Deja Dead Part 19

"Anything missing?

"Yes."

I put down the skeletal inventory sheet and looked him full in the eye. He squinted back, chewing. I wondered briefly why he had no sungla.s.ses.

"The head."

He stopped chewing.

"What?"

"The head is missing."

"Where is it?"

"Monsieur Claudel, if I knew that, it wouldn't be missing."

I saw his jaw muscles bunch, then release, not from mastication.

"Anything else?"

"Anything else what?"

"Missing?"

"Nothing significant."

His mind gnawed on those facts while his teeth gnawed on the sandwich. As he chewed, his fingers crumpled the cellophane, compressing it into a tight ball. Placing the ball in his pocket, he wiped each corner of his mouth with an index finger.

"I don't suppose you will tell me anything else?" More a statement than a question.

"When I have had time to examine the . . ."

"Yes." He turned and walked away.

Cursing under my breath, I zipped each of the body bags. The dog's head snapped up at the sound. Its eyes followed me as I stuffed the clipboard into my pack and crossed the street toward a morgue attendant with a waist the size of an inner tube. I told him I'd finished, that the remains could be loaded, and that then they should wait.

Up the street, I could see Ryan and Bertrand talking with Claudel and Charbonneau. The SQ meets the c.u.m. My paranoia made me suspicious of their talking. What was Claudel saying to them? Was it disparaging of me? Most cops are as territorial as howler monkeys, jealous of their their turf, guarding turf, guarding their their cases, wanting cases, wanting their own their own collars. Claudel was worse than the others, but why so specifically disdainful of me? collars. Claudel was worse than the others, but why so specifically disdainful of me?

Forget it, Brennan. He's a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, and you've embarra.s.sed him in his own backyard. You're not at the top of his. .h.i.t parade. Stop worrying about feeling and think about the job. You haven't been innocent of possessive casework either.

The talk stopped as I neared. Their manner removed some of the punch from the peppy approach I'd planned, but I hid my discomfort.

"Hey, Doc," said Charbonneau.

I nodded and smiled in his direction.

"So, where are we?" I asked.

"Your boss took off about an hour ago. So did the good father. Recovery is finis.h.i.+ng up," said Ryan.

"Anything?"

He shook his head.

"Metal detector hits?"

"Every b.l.o.o.d.y pop top tab in the province." Ryan sounded exasperated. "Oh, and we're good for one parking meter. How 'bout you?"

"I'm done. I told the morgue boys they could load up."

"Claudel says you've got no head."

"That's right. The skull, jaw, and first four neck vertebrae are missing."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning the victim was decapitated and the killer put the head somewhere. He might've buried it here, but separately, like he did with the other body parts. They were pretty scattered."

"So we've got another bag out there?"

"Maybe. Or he could've disposed of it somewhere else."

"Like where?"

"In the river, down a latrine, in his furnace. How the h.e.l.l would I know?"

"Why would he do that?" asked Bertrand.

"Maybe so the body couldn't be identified."

"Could it?"

"Probably. But it's a h.e.l.l of a lot easier with teeth and dental records. Besides, he left the hands."

"So?"

"If a corpse is mutilated to prevent identification, usually the hands are removed too."

He looked at me blankly.

"Prints can be taken from badly decomposed bodies, as long as there's still some preserved skin. I've gotten prints from a five-thousand-year-old mummy."

"Did you get a match?" Claudel's voice was flat.

"The guy wasn't entered," I responded with equal lack of mirth.

"But this is just bones," said Bertrand.

"The killer wouldn't know that. He couldn't be sure when the body would be found." Like Gagnon, I thought. Only this one he buried.

I stopped for a minute, and pictured the killer prowling the dark woods, distributing the bags and their grisly contents. Had he carved the victim elsewhere, bagged the b.l.o.o.d.y pieces, and brought them here by car? Did he park where I had parked, or was he able, somehow, to drive onto the grounds? Had he dug the holes first, planning the location of each? Or had he just carried in bags of body parts, digging one pit here and another there on four trips from his car? Was the dismemberment a panicky attempt to conceal a pa.s.sion crime, or had both the murder and the mutilation been coldly premeditated?

An appalling possibility struck me. Had he been here with me last night? Back to the present.

"Or . . ."

They all looked at me.

"Or, he could still have it."

"Still have it?" scoffed Claudel.

"s.h.i.+t," said Ryan.

