Santangelo’s eyes flicked to me. I held them.

Why not mention this when you called me in Charlotte? Is this the reason for urging my return to Montreal? I asked neither question.

Santangelo looked away.

“Wow.” Ayers slumped back.

“I know the timing sucks. You’re still training new staff.” Santangelo’s tone was neutral. Evasive? “I’ll help with the transition as best I can.”

Ayers and Morin exchanged a quick glance. In it I could see a month of conversations.

“Are you sure?” Concern darkened Morin’s already dark eyes. Perhaps weariness. Santangelo’s departure meant another protracted hiring process.

“Yes.” Santangelo dragged an outlier scrap to her pile.

“We’ll miss you,” I said.

“We’ll still see each other.” Santangelo tried to make it sound light. It didn’t really work. “I’ll be one flight down.”

We all filed out. No jokes. No banter.

Coffee, then back to my office. After hanging my parka on the coat tree, I checked phone messages, then returned a few calls.

As I was disconnecting, my gaze fell on a letter that had worked its way out of the mound on my desk. The small white envelope was addressed to me at the LSJML, handwritten and marked personal. Curious, I picked it up and slit the seal.

A single sheet of paper had been scribbled with a one-line message.

Va-t’en chez toi maudite Américaine!!

Go home damn American!!

The writer had included no signature. Big surprise.

I checked the envelope. Local postmark. No return address.

“Thanks for the thought, chickenshit.”

Sailing the note and its envelope back onto the heap, I crossed the hall to my lab.

And stopped dead.

BONES OCCUPIED EACH OF MY FOUR WORKSTATIONS. FLAKING AND warping suggested years of decay.

“What the f-” Under my breath.

“Bonjour, Doc.”

I whirled.

Joe was washing his hands at the sink. “Bienvenue.”

Welcome back, my left buttock.

“What’s this?” I flicked a hand at the two central tables.

“Ossements.” Smiling.

“Obviously they’re bones.” It came out sharper than I intended. Or not. “Who arranged them like this?”

The smile collapsed. “Dr. Briel.”

“Under whose authority?”

Joe didn’t move and didn’t say anything. Behind him, water pounded from the spigot, bouncing tiny droplets onto the counter.

Striding to the closest set of remains, I rifled through papers secured to a clipboard.

My case form. My measurement list. My skeletal diagram. A request from Hubert for osteological analysis.

My brain lit up white-hot.

The door whipped from my hand so hard it slammed the counter. Ignoring the elevator, I flew downstairs.

Hubert was whaling up the corridor, mug in one hand, mail in the other. I closed in like a rat on a pork chop.

“What the hell is this?” Raising and waggling the clipboard.

Hubert’s eyes flicked past me to check the hall at my back.

“Come into my office.”

Damn straight.

Air whooshed from a cushion as Hubert planted his substantial derriere.

I remained standing.

“Have a seat.”

I didn’t move.

“Have a seat, Dr. Brennan.” More forceful.

I sat, eyes lasering into Hubert’s.

The chief coroner blew across his coffee, slurped, set down the mug. “Clearly you are upset.”

“You sent Briel to Oka.” Short and direct, not trusting my tongue.

“I didn’t exactly send her.”

“You authorized a pathologist to conduct a disinterment.”

“You left half the burial behind.”

“Hardly half.”

“Dr. Briel offered.”

“A freebie.” Scornful. “On the house.”

“Dr. Briel is an accomplished young woman.”

“She may kick ass at the cha-cha-cha. But she’s not an anthropologist.”

“She has training and experience.”

I shot forward in my chair. “Amateur hour!”

Hubert drummed the desk in annoyance.

“You said it yourself. This is homicide. If the case goes to court, you think Briel will qualify as an expert because she took some bullshit short course in anthropology?”

“It’s only four bones.”

“Four critical bones.”

“Then you shouldn’t have missed them.”

“I’d have gotten them.”

“You weren’t here.”

“I suggested a return to Oka before I left town. You declined my offer.”

Hubert glared at me.

I glared back.

Seconds passed.

Hubert looked away first.

“You will analyze the phalanges, of course.”

I said nothing.

“Is that it?” Message clear. Subject closed.

“That is definitely not it.”

I yanked the Demande d’expertise form from Briel’s clipboard and sailed it onto the desk.

Hubert glanced at it, up at me.

“And?”

“Replay the tape.”

Deep sigh. So patient.

“Have you read the police incident report? Or did you storm down here totally unacquainted with the facts?”

“I read enough to know you asked a pathologist to do anthropology.”

“Câlice! Not anthropology. Osteology. Simple sorting and counting. And again, I didn’t ask. Dr. Briel offered.”

“If she offered to shave your nuts would you let her do that?”

The chief coroner worked hard at looking prim. Didn’t quite pull it off.

“There’s no need for vulgarity.”

True. But when that switch trips in my brain, civility boogies.

Hubert ran a hand down his face. Leaned back, flesh overflowing the armrests of the chair.

“Two weeks ago, SQ-Chicoutimi got a call about a man running bareass on a highway. Turns out it was some wingnut living near Lac Saint-Jean. Frontiersman type. Loner. Cops found him sitting in the snow outside his shack, gnawing on a rabbit. After bundling the guy off to psych, they tossed the property, found bones in an old storage locker.

“The coroner up there’s a gynecologist name of Labrousse. The bones looked old, so Labrousse figured they’d washed up at the lakeshore, or eroded from an abandoned cemetery or Indian burial ground. Figured the happy hermit had collected and stashed them in his trunk.

“Bottom line, the remains came to us. Since you were away, Briel offered to take a look. I figured why not?”

“Here’s why not.” I tossed the whole clipboard not so gently onto the desk. “Briel went a whole CSI episode beyond”-I hooked quotation marks with my fingers-“taking a look.”

As Hubert skimmed the pages, his brows rose, rippling his forehead.

“Eh, misère.”

“Age, sex, race, height. I’m surprised she didn’t include Social Security numbers.”

“I can see why you’re upset.”

“Insightful on your part.”

“She means well. I’ll speak to her.”

“So will I.”

Hubert picked up his pen and drummed it on the blotter, impatient for me to be gone.

I decided to power through. Why not?

“While I’m here, I’d like to discuss an issue arising from the Jurmain case.”

Hubert aimed disinterested eyes at mine.

I reminded him of Rose Jurmain, L’Auberge des Neiges, the Chicago trip. Then I described the encounter with Perry Schechter, and related the tale of Edward Allen’s tipster.

“I’m convinced the allegation came from this end, from someone with knowledge of my involvement in the case. Someone who was either too incompetent to know that no mistake was made or, worse, who wanted to embarrass me while knowing that no mistake was made.”

“Ask the old man.”

“He’s dead.”

First surprise, then irritation crossed Hubert’s face.

“Are you accusing a member of my staff?”

“I’m accusing no one. Yet. But I will find the bastard who placed that call. I’m convinced it was someone working either at the LSJML or in the coroner’s office.”

Hubert thought about that.

“I’ll pose some questions.” Insincere.