Bones to Ashes Part 10

"Only those two?"

Ryan raised palms in a "who knows why?" gesture. "Beaumont caught the report, requested a sit-down with the warden. Claims he knows where Sicard is buried."

"Is he credible?"

"Beaumont could just be a con looking to better his life. But the guy can't be discounted."

"What's he saying?"

"Let's make a deal."

"And?"

"We're negotiating. Wanted to give you a heads-up. If the tip's legit, a team will go out immediately. We'll want to move before the press scents blood."

"I'll be ready."

I was checking my field kit when Ryan phoned.

"We're on."

"When?"

"CSU truck's already on the move."

"Meet you in the lobby in five."

Ryan took Autoroute 15 northwest out of the city, cut east, then north toward Saint-Louis-de-Terrebonne. Midday traffic was light. He briefed me as he drove.

"Beaumont settled for getting his mail privileges reinstated. Three months back the dolt received a copy of Catch-22 Catch-22 with LSD mixed into the binding glue." with LSD mixed into the binding glue."

"Creative pals. What's his story?"

"Six years ago, Beaumont shared a cell with a guy named Harky Grissom. Claims Grissom told him about a kid he'd waxed back in ninety-seven. Said he picked her up at a bus stop in the middle of the night, took her home, abused her, then smashed her skull with a socket wrench."

"Beaumont could have read about or listened to reports of Sicard's disappearance."

"Grissom told Beaumont the kid he killed was crazy for NASCAR. Claims he lured her with promises she'd meet Mario Gosselin."

I watched the yellow center line click up Ryan's shades.

"The bit about Sicard liking stock car racing was dead-on." Ryan glanced at me and the yellow dashes slid sideways. "And never made public."

"Where's Grissom now?"

"Paroled in ninety-nine. Killed in a car wreck the same year."

"He won't be of any help."

"Not without a seance, but he wouldn't have helped in any case. We have to rely on Beaumont's memory."

Ryan hung a right. To both sides lay woods. In moments, I saw what I'd been expecting. Pulled to the side of the asphalt were the LSJML crime scene truck, a black coroner's van, an SQ patrol unit, an unmarked Chevrolet Impala, and an SUV. Apparently the speed and stealth had worked. No cameras or microphones were present. Not a single poised pen. For now.

Hippo was talking to a pair of uniformed cops. Two morgue technicians smoked by their van. A guy in civvies was filling a bowl from a canteen for a border collie.

Ryan and I got out. The air hit me like caramel syrup. That morning's Gazette Gazette had called for rain and a high in the nineties. June in Quebec. Go figure. had called for rain and a high in the nineties. June in Quebec. Go figure.

Walking toward Hippo, Ryan explained the lay of the land.

"According to Beaumont, Grissom described an abandoned barn off Route 335, in woods backing up to a horse farm."

I followed the compa.s.s of Ryan's hand.

"The highway's behind us. The Parc equestre de Blainville is off through those trees. Saint-Lin-Jonction and Blainville lie to the south."

I felt a heaviness in my chest. "Anne Girardin disappeared in Blainville."

"Yeah." Ryan kept his eyes straight ahead.

We reached the group. Hands were shaken, greetings exchanged. Maybe it was the sticky heat. Maybe unease over what we might soon unearth. The usual humor and banter were absent.

"Barn's about ten yards in." Hippo's face was slick, his pits dark. "Good wind will bring her down."

"What's been done?" Ryan asked.

"Ran the dog through," Hippo said.

"Mia," the dog handler cut in.

The collie's ears shot up at the sound of its name.

Hippo rolled his eyes.

"Her name is Mia." Sylvain Sylvain was embroidered on the handler's shirt. was embroidered on the handler's shirt.

Hippo is famous for loathing what he dubs "hot-s.h.i.t" technology. It was clear cadaver dogs got the same fish eye as computers, iris scanners, and touch-tone phones.

"Mia didn't seem overly impressed." Hippo took a tin from his pocket, thumbed open the lid, and palmed antacid tablets into his mouth. didn't seem overly impressed." Hippo took a tin from his pocket, thumbed open the lid, and palmed antacid tablets into his mouth.

"The place is full of horses.h.i.t." Sylvain's voice had an edge. "Throws her off scent."

"GPR?" I truncated the exchange with a question about ground-penetrating radar.

Hippo nodded, then turned. Ryan and I followed him into the trees. The air smelled of moss and loamy earth. The thick foliage hung undisturbed by even a whisper of movement. Within yards, I was perspiring and breathing deeply.

In thirty seconds we were at the barn. The structure rose from a clearing barely larger than itself, leaning like a ship in an angry sea. Its planks were gray and weathered, its roof partially collapsed. What I a.s.sumed had been its main double doors now lay in a heap of rotten lumber. Through the opening, I could see dimness pierced by shafts of dust-filtered sunlight.

