To my horror, toward the wrap-up, discussion turned to Christelle Villejoins missing phalanges.
Do you know Dr. Temperance Brennan? Tweed Jacket asked.
She is my colleague.
Her training is in anthropology, correct?
Yes. As is mine.
I shot to a sit.
A short course! You took a bloody short course!
Isnt Dr. Brennan usually responsible for coroner-ordered exhumations?
Yes. Just the slightest hesitation. The winging down of brows. For effect? Dr. Brennan led the initial recovery at Oka. The phalanges were missed.
Though I was chilled and shaking, my face burned.
Had I? Had I really missed them? I must have. But how?
My queasy brain scraped together an image of the tent. The pit. The earth-stained bones.
specialty training in forensic archaeology. What is needed in such situations is a team approach, the utilization of experts in excavation methodology, taphonomy and decomposition, and human soft and hard tissue anatomy and pathology.
Do such teams exist in Quebec?
One. A private company called Body Find. Corps découvert. I am
My poisoned gut arced full cycle.
I stumbled to the bathroom on shaky legs.
When the retching stopped, I staggered back to bed.
Shivering uncontrollably, I killed the TV and light and pulled the covers to my chin.
27
THOUGH COLD-NUMBED AND ALMOST USELESS, MY HANDS EXPLORED the skull. From habit, my brain catalogued detail
.
Large mastoids and brow ridges. Male. Edentulous
.
Who the bloody hell cares? I screamed in frustration
.
My cry sounded flat, deadened by brick and trapped silence
.
I looked at my watch. The glowing hands now formed an acute angle pointing left. Two twenty? Four ten? Afternoon? Night?
I thought of my daughter. Wondered what Katy was doing at that moment. Harry. Ryan. Tried to imagine what was happening at the lab
.
Surely Id been missed by now. Surely a team was coming. Right, coming where?
Help! Please!
My throat felt raw. I coughed
.
Hello! Anyone!
A bout of trembling gripped me. I hugged my body, felt my arm bones knock my ribs. My skin was cold and clammy to the touch
.
Like a corpse at the morgue
.
Panic flared anew
.
Im going to die. Alone in a dark tomb. No one will know where I went. Where the flesh is rotting from my bones
.
I thought of the tweaker whod frozen to death on his porch. How long could I survive before hypothermia killed me?
I hated my captor. Hated him for me. For Katy. For Harry. Hated him
with a fury born of years spent with the battered dead. Hated him for the throat-slashed wives. The cigarette-burned babies. The bedsored grannies
.
Who are you? I shrieked
.
Forget him. Activity brings warmth. Warmth brings life. Use the anger. Move. Get out
.
I took a deep breath
.
Took another, shifting to my nose
.
The musty smell was stronger here. Mold. Mildew. Creatures long dead
.
Setting the skull on the floor, I rolled to my belly and began dragging myself forward, using the odor as a guide
.
My raw elbows screamed. My injured leg spasmed
.
Ignore the pain
.
Arm-thrust. Pull
.
Arm-thrust. Pull
.
Soft echoes suggested a more enclosed space. A wall ahead?
Six thrusts, then my chest landed on bulk. Propping on my right elbow, I explored the object with my left hand. Gingerly. Careful not to move it
.
Lumpy L, scaly with mold. Underside flat with a heel-shaped protuberance at one end
.
A boot
.
I reached left
.
A second boot lay beside the first
.
Heart hammering, I danced my fingers upward over mold-crusted fabric that crumbled at my touch. Running beneath the fabric were long tubular objects. I recognized their shape. Their meaning
.
Leg bones
.
Dear God, I was feeling up a corpse
.
I pictured the body
.
Swinging my legs right, I inched upward along the side of the torso, blindly probing in the darkness. My fingers picked out heavy round buttons
.
I counted. Visualized. A jacket?
I applied pressure with my palm
.
The jacket overlaid a series of rigid arcs. Lumps and knobs. A collapsed rib cage. Vertebrae
.
I tried lifting the jackets lower edge. My effort kicked up a tsunami of scent, rank and earthy and reeking of death
.
I changed to breathing through my mouth
.
Elbowing and kneeing in reverse, I cleared the boots and shifted left
.
Beside the first, my trembling fingers encountered a second set of footwear. Trousers. Another jacket. A fleshless skull, spiderweb hair clinging to the crown
.
Again, I hitched backward and dragged myself left
.
A third corpse lay head to foot with the others. Or had, until the skull detached and sought new ground
.
My hands recoiled in horror
.
Mother of God! My prison was a crypt, more frigid and black than I could have imagined possible. Filled with complete and utter silence
.
And decaying bodies
.
Questions kaleidoscoped in my brain. Hysterical. Pointless
.
How long? How many? Who?
Using my bound legs, I hitched myself aft of the third corpse and dragged myself left, hands fumbling in the dark
.
Irrational, but I had to know
.
Beyond the first three dead I found four more
.
Brailleing for clues, I determined that everyone had been entombed wearing boots, belted pants, and jackets with heavy round buttons, probably metal. Four jackets were adorned with medals and insignia
.
Dead soldiers?
It didnt matter. What did matter was the possibility that Id soon join their ranks
.
My breath began to catch, my chest to heave
.
Reason weighed in
.
