quebec, hard on the living but kind to the dead. Frozen bodies do not decay. Nor do they attract bugs. Had she been dumped last fall, before the onset of winter, there would?ve been signs of insect infestation. The presence of casings or larvae would?ve indicated an aborted fall invasion. There were none. Given that it had been a warm spring, the abundance of maggots and the degree of deterioration were consistent with an interval of three months or less. The presence of connective tissue along with the virtual absence of viscera and brain matter also suggested a late winter, early spring death.

I leaned back and looked at him expectantly. I could be cagey too. He opened the folder and thumbed through its contents. I waited.

Selecting one of the forms, he read, ?Myriam Weider.? There was a pause as he sifted through the information on the form. ?Disappeared April 4, 1994.? Pause. ?Female. White.? Long pause. ?Date of birth 9/6/48.?

We both calculated mentally-forty-five years old.

?Possible,? I said, gesturing with my hand for him to go on.

He laid the form on the desk and read from the next. ?Solange Leger. Reported missing by the husband,? he paused, straining to make out the date, ?May 2, 1994. Female. White. Date of birth 8/17/28.?

?No.? I shook my head. ?Too old.?

He placed the form at the back of the folder and selected another. ?Isabelle Gagnon. Last seen April 1, 1994. Female. White. Date of birth 1/15/71.?

?Twenty-three. Yeah.? I nodded slowly. ?Possible.? It went on the desk.

?Suzanne St. Pierre. Female. Missing since March 9, 1994.? His lips moved as he read. ?Failed to return from school.? He paused, calculating on his own. ?Age sixteen. Jesus Christ.?

Again I shook my head. ?She?s too young. This isn?t a kid.?

He frowned, pulling out the last form. ?Evelyn Fontaine. Female. Age thirty-six. Last seen in Sept #206;les on March 28. Oh yeah. She?s an Innu.?

?Doubtful,? I said. I didn?t think the remains were those of an Indian.

?That?s it,? he said. There were two forms on the desk. Myriam Weider, age forty-five, and Isabelle Gagnon, age twenty-three. Maybe one of them was lying downstairs in room 4. Claudel looked at me. His eyebrows rose in the middle forming yet another V, this one inverted.

?How old was she?? he asked, emphasizing the verb and his long-suffering patience.

?Let?s go downstairs and see.? That?ll bring a little sunshine into your day, I thought.

It was petty but I couldn?t help it. I knew Claudel?s reputation for avoiding the autopsy room, and I wanted to discomfort him. For a moment he looked trapped. I enjoyed his unease. Grabbing a lab coat from the hook on the door, I hurried down the hall and inserted my key for the elevator. He was silent as we descended. He looked like a man on the way to a prostate exam. Claudel rarely rode this elevator. It stopped only at the morgue.

The body lay undisturbed. I gloved and removed the white sheet. From the corner of my eye I could see Claudel framed in the doorway. He?d entered the room just far enough to be able to say he?d been there. His eyes wandered over the steel countertops, the glass-fronted cabinets with their stock of clear plastic containers, the hanging scale, everything but the body. I?d seen it before. Photographs were no threat. The blood and gore were somewhere else. Distant. The murder scene was a clinical exercise. No problem. Dissect it, study it, solve the puzzle. But place a body on an autopsy table and it was a different matter. Claudel had put his face in neutral, hoping to look calm.

I removed the pubic bones from the water and gently pried them apart. Using a probe, I teased around the edges of the gelatinous sheath that covered the right pubic face. Gradually it loosened its hold and came away. The underlying bone was marked with deep furrows and ridges coursing horizontally across its surface. A sliver of solid bone partially framed the outer margin, forming a delicate and incomplete rim around the pubic face. I repeated the process on the left. It was identical.

Claudel hadn?t moved from the doorway. I carried the pelvis to the Luxolamp, pulled the extensor arm toward me, and pressed the switch. Fluorescent light illuminated the bone. Through the round magnifying glass, details appeared that hadn?t been apparent to the naked eye. I looked at the uppermost curve of each hipbone and saw what I?d been expecting.

?Monsieur Claudel,? I said without looking up. ?Look at this.?

He came up behind me, and I moved over to allow him an unobstructed view. I pointed to an irregularity on the upper border of the hip. The iliac crest was in the process of attaching itself when death had occurred.

I set the pelvis down. He continued looking at it, but didn?t touch it. I returned to the body to examine the clavicle, certain of what I?d find. I withdrew the sternal end from the water and began to tease away the tissue. When I could see the joint surface I gestured for Claudel to join me. Wordlessly I pointed to the end of the bone. Its surface was billowy, like the pubic face. A small disk of bone clung to the center, its edges distinct and unfused.

?So?? Sweat beaded his forehead. He was hiding his nervousness with bravado.

?She?s young. Probably early twenties.?

I could have explained how bone reveals age, but I didn?t think he?d be a good listener, so I just waited. Particles of cartilage clung to my gloved hands, and I held them away from my body, palms up, like a panhandler. Claudel kept the same distance he would with an Ebola patient. His eyes stayed on me, but their focus shifted to thoughts inside his head as he ran through the data, looking for a match.

?Gagnon.? It was a statement, not a question.

I nodded. Isabelle Gagnon. Age twenty-three.

?I?ll have the coroner request dental records,? he said.

I nodded again. He seemed to bring it out in me.

?Cause of death?? he asked.

?Nothing apparent,? I said. ?I may know more when I see the X rays. Or I may see something on the bones when they?re cleaned.?