Bones to Ashes (9 page)

Hippo, Ryan, and I stopped at the threshold. Crooking two fingers, I pulled my shirt by the collar and flapped. Sweat now soaked my waistband and bra.

The barn’s interior was ripe with the mustiness of moisture and age. Rotting vegetation. Dust. And something sweetly organic.

The CSU techs looked like astronauts in their masks and white coveralls. I recognized each by movement and body form. The daddy longlegs was Renaud Pasteur. The Demster Dumpster was David Chenevier.

Hippo called out. Pasteur and Chenevier waved, then resumed their tasks.

Chenevier was guiding a three-wheeled apparatus in parallel paths back and forth across the barn floor. A rectangular red box hung below the rig’s main axle, its bottom inches from the ground surface. A small LCD screen rested on the handlebars.

Pasteur was alternating between shooting stills and video, and clearing debris in front of Chenevier. Rocks. Soda cans. A length of rusted metal stripping.

Drew the short straw, I thought, seeing Pasteur pick something up, examine it, then toss it aside.

Forty minutes later Chenevier was covering the last and farthest corner of the barn. Pausing, he made a comment. Pasteur joined him, and the two discussed something on the monitor.

A chill replaced my hotness. Beside me, I felt Ryan tense.

Chenevier turned. “We got something.”

R
YAN AND I PICKED OUR WAY ACROSS THE UNEVEN GROUND. Hippo zigzagged behind. He was wearing a shirt that could only have been purchased at a discount store. A deep-discount store. Shiny penguins in mufflers and berets. The fabric looked flammable.

Chenevier and Pasteur opened a space to allow us a view of the monitor. A layer cake of colors squiggled across the screen. Reds. Greens. Blues. Centered in the cake was a pale gray hump.

GPR isn’t as complicated as the name implies. Each system includes a radio transmitter and receiver connected to a pair of antennae coupled to the ground.

A signal is sent into the soil. Since a subsurface object or disturbance will have electrical properties different from those of the surrounding dirt, a signal reflecting off that object or disturbance will bounce back to the receiver slightly later in time. A different wave pattern will appear on the monitor.

Think of a fish finder. The thing tells you something’s down there, but can’t tell you what.

“Could be an animal burrow.” Chenevier’s face was soaked with sweat. “Or a trench for old piping.”

“How far down?” I asked, studying the inverted gray crescent.

Chenevier shrugged. “Eighteen or twenty inches.”

Deep enough for a hurried gravedigger.

Mia was summoned and led to the spot. She alerted by sitting and barking once, sharply.

By noon I’d marked off a ten-foot square with stakes and string. Ryan and I started in with long-handled spades. Pasteur shot pics. Chenevier sifted.

Hippo stood to one side, mopping sweat and shifting from foot to foot. Now and then one hand would go into a pocket. The jangle of keys would join the click of Pasteur’s shutter and the hiss of soil trickling through mesh.

The barn floor was rich with organics, easy to dig, easy to sift.

By twelve-thirty we’d exposed an amoeba-like splotch visibly darker than the surrounding earth. Soil staining. A sign of decomposition.

Ryan and I switched to trowels and began scraping dirt, both anticipating and dreading what we’d find beneath the discoloration. Now and then our eyes would meet, drop back to the hollow we were creating.

The first bone turned up in the screen.

“Got something.” Chenevier’s voice cut the silence.

“Gaubine!”
Hippo popped antacid.

Chenevier crossed to me and extended a hand.

Sitting back on my heels, I took what lay in his palm.

There are 206 bones in the adult human skeleton, all varying in size and shape. Singly, they yield few clues about a person’s life story. But together, like interlocking puzzle pieces, they say a lot. Age. Sex. Ancestry. Health. Habit. The more bones, the more is revealed.

Chenevier’s find, however, disclosed the jigsaw solo.

Slender and less than ten centimeters long, the bone looked like a pin that might be worn to keep a topknot in place. Thicker at one end, it tapered to a subtle knob on the other.

I looked up to eight curious eyes.

“It’s a baculum.”

Four blank stares.

“A bone found in the penis of most mammals. I’d guess this one comes from a large domestic dog.”

Still no one spoke.

“The os baculum aids in copulation when mating must take place during brief encounters.”

Pasteur cleared his throat.

“When animals have to perform quickly.” I adjusted my mask.

“
Pour l’amour du bon Dieu!”
Hippo’s expletive suggested the same emotions swirling in me. Relief. Bewilderment. Hope.

