Death Du Jour_ A Novel Part 9

We both stood at the same time. I thanked her, slipped on my jacket, hat, and scarf. I was halfway through the door when she stopped me with a question.

"Do you have a religion, Dr. Brennan?"

"I was raised Roman Catholic, but currently I don't belong to a church."

The ghostly eyes looked into mine.

"Do you believe in G.o.d?"

"Dr. Jeannotte, there are some days I don't believe in tomorrow morning."

After I left, I swung by the library and spent an hour browsing the history books, skimming indexes for Nicolet or Belanger. I found several in which one or the other name was listed, and checked them out, thankful I still had faculty privileges.

It was growing dark when I emerged. Snow was falling, forcing pedestrians to walk in the street or follow narrow trails on the sidewalks, carefully placing one foot in front of the other to keep out of the deeper snow. I trudged behind a couple, girl in front, boy behind, his hands resting on her shoulders. Ties on their knapsacks swung back and forth as hips swiveled to keep feet inside the snow-free pa.s.sage. Now and then the girl stopped to catch a snowflake on her tongue.

The temperature had dropped as daylight had faded, and when I got to the car, the winds.h.i.+eld was coated with ice. I dug out a sc.r.a.per and chipped away, cursing my migratory instincts. Anyone with any sense would be at the beach.

During the short drive home I replayed the scene in Jeannotte's office, trying to figure out the curious behavior of the teaching a.s.sistant. Why had she been so nervous? She seemed in awe of Jeannotte, beyond even the customary deference of an undergraduate. She mentioned her trip to the copy machine three times, yet when I'd met her in the hall she had nothing in her hands. I realized I'd never learned her name.

I thought about Jeannotte. She'd been so gracious, so totally composed, as if used to being in control of any audience. I pictured the penetrating eyes, such a contrast to the tiny body and soft, gentle drawl. She'd made me feel like an undergraduate. Why? Then I remembered. During our conversation Daisy Jean's gaze didn't leave my face. Never once did she break eye contact. That and the eerie irises made a disconcerting combination.

I arrived home to find two messages. The first made me mildly anxious. Harry had enrolled in her course and was becoming a guru of modern mental health.

The second sent a chill deep into my soul. I listened, watching snow pile up against my garden wall. The new flakes lay white atop the underlying gray, like newborn innocence on last year's sins.

"Brennan, if you're there, pick up. This is important." Pause. "There's been a development in the St-Jovite case." Ryan's voice was tinged with sadness. "When we tossed the outbuildings we found four more bodies behind a stairway." I could hear him pull smoke deep into his lungs, release it slowly. "Two adults and two babies. They're not burned, but it's grisly. I've never seen anything like it. I don't want to go into details, but we've got a whole new ball game, and it's a s.h.i.+tpot. See you tomorrow."

7.

RYAN WASN'T ALONE IN HIS REVULSION. I HAVE SEEN ABUSED AND HAVE SEEN ABUSED AND starved children. I have seen them after they were beaten, raped, smothered, shaken to death, but I had never seen anything like what had been done to the babies found in St-Jovite. starved children. I have seen them after they were beaten, raped, smothered, shaken to death, but I had never seen anything like what had been done to the babies found in St-Jovite.

Others had received calls the night before. When I arrived at eight-fifteen several press vans had taken up stations outside the SQ building, windows fogged, exhaust billowing from tailpipes.

Although the workday normally begins at eight-thirty, activity already filled the large autopsy room. Bertrand was there, along with several other SQ detectives and a photographer from SIJ, La Section d'Ident.i.te Judiciare. Ryan hadn't arrived.

The external exam was under way, and a series of Polaroids lay on the corner desk. The body had been taken to X-ray, and LaManche was scribbling notes when I entered. He stopped and looked up.

"Temperance, I am glad to see you. I may need help in establis.h.i.+ng the age of the infants."

I nodded.

"And there may be an unusual"-he searched for a word, his long, ba.s.set face tense-". . . tool involved."

I nodded and went to change into scrubs. Ryan smiled and gave a small salute as I pa.s.sed him in the corridor. His eyes were teary, his nose and cheeks cherry red, as though he'd walked some distance in the cold.

In the locker room I steeled myself for what was to come. A pair of murdered babies was horror enough. What did LaManche mean by an unusual tool?

