In answer, I rolled my lovely green eyes.
As I took a chair, Nathalie Ayers, Marcel Morin, and Emily Santangelo joined us.
After distributing copies of the day’s lineup, LaManche began discussing and assigning cases.
A forty-seven-year-old man had been found hanging from a cross-beam in his garage in Laval.
A fifty-four-year-old man had been stabbed by his son following an argument over leftover sausages. Mama had called the St-Hyacinthe police.
A resident of Longueuil had slammed his all-terrain vehicle into a snowbank on a rural road in the Gatineau. Alcohol was involved.
An estranged couple had been found dead of gunshot wounds in a home in St-Leonard. Two for her, one for him. The ex-to-be went out with a nine-millimeter Glock in his mouth.
“If I can’t have you no one can.” Pelletier’s dentures clacked as he spoke.
“Typical.” Ayers’s voice sounded bitter.
She was right. We’d seen the scenario all too often.
A young woman had been discovered behind a karaoke bar on rue Jean-Talon. A combination of overdose and hypothermia was suspected.
The pizza basement skeletons had been assigned LSJML numbers 38426, 38427, and 38428.
“Detective Claudel feels these skeletons are old and probably of little forensic interest?” LaManche said it more as a question than a statement.
“And how could Monsieur Claudel know that?” Though it was possible this would turn out to be true, it irked me that Claudel would render an opinion entirely outside his expertise.
“Monsieur Claudel is a man of many talents.” Though Pelletier’s expression was deadpan, I wasn’t fooled. The old pathologist knew of the friction between Claudel and me, and loved to tease.
“Claudel has studied archaeology?” I asked.
Pelletier’s brows shot up. “Monsieur Claudel puts in hours examining ancient relics.”
The others remained silent, awaiting the punch line.
“Really?” Why not play straight man?
“Thank you, Dr. Pelletier.” LaManche traded deadpan for deadpan. “Along those lines, would you please take the hanging?”
Ayers got the stabbing. The ATV accident went to Santangelo, the suicide/homicide to Morin. As each case was dispensed, LaManche marked his master sheet with the appropriate initials. Pe. Ay. Sa. Mo.
Br went onto dossiers 38426, 38427, and 38428, the pizza basement bones.
Anticipating a lengthy meeting with the board that reviews infant deaths in the province, LaManche assigned himself no autopsy.
When we dispersed, I returned to my office. LaManche stuck his head in moments later. One of the autopsy technicians was out with bronchitis. With five posts, things would be difficult. Would I mind working alone?
Great.
As I snapped three case forms onto a clipboard, I noticed that the red light on my phone was flashing.
The minutest of flutters. Ryan?
Get over it, Doris.
Responding to the prompts, I entered my mailbox and code numbers.
A journalist from
A journalist from the
A journalist from the CTV evening news.
Disappointed, I deleted the messages and hurried to the women’s locker room. After changing into surgical scrubs, I took a side corridor to a single elevator tucked between the secretarial office and the library. Restricted to those with special clearance, this elevator featured buttons allowing only three stops. LSJML. Coroner. Morgue. I pressed M and the doors slid shut.
Downstairs, through another secure door, a long, narrow corridor shoots the length of the building. To the left, an X-ray room and four autopsy suites, three with single tables, one with a pair. To the right, drying racks, computer stations, wheeled tubs and carts for transporting specimens to the histology, pathology, toxicology, DNA, and odontology-anthropology labs upstairs.
Through a small glass window in each door, I could see that Ayers and Morin were beginning their externals in rooms one and two. Each was working with a police photographer and an autopsy technician.
Another tech was arranging instruments in room three. He would be assisting Santangelo.
And I was on my own.
