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    Deadly Decisions: A Novel
    Deadly Decisions: A Novel
    Deadly Decisions: A Novel
    Ebook433 pages6 hours

    Deadly Decisions: A Novel

    By Kathy Reichs

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    When innocent blood is spilled, forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan deciphers the shattering truth it holds in this exciting thriller from New York Times bestselling author Kathy Reichs.

    Nine-year-old Emily Anne Toussaint is fatally shot on a Montreal street. A North Carolina teenager disappears from her home, and parts of her skeleton are found hundreds of miles away. These shocking deaths propel Tempe Brennan from north to south, and deep into a shattering investigation inside the bizarre culture of outlaw motorcycle gangs—where one misstep could bring disaster for herself or someone she loves.

    From blood-splatter patterns and ground-penetrating radar to bone-sample analysis, Deadly Decisions triumphantly combines the authenticity of a world-class forensic professional with the narrative power of a brilliant crime-writing star.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherScribner
    Release dateAug 8, 2000
    ISBN9780743210775
    Author

    Kathy Reichs

    Kathy Reichs’s first novel Déjà Dead, published in 1997, won the Ellis Award for Best First Novel and was an international bestseller. Fire and Bones is Reichs’s twenty-third novel featuring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. Reichs was also a producer of Fox Television’s longest running scripted drama, Bones, which was based on her work and her novels. One of very few forensic anthropologists certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology, Reichs divides her time between Charlotte, North Carolina, and Charleston, South Carolina. Visit her at KathyReichs.com or follow her on Twitter @KathyReichs, Instagram @KathyReichs, or Facebook @KathyReichsBooks. 

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    Reviews for Deadly Decisions

