took a sip of coffee, grimaced and shook his head.
“Do you want me to deal with Claudel?” I tried to keep the distaste out of my voice. Apparently I didn’t succeed. He smiled knowingly.
“I have no doubt you can handle Monsieur Claudel.”
“Right,” I said. “That’s what he needs. A handler.”
I could hear him laughing as I returned to my office.
My grandmother always told me there is good in everyone. “Just look fer it . . .” she’d say, the brogue smooth as satin, “. . . and ye’ll find it. Everyone has a virtue.” Gran, you never met Claudel.
Claudel’s virtue was promptness. He was back in fifty minutes.
He stopped in Bergeron’s office, and I could hear their voices through the wall. My name was repeated several times as Bergeron forwarded him to me. Claudel’s cadence signaled irritation. He wanted a real opinion, but now he’d have to settle for me again. He appeared seconds later, his face hard.
Neither of us offered greeting. He waited at the door.
“It’s positive,” I said. “Gagnon.”
He frowned, but I could see excitement collecting in his eyes. He had a victim. Now he could begin the investigation. I wondered if he felt anything for the dead woman or if it was all an exercise for him. Find the bad guy. Outwit the perp. I’d heard the banter, the comments, the jokes made over a victim’s battered body. For some it was a way to deal with the obscenity of violence, a protective barrier against the daily reality of human slaughter. Morgue humor. Mask the horror in male bravado. For others it went deeper. I suspected Claudel was among the others.
I watched him for several seconds. Down the hall a phone rang. Though I truly disliked the man, I forced myself to admit that his opinion of me mattered. I wanted his approval. I wanted him to like me. I wanted all of them to accept me, to admit me to the club.
An image of Dr. Lentz flashed into my mind, a hologram psychologist, lecturing from the past.
“Tempe,” she would say, “you are the child of an alcoholic father. You are searching for the attention he denied you. You want Daddy’s approval, so you try to please everybody.”
She made me see it, but she couldn’t correct it. I had to do that on my own. Occasionally I overcompensated, and many found me a genuine pain in the ass. This had not been the case with Claudel. I realized I’d been avoiding a confrontation.
I took a deep breath and began, choosing my words carefully.
“Monsieur Claudel, have you considered the possibility that this murder is connected to others that have taken place during the past two years?”
His features froze, the lips drawn in so tightly against his teeth as to be almost invisible. A cloud of red began at his collar and spread slowly up his neck and face. His voice was icy.
“Such as?” He held himself absolutely still.
“Such as Chantale Trottier,” I continued. “She was killed in October of ’93. Dismembered, decapitated, disemboweled.” I looked directly at him. “What was left of her was found wrapped in plastic trash bags.”
He raised both hands to the level of his mouth, clasped them together, fingers intertwined, and tapped them against his lips. His perfectly chosen gold cuff links, in his perfectly fitted designer shirt, clinked faintly. He looked straight at me.
“Ms. Brennan,” he said, emphasizing the English label. “Perhaps you should stick to your area of expertise. I think we would recognize any links which might exist between crimes under our jurisdiction. These murders share nothing in common.”
Ignoring the demotion, I forged on. “They were both women. They were both murdered within the past year. Both bodies showed signs of mutilation or attempt—”
His carefully constructed dam of control ruptured, and his anger rushed at me in a torrent.
“Tabernac!” he exploded. “Do you wo—”
His lips pursed to form the despised word, but he stopped himself just in time. With a visible effort, he regained his composure.
“Do you always have to overreact?”
“Think about it,” I spat at him. I was trembling in rage as I got up to close the door.
4
IT SHOULD HAVE FELT GOOD JUST TO SIT IN THE STEAM ROOM AND sweat. Like broccoli. That had been my intention. Three miles on the StairMaster, a round on the Nautilus, then vegetate. Like the rest of the day, the gym was not living up to my expectations. The workout had dissipated some of my anger, but I was still agitated. I