Cross bones

2

THE ENVELOPE HELD A SINGLE BLACK-AND-WHITE PRINT. PICTURED was a supine skeleton, skull twisted, jaw agape in a frozen scream.

I flipped the photo. Written on the back were the date, October 1963, and a blurry notation. H de 1 H. Maybe.

I looked a question at the bearded gentleman blocking my way. He made no move to explain.

“Mr.-?”

“Kessler.”

“Why are you showing this to me?”

“I believe it’s the reason Avram Ferris is dead.”

“So you’ve said.”

Kessler crossed his arms. Uncrossed them. Rubbed palms on his pants.

I waited.

“He said he was in danger.” Kessler jabbed four fingers at the print. “Said if anything happened it would be because of this.”

“Mr. Ferris gave this to you?”

“Yes.” Kessler glanced over his shoulder.

“Why?”

Kessler’s answer was a shrug.

My eyes dropped back to the print. The skeleton was fully extended, its right arm and hip partially obscured by a rock or ledge. An object lay in the dirt beside the left knee. A familiar object.

“Where does this come from?” I looked up. Kessler was again checking to his rear.

“ Israel.”

“Mr. Ferris was afraid his life was in danger?”

“Terrified. Said if the photo came to light there’d be havoc.”

“What sort of havoc?”

“I don’t know.” Kessler raised two palms. “Look, I have no idea what the picture is. I don’t know what it means. I agreed to keep it. That’s it. That’s my role.”

“What was your connection to Mr. Ferris?”

“We were business associates.”

I held out the photo. Kessler dropped his hands to his sides.

“Tell Detective Ryan what you’ve told me,” I said.

Kessler stepped back. “You know what I know.”

At that moment my cell sounded. I slipped it from my belt.

Pelletier.

“Got another call about Bellemare.”

Kessler sidestepped me and moved toward the family room.

I waggled the print. Kessler shook his head no and hurried down the hall.

“Are you ready to release the Cowboy?”

“I’m on my way up.”

“Bon. Sister’s busting her bloomers for a burial.”

When I disconnected and turned, the hall was empty. Fine. I’d give the photo to Ryan. He’d have a copy of the list of observers. If he wanted to follow up, he could get contact information for Kessler.

I pressed for the elevator.

By noon I’d completed my report on Charles Bellemare, concluding that, however strange the circumstances, the Cowboy’s last ride had been the result of his own folly. Turn on. Tune in. Drop out. Or down, in Bellemare’s case. What had he been doing up there?

At lunch, LaManche informed me there’d be difficulty viewing Ferris’s head wounds in situ. X-rays showed only one bullet fragment, and indicated the back of the skull and the left half of the face were shattered. He also informed me that my analysis would be critical since mutilation by the cats had distorted the patterning of metallic trace observable on X-ray.

In addition, Ferris had fallen with his hands beneath him. Decomposition had rendered gunshot-residue testing inconclusive.

At one-thirty I descended again to the morgue.

Ferris’s torso was now open from throat to pubis, and his organs floated in covered containers. The stench in the room had kicked into the red zone.

Ryan and the photographer were there, along with two of the morning’s four observers. LaManche waited five minutes, then nodded a go-ahead to his autopsy tech.

Lisa made incisions behind Ferris’s ears and across his crown. Using scalpel and fingers, she then teased off the scalp, working from the top toward the back of the skull, stopping periodically to position the case label for photographs. As fragments were freed, LaManche and I observed, diagrammed, then gathered them into containers.

When we’d finished with the top and back of Ferris’s head, Lisa retracted the skin from his face, and LaManche and I repeated the procedure, examining, sketching, stepping back for pics. Slowly, we extracted the wreckage that had been Ferris’s maxillary, zygomatic, nasal, and temporal bones.

By four what remained of Ferris’s face was back in position, and Y-shaped stitching held his belly and chest. The photographer had five rolls of film. LaManche had a ream of diagrams and notes. I had four tubs of bloody shards.

I was cleaning bone fragments when Ryan appeared in the corridor outside my lab. I watched his approach through the window above my sink.

Craggy face, eyes too blue for his own good.

Or mine.

Seeing me, Ryan pressed his palms and nose to the glass. I flicked water at him.

He pushed back and pointed at my door. I mouthed “open,” and waved him through, a goofy smile spreading across my face.

Okay. Maybe Ryan isn’t so bad for me.

But I had reached that opinion only recently.

For almost a decade Ryan and I had butted heads in an on-again, off-again nonrelationship. Up-down. Yes-no. Hot-cold.

Hot-hot.

I’ve been attracted to Ryan since the get-go, but there have been more obstacles to acting on that attraction than there were signers of the Declaration.

I believe in the separation of job from play. No watercooler romance for this señorita. No way.

Ryan works homicide. I work the morgue. Professional exclusion clause applies. Obstacle one.

Then there was Ryan himself. Everyone knew his bio. Born in Nova Scotia of Irish parents, young Andrew ended up on the wrong end of a biker’s shattered Budweiser bottle. Switching from the dark side, the boy signed on with the good guys and rose to the rank of lieutenant-detective with the provincial police. Grown-up Andrew is kind, intelligent, and strictly straight arrow where his work is concerned.

And widely known as the squad room Lothario. Stud muffin exclusion clause applies. Obstacle two.

But Ryan sweet-talked the loopholes, and, after years of resistance, I finally jumped through. Then obstacle three roared in with the Yule.

Lily. A nineteen-year-old daughter, complete with iPod, belly ring, and Bahamian mother, a flesh-and-blood memento of Ryan’s long-ago ride with the Wild Ones.

Though mystified and somewhat daunted by the prospect, Ryan embraced the product of his past and made some decisions about his future. Last Christmas he’d committed to long-distance parenting. That same week he’d asked me to be his roomie.

