Through small windows in the doors, I could see that Santangelo and Morin were beginning their externals in rooms one and two. With each pathologist was a police photographer and an autopsy technician, or diener.

Gilles Pomier and a tech named Roy Robitaille were arranging instruments in the large autopsy suite. They would be assisting Pelletier and LaManche, respectively.

I continued on to number four, a room specially ventilated for decomps, floaters, mummified corpses, and other aromatics. My kind of cases.

As did every autopsy suite, room four had double doors leading to a morgue bay. The bay was lined with refrigerated compartments designed to hold one gurney each.

Tossing my clipboard on a counter, I pulled a plastic apron from one drawer, gloves and a mask from another, donned them, and pushed through the double doors.

Head count.

Seven white cards. Seven temporary residents.

I located those cards with my initials, LSJML-49277 and LSJML-49278. Both had been affixed to the same door.

Dead babies need so little room, I thought.

Both cards bore the same sad notation. Ossements d’enfant. Baby bones. Inconnu. Unknown.

Flashback. Rocking Kevin in my arms, afraid to squeeze lest I snap the brittle little bones, lest I add more bruises to the milky white flesh.

Standing amid the cold stainless steel, I could still feel the feathery weight of my brother’s body against my chest, hear the soft cadence of his breathing, recall the perfume of little-boy sweat and baby shampoo.

Shake it off, Brennan. Do your job.

I pulled the handle and the door swung open. Cold air whooshed, bringing with it the odor of refrigerated death.

Two folded body bags lay side by side on the top shelf of one gurney. I toed the brake and yanked the gurney out.

When I backed through the double doors, Lisa was arranging equipment on a side counter. Together we maneuvered the gurney parallel to the stainless-steel table floor-bolted in the middle of the room.

“SIJ is shorthanded today.” Wanting practice, Lisa usually speaks English to me. “One photographer will float between us and Dr. LaManche.”

“That’s fine. We’ll do our own pics.”

Fortysomething, Lisa has been a diener since receiving certification at age nineteen. Clever and knowledgeable, with hands as adept as any surgeon’s, she is, far and away, the best autopsy tech at the LSJML.

Lisa is also the favorite of every cop in Quebec. I suspect that, besides her skill and sunny disposition, her blond hair and large bra size figure in.

“They look so little.” Lisa was staring at the bags, sadness on her face.

“Let’s get a series of pics before we remove them.”

While Lisa filled out a case identifier and checked the Nikon, I entered information onto the first of my case forms.

Name: Inconnu. Date of birth: blank. Laboratoire de sciences judiciaires et de médecine légale number: 49277. Morgue number: 589. Police incident number: 43729. Pathologist: Pierre LaManche. Coroner: Jean-Claude Hubert. Investigator: Andrew Ryan. Section des crimes contre la personne, Sûreté du Québec.