Deja Dead Part 3

"Right," I said. "That's what he needs. A handler."

I could hear him laughing as I returned to my office.

My grandmother always told me there is good in everyone. "Just look fer it . . ." she'd say, the brogue smooth as satin, ". . . and ye'll find it. Everyone has a virtue." Gran, you never met Claudel.

Claudel's virtue was promptness. He was back in fifty minutes.

He stopped in Bergeron's office, and I could hear their voices through the wall. My name was repeated several times as Bergeron forwarded him to me. Claudel's cadence signaled irritation. He wanted a real opinion, but now he'd have to settle for me again. He appeared seconds later, his face hard.

Neither of us offered greeting. He waited at the door.

"It's positive," I said. "Gagnon."

He frowned, but I could see excitement collecting in his eyes. He had a victim. Now he could begin the investigation. I wondered if he felt anything for the dead woman or if it was all an exercise for him. Find the bad guy. Outwit the perp. I'd heard the banter, the comments, the jokes made over a victim's battered body. For some it was a way to deal with the obscenity of violence, a protective barrier against the daily reality of human slaughter. Morgue humor. Mask the horror in male bravado. For others it went deeper. I suspected Claudel was among the others.

I watched him for several seconds. Down the hall a phone rang. Though I truly disliked the man, I forced myself to admit that his opinion of me mattered. I wanted his approval. I wanted him to like me. I wanted all of them to accept me, to admit me to the club.

An image of Dr. Lentz flashed into my mind, a hologram psychologist, lecturing from the past.

"Tempe," she would say, "you are the child of an alcoholic father. You are searching for the attention he denied you. You want Daddy's approval, so you try to please everybody."

She made me see it, but she couldn't correct it. I had to do that on my own. Occasionally I overcompensated, and many found me a genuine pain in the a.s.s. This had not been the case with Claudel. I realized I'd been avoiding a confrontation.

I took a deep breath and began, choosing my words carefully.

"Monsieur Claudel, have you considered the possibility that this murder is connected to others that have taken place during the past two years?"

His features froze, the lips drawn in so tightly against his teeth as to be almost invisible. A cloud of red began at his collar and spread slowly up his neck and face. His voice was icy.

"Such as?" He held himself absolutely still.

"Such as Chantale Trottier," I continued. "She was killed in October of '93. Dismembered, decapitated, disemboweled." I looked directly at him. "What was left of her was found wrapped in plastic trash bags."

He raised both hands to the level of his mouth, clasped them together, fingers intertwined, and tapped them against his lips. His perfectly chosen gold cuff links, in his perfectly fitted designer shirt, clinked faintly. He looked straight at me.

"Ms. Brennan," he said, emphasizing the English label. "Perhaps you should stick to your area of expertise. I think we would recognize any links which might exist between crimes under our jurisdiction. These murders share nothing in common."

Ignoring the demotion, I forged on. "They were both women. They were both murdered within the past year. Both bodies showed signs of mutilation or attempt-"

His carefully constructed dam of control ruptured, and his anger rushed at me in a torrent.

"Tabernac!" he exploded. "Do you wo-"

His lips pursed to form the despised word, but he stopped himself just in time. With a visible effort, he regained his composure.

"Do you always have to overreact?"

"Think about it," I spat at him. I was trembling in rage as I got up to close the door.

4.

