"He"s here on a Monday?"

"He"s going on holiday for two weeks so he came to finish some reports."

"Happy day." I put the skull in a plastic tub. "Ryan thinks he"s got a name."

"Ah, oui? oui?" His eyebrows shot up.

"He must have been up with the birds today. The message was taken by the night service."

"For the St. Lambert skeleton or for your chum there?"

He indicated the skull. Apparently the story had already made the rounds.

"Maybe both. I"ll let you know."

I headed for my office, stopping by Bergeron"s on the way. He"d spoken with Ryan. The detective had found a missing person match promising enough to request a mandat du coroner mandat du coroner for the antemortem records, and was on his way. for the antemortem records, and was on his way.

"Know anything about her?"

"Rien." Nothing.

"I"ll finish with the skull before lunch. If you need it, just come by."

I spent the next two hours a.s.sessing the s.e.x, race, and age of the skull. I observed features of the face and braincase, took measurements, and ran discriminant functions on my computer. We agreed. The skull was that of a white female. Like the St. Lambert skeleton.

Age was frustrating. All I had to go on was closure of the cranial sutures, a notoriously untrustworthy system for evaluating age. The computer couldn"t help. I estimated she"d been in her late twenties to mid-thirties when she died. Maybe forty. Again, consistent with the bones from St. Lambert.

I looked for other indicators of congruity. Overall size. Robusticity of muscle attachments. Degree of arthritic change. Condition of the bone. State of preservation. Everything matched. I was convinced this was the head missing from the Monastere St. Bernard skeleton, but I needed more. Then I turned the skull over and examined the base.

Coursing across the occipital bone, close to the point where the skull sits on the vertebral column, I could see a series of slashes. They were V-shaped in cross-section and ran from high to low, following the contour of the bone. Under the Luxolamp they looked similar to the marks I"d observed on the long bones. I wanted to be sure.

I took the skull back to the histo lab, set it next to the operating scope, and got out the headless skeleton. I withdrew the sixth cervical vertebra, placed it under the scope, and reexamined the cuts I"d described the week before. Then I switched to the skull, focusing on the gashes scoring its back and base. The marks were identical, the contours and cross-sectional dimensions matching perfectly.

"Grace Damas."

I switched off the fiber-optic light and turned toward the voice.

"Qui?"

"Grace Damas," repeated Bergeron. "Age thirty-two. According to Ryan, she went missing in February of "92."

I calculated. Two years and four months. "That fits. Anything else?"

"I really didn"t ask. Ryan said he"d stop in after lunch. He"s tracking something else down."

"Does he know the ID"s positive?"

"Not yet. I just finished." He looked at the bones. "Anything?"

"They"re a match. I want to see what the trace evidence folks have to say about the soil samples. Maybe we can get a pollen profile. But I"m convinced. Even the cut marks are the same. I wish I had the upper neck vertebrae, but it"s not critical."

Grace Damas. All through lunch the name echoed in my head. Grace Damas. Number five. Or was it? How many more would we find? Each of the names was burned into my mind, like a brand on a heifer"s rump. Morisette-Champoux. Trottier. Gagnon. Adkins. Now another. Damas.

At one-thirty Ryan came to my office. Bergeron had already given him the positive on the skull. I told him it was good for the skeleton as well.

"What do you know about her?" I asked.

"She was thirty-two. Three kids."

"Christ."

"Good mother. Faithful wife. Active in the church." He glanced at his notes. "St. Demetrius, over on Hutchison. Near Avenue du Parc and Fairmont. Sent the kids off to school one day. Never seen again."

"Husband?"

"Looks clean."

"Boyfriend?"

He shrugged. "It"s a very traditional Greek family. If you don"t talk about it, those things can"t be true. She was a good girl. Lived for her husband. They"ve got a friggin" shrine set up for her in the living room." Another shrug. "Maybe she was a saint. Maybe she wasn"t. We"re not going to find out from Mama or Hubby. It"s like talking to barnacles. You mention hanky-panky, they pull in and slam shut."

I told him about the cut marks.

"Same as Trottier. And Gagnon."

"Hm."

"Hands were cut off. Like Gagnon, and one each for Morisette-Champoux and Trottier."

"Hm."

When he"d gone I turned on the computer and pulled up my spreadsheet. I erased "Inconnue" from the name column and typed in Grace Damas, then entered the scanty information Ryan had given me. In a separate file I summarized what I knew about each of the women, arranging them by date of death.