No tears! Think!
A single word exploded in my brain
.
Edges!
A desperate ghoul, I raided the dead and placed my booty in a pile. Medals. Buckles. Insignias. Three lower jaws with the front teeth in place
.
Shifting to a hunch-sit, I spread my knees, leaned forward, and began sawing at my ankle bindings. One cord was all I needed
.
One
.
One
.
How long did I gnaw away at those ropes? Long
.
As with my wrists, it finally happened. A gentle yielding of pressure. A pop. My legs flew apart
.
Electricity exploded from neuron to neuron
.
I wanted to scream
.
To shout for joy
.
To kill the bastard whod done this to me
.
I wanted to escape
.
Rounding my back, I massaged and flexed both ankles
.
When blood flow returned, I eased onto all fours
.
Not bad
.
I flexed a knee, testing the injured leg
.
Tender. Tolerable
.
During my corpse crawl, Id noted that the dead had been placed with their heads or feet to a wall. Apparently, I was at one end of the tomb
.
Might a door be at the other?
Arms and legs rubber, I crawled toward the spot where Id first regained consciousness, left hand periodically skimming the brick. One step. Five. Twelve
.
Twenty steps. My outstretched palm smacked brick. Another wall was meeting the long wall at ninety degrees. Id reached the other end of the tomb
.
I began sidestepping right, hand groping for a door
.
Sudden horrifying thought. If the bodies had been simply bricked in, thered have been no need of a door. No one was ever entering again. Or leaving
.
My tortured brain rode another illogical wave. Poe. The Cask of Amontillado.
But Montresor was caught
.
No. Fortunato died. Alone. Underground
.
My movements became frenzied. Sitting on my haunches, I hand-swept the brick in wide jagged arcs
.
Someone put you here. There had to be a way in
.
There has to be a way out
.
I almost gasped when my fingers brushed something set into the masonry. Flat. Smooth
.
Wood!
I groped for a handle
.
Zip
.
A latch
.
No go
.
My frozen fingertips were sending little to my brain. I rubbed my hands together fast. Some feeling returned
.
I began anew, more slowly. More carefully
.
Eventually, my trembling fingers picked out an irregularity. Traced it
.
My brain tallied the tactile, threw up a visual. A crack, outlining a door maybe two feet square
.
Frantic, I began clawing at the gap with my nails. The narrow space was packed with a hard, crumbly substance
.
Think, Brennan!
Fumbling back through the dark, I gathered my macabre assemblage. Then I scramble-crawled back to the door and began hacking and gouging
.
Periodically, Id roll to my back and hammer the wood with my feet. Or throw my weight from all fours, connecting with a shoulder or hip
.
Sounds filled the stillness. The clink of my pirated tools. The tick of mortar falling on brick. The wheeze of air in and out of my mouth
.
I was sweat-soaked and panting when the door finally popped free and dropped with a clunk
.
I inched to the edge and peered out
.
28
CLUNK.
I raised my lids.
The window shade was a muted gray rectangle outlined by strips of sluggish daylight. Again.
War of the Toxic Ham Salad: Day Three
.
Birdie was atop the bureau on the far side of the room. Below him, a framed photo of Katy lay angled to a baseboard.
Though better than yesterday, my body still felt like it had gone through a crusher.
I sat up. Groaned.
Bird looked an accusation in my direction.
Can cats do that?
Thursday was a blur. I could remember trying to change the sheets. To feed the cat. To shower. To eat crackers. My innards would have nothing to do with digestion. After each attempt at activity, Id fall back into bed.
Fitful while sleeping, Id kicked the covers to the floor. Reengaging them, I assessed. Though the fever and nausea were gone, my rib and abdominal muscles ached, and a low throbbing lingered behind my eyeballs. My nightshirt was soaked.
I looked at the clock. Ten twenty.
Bird had a point.
You hungry, buddy?
Prim nonresponse.
Peeling off the wet jammies, I donned sweats, then dragged to the kitchen to feed the cat.
Back to the bathroom. Already my energy level was tanking.
I studied my image in the mirror while brushing my teeth. Eyes rabbit pink. Face oatmeal. Hair pasted to my scalp and forehead in swirly wet clumps.
How would Harry describe my appearance? Rode hard and put away wet.
Apt. My voice sounded croaky.
Lab today?
Maybe.
Shower?
Not yet.
Hair?
Later.
One system kicked in. Suddenly I was famished. Ten hours of vomiting will do that, I guess.
The refrigerator offered condiments, Diet Coke, moldy lettuce, and a trio of plastic containers whose contents would require a gas spec for ID.
I was contemplating a grocery run when I heard knocking at the front door.
Entrance to my building requires a key. Others must buzz. Only the caretaker or a resident should already be inside.
Sparky?
Merciful God. Not today.
I tiptoed down the hall and peeked through the peephole.
An impossibly blue eye stared back.
I know youre in there. Muffled through the door.
Go away.
I have news. Open up.
Reluctantly, I did.
Ryan was bundled in hooded parka, muffler, and tuque pulled low to his brows. His nostrils were blanched, his cheeks flushed. He held a square white box in mittened hands.
Klondike Pete called, I said. They want the outfit back.
Its twenty-two below. Shifting the bakery, Ryan palmed back his hood.
