Though much was missing, it was clear I had four individuals, two adults and two kids. Briel had nailed that. But she’d misassigned a busload of elements. The adult female got several of the adult male’s ribs and a juvenile radius. He got her right clavicle, left fibula, and sternum. Skull pieces had been jumbled all over the map.

The female looked white. Narrow nose, high nasal bridge.

From the broken facial segments, I could tell the male had remarkably wide cheekbones. Surprised, I checked maxillary fragments. All but one front tooth had been lost postmortem. I studied the lone incisor with a magnifying lense. Though abraded, the tongue surface retained a scooped-out appearance.

Interesting. Though far from definitive, flaring cheekbones and shoveled incisors were suggestive of Mongoloid ancestry.

For the kids I had too little to attempt racial assessment.

Briel came by around three, all lousy with enthusiasm. Expecting what? Praise? Thanks? Collegial discussion?

She got fiery disapproval.

Joe was cleaning beakers at the sink. He turned off the faucet. Over Briel’s shoulder, I noticed his body go still. Listening.

Briel said little during my tirade. When I’d finished, she fled, jaw set, face scarlet as a tanager.

Joe turned and his eyes met mine. Flicked away. In that moment I saw censure. And something else. Disappointment? Disdain?

Again, I knew some gesture on my part was needed. Again, I let the moment pass.

I detest confrontation. Dislike change. Hubert. Joe. Santangelo. It had been an abysmal eight hours.

I was profiling the second Lac Saint-Jean kid when the lab door opened.

I looked up.

Until then, the day had been a love fest.

“KEISER HAD A HIDEY-HOLE.” TYPICAL CLAUDEL. ARRIVING AT THE lab, he got straight to the facts. No Bonjour. No Comment ça va?

Surprised, I laid down the vertebra I was scoping with a hand lens.

“The building manager’s a guy named Luigi Castiglioni, Lu to his close amici. Yesterday, I’m doing follow-up with Lu, and the whole interview something’s bugging me, like he’s looking different than I remember. That, and the fact he’s jumpy as hell. When I squeeze hard, the asshole lets slip he’s just back from a six-month sojourn in the old country.”

Quick calculation. July to January. That put Lu in Italy from the time Keiser disappeared through the time Claudel began to investigate.

I started to ask a question. Claudel held up a manicured hand.

“So I ask him. How’s that work, you being overseas and here fixing toilets at the same time? Lu admits he’s got a twin. Eddie. You believe that? Lu and Eddie. Sounds like some cheesy vaudeville routine.”

I didn’t interrupt.

“Conscientious citizen that he is, Lu doesn’t want to get canned while he’s on sabbatical, so he talks brother Eddie into acting as super in his absence. The scam flies. No one picks up on the swap. But the thing is, Lu’s worked the building for twenty-two years. Probably schmoozing for tips. Whatever. He gets to know the tenants, learns what they’re up to. Brother Eddie doesn’t know jackshit.”

I got the picture. Lu revealed something Eddie didn’t know. New search. Bingo.

“Where was she?” I asked.

Claudel shook his head, as though amazed at the foibles of his fellow man.

“Turns out the old broad kept a getaway near Lac Memphrémagog.”

I let the “old broad” reference pass. “She went there to paint.”

Claudel dipped his chin. “Yeah. The place started life as her third husband’s hunting shack.”

“Third?”

“Got the lineup from the kids, Otto and Mona. They’re a prize pair, by the way. Gotta revisit that.”

“Oh?”

“Just a gut. Problem is, both were thousands of clicks from Montreal in Alberta when Mama dropped off the radar. There’s no evidence of missing money. Still, I’m examining financials, looking for secret accounts, suspicious transfers or withdrawals, major debts, big purchases. Any flags over the past three months. Changes in routine, spending habits, income. It’s a long shot, but we’ve got no short ones. I’m also checking the possibility of nasty habits-addiction, gambling, the usual. Doing the same for the stepson, Myron Pinsker.”

“What about the three husbands?”

“Uri Keiser was numero uno. They married in ’fifty-eight, divorced in ’seventy-eight. He remarried in ’seventy-nine, moved to Brooklyn in ’eighty-two. Some bad blood there. Keiser’s been in New York ever since. Pinsker was next. Married in ’eighty-four, taken out by an aneurysm in ’ninety-six.”

“He’d be Myron Pinsker’s father?”

“Yeah. Named Myron, too. Why would you keep saddling kids with a tag like Myron? That a Jewish thing?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Hubby three was Samuel Adamski. Keiser married him in ’ninety-eight. Interesting sidebar, the guy was fourteen years younger than his bride. She was sixty-one. He was forty-seven.”

“Is Adamski still around?”

“Died in a boating accident in 2000. No tears there, at least not in Otto and Mona’s world. Keiser’s kids say the guy was a parasite and mean as a snake.”

“When Adamski bought the farm, Keiser added electricity and plumbing to the hunting shack. Kept the whole deal secret. Property’s still in Adamski’s name, so it never popped on the radar.”

“Her kids knew nothing about it? Her stepson?”

“Allegedly, no one did.”

“Except Lu.”

“Hard to believe, eh? Anyway, soon as Lu rolls on the shack, I haul ass to the country. Outside things look hunky-dory. Inside’s a different story.”

Claudel has a habit of rising up on his toes when he gets to the good part. He did that now. Descended.

“Interior’s one room with a sleeping loft in back. Left-hand corner, by a wood stove, the carpet, one wall, and a sofa are burned to shit. Also one body.”

I’d seen it before. A fire flames quickly, runs out of fuel, dies. One room can be toast, another undamaged.

“Where was the body?”

“Half on, half off the sofa.”

“You sure it’s Keiser?”

“Nah. My money’s on Hillary Clinton.”

I ignored the sarcasm. “You’ve told Keiser’s kids?”

Claudel nodded. “Neither suggested they’d be booking airline reservations soon. Pinsker’s on his way over here now.” The thin lips went thinner. “Unless we got us one hell of a coincidence, it’s Keiser.”

I thought of Rose Jurmain. Anne-Isabelle and Christelle Villejoin.

“Any reason to suspect foul play?”

“Gee, how about Granny’s pension checks turning up cashed? How about her purse being in a Dumpster a million miles from her crib? But there was no sign of forced entry, if that’s what you mean. The place wasn’t ransacked. No blood. The vic was fully clothed.”

“Any obvious trauma? A gunshot wound? A blow to the head?”

“I am a detective. Not a pathologist.”

Claudel’s arrogance often goads me over the edge. Given the day’s events, I was gripping the brink with my toes. But Claudel was right. My question was stupid.

That, too, made me cranky.

“Did you detect anything to suggest Keiser could have died elsewhere?”

“She was lying facedown. Contact with the floor preserved flesh on the chest and belly. Pooling looked right.”

Claudel referred to the third of death’s Triple Crown. Rigor mortis: stiffening in the muscles. Algor mortis: cooling of the tissues. Livor mortis: pooling on the “down” side.

Here’s livor, short and quick. When the heart stops beating and chasing the blood around, gravity causes the heavier red cells to sink through the lighter serum and settle in the dependent parts of the corpse. The result is a purplish red discoloration known as lividity, or livor mortis, on the body’s “down” side.

Like its colleagues, rigor and algor, livor works the clock, beginning twenty minutes to three hours after death and congealing in the capillaries in four to five. Maximum lividity usually occurs within six to twelve hours.