EDNESDAY IS GARBAGE DAY ON MY BLOCK. I SLEPT THROUGH THE sound of the sanitation truck. I slept through Birdie’s nudging. I slept through three phone calls.

I woke at ten-fifteen feeling sluggish and headachy. I was definitely not twenty-four anymore. All-nighters took their toll, and it made me cranky to admit it.

My hair, my skin, even the pillow and sheets smelled of stale smoke. I bundled the linens and last night’s clothes into the washer, then took a long, sudsy shower. I was spreading peanut butter on a stale croissant when the phone rang.

“Temperance?” LaManche.

“Yes.”

“I have been trying to reach you.”

I glanced at the phone machine. Three messages.

“Sorry.”

“Oui. We will be seeing you today? Already Monsieur Ryan is calling.”

“I’ll be there within the hour.”

“Bon.”

I played the messages. A distraught graduate student. LaManche. A hang-up. I wasn’t up to student problems, so I tried Gabby. No answer. I dialed Katy and got her machine.

“Leave a short message, like this one,” it chirped cheerily. I did, not cheerily.

In twenty minutes I was at the lab. Stuffing my purse in a desk drawer, and ignoring the pink slips scattered across the blotter, I went directly downstairs to the morgue.

The dead come first to the morgue. There, they are logged in and stored in refrigerated compartments until assigned to an LML pathologist. Jurisdiction is coded by floor color. The morgue opens directly onto the autopsy rooms, the red floor of each morgue bay stopping abruptly at the autopsy room threshold. The morgue is run by the coroner, the LML controls the operatories. Red floor: coroner. Gray floor: LML. I do my initial examinations in one of the four autopsy rooms. Afterward, the bones are sent up to the histology lab for final cleaning.

LaManche was making a Y incision in the chest of an infant, her tiny shoulders propped on a rubber headrest, her hands spread at her sides as if poised to make a snow angel. I looked at LaManche.

“Secouée,” was all he said. Shaken.

Across the room Nathalie Ayers bent over another autopsy as Lisa lifted the breastplate from a young man. Below a shock of red hair his eyes bulged purple and swollen, and I could see a small, dark hole on his right temple. Suicide. Nathalie was a new pathologist at the LML, and didn’t yet do homicides.

Daniel put down the scalpel he was sharpening. “Do you need the bones from St. Lambert?”

“S’il vous plaît. In number 4?”

He nodded and disappeared into the morgue.

The skeletal autopsy took several hours, and I confirmed my initial impression that the remains were of one individual, a white female around thirty years of age. Though little soft tissue remained, the bones were in good condition and retained some fat. She’d been dead two to five years. The only oddity was an unfused arch on her fifth lumbar vertebra. Without the head, a positive ID would be tough.

I asked Daniel to transfer the bones to the histo lab, washed, and went upstairs. The pile of pink slips had grown. I phoned Ryan and gave him my summary. He was already working missing persons reports with the St. Lambert police.

One of the calls was from Aaron Calvert in Norman, Oklahoma. Yesterday. When I tried his number, a syrupy voice told me he was away from his desk. She assured me she was devastatingly sorry, and guaran teed that he’d get the message. Professionally affable. I set the other messages aside and went to see Lucie Dumont.

Lucie’s office was crammed with terminals, monitors, printers, and computer paraphernalia of all kinds. Cables climbed walls to disappear into the ceiling, or were taped in bundles along the floor. Stacks of printouts drooped on shelves and file cabinets, fanning out like alluvium seeking the lowest point.

Lucie’s desk faced the door, the control panel of cabinets and hardware forming a horseshoe behind her. She worked by rolling from station to station, sneakered feet propelling her chair across the gray tile. To me, Lucie was the back of a head silhouetted against a glowing green screen. I rarely saw her face.

Today the horseshoe held five Japanese in business suits. They circled Lucie, arms held close to their bodies, nodding gravely as she pointed to something on a terminal and explained its significance. Cursing my timing, I went on to the histo lab.

The St. Lambert skeleton had arrived from the morgue, and I set about analyzing the cuts the same way I had with Trottier and Gagnon. I described, measured, and plotted the location of each mark, and made impressions of the false starts. As with the others, the tiny gashes and trenches suggested a knife and a saw. Microscopic details were similar, and placement of cuts almost identical to those in the earlier cases.