Grace Damas had disappeared in February of 1992. She was thirty-two, married, the mother of three. She lived in the near northeast part of the city, in an area known as Parc Extension. Her body had been dismembered and buried in a shallow grave at the St. Bernard Monastery in St. Lambert, where it was found in June of 1994. Her head showed up in my garden several days later. Cause of death was unknown.

Francine Morisette-Champoux was beaten and shot in January of 1993. She was forty-seven. Her body was found less than two hours later, just south of Centre-ville, in the condo she shared with her husband. Her killer had slit her belly, cut off her right hand, and forced a knife into her v.a.g.i.n.a.

Chantale Trottier disappeared in October of 1993. She was sixteen. She lived with her mother off the island, in the lake community of Ste. Anne-de-Bellevue. She"d been beaten, strangled, and dismembered, her right hand partially severed, her left one completely detached. Her body was found two days later in St. Jerome.

Isabelle Gagnon disappeared in April of 1994. She"d lived with her brother in St. edouard. In June of this year her dismembered body was found on the grounds of Le Grand Seminaire in Centre-ville. Though cause of death could not be determined, marks on her bones indicated she"d been dismembered, her belly slit. Her hands had been removed, and her killer had inserted a plunger in her v.a.g.i.n.a. She was twenty-three.

Margaret Adkins was killed on June 23, just over a week ago. She was twenty-four, had one son, and lived with her common-law husband. She"d been beaten to death. Her belly was slit and one breast had been sliced off and forced into her mouth. A metal statue had been rammed up her v.a.g.i.n.a.

Claudel was right. There was no pattern in MO. They were all beaten, but Morisette-Champoux was also shot. Trottier was strangled. Adkins was bludgeoned. h.e.l.l, we didn"t even have a cause for Damas and Gagnon.

I went over and over what had been done to each of them. There was variation, but there was also a theme. s.a.d.i.s.tic cruelty and mutilation. It had to be one person. One monster. Damas, Gagnon, and Trottier were dismembered and dumped in plastic bags. Their bellies had been slit. Gagnon and Trottier had had their hands severed. Morisette-Champoux was slashed and had a hand cut off, but she wasn"t dismembered. Adkins, Gagnon, and Morisette-Champoux had suffered genital penetration with a foreign object. The others hadn"t. Adkins"s breast was mutilated. No one else was disfigured in that way. Or were they? There hadn"t been enough of Damas and Gagnon to say.

I stared at the screen. It has to be here, I told myself. Why can"t I see it? What"s the link? Why these women? Their ages are up and down the charts. It"s not that. They"re all white. Big deal, this is Canada. Francophone. Anglophone. Allophone. Married. Single. Common law. Choose another category. Let"s try geography.

I got out a map and plotted where each of the bodies had been found. It made even less sense than when I"d done it with Ryan. Now there were five points in the scatter. I tried plotting their homes. The pins looked like paint flung at a canvas by an abstract artist. There was no pattern.

What did you expect, Brennan, an arrow pointing to a flat on Sherbrooke? Forget place. Try time.

I looked at the dates. Damas was the first. In early 1992. I calculated in my head. Eleven months between Damas and Morisette-Champoux. Nine months later, Trottier. Six months to Gagnon. Two months between Gagnon and Adkins.

The intervals were decreasing. Either the killer was growing bolder, or his blood l.u.s.t was growing stronger. My heart pounded hard against my ribs as I considered the implication. Over a week had pa.s.sed since Margaret Adkins died.

26.

IFELT TRAPPED INSIDE MY SKIN. ANXIOUS AND FRUSTRATED. THE visions in my head annoyed me, but I couldn"t turn them off. I watched a candy wrapper dance on the wind outside my window, tossed by puffs of shifting air. visions in my head annoyed me, but I couldn"t turn them off. I watched a candy wrapper dance on the wind outside my window, tossed by puffs of shifting air.

That piece of paper is you, Brennan, I chided myself. Can"t control your own fate, much less anyone else"s. There"s nothing on St. Jacques. No word on who put the skull in your yard. Gabby"s nut case is still out there. Claudel is probably lodging a complaint against you. Your daughter is about to drop out of school. And five dead women are living in your head, and likely to be joined by a sixth or seventh at the rate your investigation is going.