IT SHOULD HAVE FELT GOOD JUST TO SIT IN THE STEAM ROOM AND sweat. Like broccoli. That had been my intention. Three miles on the StairMaster, a round on the Nautilus, then vegetate. Like the rest of the day, the gym was not living up to my expectations. The workout had dissipated some of my anger, but I was still agitated. I knew Claudel was an a.s.shole. It was one of the names I'd stomped on his chest with each pump of the StairMaster. a.s.shole. d.i.c.khead. Moron. Two syllables worked best. I'd figured that out, but little else. It distracted me for a while, but now that my mind was idle I couldn't drive the murders out. Isabelle Gagnon. Chantale Trottier. I kept rolling them around, like peas on a dinner plate. sweat. Like broccoli. That had been my intention. Three miles on the StairMaster, a round on the Nautilus, then vegetate. Like the rest of the day, the gym was not living up to my expectations. The workout had dissipated some of my anger, but I was still agitated. I knew Claudel was an a.s.shole. It was one of the names I'd stomped on his chest with each pump of the StairMaster. a.s.shole. d.i.c.khead. Moron. Two syllables worked best. I'd figured that out, but little else. It distracted me for a while, but now that my mind was idle I couldn't drive the murders out. Isabelle Gagnon. Chantale Trottier. I kept rolling them around, like peas on a dinner plate.

I shifted my towel, and allowed my brain to reprocess the events of the day. When Claudel left, I'd checked with Denis to see when Gagnon's skeleton would be ready. I wanted to go over every inch of it for signs of trauma. Fractures. Gashes. Anything. Something about the way the body had been carved up bothered me. I wanted a close look at those cut marks. There was a problem with the boiling unit. The bones wouldn't be ready until tomorrow.

Next I'd gone to the central files and pulled the jacket for Trottier. I spent the rest of the afternoon poring over police accounts, autopsy findings, toxicology reports, photos. Something lingered in my memory cells, nagging at me, insisting the cases were linked. Some forgotten detail hovered just beyond recall, coupling the victims in a way I didn't understand. Some stored memory that I couldn't access told me it wasn't just the mutilation and bagging. I wanted to find the connection.

I readjusted my towel and wiped sweat from my face. The skin on my fingertips had gathered into little puckers. Everywhere else I was slick as a perch. I was definitely a short-timer. I couldn't take the heat for more than twenty minutes, no matter what the alleged benefits. Five more.

Chantale Trottier had been killed less than a year ago, in the fall of my first year full time at the lab. She was sixteen. I'd spread the autopsy photos on my desk this afternoon, but I didn't need them. I remembered her vividly, remembered in crisp detail the day she'd arrived at the morgue.

October 22, the afternoon of the oyster party. It was a Friday and most of the staff had quit early to drink beer and shuck their way through the crates of Malpeques that are an autumn tradition.

Through the crowd in the conference room I noticed LaManche talking on the phone. He held a hand over his free ear as a barricade against the party noise. I watched him. When he hung up he did a visual sweep of the room. Spotting me, he signaled with one hand, indicating that I should meet him in the hall. When he located Bergeron and got his attention, he repeated the message. In the elevator, five minutes later, he explained. A young girl had just come in. The body was badly beaten and dismembered. A visual ID would be impossible. He wanted Bergeron to look at the teeth. He wanted me to look at the cuts on the bones.

The mood in the autopsy room was in sharp contrast to the gaiety upstairs. Two SQ detectives stood at a distance while a uniformed officer from the ident.i.ty section took photos. The technician positioned the remains in silence. The detectives said nothing. There were no jokes or wisecracks. The usual banter was completely stilled. The only sound was the click of the shutter as it recorded the atrocity that lay on the autopsy table.

What was left of her had been arranged to form a body. The six b.l.o.o.d.y pieces had been placed in correct anatomical order, but the angles were slightly off, turning her into a life-size version of those plastic dolls designed to be twisted into distorted positions. The overall effect was macabre.

Her head had been cut off high on the neck, and the truncated muscles looked bright poppy red. The pallid skin rolled back gently at the severed edges, as if recoiling from contact with the fresh, raw meat. Her eyes were half open, and a delicate trail of dried blood meandered from her right nostril. Her hair was wet and lay plastered against her head. It had been long and blond.

Her trunk was bisected at the waist. The upper torso lay with her arms bent at the elbows, the hands drawn in and resting on her stomach. Coffin position, except her fingers were not intertwined.