The woman’s hands had been sawed at the wrists, the rest of her limbs detached at the joints. Her belly had been slashed along the midline deep enough to leave cuts on the spine. Although the skull and upper neck bones were missing, marks on the sixth cervical vertebra told me that she had been decapitated at the midthroat. The guy was consistent.

I repacked the bones, gathered my notes, and returned to my office, diverting up the corridor to see if Lucie was free. She and her Japanese suits were nowhere to be seen. I left a Post-it note on her terminal. Maybe she’d thank me for an excuse to bolt.

In my absence Calvert had called. Naturally. As I dialed his number, Lucie appeared in my doorway, her hands clasped tightly in front of her.

“You left me a message, Dr. Brennan?” she asked, flashing a quick smile. She spoke not a word of English.

She was thin as soup in a homeless shelter, with a burr haircut that accentuated the length of her skull. The absence of hair and pale skin magnified the effect of her eyeglasses, making her seem little more than a mannequin for the oversized frames.

“Yes, Lucie, thank you for stopping by,” I said, rising to clear a chair.

She tucked her feet behind the chair leg, one behind the other, as she slid into her seat. Like a cat oozing onto a cushion.

“Did you get stuck with tour duty?”

She twitched a smile, then looked blank.

“The Japanese gentlemen.”

“Yes. They are from a crime lab in Kobe, chemists mostly. I do not mind.”

“I’m not sure you can help me, but I wanted to ask,” I began.

Her lenses focused on a row of skulls I keep on the shelf behind my desk.

“For comparison,” I explained.

“Are they real?”

“Yes, they’re real.”

She shifted her gaze and I could see a distorted version of myself in each pink lens. The corners of her lips jumped and resettled. Her smiles came and went like light from a bulb with a bad connection. Reminded me of my flashlight in the woods.

I explained what I wanted. When I’d finished, she tipped her head and stared upward, as if the answer might be on the ceiling. Taking her time. I listened to the whir of a printer somewhere down the hall.

“There won’t be anything before 1985, I know that.” Facial flicker. On. Off.

“I realize it’s a bit unusual, but see what you can do.”

“Quebec City, also?”

“No, just the LML cases for now.”

She nodded, smiled, and left. As if on cue, the phone rang. Ryan.

“How about someone younger?”

“How much younger?”

“Seventeen.”

“No.”

“Maybe someone with some sort of—”

“No.”

Silence.

“I’ve got one sixty-seven.”

“Ryan, this woman belongs neither to the Clearasil nor the Geritol set.”

He continued with the relentlessness of a busy signal. “What if she had some kind of bone condition or something? I read abou—”

“Ryan, she was between twenty-five and thirty-five.”

“Right.”

“She probably went missing somewhere between ’89 and ’92.”

“So you’ve said.”

“Oh. One other thing. She probably had kids.”

“What?”

“I found pitting on the inside of the pubic bones. You’re looking for someone’s mother.”

“Thanks.”

In less time than he could have punched the numbers, the phone rang again.

“Ryan, I—”

“It’s me, Mom.”

“Hi, darlin’, how are you?”

“Good, Mom.” Pause. “Are you mad about our conversation last night?”

“Of course not, Katy. I’m just worried about you.”

Long pause.

“So. What else is new? We didn’t really talk about what you’ve been up to this summer.” There was so much I wanted to say, but I’d let her take the lead.

“Not much. Charlotte’s boring as ever. Nothing to do.”

Good. Another dose of adolescent negativity. Just what I needed. I tried to hold my annoyance in check.

“How’s the job?”

“Okay. Tips are good. I made ninety-four dollars last night.”

“That’s great.”

“I’m getting a lot of hours.”

“Terrific.”

“I want to quit.”

I waited.

She waited.

“Katy, you’re going to need that money for school.” Katy, don’t mess up your life.

“I told you. I don’t want to go back right away. I’m thinking of taking a year off to work.”

Here we go again. I had an idea what was coming, and launched my offensive.

“Honey, we’ve gone over this. If you don’t like the University of Virginia, you could try McGill. Why don’t you take a couple of weeks, come up here, check it out?” Talk fast, Mom. “We could make a vacation of it. I’ll take some time off. Maybe we could drive out to the Maritimes, bum around Nova Scotia for a few days.” God. What was I saying? How could I work that? No matter. My daughter comes first.