I handed the bone to Pasteur. As he photographed and bagged it, Ryan and I resumed digging.

By three, Grissom’s “victim” lay fully exposed. The snout was broad, the cranium rugged. Caudal vertebrae snaked between hind legs seemingly too short for the torso.

“Long tail.”

“Some kind of pit bull mix.”

“Maybe shepherd.”

The testosterone set seemed inordinately interested in the dog’s heritage. I couldn’t have cared less. I was sweaty, itchy, and desperate to shed my Tyvek coveralls. Designed to protect wearers from blood, chemicals, and toxic liquids, the things reduced air circulation and were hotter than hell.

“Whatever his breed, the guy was a player.” Pasteur held up the ziplock containing the dog’s penis bone. Chenevier raised a palm. Pasteur high-fived it.

Already the jokes had begun. I was glad I hadn’t told them that the os baculum is sometimes called a hillbilly toothpick. Or that best in show goes to the walrus, whose males occasionally reach thirty inches. It was going to be bad enough as it was.

During graduate school a fellow student had studied the os baculum of rhesus monkeys. Her name was Jeannie. Now professors and respected researchers, my old classmates still tease her about “Jeannie’s penies.”

By two the dog’s bones had been packaged and placed in the coroner van. Probably unnecessary, but better to err on the side of caution.

By six Ryan and I had taken the entire ten-foot square down twenty-four inches. Nothing had turned up in the pit or the screen. Chenevier had resurveyed the barn and surrounding field, and found no indications of additional subsurface disturbance.

Hippo approached as I was peeling off my coveralls.

“Sorry to drag you out here for nothing.”

“It’s the job, Hippo.” I was ecstatic to be out of the Tyvek. And relieved that we hadn’t unearthed Kelly Sicard.

“How long since Old Yeller strutted his stuff?”

“The bones are fleshless, odorless, and uniformly soil-stained. The only insect inclusions I found were dried puparial casings. Buried at that depth, inside the barn, I’d estimate the dog’s been dead at least two years. But my gut feeling says more.”

“Ten years?”

“Possibly.”

“Could have belonged to Grissom. Or Beaumont.”

Or Céline Dion, I thought.

Hippo looked off into the distance. Grime coated his lenses, making it hard to read the expression behind them. I suspected he was scripting a chitchat with his erstwhile informant.

“You want to hang around a few, I’ll give you a lift.”

I looked over at Ryan. He was talking on a cell phone. Behind him, heat shimmered mirage-like above the blacktop and the vehicles parked along it.

Catching Ryan’s eye, I gestured that I’d ride with Hippo. He flicked a wave, continued his conversation.

“Sure,” I said.

“I’ll fill you in on Luc Tiquet.”

I stared at Hippo.

“Sûreté du Québec, Rimouski? My buddy Gaston’s bones?”

“What’s his story?”

“I’ll tell you in the car.”

Climbing into the Impala was like climbing into a pottery kiln.

As Hippo turned onto the highway, I maxed the AC and held a hand to the vent. Hot air blasted my fingers.

“L’air conditionné est brisé.”

On Hippo’s tongue the word for broken came out “breezy.” Hardly.

Static erupted from the radio. I peeled damp hair from my neck as I waited it out.

“Have you checked the coolant?”

“Pain in the ass.” Hippo waved dismissively. “Heat won’t last. Never does.”

I bit back a comment. Useless. Coolant was probably a mystery to Hippo’s mind.

When I lowered my window, the smell of fertilizer and fresh-mown fields flooded the car.

I slumped back, shot forward as scorching vinyl contacted bare skin. Crossing my arms, I eased into the seat, closed my eyes, and let the wind whip my hair.

I knew from past experience that riding with Hippo was like riding “El Torro” at the Rodeo Bar. I gripped the armrest as we hurtled through the countryside at neck-snapping speed, Hippo’s boot slamming gas pedal then brake.

“This Tiquet’s not a bad guy.”

I opened my eyes. We were looping onto the fifteen. “What did he tell you?”

“Says he got a call reporting a disturbance at a quarry maybe five, six years back. Busted a couple kids for trespass and destruction of property. Geeks claimed to be spray-paint artists creating timeless works of beauty.”

I braced against the dash as Hippo swerved around a pickup. The driver gave him the finger. Hippo’s expression suggested a rejoinder in the making.

