I took a breath and waited.

"Are you f.u.c.king crazy?"

I wasn't sure if he was referring to what I'd found, or to my going out alone. Since he was probably right about the latter, I went for the former.

"I know a body when I find one."

There was a long silence, then, "Buried or surface?"

"Buried, but very shallow. The portion I saw was exposed, and the rain was making it worse."

"You sure this isn't another p.i.s.sant cemetery eroding out?"

"The body's in a plastic bag." Like Gagnon. And Trottier. It didn't need saying.

"s.h.i.t." I could hear a match being struck, then the long expulsion of breath that meant a cigarette had been lit.

"Think we should go now?"

"No f.u.c.king way." I could hear him pull on the cigarette. "And what is this 'we'? You have something of a reputation as a freelancer, Brennan, which doesn't particularly impress me. Your go-to-h.e.l.l att.i.tude may work with Claudel, but it's not going to slice with me. The next time you feel an urge to go waltzing around a crime scene, you might just politely inquire as to whether someone in the homicide squad has an opening on his dance card. We do still fit that sort of thing into our busy schedules."

I hadn't expected grat.i.tude, but I was unprepared for the vehemence of his response. I was starting to get angry, and it was causing the hammering in my head to escalate. I waited, but he didn't go on.

"I appreciate your calling back so soon."

"Hm."

"Where are you?" With my brain fully functional, I would never have asked. I regretted it immediately.

After a pause, "With a friend."

Good move, Brennan. No wonder he was annoyed.

"I think someone was out there tonight."

"What?"

"While I was looking at the burial, I thought I heard something, then I took a shot to the head that knocked me out. All h.e.l.l was breaking loose with the storm, so I can't be sure."

"Are you hurt?"

"No."

Another pause. I could almost hear him turning things over in his head.

"I'll send a squad to secure the site until morning. Then I'll get recovery out there. Think we'll need the dogs?"

"I only saw the one bag, but there must be more. Also, it looked like there'd been other digging going on in the area. It's probably a good idea."

I waited for a response. There was none.

"What time will you pick me up?" I asked.

"I won't be picking you up, Doctor Doctor Brennan. This is real life homicide, as in the jurisdiction of the homicide squad, not Brennan. This is real life homicide, as in the jurisdiction of the homicide squad, not Murder She Wrote Murder She Wrote."

Now I was furious. My temples were pounding and I could feel a small cloud of heat directly between them, deep in my brain.

"'More holes than the TransCanada,'" I spat at him. "'Get me something else.' Those are your words, Ryan. Well, I got it. And I can take you right to it. Besides, this involves skeletal remains. Bones. That's my my jurisdiction, unless I'm mistaken." jurisdiction, unless I'm mistaken."

The line was silent for so long I thought he might have hung up. I waited.

"I'll come by at eight."

"I'll be ready."

"Brennan?"

"Yeah?"

"Maybe you should invest in a helmet."

The line went dead.

16.

RYAN WAS TRUE TO HIS WORD, AND BY EIGHT FORTY-FIVE WE WERE sliding in behind the recovery van. It sat not ten feet from where I'd parked the night before. But it was a different world from the one I'd visited hours earlier. The sun was shining and the street throbbed with activity. Cars and police cruisers lined both curbs, and at least twenty people, in plainclothes and uniform, stood talking in clumps. sliding in behind the recovery van. It sat not ten feet from where I'd parked the night before. But it was a different world from the one I'd visited hours earlier. The sun was shining and the street throbbed with activity. Cars and police cruisers lined both curbs, and at least twenty people, in plainclothes and uniform, stood talking in clumps.

I could see DEJ, SQ, and cops from St. Lambert scattered here and there, each wearing a different uniform and distinctive insignia. The a.s.semblage reminded me of the mixed flocks birds will sometimes form, spontaneous jamborees of twittering and chirping, each bird declaring its species by the color of its plumage and the stripes on its wings.

A woman with a large shoulder bag and a young man draped with cameras smoked and leaned against the hood of a white Chevy. Yet another species: the press. Further up the block, on the gra.s.sy strip adjacent to the fence, a German shepherd panted and sniffed around a man in a dark blue jumpsuit. The dog kept bolting off on short forays, nose to the ground, then darting back to its handler, tail wagging and face upturned. It seemed anxious to go, confused by the delay.

"The gang's all here," said Ryan, putting the car in park and releasing his seat belt.