    3.5/5

    783 ratings38 reviews

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    • 5/5
      9 years-old Emilie-Anne Toussaint is Fatally shot on a Montreal Street. A north Carolina teenager disappears from her home, and parts of her skeleton are found hundreds of miles away. The shocking deaths propel forensic anthropologist Tempe Brennan from north to south, and deep into a shattering investigation inside the bizarre culture of Outlaw motorcycle gangs - where one misstep could bring disaster for herself or someone she loves.
    • 4/5
      I'm really enjoying this series! This book was even better than the last.
    • 1/5
      I was not a fan of this book.. I enjoyed Reichs' second book in the series, Death Du Jour, because it had a great mystery to be solved and an interesting tension between Booth and Brennan. However this book had none of that. Deadly Decisions is bogged down with a lot of boring and painstaking details about the world of motorcycle gangs. It was so detailed, that it bored me to tears and kept me from wanting to continue on with the series.
    • 4/5
      Pretty good; this one features Tempe Brennan investigating motorcycle gang wars in Quebec, with tendrils stretching down to the American South. A mysterious skull needs a name and a home.I'm only a middling fan of these books. I like the TV series better. It's very funny to see how totally different the characters are.
    • 3/5
      Temperance Brennan, forensic anthropologist, is summoned back to Quebec because of a biker war which has resulted in several fatalities which only Tempe can identify. When a young bystander becomes a casualty as well, Tempe delves into the biker world to end the madness.
    • 3/5
      Deadly Decisions doesn't vary much from the pattern established in Reichs' first two Temperance Brennan novels. This one (again) features one of Brennan's friends/family in peril, and (again) teaches us much more about forensics than your average episode of CSI.This time the featured forensic topic was blood spatter. Five pages worth of lecture, which I have to admit that I didn't read. I skimmed until I found the conclusion: "so this means that the victim was beaten before he was shot?" I don't think my enjoyment of the book suffered for my laziness.The villains in Deadly Decisions are OMCs, Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs. Apparently there's a biker war in Montreal, and innocent bystanders are getting caught in the crossfire. Brennan volunteers for a multi-agency task force to address the problem, and as a result, she (and her readers) are treated to not one, but two lecture presentations about the history of OMCs in the U.S. and Canada. These presentations are complete with overhead and slide projectors. Like the blood spatter, the storyline would have made just as much sense even without such deep background. I realized the details were a severe distraction when I found myself putting down the book so I could construct an organization chart to keep track of all the parent clubs and puppet clubs.Maybe I'm just overly critical because this isn't my usual genre. Overall, it's a perfectly entertaining read. I just wish the surprises had been more... surprising.
    • 4/5
      Good mystery series. The forensic science is good, Temperance Brennan is a complex character, and it all fits together quite well.
    • 1/5
      Definitely worse than the first. I missed the second one because there is another book in a different series with the same name: Death Du Jour.IF Kathy Reichs is writing these books herself, she needs to pay more attention to the back story she has created in previous stories. IF she has hired a ghost writer, then that person needs to read the back story.If every book begins with her having problems with Claudel and every book ends with the two of them on good footing, something is happening that we are hearing about.Anyway, I'll keep reading them, simply because I am a masochistic person with OCRD (obsessive, complulsive, reading disorder), not because they are really worth anyone's time to read.
    • 4/5
      Dr. Brennan is back at it again, this time digging up skeletons and secrets of Montreal's rough 'n rowdy outlaw motorcycle clubs. Complicating matters is Andrew Ryan's apparent sudden turn to the dark side and a visit from Brennan's bike-loving nephew.Another solid mystery. However, at this point, Brennan has run out of family members to get in the middle of her investigation, so hopefully the next book will adopt a different formula.
    • 4/5
      Really liked the biker theme. Some plot twists were quite interesting.
    • 3/5
      PLOT OR PREMISE:In this third installment in the Dr. Temperance Brennan series, there are biker gangs in Montreal, and they are killing each other. Most of it happens in Montreal, which is an improvement over the bopping around in previous books..WHAT I LIKED:The story is interesting, and Reichs is still above average..WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE:Some of the characters are fast becoming clichés. And if you don't figure out a sub-plot (spoiler alert!) about her love interest being a dirty cop, you need to take Mystery Fiction 101 again. Temperance also gets to play Mommy again, this time to a nephew, but it isn't particularly exciting. More of a Scarpetta rip-off. Again, too, Reichs plays fast and loose with a couple of clues that make Brennan look like an idiot to any intelligent reader and really detracts from the story. The final ending is almost surreal, and reads more like a script for an action TV-series than reliable fiction..BOTTOM-LINE:Not up to the standards of the first book.DISCLOSURE:I received no compensation, not even a free copy, in exchange for this review. I am not personal friends with the author, nor do I follow her on social media.
    • 3/5
      Tempe Brennan, a forensic anthropologist, splits time between North Carolina and Montreal. She has been assigned as liaison to Operation Carcajou, a task force on criminal activities of motorcycle gangs.The setting for the story occurs mainly in the Canadian spring " when the thaw offers up the dead, hidden by the snows of a long winter". Two skeletons are found as well as the skull and leg bones of a teen whose body had been lain to rest in North Carolina in 1984. The mystery facing Tempe is to determine how the skull ended up in Montreal and what is the connection to the skeletons of the two motorcycle gang members buried with it.