“The skeleton?” I brought Hippo back on point.

“Turned up in the trunk when Tiquet tossed their car.”

“Where was this quarry?”

“Somewhere near the Quebec–New Brunswick border. Tiquet’s vague on that.”

“Did he remember the kids’ names?”

“No, but he pulled the file. I’ve got them written down.”

“Fair enough. He got the skeleton in a bust. But why did he keep it?”

“Says he contacted the coroner.”

“Bradette?”

“That’s the guy. Bradette dropped in, took a look, told him he should call an archaeologist. Tiquet didn’t exactly have one in his Rolodex.”

“And he never got around to looking one up.”

“Bingo.”

A pothole launched us both toward the ceiling.

“
Moses!
Sorry.”

“What explanation did these kids give?”

“Claimed they bought the bones from a pawnshop operator. Planned to do some sort of spray-painted sculpture with them.”

“Nice. Where did the pawnbroker get them?”

“Tiquet didn’t know.”

“Where was the pawn guy from?”

“Miramichi.”

I turned and looked out the window. We were back in the city now, and exhaust fumes had replaced the smell of turned earth. An auto body shop flashed by. A seedy strip center. A Petro-Canada station.

“Where is Miramichi?”

“New Brunswick.”

“It’s a big province, Hippo.”

Hippo’s brow furrowed. “Good point, doc. Miramichi’s a city of eighteen, maybe twenty thousand. But the name also refers to the river and the region in general.”

“But where is it?”

“Northumberland County.”

Fighting back an eye roll, I wiggled my fingers in a “give me more” gesture.

“Northeast coast of New Brunswick.”

“Acadia?”

“Deep in the heart.”

I listened to blacktop whump under our tires. Beyond the windshield, a layer of smog was buffing up the sunset, bathing the city in a soft, golden glow.

Miramichi. I’d heard of the place. In what context?

Suddenly, I remembered.

T
HE SUMMER I WAS TEN AND ÉVANGÉLINE WAS TWELVE, SHE described an event that had occurred the previous December. The incident had so troubled her, she’d been unable to write of it in her letters.

Entrusting Obéline to a neighbor, Évangéline’s mother had driven to a nearby town for groceries. That was unusual, since Laurette habitually shopped in Tracadie. Leaving the market, she’d directed her daughter to return to their old Ford and wait for her.

Curious, Évangéline had watched her mother round the corner, then followed. Laurette entered a pawnshop. Through the window, Évangéline saw her in animated conversation with a man. Frightened, Évangéline had hurried back to the car.

Laurette owned a single piece of jewelry, a sapphire ring with tiny white diamonds. Though unaware of its history, Évangéline was certain the ring never left her mother’s finger. When Laurette slid behind the wheel that day, the ring was gone. Évangéline never saw it again.

Our childish imaginations conjured stories of heartbreak and lost love. A handsome fiancé killed in the war. A Montague-Capulet feud, Acadian style. We wrote verse rhyming the name of the town. Peachy. Beachy. Lychee.

That’s how I remembered.

Évangéline and her mother had gone to Miramichi.

Did Hippo’s girl come from Miramichi?

“How far is Miramichi from Tracadie?” More crazy possibilities swept through my mind.

“’Bout fifty miles.”

Impossible. There was no reason to think Évangéline was not alive.

“Straight down Highway 11.”

Yet? Ask Hippo to run a missing persons check? Not realistic. She could have taken another name, now be living elsewhere.

Drawing a deep breath, I told Hippo the story of Évangéline Landry. When I finished, he was mute for so long I thought his attention had wandered. It hadn’t.

“You really believe something happened to this kid?”

That question had tortured me over the years. Had Oncle Fidèle and Tante Euphémie, tired of nurturing their two young nieces, simply sent them home? Or had it been the other way around? Had Évangéline grown bored with the Lowcountry? With my friendship? Had my summer soul mate merely outgrown me? I didn’t believe it. She would have told me she was leaving. Why Tante Euphémie’s remark about danger?

“Yes,” I said. “I do.”

We were crossing onto the island. I watched Hippo’s gaze slide sideways to the turgid water of the Rivière des Prairies. I wondered if he was thinking of the girl snagged by the boat in the Rivière des Mille Îles in 1999, Ryan’s DOA number one. Or the girl washed ashore in Dorval in 2001, Ryan’s DOA number two. Or the one found last week in Lac des Deux Montagnes, perhaps DOA number three in the chain.