I creaked to my feet. Eight eves fol owed me to Dr. Energy's crate.

One by one I removed and observed the two pelvic halves, then the skul .

Crossing to the first trench, I knelt, extricated, and inspected the same skeletal elements.

Dear God.

Replacing those bones, I crawled to the second trench, leaned in, and studied the skul fragments.

No. Not again. The universal victims.

I teased free the right demi-pelvis.

Breath bil owed in front of five faces.

Sitting back on my heels, I cleaned dirt from the pubic symphysis.

And felt something go cold in my chest.

Three women. Barely past girl.

I

«w,

/AK1XG TO THL TUESD.-Yl MORNING \YLATI1LK REPORT, I KXIAY

I was in for kil er cold. Not the occasional mid-forties damp we whine about in January in North Carolina. I mean subzero cold. Arctic cold. If-I-stop-moving-Fl -die-and-be-eaten-by-wolves cold.

I adore Montreal. I love the not-quite-eight-hundred-foot mountain, the old port, Little Italy, Chinatown, the Gay Vil age, the steel and glass skyscrapers of Centre-vil e, the tangled neighborhoods with their al eys and gray stones and impossible staircases.

Montreal is a schizoid scrapper, continual y fighting with herself.

Anglophone-Francophone. Separatist-Federalist. Catholic-Protestant.

Old-New. I find it fascinating. I delight in the whole empanada, falafel,/>ow£z«e, Kong Pao multiculturalism of the place. Hurley's Irish Pub. Katsura. L'Express. Fairmont Bagel. Trattoria Trestevere.

I partake in the city's never-ending round of festivals: Le Festival International de Jazz, Les Fetes Gourmandes Internationales, Le Festival des Films du Monde, the bug-tasting festival at the Insectanum.

I frequent the stores on Ste-Cathenne, the outdoor markets at Jean-Talon and Atwater, the antique shops along Notre-Dame. I visit the museums, picnic in the parks, bike the paths along the Lachme Canal. I relish it al .

I do not relish the climate from November to May.

I admit it. I have lived too long in the South. I hate feeling chil ed.

9 »

I have no patience with snow and ice. Keep your boots and Chap Stick and ice hotels. Give me shorts and sandals and a thirty-blocker.

My cat, Birdie, shares this view. When I sat up he rose, arched, then tunneled back under the covers. Smiling, I watched his body compact into a tight round lump. Birdie. My sole and loyal roommate.

"I'm with you, Bird," I said, offing the clock radio.

The lump curled tighter.

I looked at the digits. Five-thirty.

I looked at the window. Pitch-black.

I bolted for the bathroom.

Twenty minutes later I was at my kitchen table, coffee at my elbow, Petit file spread before me.

Marie-Reine Petit was a forty-two-year-old mother of three who worked at a boulangene sel ing bread. Two years earlier she'd gone missing. Four months later Marie-Reine's decomposed torso had been discovered in a hockey bag in a storage shed behind the Pent home. Marie-Reme's head and limbs had been stashed nearby in matching luggage.