?Great.? He dug out his mug and handed it to me. ?I?ll get set up here.?

I got my own mug and started down the corridor. I was pleased at his invitation. We often worked the same cases, the decomposed, burned, mummified, or skeletonized, the dead who could not be identified by normal means. I thought we worked well together. It seemed he agreed.

When I returned, two sets of small black squares lay on the light box. Each X ray showed a segment of jaw, the dentition bright against a stark black background. I remembered the teeth as I?d first seen them in the woods, their flawlessness in sharp contrast to the grisly context. They looked different now. Sanitized. Neatly lined up in rows, ready for inspection. The familiar shapes of crowns, roots, and pulp chambers were illuminated in differing intensities of gray and white.

Bergeron began by arranging the antemortem radiographs to the right and the postmortem to the left. His long, bony fingers located a small bump on each X ray, and, one by one, he oriented them, placing the dot face up. When he?d finished, each antemortem radiograph lay in identical alignment to its postmortem counterpart.

He compared the two sets for discrepancies. Everything matched. Neither series showed missing teeth. All roots were complete to their tips. The outlines and curvatures on the left mirrored perfectly those on the right. But most noticeable were the stark white globs representing dental restorations. The constellation of shapes on the antemortem films was mimicked in detail on the films Daniel had taken.

After studying the X rays for what seemed an interminable time, Bergeron selected a square from the right, placed it over the corresponding postmortem X ray, and positioned it for my inspection. The irregular patterns on the molars superimposed exactly. He swiveled to face me.

?C?est positif,? he said, leaning back and placing an elbow on the table. ?Unofficially, of course, until I finish with the written records.? He reached for his coffee. He would do an exhaustive comparison of the written records in addition to a more detailed X-ray comparison, but he had no doubt. This was Isabelle Gagnon.

I was glad I wouldn?t be the one to face the parents. The husband. The lover. The son. I?d been present at such meetings. I knew the look. The eyes, pleading. Tell me this is a mistake. A bad dream. Make it end. Say it isn?t so. Then, comprehension. In a millisecond, the world changed forever.

?Thanks for looking at this right away, Marc,? I said. ?And thanks for the preliminary.?

?I wish they could all be this easy.? He took a sip of coffee, grimaced and shook his head.

?Do you want me to deal with Claudel?? I tried to keep the distaste out of my voice. Apparently I didn?t succeed. He smiled knowingly.

?I have no doubt you can handle Monsieur Claudel.?

?Right,? I said. ?That?s what he needs. A handler.?

I could hear him laughing as I returned to my office.

My grandmother always told me there is good in everyone. ?Just look fer it . . .? she?d say, the brogue smooth as satin, ?. . . and ye?ll find it. Everyone has a virtue.? Gran, you never met Claudel.

Claudel?s virtue was promptness. He was back in fifty minutes.

He stopped in Bergeron?s office, and I could hear their voices through the wall. My name was repeated several times as Bergeron forwarded him to me. Claudel?s cadence signaled irritation. He wanted a real opinion, but now he?d have to settle for me again. He appeared seconds later, his face hard.

Neither of us offered greeting. He waited at the door.

?It?s positive,? I said. ?Gagnon.?

He frowned, but I could see excitement collecting in his eyes. He had a victim. Now he could begin the investigation. I wondered if he felt anything for the dead woman or if it was all an exercise for him. Find the bad guy. Outwit the perp. I?d heard the banter, the comments, the jokes made over a victim?s battered body. For some it was a way to deal with the obscenity of violence, a protective barrier against the daily reality of human slaughter. Morgue humor. Mask the horror in male bravado. For others it went deeper. I suspected Claudel was among the others.

I watched him for several seconds. Down the hall a phone rang. Though I truly disliked the man, I forced myself to admit that his opinion of me mattered. I wanted his approval. I wanted him to like me. I wanted all of them to accept me, to admit me to the club.

An image of Dr. Lentz flashed into my mind, a hologram psychologist, lecturing from the past.

?Tempe,? she would say, ?you are the child of an alcoholic father. You are searching for the attention he denied you. You want Daddy?s approval, so you try to please everybody.?

She made me see it, but she couldn?t correct it. I had to do that on my own. Occasionally I overcompensated, and many found me a genuine pain in the ass. This had not been the case with Claudel. I realized I?d been avoiding a confrontation.

I took a deep breath and began, choosing my words carefully.

?Monsieur Claudel, have you considered the possibility that this murder is connected to others that have taken place during the past two years??

His features froze, the lips drawn in so tightly against his teeth as to be almost invisible. A cloud of red began at his collar and spread slowly up his neck and face. His voice was icy.

?Such as?? He held himself absolutely still.

?Such as Chantale Trottier,? I continued. ?She was killed in October of ?93. Dismembered, decapitated, disemboweled.? I looked directly at him. ?What was left of her was found wrapped in plastic trash bags.?

He raised both hands to the level of his mouth, clasped them together, fingers intertwined, and tapped them against his lips. His perfectly chosen gold cuff links, in his perfectly fitted designer shirt, clinked faintly. He looked straight at me.

?Ms. Brennan,? he said, emphasizing the English label. ?Perhaps you should stick to your area of expertise. I think we would recognize any links which might exist between crimes under our jurisdiction. These murders share nothing in common.?

Ignoring the demotion, I forged on. ?They were both women. They were both murdered within the past year. Both bodies showed signs of mutilation or attempt-?

His carefully constructed dam of control ruptured, and his anger rushed at me in a torrent.

?Tabernac!? he exploded. ?Do you wo-?

His lips pursed to form the despised word, but he stopped himself just in time. With a visible effort, he regained his composure.

?Do you always have to overreact??

?Think about it,? I spat at him. I was trembling in rage as I got up to close the door.

IT SHOULD HAVE FELT GOOD JUST TO SIT IN THE STEAM ROOM AND sweat. Like broccoli. That had been my intention. Three miles on the StairMaster, a round on the Nautilus, then vegetate. Like the rest of the day, the gym was not living up to my expectations. The workout had dissipated some of my anger, but I was still agitated. I knew Claudel was an asshole. It was one of the names I?d stomped on his chest with each pump of the StairMaster. Asshole. Dickhead. Moron. Two syllables worked best. I?d figured that out, but little else. It distracted me for a while, but now that my mind was idle I couldn?t drive the murders out. Isabelle Gagnon. Chantale Trottier. I kept rolling them around, like peas on a dinner plate.

I shifted my towel, and allowed my brain to reprocess the events of the day. When Claudel left, I?d checked with Denis to see when Gagnon?s skeleton would be ready. I wanted to go over every inch of it for signs of trauma. Fractures. Gashes. Anything. Something about the way the body had been carved up bothered me. I wanted a close look at those cut marks. There was a problem with the boiling unit. The bones wouldn?t be ready until tomorrow.