Her right hand was partially detached, and the ends of the creamy white tendons jutted out like snapped electrical cords. Her attacker had been more successful with the left. The technician had placed it beside her head, where it lay alone, the fingers drawn in like the legs of a shriveled spider.

Her chest had been opened lengthwise, from throat to belly, and the pendulous b.r.e.a.s.t.s drooped downward toward each side of the rib cage, their weight drawing apart the two halves of divided flesh. The lower section of torso extended from her waist to her knees. Her lower legs rested side by side, positioned below their normal points of attachment. Unfettered by union at the knee joint, they lay with the feet rotated far to the sides, the toes pointed outward.

With a stab of pain, I'd noticed that her toenails were painted a soft pink. The intimacy of that simple act had caused me such an ache that I wanted to cover her, to scream at all of them to leave her alone. Instead, I'd stood and watched, waiting for my turn to trespa.s.s.

I could still close my eyes and see the jagged edges of the lacerations on her scalp, evidence of repeated blows with a blunt object. I could recall in minute detail the bruises on her neck. I could visualize the petechial hemorrhages in her eyes, tiny spots left by the bursting of small blood vessels. Caused by tremendous pressure on the jugular vessels, they are the cla.s.sic sign of strangulation.

My gut had recoiled as I'd wondered what else had happened to her, this woman-child so carefully composed and nurtured by peanut b.u.t.ter, Scout leaders, summer camps, and Sunday schools. I'd grieved for the years she wouldn't be allowed to live, for the proms she'd never attend, and the beers she'd never sneak. We think we are a civilized tribe, we North Americans in the last decade of the second millennium. We'd promised her three score years and ten. We'd allowed her but sixteen.

Shutting out the memories of that painful autopsy, I wiped perspiration from my face and shook my head, whipping my soggy hair back and forth. The mental images were liquefying so that I could no longer separate what I was recalling from the past from what I'd seen in the detail photos that afternoon. Like life. I've long suspected that many of my memories of childhood are actually drawn from old pictures, that they are a composite of snapshots, a mosaic of celluloid images reworked into a remembered reality. Kodak cast backward. Maybe it's better to recall the past that way. We rarely take pictures of sad occasions.

The door opened and a woman entered the steam room. She smiled and nodded, then carefully spread her towel on the bench to my left. Her thighs were the consistency of a sea sponge. I gathered my towel and headed for the shower.

Birdie was waiting when I got home. He watched me from across the entrance hall, his white form reflected softly in the black marble floor. He seemed annoyed. Do cats feel such emotions? Perhaps I was projecting. I checked his bowl and found it low, but not empty. Feeling guilty, I filled it anyway. Birdie had adjusted well to the move. His needs were simple. Me, Friskies Ocean Fish, and sleep. Such wants find no impediment in borders and relocate easily.

I had an hour before I was to meet Gabby so I stretched out on the sofa. The workout and steam had taken their toll, and I felt as if major muscle groups had gone off duty. But exhaustion has its rewards. I was physically, if not mentally, relaxed. As usual at such times I really wanted a drink.

Late afternoon sunlight flooded the room, its effect muted by the bleached muslin sheared across each window. It is what I love most about the apartment. The sunlight melds with the pale pastels to create a bright airiness I find soothing. It is my island of tranquillity in a world of tension.

The apartment is on the ground floor of a U-shaped building, which wraps around an inner courtyard. The unit takes up most of one wing and is free of immediate neighbors. On one side of the living room, French doors open to the courtyard garden. A set opposite gives way to my own small yard. It is an urban rarity-gra.s.s and flowers in the heart of Centre-ville. I've even planted a small herb garden.

At first I'd wondered if I'd like living by myself. I'd never done it. I'd gone from home to college to marriage with Pete, raising Katy, never the mistress of my own estate. I need not have worried. I love it.