He hadn't apologized for his rudeness on the phone, and I hadn't expected it. No one is at his best at 4 A.M A.M. He'd been cordial throughout the ride, almost jocular, pointing out places where incidents had occurred, recounting anecdotes of blunder and humiliation. War stories. Here, in this three-flat, a woman a.s.saulted her husband with a frying pan, then turned it on us. There, in that Poulet Kentucky Frites, we found a nude man stuck in the ventilator shaft. Cop talk. I wondered if their cognitive maps were based on sites of police happenings chronicled in incident reports, rather than on the names of rivers and streets and the numbers on buildings that the rest of us use.

Ryan spied Bertrand and headed toward him. He was part of a clump composed of an SQ officer, Pierre LaManche, and a thin, blond man in dark aviator gla.s.ses. I followed him across the street, scanning the crowd for Claudel or Charbonneau. Though this was officially an SQ party, I thought they might be here. Everyone else seemed to be. I saw neither.

As we drew close I could tell the man in the sungla.s.ses was agitated. His hands never rested, but continuously worried a wispy fringe of mustache that crawled across his upper lip. His fingers kept teasing out a few spa.r.s.e hairs, then stroking them back into place. I noticed that his skin was peculiarly gray and unblemished, having neither color nor texture. He wore a leather bomber jacket and black boots. He could have been twenty-five or sixty-five.

I could feel LaManche's eyes on me as we joined the group. He nodded, but said nothing. I began to have doubts. I'd ch.o.r.eographed this circus, brought all these people here. What if they found nothing? What if someone had removed the bag? What if it did turn out to be just another "p.i.s.sant cemetery" burial? Last night was dark, I was hyped. How much had I imagined? I could feel a growing tightness in my stomach.

Bertrand greeted us. As usual, he looked like a short, stocky version of a men's fashion model. He'd chosen earth colors for the exhumation, ecologically correct tans and browns, no doubt made without chemical dyes.

Ryan and I acknowledged those we knew, then turned to the man in the shades. Bertrand introduced us.

"Andy. Doc. This is Father Poirier. He's here representing the diocese."

"Archdiocese."

"Pardon me. Archdiocese. Since this is church property." Bertrand jerked his thumb toward the fence behind him.

"Tempe Brennan," I volunteered, offering my hand.

Father Poirier fixed his aviators on me and accepted it, wrapping my palm in a weak, spiritless grip. If people were graded on handshakes, he'd get a D-minus. His fingers felt cold and limp, like carrots kept too long in a cooler bin. When he released my hand, I resisted the urge to wipe it on my jeans.

He repeated the ritual with Ryan, whose face revealed nothing. Ryan's early morning joviality had flown, replaced by stark seriousness. He'd gone into cop mode. Poirier looked as if he wanted to speak, but, seeing Ryan's face, reconsidered and crimped his lips into a tight line. Somehow, with nothing said, he recognized that authority had shifted, that Ryan was now in charge.

"Has anyone been in there yet?" asked Ryan.

"No one. Cambronne got here about 5 A.M A.M.," said Bertrand, indicating the uniformed officer to his right. "No one's gone in or out. Father tells us that only two people have access to the grounds, himself and a caretaker. The guy's in his eighties, been working here since Mamie Eisenhower made bangs popular." In French it came out Eesenhure, and sounded comical.

"The gate could not have been open," said Poirier, turning his aviators back on me. "I check it every time I am here."

"And when is that?" asked Ryan.

The shades released me and fastened on Ryan. They rested there a full three seconds before he responded.

"At least once a week. The Church feels a responsibility for all its properties. We do not simp-"

"What is this place?"

Again, the pause. "Le Monastere St. Bernard. Closed since 1983. The Church felt the numbers did not warrant its continued operation."

I found it strange that he spoke of the Church as an animate being, an ent.i.ty with feelings and will. His French was also odd, subtly different from the flat, tw.a.n.gy form I'd grown used to. He wasn't Quebecois, but I couldn't place the accent. It wasn't the precise but throaty sound of France, what North Americans call Parisian. I suspected he was Belgian or Swiss.

"What goes on here?" Ryan pursued.

Another pause, as if the sound waves had to travel a long distance to strike a receptor.

"Today, nothing."

The priest stopped speaking and sighed. Perhaps he recalled happier times when the Church thrived and the monasteries bustled. Perhaps he was collecting his thoughts, wanting to be precise in his statements to the police. The aviator lenses hid his eyes. An odd candidate for a priest, with his pristine skin, leather jacket, and biker footwear.

"Now, I come to check the property," he continued. "A caretaker keeps things in order."

"Things?" Ryan was taking notes in a small spiral.

