Reichs, Kathy - Death Du Jour

We both stood at the same time. I thanked her, slipped on my jacket, hat, and scarf. I was halfway through the door when she stopped me with a question.

“Do you have a religion, Dr. Brennan?”

“I was raised Roman Catholic, but currently I don’t belong to a church.”

The ghostly eyes looked into mine.

“Do you believe in God?”

“Dr. Jeannotte, there are some days I don’t believe in tomorrow morning.”

After I left, I swung by the library and spent an hour browsing the history books, skimming indexes for Nicolet or Bélanger. I found several in which one or the other name was listed, and checked them out, thankful I still had faculty privileges.

It was growing dark when I emerged. Snow was falling, forcing pedestrians to walk in the street or follow narrow trails on the sidewalks, carefully placing one foot in front of the other to keep out of the deeper snow. I trudged behind a couple, girl in front, boy behind, his hands resting on her shoulders. Ties on their knapsacks swung back and forth as hips swiveled to keep feet inside the snow-free passage. Now and then the girl stopped to catch a snowflake on her tongue.

The temperature had dropped as daylight had faded, and when I got to the car, the windshield was coated with ice. I dug out a scraper and chipped away, cursing my migratory instincts. Anyone with any sense would be at the beach.

During the short drive home I replayed the scene in Jeannotte’s office, trying to figure out the curious behavior of the teaching assistant. Why had she been so nervous? She seemed in awe of Jeannotte, beyond even the customary deference of an undergraduate. She mentioned her trip to the copy machine three times, yet when I’d met her in the hall she had nothing in her hands. I realized I’d never learned her name.

I thought about Jeannotte. She’d been so gracious, so totally composed, as if used to being in control of any audience. I pictured the penetrating eyes, such a contrast to the tiny body and soft, gentle drawl. She’d made me feel like an undergraduate. Why? Then I remembered. During our conversation Daisy Jean’s gaze didn’t leave my face. Never once did she break eye contact. That and the eerie irises made a disconcerting combination.

I arrived home to find two messages. The first made me mildly anxious. Harry had enrolled in her course and was becoming a guru of modern mental health.

The second sent a chill deep into my soul. I listened, watching snow pile up against my garden wall. The new flakes lay white atop the underlying gray, like newborn innocence on last year’s sins.

“ Brennan, if you’re there, pick up. This is important .” Pause. “ There’s been a development in the St-Jovite case .” Ryan’s voice was tinged with sadness. “ When we tossed the outbuildings we found four more bodies behind a stairway .” I could hear him pull smoke deep into his lungs, release it slowly. “ Two adults and two babies. They’re not burned, but it’s grisly. I’ve never seen anything like it. I don’t want to go into details, but we’ve got a whole new ball game, and it’s a shitpot. See you tomorrow .”

7

RYAN WASN’T ALONE IN HIS REVULSION. I HAVE SEEN ABUSED AND starved children. I have seen them after they were beaten, raped, smothered, shaken to death, but I had never seen anything like what had been done to the babies found in St-Jovite.

Others had received calls the night before. When I arrived at eight-fifteen several press vans had taken up stations outside the SQ building, windows fogged, exhaust billowing from tailpipes.

Although the workday normally begins at eight-thirty, activity already filled the large autopsy room. Bertrand was there, along with several other SQ detectives and a photographer from SIJ, La Section d’Identité Judiciare. Ryan hadn’t arrived.

The external exam was under way, and a series of Polaroids lay on the corner desk. The body had been taken to X-ray, and LaManche was scribbling notes when I entered. He stopped and looked up.

“Temperance, I am glad to see you. I may need help in establishing the age of the infants.”

I nodded.

“And there may be an unusual”—he searched for a word, his long, basset face tense—“. . . tool involved.”

I nodded and went to change into scrubs. Ryan smiled and gave a small salute as I passed him in the corridor. His eyes were teary, his nose and cheeks cherry red, as though he’d walked some distance in the cold.

In the locker room I steeled myself for what was to come. A pair of murdered babies was horror enough. What did LaManche mean by an unusual tool?

Cases involving children are always difficult for me. When my daughter was young, after each child murder I’d fight an urge to tether Katy to me to keep her in sight.

Katy is grown now, but I still dread images of dead children. Of all victims, they are the most vulnerable, the most trusting, and the most innocent. I ache each time one arrives in the morgue. The stark truth of fallen humanity stares at me. And pity provides small comfort.

I returned to the autopsy room, thinking I was prepared to proceed. Then I saw the small body lying on the stainless steel.

A doll. That was my first impression. A life-size latex baby that had grayed with age. I’d had one as a child, a newborn that was pink and smelled rubbery sweet. I fed her through a small, round hole between her lips, and changed her diaper when the water flowed through.

But this was no toy. The baby lay on its belly, arms at its sides, fingers curled into the tiny palms. The buttocks were flattened, and bands of white crisscrossed the purple livor of the back. A cap of fine red down covered the little head. The infant was naked save for a bracelet of miniature blocks circling the right wrist. I could see two wounds near the left shoulder blade.

A sleeper lay on the adjacent table, blue and red trucks smiling from the flannel. Spread next to it were a soiled diaper, a cotton undershirt with crotch snaps, a long-sleeved sweater, and a pair of white socks. Everything was bloodstained.

LaManche spoke into a recorder.

“ Bébé de race blanche, bien développé et bien nourri . . . .”

Well developed and well nourished but dead, I thought, the outrage beginning to build.

“ Le corps est bien préservé, avec une légère macération épidermique . . . .”

I stared at the small cadaver. Yes, it was well preserved, with only slight skin slippage on the hands.

“Guess he won’t have to check for defense wounds.”

Bertrand had come up beside me. I didn’t respond. I was not in the mood for morgue humor.

“There’s another one in the cooler,” he continued.

“That’s what we’d been told,” I said crisply.

“Yeah, but, Christ. They’re babies.”

I met his eyes and felt a stab of guilt. Bertrand was not trying to be funny. He looked as if his own child had died.

“Babies. Someone wasted them and stashed them in a basement. That’s about as cold as a drive-by. Worse. The bastard probably knew these kids.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Makes sense. Two kids, two adults who are probably the parents. Someone wiped out the whole family.”

“And burned the house as a cover?”

“Possible.”

“Could be a stranger.”

“Could be, but I doubt it. Wait. You’ll see.” He refocused on the autopsy proceeding, hands clutched tightly behind his back.

LaManche stopped dictating and spoke to the autopsy technician. Lisa took a tape from the counter and stretched it the length of the baby’s body.

“ Cinquante-huit centimètres .” Fifty-eight centimeters.

Ryan observed from across the room, arms crossed, right thumb grating the tweed on his left bicep. Now and then I saw his jaw tense and his Adam’s apple rise and fall.