She didn’t answer.

“It’s not grades, is it?”

“No, no. They were fine.”

“Then your credits should transfer. We coul—”

“I want to go to Europe.”

“Europe?”

“Italy.”

“Italy?”

I didn’t have to think that one through.

“Is that where Max is playing?”

“Yes.” Defensive. “So?”

“So?”

“They’re giving him a lot more money than the Hornets.”

I said nothing.

“And a house.”

Nothing.

“And a car. A Ferrari.”

Nothing.

“Tax free.” Her tone was becoming more defiant.

“That’s great for Max, Katy. He gets to play a sport he loves and gets paid for it. But what about you?”

“Max wants me to come.”

“Max is twenty-four and has a degree. You’re nineteen and have one year of college.”

She heard the irritation in my voice.

“You got married when you were nineteen.”

“Married?” My stomach did a triple gainer.

“Well, you did.”

She had a point. I held my tongue, anxious with concern for her but knowing I was helpless to do anything.

“I just said that. We’re not getting married.”

We sat and listened to the air between Montreal and Charlotte for what seemed like forever.

“Katy, will you think about coming up here?”

“Okay.”

“Promise you won’t do anything without talking to me?”

More silence.

“Katy?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“I love you, sweetheart.”

“I love you, too.”

“Say hi to your dad for me.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll leave something on your e-mail tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay.”

I hung up with an unsteady hand. What next? Bones were easier to read than kids. I got a cup of coffee, then dialed.

“Dr. Calvert, please.”

“May I ask who’s calling?” I told her. “Just a minute, please.” Put on hold.

“Tempe, how are you? You spend more time on the phone than an MCI salesman. You surely are hard to reach.” He out-twanged both the day and night shifts.

“I’m sorry, Aaron. My daughter wants to drop out of school and run off with a basketball player,” I blurted.

“Can he go to his left or shoot the three?”

“I guess.”

“Let her go.”

“Very funny.”

“Nothing funny about someone who can go left or shoot from outside the arc. Money in the bank.”

“Aaron, I’ve got another dismemberment.” I’d called Aaron about cases past. We often bounced ideas off each other.

I heard him chuckle. “You may not have guns up there, but you sure do like to cut.”

“Yes. I think this sicko has cut several. They’re all women, otherwise there doesn’t seem to be much linking them. Except the cut marks. They’re going to be critical.”

“Serial or mass?”

“Serial.”

He digested that for a second. “So. Tell me.”

I described the kerfs and the cut ends of the arm bones. He interrupted occasionally to ask a question, or to slow me down. I could picture him taking notes, his tall, gaunt frame bent over some scrap of discarded paper, finding every usable millimeter of blank space. Though Aaron was forty-two, his somber face and dark, Cherokee eyes made him look about ninety. Always had. His wit was as dry as the Gobi, and his heart about that size.

“Any really deep false starts?” he asked, all business.

“No. They’re pretty superficial.”

“Harmonics are clear?”

“Very.”

“You said blade drift in the kerf?”

“Uh. Huh. Yes.”

“Are you confident in the tooth distance measures?”

“Yeah. The scratches were distinct in several places. So were some of the islands.”

“Otherwise you got pretty flat floors?”

“Yeah. It’s really obvious on the impressions.”

“And exit chipping,” he mumbled, more to himself than me.

“Lots.”

A long pause while his mind picked its way through the information I’d given him, sorting the possibilities. I watched people drift past my door. Phones rang. Printers clicked to life, whirred, then rested. I swiveled and gazed out. Traffic rolled across the Jacques-Cartier Bridge, Lilliputian Toyotas and Fords. Minutes ticked by. Finally.

“I’m kinda workin’ blind here, Tempe. I’m not sure how you get me to do this. But here goes.”

I swiveled back and leaned my elbows on the desk.

“I’d bet the farm this isn’t a power saw. Sounds like some kinda specialty handsaw. Probably a kitchen saw of some type.”

Yes! I slapped my hand on the desktop, raised a clenched fist, and lowered it sharply, like an engineer pulling the whistle cord. Pink slips sailed up, then fluttered down.

