Part 2 (1/2)

In Quebec, winters can be slow for the forensic anthropologist. The temperature rarely rises above freezing. The rivers and lakes ice over, the ground turns rock hard, and snow buries everything. Bugs disappear, and many scavengers go underground. The result: Corpses do not putrefy in the great outdoors. Floaters are not pulled from the St. Lawrence. People, too, burrow in. Hunters, hikers, and picnickers quit roaming the woods and fields, and some of last season's dead are not found until the spring melt. The cases that are a.s.signed to me, the faceless in need of a name, decline in number between November and April.

The exception is house fires. During the cold months, these increase. Most burned bodies go to the odontologist and are identified by dental records. The address and its occupant are generally known, so antemortem files can be pulled for comparison. It is when charred strangers turn up that my help may be requested.

Or in difficult recovery situations. LaManche was right. I'd been counting on an open agenda, and did not appreciate having to go to St-Jovite.

”Maybe I won't be involved in the a.n.a.lysis.” A million and one strings began ”I'm Sitting on Top of the World.” ”They'll probably have records on the family.”

”Probably.”

We arrived in St-Jovite in less than two hours. The sun had risen and was painting the town and countryside in icy, dawn tones. We turned west onto a winding two-lane. Almost immediately two flatbeds pa.s.sed us, heading in the opposite direction. One carried a battered gray Honda, the other a red Plymouth Voyager.

”I see they have impounded the cars,” said LaManche.

I watched the vehicles disappear in the side mirror. The van had infant carriers in the backseat and a yellow smiley face on the rear b.u.mper. I pictured a child in the window, tongue out, fingers in ears, mugging at the world. Googly eyes, my sister and I had called it. Perhaps that child lay charred beyond recognition in an upstairs room ahead.

Within minutes we saw what we were looking for. Police cruisers, fire engines, utility trucks, mobile press units, ambulances, and unmarked cars lined the road and flowed up either side of a long, gravel driveway.

Reporters stood in cl.u.s.ters, some talking, some adjusting equipment. Others sat in cars, keeping warm while waiting out the story. Thanks to the cold and the early hour, there were surprisingly few sightseers. Now and then a car pa.s.sed, then returned slowly for a second sweep. Round-trip gawkers. Later, there would be many more.

LaManche signaled a turn and angled onto the drive, where a uniformed officer waved us to a stop. He wore an olive green jacket with black fur collar, dark olive m.u.f.fler, and olive hat, earflaps tied in the up position. His ears and nose were raspberry red, and when he spoke, a cloud of vapor billowed from his mouth. I wanted to tell him to cover his ears, immediately felt like my mother, and didn't. He's a big boy. If his lobes crack off, he'll deal with it.

LaManche showed ID, and the guard waved us in, indicating we should park behind the blue crime scene recovery truck. SECTION D SECTION D'IDENt.i.te JUDICIAIRE it said in bold black letters. The Crime Scene Recovery unit was already here. The arson boys, too, I suspected. it said in bold black letters. The Crime Scene Recovery unit was already here. The arson boys, too, I suspected.

LaManche and I tugged on hats and gloves and got out. The sky was azure now, the sunlight dazzling off last night's snow. The air was so frigid it felt crystalline and made everything look sharp and clear. Cars, buildings, trees, and utility poles cast dark shadows on the snowy ground, clean-edged, like images on high-contrast film.

I looked around. The blackened remains of a house, as well as an intact garage and a smaller outbuilding of some sort cl.u.s.tered at the head of the drive, all done in cheap Alpine style. Footpaths formed a triangle in the snow, linking the three buildings. Pines circled what was left of the house, their branches so laden with snow that the tips bowed downward. I watched a squirrel scamper along a limb, then retreat to the safety of the trunk. In its wake, clumps of snow cascaded down, pockmarking the white below.

The house had a high-pitched roof of red-orange tile, partially standing but darkened now and coated in ice. That portion of the exterior surface which had not burned was covered in cream-colored siding. The windows gaped black and empty, the gla.s.s shattered, the turquoise trim burned or darkened with soot.

The left half of the house was charred, its rear largely destroyed. On the far side I could see blackened timbers where roof and walls had once met. Wisps of smoke still rose from somewhere in the back.

The front was less badly damaged. A wooden porch ran its length, and small balconies jutted from upstairs windows. The porch and balconies were constructed of pink pickets, round at the top, with heart-shaped cutouts at regular intervals.

I looked behind me, down the drive. Across the road sat a similar chalet, this one trimmed in red and blue. A man and woman stood in front, arms folded, mittened hands tucked under armpits. They watched silently, squinting into the morning glare, their faces grim below identical orange hunting caps. The neighbors who had reported the fire. I scanned the road. There were no other homes within visual distance. Whoever thought she had heard m.u.f.fled booms must have good ears.

LaManche and I started toward the house. We pa.s.sed dozens of firefighters, colorful in their yellow suits, red hard hats, blue utility belts, and black rubber boots. Some wore oxygen tanks strapped to their backs. Most seemed to be gathering equipment.

We approached a uniformed officer standing by the porch. Like the driveway guard, he was Surete du Quebec, probably from a post in St-Jovite or a nearby town. The SQ, or Quebec Provincial Police, have jurisdiction everywhere off the island of Montreal, except in towns that maintain their own police. St-Jovite would be too small for that, so the SQ had been called, maybe by the fire chief, maybe by the neighbor. They, in turn, had called the arson investigators from our lab. Section d'Incendie et Explosif. I wondered who had made the decision to call the coroner. How many victims would we find? In what condition would they be? Not good, I was sure. My heart stepped up its tempo.

Again LaManche held up his badge, and the man inspected it.

