Deja Dead Page 0,7

We’d recovered almost the whole skeleton. The killer had made that task easier. As with the head and torso, he, or she, had placed the arms and legs in separate plastic bags. There were four in all. Very tidy. Packaged and discarded like last week’s garbage. I filed the outrage in another place and forced myself to concentrate.

I removed the dismembered segments and arranged them in anatomical order on the stainless steel autopsy table in the middle of the room. First, I transferred the torso and centered it, breast side up. It held together reasonably well. Unlike the bag holding the head, those containing the body parts had not stayed tightly sealed. The torso was in the worst shape, the bones held together only by leatherized bands of dried muscle and ligament. I noted that the uppermost vertebrae were missing, and hoped I’d find them attached to the head. Except for traces, the internal organs were long gone.

Next, I placed the arms to the sides and the legs below. The limbs hadn’t been exposed to sunlight, and weren’t as desiccated as the chest and abdomen. They retained large portions of putrefied soft tissue. I tried to ignore the seething blanket of pale yellow that made a languid, wavelike retreat from the surface of each limb as I withdrew it from the body bag. Maggots will abandon a corpse when exposed to light. They were dropping from the body to the table, from the table to the floor, in a slow but steady drizzle. Pale yellow grains of rice lay writhing by my feet. I avoided stepping on them. I’d never really gotten used to them.

I reached for my clipboard and began to fill in the form. Name: Inconnue. Unknown. Date of autopsy: June 3, 1994. Investigators: Luc Claudel, Michel Charbonneau, Section des homicides, CUM. Homicide division, Montreal Urban Community Police.

I added the police report number, the morgue number, and the Laboratoire de Médecine Légale, or LML, number and experienced my usual wave of anger at the arrogant indifference of the system. Violent death allows no privacy. It plunders one’s dignity as surely as it has taken one’s life. The body is handled, scrutinized, and photographed, with a new series of digits allocated at each step. The victim becomes part of the evidence, an exhibit, on display for police, pathologists, forensic specialists, lawyers, and, eventually, jurors. Number it. Photograph it. Take samples. Tag the toe. While I am an active participant, I can never accept the impersonality of the system. It is like looting on the most personal level. At least I would give this victim a name. Death in anonymity would not be added to the list of violations he or she would suffer.

I selected a form from those on the clipboard. I’d alter my normal routine and leave the full skeletal inventory for later. For now the detectives wanted only the ID profile: sex, age, and race.

Race was pretty straightforward. The hair was red, what skin remained appeared fair. Decomposition, however, could do strange things. I’d check the skeletal details after cleaning. For now Caucasoid seemed a safe bet.

I already suspected the victim was female. The facial features were delicate, the overall body build slight. The long hair meant nothing.

I looked at the pelvis. Turning it to the side I noted that the notch below the hip blade was broad and shallow. I repositioned it so that I could see the pubic bones, the region in front where the right and left halves of the pelvis meet. The curve formed by their lower borders was a wide arch. Delicate raised ridges cut across the front of each pubic bone, creating distinct triangles in the lower corners. Typical female features. Later I’d take measurements and run discriminant function analyses on the computer, but I had no doubt these were the remains of a woman.

I was wrapping the pubic area in a wet rag when the sound of the phone startled me. I hadn’t realized how quiet it was. Or how tense I was. I walked to the desk, zigzagging through maggots like a child playing jacks.

“Dr. Brennan,” I answered, pushing the goggles to the top of my head and dropping into the chair. Using my pen, I flicked a maggot from the desktop.

“Claudel,” a voice said. One of the two CUM detectives assigned to the case. I looked at the wall clock—ten-forty. Later than I realized. He didn’t go on. Obviously he assumed his name was message enough.

“I’m working on