Grave Secrets

Before facing the head and torso, I spent several minutes sifting through the mound on my blotter. I located LaManche’s request sheets, fished out the pink telephone slips, and shoved the rest aside. I was hoping for some sort of message from Ryan. Bienvenue. Welcome back. Glad you’re here. There’d been nothing at home.

Detectives. Students. Journalists. One prosecutor had phoned four times.

Zip from Ryan.

Great. Ryan had his sources. I had no doubt Sherlock knew I was back.

The headache swirled behind my right eye.

Giving up on the desk, I grabbed the Demande d’Expertise forms, slipped into a lab coat, and headed for the door. I was halfway there when my phone rang.

It was Dominique Specter.

“Il fait chaud.”

“It’s very hot,” I agreed, scanning one of LaManche’s forms.

“They say we may set a record today.”

“Yes,” I said absently. The skull had been found in a trunk. LaManche noted badly chipped teeth, and a cord laced through the tongue.

“It always seems so much hotter in the city. I do hope you have air-conditioning.”

“Yes, “ I answered, my mind on something more macabre than the weather.

“You are busy?”

“I’ve been away almost three weeks.”

“Of course. I do apologize for intruding on your time.” She paused, indicating appropriate contrition. “We can see Chantale at one o’clock.”

“Where is she?”

“At a police station on Guy near boulevard René Lévesque.”

Op South. It was just blocks from my condo.

“Shall we pick you up?”

“I’ll meet you there.”

I’d hardly replaced the receiver when the phone rang again. It was Susanne Jean. She would be with Volvo engineers all morning, had a lunch meeting at Bombardier, but could see me in the afternoon. We agreed to meet at three.

Crossing to the lab, I prepared folders for each case, and quickly scanned the torso request. Adult male. Arms, legs, and head missing. Advanced state of decomposition. Discovered in a culvert at Lac des Deux-Montagnes. Coroner: Leo Henry. Pathologist: Pierre LaManche. Investigating officer: Lieutenant-détective Andrew Ryan, Sûreté du Québec.

Well, well.

The remains were downstairs, so I took the secure elevator, swiped my card, and punched the lowest of the three buttons: LSJML. Coroner. Morgue.

In the basement, I entered another restricted area. On the left, doors opened into autopsy rooms, three containing single tables, the largest containing two.

Through the small window in the door of the central suite, I spotted a woman in surgical scrubs. She had long, curly hair, secured with a barrette at the back of her head. Pretty and thirty-something, with a quick smile and 36Ds, Lisa was a perennial favorite with the homicide detectives.

She was a perennial favorite with me for preferring to speak English.

Hearing the door, she turned and did that.

“Good morning. I thought you were in Guatemala.”

“I’ll be going back down.”

“R and R?”

“Not exactly. I’d like to look at LaManche’s torso.”

She pulled a face.

“He’s sixty-four, Dr. Brennan.”

“Everyone’s a comedian.”

“Morgue number?”

I read it aloud from the request form.

“Room four?”

“Please.” She disappeared through double doors. Beyond lay one of five morgue bays, each divided into fourteen refrigerated compartments secured by stainless steel doors. Small white cards announced the presence of occupants. Red stickers warned of HIV-positive status. The morgue number would tell Lisa behind which door the torso lay.

I proceeded to suite four, a room specially outfitted for extra ventilation. The room for floaters and bloaters. The room for crispers. The room in which I usually worked.

I’d barely gloved and masked when Lisa rolled a gurney through swinging doors identical to those in the central suite. When I unzipped the body bag, a nauseating odor filled the air.

“I think he’s done.”

“And then some.”

Lisa and I slid the torso onto the table. Though swollen and disfigured, the genitals were intact.

“It’s a boy.” Lisa Lavigne, obstetrical nurse.

“Unquestionably.”

I made notes while Lisa retrieved the X rays ordered by LaManche. They revealed vertebral arthritis, and three to four inches of bone in each of the severed limbs.

Using a scalpel, I removed the soft tissue overlying the breastbone, and Lisa revved up a Stryker saw to buzz through the sternal ends of the third, fourth, and fifth ribs. We did the same for the pelvis, dissecting out then cutting free the frontal portions where the two halves meet along the midline.

All six ribs and the pubic symphyses showed porosity and lots of erratic bone. This guy looked like he was up there in years.

Sex was indicated by the genitalia. The rib ends and symphyses would allow me to estimate the man’s age. Ancestry would be a tough call.

Skin color is meaningless, since a body can darken, blanch, or colorize, depending upon postmortem conditions. This gentleman had chosen a camouflage motif: mottled brown and green. I could take a few postcranial measurements, but with no head or limbs, racial assessment would be almost impossible.