      The story is a bit predictable. One thing that irritated me a bit was Tempe's knack for doing stupid things under pressure. This makes her look weak at critical moments, and introduces plot elements that are not really necessary. Yet, even with these flaws, this is a good read.
    • 3/5
      For someone so "smart" Tempe Brennan sure does some dumb things. Running into the line of fire, blatantly ignoring directives from seasoned detectives, going to biker bars alone at night, etc. The plotting in these books would be pretty good if the author didn't continually have her heroine behave in such an idiotic way in order to create suspense or reveal important plot threads. I also do not appreciate that some member of Tempe's family or a close friend is always somehow involved with the criminals and of course is put in danger. There are way too many coincidental happenings as well. Tempe must "happen" to know someone in every law enforcement agency or field on the continent. However, I enjoyed the technical details about crime solving that were imparted in such a way that they fit into the story. I liked the fact that there was less unexplained/untranslated French in this book than the last two. I learned quite a lot about Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs, which was interesting. Even though every chapter ends on a (heavy-handed) cliffhanger (seriously, I find myself going "da-da-DAAH" in my head, you know, the melodramatic sound effect?), I had absolutely no trouble putting the book down and going to sleep. Maybe that's why it took me 13 days to read 300 pages. (Usually I read 90-100 pages per day.) Also: If you're looking for books about the "Bones" TV show, you will be disappointed. I already knew that, but I still find myself disappointed. I guess I expected better.
    • 1/5
      first and last of reichs books that i've read. it was written well but the so called heroine was an dumb noodle! i wanted to kick her into reallity! i got so angry i swore to myself i will never read another book of hers. and so far i haven't but am willing to give her another try, i love forensics and crime mystyeries. i am open for suggestions.
    • 3/5
      Really good once you get into it, it was a little predictable however.
    • 3/5
      Didn't enjoy this one as much as the first two.I quickly lost interest in the 'biker' theme and towards the end of the book I had lost track of the nicknames of the various biker groups and who was supposed to be shooting who. Ryan was missing for all but a tiny mention in the book, and I found that very disappointing.I hope the next one in the series has Kathy Reichs returning to her old form.
    • 4/5
      Deadly Decisions - Kathy Reichs (7/10)Another good, solid entry in Reichs' series, atlhough bikers aren't my totally favourite subject.
    • 3/5
      This is the third in the series of Temperance Brennan books (and this is probably my third or fourth reread of it). The problem I've been finding with rereading these books is that I know what happens at the end. Normally this isn't a problem with a book. In fact, the books that I regularly reread (like Lord of the Rings, the Harry Potter books and The Time Traveler's Wife) are because I know what happens. It's like a comfort blanket, or going to visit a favourite holiday spot. You don't have to think so hard, sometimes you do spot something which you've never seen before, but mostly it's just retreading old ground.When you're reading crime novels, mysteries, thrillers, whodunnits, whatever, for the first time, you've got all the build up to find out what the twist in the end will be. When you're rreading them, you already know what's happened. Or worse, you remember bits of what happened, you remember who did it, but not how or something like that.I always find that rereading books like this makes me read them slower. There's not the sense of urgency to figure it out, and you know more-or-less how it's going to end. I've noticed with my reread of the Kathy Reichs books it's taken me a bit longer than it normally would (when I first got them I read one a day for three days, then went back to Waterstones to buy the next three).With this one, I couldn't remember as much of the story, so I think that made it a little easier to read. I remembered things that would happen, but I didn't remember when or why, so that bit kind of surprised me. I couldn't remember exactly why the murders were committed, so again, that spurred me on. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the series a bit more now because I was worried that I wasn't enjoying them as much as I did in past.I do have to admit that I do find myself skim reading some sections, the bits which detail things like blood spatter analysis (which having read this book once, and watched numerous episodes of CSI and the like, I pretty much get when they start talking about it). I'm sure that's just me, I like that I can read it, without having to read it really really closely, so I get the jist of what's being said there. Kathy Reichs has a habit of going into massive detail on things, which probably could have been more glossed over without spoiling the story at all.The book did have some good, funny little one liners as well. That's something which Kathy Reichs does well, little comments which Tempe is thinking to herself and things. They're usually similar to the sorts of things I think myself, so I guess I can relate there.
    • 5/5
      Read this in 2011 after finding 3 of Reichs books at a thrift and buying then reading out of sequence I relized I had to read them all in order! I just love Kathy Reichs books! I have never read so many books in so little time all 13 in 5 months time. I know that is nothing for some people but for me its amazing.
    • 3/5
      Reichs third novel starring forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan. When a biker gang war turns violent Brennan is called in. A biker clubhouse excavation uncovers the bones of two men, and nearby, a partial skeleton of a young girl. Brennan's teenage nephew Kit comes to visit and is interested in Harley-Davidsons and their riders, and she worries that he is involved with the biker gangs. The first book I have read in this series - started off a bit slow and there was much forensic detail, and some unnecessary and silly scenes, but an okay read.
    • 4/5
      I truely enjoy Kathy Reichs engaging and interesting novels. I have a vested interest in both archaeology and in the forensic sciences and always have done. This book hit home in many ways. The insightful interactions of the biker gangs and thier rituals, how self worth and loyalty are often traded like cards in order to get higher up in the ranks of bikerdom. Very very good book.
    • 3/5
      Dr. Temperance Brennan is called back to Quebec from FBI headquarters after a biker war starts and two foot soldiers have blown themselves up. When the body of a nine-year-old girl is wheeled into the morgue--slain in biker crossfire--Tempe vows to lend her skills to fight this evil, and enters the dark underworld of the bikers.The story drags a little because Reichs records every minute detail of Tempe's day to day life, but it's an interesting story, especially the parts about the forensics.
    • 4/5
      Played both on the private and investigative side, I found some intersting topics in this book: hoe Tempe deals with her unpredictable and money pampered nephew and how the forensic antropology can study things in different ways: the blood spatters could be as boaring as interesting, personally I loved the subject. Another amazing thing is her relationship with the always present/absent collegue/friend/lover Andrew Rayan, sometimes more in her thougths, but always there when needed. Does a love like that really exist?
    • 4/5
      It's a beautiful spring day and in the quiet woods of the FBI's headquarters at Quantico, forensic anthropologist, Dr. Temperance Brennan, is teaching a body recovery course when she is urgently called back to Quebec. A gruesome duty awaits her: a biker war is raging and two of the foot soldiers have blown themselves up. The only person qualified to make sense of what remains is Tempe. When the body of a nine-year-old girl is wheeled into the morgue - slain in biker crossfire - Tempe vows to lend her skills to fight this evil, and enters the dark underworld of the bikers.
    • 4/5
      This series continues to appeal to me. The explanations are never too heavy handed, and Brennen is always in the wrong place at the right time and it makes her a bit more real even in the unlikeliness of it all. I think the best part though, is I feel like the author's pacing and general story development meshes insanely well with my reading style. I can almost feel every twist as it comes and it makes the whole read far more entertaining.
    • 5/5
      This book show all typical Tempe qualities. It is well written. However, the story combine the Biker War in Montreal with all background questions, like drugs and murders, in combination with familiar problems. It shows how easy it is to find the way to the wrong side and how difficult it is to find the way out of it.
    • 4/5
      Another page turner in the Temperence Brennan series. Slightly more gore than in the last one, so not for the faint hearted.
    • 3/5
      A nine-year-old girl is killed in the cross-fire of a motorcycle gang war and Tempe volunteers to help, but things get very complicated when her nephew comes for a visit with his new-found love for all things Harley Davidson. My main attraction to this series is the forensic information that is given and this installment is no exception; there is an inordinate amount of details pertaining to forensic and police work and to the biker world. It worked for me because I have a special interest, but if you're looking for a standard whodunit or procedural mystery, you will get a severe case of information overload. Also, there's the main-character-acts-stupid-and-gets-in-trouble bit that I have a problem with, especially since, in this case, it's only to let the reader know one piece of information which we easily could have figured out for ourselves. Good read if you want the scientific bit, rather poor read if you don't.
    • 5/5
      An excellent, excellent book. I hope this writer keeps going with Temperence Brennan and Andrew Ryan. This book takes you into the world of bikers and their wars, revenges and deaths. Temperence and her visiting nephew Kit are drawn into deadly danger while Ryan has disappeared from the scene on suspicion of being 'dirty'. And why is the reporter Lyle Crease involved? All becomes clear as the story pace increases to its climax. The aftermath of a bloodbath at a bikers funeral leaves Kit in hospital and Brennan lucky not to be with him. Monsieur Claudel once again has to acknowledge Ms Brennans contribution to the case and requests their continuing team work. This is unputdownable and superb reading.
    • 3/5
      It's definitely getting better, but still kind of cheesy/predictable. Are all crime novels/series like this?

