HE STORM HAD ITS SLEEVES ROLLED UP, ITS COLLAR UNBUTTONED, and its tie hanging loose. Going for a two-footer.

Anne didn’t say a word as we picked our way to the car. She watched impassively as I dialed into my voice mail.

No messages.

I tried Mrs. Gallant/Ballant/Talent’s number.

No answer.

I checked to see if her call to the lab on Wednesday had been traced, or if the number she’d left Thursday had been tied to a name or address.

Working on it.

“Damn!” Why didn’t they at least give me the name on the listing for the number I’d given them? They could compare the earlier call when they finished their trace. Were they just putting me behind any and all requests from detectives?

Ramming the cellular into my purse, I dug a scraper from the backseat, got out, cleared the windows, slid back behind the wheel, and slammed the door.

After starting the engine, I rocked the Mazda by shifting between forward and reverse. At the first hint of traction, I accelerated, and we fishtailed from the curb. White-knuckling, I turtled forward, squinting to see through the blanket of white.

We’d gone two blocks when Anne broke the silence.

“We could try old newspapers, pull up stories on missing girls.”

“English or French?”

“Wouldn’t disappearances be reported in both?”

“Not necessarily.” My attention was focused on holding to the tracks created by previous traffic. “And Montreal has several French papers today, has had godzillions in both languages over the years.”

The car’s rear winged left. I steered into the spin and straightened.

“We could start with the English papers.”

“What years? The building went up at the turn of the century.”

The snow was winning out over the wipers. I maxed the defroster.

“The UV fluorescence tells me the bones are probably not older than the building. Beyond that, I can’t narrow it.”

“OK. We won’t search newspaper archives.”

“Without knowing language and time frame, we’d be at it all winter. Also, the girls were found here, but may not have gone missing here.”

We crept another block.

“What about that button?” Anne asked.

“What about that button?” I snapped, again coaxing the rear wheels back behind the front.

Loosening her scarf, Anne leaned back in an attitude that suggested I was now to be ignored.

“Sorry.” I was playing Claudel to Anne’s Tempe.

The silence lengthened. Clearly, it was going to be up to me to end it.

“I apologize. Driving in blizzards makes me tense. What was your button idea?”

After a few more moments of “you’re being an asshole” muteness, Anne rephrased her suggestion.

“Maybe you could talk to another expert. Try to develop more information.”

Gently pumping the brakes, I brought the car to a stop. Across Sherbrooke, an old woman walked an old dog. Both wore boots. Both had their eyes crimped against the snow.

I looked at Anne.

Maybe I could.

Depressing the gas pedal slowly, I crawled into the intersection and turned left.

Jesus, of course I could. I’d been ignoring the buttons, accepting Claudel’s opinion concerning their age. Maybe his McCord source was less than a quiz kid.

Suddenly, I was in a froth to get another opinion.

“Annie, you’re a rock star.”

“I shimmer.”

“You up for a couple more stops before dinner?”

“Mush on.”

Anne waited in the car while I dashed up to the lab, made a quick call, and grabbed the buttons. When I rejoined her, she was listening to Zachary Richard on a local French station.

“What’s he singing about?”

“Someone named Marjolaine.”

“I think he misses her.”

“So he says.”

“Local talent?”

“Louisiana Cajun. Your part of the world.”

Anne leaned back and closed her eyes. “That boy can sing about me any ole day.”

It took twice the normal drive time to return to the old quarter. Though it was just past five, night was in full command. Streetlights were on, shops were closing, pedestrians were hurrying, heads bent, purses and packages pressed to their chests.

Leaving boulevard René-Lévesque, I followed rue Berri to its southern end, then turned west and crept along rue de la Commune. To our right, the narrow lanes of Vieux-Montréal crisscrossed the hill. To our left lay le Marché Bonsecours, le Pavillon Jacques-Cartier, les Centre de Sciences de Montréal, beyond them the St. Lawrence, its water a black sheen like ebony ice.

“It’s beautiful,” Anne said. “In an arctic tundra sort of way.”

“Cue the caribou.”

In the ice-free months ships belly up to quays jutting from the river’s edge, and cyclists, skateboarders, picnickers, and tourists throng the adjacent parklands and promenades. This evening the riverfront was still and dark.

At the head of place d’Youville, I turned onto a small side street, and parked opposite the old customs house. Anne followed as I trudged downhill, threading her way drunkenly in my tracks.

Glancing across the river, my gaze fell on the snow-misted outline of Habitat ’67. Built for World Expo, the complex is a pile of geometric cubes that challenges the delicate art of balance. Born more of imagination than architectural pragmatism, Habitat’s walkways and patios are a delight in summer, an invitation to hypothermia in winter.

Andrew Ryan lived in Habitat.

A multitude of questions sidetracked my concentration.

Where was Ryan? What was he feeling? What was I feeling? What had he meant? The need to talk. Agreed. But about what? Commitment? Compromise? Conclusion?

I pushed the questions aside. Ryan was working an operation and not thinking or feeling anything having to do with me.

At de la Commune, we entered a futuristic gray stone building, all corners and angles. High up, a banner draped one tower. ICI NAQUIT MONTRÉAL. “Where Montreal Was Born.”

“What is this place?” Anne stomped snow onto the green tile floor.

“Pointe-à-Callière, Montreal’s Museum of Archaeology and History.”

A man’s face rose from below a circular desk at the far end of the lobby. It was gaunt and pale, and needed a shave.