”Un instant, Docteur, s'il vous plait,” he said, holding up a gloved palm. He called to one of the firefighters, said something, and pointed at his head. In seconds we had hard hats and masks. We put on the former, hung the latter over our arms.

”Attention!” said the officer, inclining his head toward the house. Then he stepped aside to let us pa.s.s. Oh yes. I'd be careful.

The front door was wide open. When we crossed the threshold out of the suns.h.i.+ne the temperature dropped twenty degrees. The air inside felt damp and smelled of charred wood and soggy plaster and fabric. A dark goo covered every surface.

Straight ahead a staircase rose to a second story, to the left and right gaped what must have been the living and dining rooms. What remained of the kitchen was in back.

I'd been to other fire scenes, but few as devastated as this. Charred boards lay everywhere, like debris hurled against a seawall. They crisscrossed on top of tangled chair and sofa frames, angled against stairs, and trellised against walls and doors. Remnants of household furnis.h.i.+ngs lay in blackened heaps. Wires dangled from walls and ceilings, and pipes twisted inward from their points of attachment. Window frames, stair rails, boards, everything was edged in black icicle lace.

The house was crawling with people in hard hats, talking, taking measurements, photos, and videos, collecting evidence, and scribbling on clipboards. I recognized two arson investigators from our lab. They held a measuring tape between them and one squatted at a fixed point while the other circled, recording data every few feet.

LaManche spotted a member of the coroner's staff, and began picking his way forward. I followed, snaking between twisted metal shelving, broken gla.s.s, and what looked like a tangled red sleeping bag, its stuffing spewed like charcoal innards.

The coroner was very fat and very flushed. He straightened slightly when he saw us, blew a puff of air, pooched out his lower lip, and gestured an upturned mitten at the devastation around us.

”So, Monsieur Hubert, there are two dead?”

LaManche and Hubert were design opposites, like contrasting shades on a color wheel. The pathologist was tall and rangy, with a long, bloodhound face. The coroner was round in every way. I thought of Hubert in horizontals, LaManche in verticals.

Hubert nodded, and three chins rippled above his m.u.f.fler. ”Upstairs.”

”Others?”

”Not yet, but they haven't finished in the lower level. The fire was much more intense in the back. They think it probably started in a room off the kitchen. That area burned completely, and the floor collapsed into the bas.e.m.e.nt.”

”Have you seen the bodies?”

”Not yet. I'm waiting for clearance to go upstairs. The fire chief wants to be sure it's safe.”

I shared the chief's sentiment.

We stood in silence, surveying the mess. Time pa.s.sed. I curled and uncurled my fingers and toes, trying to keep them flexible. Eventually three firemen descended. They wore hard hats and goggle masks, and looked as if they'd been rummaging for chemical weapons.

”It's O.K.,” said the last fireman, unsnapping and removing his mask. ”You can go up now. Just watch your step and keep the hard hats on. That whole d.a.m.n ceiling could come down. But the floors look O.K.” He continued toward the door, then turned back. ”They're in the room on the left.”

Hubert, LaManche, and I worked our way up the stairs, shards of gla.s.s and charred rubble crunching under our feet. Already my stomach was tightening and a hollow feeling was building in my chest. Though it is my business, I have never grown immune to the sight of violent death.

At the top a door opened to the left, another to the right, there was a bath straight ahead. Though badly smoke damaged, compared with the downstairs, things seemed to be reasonably intact at this level.

Through the left doorway I could see a chair, a bookcase, and the end of a twin bed. On it was a pair of legs. LaManche and I entered the left-hand room, Hubert went to check the one on the right.

The back wall was partially burned, and at places two-by-fours were exposed behind the flowered wallpaper. The beams were charcoal black, their surfaces rough and checked, like the skin on a croc. ”Alligatored,” the arson boys would write. Charred and frozen debris lay underfoot, and soot covered everything.

LaManche took a long look around, then pulled a tiny Dictaphone from his pocket. He recorded the date, time, and location, and began describing the victims.

The bodies lay on twin beds that formed an L in the far corner of the room, a small table between them. Strangely, both individuals appeared to be fully clothed, though smoke and charring had obscured all indicators of style or gender. The victim along the back wall wore sneakers, the one on the side had died in stocking feet. I noticed that one athletic sock was partly off, exposing a smoke-stained ankle. The tip of the sock hung limply over the toes. Both victims were adult. One appeared more robust than the other.

”Victim number one . . .” continued LaManche.

I forced myself to take a closer look. Victim number one held its forearms high, flexed as if ready to fight. Pugilistic pose. While not long enough or hot enough to consume all the flesh, the fire that raced up the back wall had produced sufficient heat to cook the upper limbs and cause the muscles to contract. Below the elbows the arms were stick-thin. Clumps of scorched tissue cl.u.s.tered along the bones. The hands were blackened stumps.

The face reminded me of Rameses' mummy. The lips had burned away, exposing teeth with dark and cracked enamel. One incisor was delicately outlined in gold. The nose was burned and squashed, the nostrils pointing upward like the snout of a fruit bat. I could see individual muscle fibers circling the orbits and streaming across the cheekbones and mandible, like a line drawing in an anatomy text. Each socket held a dried and shriveled eyeball. The hair was gone. So was the top of the head.

Victim number two, though equally dead, was more intact. Some of the skin was blackened and split, but in most places it was merely smoked. Tiny white lines radiated from the corners of the eyes, and the ears were pale on the insides and underneath the lobes. The hair had been reduced to a frizzled cap. One arm lay flat, the other was flung wide, as if reaching for its partner in death. The outstretched hand had been reduced to a bony, blackened claw.