"Like Dahmer?" asked Charbonneau.

I shrugged.

"We better take Fang back for another sweep," said Ryan. "They never brought him near the torso site."

"Right," I said. "He'll be pleased."

"Mind if we watch?" Charbonneau asked. Claudel shot him a look.

"Not as long as you think happy thoughts," I said. "I'll get the dog. Meet me at the gate."

Striding off, I heard the word "b.i.t.c.h" in Claudel's nasal tone. No doubt a reference to the animal, I told myself.

The dog leapt to its feet when I approached, its tail wagging slowly. It looked from me to the man in the blue jumpsuit, seeking permission to approach the newcomer. I could see "DeSalvo" stamped on the jumpsuit.

"Fido ready for another go?" I asked, extending a hand, palm down, toward the dog. DeSalvo gave an almost imperceptible nod, and the animal leapt forward and wetly nuzzled my fingers.

"Her name's Margot," he said, speaking in English, but giving the name the French p.r.o.nunciation.

His voice was low and even, and he moved with the fluid, unhurried ease of those who spend their days with animals. His face was dark and deeply lined, a fan of small creases radiating from the corner of each eye. He looked like a man who'd lived outdoors.

"French or English?"

"She's bilingual."

"Hey, Margot," I said, crouching on one knee to scratch behind her ears. "Sorry about the gender thing. Big day, eh?"

Margot's tail picked up velocity. When I rose, she leapt back, pivoted full circle, then froze, studying my face intently. She tilted her head from side to side, and the crease between her eyes furrowed and unfurrowed.

"Tempe Brennan," I said, offering my hand to DeSalvo.

He clipped one end of Margot's lead to a belt at his waist and grasped the other end with one hand. He reached out his other hand to me. It felt hard and rough, like distressed metal. His grip was an uncontested A.

"David DeSalvo."

"We think there may be more in there, Dave. Margot good for another go-round?"

"Look at her."

On hearing her name Margot p.r.i.c.ked her ears, crouched with head down, hips in the air, then sprang forward in a series of short hops. Her eyes were glued to DeSalvo's face.

"Right. What've you covered so far?"

"We zigzagged the whole grounds, 'cept where you were working."

"Any chance she missed something?"

"Nah, not today." He shook his head. "Conditions are perfect. Temperature's just right, it's nice and moist from the rain. Plenty of breeze. And Margot's in top form."

She nuzzled his knee and was rewarded by strokes.

"Margot don't miss much. She wasn't trained to nothing but corpse scent, so she won't get sidetracked by nothing else."

Like trackers, cadaver dogs are taught to follow specific scents. In their case, it's the smell of death. I remembered an Academy meeting at which an exhibitor had given away samples of bottled corpse scent. Eau de putrefaction. A trainer I knew used extracted teeth, b.u.mmed from his dentist and aged in plastic vials.

"Margot's 'bout the best I've worked with. Something else's out there, she'll scent it."

I looked at her. I could believe it.

"Okay. Let's take her over to that first site."

DeSalvo clipped the lead's free end to Margot's harness and she led us to the gate where the four detectives waited. We moved along the now familiar route, Margot in the lead, straining at her leash. She sniffed her way along, exploring nooks and crannies with her nose the way my flashlight had with its beam. Occasionally she stopped, inhaled rapidly, then expelled the air in a burst that sent dead leaves eddying around her snout. Satisfied, she'd move on.

We stopped where the path branched off into the woods.

"The part we haven't done is just off here."

DeSalvo gestured in the general direction of our first find.

"I'm gonna swing her around, bring her in downwind. She scents better that way. She thinks she's got something, I'll let her have her head."

"Will we bother her if we go into the area?" I asked.

"Nah. Your smell don't do nothing for her."

Dog and trainer continued up the roadbed for about ten yards, then disappeared into the woods. The detectives and I took the path. The crush of feet had made it more obvious. In fact, the burial site itself could now qualify as a tiny clearing. The vegetation was trampled and some of the overhead branches had been clipped.

At the center, the abandoned hole gaped dark and empty, like a plundered grave. It was much larger than when we'd left it, and the surrounding earth was bare and scuffed. A mound of dirt lay off to the side, an earthen cone with sloping sides and truncated top, its particles unnaturally uniform. Backdirt from the screening.

In less than five minutes we heard barking.

"He behind us?" asked Claudel.