Kathy Reichs - Bones to Ashes

“Were you able to reach Ryan?”

Hippo nodded. “He’s rolling.”

I stood.

“Let’s go.”

“Girardin hated crowds, distrusted strangers. Lived in a single-wide miles from anywhere.”

“Lonely life for a ten-year-old girl.”

“Yeah.” Hippo’s eyes stayed on the road.

Again, I was on my way toward Blainville. Again, I was being briefed on a child whose corpse I might soon dig up.

“Kid disappeared in ’04. Adelaide, that’s Mommy, split six months later. Girardin stayed put.”

“What’d he do for a living?”

“Construction. Pickup jobs, mostly.”

“Where is Adelaide now?”

“In the wind.”

“Is she a local?”

“Thunder Bay, Ontario.” Hippo made a turn. “Don’t worry. We’ll find her.”

As we approached our destination, signs of habitation faded away. The few shacks and mobile homes we did pass were straight out of Deliverance.

Girardin’s trailer was a rectangular box with dull yellow siding and pumpkin trim. A makeshift porch had been nailed around the entrance. On it sat an avocado refrigerator and an orange Barcalounger with herniated stuffing.

The yard was cluttered with the usual trash. Old tires, rusted barrels, plastic furniture, the skeleton of a lawn mower. Larger items included a boat trailer and an ancient Mustang.

The CSU truck was there. The coroner’s van. Chenevier and Pasteur. Sylvain and the cadaver collie, Mia. Ryan.

The air was hot, the humidity a notch below rain.

It was the Kelly Sicard search all over again.

With a sadly different outcome.

The sun was low when we finally lifted the small bundle. Threads of light cut the foliage, casting odd patterns on the shallow pit, the plywood, the fifty-gallon Hefty.

The grave was not unexpected. We’d found a half-empty bag of quicklime under the trailer. A long-handled spade.

And Mia had been emphatic.

The others watched as my blade slit the plastic. Odor drifted out, rotten-sweet, like spoiled vegetation. A sole cawing crow broke the hush.

The child had been buried in pink flowered jeans, a pink hoodie, pink Keds. Carrot pigtails still clung to the skull, dirt-crusted, death-dulled. The teeth were in that stage between kid and adult.

As one, we recalled the snapshot. The police report filed by Anne Girardin’s mother.

No one spoke. No one had to.

We all knew that Anne had been found.

I asked Ryan to drive me to the lab. He said that was crazy, that my analysis could wait until Monday. Daddy was dead. Finding Mommy might take time.

No good. Next-of-kin notification couldn’t occur without an official ID. As a mother, I knew the anguish filling Adelaide Girardin’s days. I wanted to be ready.

Hippo stayed to help Chenevier and Pasteur process the trailer. Ryan drove me to Wilfrid-Derome. On the way, I called Lisa, the autopsy technician. She agreed to work overtime. I asked her to determine if Anne Girardin’s dental records were on file. And to call Mark Bergeron, the LSJML odontologist.

I also phoned Harry, filled her in on the day’s events, and told her our culinary caper would have to wait. She asked when I’d be home. Late. I hated leaving her alone so much. What if the pair asking about my condo had had more than real estate in mind? What if the anonymous call really had been a threat?

Harry offered to get take-out whenever I was ready. I thanked her, reminded her to always set the security system. In my mind I could see her rolling her eyes.

The child was at the morgue when I arrived. She’d been assigned case number LSJML #57836–07. Dental X-rays had been taken.

People think quicklime hurries decomposition. They’re wrong. Calcium oxide only masks the odor of decay. And its presence deters scavengers.

But time will have its way with flesh. Though the remains had suffered no animal damage, skeletonization was complete. Some hair remained, but there was no soft tissue at all.

Lisa photographed as I removed the rotting garments and spread them on the counter. Hoodie. Jeans. Training bra with expandable AAA “cups.” Cotton briefs, Barbie doll pattern.

I’d been doing well. Despite the sadness and fatigue. But the underwear hit me hard. Barbies and bras. Monkey bars and lipstick. A child-woman on the brink. The sight was heartbreaking.

“Good thing the bastard is dead, yes?” Lisa gave me a look as heavy as a tombstone. I could tell she felt as wretched as I did.

“Yes,” I said.

Focus, I thought, arranging bones on the autopsy table.

Lisa shot stills as I worked through my analysis.

The child’s cranial and facial features indicated Caucasoid ancestry.

Fusion of the ischial and pubic pelvic rami suggested an age over eight. Absence of a tiny round bone at the base of the thumb, a sesamoid, suggested prepubescence. Long-bone development suggested a range of nine to ten years.

Sex assessment is imprecise with children. Though the clothing and pigtails pointed to female gender, I left that part of the biological profile blank.

Bergeron phoned as I was making final notes. He was upstairs and had Anne Girardin’s antemortem records. The dentals were a match.

No surprise.

It was almost ten when I finally got home. After I showered, Harry and I ate Thai from the corner restaurant, then I excused myself. She understood and did not press.

Again, my brain resisted sleep. When I finally drifted off, it was into a landscape of disjointed dreams. Anne Girardin. Évangéline. The skeleton from Sheldrake Island, Hippo’s girl. Pawleys Island. Ryan.

Then I was awake. I checked the clock. Two-forty. I closed my eyes. Checked again. Three-ten. Three-fifty.

At four, I gave up. Throwing back the covers, I went to the kitchen and brewed a cup of jasmine tea. Then I booted my laptop and began researching Sheldrake Island.

Dawn lit the shade when I finally sat back. Stunned. Appalled. Certain of two things.

Sheldrake Island was, indeed, Île-aux-Becs-Scies. Hippo’s girl had suffered a hideous death.

26

ISUSPECT LACK OF SLEEP MUDDLED MY THINKING.

Or maybe it was Pete’s early morning call about grounds. And filing papers. And young Summer’s inability to find a caterer.

Or maybe Hippo’s shocker.

In looking back, there’s always the mental cringe. The suspicion that I could have done better.

After speaking with Pete, I woke Harry and explained what I’d learned on the Net. Then I apologized for abandoning her again.

I need to be certain, I said.

We could be back to square one, she said.

Yes, I agreed.

Harry went shopping. I went to the lab.

It took only an hour with the skeleton. The diagnosis seemed so obvious now. How could I have been so dense about the lesions?

It’s the horror of other places, other times, I told myself. Not twentieth-century North America.

True. Nevertheless, a sorry defense.

When I’d finished with the bones, I logged onto my computer, wanting to arm myself fully for the upcoming conversation with Hippo. I was closing the Web browser when a ping told me a new e-mail had landed.

Contacting a government office on a weekend is like phoning the Pope on Easter morning. Curious who’d e-mailed on a Saturday, I clicked over to my in-box.

I didn’t recognize the sender: watching@hotmail.com.

When I opened the message, icy-hot barbs shot through my chest.

Temperance:

Staring your severed head in the face …

Death. Fate. Mutilation.

A photo had been inserted below the text.

Thursday night. Harry and I, backlit by the bulbs at Milos’s entrance.

I stared at the photo, breath stuck in my throat. It wasn’t only the shock of seeing myself. Or the idea that I’d been watched by a stranger. Something was off. Wrong.