Cases involving children are always difficult for me. When my daughter was young, after each child murder I'd fight an urge to tether Katy to me to keep her in sight.

Katy is grown now, but I still dread images of dead children. Of all victims, they are the most vulnerable, the most trusting, and the most innocent. I ache each time one arrives in the morgue. The stark truth of fallen humanity stares at me. And pity provides small comfort.

I returned to the autopsy room, thinking I was prepared to proceed. Then I saw the small body lying on the stainless steel.

A doll. That was my first impression. A life-size latex baby that had grayed with age. I'd had one as a child, a newborn that was pink and smelled rubbery sweet. I fed her through a small, round hole between her lips, and changed her diaper when the water flowed through.

But this was no toy. The baby lay on its belly, arms at its sides, fingers curled into the tiny palms. The b.u.t.tocks were flattened, and bands of white crisscrossed the purple livor of the back. A cap of fine red down covered the little head. The infant was naked save for a bracelet of miniature blocks circling the right wrist. I could see two wounds near the left shoulder blade.

A sleeper lay on the adjacent table, blue and red trucks smiling from the flannel. Spread next to it were a soiled diaper, a cotton unders.h.i.+rt with crotch snaps, a long-sleeved sweater, and a pair of white socks. Everything was bloodstained.

LaManche spoke into a recorder.

"Bebe de race blanche, bien developpe et bien nourri. . . ."

Well developed and well nourished but dead, I thought, the outrage beginning to build.

"Le corps est bien preserve, avec une legere maceration epidermique. . . ."

I stared at the small cadaver. Yes, it was well preserved, with only slight skin slippage on the hands.

"Guess he won't have to check for defense wounds."

Bertrand had come up beside me. I didn't respond. I was not in the mood for morgue humor.

"There's another one in the cooler," he continued.

"That's what we'd been told," I said crisply.

"Yeah, but, Christ. They're babies."

I met his eyes and felt a stab of guilt. Bertrand was not trying to be funny. He looked as if his own child had died.

"Babies. Someone wasted them and stashed them in a bas.e.m.e.nt. That's about as cold as a drive-by. Worse. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d probably knew these kids."

"Why do you say that?"

"Makes sense. Two kids, two adults who are probably the parents. Someone wiped out the whole family."

"And burned the house as a cover?"

"Possible."

"Could be a stranger."

"Could be, but I doubt it. Wait. You'll see." He refocused on the autopsy proceeding, hands clutched tightly behind his back.

LaManche stopped dictating and spoke to the autopsy technician. Lisa took a tape from the counter and stretched it the length of the baby's body.

"Cinquante-huit centimetres." Fifty-eight centimeters.

Ryan observed from across the room, arms crossed, right thumb grating the tweed on his left bicep. Now and then I saw his jaw tense and his Adam's apple rise and fall.

Lisa wrapped the tape around the baby's head, chest, and abdomen, calling out after each measurement. Then she lifted the body and laid it in a hanging scale. Normally the device is used to weigh individual organs. The basket swung slightly and she placed a hand to steady it. The image was heartrending. A lifeless child in a stainless steel cradle.

"Six kilos."

The baby had died weighing only six kilos. Thirteen pounds.

LaManche recorded the weight, and Lisa removed the tiny corpse and placed it on the autopsy table. When she stepped back my breath froze in my throat. I looked at Bertrand, but his eyes were now fixed on his shoes.

The body had been a little boy. He lay on his back, legs and feet splayed sharply at the joints. His eyes were wide and b.u.t.ton round, the irises clouded to a smoky gray. His head had rolled to the side, and one fat cheek rested against his left collarbone.

Directly below the cheek I saw a hole in the chest approximately the size of my fist. The wound had jagged edges, and a deep purple collar circled its perimeter. A star burst of slits, each measuring one to two centimeters in length, surrounded the cavity. Some were deep, others superficial. In places one slit crossed another, forming L- or V-shaped patterns.

My hand flew to my own chest and I felt my stomach tighten. I turned to Bertrand, unable to form a question.

"Do you believe that?" he said dismally. "The b.a.s.t.a.r.d carved his heart out."

"It's gone?"

He nodded.

I swallowed. "The other child?"

He nodded again. "Just when you think you've seen it all, you learn that you haven't."

"Christ." I felt cold all over. I hoped fervently the children were unconscious when the mutilation took place.

