midsection. Jean-Claude Hubert, chief coroner of the Province of Quebec.
Hubert waddled in our direction. His face was very flushed and very chapped.
“Detective Ryan. Dr. Brennan.” Hubert’s accent was upriver, perhaps Quebec City. “Thanks for coming out so early.”
“What’s the story?” I had the basics but wanted Hubert’s version.
“Jailhouse canary’s singing about a woman missing two years.”
“Florian Grellier,” Ryan said.
Hubert nodded. Three chins rippled above his muffler. “The victim was Christelle Villejoin. Grellier says she was murdered and buried out here.”
“Murdered by whom?” Ryan asked.
“Claims he doesn’t know.”
“How’d Monsieur Grellier happen upon this information?”
“Says he met some guy in a bar. Swears he never got the guy’s name, hasn’t seen him since the night they banged shots together.”
“When was that?” Ryan.
“Sometime last summer. Grellier’s a bit hazy on that.”
“You bring him out here?”
“No. He provided good landmarks, the road, the warming hut, the river. We ran a cadaver dog, she alerted.” Hubert gestured an upturned mitten in the direction of the tent. “Handler says there’s a ninety percent chance someone’s gone south in the dirt over there.”
“Pretty detailed mapping for a drunken recollection,” I said.
“Yeah.” Hubert puffed air through his lips. They badly needed Chap-Stick.
“What have you done so far?”
“Secured the area, shot photos, cleared snow, set up the tent. The heater’s been going since yesterday, so the ground should be thawed.”
“
“Let’s do it.”
Hubert was right. The ground was sufficiently soft to dig. And another thing worked in our favor. Human nature. Either lazy or nervous, the perp had buried his vic only eighteen inches down.
By one, Bonnet and I had exposed the entire skeleton. Most of the bones we’d left in situ. Those found by sifting dirt through a screen we’d sealed into evidence bags.
I’d done an inventory, detailing everything but the phalanges. Those I merely counted.
One skull, including all twenty-one cranial bones and the six from the inner ear. One mandible. One hyoid. One sternum. Two clavicles. Two scapulae. Twenty-four ribs. Twenty-four vertebrae. One sacrum. One coccyx. Six arm bones. Six leg bones. Two innominates. Two patellae. Sixteen carpus. Ten metacarpus. Fourteen tarsus. Ten metatarsus. Fifty-six phalanges.
Two hundred and six bones. Damn, we were good.
Throughout the exhumation, Ryan and Hubert had come and gone. Turned out the heater recognized only two settings: Off and Tropic of Cancer. Though we’d opened a flap, the temperature in the tent rose to roughly 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Bonnet and I had peeled by layers, ended up working in T-shirts and jeans.
Now, as I made notes and Bonnet snapped photos, Ryan and Hubert stood peering into the pit. Their faces were flushed, their hairlines dampened by sweat.
The victim lay facedown, wearing bra and panties, with arms and legs twisted to the right. A fracture spidered the back of the skull.
“
“Thoughts on body position?” Ryan asked me.
“Only preliminary.”
Ryan nodded. “I’m guessing she was hit from behind. Then she either fell or was pushed into the grave.”
“Hit with what?” Taut.
“From the shape of the indentation, I’d say something flat with a raised central ridge.”
“She?” Hubert had picked up on my gender reference.
“Yes.”
“Because of the undies?”
“Because of cranial and pelvic features.”
“The rest of her clothing rotted away?”
“I doubt it. Granted, the underwear is polyester, and synthetics outlast natural fibers like cotton or linen, but I’d have found zippers, buttons, snaps, something. I don’t think she was wearing anything else.”
“And no shoes or socks,” Ryan pointed out.
“No,” I agreed.
“Age?” Hubert asked.
Squatting, I lifted and rotated the skull.
Only eight yellowed teeth were present, their cusps worn flat. The remaining sockets were smoothed by bony infill.
The cranial sutures were fused. Both temporo-mandibular joints and occipital condyles were gnarled by arthritis.
“Old,” I said, not trusting my voice to add more.
“Gotta be Villejoin. How many grannies go missing around here?”
I imagined the grisly scene. A terrified old woman, forced to strip and face death on the edge of her own grave.
Had she begged for her life? Realizing there would be no mercy, had she closed her eyes? Listened to the wind in the trees? To birdsong? Had she heard the sound of the weapon as it arced toward her head?
Suddenly, I had to get out of that tent.
13
BACK IN TOWN, RYAN AND I GRABBED LUNCH AT A LA BELLE Province. I had little appetite. The wet-wipes and disinfectant had gone only so far. I just wanted to shampoo and scrub the remaining dirt from under my nails. But Ryan was resolute. He often showed a bubbe streak, insisting I eat when I least wanted food.
Ryan ordered poutine, a Quebec delicacy that I’ve always found baffling. Take fries, top with cheese curds, cover with tasteless brown gravy. Yum.
I had pea soup and a salad.
