Administrative issues discussed, cases assigned, staff meeting wrapped up by nine. Returning to my office, I donned a lab coat and crossed to the anthropology lab. The bones found at the construction site covered two worktables.
One glance told me the case wouldn’t need detailed analysis. After eyeballing each element, I wrote a one-line report.
Next, I instructed my lab technician, Denis, concerning cleaning of Santangelo’s incinerated cadaver. Burned bodies can be fragile, requiring careful disarticulation of the skeleton and removal of soft tissue by hand.
Then it was on to the morgue.
Clipboard. Calipers. Skeletal autopsy forms.
I had my hand on the doorknob when the phone rang. I almost ignored it. Should have, perhaps.
4
“D OC BRENNAN?” THE VOICE WAS BARBWIRE DRAGGED ACROSS corrugated tin. “C’est moe, Hippo.”
“Comment ca va?” As in the elevator, a formality. If queried sincerely, I knew the caller would respond in detail. Though I liked the guy, this wasn’t the time.
“Ben. J’vas parker mon char. Chu—”
“Hippo?” I cut him off.
Sergent-enqueteur Hippolyte Gallant was with L’unite “Cold cases” du Service des enquetes sur les crimes contre la personne de la Surete du Quebec. Big title. Easy translation. Provincial police. Crimes against persons. Cold case squad.
Though Hippo and I had worked a case or two since the unit’s creation in 2004, I’d never cracked his accent. It wasn’t the joual of Quebec’s Francophone working class. It was definitely not Parisian, Belgian, North African, or Swiss. Whatever its origin, Hippo’s French was a mystery to my American ear.
Fortunately, Hippo was fluently bilingual.
“Sorry, doc.” Hippo switched to English. Accented, and slang-heavy, but intelligible. “I’m downstairs parking my car. Got something to run by you.”
“LaManche just handed me an urgent case. I was heading to the morgue.”
“Ten minutes?”
Already my watch said 9:45.
“Come on up.” Resigned. Hippo would find me, anyway.
He appeared twenty minutes later. Through the observation window, I watched him work the corridor, pausing to exchange greetings with those pathologists still in their offices. He entered my lab carrying a Dunkin’ Donuts bag.
How to describe Hippo? With his extra poundage, plastic-framed glasses, and retro crew cut, he looked more like a code programmer than a cop.
Hippo crossed to my desk and parked the bag on it. I looked inside. Doughnuts.
To say Hippo wasn’t into healthy living would be like saying the Amish weren’t into Corvettes. A few members of his squad called him High Test Hippo. Ironic, since the man’s stomach was perpetually upset.
Hippo helped himself to a maple syrup frosted. I went with chocolate.
“Figured you mighta skipped breakfast.”
“Mm.” I’d eaten a bagel with cream cheese and a half pint of raspberries.
“That your urgent case?” Hippo chin-cocked the construction site lamb chops and poultry.
“No.” I didn’t elaborate. It was already past ten. And my mouth was full of chocolate and dough.
“Want your take on something.”
“I do have to get downstairs.”
Hippo dragged a chair toward my desk. “Ten minutes, I’m outta here.” Settling, he licked sugar from his fingers. I handed him a tissue. “It’s not something you gotta do.”
I hand-gestured “Give it to me.”
“It’s bones. I haven’t seen the actual stuff. This comes from an SQ buddy. He’s been with the provincial police for eighteen years, and was just transferred from Rimouski to Gatineau. We had a few beers when he was passing through Montreal.”
I nodded, really thinking about the doughnuts. Had there been another maple syrup frosted in the bag?
“Me and Gaston, that’s his name. We been buds since we was kids. Grew up in a spit little town in the Maritimes.” Finally, an explanation of Hippo’s accent.
“There’s this skeleton’s been bugging Gaston for a couple years. He’s half Micmac, you know. First