I looked across at Ryan. He was studying the scene on the table, his face without expression.

"What about the adults?"

Bertrand shook his head. "Looks like they were stabbed repeatedly, throats slashed, but n.o.body harvested their organs."

LaManche's voice droned on, describing the external appearance of the wounds. I didn't have to listen. I knew what the presence of hematoma meant. Tissue will bruise only if blood is circulating. The baby had been alive when the cut was made. Babies.

I closed my eyes, fought the urge to run from the room. Get a grip, Brennan. Do your job.

I crossed to the middle table to examine the clothing. Everything was so tiny, so familiar. I looked at the sleeper with its attached footies and soft, fleecy collar and cuffs. Katy had worn a dozen of them. I remembered opening and closing the snaps to change her diaper, her fat little legs kicking like mad. What were these things called? They had a specific name. I tried to recall but my mind refused to focus. Perhaps it was protecting me, urging me to stop personalizing and get back to business before I began to weep or simply went numb.

Most of the bleeding had been while the baby lay on his left side. The right sleeve and shoulder of the sleeper were spattered, but blood had soaked the left side, darkening the flannel to shades of dull red and brown. The unders.h.i.+rt and sweater were similarly stained.

"Three layers," I said to no one in particular. "And socks."

Bertrand crossed to the table.

"Someone took care that the child would be warm."

"Yeah, I guess," Bertrand agreed.

Ryan joined us as we stared at the clothing. Each garment displayed a jagged hole surrounded by a star burst of small tears, replicating the injuries on the baby's chest. Ryan spoke first.

"The little guy was dressed."

"Yeah," said Bertrand. "Guess clothing didn't interfere with his vicious little ritual."

I said nothing.

"Temperance," said LaManche, "please get a magnifying gla.s.s and come here. I've found something."

We cl.u.s.tered around the pathologist, and he pointed to a small discoloration to the left and below the hole in the infant's chest. When I handed him a gla.s.s, he bent close, studied the bruise, then returned the lens to me.

When I took my turn I was stunned. The spot did not show the disorganized mottling characteristic of a normal bruise. Under magnification I could see a distinct pattern in the baby's flesh, a cruciate central feature with a loop at one end like an Egyptian ankh or Maltese cross. The figure was outlined by a crenulated rectangular border. I handed the gla.s.s to Ryan and looked a question at LaManche.

"Temperance, this is clearly a patterned injury of some kind. The tissue must be preserved. Dr. Bergeron is not here today, so I would appreciate your a.s.sistance."

Marc Bergeron, odontologist to the LML, had developed a technique for lifting and fixing injuries in soft tissue. Initially he'd devised it to remove bite marks from the bodies of victims of violent s.e.xual a.s.sault. The method had also proved useful for excising and preserving tattoos and patterned injuries on skin. I'd seen Marc do it in hundreds of cases, had a.s.sisted him in several.

I got Bergeron's kit from a cabinet in the first autopsy room, returned to room two, and spread the equipment on a stainless steel cart. By the time I'd gloved, the photographer had finished and LaManche was ready. He nodded that I should go ahead. Ryan and Bertrand watched.

I measured five scoops of pink powder from a plastic bottle and placed it in a gla.s.s vial, then added 20 cc's of a clear liquid monomer. I stirred and, within a minute, the mixture thickened until it resembled pink modeling clay. I formed the dough into a ring, and placed it on the tiny chest, completely encircling the bruise. The acrylic felt hot as I patted it into place.

To accelerate the hardening process, I placed a wet cloth over the ring, then waited. In less than ten minutes the acrylic had cooled. I reached for a tube and began squeezing a clear liquid around the edges of the ring.

"What's that?" asked Ryan.

"Cyanoacrylate."

"Smells like Krazy Glue."

"It is."

When I thought the glue was dry, I tested by tugging gently on the ring. A few more dabs, more waiting, and the ring held fast. I marked it with the date, and case and morgue numbers, and indicated top, bottom, right, and left relative to the baby's chest.

"It's ready," I said, and stepped back.

LaManche used a scalpel to dissect free the skin outside the acrylic doughnut, cutting deep enough to include the underlying fatty tissue. When the ring finally came free, it held the bruised skin tightly in place, like a miniature painting stretched on a circular pink frame. LaManche slid the specimen into the jar of clear liquid that I held ready.

"What's that?" Ryan again.