The Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale is the central medico-legal and crime laboratory for the province of Quebec. It is located on the top two floors of the Edifice Wilfrid-Derome, known to locals as the Sûreté du Québec, or SQ building.

By nine-thirty Monday morning I was in the anthropology-odontology lab, having already attended the morning staff meeting, and colected my Demande d'Expertise en Anthropologie request form from the pathologist assigned to each case. After determining that the copilot long-bone shaft actualy came from the lower leg of a mule deer, I wrote a brief report and turned to Claudel's lady.

I arranged the bones in anatomical order on my worktable, did a skeletal inventory, then checked indicators of age, sex, race, and height for consistency with the presumed ID. This could be important, since the victim had been toothless, and dental records did not exist.

I broke at one-thirty and ate my bagel with cream cheese, banana, and Chips Ahoy! cookies while watching boats sailing under cars driving over the Jacques Cartier Bridge far below my office window. By two I was back with the bones, and by four-thirty I had finished my analysis.

The victim could have shattered her jaw, orbit, and cheekbone and smashed the depressed fractures into her forehead by faling. From a hot air baloon or high-rise building.

I caled Claudel and left a verbal opinion of homicide, locked up, and went home.

I spent another night by myself, cooking and eating a chicken breast, watching a rerun of Northern Exposure, reading a few chapters of a novel by James Lee Burke. It was as though Ryan had dropped from the planet. I was asleep by eleven.

The next day was spent documenting the battered lady: photographing my findings with regard to biological profile and photographing, diagramming, describing, and explaining the injury patterns on her skul and face. By late afternoon I'd compiled a report and left it in the secretarial office. I was removing my lab coat when Ryan appeared at my office door.

'Need a lift to the funeral?'

'Rough couple of days?' I asked, taking my purse from the bottom desk drawer.

'There's not a lot of sunshine in the squad.'

'No,' I said, meeting his gaze.

'I'm completely jammed up with this Petriceli thing.'

'Yes.' My eyes never left his.

'Turns out Metraux isn't quite so sure about eyebaling Pepper.'

'Because of Bertrand?'

He shrugged.

'These bastards wil dime their own mothers for an afternoon out.'

'Risky.'

'As tap water in Tijuana. Do you want the ride?'

'If it's not too much trouble.'

'I'l pick you up at eight-fifteen.'

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