By the time I returned, the condo had warmed. I built a fire anyway, needing its comfort more than its heat. I was feeling as down as I had at Sharon Hal, haunted by the specter of Ryan's mysterious Daniele, saddened by the prospect of Bertrand's funeral.

As I stir-fried scalops and green beans, sleet began ticking against the windows. I ate at the hearth, thinking of the man I'd come to bury.

The detective and I had worked together over the years, when murder victims caused our paths to cross, and I'd come to understand certain things about him. Incapable of deviousness, he'd seen the world in black and white, with cops on one side of a moral line, criminals on the other. He'd had faith in the system, never doubting it would sort the good guys from the bad.

Bertrand had visited me here the previous spring, devastated by an incomprehensible break with Ryan. I pictured him sitting on my couch that night, wretched with anger and disbelief, not knowing what to say or do, the same feelings now overpowering Andrew Ryan.

After dinner, I loaded the dishwasher, stoked the fire, then took the handset to the sofa. Mentaly switching to French, I dialed LaManche's home number.

My boss said he was glad I'd come to Montreal, even though the circumstances were so sad. There were two anthropology cases at the lab.

'Last week a woman was found, nude and decomposed, wrapped in a blanket in Pare Nicholas-Veil.'

'Where is that?'

'The far northern edge of the city.'

'CUM?'

The Communauté Urbaine de Montreal Police, or Montreal Urban Community Police, have jurisdiction over everything on the island of Montreal.

' Oui. Sergent-détective Luc Claudel.'

Claudel. The highly regarded buldog of a detective who would grudgingly work with me, but remained unconvinced that female forensic anthropologists were helpful to law enforcement. Just what I needed.

'Has she been ID'ed?'

'There is a presumptive identification, and a man has been arrested. The suspect is claiming she fel, but Monsieur Claudel is suspicious. I would like you to examine the cranial trauma.' LaManche's French, always so proper.

'I'l do it tomorrow.'

The second case was less urgent. A smal plane had crashed two years earlier near Chicoutimi, the copilot never found. A segment of diaphysis had recently washed up in that vicinity. Could I determine if the bone was human? I assured him I could.

LaManche thanked me, asked about the Air TransSouth recovery, and expressed sorrow over Bertrand's death. He did not inquire about my problems with the authorities.

Surely the news would have reached him, but he was too discreet to raise a painful subject.

The telemarketers I ignored.

The graduate student had long since obtained the needed reference.

My friend Isabele had hosted one of her soirees the previous Saturday. I apologized for missing her cal, and her dinner party. She assured me there would be another soon.