On the top left a poster entitled Le Hot Rod showed a penis in Ray-Bans, a smoking cigarette tucked between it and its companion genitalia. The image below featured an upright phal us, the words Astre-Cock in bold letters across the top. The organ was circled by the symbols of the Zodiac, a message of wisdom under each. I took a pass on consulting my sign.

As far as I could see, the only furniture available for practical use consisted of a Formica table and single chair in the kitchen, a twin bed in the bedroom, and an armchair in the living room. A body now occupied the armchair, its head a distorted red mass above a blackened torso and limbs.

Embedded in the flesh I could see a shattered skul and facial bones, a partial nostril with mustache skirt, and one complete eye. The lower jaw hung slack but intact, showing a purpled tongue and rotten teeth stained brown.

Someone had col ected shards of bone and brain pudding and sealed them in a Ziploc bag. The plastic sack lay in the man's lap, as though he'd been put in charge of watching over his own brain. A large flap of skin clung to the edge of the chair, smooth and shiny as the bel y of a perch.

The deceased sat opposite a smal TV on which a coat hanger had been rigged to replace the broken antenna. One twisted end projected toward his head, like the finger of an eyewitness pointing to its find. No one had bothered to turn the set off and I could hear Montel talking with women whose mothers had stolen their lovers. I wondered what the discussants would think of their grisly viewer.

A member of the Ident section dusted the bedroom for latent prints, while another did the same in the kitchen. A third worked a camcorder, slowly sweeping each room, then zooming in for closeups of the jumbles of junk. Before I'd gotten there, she'd shot dozens of stil s of the victim and his gloomy surroundings.

LaManche had been and gone. Since the body wasn't badly burned and decomposition was only moderate I wasn't real y needed, but that hadn't been clear in the early stages. Initial reports described a body and a fire, so I'd been cal ed and transport arrangements had been made. By the time the scene was assessed, I was in transit from Raleigh and the simplest thing was to fol ow through with the original plan. Quickwater had picked me up at the airport and brought me here.

Les Appartements du Soleil were located southwest of Centrevil e, on a smal street running east from rue Charlevoix. The neighborhood, known as Pointe-St-Charles, was on the island of Montreal, so the murder fel to the CUM.