    Book preview

    Deadly Decisions - Kathy Reichs

    HER NAME WAS EMILY ANNE. SHE WAS NINE YEARS OLD, WITH black ringlets, long lashes, and caramel-colored skin. Her ears were pierced with tiny gold loops. Her forehead was pierced by two slugs from a Cobra 9-mm semiautomatic.

    •    •    •

    It was a Saturday, and I was working by special request of my boss, Pierre LaManche. I’d been at the lab for four hours, sorting badly mangled tissue, when the door to the large autopsy room opened and Sergeant-Detective Luc Claudel came striding in.

    Claudel and I had worked together in the past, and though he’d come to tolerate, perhaps even appreciate me, one would not infer that from his brusque manner.

    Where’s LaManche? he demanded, glancing at the gurney in front of me, then quickly away.

    I said nothing. When Claudel was in one of his moods, I ignored him.

    Has Dr. LaManche arrived? The detective avoided looking at my greasy gloves.

    It’s Saturday, Monsieur Claudel. He doesn’t wo—

    At that moment Michel Charbonneau stuck his head into the room. Through the opening I could hear the whir and clank of the electric door at the back of the building.

    Le cadavre est arrivé, Charbonneau told his partner.

    What cadaver? Why were two homicide detectives at the morgue on a Saturday afternoon?

    Charbonneau greeted me in English. He was a large man, with spiky hair that resembled a hedgehog’s.

    Hey, Doc.