I was drifting on the boundary between sleep and wakefulness when the phone yanked me back. Headachy from a nap interrupted, I spoke into the receiver. I was rewarded by a robotic voice trying to sell me a cemetery plot.

"Merde," I said, swinging my legs outward and rising from the couch. It is the one drawback to living alone. I talk to myself.

The other drawback is being apart from my daughter. I dialed, and she picked up on the first ring.

"Oh, Mom, I'm so glad you called! How are you? I can't talk now, I've got someone on the other line, but can I catch you a little later?"

I smiled. Katy. Always breathless and spinning in a thousand directions.

"Sure, hon. It's nothing important, just wanted to say hi. I'm going to dinner with Gabby tonight. How about tomorrow?"

"Great. Give her a big kiss for me. Oh, I think I got an A in French if that's what's on your mind."

"Never doubted it," I said, laughing. "Talk to you tomorrow."

Twenty minutes later I parked in front of Gabby's building. By some miracle there was a spot just opposite her door. I killed the engine and got out.

Gabby lives on Carre St. Louis, a charming little square tucked between Rue St. Laurent and Rue St. Denis. The park is surrounded by row houses with unpredictable shapes and elaborate wood trim, relics of an age of architectural whimsy. Their owners have painted them with rainbow eccentricity and filled their yards with riotous bouquets of summer flowers, making them look like a scene in a Disney animation.

There is an air of capriciousness to the park, from its central fountain, rising from the pool like a giant tulip, to the small wrought-iron fence decorating its perimeter. Little more than knee-high, its frivolous spikes and curlicues separate the public green of the plaza from the gingerbread houses encircling its perimeter. It seemed the Victorians, so prim in their s.e.xual prudery, could be playful in their building design. Somehow, I find this rea.s.suring, a quiet confirmation that there is balance in life.

I glanced at Gabby's building. It stands on the north side of the park, the third one in from Rue Henri-Julien. Katy would have called it "wretched excess," like the prom dresses we'd scorned in our annual spring quest. It seemed the architect couldn't stop until he'd incorporated every fanciful detail he knew.

The building is a three-story brownstone, its lower floors bulging into large bay windows, its roof rising to a truncated hexagonal turret. The roof tower is covered with small oval tiles arranged like the scales on a mermaid's tail. It's topped by a widow's walk bordered in wrought iron. The windows are Moorish, their lower edges square, their upper borders ballooning into domed arches. Every door and window is framed by intricately carved woodwork painted a light shade of lavender. Downstairs, to the left of the bay, an iron staircase sweeps from ground level to a second-story porch, the sworls and loops of its banisters echoing those of the park fence. Early June flowers bloomed in window boxes and in oversized pots lining the porch.

She must have been waiting. Before I could cross the street, the lace curtain flicked momentarily, and the front door opened. She waved, then locked the door and double-checked, shaking the handle vigorously. She swooped down the steep iron staircase, her long skirt billowing behind her like a spinnaker on a downwind run. I could hear her as she drew near. Gabby likes things that sparkle or jangle. That night a ring of small silver bells circled her ankle. It jingled with each step. She dressed in what I'd dubbed Nouveau Ashram in grad school. She always would.

"How ya doing?"

"Good," I hedged.

Even as I was saying it, I knew it wasn't true. But I didn't want to discuss the murders, or Claudel, or my lost trip to Quebec City, or my broken marriage, or anything else that had been plaguing my peace of mind lately.

"You?"

"Bien."

She wagged her head from side to side and the dreadlocks flopped. Bien. Pas bien Bien. Pas bien. Just like old times. But not quite. I recognized my own behavior. She was hedging also, wanted to keep the conversation light. Feeling a little blue, but suspecting I'd set the mood, I let it go and joined in the conspiracy of mutual avoidance.

"So, where should we eat?"

I wasn't really changing the subject since there hadn't actually been one.

"What do ya feel like?"

