Every neuron in my body was overcharged, like a 110 appliance in a 220 socket. My chest was heaving, and I could feel tears behind my eyes. Tempe?s temper.

From Gabby, a dial tone.

I sat for a moment, doing nothing, thinking nothing. I felt giddy.

Slowly, I replaced the receiver. I closed my eyes, ran through the sheet music, and made a selection. This one?s going out to me. In a low, throaty voice I hummed the tune:

Busted flat in Baton Rouge . . .

21

AT 6 A.M. A STEADY RAIN DRUMMED AGAINST MY WINDOWS. AN occasional car made soft shishing sounds as it passed on some predawn journey. For the third time in as many days I saw daybreak, an event I embrace as eagerly as Joe Montana welcomes an all-out blitz. While not a day napper, neither am I an early riser. Yet three mornings this week I?d seen the sun come up, twice as I fell asleep, today as I tossed and turned after eleven hours in bed, feeling neither sleepy nor rested.

Home after Gabby?s call, I?d gone on an eating binge. Greasy fried chicken, rehydrated mashed potatoes with synthetic gravy, mushy corn on the cob, and soggy apple pie. Merci, Colonel. Then a hot bath and a long pick at the scab on my right cheek. The microsurgery didn?t help. I still looked like I?d been dragged. Around seven I turned on the Expos game, and fell asleep to the play-by-play.

I switched on my computer-6 A.M. or 6 P.M., it was alert and ready to perform. I had sent a message to Katy, relaying through the e-mail system at McGill to my mail server at UNC-Charlotte. She could access the message with her laptop and modem, and reply right from her bedroom. Yahoo! Hop aboard the Internet.

The screen?s cursor blinked at me, insisting there was nothing in the document I?d created. It was right. The spreadsheet I had started on paper had only column headings but no content. When had I begun this? The day of the parade. Just one week, but it seemed like years. Today was the thirtieth. Four weeks to the day since Isabelle Gagnon?s body was found, one week since Margaret Adkins had been murdered.

What had we accomplished since then except discover another body? A stakeout on the Rue Berger apartment confirmed that its occupant had not returned. Big surprise. The bust had turned up nothing useful. We had no leads on the identity of ?St. Jacques,? and we hadn?t identified the latest body. Claudel still wouldn?t acknowledge the cases were linked, and Ryan thought of me as a ?freelancer.? Happy day.

Back to the spreadsheet. I expanded the column headings. Physical characteristics. Geography. Living arrangements. Jobs. Friends. Family members. Dates of birth. Dates of death. Dates of discovery. Times. Places. I entered everything I could think of that might reveal a link. At the far left I entered four row headings: Adkins, Gagnon, Trottier, ?Inconnue.? I?d replace the unknown designation when we tied a name to the St. Lambert bones. At seven-thirty I closed the file, packed the laptop, and got ready for work.

Traffic was clogged, so I cut down to the Ville-Marie tunnel. Full morning, but dark, heavy clouds trapped the city in murky gloom. The streets were covered with a wet sheen that reflected the brake lights of the morning rush hour.

My wipers beat a monotonous refrain, slapping water from two fan-shaped patches on the windshield. I leaned forward, bobbing my head like a palsied tortoise, searching for clear glass between the streaks. Time for new wipers, I told myself, knowing I wouldn?t get them. It took a good half hour to reach the lab.

I wanted to get right to the files, to dig out minutiae and enter them into the spreadsheet, but there were two requisitions on my desk. A baby boy had been found in a municipal park, his tiny body wedged in the rocks of a creek bed. According to LaManche?s note, the tissue was desiccated and the internal organs unrecognizable, but otherwise the corpse was well preserved. He wanted an opinion on the infant?s age. That wouldn?t take long.

I looked at the police report attached to the other form. ?Ossements trouv #233;s dans un bois.? Bones found in the woods. My most common case. Could mean anything from a multiple ax murder to a dead cat.

I called Denis and requested radiographs of the infant, then went downstairs to look at the bones. Lisa brought a cardboard box from the morgue and placed it on the table.

?C?est tout??

?C?est tout.? That?s all.

She handed me gloves, and I withdrew three clods of hard clay from the box. Bones protruded from each clump. I chipped at the soil, but it was hard as cement.

?Let?s get photos and radiographs, then put these in a screen and get them soaking. Use dividers to keep the chunks separate. I?ll be back down after the meeting.?

The four other pathologists at the LML meet with LaManche each morning to review cases and receive autopsy assignments. On the days I?m present, I attend. When I got upstairs LaManche, Natalie Ayers, Jean Pelletier, and Marc Bergeron were already seated around the small conference table in LaManche?s office. From the activity board in the corridor, I knew that Marcel Morin was in court, and Emily Santangelo had taken a personal day.

Everyone shifted to make room, and a chair was shuffled into the circle. Bonjour?s and Comment #231;a va?s were exchanged.

?Marc, what brings you in on a Thursday?? I asked.

?Holiday tomorrow.?

I?d completely forgotten. Canada Day.

?Going to the parade?? asked Pelletier, poker-faced. His French wore the trappings of the Quebec back country, making it difficult for me to unravel his words. For months I hadn?t understood him at all, and had missed his wry comments. Now, after four years, I caught most of what he said. I had no trouble following his drift this morning.

?I think I?ll skip this one.?

?You could just get your face painted at one of those booths. It might be easier.?

Chuckles all around.

?Or maybe a tattoo. Less painful.?

?Very funny.?

Feigned innocence, eyebrows raised, shoulders hoisted, palms up. What? Settling back, he clamped the last two inches of an unfiltered cigarette between yellowed fingers, and inhaled deeply. Someone once told me that Pelletier had never traveled outside Quebec Province. He was sixty-four years old.

?There are only three autopsies,? LaManche began, distributing the list of that day?s cases.

?Pre-holiday lull,? said Pelletier, reaching for his printout. His dentures clicked softly when he spoke. ?Things?ll get busier.?

?Yes.? LaManche picked up his red marker. ?At least the weather is cooler. Perhaps that will help.?

He went over the day?s melancholy roster, supplying additional information on each case. A suicide by carbon monoxide. An old man found dead in his bed. A baby tossed into a park.

?The suicide looks pretty straightforward.? LaManche scanned the police report. ?White male . . . Age twenty-seven . . . Found behind the wheel in his own garage . . . fuel tank empty, key in the ignition, turned to the ?on? position.?

He laid several Polaroids on the table. They showed a dark blue Ford centered in a one-car garage. A length of flexible tubing, the type used to vent clothes dryers, ran from the exhaust pipe into the car?s right rear window. LaManche read on.

?History of depression . . . Note d?adieu.? He looked at Nathalie. ?Dr. Ayers??

She nodded and reached for the paperwork. He marked ?Ay? in red on the master list, and picked up the next set of forms.

?Number 26742 is a white male . . . Age seventy-eight . . . Controlled diabetic.? His eyes skipped through the summary report, pulling out the pertinent information. ?Hadn?t been seen for several days . . . Sister found him . . . No signs of trauma.? He read to himself for a few seconds. ?Curious thing is there was a delay between the time she found him and the time she called for help. Apparently the lady did some housecleaning in between.? He looked up. ?Dr. Pelletier??