cuts real clean. They?re mighty efficient little saws. Cut right through bone, gristle, ligaments, whatever.?
?Anything else that might be consistent??
?Well, there?s always the chance you can get something doesn?t fit the regular pattern. These saws don?t read the books, you know. But right offhand, I can?t think of anything else fits all you?ve told me.?
?You are fantastic. That?s exactly what I was thinking, but I wanted to hear it from you. Aaron, I can?t tell you how much I appreciate your doing this.?
?Ah.?
?You want to see the photos and impressions??
?Sure.?
?I?ll send them out tomorrow.?
Aaron?s second passion in life was saws. He cataloged written and photographic descriptions of features produced in bone by known saws, and spent hours poring over cases sent to his lab from all over the world.
A hitch in his breathing told me he had something more to say. As I waited, I gathered pink slips.
?Did you say the only completely sectioned bones are in the lower arms??
?Yep.?
?Went into the joints for the others??
?Yep.?
?Neat??
?Very.?
?Hm.?
I stopped gathering. ?What??
?What?? Innocent.
?When you say ?Hm? like that, it means something.?
?Just a mighty interesting association.?
?Which is??
?Guy uses a chef?s saw. And he goes about cuttin? up a body like he knows what he?s doing. Knows what?s where, how to get at it. And does it the same way every time.?
?Yeah. I thought of that.?
A few seconds ticked off.
?But he just whacks off the hands. What about that??
?That, Dr. Brennan, is a question for a psychologist, not a saw man.?
I agreed and changed the subject. ?How?re the girls??
Aaron had never married, and, though I?d known him for twenty years, I?m not sure I?d ever seen him with a date. His horses were his first passion. From Tulsa to Chicago to Louisville, and back to Oklahoma City, he traveled where the quarter horse circuit took him.
?Pretty excited. I bid a stallion this past fall and got ?im. The ladies been actin? like yearlings ever since.?
We exchanged news of our lives and small talk about mutual friends, and we agreed to get together at the Academy meeting in February.
?Well, good luck nailin? this guy, Tempe.?
?Thanks.?
My watch read four-forty. Once again the offices and corridors had grown quiet around me. I jumped at the sound of the phone.
Too much coffee, I thought.
As I answered, the receiver was still warm against my ear.
?I saw you last night.?
?Gabby??
?Don?t do that again, Tempe.?
?Gabby, where are you??
?You?re just going to make things worse.?
?Goddammit, Gabby, don?t play with me! Where are you? What?s going on??
?Never mind that. I can?t be seeing you right now.?
I couldn?t believe she was doing this again. I could feel the anger rising in my chest.
?Stay away, Tempe. Stay away from me. Stay away from my-?
Gabby?s self-centered rudeness ignited my pent-up anger. Fueled by Claudel?s arrogance, the inhumanity of a psychopathic killer, and by Katy?s youthful folly, I exploded with the fury of a flash fire, rolling over Gabby and charring her.
?Who the hell do you think you are?? I seethed into the phone, my voice cracking. Squeezing the receiver with enough force to break the plastic, I raved on.
?I?ll leave you alone! I?ll leave you alone, all right! I don?t know what bugass little game you?re playing, Gabby, but I?m out! Gone! Game, set, match, finished! I?m not buying into your schizophrenia! I?m not buying into your paranoia! And I?m not, repeat not, playing Masked Avenger to your damsel in and out of distress!?
Every neuron in my body was overcharged, like a 110 appliance in a 220 socket. My chest was heaving, and I could feel tears behind my eyes. Tempe?s temper.
From Gabby, a dial tone.
I sat for a moment, doing nothing, thinking nothing. I felt giddy.
Slowly, I replaced the receiver. I closed my eyes, ran through the sheet music, and made a selection. This one?s going out to me. In a low, throaty voice I hummed the tune:
21
AT 6 A.M. A STEADY RAIN DRUMMED AGAINST MY WINDOWS. AN occasional car made soft shishing sounds as it passed on some predawn journey. For the third time in as many days I saw daybreak, an event I embrace as eagerly as Joe Montana welcomes an all-out blitz. While not a day napper, neither am I an early riser. Yet three mornings this week I?d seen the sun come up, twice as I fell asleep, today as I tossed and turned after eleven hours in bed, feeling neither sleepy nor rested.
Home after Gabby?s call, I?d gone on an eating binge. Greasy fried chicken, rehydrated mashed potatoes with synthetic gravy, mushy corn on the cob, and soggy apple pie.
I switched on my computer-6 A.M. or 6 P.M., it was alert and ready to perform. I had sent a message to Katy, relaying through the e-mail system at McGill to my mail server at UNC-Charlotte. She could access the message with her laptop and modem, and reply right from her bedroom. Yahoo! Hop aboard the Internet.
The screen?s cursor blinked at me, insisting there was nothing in the document I?d created. It was right. The spreadsheet I had started on paper had only column headings but no content. When had I begun this? The day of the parade. Just one week, but it seemed like years. Today was the thirtieth. Four weeks to the day since Isabelle Gagnon?s body was found, one week since Margaret Adkins had been murdered.
What had we accomplished since then except discover another body? A stakeout on the Rue Berger apartment confirmed that its occupant had not returned. Big surprise. The bust had turned up nothing useful. We had no leads on the identity of ?St. Jacques,? and we hadn?t identified the latest body. Claudel still wouldn?t acknowledge the cases were linked, and Ryan thought of me as a ?freelancer.? Happy day.
Back to the spreadsheet. I expanded the column headings. Physical characteristics. Geography. Living arrangements. Jobs. Friends. Family members. Dates of birth. Dates of death. Dates of discovery. Times. Places. I entered everything I could think of that might reveal a link. At the far left I entered four row headings: Adkins, Gagnon, Trottier, ?
