17
THE SUDDEN DIN WAS A CACOPHONY OF SOUNDS. THE FRANTIC barking of a dog mingled with human voices raised in excitement. Shouts rang back and forth, tense and clipped, but too indistinct to make out the words. The bedlam was within the monastery grounds, somewhere off to our left. My first thought was that the night prowler had returned, and that every cop in the province, and at least one German shepherd, were in pursuit.
I looked at Ryan and the others. Like me, they were frozen in place. Even Poirier had stopped fidgeting with his mustache and stood with hand fixed to upper lip.
Then the approaching sound of a body tunneling swiftly and indiscriminantly through foliage broke the spell. Heads turned simultaneously, as if operated by one switch. From somewhere in the trees, a voice called out.
?Ryan? You over there??
?Here.?
We oriented in the direction of the voice.
?
An SQ officer came into view, wrestling back branches and muttering audibly. His beefy face was red, and his breathing was noisy. Sweat beaded his brow and flattened the fringe of hair circling his mostly bald head. Spotting us, he planted a hand on each knee, and bent to catch his breath. I could see scratches where twigs had dragged across the top of his exposed scalp.
After a moment he raised up and jerked a thumb in the direction from which he?d come. In a wheezy voice, like air through a clogged filter, he panted, ?You better get over there, Ryan. The goddamn dog?s acting like a crackhead with a bad load.?
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Poirier?s hand jerk to his forehead and slide to his chest. The sign of the cross called upon once more.
?What?? Ryan?s eyebrows rose in puzzlement.
?DeSalvo took him around the grounds, like you said, and the sonofabitch started circling this one spot and barking like he thinks Adolf Hitler and the whole goddamn German army?s buried there.? He paused. ?Listen to him!?
?And??
?And??? The little bastard?s about to blow a vocal chord. You don?t get over there pretty quick he?s going to circle right up his own asshole.?
I suppressed a smile. The image was pretty comical.
?Just hold him back a few more minutes. Give him a Milk-Bone or pop him a Valium if you have to. We?ve got something here we need to finish.? He looked at his watch. ?Get back here in ten minutes.?
The officer shrugged, released the branch he was holding, and turned to go.
?Eh, Piquot.?
The corpulent face swiveled back.
?There?s a path here.?
?Sacrifice,? Piquot hissed, picking his way through the tangle toward the trail Ryan had indicated. I was sure he?d lose it within fifteen yards.
?And Piquot . . .? Ryan continued.
The face looked back again.
?Don?t let Rin Tin Tin disturb anything.?
He turned back to me. ?You waiting to have a birthday, Brennan??
We heard Piquot thrashing his way out of earshot as I slit the bag from end to end.
The odor didn?t leap out and grab me as it had with Isabelle Gagnon. Freed of its confines, it spread outward slowly, asserting itself. My nose identified soil and plant decay, and an overlay of something else. It wasn?t the fetid smell of putrefaction, but a more primeval scent. It was a smell that spoke of passing, of origins and extinctions, of life recycled. I had smelled it before. It told me the sack held something dead, and not newly dead.
Don?t let it be a dog or a deer, I thought, as my gloved hands separated the opening. My hands shook again and the plastic quivered in them. Yes, I changed my mind, let it be a dog or a deer.
Ryan, Bertrand, and LaManche pressed in as I laid back the severed plastic. Poirier stood like a headstone, rooted to the spot.
First I saw a scapula. Not much, but enough to confirm this was no hunter?s cache or family pet. I looked at Ryan. I could see pinching at the corners of his eyes and tension in his jaw muscles.
?It?s human.?
Poirier?s hand flew to his forehead for another go-around.
Ryan reached for his spiral and turned a page. ?What have we got?? he asked. His voice was as sharp as the blade I?d just used.
I gently moved the bones. ?Ribs . . . shoulder blades . . . collarbones . . . vertebrae,? I ticked off. ?Looks like they?re all thoracic.?
?Sternum,? I added, on finding the breastbone.
I probed among the bones, looking for more body parts. The others watched in silence. When I reached into the back of the bag, a large brown spider skittered across my hand and up my arm. I could see its eyes rising on stalks, tiny periscopes seeking the cause of this intrusion. Its fuzzy legs felt light and delicate, like a lace hanky brushing across my skin. I jerked back, flinging the spider into space.
?That?s it,? I said, straightening and stepping back. My knees popped in protest. ?Upper torso. No arms.? My skin was crawling, but not from the spider.
My gloved hands hung at my sides. I felt no joy in the vindication of my judgment, just a dulling numbness, like someone in shock. My emotional being had shut down, hung up a sign and gone to lunch. It?s happened again, I thought. Another human being dead. A monster is out there.
Ryan scribbled in his spiral. His neck tendons bulged.
?Now what?? Poirier?s voice was little more than a squeak.
?Now we find the rest,? I said.
Cambronne was positioning for photos when we heard the return of Piquot. Again, he came cross country. He joined us, looked at the bones, and released a whispered expletive.
Ryan turned to Bertrand. ?Can you take over here while we check out the dog??
Bertrand nodded. His body was as rigid as the pines around us.
?Let?s bag what we?ve got, then recovery can go over this whole area. I?ll send them.?
We left Bertrand and Cambronne and followed Piquot toward the barking. The animal sounded almost distraught.
Three hours later I sat on a grassy strip examining the contents of four body bags. The sun was high and hot on my shoulders, but did little to warm the chill inside me. Fifteen feet away the dog lay near its handler, its head angled across enormous brown paws. It had finished a big morning.
Conditioned to respond to the smell of decomposed or decomposing body tissue, body dogs ferret out hidden corpses like infrared systems pinpoint heat. Even after its removal they detect the former resting places of decaying flesh. They are the bloodhounds of the dead. This dog had performed well, zeroing in on three more burial sites. At each strike it announced its find with zeal, barking and snapping and circling the spot in a frenzied display. I wondered if all cadaver dogs were as passionate about their work.
Two hours were needed to excavate, process, and bag the remains. A preliminary inventory before removal, and now a more detailed list, logging every fragment of bone.
I glanced at the dog. It looked as tired as I felt. Only its eyes moved, the chocolate orbs revolving like radar dishes. It shifted its gaze without moving its head.
The dog had a right to be exhausted, but so did I. When it finally raised its head, a long, thin tongue dropped into view and hung quivering. I kept my tongue in my mouth and turned back to the inventory.
?How many??
I hadn?t heard him approach, but I knew the voice. I braced myself.
?
