flats with postage-stamp yards and metal staircases spiraling up their faces. Gray stone churches with silver spires. Corner
After ten minutes of searching, I located a spot that appeared, through some bureaucratic loophole, to be legal, without permit, during the precise period I planned to park. I rechecked the monthly, hourly, and daily restrictions, maneuvered into place, grabbed my laptop and briefcase, and headed up the block.
Children were dribbling toward a nearby school in twos and threes, like ants converging on a melting Popsicle. Early arrivals milled in the playground, kicking balls, jumping ropes, screaming, chasing. A small girl peered through the wrought-iron fence, fingers clutching the uprights like those of the child at Chupan Ya. She watched me pass, face expressionless. I did not envy her the next eight hours, trapped in a hot classroom, summer freedom still a month away.
Nor did I envy the day facing me.
I was not looking forward to a mummified head. I was not looking forward to a putrefied torso. I dreaded mediating the reunion between Chantale and her mother. It was one of those mornings I wished I’d taken a job with the telephone company.
Paid vacations. Great benefits. No corpses.
I was perspiring by the time I entered the lobby. The morning mix of smog, exhaust, and the cocktail emanating from the brewery had not helped my cranial vessels. My skull felt as though the contents had exceeded capacity and were pushing for a way out.
There’d been no coffee at the condo. As I displayed my buildingID to the scanner, passed through security gates, pushed for an elevator, swiped my lab card, and exited on the twelfth floor, that single word formed on my lips.
One more swipe, glass doors swished open, and I entered the medico-legal wing.
Offices lined the right side of the corridor, labs lay to the left.
I checked my watch. Seven thirty-five. Since most support, technical, and professional personnel began their day at eight, I would have almost thirty minutes to myself.
With the exception of Pierre LaManche. For the decade I’d worked at the LSJML, the director of the medico- legal section had arrived at seven and stayed long after his staff clocked out. The old man was as dependable as a Timex watch.
He was also an enigma. LaManche took three weeks off each July, one week during the Christmas holidays. During these breaks, he called in to work from home each day. He did not travel, camp, garden, fish, or golf. He had no hobbies, to anyone’s knowledge. Though queried, LaManche politely refused to discuss his vacations. Friends and colleagues had quit asking.
My office is last in the row of six, directly across from the anthropology lab. This door requires a key.
A mountain of paper covered my desk. Ignoring it, I deposited my computer and case, grabbed my mug, and set off for the staff lounge.
As expected, LaManche’s was the only other door open. I poked my head in on the way back.
LaManche looked up, half-moon glasses on the end of his nose. Long nose. Long ears. Long face, with long, vertical creases. Mr. Ed in reading specs.
“Temperance.” Only LaManche used my full name. In his proper, formal French, the last syllable rhymed with
I assured him I was well.
“Please, come in.” He flapped a huge, freckled hand at two chairs opposite his desk. “Sit down.”
“Thanks.” I balanced my coffee on the armrest.
“How was Guatemala?”
How do you summarize Chupan Ya?
“Difficult.”
“On many levels.”
“Yes.”
“The Guatemalan police were eager to have you.”
“Not everyone shared that enthusiasm.”
“Oh?”
“How much do you want to know?”
He removed the half-moons, tossed them onto the desktop, and leaned back.
I told him about the Paraiso investigation, and about Diaz’s efforts to block my participation.
“Yet this man did not interfere with your participation in the Claudia de la Alda case?”
“Never saw him.”
“Are there any suspects in that murder?”
I shook my head.
