Kathy Reichs - Deadly Descisions

A funeral Mass would be celebrated Thursday at 8 A.M. at Our Lady of the Angels Catholic Church, followed by burial at the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery.

I refused to read or listen to reports about Ryan. I wanted to hear from him. All morning I left messages on his machine, but got no response. Ryan's partner, Jean Bertrand, had also gone incommunicado. I could think of nothing else to do. I was certain no one at the CUM or SQ would talk about the situation, and I knew none of Ryan's family or friends.

After a trip to the gym, I cooked a dinner of chicken breasts with prune sauce, glazed carrots with mushrooms, and saffron rice. My feline companion would no doubt have preferred fish.

Monday morning I rose early, drove to the lab, and went directly to see LaManche. He was in conference with three detectives, but told me to talk with Stêphane Patineau as soon as possible.

Wasting no time, I headed down the corridor containing the offices of the medico-legal staff and the anthropology, odontology, histology and pathology labs. Passing the Section des Documents on my left and the Section d'Imagerie on my right, I continued to the main reception area and turned left into the wing housing the administrative personnel of the LSJML. The director's office was at the very back.

Patineau was on the phone. He waved me in and I took a chair opposite his desk.

When he finished his call, he leaned back and looked directly at me. His eyes were deep brown, hooded by heavy ridges and thick brows. Stéphane Patineau was a man who would never worry about thinning hair

"Dr LaManche tells me you want to get involved with the Toussaint investigation.~~

"I think I could be of use to Carcajou. I've worked on several biker cases. Right now I'm sorting out the victims from the Vipers' clubhouse bombing. I'm not new to this stuft I cou-"

He waved a hand.

"The director of Operation Carcajou has asked if I could assign one of my personnel to act as liaison to his unit. With this war heating up he'd like to be sure the crime lab, the medico-legal staff, and his investigators are all on the same page at the same time."

I didn't wait to hear more.

"I can do it."

"It's spring. Once the river thaws and the hikers and campers hit the woods your workload is going to get heavier"

That was true. The number of floaters and decomps always increased when the weather warmed and the past winter's dead came to light.

"I'll work overtime.

"I was going to assign Real Marchand, but you are welcome to give it a try. It's not a full-time job."

He lifted a paper from his desk and handed it to me.

"There is a meeting at three this afternoon. I'll call to tell them you're coming."

"Thank you. You won't regret this."

He rose and walked me to the door

"Is there a positive on the Vaillancourt brothers?"

"We'll know once their medical records show up. Hopefully today."

He gave a two-thumbs-up gesture.

"Go get 'em, Tempe," he said in English.

I returned the gesture and he shrugged, then retreated to his office.

In addition to being a superb administrator, Patineau filled out a shirt more impressively than most bodybuilders.

Mondays are busy for every coroner and medical examiner, and this one was no exception. As LaManche went through the cases I thought the meeting would never end.

A young girl had died in the hospital and the mother admitted only to shaking her Three years is beyond the age for Shaken Baby syndrome, and a contusion suggested the child's head had been slammed against a hard surface.

A thirty-two-year-old paranoid schizophrenic was found with his stomach open, innards spewing onto the carpet of his bedroom. The family claimed the wound was self-inflicted.

Two trucks had collided outside St-Hyacinthe. Both drivers were burned beyond recognition.

A twenty-seven-year-old Russian seaman was found in his cabin with no signs of life. He was pronounced dead by the ship's captain, and the body was preserved and brought ashore. Since the death occurred in Canadian waters, an autopsy was required.

A forty-four-year-old woman was beaten to death in her apartment, Her estranged husband was being sought.

Medical files had arrived for Donald and Ronald Vaillancourt. So had an envelope of snapshots.

When the pictures were passed around we knew that at least one twin lay in pieces downstairs. In a splendid Kodak moment Ronald Vaillancourt stood bare-chested, flexing his upper torso. The seeno-evil skull decorated his right chest,

LaManche assigned each of the autopsies to a pathologist, and turned the Vaillancourt documents over to me.

By ten forty-five I knew which twin had broken his fingers. Ronald "Le Cli?' Vaillancourt had fractured his second and third left digits in a barroom brawl in 1993. The hospital X rays showed the injury in the same location as the irregularities I'd spotted on the metacarpals. They also showed that Le Clic's arm bones lacked lines of arrested growth.

A motorcycle accident sent Le Clic back to the emergency room two months later, this time for hip and lower limb trauma. The radiographic picture was similar Ronald's leg bones were normal. His record also indicated he had been thrown from a car in '95, stabbed in a street fight later that year, and beaten by a rival gang in '97. His X-ray file was two inches thick.

I also knew who had not been a healthy kid. Donald "Le Clac" Vaillancourt was hospitalized several times during his childhood. As a toddler he experienced prolonged periods of nausea and vomiting, the cause of which was never diagnosed. At the age of six, scarlet fever nearly killed him. At eleven it was gastroenteritis.

Le Clac had also taken his lumps. His dossier, like his brother's, contained a large packet of X rays reflecting many visits to the trauma center A broken nose and cheek. A knife wound to the chest. A blow to the head with a bottle.

As I closed the dossier I smiled at the irony. The turbulent life of the brothers would provide a diagram for sorting their bodies. Their many misadventures had left a skeletal map.

Armed with the medical files, I returned to the lower level and took up the parts identification process. I began with the tattooed segment of thorax and the fragments I’d associated with it. That was Ronald. He also got the fractured hand and all tissue containing normal long bones.

Limb bones with lines of arrested growth went to Donald. Limb bones without lines went to his brother.

Next I showed Lisa, one of the autopsy technicians, how to radiograph the remaining fragments with the bones in positions identical to those on the antemortem hospital films. This would allow me to compare details of shape and internal structure.

Since the X-ray unit was in heaw demand, we worked through lunch, finally quitting at one-thirty when the other technicians and pathologists returned. Lisa promised she would finish as the machine became available, and I hurried upstairs to change.

Operation Carcajou was headquartered in a modern three-story structure on the shore of the St. Lawrence River, directly across from Old Montreal. The rest of the complex was occupied by the port police and the administrative offices of the maritime authority.

I parked facing the river. To the left I could see the Jacques Cartier Bridge arching across past Ile-Notre-Dame, to the right the smaller Victoria Bridge. Enormous chunks of ice floated and bobbed on the dark gray water.

Farther up along the shore, I noticed Habitat ‘67, a geometric pile of residential space originally built for Expo and later converted to private condominiums. The sight of the building caused a constriction in my chest. Ryan lived in that network of boxes.

I pushed the thought from my mind, grabbed my jacket, and bolted for the building. The cloud cover was breaking, but the day was still raw and damp. An onshore breeze, carrying with it the smell of oil and icy water, flapped my clothes.