I had a suspicion about the eye's origin, which I hoped was wrong. The implications were just too frightening. I held on to the note, pending the analysis.

The morning meeting was relatively brief. The owner of a Volvo dealership was found hanged in his garage, a suicide note pinned to his chest. A single-engine plane had gone down in St-Hubert. A woman had been pushed from the Vendome metro platform.

Nothing for me.

Back in my office, I logged on to my terminal. Using anthropologie, squelette, inconnue, fernelle, and partiel as my descriptors, I searched the database for cases consisting of unidentified partial female skeletons. The computer came up with twenty-six LML numbers spanning the past ten years.

Using that list, I asked for all cases lacking a skull. That worked for remains received since I'd been at the LML. Prior to that, complete bone inventories hadn't been done. Skeletal cases were simply designated partial or complete. I highlighted the cases recorded as partial.

Next, using the list of incomplete skeletons analyzed during my tenure, I requested those lacking femora.

No go. The data had been entered as skull present or absent, postcranial remains present or absent, but specific bones had not been recorded. I would have to request the actual files.

Wasting no time, I walked down the hall to the records department. A slim woman in black jeans and a peasant blouse occupied the front desk. She was almost monochromatic, with bleached hair, pale skin, and eyes the shade of old dishwater Her only signs of color were cherry red streaks around her temples, and a sprinkling of freckles across her nose. I was unable to count the number of studs and rings displayed in each of her ears. I'd never seen her before.

"Bonjour. Je m'appelle Tempe Brennan." I held out my hand, introducing myself.

She nodded, but offered neither a hand nor name.

"Are you new?"

"I'm a temp."

"I'm sorry but I don't think we've met.

"Name's Jocelyn Dion." One shoulder shrugged.

O.K. I dropped my hand.

"Jocelyn, this is a list of files I need to review

I handed her the printout and indicated the highlighted numbers. When she reached for the paper I could see definition through the gauzy sleeve. Jocelyn spent time at the gym.

"I know there are quite a few, but could you find out where the files are stored and pull them for me as quickly as possible?"

"No problem."

"I need the full jacket on each one, not lust the anthropology report.

Something crossed her face, just a flicker of change and then it was gone.

"Where would you like them?" she asked, dropping her eyes to the list.

I gave her my office number, then left. Two strides down the corridor I remembered that I hadn't mentioned pictures. When I turned back I could see Jocelyn's head bent low over the printout. Her lips moved as a lacquered finger worked its way down each side of the paper She seemed to be reading every word.

When I mentioned the photos, she started at my voice.

"I'm on it," she said, sliding from her stool.

Weird one, I thought as I headed back to work on the Gately and Martineau reports.

Jocelyn brought me the dossiers within an hour, and I spent the next three going through them. In all, I'd worked on six headless women. Only two had lacked both thigh bones, and neither was young enough to be the girl in the pit.

From the years before I'd arrived in Montreal, seven female skeletons without crania remained unidentified. Two were young enough, but the descriptions of the remains were vague, and without skeletal inventories there was no way to know what bones had been recovered. Neither folder contained photographs.

I went back to the computer and checked the disposition of the earliest case. The bones had been held five years, rephotographed, then released for burial or destruction.

But the file contained no pictures. That was odd.

I asked for site of recovery. The bones had come in from Salluit, a village around twelve hundred miles north on the tip of the Ungava Peninsula.

I entered the more recent LML number and asked for site of recovery.

Ste-Julie. My pulse quickened. That was not twelve miles from St-Basile -le-Grand.

Ally McBeal's therapist was right. I needed a theme song for times when I felt stressed.

Runnin' down the road tryin' to loosen my load Got a world of trouble on my mind…

Maybe.

Slow down, you move too fast. Got to make the morning last…

As I reached for the sandwich an image of Saturday night's grotesque offering flashed across my mind. Again my skin went cold and prickly

Forget it. It could be a pig's eye. Your picture was in the paper, and any moron could have stuck it on the car for laughs. If anyone is out there watching, it's some twisted nitwit without a life.

I am woman watch me-

Definitely no.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood…

Oh boy

Game plan. Finish the reports on Gately and Martineau, finalize those on the Vaillancourt twins. Talk to Claudel. Based on his report, CPIC, then NCIC.

Life is under control. This is my job. There is no reason to feel stressed.

That thought had hardly materialized when the phone rang, destroying the calm I had worked so hard to achieve.

Chapter 16

A female voice said, "I have a call from Mr. Crease, hold, please."

Before I could stop her he was on the line. "I hope you don't mind my calling you at work." I did, but held my tongue.

"I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed Saturday night, and hoped the two of us might get together."

Original.

"Would you be free to have supper some night this week?" "I'm sorry but that's not possible right now. I'm really swamped." I could be free until the end of the next millennium and I wouldn't dine with Lyle Crease. The man was too glib for my taste. "Next week?"

"No, I don't think so."

"I understand. Can I have your nephew as a consolation prize?"

"What?"

"Kit. He's a fabulous kid." Fabulous?

"I have a friend who owns a motorcycle shop. He must stock five thousand items of Harley-Davidson paraphernalia. I think Kit would find it interesting."

The last thing I wanted was my impressionable young nephew under the influence of a media smoothie. But I had to agree, Kit would enjoy it.

"I'm sure he would."

"Then it's cool with you if I give him a call?"

"Sure." Cool as dysentery~

Five minutes after I hung up Quickwater appeared at my door. He gave me his usual stony stare, then flipped a folder onto my desk.

I really needed to settle on a theme song.

"What are these?"

"Forms."

"For me to fill out?"

Quickwater was preparing to ignore my question when his partner joined us.

"I take it this means you came up empty.

"As Al Capone's vault," Claudel replied. "Not a single match. Not even close."

He gestured at the packet on my desk.

"If you get the papers filled out, I can access CPIC while Martin does NCIC. Bergeron's working on the dental descriptors."

CPIC is the acronym for the Canadian Police Information Centre, NCIC for the National Crime Information Center operated by the FBI. Each is a national electronic database providing quick access to information crucial to law enforcement. Though I'd used CPIC a few times, I was much more familiar with the American system.

NCIC first went on line in 1967 with data on stolen autos, license plates, guns, and property, and on wanted persons and fugitives. Over the years more files were added, and the original ten databases expanded to seventeen, including the interstate identification index, the U.S. Secret Service protective files, the foreign fugitive file, the violent gangs/terrorist file, and files on missing and unidentified persons.