Oh, God. She may not have died the day she disappeared.

?Have you checked her apartment??

?No one saw her, but she?d been there.?

?What about Tanguay??

?Ready for this? The guy?s a teacher. Small school out on the west island.? I heard the rustle of paper. ?St. Isidor?s. Been there since 1991. He?s twenty-eight. Single. For next of kin on his application he put ?none.? We?re checking it. He?s been living on S #233;guin since ?91. Landlady thinks he was somewhere in the States before that.?

?Prints??

?Lots. We ran them, came up empty. Sent them south this morning.?

?Inside the glove??

?At least two readable and a smudged palm.?

An image of Gabby. The plastic bag. Another glove. I jotted down a single word. Glove.

?He has a degree??

?Bishops. Bertrand?s out in Lennoxville now. Claudel?s trying to roust someone at St. Isidor?s, not having much luck. The caretaker is about a hundred and no one else is around. They?re closed for the summer.?

?Any names turn up in the apartment??

?None. No pictures. No address books. No letters. Guy must live in a social vacuum.?

A long silence as we mulled that over, then Ryan said,

?Might explain his unusual hobbies.?

?The animals??

?That. And the cutlery collection.?

?Cutlery??

?This squirrel had more blades than an orthopedic surgeon. Surgical tools mostly. Knives. Razors. Scalpels. Kept them stashed under the bed. Along with a box of surgical gloves. Original.?

?A loner with a blade fetish. Great.?

?And the standard porn gallery. Well thumbed.?

?What else??

?Guy?s got a car.? More rustling. ?A 1987 Ford Probe. It?s not in the neighborhood. They?re looking for it. We got the driver?s license photo this morning and sent that out too.?

?And??

?I?ll let you judge for yourself, but I think Grammama was right. He?s not memorable. Or maybe the Xerox/fax reproduction doesn?t do him justice.?

?Could it be St. Jacques??

?Could be. Or Jean Chr #233;tien. Or the guy that sells hot dogs on Rue St. Paul. Richard Petty?s out. He?s got a mustache.?

?You?re a laugh riot, Ryan.?

?This guy doesn?t even have a parking ticket. He?s been a real good boy.?

?Right. A real good boy who collects knives and porn and carves up small mammals.?

Pause.

?What were they??

?We?re not sure yet. They?re asking some guy over at U of M.?

I looked at the word I?d written, swallowed hard.

?Any prints inside the glove we found with Gabby?? It was difficult to say her name.

?No.?

?We knew there wouldn?t be.?

?Yeah.?

I heard squad room noises in the background.

?I want to drop off a copy of this license photo so you?ll have some idea what he looks like in case you meet him up close and personal. I still think it?s better if you stick near home until we pop this asshole.?

?I?m coming in. If ident is done with the gloves I want to take them over to biology. Then Lacroix.?

?I think you sh-?

?Cut the macho crap, Ryan.?

A breath drawn deeply, expelled.

?Are you holding out on me??

?Brennan, what we know, you know.?

?I?ll be there in thirty minutes.?

In less than half an hour I arrived at the lab. Ident had finished and sent the gloves to the biology section.

I looked at my watch-twelve-forty. I called the ident section at CUM headquarters to ask if I could see the photos taken at the St. Jacques apartment on Rue Berger. Lunchtime. The desk clerk would leave a message.

At one o?clock I walked over to the biology section. A woman with flyaway hair and a plump, Christmas angel face was shaking a glass vial. Two latex gloves lay on the counter behind her.

?Bonjour, Fran #231;oise.?

?Ah. I thought I might see you today.? The cherub eyes took on a worried expression. ?I?m sorry. I don?t quite know what to say to you.?

?Merci. It?s okay.? I nodded at the gloves. ?What have you got??

?This one is clean. No blood.? She gestured at Gabby?s glove. ?I?m just starting on the one from the kitchen. Would you like to watch??

?Thank you.?

?I?ve taken scrapings from these brown spots and rehydrated the sample in saline.?

She examined the liquid and placed the vial in a test tube tray. Then she withdrew a glass pipette with a long, hollow projection, held it over a flame to seal it, and twisted off the tip.

?I?ll test for human blood first.?

Removing a tiny bottle from the refrigerator, she broke the seal and inserted the thin, tubular point of a fresh pipette. Like a mosquito sucking blood, the antiserum moved up the tiny pipeline. She sealed the other end with her thumb.

She then inserted the long beak of the pipette into the fire-sealed pipette, released her thumb, and allowed the antiserum to dribble out. She spoke as she worked.

?The blood knows its own proteins, or antigens. If it recognizes foreigners, antigens that don?t belong, it tries to destroy them with antibodies. Some antibodies blow up foreign antigens, others clump them together. That clumping is called an agglutination reaction.

?Antiserum is created in an animal, usually a rabbit or a chicken, by injecting it with the blood of another species. The animal?s blood recognizes the invaders and produces antibodies to protect itself. Injecting an animal with human blood produces human antiserum. Injecting it with goat blood produces goat antiserum. Horse blood produces horse antiserum.

?Human antiserum creates an agglutination reaction when mixed with human blood. Watch. If this is human blood a visible precipitate will form in the test tube, right where the sample solution and the antiserum meet. We?ll compare to the saline as a control.?

She tossed the pipette into a biological waste container and picked up the vial with the Tanguay sample solution. Using another pipette, she sucked the sample up the tube, released it into the antiserum, and set the pipette into a holder.

?How long will it take?? I asked.

?That depends on the strength of the antiserum. Anywhere from three to fifteen minutes. This is pretty good. Shouldn?t be more than five or six minutes.?

We checked it after five, Fran #231;oise holding the pipettes under the Luxolamp, a black card behind for background. We checked again after ten. Fifteen. Nothing. No white band appeared between the antiserum and the sample solution. The mixture stayed as clear as the control saline.

?So. It?s not human. Let?s see if it?s animal.?

She went back to the refrigerator and withdrew a tray of small bottles.

?Can you tell the exact species?? I asked.

?No. Usually just family. Bovid. Cervid. Canid.?

I looked at the tray. Written next to each bottle was an animal name. Goat. Rat. Horse. I pictured the paws in Tanguay?s kitchen.

?Let?s try dogs.?

Nothing.

?What about something like a squirrel or a gopher??

She thought a minute then reached for a bottle. ?Maybe rat.?

In less than four minutes a tiny parfait had formed in the tube, yellow above, clear below, a layer of foggy white between.

?Voil #224;,? said Fran #231;oise. ?It?s animal blood. Something small, a mammal, like a rodent or a ground hog or something. That?s about all I?ll be able to determine. I don?t know if that helps you.?

?Yes,? I said. ?That helps. May I use your phone??

?Bien s #251;r.?

I dialed an extension down the hall.

?Lacroix.?

I identified myself and explained what I wanted.

?Sure. Give me twenty minutes, I?m just finishing up a run.?

I signed for the gloves, returned to my office, and spent the next half hour proofing and signing reports. Then I walked back to the corridor occupied by biology, and entered a door marked Incendie et Explosifs. Fire and Explosives.