techs took a break and I laid out two simple four-square grids. I was attaching the last string to the last stake when Claudel enjoyed his Rambo moment with the rats.

Now what? Wait for the SIJ techs to return?

Right.

Using SIJ equipment, I shot prints and video. Then I rubbed circulation into my hands, replaced my gloves, folded into a squat, and began troweling soil from square 1A.

As I dug, I felt the usual crime scene rush. The quickened senses.

The intense curiosity. What if it's nothing? What if it's something?

The anxiety.

What if I smash a critical y important section to hel ?

I thought of other excavations. Other deaths. A wannabe saint in a burned-out church. A decapitated teen at a biker crib. Bul et-riddled dopers in a streamside grave.

I don't know how long I'd been digging when the SIJ team returned, the tal er of the two carrying a Styrofoam cup. I searched my memory for his name.

Root. Racine. Tal and thin like a root. The mnemonic worked.

Rene Racine. New guy. We'd processed a handful of scenes. His shorter counterpart was Pierre Gilbert. I'd known him a decade.

Sipping tepid coffee, I explained what I'd done in their absence.

Then I asked Gilbert to film and haul dirt, Racine to screen.

Back to the grid.

When I'd taken square 1-A down three inches, I moved on to 1-B.

Then 1-C and 1-D.

Nothing but dirt.

OK. The GPR showed a discrepancy beginning four inches below the surface.

« 5 »

I kept digging.

My fingers and toes numbed. My bone marrow chil ed. I lost track of time.

Gilbert carried buckets of dirt from my grid to the screen. Racine sifted. Now and then Gilbert shot a pic. When al of grid one was down a level three inches, I went back to square f-A. At a depth of six inches I shifted squares as I had before.

I'd taken two swipes at square 1-B when I noticed a change in soil color. I asked Gilbert to reposition a light.

One glance and my diastolic ratcheted up.

"Bingo."

Gilbert squatted by my side. Racine joined him.

"Quoi?" Gilbert asked. What?

I ran the tip of my trowel around the outer edge of the blob seeping into 1-B.

"The dirt's darker," Racine observed.

"Staining indicates decomposition," I explained.

Both techs looked at me.

I pointed to squares 1-C and 1-D. "Someone or something's going south under there."

"Alert Claudel?" Gilbert asked.

"Make his day."

Four hours later al my digits were ice. Though I'd tuqued my head and scarved my neck, I was shivering inside my one-hundred-percentmicroporouspolyurethanepolymerizedcoatednylon-guaranteedtofortybelowCelsius Kanuk parka.

Gilbert was moving around the cel ar, snapping and filming from various angles. Racine was watching, gloved hands thrust into his armpits for warmth. Both looked comfy in their arctic jumpsuits.