"How's he get in?"

"Bedroom window." It came out through caramel and peanuts.

"When?"

"Night, usually."

"Where's he put on these little freak shows?"

Francoeur chewed slowly for a moment, then, using a thumbnail, removed a speck of peanut from his molar. He inspected and flicked it.

"One was in St. Calixte, and I think the other was St. Hubert. The one this guy clipped went down a couple of weeks ago in St. Paul-du-Nord." His upper lip bulged as he ran his tongue over his incisors. "And I think one fell to the c.u.m. I sort of remember a call about a year ago from someone over there."

Silence.

"They'll pop him, but this squirrel isn't exactly high priority. He doesn't hurt anybody and he doesn't take anything. He's just got a twisted idea of a cheap date."

Francoeur crumbled the Snickers wrapper and arced it into the wastebasket beside his desk.

"I hear the concerned citizen in St. Paul-du-Nord refused to follow up with a complaint."

"Yeah," said Ryan, "those cases are about as rewarding as a lobotomy with a Scout knife."

"Our hero probably clipped the story because he gets a hard-on reading about busting someone's bedroom. He had a story on that girl out in Senneville and we know he wasn't the one grabbed her. Turned out the father had the kid stashed the whole time." Francoeur leaned back in his chair. "Maybe he just identifies with a kindred pervert."

I listened to this exchange without really looking at the partic.i.p.ants. My eyes drifted over a large city map behind Francoeur's head. It was similar to the one I'd seen in the Berger apartment, but drawn to a smaller scale, extending out to include the far eastern and western suburbs off the island of Montreal.

The discussion snaked around the squad room, scooping up anecdotes of Peeping Toms and other s.e.xual perverts. As it meandered from desk to desk, I rose quietly and crossed to the map for a closer view, hoping to draw as little attention to myself as possible. I studied it, replaying the exercise Charbonneau and I had gone through on Friday, mentally plotting the location of the X's. Ryan's voice startled me.

"What are you thinking?" he asked.

I took a container of pins from a ledge below the map. Each was topped by a large, brightly colored ball. Choosing a red one, I placed it at the southwest corner of Le Grand Seminaire.

"Gagnon," I said.

Next I placed one below the Olympic Stadium.

"Adkins."

The third went in the upper-left corner, near a broad expanse of river known as Lac des Deux-Montagnes.

"Trottier."

The island of Montreal is shaped like a foot with its ankle dipping in from the northwest, its heel to the south, and its toes pointing northeast. Two pins marked the foot, just above the sole, one in the heel of Centre-ville, another to the east, halfway up the toes. The third lay up the ankle, on the far western end of the island. There was no apparent pattern.

"St. Jacques marked this one and this one," I said, pointing to one of the downtown pins, then to the one on the east end.

I searched the south sh.o.r.e, following the Victoria Bridge across to St. Lambert, then dropping south. Finding the street names I'd seen on Friday, I took a fourth pin and pushed it in on the far side of the river, just below the arch of the foot. The scatter made even less sense. Ryan looked at me quizzically.

"That was his third X."

"What's there?"

"What do you think?" I asked.

"h.e.l.l if I know. Could be his dead dog Spike." He glanced at his watch. "Look, we've got this . . ."

"Don't you think it would be a good idea to find out?"

He looked at me for a long time before he answered. His eyes were neon blue, and I was mildly surprised that I'd never noticed them before. He shook his head.

"It just doesn't feel right. It isn't enough. Right now your serial killer idea's got more holes than the Trans-Canada. Fill them in. Get me something else, or get Claudel to do a request for an SQ search. So far, this isn't our baby."

Bertrand was signaling to him, pointing at his watch, then hitching his thumb at the door. Ryan looked at his partner, nodded, then turned the neon back on me.

I said nothing. My eyes roved over his face, rummaging for a sign of encouragement. If it was there, I couldn't find it.

"Gotta go. Just leave the file on my desk when you're done."

"Right."

"And . . . Uh . . . Keep your head up."

"What?"

"I heard what you found in there. This p.r.i.c.k could be more than just your average dirtbag." He reached into his pocket, withdrew a card, and wrote something on it. "You can get me at this number just about any time. Call if you need help."