Whoa, bucko. I gave that plan a veto.

Though I still bunk with my feline compadre, Birdie, Ryan and I are dancing around a preliminary draft of a working arrangement.

So far the dance has been good.

And strictly home turf. We keep it to ourselves.

“How’s it going, cupcake?” Ryan asked, coming through the door.

“Good.” I added a fragment to those drying on the corkboard.

“That the chimney stiff?” Ryan was eyeing the box holding Charles Bellemare.

“Happy trails for the Cowboy,” I said.

“Guy take a hit?”

I shook my head. “Looks like he leaned to when he should have leaned fro. No idea why he was sitting on a chimney ledge.” I stripped off my gloves and squeezed soap onto my hands. “Who’s the blond guy downstairs?”

“Birch. He’ll be working Ferris with me.”

“New partner?”

Ryan shook his head. “Loan-over. You think Ferris offed himself?”

I turned and shot Ryan a you-know-better-than-that look.

Ryan gave me an expression of choirboy innocence. “Not trying to rush you.”

Yanking paper towels from the holder, I said, “Tell me about him.”

Ryan nudged Bellemare aside and rested one haunch on my worktable.

“Family’s Orthodox.”

“Really?” Mock surprise.

“The Fab Four were here to ensure a kosher autopsy.”

“Who were they?” I wadded and tossed the paper towels.

“Rabbi, members of the temple, one brother. You want names?”

I shook my head.

“Ferris was a bit more secular than his kin. Operated an import business from a warehouse out near Mirabel airport. Told the wife he’d be out of town on Thursday and Friday. According to…” Ryan pulled out and glanced at a spiral pad.

“Miriam,” I supplied.

“Right.” Ryan gave me an odd look. “According to Miriam, Ferris was trying to expand the business. He called around four on Wednesday, said he was heading out, and that he’d be back late on Friday. When he didn’t arrive by sundown, Miriam figured he’d been delayed and preferred not to drive on the Sabbath.”

“Had that happened before?

Ryan nodded. “Ferris wasn’t in the habit of phoning home. When he hadn’t shown up Saturday night, Miriam started working the speed dial. No one in the family had seen him. Neither had his secretary. Miriam didn’t know which accounts he was planning to hit, so she decided to sit tight. Sunday morning she checked the warehouse. Sunday afternoon she filed a missing person report. Cops said they’d investigate if hubby hadn’t surfaced by Monday morning.”

“Grown man extending his business trip?”

Ryan shrugged one shoulder. “Happens.”

“Ferris never left Montreal?”

“LaManche thinks he died not long after his call to Miriam.”

“Miriam’s story checks out?”

“So far.”

“The body was found in a closet?”

Ryan nodded. “Blood and brains all over the walls.”

“What kind of closet?”

“Small storage space off an upstairs office.”

“Why would cats be in there with him?”

“The door’s outfitted with one of those little two-way flaps. Ferris kept food and litter in there.”

“He gathered the cats to shoot himself?”

“Maybe they were in there when he took the bullet, maybe they slipped in later. Ferris may have died sitting on a stool, then tumbled off. Somehow his feet ended up jamming the kitty door.”

I thought about that.

“Miriam didn’t check the closet when she visited on Sunday?”

“No.”

“She didn’t hear scratching or meowing?”

“The missus isnot a cat lover. That’s why Ferris kept them at work.”

“She didn’t notice any odor?”

“Apparently Ferris wasn’t real fastidious about feline toilette. Miriam said if she’d smelled anything she’d have figured it was Kitty Litter.”

“She didn’t find the building overly warm?”

“Nope. But if a cat brushed the thermostat after her visit, Ferris would still have been cooking from Sunday till Tuesday.”

“Did Ferris have other employees besides the secretary?”

“Nope.” Ryan consulted the notes in his spiral. “Courtney Purviance. Miriam calls her a secretary. Purviance prefers the term ‘associate.’”

“Is the wife downgrading, or the help upgrading?”

“More likely the former. Appears Purviance played a pretty big role in running the business.”

“Where was Purviance on Wednesday?”

“Left early. Bad sinuses.”

“Why didn’t Purviance find Ferris on Monday?”

“Monday was some kind of Jewish holiday. Purviance took the day off to plant trees.”

“Tu B’Shvat.”

“Et tu, Brute.”

“The festival of trees. Was anything missing?”

“Purviance insists there’s nothing in the place worth stealing. Computer’s old. Radio’s older. Inventory’s not valuable. But she’s checking.”

“How long has she worked for Ferris?”

“Since ninety-eight.”

“Anything suspicious in Ferris’s background? Known associates? Enemies? Gambling debts? Jilted girlfriend? Boyfriend?”

Ryan shook his head.

“Anything to suggest he was suicidal?”

“I’m digging, but so far zip. Stable marriage. Took the little woman to Boca in January. Business wasn’t blazing, but it was producing a steady living. Especially since Purviance hired on, a fact she’s not hesitant to mention. According to the family, there were no signs of depression, but Purviance thought he’d been unusually moody in recent weeks.”

I remembered Kessler and slipped the photo from the pocket of my lab coat.

“A gift from one of the Fab Four.” I held it out. “He thinks it’s the reason Ferris is dead.”

“Meaning?”

“He thinks it’s the reason Ferris is dead.”

“You can be a real pain in the ass, Brennan.”

“I work at it.”

Ryan studied the photo.

“Which of the Fab Four?”

“Kessler.”

Floating a brow, Ryan laid down the photo and flipped a page in his spiral.

“You sure?”

“That’s the name he gave me.”

When Ryan looked up the brow had settled.

“No one named Kessler was cleared for that autopsy.”