I looked at my watch-2:15 P.M P.M. I couldn"t stand my office another minute. I had to do something.

But what?

I glanced at Ryan"s incident report. An idea began to form.

They"ll be furious, I told myself.

Yes.

I checked the report. The address was there. I pulled up my spreadsheet on the computer screen. They were all there, along with the phone numbers.

You would do better to go to the gym and work off your frustration there.

Yes.

Solo sleuthing won"t help the situation with Claudel.

No.

You may lose Ryan"s support.

True.

Tough.

I printed the data from the screen, made a choice, and dialed. A man answered on the third ring. He was surprised but agreed to see me. Grabbing my purse, I fled into the summer sunshine.

It was hot again, the air so thick with humidity you could take your finger and write your initials in it. The haze refracted the sun"s glare and spread it all around like a cloak. I drove toward the home Francine Morisette-Champoux had shared with her husband. I"d chosen her case for no other reason than proximity. She had lived just below Centre-ville, not ten minutes from my condo. If I bombed, well, I was on my way home.

I found the address and pulled to a stop. The street was lined with brick town houses, each with its iron balcony, below-ground garage, and brightly colored door.

Unlike most communities in Montreal, this one had no name. Urban renewal had transformed what had been part of the Canadian National yards, replacing tracks and toolsheds with residences, barbecue grills, and tomato plants. The neighborhood was neat and middle cla.s.s, but suffered from an ident.i.ty crisis. It was too close to the city core to be truly suburban, but just a hair outside the arc defining trendy downtown. It wasn"t old and it wasn"t new. Functional and convenient, it lacked bouquet.

I rang the bell and waited. Fresh-cut gra.s.s and ripe garbage tinged the hot air. Two doors down a sprinkler arced water across a Chiclet-sized lawn. A central air compressor hummed to life, its sound challenging the sprinkler"s steady click.

When he opened the door I thought of the Gerber baby grown up. His hair was blond and receding, the center patch swirling into a curl on his forehead. His cheeks and chin were round and padded, his nose short and angled upward. He was a large man, not yet gone to fat, but moving down that road. Though it was ninety degrees, he wore jeans and a sweatshirt. Calgary Stampede-1985.

"Monsieur Champoux, I"m . . ."

He pulled the door wide and stepped back, ignoring the ID I held for his inspection. I followed him down a narrow hall to a narrow living room. Fish tanks lined one wall, tinting the room an eerie aquamarine. At the far end I could see a counter stacked with small nets, boxes of food, and other fish paraphernalia. Louvered doors opened onto the kitchen. I recognized the kitchen work island and looked away.

Monsieur Champoux cleared a spot on the sofa and indicated I should sit. He dropped into a recliner.

"Monsieur Champoux," I began again, "I"m Dr. Brennan from the Laboratoire de Medecine Legale."

I left it at that, hoping to avoid further explanations about my precise role in the investigation. I didn"t really have any.

"Have you found something? I . . . It"s been so long I don"t let myself think about it anymore." He spoke to the parquet floor. "It"s been a year and a half since Francine died, and I haven"t heard from you people in over a year."

I wondered where he thought I fit in with "you people."

"I answered so many questions, talked to so many people. The coroner. The cops. The press. I even hired my own investigator. I really wanted to nail this guy. Didn"t do any good. They never found a clue. We can pinpoint the time he killed her to within an hour, you know. The coroner said she was still warm. This maniac kills my wife, walks out, and disappears without a trace." He shook his head in disbelief. "Have you finally got something?"

His eyes held a mixture of anguish and hope. Guilt sliced to my core.

"No, Monsieur Champoux, not really." Except four other women may have been killed by the same animal. "I just want to go over a few details, see if there"s anything we overlooked."

The hope vanished and resignation surfaced. He leaned back in his chair and waited.

"Your wife was a nutritionist?"

He nodded.

"Where did she work?"

"All over, really. She was paid by the MAS, but on any given day she could have been anywhere."

"The MAS?"

"Ministere des Affaires Sociales."

"She moved around?"

"Her job was to advise food cooperatives, immigrant groups mostly, about how to buy stuff. She"d help them form these collective kitchens, then teach them how to make whatever it is they like to eat so it would be cheap, but still healthy. She"d help them get produce and meat and things. Usually in bulk. She was always visiting the kitchens to be sure they were running okay."