Deja Dead Part 18

I thought of the jigsaw puzzles I'd worked as a child. Gran and I pored over the pieces, searching for the right one, our eyes and brains calibrating minute variations in grain and shade. Success depended on the ability to perceive subtle differences in tone and texture. How the h.e.l.l had I spotted this path in the dark?

I could hear the rustling of leaves and the snapping of twigs behind me. I didn't point out the gloves, but let them be impressed with my land navigational skills. Brennan the Pathfinder. Within a few yards I spotted the can of insect repellent. No subtlety there. The bright orange cap shone like a beacon in the foliage.

And there was my camouflaged mound. Below a white oak the ground swelled into a small protuberance covered by leaves and bordered by bare earth. In the exposed soil I could see the marks left by my fingers as I'd scratched up leaves and dirt to conceal the plastic. The results of my hurried camouflage job may have revealed more than concealed, but it seemed the thing to do at the time.

I've done many body recoveries. Most hidden corpses are found because of a tip or a lucky break. Informants rat out their accomplices. Excited kids point out their finds. It smelled awful so we started poking around, and there it was! It smelled awful so we started poking around, and there it was! It felt odd to be one of the kids. It felt odd to be one of the kids.

"There." I indicated the leafy hump.

"You sure?" Ryan asked.

I just looked at him. The others said nothing. I set down my backpack and withdrew another pair of garden gloves. Crossing to the mound, I placed my feet carefully to minimize the disturbance. Absurd, in light of my thrashing about the night before, but at an official scene proper technique is expected.

I squatted down and brushed back enough leaves to expose a small portion of the plastic bag. The bulk of it was still embedded in the earth, and the irregular contour suggested that the contents were secure within. It looked undisturbed. When I turned, Poirier was crossing himself.

Ryan spoke to Cambronne. "Let's get some shots for the travel brochure."

I rejoined the others and waited silently as Cambronne followed his ritual. He unpacked his equipment, filled out a marker board, and photographed the mound and the bag from several distances and directions. Finally, he lowered his camera and stepped back.

Ryan turned to LaManche. "Doc?"

LaManche said his first word since I'd arrived. "Temperance?"

Taking a trowel from the backpack, I crossed back to the mound. I swept away the remaining leaves, carefully uncovering as much of the bag as possible. It looked as I remembered it. I could even see the small perforation I'd made with my thumbnail.

Using the trowel, I sc.r.a.ped soil upward and outward around the periphery, slowly exposing more and more of the bag. The dirt smelled ancient and musty, as if bound in its molecules it held a minute part of everything it had nurtured since the glaciers released it from their icy grip.

I heard voices drifting from the law enforcement carnival on the street, but where I worked, the only sounds came from the birds, insects, and the steady sc.r.a.ping of my trowel. Branches lifted and fell in the breeze, a gentler version of the dance they'd done the night before. The night theater had been Masai warriors leaping and lunging in mock battle. The morning show was the "Anniversary Waltz." Shadows moved across the bag, and across the faces of the solemn group witnessing its emergence. I watched the shapes move on the plastic, like puppets in a shadow play.

Within fifteen minutes the mound had become a pit, with more than half the bag visible. I suspected the contents had rearranged themselves as decomposition progressed and bones were freed of their anatomical responsibilities. If there were bones.

Thinking I'd removed enough soil to free the bundle, I put down my trowel, took hold of the twisted plastic, and slowly pulled. It wouldn't budge. Last night all over again. Was someone underground, holding the other end of the bag, challenging me to a macabre game of tug-of-war?

Cambronne had photographed as I dug, and was now behind me, positioned to fix on Kodachrome the moment of the bag's release. The phrase popped into my mind: Capture the moments of our lives. And deaths, I thought.

I brushed my gloves along the sides of my jeans, grabbed the sack as far down as I could, and gave a short, sharp yank. Movement. The pit wouldn't yield its cache with ease, but I'd weakened its grip. I felt the bag shift and the contents relocate slightly. I took a breath and pulled again, harder. I wanted to dislodge the bag, but not rip it. It gave way and then resettled.

Bracing my feet, I gave one more tug, and my underground opponent gave up the contest. The sack started to slide free. I rewrapped my fingers around the twisted plastic, and, inching backward, step by step, teased the bag out of the pit.

When I'd pulled it free of the rim, I released my grip and stepped back. A common garbage bag, the kind found in kitchens and garages across North America. Intact. The contents made it lumpy. It wasn't heavy. That was not a good sign, or was it? Would I rather find the remains of someone's dog and be humiliated, or the remains of a human body and be vindicated?

Cambronne snapped into action. He placed his placard and took a series of shots. I removed one glove, and dug my Swiss army knife from my pocket.

