Reichs, Kathy: Death Du Jour

I waited. In the seven years I’d worked for him, the lab director had never called me at three in the morning.

“I hope things went well at Lac Memphrémagog.” He cleared his throat. “I have just had a call from the coroner’s office. There is a house fire in St-Jovite. The firefighters are still trying to get it under control. The arson investigators will go in first thing in the morning, and the coroner wants us there.” Again the throat. “A neighbor says the residents are at home. Their cars are in the driveway.”

“Why do you need me?” I asked in English.

“Apparently the fire is extremely intense. If there are bodies, they will be badly burned. Perhaps reduced to calcined bone and teeth. It could be a difficult recovery.”

Damn. Not tomorrow.

“What time?”

“I will come for you at six A.M.?”

“O.K.”

“Temperance. It could be a bad one. There were children living there.”

I set the alarm for five-thirty.

Bienvenue.

2

I HAVE LIVED IN THE SOUTH ALL OF MY ADULT LIFE. IT CAN NEVER be too hot for me. I love the beach in August, sundresses, ceiling fans, the smell of children’s sweaty hair, the sound of bugs at window screens. Yet I spend my summers and school breaks in Quebec. Most months during the academic year, I fly from Charlotte, North Carolina, where I am on the anthropology faculty at the university, to work at the medicolegal lab in Montreal. This is a distance of approximately twelve hundred miles. Due north.

When it is deep winter, I often have a talk with myself before deplaning. It will be cold, I remind myself. It will be very cold. But you will dress for it and be ready. Yes. I will be ready. I never am. It’s always a shock to leave the terminal and take that first, startling breath.

At 6 A.M., on the tenth day of March, the thermometer on my patio read two degrees Fahrenheit. Seventeen below, Celsius. I was wearing everything I possibly could. Long underwear, jeans, double sweaters, hiking boots, and woolen socks. Inside the socks, I had sparkly insulated liners designed to keep astronaut feet toasty on Pluto. Same provocative combo as the day before. I’d probably stay just as warm.

When LaManche honked, I zipped my parka, pulled on gloves and ski hat, and bolted from the lobby. Unenthused as I was for the day’s outing, I didn’t want to keep him waiting. And I was extremely overheated.

I had expected a dark sedan, but he waved at me from what would probably be called a sport utility vehicle. Four-wheel drive, bright red, with racing stripes.

“Nice car,” I said as I climbed in.

“ Merci. ” He gestured to a center rack. It held two Styrofoam cups and a Dunkin’ Donuts bag. Bless you. I chose an apple crunch.

On the drive to St-Jovite, LaManche related what he knew. It went little beyond what I’d heard at 3 A.M. From across the road a neighbor couple saw occupants enter the residence at nine in the evening. The neighbors left after that and visited friends some distance away, where they stayed late. When they were returning around two they noted a glow from down the road, and then flames shooting from the house. Another neighbor thought she’d heard booming sounds sometime after midnight, wasn’t sure, and went back to sleep. The area is remote and sparsely populated. The volunteer fire brigade arrived at two-thirty, and called in help when they saw what they had to deal with. It took two squads over three hours to put out the flames. LaManche had talked to the coroner again at five forty-five. Two deaths were confirmed, others anticipated. Some areas were still too hot, or too dangerous, to search. Arson was suspected.

We drove north in the predawn darkness, into the foothills of the Laurentian Mountains. LaManche talked little, which was fine with me. I am not a morning person. He is an audio junkie, however, and kept an unbroken succession of cassettes playing. Classics, pop, even C&W, all converted to easy listenin’. Perhaps it was meant to calm, like the numbing music piped to elevators and waiting rooms. It made me jittery.

“How far is St-Jovite?” I picked a double-chocolate honey-glazed.

“It will take us about two hours. St-Jovite is about twenty-five kilometers this side of Mont Tremblant. Have you skied there?” He wore a knee-length parka, army green with a fur-lined hood. From the side, all I could see was the tip of his nose.

“Um. Beautiful.”

I nearly got frostbite on Mont Tremblant. It was the first time I’d skied in Quebec, and I was dressed for the Blue Ridge Mountains. The wind at the summit was cold enough to freeze liquid hydrogen.

“How did things go at Lac Memphrémagog?”

“The grave wasn’t where we expected, but, what’s new? Apparently she was exhumed and reburied in 1911. Odd that there was no record of it.” Very odd, I thought, taking a sip of tepid coffee. Instrumental Springsteen. “Born in the U.S.A.” I tried to block it. “Anyway, we found her. The remains will be delivered to the lab today.”

“It is too bad about this fire. I know you were counting on a free week to concentrate on that analysis.”

In Quebec, winters can be slow for the forensic anthropologist. The temperature rarely rises above freezing. The rivers and lakes ice over, the ground turns rock hard, and snow buries everything. Bugs disappear, and many scavengers go underground. The result: Corpses do not putrefy in the great outdoors. Floaters are not pulled from the St. Lawrence. People, too, burrow in. Hunters, hikers, and picnickers quit roaming the woods and fields, and some of last season’s dead are not found until the spring melt. The cases that are assigned to me, the faceless in need of a name, decline in number between November and April.

The exception is house fires. During the cold months, these increase. Most burned bodies go to the odontologist and are identified by dental records. The address and its occupant are generally known, so antemortem files can be pulled for comparison. It is when charred strangers turn up that my help may be requested.

Or in difficult recovery situations. LaManche was right. I’d been counting on an open agenda, and did not appreciate having to go to St-Jovite.

“Maybe I won’t be involved in the analysis.” A million and one strings began “I’m Sitting on Top of the World.” “They’ll probably have records on the family.”

“Probably.”

We arrived in St-Jovite in less than two hours. The sun had risen and was painting the town and countryside in icy, dawn tones. We turned west onto a winding two-lane. Almost immediately two flatbeds passed us, heading in the opposite direction. One carried a battered gray Honda, the other a red Plymouth Voyager.

“I see they have impounded the cars,” said LaManche.

I watched the vehicles disappear in the side mirror. The van had infant carriers in the backseat and a yellow smiley face on the rear bumper. I pictured a child in the window, tongue out, fingers in ears, mugging at the world. Googly eyes, my sister and I had called it. Perhaps that child lay charred beyond recognition in an upstairs room ahead.

Within minutes we saw what we were looking for. Police cruisers, fire engines, utility trucks, mobile press units, ambulances, and unmarked cars lined the road and flowed up either side of a long, gravel driveway.

Reporters stood in clusters, some talking, some adjusting equipment. Others sat in cars, keeping warm while waiting out the story. Thanks to the cold and the early hour, there were surprisingly few sightseers. Now and then a car passed, then returned slowly for a second sweep. Round-trip gawkers. Later, there would be many more.

LaManche signaled a turn and angled onto the drive, where a uniformed officer waved us to a stop. He wore an olive green jacket with black fur collar, dark olive muffler, and olive hat, earflaps tied in the up position. His ears and nose were raspberry red, and when he spoke, a cloud of vapor billowed from his mouth. I wanted to tell him to cover his ears, immediately felt like my mother, and didn’t. He’s a big boy. If his lobes crack off, he’ll deal with it.