KATHY REICHS: 206 BONES

“All this time you’re waiting in the wings.”

“Yes, ma’am. Joe led me to you. The rest is history.”

“How the hell did he get me into that tomb?”

“There’s a manhole just yards past the tomb opening. You went the wrong way, though you wouldn’t have been able to see the manhole from inside in the dark.”

“Figures. How did he seal the damn door so effectively, and why?”

“Quikrete Exterior Use Anchoring Cement.”

Ryan beamed. I waited for the explanation.

“You can buy the stuff at any hardware store. Joe hid a ten-pound bucket in the sewer and brought hot water with him. After shoving you inside the tomb, he mixed the cement, jammed the plank into place, and filled the gap. The stuff sets up in thirty minutes, reaches a compression strength of two hundred psi in two hours, four hundred psi in twenty-four. You probably started banging away around two or three a.m. By that time the pull-out strength would have been pretty impressive. He probably sealed it because he didn’t want another drainsplorer getting in there and finding a modern body.”

I thought a moment.

“Why not use the same manhole when he returned?”

“When Joe arrived, shortly before dawn, a street crew was setting up over his original entrance point. Undaunted, he hied himself to the next manhole, donned his drainsploring waders, and headed down. With yours truly close on his tail, of course.”

In the corridor, a bell bonged softly. A cart rolled by. A voice paged Dr. Someone. Behind me machines beeped softly.

“Thanks for being there, Ryan.”

“My pleasure.”

Pleasure?

“It was a sewer.”

“You were in it.”

The nurse entered, placed a vase on my bedside table, cranked her lips into something that looked like a smile. Ryan and I both thanked her.

“I remember one thing,” I said when she’d gone.

“What?”

“You were wearing really bad headgear.”

“My tassle tuque?” Feigned affront.

“The thing has a pom-pom.”

“It’s a man tassle. I love that hat.”

SATURDAY MORNING, RYAN HELPED ME CHECK OUT OF THE HOSPITAL. Drove me home. Settled me on my couch. Lit a fire. Made lunch.

My ankle ached. My cheek was congealed tar. I had a lump on my occipital that could wrestle as a heavyweight. The Weeki Wachee Mermaids were still doing wheelies in my brain.

What the hell? I needed nurturing.

Over tomato soup and peanut butter on toast, we treaded safe conversational ground.

Ryan told me that on Wednesday results had come back on my Lac Saint-Jean vics. The adult female’s femur had produced sufficient organic material to sequence mitochondrial DNA.

“Did the brother provide a sample?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And?”

“Being congenial pays off. You have a reputation for being congenial. People like you.”

“Ryan.” I gave him the steely-eyed look. Squinting irritated the scab on my face.

“In deference to your recent excellent adventure, an SQ officer drove the sample from Sainte-Monique to Montreal personally. The DNA boys leapfrogged it to the front of the queue.”

“And?”

A grin spread over Ryan’s face.

“Tell me.”

The grin widened.

Leaning forward, I punched Ryan’s bicep.

“Give the lady a gold star.”

“Yes.” I arm-pumped the air. It hurt. “The Clemenceaus and Blackwater, not the Gouvrards.”

Mostly, we discussed the growing evidence against Adamski.

A warrant had been served and an SIJ team had tossed Poppy’s condo in Saint-Eustache. Much to her displeasure.

“A hollow beneath a waterbed produced a duffel containing two thousand dollars.”

“From the Villejoins’ pantry?”

“Could be. Someone’s checking for prints, looking for trace DNA.”

“Prints would be good. Trace DNA is a long shot.”

“Better than-”

“No shot at all. Poppy didn’t know about the money?”

“You think she’d have left it there after Adamski’s arrest?”

“Did SIJ find anything else?”

“A shovel in the garage. A sedimentologist is comparing dirt from the blade to samples you collected from Christelle’s grave at Oka.”

“Any blood?”

“Biology is looking at a stain. Trace evidence has some hairs. The garage was also home to a lovely little chain saw. A botanist is comparing gunk from the teeth to pine logs stacked in the Villejoins’ backyard.”

“Wowzer.”

“Wowzer. If Adamski’s confession is kicked, the crown prosecutor wants beaucoup backup.”

The buzzer sounded. Again. Ryan answered the door, returned bearing yet another gift. I’d already received a gazillion flowers, a pajama-gram from Ayers, and a fruit basket from Santangelo. This time it was a floral arrangement the size of Denver.

Ryan set the vase on the table and handed me the card.

“Claudel,” I read.

“What’s he say?”

“Claudel.”

“See. He likes you.”

Ryan took our dishes to the kitchen, then we rifled Santangelo’s basket. A clementine for me, a banana for Ryan.

“Adamski admitted to forging Keiser’s old-age pension checks. Discovered all three in her purse. After cashing them, he tossed the purse into a Dumpster on Saint-Laurent and found himself a bar.”

“Open a tab. It’s on my dead wife.” My voice conveyed the disgust I felt.

“He’s holding firm on Rose Jurmain. Denies killing her. Adamantly.”

“So the original coroner’s finding was probably correct. Rose over-drank, underdressed, wandered off, and died of exposure.”

“Adamski’s only admission concerning Jurmain is that her disappearance triggered the idea of going after his former wife. That and news coverage of elderly victims in upstate New York.”

“And getting away with murdering the Villejoins.”

“And that.”

“What’s happening on the Joe-Briel-Raines front?”

“They’ve turned on each other like hyenas on a carcass. Ballistics is checking out a Browning twenty-two semiautomatic pistol found in Briel’s condo. They’ll all go down.”

“Was Raines involved?”

“Indirectly. Body Find was his baby. He brainwashed Briel into believing that if she gained celebrity status it would get the venture off the ground. Also, he called Edward Allen.”

“Briel’s a viper,” I said.

“Let’s not be overly harsh. Briel believed she was neither setting a criminal free nor convicting an innocent person. She was knifing some colleagues to promote herself, but that doesn’t make her Adamski, unless you think she really did want Joe to kill you. Also, once the jig was up, she was instrumental in your rescue.”

“Probably to avoid being an accessory to murder.”

“Probably.”

The fire had died to embers. Ryan got up to poke them.

“It’s people like Briel who give forensic science a bad name,” I said.

“Adamski’s dirty and he’s going away for a very long time, but Briel’s actions make you wonder.” Ryan spoke without turning to face me. “How many guilty have gone free, and how many innocent have been convicted because of bad police or forensic work?”

“You’ve heard of the Innocence Project?”

Ryan nodded.

“In the last twenty years there have been over two hundred exonerations in the U.S., some involving inmates on death row. More than a quarter, fifty-five cases with sixty-six defendants, involved forensic testing or testimony that was flawed. And those stats don’t begin to tell the whole story.”

Ryan added a log. Embers spiraled, Lilliputian fireworks in the dim hearth.

“Forensic science is popular right now, and people with minimal or no training are hot to be players. Briel is a perfect example. She learned a little about bones and hung out her shingle as an anthropologist.”