Hippo, Ryan, and I stopped at the threshold. Crooking two fingers, I pulled my shirt by the collar and flapped. Sweat now soaked my waistband and bra.

The barn's interior was ripe with the mustiness of moisture and age. Rotting vegetation. Dust. And something sweetly organic.

The CSU techs looked like astronauts in their masks and white coveralls. I recognized each by movement and body form. The daddy longlegs was Renaud Pasteur. The Demster Dumpster was David Chenevier.

Hippo called out. Pasteur and Chenevier waved, then resumed their tasks.

Chenevier was guiding a three-wheeled apparatus in parallel paths back and forth across the barn floor. A rectangular red box hung below the rig's main axle, its bottom inches from the ground surface. A small LCD screen rested on the handlebars.

Pasteur was alternating between shooting stills and video, and clearing debris in front of Chenevier. Rocks. Soda cans. A length of rusted metal stripping.

Drew the short straw, I thought, seeing Pasteur pick something up, examine it, then toss it aside.

Forty minutes later Chenevier was covering the last and farthest corner of the barn. Pausing, he made a comment. Pasteur joined him, and the two discussed something on the monitor.

A chill replaced my hotness. Beside me, I felt Ryan tense.

Chenevier turned. "We got something."

10.

R YAN AND YAN AND I I PICKED OUR WAY ACROSS THE UNEVEN GROUND PICKED OUR WAY ACROSS THE UNEVEN GROUND. Hippo zigzagged behind. He was wearing a shirt that could only have been purchased at a discount store. A deep-discount store. Shiny penguins in m.u.f.flers and berets. The fabric looked flammable.

Chenevier and Pasteur opened a s.p.a.ce to allow us a view of the monitor. A layer cake of colors squiggled across the screen. Reds. Greens. Blues. Centered in the cake was a pale gray hump.

GPR isn't as complicated as the name implies. Each system includes a radio transmitter and receiver connected to a pair of antennae coupled to the ground.

A signal is sent into the soil. Since a subsurface object or disturbance will have electrical properties different from those of the surrounding dirt, a signal reflecting off that object or disturbance will bounce back to the receiver slightly later in time. A different wave pattern will appear on the monitor.

Think of a fish finder. The thing tells you something's down there, but can't tell you what.

"Could be an animal burrow." Chenevier's face was soaked with sweat. "Or a trench for old piping."

"How far down?" I asked, studying the inverted gray crescent.

Chenevier shrugged. "Eighteen or twenty inches."

Deep enough for a hurried gravedigger.

Mia was summoned and led to the spot. She alerted by sitting and barking once, sharply.

By noon I'd marked off a ten-foot square with stakes and string. Ryan and I started in with long-handled spades. Pasteur shot pics. Chenevier sifted.

Hippo stood to one side, mopping sweat and shifting from foot to foot. Now and then one hand would go into a pocket. The jangle of keys would join the click of Pasteur's shutter and the hiss of soil trickling through mesh.

The barn floor was rich with organics, easy to dig, easy to sift.

By twelve-thirty we'd exposed an amoeba-like splotch visibly darker than the surrounding earth. Soil staining. A sign of decomposition.

Ryan and I switched to trowels and began sc.r.a.ping dirt, both antic.i.p.ating and dreading what we'd find beneath the discoloration. Now and then our eyes would meet, drop back to the hollow we were creating.

The first bone turned up in the screen.

"Got something." Chenevier's voice cut the silence.

"Gaubine!" Hippo popped antacid. Hippo popped antacid.

Chenevier crossed to me and extended a hand.

Sitting back on my heels, I took what lay in his palm.

There are 206 bones in the adult human skeleton, all varying in size and shape. Singly, they yield few clues about a person's life story. But together, like interlocking puzzle pieces, they say a lot. Age. s.e.x. Ancestry. Health. Habit. The more bones, the more is revealed.

Chenevier's find, however, disclosed the jigsaw solo.

Slender and less than ten centimeters long, the bone looked like a pin that might be worn to keep a topknot in place. Thicker at one end, it tapered to a subtle k.n.o.b on the other.

I looked up to eight curious eyes.

"It's a baculum."

Four blank stares.

"A bone found in the p.e.n.i.s of most mammals. I'd guess this one comes from a large domestic dog."

Still no one spoke.

"The os baculum aids in copulation when mating must take place during brief encounters."

Pasteur cleared his throat.

"When animals have to perform quickly." I adjusted my mask.

"Pour l'amour du bon Dieu!" Hippo's expletive suggested the same emotions swirling in me. Relief. Bewilderment. Hope. Hippo's expletive suggested the same emotions swirling in me. Relief. Bewilderment. Hope.

I handed the bone to Pasteur. As he photographed and bagged it, Ryan and I resumed digging.