Kathy Reichs - Deadly Descisions

But underlying all my thoughts was the nagging signal from my subconscious, unrelenting, yet out of reach. The redneck in the baseball cap. I tossed and turned, frustrated that my psyche was beaming a message I could not decipher.

I was sleeping fitfully when the phone shrilled. "Hello." Groggy.

"Oh, were you in bed?" The digits on my clock glowed one-fifteen. "Mm."

"It was the University of South Carolina," Isabelle chirped.

"What?"

"Lyle is from London, Ontario, but he went to school in South Carolina." Her voice beamed with satisfaction. "And don't worry about my source. I was très discreet."

Oh boy.

"Thank you, Isabelle." Mumbled.

"Now, go back to sleep. Oh, and I found the suitcase in the bathroom closet. Silly me. Bonsoir."

Dial tone.

I clicked off and flopped back on the pillow, noticing that the bedroom wall no longer vibrated. Had Kit gone out?

As I began to drift off my id made one more try at sending up images. The hyena took form with his leather vest and grungy long hair Boots. Cap.

Cap.

My eyes flew open and I shot to a sitting position, searching my stored memories for another image.

Could it be?

The next morning I was up before the alarm. A peek told me Kit was asleep in his bed. I showered, dressed, and puttered until it was time to go to the lab.

I went directly to Ronald Gilbert's office and made my request. Without a word he crossed to a shelf, selected a videotape, and handed it to me. I thanked him and hurried to the conference room.

Nervously, I inserted the plastic box into a VCR and clicked on the monitor Not knowing at what point I'd find the scene, I started at the beginning and hit fast-forward.

Views of the Cherokee Desjardins apartment jerked across the screen. The living room, the kitchen, the faceless corpse. Then the tape focused on bloody walls.

The camera swept across a corner, zooming in, then drawing back. I hit play and the pace slowed to normal.

Two minutes later I spotted the object wedged between the wall and a rusted birdcage supporting a guitar I hit freeze and read four letters peeking from a wine-colored stain.

"-cock-"

I studied the cap closely. It was red and white, and I could see portions of a familiar logo that hadn't registered while I was at the scene. My mind completed the letters obliterated by Cherokee's blood.

G-a-m-e – -- s. Yes.

Game cocks.

The cap hadn't proclaimed some macho obscenity. It had broadcast the name of an athletic team. The Gamecocks.

The University of South Carolina Gamecocks.

The hyena's cap had nudged my id. Isabelle's call had allowed my brain's summons to assemble and organize to breakthrough.

Just then the door opened and Michel Charbonneau stuck his spiky head into the room. He held up a brown envelope.

"Claudel asked me to give you this. It's the official game plan for tomorrow, and Roy wanted you to have it."

"I guess Monsieur Claudel is too busy."

Charbonneau gave one of his shrugs. "He's working these homicides for both agencies.

His eyes drifted to the monitor "Desjardins?"

"Yes. Look at this."

He circled the table and stood behind me. I pointed at the cap.

"It's from the University of South Carolina."

"You can't lick our Cocks." "You've heard of the team." "With a motto like that, who hasn't?" "That's not the official slogan."

"Cherokee's decor suggested he was an athletic supporter" I ignored that.

"In all the photos you've seen of him, was Cherokee ever wearing headgear?"

Charbonneau thought a moment.

"No. So what?"

"Maybe the cap isn't his. Maybe it belongs to his killer."

"Dorsey?"

I told him about the pictures of Lyle Crease.

"So the guy spent some time in South Carolina. Big deal. Half the population of Quebec vacations down there."

"Why would Crease take a sudden interest in me after I dug up those bodies?"

"Aside from the fact that you're cute as a sea monkey?"

"Aside from that."

"O.K., when things quiet down we might reel Crease in and query him on Gately and Martineau. But there's nothing to tie him to the Cherokee hit."

I told him about the Myrtle Beach photo.

"Crease and Cherokee knew each other, and that photo was not of a Boy Scout camporee.

"A trip through Dixie back in the Ice Age. Crease is a journalist. He might have been covering a story."

Charbonneau flipped the envelope onto the table.

"Look, Cherokee had chemo. He probably got the cap when comb-overs were no longer an option. But if it makes you feel better, I'll check Crease out.

When he'd gone, I turned back to the tape, my mind zigzagging through a labyrinth of explanations. The cap could belong to Dorsey. He claimed to have knowledge of Savannah Osprey Maybe he'd been to South Carolina.

When the camera moved off along the wall I hit rewind and did another sweep through the corner. Bloodstains. Guitar Birdcage. Cap.

Then the lens drew very close, and I felt movement in the tiny hairs at the back of my neck. I leaned in and squinted at the screen, hoping to make sense of what I'd spotted. It was fuzzy, but definitely there.

I rewound the tape, switched off the VCR, and hurried from the room. If what I saw was real, Claudel and Charbonneau would have to find another theory.

I took the stairs to the thirteenth floor and went to a large window opening onto a room filled with shelves and lined by storage lockers. A small blue sign identified it as the Salle des Exhibits. The property room.

A uniform from the SQ was sliding a deer rifle across the counter I waited while the clerk filled out forms, handed the officer a receipt, then tagged the gun and carried it to the storage area. When she returned I showed her the Cherokee case numbers.

"Could you check to see if the evidence inventory includes an athletic cap?"

"There was a long list for that case," she said, entering the number into a computer. "This may take a moment."

Her eyes scanned the screen.

"Yes, here it is. There was a cap." She read the text. "It went to biology for testing on a bloodstain, but it's back."

She disappeared into the shelves and returned after several minutes with a Ziploc plastic bag. In it I could see the red cap.

"Do you need to sign it out?"

"If it's all right I'll just take a look at it here."

"Sure."

I zipped open the seal and slid the cap onto the counter Gently raising the brim, I studied the hat's interior

There it was. Dandruff.

I resealed the cap and thanked the technician. Then I flew to my office and snatched up the phone.

Claudel and Quickwater were not at Carcajou Headquarters. Neither Claudel nor Charbonneau was at CUM headquarters. I left messages, and returned to Ronald Gilbert's office.

"Thanks for the tape."

"Did it help?"

"May I ask you about something?"

"Please."

"Do you remember the corner of the room with the guitar and birdcage stacked against the wall?"

"Yes."

"There was a cap there."

"I remember it."

"Did you make observations on the bloodstaining?"

"Certainly."

"I'm interested in the cap's position at the time of the murder Would your notes have anything on that?"

"I don't need my notes. I recall perfectly. The stain and spatter on the cap came from the blunt object attack near that corner,"

"Not the gunshot."

"No. That would look quite different. And the orientation of the spatter was consistent with the type of assault we discussed."

"With Cherokee lying on the floor."

"Yes."

"Was he wearing the cap?"

"Oh my, no. That's impossible. The cap was behind the birdcage when struck by most of the spatter.

"How did it get there?"