When Cambronne finished, I knelt beside the bag. My hands shook slightly, but I finally got my thumbnail into the small crescent of the blade and opened it. The stainless steel glinted as sunlight struck it. I selected a spot at the bound end for my incision. I felt five sets of eyes on me.

I glanced at LaManche. His features changed shape as the shadows shifted. I wondered, briefly, how my own sullied face looked in the light. LaManche nodded, and I placed pressure on the blade.

Before the steel could pierce the plastic, my hand stopped, checked by a sound like an invisible tether. We all heard it at once, but Bertrand voiced our collective thought.

"What the f.u.c.k?" he said.

17.

THE SUDDEN DIN WAS A CACOPHONY OF SOUNDS. THE FRANTIC barking of a dog mingled with human voices raised in excitement. Shouts rang back and forth, tense and clipped, but too indistinct to make out the words. The bedlam was within the monastery grounds, somewhere off to our left. My first thought was that the night prowler had returned, and that every cop in the province, and at least one German shepherd, were in pursuit. barking of a dog mingled with human voices raised in excitement. Shouts rang back and forth, tense and clipped, but too indistinct to make out the words. The bedlam was within the monastery grounds, somewhere off to our left. My first thought was that the night prowler had returned, and that every cop in the province, and at least one German shepherd, were in pursuit.

I looked at Ryan and the others. Like me, they were frozen in place. Even Poirier had stopped fidgeting with his mustache and stood with hand fixed to upper lip.

Then the approaching sound of a body tunneling swiftly and indiscriminantly through foliage broke the spell. Heads turned simultaneously, as if operated by one switch. From somewhere in the trees, a voice called out.

"Ryan? You over there?"

"Here."

We oriented in the direction of the voice.

"Sacre bleu." More thrashing and crunching. "Aiee."

An SQ officer came into view, wrestling back branches and muttering audibly. His beefy face was red, and his breathing was noisy. Sweat beaded his brow and flattened the fringe of hair circling his mostly bald head. Spotting us, he planted a hand on each knee, and bent to catch his breath. I could see scratches where twigs had dragged across the top of his exposed scalp.

After a moment he raised up and jerked a thumb in the direction from which he'd come. In a wheezy voice, like air through a clogged filter, he panted, "You better get over there, Ryan. The G.o.dd.a.m.n dog's acting like a crackhead with a bad load."

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Poirier's hand jerk to his forehead and slide to his chest. The sign of the cross called upon once more.

"What?" Ryan's eyebrows rose in puzzlement.

"DeSalvo took him around the grounds, like you said, and the sonofab.i.t.c.h started circling this one spot and barking like he thinks Adolf Hitler and the whole G.o.dd.a.m.n German army's buried there." He paused. "Listen to him!"

"And?"

"And??? The little b.a.s.t.a.r.d's about to blow a vocal chord. You don't get over there pretty quick he's going to circle right up his own a.s.shole."

I suppressed a smile. The image was pretty comical.

"Just hold him back a few more minutes. Give him a Milk-Bone or pop him a Valium if you have to. We've got something here we need to finish." He looked at his watch. "Get back here in ten minutes."

The officer shrugged, released the branch he was holding, and turned to go.

"Eh, Piquot."

The corpulent face swiveled back.

"There's a path here."

"Sacrifice," Piquot hissed, picking his way through the tangle toward the trail Ryan had indicated. I was sure he'd lose it within fifteen yards.

"And Piquot . . ." Ryan continued.

The face looked back again.

"Don't let Rin Tin Tin disturb anything."

He turned back to me. "You waiting to have a birthday, Brennan?"

We heard Piquot thrashing his way out of earshot as I slit the bag from end to end.

The odor didn't leap out and grab me as it had with Isabelle Gagnon. Freed of its confines, it spread outward slowly, a.s.serting itself. My nose identified soil and plant decay, and an overlay of something else. It wasn't the fetid smell of putrefaction, but a more primeval scent. It was a smell that spoke of pa.s.sing, of origins and extinctions, of life recycled. I had smelled it before. It told me the sack held something dead, and not newly dead.

Don't let it be a dog or a deer, I thought, as my gloved hands separated the opening. My hands shook again and the plastic quivered in them. Yes, I changed my mind, let it be a dog or a deer.

Ryan, Bertrand, and LaManche pressed in as I laid back the severed plastic. Poirier stood like a headstone, rooted to the spot.

First I saw a scapula. Not much, but enough to confirm this was no hunter's cache or family pet. I looked at Ryan. I could see pinching at the corners of his eyes and tension in his jaw muscles.

"It's human."

Poirier's hand flew to his forehead for another go-around.

Ryan reached for his spiral and turned a page. "What have we got?" he asked. His voice was as sharp as the blade I'd just used.