“Sorry.” Rising, the man pointed to a sign. He was wearing an army surplus overcoat, and holding a boot in one hand. “The museum is closed.”

“I have an appointment with Dr. Mousseau.”

Surprise. “Your name, please?”

“Tempe Brennan.”

The man punched a number, spoke a few words, then cradled the receiver.

“Dr. Mousseau is in the crypt. Do you know the way?”

“Yes, thank you.”

Crossing the lobby, I led Anne past a small theater, down a set of iron stairs, and into a long, narrow, softly lit hall, its walls and floor made completely of stone.

“I feel like Alice tunnel-chasing the hatter,” said Anne.

“This point of land was the site of Montreal’s first settlement. The exhibit demonstrates how the city has grown and changed over the past three centuries.”

Anne flapped her gloves at a truncated wall rising from the floor. “The original foundations?”

“No, but old.” I pointed to the far end of the hall. “That walkway lies directly below place d’Youville, near where we parked. What’s now street was once a sewage dump, before that a river.”

“Tempe?” The voice rang hollowly off rock and mortar. “Est-ce toi, Tempe?”

“C’est moi.”

“Ici.” Over here.

“Who’s Mousseau?” Anne whispered.

“The staff archaeologist.”

“I’ll bet the woman’s got buttons.”

“More buttons than a political primary.”

Monique Mousseau was working at one of several dozen glass cases lining the corridors spidering off from the main chamber. At her side, a metal cart held a camera, a magnifying glass, a laptop, a loose-leaf binder, and several books.

Seeing us, Mousseau reshelved an object, closed and locked the cabinet, dropped Harry Potter glasses to her chest, and hurried toward us.

“Bonjour, Tempe. Comment ça va?”

Mousseau kissed each of my cheeks, then stepped back and beamed up at me, hands still clasping my upper arms.

“You’re good, my friend?”

“I’m good,” I replied in English, then introduced Anne.

“A very great pleasure to meet you.” Mousseau cranked Anne’s arm as one would a pump handle.

“Likewise.” Anne stepped back, overwhelmed by the tiny cyclone working her limb.

The two women looked like members of different species. Anne was tall and blonde. Mousseau stood four foot eleven and had curly black hair. Anne was swathed in pink angora. The archaeologist wore a khaki boy’s shirt, black jeans, and lumberjack boots. An enormous wad of keys dangled from one belt loop.

“Thanks for agreeing to see us so late on a snowy Friday,” I said.

“Is it snowing?” Mousseau released Anne and swiveled to me, bouncing like someone jiggered on speed.

I’d met Monique Mousseau a decade back, soon after my first sortie to Montreal. I’d worked with her often over the years, and understood that her energy did not come from a chemical high. The woman’s extraordinary vigor came from love of life and vocation. Give Mousseau a trowel and she’d dig up New England.

“Gangbusters,” I said.

“How wonderful. I’ve been underground so long today I’ve lost touch with the outside world. How does it look?”

“Very white.”

Mousseau’s laugh echoed louder than a sound someone her size should. “So. Tell me about these buttons.”

I described the skeletons and the basement.

“Fascinating.” Every utterance owned an exclamation point. “Let’s take a look.”

I dug out and handed her the Ziploc.

Mousseau slid the Harry Potters onto her nose and examined the buttons, turning the baggie over and over in her hands. A full minute passed. Then another.

Mousseau’s face took on a puzzled expression.

Anne and I looked at each other.

Mousseau raised round lenses toward me.

“May I remove them?”

“Of course.”

Unzipping the baggie, Mousseau shook the buttons onto her palm, crossed to the cart, and studied each with the magnifying glass. Using a fingertip, she rolled the buttons, observed, righted them, and observed some more. With each move the perplexed expression deepened.

Anne and I exchanged another glance.

Mousseau’s examination seemed to go on forever. Then, “Will you excuse me one moment?”

I nodded.

Mousseau hurried off, leaving two of the three buttons on her cart.

Around us, an eerie silence. Outside, the occasional honking of a horn.

The waiting played hell with my nerves. Why the confusion? What was Mousseau seeing?

A lifetime later the archaeologist returned, picked up the abandoned buttons, and resumed her inspection. Finally, she looked up, eyes enormous behind their lenses.

“Antoinette Legault looked at these?”

“A detective showed them to her at the McCord.”

“Legault felt they were nineteenth century?”

“Yes.”

“She’s right.”

My heart plummeted.

Mousseau crossed to me, held up her palm, and manipulated two buttons with the tip of her pen.

“These are sterling silver, produced by a jeweler and watchmaker named R. L. Christie.”

“Where?”

“Edinburgh, Scotland.”

“When?”

“Sometime between 1890 and 1900.”

“You’re certain?”

“I was pretty sure I recognized Christie’s work, but I looked them up just to be sure.”

I nodded, too deflated to think of something to say.

“But this” — Mousseau flipped the third button with her pen — “is a copy, and a poor copy at that.”

I stared at her blankly.

Mousseau handed me the lens. “Compare this one,” she indicated one of the Christie buttons, “to this one.” The pen moved to the forgery.

Under magnification, details of the Christie woman’s face were clear. Eyes. Nose. Curls. In contrast, the silhouette on the fake was a featureless outline.

Mousseau flipped the buttons. “Notice the initials etched beside the eyelet.”

Even to an amateur, the difference was obvious. Christie had engraved his letters with smooth, flowing motions. On the forgery, the S had been gouged as a series of intersecting cuts.

I was perplexed and somewhat taken aback.

But not as taken aback as I would be come Monday morning.