"The furnace, the pipes. Shoveling the snow. We live in a very cold place." Poirier made a sweeping gesture with one thin arm, as if to take in the whole province. "The windows. Sometimes boys like to throw rocks." He looked at me. "The doors and the gates. To make certain they remain locked."

"When did you last check the padlocks?"

"Sunday at 6 P.M P.M. They were all secure."

His prompt answer struck me. He hadn't stopped to think on this one. Maybe Bertrand had already posed the question, or maybe Poirier just antic.i.p.ated it, but the speed of his response made it sound precooked.

"You noticed nothing out of the ordinary?"

"Rien." Nothing.

"When does this caretaker-what's his name?"

"Monsieur Roy."

"When does he come?"

"He comes on Fridays, unless there is some special task for him."

Ryan didn't speak, but continued looking at him.

"Like clearing snow, or repairing a window."

"Father Poirier, I believe Detective Bertrand has already questioned you about the possibility of burials on the grounds?"

Pause. "No. No. There are none." He wagged his head from side to side and the sungla.s.ses shifted on his nose. A bow popped off one ear and the frames came to rest at a twenty-degree angle. He looked like a tanker listing to port.

"This was a monastery, always a monastery. No one is buried here. But I have called our archivist and asked her to check the records to be absolutely certain." As he spoke, he moved both hands to his temples and adjusted the gla.s.ses, realigning them carefully.

"You're aware of why we're here?"

Poirier nodded and the gla.s.ses tilted again. He started to speak, then said nothing.

"Okay," said Ryan, closing the spiral and sliding it into his pocket. "How do you suggest we do this?" He directed that question to me.

"Let me take you in, show you what I found. After we remove it, bring in the dog to see if there's anything else." I was hoping my voice conveyed more confidence than I felt. s.h.i.t. What if there was nothing there?

"Right."

Ryan strode over to the man in the jumpsuit. The shepherd bounded up to him and nuzzled his hand for attention. He stroked its head as he spoke to the handler. Then he rejoined us and led the whole group to the gate. As we walked I scanned my surroundings discreetly, looking for signs showing I'd been there the night before. Nothing.

We waited at the gate as Poirier withdrew an enormous ring of keys from his pocket and selected one. He grasped the padlock and yanked, making a show of testing it against the bars. It clanged softly in the morning air, and a shower of rust drifted to the ground. Had I locked it hours earlier? I couldn't remember.

Poirier released the mechanism, unhooked the padlock, and swung the gate open. It creaked softly. Not the piercing screech of metal I recalled. He stepped back to clear the way for me, and everyone waited. LaManche still hadn't spoken.

I hitched the backpack higher onto my shoulder, brushed past the priest, and started up the roadbed. In the clear, crisp light of morning the woods seemed friendly, not malevolent. The sun shone through broad leaves and conifer needles, and the air was thick with the smell of pine. A collegial smell that evoked visions of lake houses and summer camps, not corpses and night shadows. I moved slowly, examining every tree, every inch of ground for broken branches, displaced vegetation, disturbed soil, anything to attest to human presence. Especially mine.

My anxiety level rose with every step, and my heart slipped in extra beats. What if I hadn't locked the gate? What if someone had been here after me? What had been done after I'd left?

The atmosphere was that of a place I'd never visited, but which seemed familiar because I'd read about it, or seen it in photographs. I tried to sense by time and distance where the path should be. But I had heavy misgivings. My recollection was jumbled and fuzzy, like a dream partly remembered. Major events were vivid, but details as to sequencing and duration were muddy. Let me see something to serve as a prompt, I prayed.

The prayer was answered in the form of gloves. I'd forgotten them. There, on the left side of the roadbed, just at eye level, three white fingertips poked from the fork of a tree. Yes! I scanned the adjacent trees. The second glove showed in a notch in a small maple about four feet off the ground. An image flashed of me, trembling, probing in the darkness to jam the gloves into place. I gave myself high marks for forethought, and low for recall. I thought I'd put them higher. Perhaps, like Alice, I'd had a size-altering experience in these woods.

I veered off between the gloved trees, on what I could barely make out as a path. Its impact on the thicket was so subtle that, without the markers, I might not have spotted it. In the daylight, the trail was little more than a change in texture, the vegetation along its length stunted and more spa.r.s.e than that to either side. In a narrow line the ground cover did not intertwine. Weeds and small bushes stood alone, isolated from neighbors, exposing the coa.r.s.e, burnt sienna of dead leaves and soil on which they stood. That was all.