I gently moved the bones. "Ribs . . . shoulder blades . . . collarbones . . . vertebrae," I ticked off. "Looks like they're all thoracic."

"Sternum," I added, on finding the breastbone.

I probed among the bones, looking for more body parts. The others watched in silence. When I reached into the back of the bag, a large brown spider skittered across my hand and up my arm. I could see its eyes rising on stalks, tiny periscopes seeking the cause of this intrusion. Its fuzzy legs felt light and delicate, like a lace hanky brushing across my skin. I jerked back, flinging the spider into s.p.a.ce.

"That's it," I said, straightening and stepping back. My knees popped in protest. "Upper torso. No arms." My skin was crawling, but not from the spider.

My gloved hands hung at my sides. I felt no joy in the vindication of my judgment, just a dulling numbness, like someone in shock. My emotional being had shut down, hung up a sign and gone to lunch. It's happened again, I thought. Another human being dead. A monster is out there.

Ryan scribbled in his spiral. His neck tendons bulged.

"Now what?" Poirier's voice was little more than a squeak.

"Now we find the rest," I said.

Cambronne was positioning for photos when we heard the return of Piquot. Again, he came cross country. He joined us, looked at the bones, and released a whispered expletive.

Ryan turned to Bertrand. "Can you take over here while we check out the dog?"

Bertrand nodded. His body was as rigid as the pines around us.

"Let's bag what we've got, then recovery can go over this whole area. I'll send them."

We left Bertrand and Cambronne and followed Piquot toward the barking. The animal sounded almost distraught.

Three hours later I sat on a gra.s.sy strip examining the contents of four body bags. The sun was high and hot on my shoulders, but did little to warm the chill inside me. Fifteen feet away the dog lay near its handler, its head angled across enormous brown paws. It had finished a big morning.

Conditioned to respond to the smell of decomposed or decomposing body tissue, body dogs ferret out hidden corpses like infrared systems pinpoint heat. Even after its removal they detect the former resting places of decaying flesh. They are the bloodhounds of the dead. This dog had performed well, zeroing in on three more burial sites. At each strike it announced its find with zeal, barking and snapping and circling the spot in a frenzied display. I wondered if all cadaver dogs were as pa.s.sionate about their work.

Two hours were needed to excavate, process, and bag the remains. A preliminary inventory before removal, and now a more detailed list, logging every fragment of bone.

I glanced at the dog. It looked as tired as I felt. Only its eyes moved, the chocolate orbs revolving like radar dishes. It shifted its gaze without moving its head.

The dog had a right to be exhausted, but so did I. When it finally raised its head, a long, thin tongue dropped into view and hung quivering. I kept my tongue in my mouth and turned back to the inventory.

"How many?"

I hadn't heard him approach, but I knew the voice. I braced myself.

"Bonjour, Monsieur Claudel. Comment ca va? Comment ca va?"

"How many?" he repeated.

"One," I answered, never raising my eyes.

"Anything missing?

I finished writing and turned to look at him. He was standing with his feet spread, jacket hung from one arm, peeling the cellophane from a vending machine sandwich.

Like Bertrand, Claudel had chosen natural textiles, cotton for the shirt and pants, linen for the jacket. He'd stayed with the greens, however, preferring a more verdant look. The only color contrast was in the pattern of his tie. Here and there it introduced a tasteful splash of tangerine.

"Can you tell what we've got?" He gestured with bread and lunch meat.

"Yes."

"Yes?"

Less than thirty seconds since his arrival and I wanted to rip the sandwich from his hand and insert it forcefully up his nose, or any other orifice. Claudel did not bring out the best in me when I was relaxed and rested. This morning I was neither. Like the dog, I'd had it. I lacked the energy or the inclination to play games.

"What we we have is a partial human skeleton. There's almost no soft tissue. The body was dismembered, placed in garbage bags, and buried in four separate locations in there." I pointed to the monastery grounds. "I found one bag last night. The dog smelled out the other three this morning." have is a partial human skeleton. There's almost no soft tissue. The body was dismembered, placed in garbage bags, and buried in four separate locations in there." I pointed to the monastery grounds. "I found one bag last night. The dog smelled out the other three this morning."

He took a bite, and gazed in the direction of the trees.

"What's missing?" The words garbled in ham and Muenster.

I stared at him without speaking, wondering why I found a routine question so annoying. It was his manner. I played myself a variation on my Claudel lecture. Ignore it. This is Claudel. The man is a reptile. Expect condescension and arrogance. He knows you were right. He's heard the story by now. He's not going to say 'bully for you.' It must be killing him. That's good enough. Let it go.

When I didn't answer he returned his attention to me.