Kathy Reichs: Bones Are Forever

“The closet and dresser are empty,” I said. “There are few personal items in the bathroom. No toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant.”

“You’re assuming the heartless bitch bothered with the niceties of hygiene.”

I glanced at Pomier, surprised by the bitterness in his tone. Then I remembered. Pomier and his wife had been trying to start a family. Four months earlier she’d miscarried for the second time.

The siren screamed its arrival up the street and cut off. Doors slammed. Voices called out in French. Others answered. Boots clanged on the iron stairs leading to the first floor from the sidewalk.

Shortly, two men slipped under the crime scene tape. Uniform jumpsuits. I recognized both: Alex Gioretti and Jacques Demers.

Trailing Gioretti and Demers was an SQ corporal I assumed to be Bédard. His eyes were small and dark behind wire-rimmed glasses. His face was blotchy with excitement. Or exertion. I guessed his age to be mid-forties.

LaManche, Pomier, and I watched Ryan cross to the newcomers. Words were exchanged, then Gioretti and Demers began opening their kits and camera cases.

Face tense, LaManche shot a cuff and checked his watch.

“Busy day?” I asked.

“Five autopsies. Dr. Ayers is away.”

“If you prefer to get back to the lab, I’m happy to stay.”

“Perhaps that is best.”

In case more bodies are found . It didn’t need saying.

Experience told me it would be a long morning. When LaManche was gone, I glanced around for a place to settle.

Two days earlier I’d read an article on the diversity of fauna inhabiting couches. Head lice. Bedbugs. Fleas. Mites. The ratty sofa and its vermin held no appeal. I opted for the window bench.

Twenty minutes later, I’d finished jotting my observations. When I looked up, Demers was brushing black powder onto the kitchen stove. An intermittent flash told me Gioretti was shooting photos in the bathroom. Ryan and Bédard were nowhere to be seen.

I glanced out the window. Pomier was leaning against a tree, smoking. Ryan’s Jeep had joined my Mazda and the crime scene truck at the curb. So had two sedans. One had a CTV logo on its driver’s-side door. The other said Le Courrier de Saint-Hyacinthe .

The media were sniffing blood.

As I swiveled back, the plank under my bum wobbled slightly. Leaning close, I spotted a crack paralleling the window wall.

Did the middle section of the bench function as a storage cabinet? I pushed off and squatted to check underneath.

The front of the horizontal plank overhung the frame of the structure. Using my pen, I pushed up from below. The plank lifted and flopped back against the windowsill.

The smell of dust and mold floated from the dark interior.

I peered into the shadows.

And saw what I’d been dreading.

THE SECOND BABY WAS WRAPPED IN A TOWEL. BLOOD OR decompositional fluids had spread brown blossoms across the yellow terry cloth.

The shrouded little corpse lay in a back corner of the window seat, surrounded by a cracked and sun-bleached catcher’s mitt, a broken tennis racket, a plastic truck, a deflated basketball, and several pairs of worn-out sneakers. Dust and dead insects completed the assemblage.

The crown of a tiny head was visible at one end of the bundle, the squiggly sutures newborn-wide. The membrane-thin bone was dusted with soft downy hair.

I closed my eyes. Saw another infantile face. Dark flesh circling startling blue eyes. Pudgy cheeks shrunk tight to delicate bones.

“Oh, no,” someone said.

I raised my lids and looked out toward the street. A hearse had joined the vehicles lining the curb. The reporters stood talking outside their cars.

A puff of breeze through the screen felt warm on my face. Or perhaps it was the adrenaline-pumped blood flaming my cheeks.

“Avez-vous quelque chose?” Do you have something?

I turned.

Demers was looking in my direction, brush poised in midair. I realized the “oh, no” had come from my own lips.

I nodded, not trusting my voice.

Demers called to Gioretti, then crossed to me. After staring at the baby a very long time, he yanked a mobile from his belt and began punching keys. “I’ll see if we can get a dog.”

Shortly, Gioretti joined us. His gaze took in the window seat. “Tabarnouche.”

Positioning a case identifier, Gioretti began shooting pictures from different angles and distances.

I stepped off a few paces to phone LaManche. He issued the instructions I expected. Disturb the remains as little as possible. Keep looking.

Twenty minutes later, Gioretti had finished with video and stills. Demers had dusted the window box and its contents.

As I snapped on latex gloves, Demers spread a body bag on the floor beside the displaced shoes and sports paraphernalia. His jaw muscles bulged as he opened the zipper.

Reaching into the window seat, I gently lifted our second little victim. Based on weight and the absence of smell, I suspected the remains were mummified.

With two hands, I transferred the bundle to the body bag. Like the vanity baby lying by the sofa, it looked pitifully small in its adult-sized sack.

While Demers held a flashlight, I tweezed half a dozen bones from the interior of the window seat. Each was smaller than a thumbnail. Three phalanges. Two metacarpals. A vertebral body.

After sealing the isolated bones in a plastic vial, I wrote the case number, the date, and my initials on the cover with a Sharpie. Then I tucked the container below one edge of the stained yellow bundle.

Demers and I watched in silence as Gioretti shot his final photos. Out on the street, a car door slammed, followed by another. Footfalls sounded on the stairs.

Gioretti looked a question at me. I nodded.

Gioretti had just zipped the body bag and folded and strapped its ends when Pomier reappeared. With him were a woman and a border collie. The woman’s name was Madeleine Caron. The collie went by Pepper.

Trained to respond to the smell of rotting human flesh, cadaver dogs find hidden bodies like infrared systems pinpoint heat. A truly skilled sniffer can nail the former resting place of a corpse even long after its removal. But these hounds of death are as variable as their handlers. Some are good, some are lousy, some are outright scams.

I was pleased to see this pair. Both were top-notch.

I crossed to Caron, gloved hands held away from my body. Pepper watched my approach with large caramel eyes.

“Nice place,” Caron said.

“A palace. Pomier brief you?”

Caron nodded.

“We’ve got two so far. One from the bath, one from the window seat.” I jabbed a thumb over my shoulder. “I’m about to release them for transport. Once the body bags are out of here, run Pepper around, see if anything piques her interest.”

“You’ve got it.”

“There’s garbage in the kitchen.”

“Unless the stuff’s human, it won’t ring her chimes.”

First Caron took Pepper to the places where the babies had been stashed. Some dogs are taught to alert by barking, some by sitting or dropping to the ground. Pepper was a sitter. At both spots, she parked on her haunches and whined. Each time Caron scratched the dog’s ears and said, “Good girl.” Then she reached down and unclipped the leash.

After sniffing her way through the kitchen and living room, Pepper padded into the bedroom. Caron and I followed at a polite distance.

Nothing at the dresser. A slight hesitation at the bed. Then the dog froze. Took a step. Paused, one forepaw six inches off the floor.