KATHY REICHS - 206 BONES

Whatever.

The hot water and full belly acted like an opiate, drugging me into a state of total lethargy.

Avoiding my sweat-stained bed, I got a quilt, lit Ryan’s fire, and stretched out on the couch. Birdie joined me.

I stroked his fur. He purred on my chest.

I closed my eyes, feeling drained of the ability to move. To read. To watch TV. To think.

I awoke to the sound of a ringing phone. Bird was gone. The windows were dark and the fire was nothing but embers.

Retrieving the handset, I clicked on.

“I didn’t see you today or yesterday.” Emily Santangelo.

“Food poisoning. I’ll spare you the details.”

“You OK now?”

“I’ll live.” My eyes drifted to the mantel clock. Four forty-five. “Beware vending machine sandwiches.”

“You actually ate one?”

“Not the crusts.”

Pause.

“Did you see Briel’s interview Wednesday night?”

“A thing of beauty.”

Longer pause.

“We need to talk.”

My instincts sat up. Emily Santangelo was a reserved, almost reclusive woman, not one for office gossip or girlie exchanges.

“Sure,” I said.

“You feel up to dinner, maybe something light? Chicken soup? I could bring it to you.”

“I’ll need to disinfect this place before anyone enters.” I was thinking flamethrower. “How about meeting at Pho Nguyen on Saint-Mathieu?”

“Vietnamese?”

“They make great soup.”

“That works. I can be there by six thirty.”

“I won’t look good.”

“I won’t call the press.”

There was a subtle muffling of ambient noise, as though Santangelo had cupped the mouthpiece.

“Something’s very wrong.” Almost a whisper.

“Wrong?” I asked.

“See you soon.”

The line went dead.

DÉCOR IS NOT A PRIORITY AT PHO NGUYEN. TWO STEPS DOWN from the sidewalk, the place has a white tile floor, white walls, and maybe a dozen Formica-topped tables. White.

But the soupe Tonkinoise kicks ass.

Santangelo was there when I arrived, seated in a back corner, perusing the menu. She smiled on seeing me. Waved.

“This cold will either cure or kill me.” I pulled off my muffler and gloves and unzipped my parka. “Glad you called. I needed some fresh air.”

“You walked?”

“It’s not far.” Pho Nguyen’s other attraction is that it’s only blocks from my condo.

Stuffing my accessories into a sleeve, I hung the jacket on the chair back. An Asian kid approached as soon as I sat. His cheekbones were high, his hair thick and black, with one platinum streak in front. A gold earring looped his right brow.

“I’ll have a number six, medium.”

“What’s that?” Santangelo asked.

“Pho bo. Beef noodle soup.”

“The same for me.” Santangelo tucked the menu back into its holder.

The kid crossed to the front counter and bellowed our order into the kitchen.

“I’m not what you’d call an adventurous eater,” Santangelo said.

“You’ll like this.”

The kid returned with small plates piled with basil, lime, and sprouts.

Santangelo shot me a quizzical look.

“I’ll talk you through it,” I said.

I brought Santangelo up to date on the Keiser and Villejoin investigations. On Ayers’s distress over missing a bullet track. Fully engaged in transitioning to the coroner’s office, she’d not kept current. When the soup arrived, we focused on adding hot sauce, soy sauce, and the fresh embellishments.

We’d been slurping and twirling for a while when Santangelo finally got to the subject on her mind.

“Do you know the real reason I’m leaving the lab?”

“No.”

“The atmosphere has gone rancid. It’s Briel.” Santangelo practically spit the name. “She’s poison.”

Like Ryan, I used silence, allowing her to go on. She did. Big-time.

“The woman is ambitious to the point of ruthlessness. She’s everywhere, has a finger in every pie. She’s in the autopsy room at all hours of the night. Teaches a university course. Has a research grant. Plans to present papers at about a zillion scientific conferences. She’s a callous, unfeeling, coldhearted climber.”

“Don’t hold back.”

“It isn’t funny, Tempe. Briel is determined to be a superstar and she doesn’t care who she destroys on her march to glory. Did you know she fired her graduate student today? Had the girl in tears.”

“Duclos?”

Santangelo nodded.

“Why?”

“Probably because the kid has warm blood in her veins.”

“Why doesn’t someone rein Briel in?”

“She has the other pathologists cowed and the chief coroner eating out of her hand.”

Santangelo toyed with her soup using the little china spoon. Set it down. Picked up her chopsticks. Dropped them. Pushed her bowl toward the center of the table.

“You said you watched Briel’s interview Wednesday night?”

“Yes.”

“You heard her plug this Body Find outfit? Corps découvert? It’s her husband’s company.”

“You’re kidding.” I couldn’t keep the shock from my voice.

“I heard her talking about it with Joe Bonnet. She and her husband are going to be the next Mulder and Scully.” Santangelo’s voice was coated with disdain.

“Who’s she married to?”

“Sebastien Raines. An archaeologist.”

That surprised me. I thought I knew all the archaeologists in Montreal, at least by name.

“Is Raines on faculty with one of the universities?”

Santangelo shook her head. “He does cultural resource management.”

Typically, CRM archaeologists work for governments and for businesses that must, by law, save archaeological resources threatened by development. Some do the archaeological portions of environmental impact studies. Some direct salvage digs.

Although many private sector archaeologists are very good surveyors and excavators, academics view them as a whole as second-rate. Why? They work on short contracts and rarely publish. Many are employed by companies that prefer nothing be found that would delay their projects. Rightly or wrongly, those at universities see opportunity for corruption in CRM work.

“Where did Raines train?”

“No clue.”

“How does he figure into Briel’s Mulder-and-Scully scenario?”

“Briel and Raines are starting this company, Body Find. Corps découvert. When everything is in place they plan to hawk it as one-stop shopping for law enforcement. Archaeology, anthropology, pathology, psychology, entomology, botany, geophysics, cadaver dogs, remote sensing. They’ll find your body, ID it, determine PMI, cause of death. You’ll only need a lab for complex testing like mass spectrometry or DNA sequencing. They’ll even provide expertise in underground mine safety, mapping, ingress-egress methods. You name it, Body Find will be there for you! Better, quicker, cheaper!”

“Such companies already exist,” I said. “NecroSearch International, for example. They do fantastic work. Although NecroSearch limits itself largely to victim location.”

“There’s one other big difference. NecroSearch is a nonprofit. Every team member is a volunteer. Body Find’s objective will be to make bucks.”

“Privatized forensics?”

Santangelo nodded. “And Briel is doing everything she can right now to raise her profile. When it’s time to launch the business, she wants to trade on her status as the Canadian Idol of crime solving.”

“Including anthropology,” I said, seeing the implication.

“Yeah. Imagine that.”

I stared at Santangelo. She stared back. Around us, china clinked and conversation hummed.

The waiter approached. Feeling tension, he left the check and quietly slipped away.