Reichs, Kathy - Death Du Jour

When satisfied with the facial contour, I moved on. Using the bony architecture as a guide I sampled eyes, ears, noses, and lips from the program’s database, and fitted predrawn features onto the skull.

Next I tested hair, and added what I thought would be the least distracting style. Knowing nothing of the victim, I decided it was better to be vague than wrong. When I was happy with the components I’d added to the captured cranial image, I used the stylus to blend and shadow to make the reconstruction as lifelike as possible. The whole process took less than two hours.

I leaned back and looked at my work.

A face gazed from the monitor. It had drooping eyes, a delicate nose, and broad, high cheekbones. It was pretty in a robotic, expressionless way. And somehow familiar. I swallowed. Then with a touch of the stylus I modified the hair. Blunt cut. Bangs.

I drew in a breath. Did my reconstruction resemble Anna Goyette? Or had I simply created a generic young female and given the hair a familiar cut?

I returned the hair to the original style and evaluated the likeness. Yes? No? I had no idea.

Finally, I touched a command on the drop-down menu, and four frames appeared on the screen. I compared the series, looking for hints of inconsistency between my merged image and the skull. First, the unaltered cranium and jaw. Next, a peel image, with bare bone on the skull’s left, fleshed features on the right. Third, the face I’d created superimposed in ghostly translucence over bone and tissue markers. Last, the finished facial approximation. I clicked the final image to full screen and stared at it a long time. I still wasn’t sure.

I printed, then stored the image, and hurried to my office. As I left the building I dropped copies of the sketch on Ryan’s desk. The attached note consisted of two words: Murtry, Inconnue . Unknown. I had other things on my mind.

When I climbed out of the taxi the rain had eased, but the temperature had plummeted. Thin membranes were forming on puddles and crystallizing on wires and branches.

The apartment was as dim and still as a crypt. Dropping my coat and bags in the hall, I went directly to the guest room. Harry’s makeup lay scattered across the dresser. Had she used it this morning or last week? Clothes. Boots. Hair dryer. Magazines. My search turned up nothing to indicate where Harry had gone or when she had left.

I’d expected that. What I’d not expected was the alarm that gripped me as I rummaged from room to room.

I checked the machine. No messages.

Calm down. Maybe she phoned Kit.

Negative.

Charlotte?

No word from Harry, but Red Skyler had called there to say he’d contacted the Cult Awareness Network. They had nothing on Dom Owens, but there was a file on Inner Life Empowerment. According to CAN, the outfit was legit. ILE operated in several states, offering insight seminars that were useless but nontoxic. Confront the intimate you and the intimate other. Crap, but probably harmless and I shouldn’t be too concerned. If I wanted more information I could call him or CAN. He left both numbers.

I hardly listened to the other voices. Sam, wanting news. Katy reporting her return to Charlottesville.

So ILE was not dangerous and Ryan was probably right. Harry had gone off again. Anger made my cheeks feel warm.

Like a robot I hung my coat and rolled my suitcase to the bedroom. Then I sat on the edge of the bed, kneaded my temples, and let my thoughts roll. The digits on my clock slowly marked the minutes.

These last few weeks had been some of the most difficult of my career. The torture and mutilation these victims had endured far surpassed what I normally saw. And I couldn’t remember when I’d worked so many deaths in so short a period of time. How were the murders on Murtry linked to those in St-Jovite? Was Carole Comptois killed by the same monstrous hand? Had the slaughter in St-Jovite been merely the beginning? At this moment was some maniac scripting a bloodbath too terrible to contemplate?

Harry would have to deal with Harry.

I knew what I was going to do. At least I knew where I would start.

It was raining again and the McGill campus was covered with a thin, frozen crust. The buildings stood out as black silhouettes, their windows the only light in the dreary, wet dusk. Here and there a figure moved in an illuminated square, a tiny puppet in a shadowbox theater.

A porous ice shell crumbled to the steps as I gripped the handle to Birks Hall. The building was empty, abandoned by occupants fearing the storm. No raincoats on hooks, no boots melting along walls. The printers and copy machines were still, the only sound the tick of raindrops high above on leaded glass.

My steps echoed hollowly as I climbed to the third floor. From the main corridor I could see that Jeannotte’s door was closed. I didn’t really think she’d be here, but had decided it was worth a try. She didn’t expect me, and people say odd things when caught outside their normal routines.

When I turned the corner I saw yellow light spilling from below the door. I knocked, unsure what to expect.

When the door opened my jaw dropped in amazement.

30

HER EYES WERE RED ALONG THE RIMS, HER SKIN PALE AND DRAWN. She tensed when she recognized me, but said nothing.

“How are you, Anna?”

“O.K.” She blinked and her lids made the bangs hop.

“I’m Dr. Brennan. We met several weeks ago.”

“I know.”

“When I returned they told me you were ill.”

“I’m fine. I was gone for a while.”

I wanted to ask her where she’d been, but held back. “Is Dr. Jeannotte here?”

Anna shook her head. She did a slow-motion hair tuck, absently circling her ear.

“Your mother was worried about you.”

She shrugged, the movement sluggish and barely noticeable. She didn’t question my knowledge of her home life.

“I’ve been working on a project with your aunt. She was also concerned.”

“Oh.” She looked down so I couldn’t see her face.

Hit her with it.

“Your friend said you might be involved with something that’s upsetting you.”

Her eyes came back to mine. “I have no friends. Who are you talking about?” Her voice was small and flat.

“Sandy O’Reilly. She was replacing you that day.”

“Sandy wants my hours. Why are you here?”

Good question.

“I wanted to talk to you and to Dr. Jeannotte.”

“She’s not in.”

“Could you and I talk?”

“There’s nothing you can do for me. My life is my own business.” The listlessness chilled me.

“I appreciate that. But, actually, I thought you might be able to help me.”

Her glance slid down the corridor then back to me.

“Help you how?”

“Would you like some coffee?”

“No.”

“Could we go somewhere else?”

She looked at me a long time, her eyes flat and empty. Then she nodded, took a parka from the hall tree, and guided me down the stairs and out a back door. Bending into the frigid rain we trudged uphill to the center of campus, and circled to the back of the Redpath Museum. Anna took a key from her pocket, opened a door, and led me into a dim corridor. The air smelled faintly of mildew and decay.

We climbed to the second floor and sat on a long wooden bench, surrounded by the bones of creatures long dead. Above us hung a beluga whale, casualty of some Pleistocene misfortune. Dust motes drifted in the fluorescent light.

“I don’t work in the museum anymore, but I still come here to think.” She gazed at the Irish elk. “These creatures lived millions of years and thousands of miles apart and now they’re fixed at this one point in the universe, forever motionless in time and place. I like that.”