I thought about it. I usually make such choices by imagining food on a plate in front of me. My mind definitely prefers a visual mode. I guess you could say, when it comes to food, it's graphics, not menu, driven. Tonight it wanted something red and heavy.

"Italian?"

"Okay." She considered. "Vivaldi's on Prince Arthur? We can sit outside."

"Perfect. And I won't have to waste this parking place."

We angled across the square, pa.s.sing beneath the large broadleafs that arch above its lawn. Old men sat on benches, talking in groups, surveying their fellow citizens. A woman in a shower cap fed pigeons from a bag of bread, admonishing them like rowdy children. A pair of foot patrolmen strolled one of the paths that crisscross the park, their hands clasped behind them in identical V's. They stopped periodically to exchange pleasantries, ask questions, respond to quips.

We pa.s.sed the cement gazebo at the west end of the square. I noted the word "Vespasian," and wondered, once again, why the name of a Roman emperor was carved above its door.

We left the square, crossed Rue Laval, and pa.s.sed through a set of cement pillars marking the entrance to Rue Prince Arthur. All this time no words were spoken. This was odd. Gabby wasn't this quiet, or this pa.s.sive. She was usually bursting with plans and ideas. Tonight she'd simply yielded to my suggestion.

I watched her, discreetly, from the corner of my eye. She was scanning the faces we pa.s.sed while simultaneously chewing on a thumbnail. The scrutiny didn't appear to be absentminded. She seemed edgy, searching the crowded sidewalks.

The evening was warm and humid, and Prince Arthur was jammed. People swirled and eddied in all directions. The restaurants had thrown open their doors and windows, and the tables spilled out helter skelter, as though someone planned to arrange them later. Men in cotton shirts and women with bare shoulders talked and laughed under brightly colored umbrellas. Others stood in lines, waiting to be seated. I joined the line outside Vivaldi's while Gabby walked to the corner depanneur to buy a bottle of wine.

When we were finally settled Gabby ordered the fettuccine Alfredo. I asked for veal piccata, spaghetti on the side. Though seduced by the lemon, I remained partially loyal to the vision of red. While we waited for our salads, I sipped a Perrier. We spoke some, moving our mouths, forming words, saying nothing. Mostly we sat. It wasn't the comfortable silence of old friends accustomed to each other, but a dialogue of uneasiness.

I'm as familiar with the ebb and flow of Gabby's moods as I was with my own menstrual cycles. I sensed something tense in her demeanor. Her eyes didn't meet mine, but roved restlessly, continuously exploring as they had in the park. She was obviously distracted. She reached for her wine often. Each time she lifted her gla.s.s the early evening light kindled the Chianti, making it blaze like a Carolina sunset.

I knew the signs. She was drinking too much, trying to blunt the anxiety. Alcohol, the opiate of the troubled. I knew because I'd tried it. The ice in my Perrier was slowly melting, and I watched the lemon resuscitate itself. It dropped from one cube to another with a delicate fizzing sound.

"Gabby, what's up?"

The question startled her.

"Up?"

She gave a short, jittery laugh and brushed a dreadlock from her face. Her eyes were unreadable.

Taking her cue, I moved once again to a neutral topic. She would tell me when she was ready. Or perhaps I was being a coward. The price of intimacy would be its loss.

"Do you hear from anyone from Northwestern?"

We'd met as graduate students in the seventies. I'd been married. Katy was a preschooler. I envied Gabby and the others their freedom back then. I'd missed the bonding experience of all-night parties and early morning philosophy sessions. I was their age but lived in a different world. Gabby was the only one with whom I'd grown close. I've never really known why. We look as different as two women can. We did back then. Perhaps it was because Gabby liked Pete, or, at least, pretended to. Flashback: Pete, military-crisp, surrounded by flower children high on gra.s.s and cheap beer. He hated my grad school parties, masked his discomfort behind c.o.c.ky disdain. Only Gabby had made the effort to break through.