Aaron went on, oblivious to my theatrics. “Kerfs’re too big to be any kinda fine-toothed bow saw, or a serrated knife. Besides, sounds like there’s too much set to the teeth. With those floor shapes I doubt you’re talking about any kinda cross cut. Got to be chisel. All that, ‘thout seein’ ‘em, of course, tells me chef’s saw or meat saw.”

“What’s it look like?”

“Kinda like a big hacksaw. Teeth set pretty wide, so as not to bind. That’s why sometimes you get the islands you’re describing in the false starts. Usually there’s a lotta drift, but the blade chisels through bone just fine and cuts real clean. They’re mighty efficient little saws. Cut right through bone, gristle, ligaments, whatever.”

“Anything else that might be consistent?”

“Well, there’s always the chance you can get something doesn’t fit the regular pattern. These saws don’t read the books, you know. But right offhand, I can’t think of anything else fits all you’ve told me.”

“You are fantastic. That’s exactly what I was thinking, but I wanted to hear it from you. Aaron, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your doing this.”

“Ah.”

“You want to see the photos and impressions?”

“Sure.”

“I’ll send them out tomorrow.”

Aaron’s second passion in life was saws. He cataloged written and photographic descriptions of features produced in bone by known saws, and spent hours poring over cases sent to his lab from all over the world.

A hitch in his breathing told me he had something more to say. As I waited, I gathered pink slips.

“Did you say the only completely sectioned bones are in the lower arms?”

“Yep.”

“Went into the joints for the others?”

“Yep.”

“Neat?”

“Very.”

“Hm.”

I stopped gathering. “What?”

“What?” Innocent.

“When you say ‘Hm’ like that, it means something.”

“Just a mighty interesting association.”

“Which is?”

“Guy uses a chef’s saw. And he goes about cuttin’ up a body like he knows what he’s doing. Knows what’s where, how to get at it. And does it the same way every time.”

“Yeah. I thought of that.”

A few seconds ticked off.

“But he just whacks off the hands. What about that?”

“That, Dr. Brennan, is a question for a psychologist, not a saw man.”

I agreed and changed the subject. “How’re the girls?”

Aaron had never married, and, though I’d known him for twenty years, I’m not sure I’d ever seen him with a date. His horses were his first passion. From Tulsa to Chicago to Louisville, and back to Oklahoma City, he traveled where the quarter horse circuit took him.

“Pretty excited. I bid a stallion this past fall and got ‘im. The ladies been actin’ like yearlings ever since.”

We exchanged news of our lives and small talk about mutual friends, and we agreed to get together at the Academy meeting in February.

“Well, good luck nailin’ this guy, Tempe.”

“Thanks.”

My watch read four-forty. Once again the offices and corridors had grown quiet around me. I jumped at the sound of the phone.

Too much coffee, I thought.

As I answered, the receiver was still warm against my ear.

“I saw you last night.”

“Gabby?”

“Don’t do that again, Tempe.”

“Gabby, where are you?”

“You’re just going to make things worse.”

“Goddammit, Gabby, don’t play with me! Where are you? What’s going on?”

“Never mind that. I can’t be seeing you right now.”

I couldn’t believe she was doing this again. I could feel the anger rising in my chest.

“Stay away, Tempe. Stay away from me. Stay away from my—”

Gabby’s self-centered rudeness ignited my pent-up anger. Fueled by Claudel’s arrogance, the inhumanity of a psychopathic killer, and by Katy’s youthful folly, I exploded with the fury of a flash fire, rolling over Gabby and charring her.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” I seethed into the phone, my voice cracking. Squeezing the receiver with enough force to break the plastic, I raved on.

“I’ll leave you alone! I’ll leave you alone, all right! I don’t know what bugass little game you’re playing, Gabby, but I’m out! Gone! Game, set, match, finished! I’m not buying into your schizophrenia! I’m not buying into your paranoia! And I’m not, repeat not, playing Masked Avenger to your damsel in and out of distress!”

Every neuron in my body was overcharged, like a 110 appliance in a 220 socket. My chest was heaving, and I could feel tears behind my eyes. Tempe’s temper.

From Gabby, a dial tone.

I sat for a moment, doing nothing, thinking nothing. I felt giddy.

Slowly, I replaced the receiver. I closed my eyes, ran through the sheet music, and made a selection. This one’s going out to me. In a low, throaty voice I hummed the tune:

Busted flat in Baton Rouge...