Congealed blood marked a spot on Ryan’s chin that he’d nicked while shaving. I wondered if he’d slept. If so, I guessed he’d dreamed about the Lily-shaped void now forever in his life.

I also wondered if he’d called ahead to his squad, or if he’d opted to appear unannounced. Either way, I suspected he was dreading the upcoming encounter.

You’ve got it. I asked about neither.

Traffic was surprisingly light across Centreville and through the Ville-Marie Tunnel. By eight-fifteen we were parked at the Édifice Wilfrid-Derome, a T-shaped high-rise in a working-class neighborhood just east of the city center.

Here’s how the place works.

For almost twenty years I have served as forensic anthropologist for the Laboratoire de sciences judiciaires et de médicine legale, the central crime and medico-legal lab for the province of Quebec. Charlotte, North Carolina? Montreal? Right. The commute is a bitch. A story for another time.

The LSJML occupies the top two floors of Wilfrid-Derome, twelve and thirteen. The Bureau du coroner has ten and eleven. The morgue and autopsy suites are in the basement.

Ryan is a lieutenant-détective with the provincial police, the Sûreté du Québec. The SQ has the rest of the building.

After entering the front doors, we swiped our security cards and passed through thunk-thunk metal gates. Ryan took an elevator to the Services des Enquêtes sur les crimes contre la personne, located on the second floor. I waited for the restricted LSJML/Coroner elevator.

I ascended with a dozen others mumbling “Bonjour” and “Comment ça va?” At that hour, “Good morning” and “How’s it going?” are equally perfunctory no matter the language.

A woman from ballistics asked if I’d just come from the Carolinas. I said I had. She queried the weather. When I answered, my fellow passengers groaned.

Five of us exited on the twelfth floor. After crossing a marble-floored lobby, I swiped a different security card, then swiped it again to pass into the medico-legal wing. The board showed only two pathologists present, Jean Morin and Pierre LaManche, the chief. The others were testifying, teaching, or absent on personal leave.

Continuing along the corridor, I passed pathology and histology labs on my left, pathologists’ offices on my right. Through observation windows and open doors, I could see secretaries booting up computers, techs flipping dials, scientists and analysts donning lab coats. All the world slamming down coffee.

The anthropology/odontology lab was last in the row. There I used an old-fashioned key to enter.

My previous visit had been almost a month earlier. My desk was mounded with letters, flyers, and ads. A packet of prints from a Division d’identité judiciaire photographer. A copy of Voir Dire, the LSJML gossip sheet. One demande d’expertise en anthropologie form.

After removing my copious outerwear, I skimmed the anthropology consult request. Bones had been found in a farmer’s field near Saint-Chrysostome. If the remains were human, LaManche wanted a full bio-profile, estimated PMI, and trauma analysis.

Inwardly groaning, I walked to the side counter and opened a brown paper bag stamped with SQ identifiers. The contents included a partial tibia, a phalange, and one rib. Nothing human in the lot. That was why LaManche hadn’t phoned me in Charlotte. He knew. But perfectionist that he was, the old man had held the bones for my evaluation.

After getting coffee, I returned to the lab and dug three dossiers from a gray metal filing cabinet around the corner from my desk. LSJML-38426, LSJML-38427, LSJML-38428. The numbering system was different, but the covers were the same neon yellow as at the MCME.

I began by studying the pictures. And circled straight to that cellar with its rats and refuse and reek of decay.

Manon Violette’s bones were jumbled in a crate stamped with the words Dr. Energy’s Power Tonic. Marie-Joëlle Bastien’s skeleton lay naked in a shallow grave. Angela Robinson’s was wrapped in a moldy leather shroud.

The images. My findings. Reports of the SQ and city cops. Lab results. The final positive IDs. The names of those responsible. Pomerleau. Catts, aka Menard.

At one point I lingered on a crime scene pic of the house on de Sébastopol. I thought of the original owners, Menard’s grandparents, the Corneaus. Wondered if the crash in which they’d died had ever been investigated.

The file felt like a phone call from a decade ago.

Two hours later, I sat back in my chair, frustrated and discouraged. I’d found nothing I didn’t already know. Except that Angela Robinson had broken her wrist in a fall from a swing at age eight. I’d forgotten that.

The wall clock said 10:40.

I wrote a brief report on the Saint-Chrysostome deceased. Odocoileus virginianus. White-tailed deer. Then I went to tell LaManche. He was not in his office. I left a note.

As agreed, I met Ryan in the lobby at eleven.

André and Marguerite Violette lived in Côte-des-Neiges, a neighborhood known for sprawling cemeteries and the Université de Montréal, not for architectural caprice. Like the Westmount of the well-heeled English, and the Outremont of their French counterparts, the quartier is up-mountain from Centreville, a mix of student, middle class, and blue collar, with enough rough spots to make it interesting.

Twenty minutes after leaving Wilfrid-Derome, Ryan pulled to the curb on a stretch of boulevard Édouard-Montpetit within spitting distance of the university campus. We both took a moment to look around.

Duplexes and low-rise apartments lined the street, red brick, plain, and functional. No turrets, no mansard roofs, no curlicue iron stairs. None of the whimsy that gives Montreal its charm.

The Violette building fit with the theme. The address was posted on a two-story brick box stuck to another two-story brick box, each accessed by a set of shotgun steps.

“Remind me,” I said. “What did André do?”

“He was a pipe fitter. Still is.”

“And Marguerite?”

“She irons his shorts.”

“As I recall, he was difficult.”

“The guy was a cocky little prick.”

“Charming turn of phrase.”

“What I have can’t be taught.”

Ryan and I got out and climbed to the door, footsteps clanging on the stiff metal risers.

When Ryan rang the bell, I heard a muffled double bong, then a voice barked once, like a Doberman firing a warning. Seconds later, locks rattled and the door opened inward.

André Violette looked smaller than I remembered, shorter and thinner. His hair was dyed now, dull and unrelentingly black. The pompadour styling was unchanged from 2004. So was the brash kiss-my-ass attitude.

“Perhaps you remember us. I’m Detective Ryan. This is Dr.—”

“I know who you are.”

“Thank you for seeing us.”

“Pfff. You give me a choice, me?”

Joual is a form of Quebecois French. Some speak it due to lack of education, others as a statement of francophone pride. André’s accent was thicker than I recalled. His moi came out a nasal “moe”; his toi was “toe.” I doubted his choice of lexicon was based on politics.

“We’re very sorry—”

André cut me off. “For my loss. I heard that speech ten years ago.”

“We’re still working to find the woman who hurt your daughter.”

No reply.

“May we come in?” Ryan’s tone said the request was clearly a formality.

André stepped back. We followed him down a short hall to a living room overfilled with bulky sofas, chairs, and carved mahogany pieces. A tasseled lamp occupied every table. A doily protected every seat back. Shelves on either side of a painted brick fireplace held bric-abrac, religious statues, and framed photos.

André dropped into a chair and lifted an ankle onto a knee. The upraised foot looked unnaturally large inside its salt-stained boot.