KATHY REICHS - 206 BONES

“Made where?”

Ryan referred to the spiral. “An ATM at four-two-five-oh Ontario East.”

“That’s out east, near the Olympic stadium.” Miles from Pointe-Calumet. “Did the sisters have a car?”

“No.”

“Was the transaction caught on video?”

“No. The camera was down for three hours that night.”

I thought a minute. “If LaManche is right about PMI, Anne-Isabelle was already dead by six p.m.”

“Yes.” Tight. “We missed the perp’s photo due to a technical glitch.”

“Did Anne-Isabelle have an account?”

“Both sisters used the same one.”

Ryan drained the last of his beer. For a moment his thumb played over sweat fogging the outside of his mug. When his eyes met mine they were hard with resolve.

“I’m going to get this prick.”

A fleck of foam hung on Ryan’s lip. I fought an urge to wipe it away.

“I know you will,” I said.

By eight a.m. there were sixty-seven centimeters blanketing the ground. Twenty-six inches. On any scale, that’s a lot of snow.

Montreal is a champ at handling storms, but this time the city was brought to its knees. Between crowing about broken records, newscasters reported that only a handful of buses and metros were running. The airport was down. Church services were canceled. Businesses that normally operated on Sunday were closed.

Later it would become clear that most of the populace rose, looked out their windows, and crawled back into bed. God or the boss would understand.

I wasn’t quite so complacent. I wanted to get to the lab to complete my analysis of the Oka bones.

After a breakfast of coffee, Grape-Nuts, and yogurt, I pulled on boots, donned my Kanuk, muffler, and mitts, and headed out, hoping to make it to the underground two blocks away.

No plow had ventured onto my street. No early riser had shoveled the walks. Why bother? The snow was thigh high and still coming down, the flakes tiny now, icy bullets that stung my face and bounced off my jacket.

On Sainte-Catherine, vehicles lining the curbs looked like lumpy white hedgerows. No buses. No cars. No pigeons. No people. Nothing moved. The hood was as deserted as Times Square in Vanilla Sky .

I arrived at the metro panting and perspiring inside my parka. A handwritten sign was taped to the grimy glass of the ticket booth.

Coupure de courant non programmée. Problème électrique . Unscheduled outage. Electrical problem. Below the words, the author had drawn a smiley face with a downturned mouth.

“Picture friggin’ perfect.” I was talking to myself again.

Fifteen minutes later, I was back at my building. As I turned into the corridor leading to my condo, I noticed a ziplock tucked behind the door knob.

Pulling off a mitt, I dislodged and checked the contents of the bag. Five small blobs, dry, crumbly, dark brown-black.

I unsealed the plastic and sniffed.

Excrement.

“Asshole!” The word echoed down the empty hall.

My neighbor Sparky had pulled this before. Once it was soiled litter, once a dead sparrow.

I definitely needed to vent.

After flushing the turds, I dialed my sister, Harry, in Houston.

I told her about Sparky’s latest stunt.

She repeated my expletive, adding a modifier.

I told her about the snow.

“Doesn’t ole blue eyes have a Jeep?”

“I can’t crawl to Ryan every time I have a problem.”

“Jeeps run in snow.”

“So do Ski-Doos, but I’m not phoning Snowmobile Patrol.”

“Is that a real thing?”

“Whatever. What are you doing?”

“Weeding my garden. It’s so hot here the trees are bribing the dogs. Got to get at it early.”

That made me feel worse. I said nothing.

“What else is new?” Harry asked.

I told her about Chicago, Cukura Kundze, and Ryan’s sudden appearance at Vecamamma’s house. Then I described the mysterious phone call to the late Edward Allen Jurmain.

“What kind of dipshit would pull something like that?”

“I intend to find out. It has to be somebody very nearby.”

“That why your knickers are in a twist to work on a Sunday?”

Mentioning no names, I told her about the Villejoin sisters. She didn’t interrupt. My sister can be impetuous, at times aggravating, but she’s a crackerjack listener.

When I finished, Harry took a moment to respond.

“Gran was eighty-one when she died.”

“She was.”

“You working this thing with Ryan?”

“Yes.”

“When you catch the bastard, do me a favor?”

I waited.

“Fry his balls.”

I couldn’t disagree with baby sister’s suggestion.

MONDAY I AWOKE TO THE SOUND OF PLOWS BLASTING TRIPTYCH warnings to overnight parkers.

Wreep! Wreep! Wreep!

Déplacez votre voiture! Move your car! Move your ass!

Though the media were reporting that most main arteries were clear, through a side window I could see that my block still looked like a postcard from Finland. I knew the same scene was playing on side streets and alleys all over town. Shovels would be flying, and those who’d failed to relocate their vehicles would now do so only after heavy-duty lifting. Hospital ERs would be hopping.

Knowing traffic would be brutal and parking would involve angling ass-end into waist-high snowbanks, I opted for mass transit. Today my Nanook trek paid off. I rode standing shoulder to armpit with commuters smelling of wet wool and sweat.

At Édifice Wilfrid-Derome, small white mountains hid the fences surrounding the parking lots. Cars were wedged into every square millimeter of cleared pavement. Those blocking others had notes below their wipers. Courtesy? Or excuses to leave early?

Elevator talk was all about the storm. La tempête de neige .

Upstairs at the LSJML it was business as usual. Except in the medico-legal section. There, nothing had been usual since LaManche dropped his bomb one sparkling Friday in September.

Blocked coronary vessels. Bypass surgery in October. Medical leave until the new year.

In addition to myself and LaManche, the three other pathologists had been present that day. Michael Morin. Natalie Ayers. Emily Santangelo. So was Marc Bergeron, the lab’s consulting odontologist. We’d all sat stunned.

Sure, the chief had suffered a pesky episode a few years back. But he’d recovered quickly. Once again arrived first each morning, turned the lights off at night. Triple bypasses were for frail, old men. LaManche was only fifty-eight.

I remember meeting LaManche’s hound dog gaze. Dropping my eyes. Glancing out the window. This can’t be real, I thought. The day is too beautiful. Irrational, but that’s what I thought.

The following week, LaManche raised the issue of a temporary replacement. The decision was quick and unanimous. Ours was a congenial unit. There’d be no stand-in. Until the boss returned the pathologists would assign cases and make administrative decisions by consensus. The extra workload would be equally shared.

And that’s how it was working, three months down the road.

Sort of.

After shedding my substantial outerwear, I snapped on a lab coat and headed to the staff lounge. At the exit from our wing, where the hall makes a turn, I passed a closed and locked door. Venetian blinds allowed a peek of an empty desk.

Beside the dark office, an erasable board announced daily staff whereabouts. Congé de maladie was scribbled in the box beside LaManche’s name. Sick leave.

A lead weight settled in my heart.

The surgery went well. He’ll be fine .

Still, the silent office and the Magic Marker entry gave me shivers.

LaManche had always been there for me, a voice of wisdom and reason. Of compassion and perspective earned by decades of working with the dead and with the bereaved left behind. That voice was now banished because of bum piping.