KATHY REICHS - 206 BONES

Googling the name Marie-Andréa Briel generated an astonishing number of links. In addition to numerous online papers and blogs, Briel had coauthored articles for the Journal of Forensic Sciences , the American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology , and a number of Canadian and British journals. All with the first sacked student assistant. All in the past year.

Briel had given dozens of interviews in both French and English. She’d served on panels directed at student career networking. She was listed among the faculty of the Department of Pathology at Laval University, and on a dozen sites hawking biomedical experts. She’d joined every forensic society in the free world.

As I followed loops into loops, I was aware of Joe moving around in the lab, logging tissue samples, shooting photos, entering data into the system. Of Jean Leloup, Isabelle Boulay, Daniel Bélanger, and, of course, Céline crooning from the radio.

In all the cyber bytes tilled, I turned up nothing predating Briel’s arrival in Quebec. No biography. No résumé. No mention of past employment or educational background.

When I finally peeled my eyes from the screen, I noticed a figure behind me. I turned.

Joe’s arms were crossed on his torso.

“I’m sorry. Did you say something?” I was surprised to see him there.

“The dental X-rays. Lac Saint-Jean. They were OK?”

“Yes.” Had I not thanked him? “Thanks. They were fine.”

I hesitated, debating whether to share my revised take on the vics. Why not? It might appease him, make him feel part of the breakthrough.

Joe listened to my new theory, face utterly blank.

“What about the staining?” he asked.

“An excellent question,” I said. “For which I will find an answer.”

“Do you-”

The phone rang.

I swiveled, hoping it was Chris Corcoran. It was.

“Something breaking? You sounded revved.”

“Thanks for calling back so fast. When I was in Chicago last December you described a homicide in which a single bullet shot straight down the victim’s back, remember?”

“Damndest thing. The trajectory followed the alignment of the muscle fibers, completely masking the presence of the track. I did an informal survey. No one had seen anything similar. The case was so freaky, I wrote it up for the JFS , got a revise and resubmit. I still haven’t gotten to the cuts the reviewers suggested. Want a copy?”

“Can you fax it to me now?”

“Sure.”

I gave Chris the number, then hurried to reception. Minutes later his article came clicking in.

An Unusual Gunshot Death Involving Longitudinal Tracking Through a Single Erector Mass .

Twenty-four pages. I agreed with the reviewers. Overkill.

I did a speed-read while walking back to my lab.

A sixty-eight-year-old female was last seen alive at a family picnic on the Fourth of July… . Daughter discovered decedent in an advanced state of putrefaction… . Absence of organ perforation… . Absence of skeletal trauma… . Absence of metallic trace… . Cause of death undetermined… . Victim’s grandson confessed to shooting… .

My eyes froze on a sentence in a section subtitled Second Autopsy Findings .

Cross-sectional dissection demonstrated a single bullet track running longitudinally down the right erector mass.

Throat constricting with anger, I skimmed the rest.

… wound orientation suggested the victim was moving at the moment of projectile impact… . Cause of death reevaluated as homicide… . Extremely rare… . Review of the literature revealed no reported cases… .

I tossed the fax onto my desk, thoughts firing like kernels in a popper.

The bullet track was extraordinarily uncommon and difficult to spot. Ayers missed it with Keiser. Chris missed it in his Chicago case. Both are experienced pathologists.

Briel found it.

Luck? Skill? Coincidence?

Not a chance.

Briel couldn’t have read about Chris’s case. The article wasn’t yet in print.

My Internet search had turned up zip on Briel’s past. She claimed to have done a number of postdocs. Might one have been with the CCME?

My id popped another flashbulb image. Friday night’s dream. The tendrils floating from Rose Jurmain’s skeleton, one inscribed with the initials ML .

But that was wrong. ML analyzed Lassie’s bones. Not Rose’s.

Suddenly the skin on my face felt tight.

Briel was keen on anthropology. She’d taken a short course. Done the reexcavation at Oka. Jumped on the Lac Saint-Jean vics in my absence.

Might Briel be ML?

My cortex scoffed at my lower centers. Waaay overreaching.

Yet.

I dialed Chris again. This time he answered.

“I read the article. Good job.”

“You think it’s too long?”

“A little. Do you remember having a pathologist at the CCME named Marie-Andréa Briel?”

“No. But they come and go.”

“You did the bullet track autopsy around the time Laszlo Tot’s body was dragged from the Thornton Quarry, right?”

“Yes.”

“You said Walczak uses freebies for skeletal cases, pathologists, residents, anthropology grad students, right?”

“It’s not my decision.”

“Someone named ML did the anthropology on Laszlo’s remains, right?”

“Sorry. I don’t remember. I’d have to recheck the file.”

“Can you do that for me? And if ML examined Lassie’s bones, find out who that person was?”

“Does this have to do with the jerk who called Edward Allen Jurmain?”

God Almighty.

Suddenly, it all made terrible sense.

Briel found the bullet track.

Briel found the phalanges.

Briel found the staining.

My competence wasn’t slipping. I was being sabotaged.

Was Briel the one who’d contacted Jurmain? She was here. She’d have known about my involvement in the case.

But why?

“Earth to Tempe.”

“Sorry. I’m not sure, Chris. Maybe. But I know one thing for certain. The merde ’s about to hit the ventilateur .”

The line beeped.

“Gotta go. Let me know what you learn. And thanks.”

I clicked over.

Labrousse. I was on a roll.

“Good thing this area is so inbred.” Labrousse wasn’t using the expression metaphorically. Being an isolated population that had bottlenecked genetically and reproduced wildly, over the years the folks of Lac Saint-Jean had been mined extensively for medical research. “Families stay put around here. And have memories deeper than a hooker’s cleavage. On Blackwater, everyone’s in agreement. He was half Montagnais.”

Yes!

“And Claire Clemenceau?” I asked. “Any history of tetracycline?”

“No one remembers anything like that. Brother says Claire was a healthy baby. Local GP’s dead, but he had a young associate just coming on in the fifties. The guy’s retired now, but remembers Claire. Says she was seen mainly for well-baby checkups. Guy’s ninety, but seems sharp enough.”

“But there are no written records to back him up.”

“No.”

“How about dental work?”

“The brother says none of the kids saw a dentist.”

That tracked. Based on the adult female’s teeth, it didn’t appear dental hygiene was a big priority.

Yet the younger child had a filling. That didn’t track.

“Did the brother remember staining on Claire’s dentition?”

“Says she had perfect teeth.”

Silence hummed down from the north. Then,

“Family version could be revisionist thinking.”

“Meaning?” I asked.

“Tragic accident, years pass, the dead kid becomes the perfect little girl.”

“Or the doc could be right. Claire was healthy.”