Ten minutes later I was sitting at my desk, frustrated and antsy. I was trying to concentrate on other things, but having little success. Every time a phone rang in an office along the corridor, I reached for mine, willing it to be Claudel or Charbonneau. At ten-fifteen I called again.

A voice said, "Hold, please." Then.

"Claudel."

"It's Dr. Brennan," I said.

The silence was deep enough to scuba.

"Oui."

"Did you get my messages?"

"Oui."

I could tell he was going to be as forthcoming as a bootlegger at a tax audit.

"I wondered what you dug up on St. Jacques?"

He gave a snort. "Yeah, St. Jacques. Right."

Though I felt like reaching across the line to rip out his tongue, I decided the situation called for tact, rule number one in the care and handling of arrogant detectives.

"You don't think that's his real name?"

"If that's his real name, I'm Margaret Thatcher."

"So, where are you?"

There was another pause, and I could see him turning his face to the ceiling, deciding how best to rid himself of me.

"I'll tell you where we are, we're nowhere. We didn't get p.i.s.s all. No dripping weapons. No home movies. No rambling confession notes. No souvenir body parts. Zip."

"Prints?"

"None usable."

"Personal effects?"

"The guy's taste falls somewhere between severe and stark. No decorative touches. No personal effects. No clothes. Oh yeah, one sweatshirt and an old rubber glove. A dirty blanket. That's it."

"Why the glove?"

"Maybe he worried about his nails."

"What do do you have?" you have?"

"You saw it. His collection of Miss Show Me Your Tw.a.n.gie shots, the map, the newspapers, the clippings, the list. Oh, and some Franco-American spaghetti."

"Nothing else?"

"Nothing."

"No toiletries? Drugstore items?"

"Nada."

I picked through that for a moment.

"Doesn't sound like he really lives there."

"If he does, he's the filthiest sonofab.i.t.c.h you'll ever meet. He doesn't brush his teeth or shave. No soap. No shampoo. No floss."

I gave that some thought.

"How do you read it?"

"Could be the little freak just uses the place as a hidey-hole for his true crime and p.o.r.no hobby. Maybe his old lady doesn't like his taste in art. Maybe she doesn't let him jack off at home. How should I know?"

"What about the list."

"We're checking out the names and addresses."

"Any in St. Lambert?"

Another pause.

"No."

"Any more information on how he might have gotten Margaret Adkins's bank card?"

This time the pause was longer, more palpably hostile.

"Dr. Brennan, why don't you stick to what you do and let us catch the killers?"

"Is he?" I couldn't resist asking.

"What?"

"A killer?"

I found myself listening to a dial tone.I spent what was left of the morning estimating the age, s.e.x, and height of an individual from a single ulna. The bone was found by children digging a fort near Pointe-aux-Trembles, and probably came from an old cemetery.

At twelve-fifteen I went upstairs for a Diet c.o.ke. I brought it back to my office, closed the door, and took out my sandwich and peach. Swiveling to face the river, I encouraged my thoughts to wander. They didn't. Like a Patriot missile, they homed in on Claudel.

He still rejected the idea of a serial killer. Could he be right? Could the similarities be coincidental? Could I be manufacturing a.s.sociations that weren't there? Could St. Jacques merely have a grotesque interest in violence? Of course. Movie producers and publishing houses make millions off the same theme. Maybe he wasn't a killer himself, maybe he just charted the murders or played some kind of voyeuristic tracking game. Maybe he found Margaret Adkins's bank card. Maybe he stole it before her death and she hadn't yet missed it. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

No. It didn't tally. If not St. Jacques, there was someone out there responsible for several of these deaths. At least some of the murders were linked. I didn't want to wait for another butchered body to prove me right.

What would it take to convince Claudel I wasn't a dimwit with an overactive imagination? He resented my involvement in his territory, thought I was overstepping my bounds. He'd told me to stick to what I do. And Ryan. What had he said? Potholes. Not enough. Find stronger evidence of a link.

"All right, Claudel, you sonofab.i.t.c.h, that's exactly what you'll get."

I said it aloud, snapping my chair into full upright position and tossing my peach pit into the wastebasket.

So.

What do I do?

I dig up bodies. I look at bones.

13.