The NCIC computer is located in Clarksburg, West Virginia, with connecting terminals in police departments and sheriffs' offices throughout the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Entries can be made only by law enforcement personnel. And they definitely make them. In its first year NCIC recorded two million transactions. It currently handles that many each day.

The NCIC missing persons file, created in 1975, is used to locate individuals who are not "wanted," but whose whereabouts are unknown. A record can be entered for missing juveniles, and for people who are disabled or endangered. Victims of abduction and those who have disappeared following a disaster also qualify. A form is completed by the missing person's parent or guardian, physician, dentist, and optician, and entered by a local department.

The unidentified persons file was added in 1983 to provide a way to cross-reference recovered remains against missing persons records. Entry into the system is permitted for unidentified bodies and body parts, for living persons, and for catastrophe victims.

It was this packet that Quickwater had tossed onto my desk.

"If you'll fill out the NCIC form we can work both networks. It's basically the same data, lust different coding systems. How long will you need?"

"Give me an hour." With only three bones I'd have little to say.

As soon as they left I began working my way through the form, periodically checking the data collection entry guide for codes.

I checked the box for EUD for unidentified deceased.

I placed an "5" in boxes 1, 9, and 10 of the body pans diagram, indicating that a skeletonized head and right and left upper leg bones had been recovered, All others boxes got an "N" for not recovered.

I marked "F" for female, "W" for white, and wrote in the approximate height range. I left empty the space for estimated year of birth and estimated date of death.

In the personal descriptors section I wrote SHUNT CERB, for cerebral ventricular shunt, and checked that item on the supplemental form. That was it. No fractures, deformities, tattoos, moles, or scars.

Since I hadn't any clothing, jewelry, eyeglasses, fingerprints, blood type, or information as to cause of death, the rest of the document remained blank. All I could add were a few comments about where the body was found.

I was completing the sections on agency name and case number when Quickwater reappeared. I handed him the form. He took it, nodded, and left without a word.

What was it with this guy?

An image flicked through my mind and was gone. A bloated eyeball in a jelly jar.

Q uickwater?

No way. Nevertheless, I decided to make no mention of the incident to Claudel or his Carcajou partner I might have asked Ryan, might have turned to him for advice, but Ryan was gone and I was on my own.

I completed the Gately and Martineau reports and walked them to the secretarial office. When I returned, Claudel was seated in my office, a computer printout in his hand.

"You were right with the age but a bit off on the date of death. Ten years wasn't enough."

I waited for him to go on.

"Her name was Savannah Claire Osprey."

In French it came out Oh-spree, with the accent on the second syllab]e. Nevertheless, the name told me that the girl was probably Southern, or at least had been born Southern. Not many people outside the Southeast named their daughters Savannah. I lowered myself into my chair, relieved but curious.

"From?"

"Shallotte, North Carolina. Isn't that your hometown?"

"I'm from Charlotte."

Canadians have difficulty with Charlotte, Charlottesville, and the two Charlestons. So do many Americans…I'd given up explaining. But Shallotte was a small coastal town that didn't qualify to be part of the confusion.

Claudel read from the printout. "She was reported missing in May of 1984, two weeks after her sixteenth birthday"

"That was a quick turnaround," I said, digesting the information.

"0h."

I waited, but he did not go on. I kept the annoyance from my voice.

"Monsieur Claudel, any information you have will help me confirm this ID."

A pause. Then, "The shunt and the dentals were unique so the computer spit the name right out. I called the Shalotte PD and actually talked to the reporting officer According to her, the mother got the case entered, then dropped it cold. There was the usual media frenzy at first, then things died down. The investigation went on for months, but nothing ever turned up."

"Troubled kid?"

A longer pause.

"There is no history of drug or discipline problems. The hydrocephaly caused some learning disabilities and affected her eyesight, but she wasn't retarded. She went to a normal high school and did well. She was never considered a potential runaway.

"But the child was hospitalized frequently because of problems with the shunt. Apparently the apparatus would get blocked and they'd have to go in and fix it. These episodes were preceded by periods of lethargy, headache, sometimes mental confusion. One theory is that she became disoriented and wandered of f."

"Off what, the planet? What's the other theory?"

"The father."

Claudel flipped open a small spiral notebook.

"Dwayne Allen Osprey. A real charmer with an arrest record longer than the Trans-Siberian Railway. Back then Dwayne's domestic routine revolved around drinking Jim Beam and beating up his family. According to the mother's original statement, which she later retracted, her husband always disliked Savannah, and things got worse as the child grew older. It wasn't beyond him to slam her into a wall. Seems Dwayne found his daughter a disappointment. Called her Water Brain."

"They think he murdered his own daughter?"

"It's a possibility. Whiskey and rage are a deadly cocktail. The theory was that things got out of hand, he killed her, then disposed of the body"

"How did she end up in Quebec?

"An insightful question, Dr Brennan."

With that he rose and shot the cuffs on the crispest, whitest shirt I'd seen in decades. I gave him a drop-dead-peckerhead lock, but he was already out the door.

I sighed and leaned back in my chair.

You bet your prim little ass it's an insightful question, Monsieur Claudel.

And I'm going to answer it.

Chapter 17

I took a deep breath. As usual, Claudel had made me furious.

When I felt calmer, I looked at my watch. Four-forty It was late, but maybe I could catch her

Checking my Rolodex, I dialed SBI Headquarters in Raleigh. Kate Brophy picked up on the first ring.

"Hi, Kate. It's Tempe."

"Hey, girl, are you back in Dixie?"

"No. I'm in Montreal."

"When are you going to get your skinny tail down here so we can tip a few?"

"My tipping days are over, Kate."

"Oops. Sorry. I know that."

Kate and I had met at a time when I was as committed to alcohol as a college freshman on spring break. Only I wasn't eighteen and I wasn't at the beach. Past thirty, I was then a wife and mother, and a university professor with exhausting teaching and research responsibilities.

I never noticed when I joined the rank of brothers and sisters in denial, but somewhere along the way I became a champion rationaiizer A glass of Merlot at home in the evening. A beer after classes. A weekend party I didn't need the booze. I never drank alone. I never missed work. It wasn't a problem.

But then the glass became a bottle, and the late-night binges required no company. That's the beguiling thing about Bacchus. He has no entrance fee. No minimum drink order. Before you know it you're in bed on a sunny Saturday afternoon while your daughter plays soccer and other parents cheer.

That show had closed down, and I wasn't about to re-raise the curtain.