"Allo. Bonjour" he said, tipping the brim of an invisible hat to the skeletons in the pit. Then he turned to me. "Or maybe I should say bone Iour, for you, lady"

I ignored the bilingual pun.

"Holy shit. Why shirts and socks and nothing else?"

I wasn't in the mood for a lecture.

"That's right," he sniggered, staring into the pit. "They made them go shoeless and carry their shoes. But where the fuck are their pants?"

"Ashes to ashes, remember?" I said curtly

"Shit to shit is more like it." His voice was tense with excitement, as though the scrambier had been ratcheted up.

I found his callousness irritating. Death hurts. It's as simple as that. It hurts those who die, it hurts those who love them, and it hurts those who find them.

"Actually, you've got it backward," I spat. "It's the shit that survives longest. Natural fibers, like cotton Levi's, decompose much sooner than synthetics. Your buddies were into polyester."

"Fuck, do they look gross. Anything else in there with them?" he asked, peering into the grave. His eyes glinted, like those of a rat sitting on a carcass.

"Bad decision about that party, eh?" he snorted.

Yes, I thought. A deadly decision.

I began cleaning the blade of my trowel, using activity to calm myself. Two bodies lay dead at our feet and this little rodent was getting high on it.

I turned to check if the photographers had finished and saw Quickwater walking in my direction.

Great. Make my day, I thought, hoping he was looking for someone else. He wasn't. I watched him approach with as much enthusiasm as I'd have for frostbite.

Quickwater drew close and drilled me with one of his looks, his face rigid as granite. He smelled of male sweat and pine, and I realized he'd worked throughout the afternoon, While others had taken breaks to check the progress at the main burial, Quickwater had stayed at his task. Maybe he just wanted to keep some distance between us. Fine with me.

"There's something you need to see.

There was a stillness about him I found unnerving. I waited for further explanation, but Quickwater merely turned and walked back toward his site, fully confident that I would follow.

Arrogant prick, I thought.

The trees were casting long shadows, and the temperature was falling by the minute. I looked at my watch. Almost six. The bologna and cheese seemed like prehistory.

This better be good, I thought.

I trudged across the cleared area to coordinates 3 North 9 East, the site of the disturbance to which Quickwater's team had been assigned. I was amazed to see they'd dug my entire grid.

The object of Quickwater's concern lay one meter down, left in place as I'd instructed. The team had excavated the rest of the square to a depth of two meters.

"That's it?"

Quickwater nodded.

"Nothing else?"

His expression did not change.

I looked around. They'd obviously been thorough. The screen still rested on its supports, flanked by cones of soggy earth. It looked as if they'd sifted every particle of dirt in the province. My eyes went back to the earthen pedestal and its macabre exhibit.

What they'd discovered made no sense at all.

I closed my eyes and listened to cows lowing softly in the distance. Somewhere life was calm, routine, and made sense.

When I raised my lids the bones were still there but made little sense. Dusk was closing in quickly robbing the landscape of detail, like a slow fade in an old-time movie. We wouldn't finish the recovery that day, so answers would need to wait.

I would not risk destroying evidence by blundering around in the dark. The burials had been here for some time, and they could stay in place a few more hours. We would remove the exposed remains from each grave, but that was all. The site would be secured and work would resume in the morning.

Quickwater was still watching me. I looked around but couldn't see Claudel.

"I need to talk to your partner," I said, turning back toward my site.

Quickwater held up a finger. Then he pulled a cell phone from his jacket, punched in a number, and handed it to me. Claudel answered almost immediately

"Where are you?"

"Behind a poplar. Should I have requested a bathroom pass?"

Stupid question, Brennan.

"Your partner didn't think two skeletons were enough so he found us a third."

"Sacre bleu!"

"Well, it's not exactly a skeleton. From what I can see, bachelor number three consists of a skull and a couple long bones."

"Where's the rest?"

"Very perceptive question, Detective Claudel. That's the source of some confusion on my part, as well."

"What do you want to do?"

"Let's get all the bones out, then shut it down until daylight. StBasile will have to seal off the property and post a watch at cach grave. It shouldn't be too hard to guard the place since it has tighter security than Los Alamos."

"The homeowners aren't going to be thrilled."

"Yeah, well, this isn't how I'd planned to spend my week, either."

It took less than an hour to bag the bones and dispatch them to the morgue. The grill and other physical evidence were tagged and sent to the crime lab. Then I covered the holes with plastic sheets and left them in the care of th.e St-Basile PD.

Predictably, Quickwater and I returned to town in silence. At home, I tried Ryan's number, but got no response.

"Why, Andy, why?" I whispered, as if he were there to hear me. "Please don't let this be true.

My evening consisted of a bath, a pizza, and early bed.

Dawn found us all reassembled at the Vipers' picnic ground. The creek still gurgled, the birds still griped, and once again I could see my breath on the morning air. Only two things were different.

Claudel had opted to remain in town to pursue other leads.

Overnight, word of the bodies had leaked to the media, and an invasion force greeted us on our arrival. Cars and vans lined the highway, and reporters assaulted us in English and French. Ignoring them in both languages, we rolled past the cameras and mikes, identified ourselves to the officer on guard, and slipped through the gates.

I reopened each grave and began where I'd left off, starting with the double burial. I excavated to a depth of six feet, but found only a few hand bones and another pair of boots.

I did the same with Quickwater's site, growing more baffled with each scoop of dirt. Aside from the skull and leg bones the pit was completely sterile. No jewelry or clothing remnants. No keys or plastic ID cards. Not a trace of hair or soft tissue. Additional GPR scans produced no evidence of other disturbances in the cleared area.

Another thing was eerie. Though the grave with the two skeletons had been rich with insect remnants, the one at 3 North 9 East produced not a single fossilized larva or pupa casing. I could see no explanation for the difference.

By five we'd refilled the holes and loaded my equipment into the crime scene van. I was tired, dirty, and confused, and the smell of death clung to my hair and clothes. All I wanted to do was go home and spend an hour with soap and water.

As Quickwater exited the gates, a TV crew surrounded the Jeep, refusing to allow us to pass. We slowed to a stop and a middle-aged man with lacquered hair and perfect teeth circled to my side and tapped on the glass. Behind him a cameraman trained his lens on my face.

Not in the mood for diplomacy, I lowered the window leaned out, and told them in graphic terms to clear the way. The camera light went on and the reporter began to pepper me with shotgun questions. I made suggestions as to places for storage of their liveeye equipment, and destinations they might enjoy. Then, rolling my eyes, I retracted my head and hit the button. Quickwater gunned the engine and we shot away. I turned to see the reporter standing in the road, microphone still clutched in his hand, his flawless features wide with surprise.