FOLLOWING ANEASTER DINNER OF HAM, PEAS, AND CREAMEDpotatoes, Charles “Le Cowboy” Bel emare pinched a twenty from his sister, drove to a crack house in Verdun, and vanished.

That summer the crack house was sold up-market. That winter the new homeowners grew frustrated with the draw in their fireplace. On Monday, February seventh, the man of the house opened the flue and thrust upward with a rake handle. A desiccated leg tumbled into the ash bed.

Papa cal ed the cops. The cops cal ed the fire department and the Bureau du coroner. The coroner cal ed our forensics lab. Pel etier caught the case.

Pel etier and two morgue techs were standing on the lawn within an hour of the leg drop. To say the scene was confused would be like saying D-day was hectic. Outraged father. Hysterical mother. Overwrought kids. Mesmerized neighbors. Annoyed cops. Mystified firefighters.

Dr. Jean Pel etier is the most senior of the five pathologists at the Laboratoire de sciences judiciaires et de médecine légale, Quebec’s central crime and medico-legal lab. He’s got bad joints and bad dentures, and zero tolerance for anything or anyone that wastes his time. Pel etier took one look and ordered a wrecking bal .

The exterior wal of the chimney was pulverized. A wel -smoked corpse was extracted, strapped to a gurney, and transported to our lab. The next day Pel etier eyebal ed the remains and said,“ossements.” Bones.

Enter I, Dr. Temperance Brennan, forensic anthropologist for North Carolina and Quebec. La Bel e Province and Dixie? Long story, starting with a faculty swap between my home university, UNC-Charlotte, and McGil . When the exchange year ended, I headed south, but continued consulting for the lab in Montreal. A decade later, I’m stil commuting, and lay claim to the mother lode of frequent flyer miles.

Pel etier’sdemande d’expertise en anthropologie was on my desk when I arrived in Montreal for my February rotation.

It was now Wednesday, February 16, and the chimney bones formed a complete skeleton on my worktable. Though the victim hadn’t been a believer in regular checkups, eliminating dental records as an option, al skeletal indicators fit Bel emare. Age, sex, race, and height estimates, along with surgical pins in the right fibula and tibia, told me I was looking at the long-lost Cowboy.

Other than a hairline fracture of the cranial base, probably caused by the unplanned chimney dive, I’d found no evidence of trauma.

I was pondering how and why a man goes up on a roof and fal s down the chimney, when the phone rang.

“It seems I need your assistance, Temperance.” Only Pierre LaManche cal ed me by my ful name, hitting hard on the last syl able, and rhyming it with

“sconce” instead of “fence.” LaManche had assigned himself a cadaver that I suspected might present decomposition issues.

“Advanced putrefaction?”

“Oui.”My boss paused. “And other complicating factors.”

“Complicating factors?”

“Cats.”

Oh, boy.