Ryan moved to the cusp of a comment, held back. Bending, he snatched up his bag and followed me into the condo.

“Chirp?”

“Charlie, boy,” Ryan called out.

“Chirp. Chirp. Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.”

“You and Charlie spend some quality time,” I said. “I’m going to de-glue.”

“Tap pant-”

“I didn’t even order them, Ryan.”

In twenty minutes I’d showered, shampooed, blow-dried, and applied subtle but artful maquillage. I sported pink cords, a body-molding top, and Issey Miyaki behind each ear.

No tap pants, but a man-killer thong. Dusty rose. Not the undies my mother would have worn.

Ryan was in the kitchen. The condo smelled of tomatoes, anchovies, garlic, and oregano.

“Making your world-famous puttanesca?” I asked, stretching to tiptoes to kiss Ryan on the cheek.

“Whoa.” Ryan wrapped me in his arms and kissed me on the mouth. Fingering my waistband, he pulled outward, and peered down my back.

“Not tap pants. But not bad.”

I did a two-handed push from his chest.

“You really didn’t order them?”

“I really didn’t order them.”

Birdie appeared, looked disapproving, then strolled to his bowl.

During dinner, I described my frustration with the Ferris case. Over coffee and dessert, Ryan gave an update on his investigation.

“Ferris was an importer of ritual clothing. Yarmulkes, talliths.”

Ryan misread my expression.

“The tallith’s the prayer shawl.”

“I’m impressed you know that.” Like me, Ryan was raised Catholic.

“I looked it up. Why the face?”

“Seems it would be a very small market.”

“Ferris also handled ritual articles for the home. Menorahs, mezuzahs, Shabbat candles, kiddush cups, challah covers. I plan to look those up.”

Ryan offered the pastry plate. There was onemille feuille left. I wanted it. I shook my head. Ryan took it.

“Ferris sold throughout Quebec, Ontario, and the Maritimes. It wasn’t Wal-Mart, but he made a living.”

“You talked again with the secretary?”

“Appears Purviance really is more than a secretary. Handles the books, tracks inventory, travels to Israel and the States to evaluate product, schmooze suppliers.”

“ Israel ’s tough duty these days.”

“Purviance spent time on a kibbutz back in the eighties, so she knows her way around. And she speaks English, French, Hebrew, and Arabic.”

“Impressive.”

“Father was French. Mother was Tunisian. Anyway, Purviance tells the same story. Business doing well. Not an enemy in the world. Though she did feel Ferris had been more moody than usual in the days leading up to his death. I’ll give her a day to finish with the warehouse, then we’ll have another little chat.”

“Did you find Kessler?”

Ryan crossed to the couch and dug a paper from his jacket. Returning to the table, he handed it to me.

“These were the people cleared for autopsy patrol.”

I read the names.

Mordecai Ferris

Theodore Moskowitz

Myron Neulander

David Rosenbaum

“No Kessler.” I stated the obvious. “Did you locate anyone who knows the guy?”

“Talking to the family’s like talking to cement. They’re doinganinut. ”

“Aninut?”

“First stage of mourning.”

“How long doesaninut last?”

“Until interment.”

I pictured the cranial segments taking shape in my sand bowls.

“Could be a long one.”

“Ferris’s wife told me to come back when the family’s finished sitting shiva. That lasts a week. I suggested I’d be dropping by sooner.”

“This must be a nightmare for her.”

“Interesting sidebar. Ferris was insured for two million big ones, with a double-up clause for accidental death.”

“Miriam?”

Ryan nodded. “They had no kids.”

I told Ryan about my conversation with Jake Drum. “I can’t imagine why he’s coming here.”

“Think he’ll really show?”

I’d wondered that myself.

“The hesitation tells me you’ve got your doubts,” Ryan said. “This guy a flake?”

“Jake’s not flaky. Just different.”

“Different?”

“Jake’s a brilliant archaeologist. Worked at Qumran.”

Ryan gave me quizzical look.

“ Dead Sea scrolls. He can translate a zillion languages.”

“Any that are spoken today?”

I threw a napkin at Ryan.

After clearing the table, Ryan and I stretched out on the sofa. Birdie flopped by the fire.

We talked of personal things.

Ryan’s daughter in Halifax. Lily was dating a guitarist and considering a move to Vancouver. Ryan feared the items were not unrelated.

Katy. For her twelfth and final semester at the University of Virginia, my daughter was taking pottery, fencing, and a class on the feminine mystique in modern film. Her independent study involved interviewing patrons of pubs.

Birdie purred. Or snored.

Charlie squawked and resquawked a line from “Hard-Hearted Hannah.”

The fire crackled and popped. Ice ticked the windows.

After a while everyone drifted into silence.

Ryan reached back and pulled the lamp chain. Amber light danced the familiar shapes in my home.

Ryan and I lay molded like tango dancers, my head nestled below his collarbone. He smelled of soap and the logs he’d carried in for the fire. His fingers caressed my hair. My cheek. My neck.

I felt content. Calm. A million miles from skeletons and shattered skulls.

Ryan is built on sinewy, ropelike lines. Long ones. Eventually I felt one line grow longer.

We left Birdie in charge of the hearth.

RYAN LEFT EARLY THE NEXT MORNING. SOMETHING ABOUT ALL-WEATHERradials and balance and a warped rim. I am not a good listener at 7A. M. Nor am I the least bit interested in tires.

I am interested in air routing between Charlotte and Montreal. I can recite the entire USAirways flight schedule. Knowing the daily direct flight had been eliminated, I was certain Jake wouldn’t arrive before midafternoon. I rolled over and went back to sleep.

A bagel and coffee around eight, and I headed to the lab. I was leaving for five days, and knew the Ferris family was anxious for information.

And for the body.

I spent another Elmer’s morning joining the dozens of segments I’d built the day before. Like assembling atoms into molecules into whole cells, I built larger and larger sections of vault.

The facial bones were a different story. Splintering was extensive, either due to the cats, or simply due to the fragile nature of the bones themselves. There would be no reconstructing the left side of Ferris’s face.

Nevertheless, a pattern emerged.

Though the lines were complex, it appeared that no break crossed the starburst radiating from the hole behind Ferris’s right ear. Fracture sequencing pointed to that wound as the entrance.

But why were the hole’s edges beveled on the outside of the skull? An entrance site should have been beveled on the inside.

I could think of one explanation, but fragments were missing from the area immediately above and to the left of the defect. To be certain, I’d need those fragments.

At two I wrote LaManche a note, explaining what I lacked. I reminded him that I was going to the annual meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in New Orleans, and that I would return to Montreal Wednesday night.

For the next two hours I ran errands. Bank. Dry cleaner. Cat chow. Birdseed. Ryan had agreed to take Birdie and Charlie, but the man has interesting views on pet care. I wanted to raise the odds in favor of proper feeding.

Jake phoned as I was driving underground into my garage. He was in the outer vestibule. Hurrying upstairs, I let him in the front door and led him down the corridor to my condo.

As we walked, I remembered the first time I’d laid eyes on Jake Drum. I was new to UNCC, and had met few faculty members outside my discipline. None from the Department of Religious Studies. Jake appeared in my lab late one evening, at a time when assaults on female students had caused security announcements to be broadcast campus-wide.