What the priest said was not original. Emily Anne is in heaven with God. She has been reunited with her father. One day her mother and sisters wil join her, as wil everyone present.

What the young priest did next was original. He told the children that Emily Anne was happy, and that we should celebrate with her He signaled his servers, who disappeared into the vestry, and returned with huge bunches of bal oons.

"These bal oons are fil ed with helium," explained the priest. "That makes them fly. I want you each to take one, and we wil al walk out with Emily Anne, We wil say a good-bye prayer, then release our bal oons to rise to heaven. Emily Anne wil see them and know that we love hen"

He looked at the solemn little faces.

"Is that a good idea?"

Every head nodded.

The priest rose, disentangled strings, placed a bal oon in each smal hand, and led the children down the steps. The organist began Schubert's 'Ave Maria.'

The pal bearers came forward, lifted the casket, and the procession moved toward the door, the pews emptying in its wake. As the line passed, I slipped in at the end.

The mourners fol owed the coffin outside then circled around, children on the inside, adults forming an outer ring. Mrs. Toussaint stood behind her daughters, supported by the singer.

I held back on the steps. The overcast had broken, leaving a sky fil ed with tumbling white clouds. As I watched bal oons rise toward them, I felt a grief as sharp as anything I'd felt in my life.

I lingered a moment, then descended slowly, wiping tears from my cheeks, and reaffirming the vow I'd made on the day of Emily Anne's death.

I would find these indiscriminate butchers and put them where they could never kil another child. I could not restore the daughter but I would provide this smal comfort for the mother

Leaving Emily Anne to those who loved her, I drove toward Parthenais, in a mood to lose myself in work.

At the lab, the Carcajou investigators already had names for the skeletons from St-Basile. Felix Martineau, age twenty-seven, and Robert Gately, age thirty-nine, rode with the Tarantulas, a now defunct OMC, but active in Montreal in the seventies and eighties. Gately was a ful patch member, Martineau a prospect.

On the evening of August 24, 1987, the two had left Gately's apartment on rue Hochelaga heading for a party. Gately's ole lady did not know the name or address of the host. Neither man was seen again.

I spent the day with the bones from the double burial, sorting them into individuals and determining age, sex, race, and height. Cranial and pelvic shape confirmed both victims were male. The differences in age and height made the task of individuation considerably easier than with the Vail ancourt brothers.