DEJA DEAD

slashed, her right eye stabbed into pulpy mush. The extreme savagery of the attacks had prompted their inclusion in our investigation.

I read the autopsy, toxicology, and police reports. I dissected each interview and investigator?s summary. I pulled out every detail of the victims? comings and goings, every particular of their lives and deaths. All the minutiae I could suck from each folder went onto a crude spreadsheet. It wasn?t much.

I heard the others moving around, scraping chairs, exchanging banter, but I paid no attention. When I finally closed the files, it was past five. Only Ryan remained. I looked up to see him watching me.

?Wanna see the Gypsies??

?What??

?Heard you like jazz.?

?Yeah, but the festival is over, Ryan.? Heard from whom? How? Was this a social invitation?

?True. But the city isn?t. Les Gitanes are playing in the Old Port. Great group.?

?Ryan, I don?t think so.? But I did think. Had thought. That?s why I?d refuse. Not now. Not until the investigation was over. Not until the animal was netted.

?Good enough.? The electric eyes. ?But you gotta eat.?

That was true. Another frozen dinner, solo, was decidedly unappealing. No. Don?t even give Claudel the appearance of impropriety.

?It?s probably not a g-?

?We could chew over some of your thoughts on this stuff while we put away a pizza.?

?Business meeting.?

?Certainement.?

Buzz.

Did I want to discuss the cases? Of course. Something about the added two didn?t ring true. Even more, I was curious about the task force. Ryan had given us the official version; what were the real dynamics? Were there threads in the web I should know about? Avoid?

Buzz.

Would the others think twice? Of course not.

?Sure, Ryan. Where do you want to go??

Shrug. ?Angela?s??

Close to my condo. I thought of the 4 A.M. call last month, the ?friend? he?d been with. You?re paranoid, Brennan. The man wants a pizza. He knows you can park at home.

?Is that convenient for you??

?Right on the way.?

To what? I didn?t ask.

?Fine. See you there in?-I looked at my watch-?thirty minutes??

I stopped home, fed Birdie, barred myself from mirrors. No hair combing. No blusher. Business.

At six-fifteen Ryan sipped a cold beer, I a Diet Coke as we waited for a veggie supreme. No goat cheese on his half.

?You?re making a mistake.?

?I don?t like it.?

?Rigid.?

?In touch with myself.?

We exchanged small talk for a while, then I switched lanes. ?Tell me about these other cases. Why Pitre and Gautier??

?Patineau had me pull all unsolved SQ homicides that fit a certain profile. Back to ?85. Basically the pattern you?ve been hammering on. Females, overkill, mutilation. Claudel searched the CUM cases. Local PD?s were asked to do the same. So far, these two have come up.?

?Just the province??

?Not exactly.?

We fell silent as the waitress arrived, sliced, and served the pizza. Ryan ordered another Belle Gueule. I passed, mildly resentful. Your own fault, Brennan.

?Don?t even think about touching my half.?

?Don?t like it.? He drained his glass. ?Do you know what goes through goats??

I did, but blocked it.

?What do you mean, not exactly??

?Initially, Patineau asked for a search of cases in and around Montreal. When the profile arrived from Quantico, he sent a composite description, our stuff and theirs, to the RCMP to see if the Mounties had similar cases in their files.?

?And??

?Negative. Looks like we?ve got a homeboy.?

We ate in silence for a while.

Finally, ?What?s your take??

I took my time answering.

?I only spent three hours with the new files, but somehow they don?t seem to fit.?

?The hooker angle??

?That. But something else. The killings are violent, no question about that, but they?re just too . . .?

I?d been trying to put a word to the feeling all afternoon, but hadn?t found one. I dropped a piece of pizza to my plate, watched tomato and artichoke ooze off the soggy dough.

?. . . messy.?

?Messy??

?Messy.?

?Jesus, Brennan, what do you want? Did you see the Adkins apartment? Or Morisette-Champoux? Looked like Wounded Tree.?

?Knee.?

?What??

?Knee. It was Wounded Knee.?

?The Indians??

I nodded.

?I don?t mean blood. The Pitre and Gautier scenes looked, what . . . ?? Again, I groped for a word. ? Disorganized. Unplanned. With the others, you get the sense this guy knew exactly what he was doing. Got into their homes. Brought his own weapon. Took it away with him. Never found one at the other scenes, right??

He nodded.

?They recovered the knife with Gautier.?

?No prints. That could suggest planning.?

?It was winter. The guy probably wore gloves.?

I swirled my Coke.

?The bodies look like they were just left. Quickly. Gautier was facedown. Pitre was lying on her side, her clothes were torn, her pants were at her ankles. Take another look at the Morisette-Champoux and Adkins photos. The bodies almost look posed. They were both lying on their backs, their legs were spread, their arms were positioned. Like dolls. Or ballerinas. Christ, Adkins looked like she?d been laid down while doing a pirouette. Their clothing wasn?t torn, it was opened, neatly. It?s as if he wanted to display what he?d done to them.?

Ryan said nothing. The waitress appeared, wanting assurance we?d enjoyed our meal. Anything else? Just a check.

?I just get a different feeling with these other two cases. I could be dead wrong.?

?That?s what we?re supposed to figure out.?

Ryan took the check, raising a hand in a ?don?t argue? gesture. ?This one?s on me. Next one?s yours.?

He cut my protest short by reaching out to touch my upper lip. Slowly, he ran his index finger around the corner of my mouth, then held it up for my inspection.