Kathy Reichs - Deadly Descisions

I darted forward, trapped the hat against the church wall, and handed it to the woman. She clutched it to her bony chest and gave a small smile. Her wrinkled brown face reminded me of the crabapple dolls crafted by ladies in the Smoky Mountains.

"You be a frien' of Emily Anne?" the old woman asked in a crackly voice.

"Yes, ma'am." I didn't want to explain my involvement.

"She my gran'chile."

"I am so sorry for your loss."

"I got twenty-two gran children, but that Emily Anne be somet'ing special. That chile do everyt'ing. She writes her letters, she does dance ballet, she does swim, she does skate on ice. I t'inking that girl be even smarter than her mama.

"She was a beautiful little girl."

"Maybe that be why God take her up.

I watched Emily Anne's grandmother totter on, remembering those same words from a long time ago. A slumbering ache stirred in my chest, and I steeled myself for what was to come.

Inside, the church was cool and smelled of incense and wax and wood polish. Light filtered through stained glass, casting a pastel softness over everything.

The pews were packed in front, with a scattering of attendees in the middle. I slipped into a back row, folded my hands, and tried to concentrate on the present. Already my skin itched and my palms felt sweaty As I looked around, the organist finished one requiem and began another.

A miniature white casket sat below the altar, heaped with flowers and flanked by candles at either end. Balloons bobbed on strings attached to the coffin's handles. The brightly colored spheres looked jarringly out of sync with the scene.

In the front pew I could see two small heads, a larger figure between them. Mrs. Toussaint was bent forward, a handkerchief clutched to her mouth. As I watched, her shoulders began to heave, and a tiny hand rose and gently rubbed her upper arm.

The dormant ache within me awoke fully, and I was back at St. Barnabas parish. Father Morrison was at the pulpit and my little brother lay in his own tiny coffin.

My mother's sobs were terrible, and I reached up to comfort her. She did not acknowledge my touch, just held little Harriet to her chest and cried onto her head. Feeling utterly helpless, I watched my sister's corn-silk hair grow damp with my mother's tears.

If I had been given a box of crayons and asked to draw my world at six, I would have chosen a single color. Black.

I'd been powerless to save Kevin, to stop the leukemia devastating his tiny body. He was my most treasured gift, my Christmas brother, and I adored him. I had prayed and prayed, but I could do nothing to prevent his death. Or to make my mother smile. I had begun to wonder if I were evil, because my prayers were of no effect.

Almost four decades, and the pain of Kevin's death still lingered.

The sights and sounds and smells of a funeral Mass never failed to reopen that wound, allowing the buried grief to ooze into my conscious thought.

I moved my eyes from the Toussaint family and scanned the crowd. Charbonneau had concealed himself in the shadow of a confessional booth, but I recognized no one else.

At that moment the priest entered and crossed himself. He looked young, athletic, and nervous. More like a tennis player approaching a match than a priest approaching a funeral service. We all stood.

As I went through the familiar motions, my skin felt flushed, my heart beat faster than it should have. I tried to concentrate, but my mind resisted. Images bled into my brain, taking me back to that time in my childhood.

An enormous woman took the pulpit to the right of the altar. Her skin was the color of mahogany, her hair braided atop her head. The woman's cheeks glistened as she sang "Amazing Grace." I remembered her from the newspaper photo.

Then, the priest spoke of childhood innocence. Relatives praised Emily Anne's sunny disposition, her love of family. An uncle mentioned her passion for waffles. Her teacher described an enthusiastic student, and read the essay that had won a prize. A classmate recited an original poem.

More hymns. Communion. The faithful filed up, returned to their seats. Stifled sobs. Incense. The blessing of the coffin. Soft wailing from Mrs. Toussaint.

Finally, the priest turned and asked Emily Anne's sisters and classmates to join him, then seated himself on the altar steps. There was a moment of absolute stillness, followed by whispered commands and parental nudging. One by one children emerged from the pews and walked timidly toward the altar.

What the priest said was not original. Emily Anne is in heaven with God. She has been reunited with her father. One day her mother and sisters will join her, as will everyone present.

What the young priest did next was original. He told the children that Emily Anne was happy, and that we should celebrate with her He signaled his servers, who disappeared into the vestry, and returned with huge bunches of balloons.

"These balloons are filled with helium," explained the priest. "That makes them fly. I want you each to take one, and we will all walk out with Emily Anne, We will say a good-bye prayer, then release our balloons to rise to heaven. Emily Anne will see them and know that we love hen"

He looked at the solemn little faces.

"Is that a good idea?"

Every head nodded.

The priest rose, disentangled strings, placed a balloon in each small hand, and led the children down the steps. The organist began Schubert's 'Ave Maria."

The pallbearers came forward, lifted the casket, and the procession moved toward the door, the pews emptying in its wake. As the line passed, I slipped in at the end.

The mourners followed the coffin outside then circled around, children on the inside, adults forming an outer ring. Mrs. Toussaint stood behind her daughters, supported by the singer.

I held back on the steps. The overcast had broken, leaving a sky filled with tumbling white clouds. As I watched balloons rise toward them, I felt a grief as sharp as anything I'd felt in my life.

I lingered a moment, then descended slowly, wiping tears from my cheeks, and reaffirming the vow I'd made on the day of Emily Anne's death.

I would find these indiscriminate butchers and put them where they could never kill another child. I could not restore the daughter but I would provide this small comfort for the mother

Leaving Emily Anne to those who loved her, I drove toward Parthenais, in a mood to lose myself in work.

At the lab, the Carcajou investigators already had names for the skeletons from St-Basile. Felix Martineau, age twenty-seven, and Robert Gately, age thirty-nine, rode with the Tarantulas, a now defunct OMC, but active in Montreal in the seventies and eighties. Gately was a full patch member, Martineau a prospect.

On the evening of August 24, 1987, the two had left Gately's apartment on rue Hochelaga heading for a party. Gately's ole lady did not know the name or address of the host. Neither man was seen again.

I spent the day with the bones from the double burial, sorting them into individuals and determining age, sex, race, and height. Cranial and pelvic shape confirmed both victims were male. The differences in age and height made the task of individuation considerably easier than with the Vaillancourt brothers.

As soon as I'd finished with the skulls and jaws I'd given them to Marc Bergeron for odontological analysis. I figured his job would be easy too, since both men had obvious dental work.

The taller victim had a well-healed fracture of the collarbone. I was photographing the injury when Bergeron entered my lab Friday morning. The dentist was one of the oddest-looking men I'd ever met, with wild, dandelion hair and a daddy-longlegs build. It was impossible to guess his age, and no one at the lab seemed to know.

Bergeron waited until I'd snapped the shot then confirmed the identifications as positive.