KATHY REICHS: DEJA DEAD

?What about Tanguay??

Ryan shook his head and expelled a long breath. ?Looks like he?s just another citizen with a seriously impaired approach to sex.?

I stopped sorting socks and looked at him.

?He?s mainline fruitcake, but probably harmless.?

?Meaning??

?He was a biology teacher. Collected roadkill, boiled the carcasses down and mounted the skeletons. He was building a display for his classroom.?

?The paws??

?Dried them for a vertebrate paw collection.?

?Did he kill Alsa??

?He claims he found her dead on the street near UQAM and brought her home for the collection. He?d just cut her up when he read the article in the Gazette . Scared him, so he stuffed her in a bag and left her at the bus station. We?ll probably never know how she got out of the lab.?

?Tanguay is Julie?s client, isn?t he??

?None other. Gets his jolt by hiring a hooker to dress in Mama?s nightie. And . . .?

He hesitated.

?And??

?You ready for this? Tanguay was dummy man.?

?No. The bedroom burglar??

?You got it. That?s why his butt was sucked right up his throat when we were questioning him. He thought we?d hauled him on that. The dumb little bastard came out with it all by himself. Apparently, when he couldn?t score on the street, he?d use plan B.?

?Break in and crank up on someone else?s jammies.?

?You?ve got it. Better than bowling.?

There was something else that had been bothering me.

?The phone calls??

?Plan C. Phone a woman, hang up, feel your genitals twinkle. Typical peeper stuff. He had a list of numbers.?

?Any theories on how he got mine??

?Probably lifted it from Gabby. He was peeping her.?

?The picture I found in my wastebasket??

?Tanguay. He?s into aboriginal art. It was a copy of something he saw in a book. Did it to give to Gabby. Wanted to ask her not to cut him out of the project.?

I looked at Ryan. ?Pretty ironic. She thought she had a stalker when she actually had two.?

I felt my eyes well with tears. The emotional scar tissue was forming, but was still embryonic. It would take time until I could think of her.

Ryan rose and stretched. ?Where?s Katy?? he asked, changing the subject.

?Gone for suntan lotion.? I pulled the drawstring on the duffel and dropped it to the floor.

?How?s she doing??

?She seems fine. Looks after me like a private duty nurse.?

Unconsciously, I scratched at the stitches in my neck.

?But it may trouble her more than she lets on. She knows about violence, but it?s evening news violence, in South L.A. and Tel Aviv and Sarajevo. It?s always been something that happens to other people. Pete and I purposely sheltered her from what I do, kept Katy apart from my work. Now it?s real and close and personal. She?s had her world tipped, but she?ll come around.?

?And you??

?I?m fine. Really.?

We stood in silence and studied each other. Then he reached for his jacket and folded it over his arm.

?Going to a beach?? His affected indifference was not quite convincing.

?Every one we can find. We?ve dubbed it ?The Great Sand and Surf Quest.? First Ogonquit, then a swing down the coast. Cape Cod. Rehobeth. Cape May. Virginia Beach. Our only plan is to be at Nags Head on the fifteenth.?

Pete had arranged that. He planned to be there.

Ryan placed a hand on my shoulder. His eyes spoke of more than professional interest.

?Are you coming back??

I?d been asking myself all week. Am I? To what? The work? Could I go through this again with yet another twisted psychopath? To Quebec? Could I bear to let Claudel carve me up and serve me to some hearing commission? What about my marriage? That wasn?t in Quebec. What would I do about Pete? What would I feel when I saw him?

I?d made only one decision: I wouldn?t think about it for now. I?d vowed to put tomorrow?s uncertainties aside and leave my time with Katy unblemished.

?Of course,? I said. ?I?ll have to finish my reports, then testify.?

?Yeah.?

A tense silence. We both knew it was a non-answer.

He cleared his throat and reached into his jacket pocket.

?Claudel asked me to give this to you.?

He held out a brown envelope with the CUM logo on the upper left-hand corner.

?Great.?

I stuck it in my pocket and followed him to the door. Not now.

?Ryan.?

He turned.

?Can you do this day after day, year after year, and not lose faith in the human species??

He didn?t answer right away, seemed to focus on a point in space between us. Then his eyes met mine.

?From time to time the human species spawns predators that feed on those around them. They?re not the species. They?re mutations of the species. In my opinion these freaks have no right to suck oxygen from the atmosphere. But they?re here, so I help cage them up and put them where they can?t hurt others. I make life safer for the folks who get up, go to work each day, raise their kids or their tomatoes, or their tropical fish, and watch the ball game in the evening. They are the human species.?

I watched him walk away, admiring once again the way he filled his 501?s. And brains, too, I thought as I closed the door. Maybe, I said to myself, smiling. May, by God, be.

Later that evening Katy and I went for ice cream, then drove up the mountain. Sitting on my favorite overlook we could see the whole valley, the St. Lawrence a black cutout in the distance, Montreal a twinkling panorama spreading from its edges.

I looked down from my bench, like a passenger on Mr. Toad?s Wild Ride. But the ride was finally over. Perhaps I?d come to say good-bye.

I finished my cone and jammed the napkin in my pocket. My hand touched Claudel?s envelope.

Hell, why not.

I opened it and withdrew a handwritten note. Odd. It was not the formal complaint I?d expected. The message was written in English.

Dr. Brennan ,

You are right. No one should die in anonymity. Thanks to you, these women did not. Thanks to you, Leo Fortier?s killing days are over .

We are the last line of defense against them: the pimps, the rapists, the cold-blooded killers. I would be honored to work with you again .

Luc Claudel

Higher up the mountain, the cross glowed softly, sending its message out over the valley. What was it Kojak said? Somebody loves ya, baby.

Ryan and Claudel had it figured. And we were the last line.

I looked at the city below. Hang in there. Somebody loves ya.

? #192; la prochaine ,? I said to the summer night.

?What?s that?? asked Katy.

??Until the next time.??

My daughter looked puzzled.

?Let?s go to the beach.?

Kathy Reichs is a professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and serves as Forensic Anthropologist to the State of North Carolina and to the Province of Quebec. Her previous books have focused on forensic anthropology and fossil humans. D #233;j #224; Dead is her first work of fiction. She divides her time between Montreal and Charlotte.