    What’s going on? I asked, pulling off my gloves and lowering my mask.

    Claudel answered, his face tense, his eyes cheerless in the harsh fluorescent light.

    Dr. LaManche will be here shortly. He can explain.

    Already sweat glistened on his forehead, and his mouth was compressed into a thin, tight line. Claudel detested autopsies and avoided the morgue as much as possible. Without another word he pulled the door wide and brushed past his partner. Charbonneau watched him walk down the corridor, then turned back to me.

    This is hard for him. He has kids.

    Kids? I felt something cold in my chest.

    The Heathens struck this morning. Ever hear of Richard Marcotte?

    The name was vaguely familiar.

    "Maybe you know him as Araignée. Spider. He curled his fingers like a child doing the waterspout rhyme. Great guy. And an elected official in the outlaw biker set. Spider is the Vipers sergeant at arms, but he had a real bad day today. When he set out for the gym around eight this morning the Heathens blasted him in a drive-by while his ole lady dove for cover in a lilac bush."

    Charbonneau ran a hand backward through his hair, swallowed.

    I waited.

    In the process they also killed a child.

    Oh, God. My fingers tightened around the gloves.

    A little girl. They took her to the Montréal Children’s Hospital, but she didn’t make it. They’re bringing her here now. Marcotte was DOA. He’s out back.

    LaManche is coming in?

    Charbonneau nodded.

    The five pathologists at the lab take turns being on call. Rarely does it happen, but if an off-hours autopsy or visit to a death scene is deemed necessary, someone is always available. Today that was LaManche.

    A child. I could feel the familiar surge of emotions and needed to get away.

    My watch said twelve-forty. I tore off my plastic apron, balled it together with the mask and latex gloves, and threw everything into a biological waste container. Then I washed my hands and rode the elevator to the twelfth floor.

    I don’t know how long I sat in my office, staring at the St. Lawrence and ignoring my carton of yogurt. At one point I thought I heard LaManche’s door, then the swish of the glass security doors that separate portions of our wing.

    Being a forensic anthropologist, I’ve developed some immunity to violent death. Since the medical examiner turns to me to derive information from the bones of the mutilated, burned, or decomposed, I’ve seen the worst. My workplaces are the morgue and autopsy room, so I know how a corpse looks and smells, how it feels when handled or cut with a scalpel. I’m accustomed to bloody clothing drying on racks, to the sound of a Stryker saw cutting through bone, to the sight of organs floating in numbered specimen jars.

    But I have always been unsettled by the sight of dead children. The shaken baby, the battered toddler, the emaciated child of religious zealots, the preteen victim of a violent pedophile. The violation of young innocents has never failed to agitate and distress me.

    Not long ago I had worked a case involving infants, twin boys killed and mutilated. It had been one of the most difficult encounters of my career, and I didn’t want to reboard that emotional merry-go-round.

    Then again that case had been a source of satisfaction. When the fanatic responsible was locked up and could order no more executions, I felt a genuine sense of having accomplished something good.

    I peeled back the cover and stirred the yogurt.

    Images of those babies hovered in my mind. I remembered my feelings in the morgue that day, the flashbacks to my infant daughter.

    Dear God, why such insanity? The mutilated men I had left downstairs had also died as a result of the current biker war.

    Don’t get despondent, Brennan. Get angry. Get coldly, resolutely angry. Then apply your science to help nail the bastards.

    Yep, I agreed with myself aloud.

    I finished the yogurt, drained my drink, and headed downstairs.

    •    •    •

    Charbonneau was in the anteroom of one of the small autopsy suites, flipping pages in a spiral notebook. His large frame overflowed a vinyl chair opposite the desk. Claudel was nowhere to be seen.

    What’s her name? I asked.

    Emily Anne Toussaint. She was on her way to dance class.

    Where?

    Verdun. He tipped his head toward the adjoining room. LaManche has begun the post.

    I slipped past the detective into the autopsy room.

    A photographer was taking pictures while the pathologist made notes and shot Polaroid backups.

    I watched LaManche grasp a camera by its side handles, then raise and lower it above the body. As the lens moved in and out of focus a small dot blurred then condensed over one of the wounds in the child’s forehead. When the perimeter of the dot grew sharp, LaManche depressed the shutter release. A white square slid out and he pulled it free and added it to a collection on the side counter.

    Emily Anne’s body bore evidence of the intensive effort to save her life. Her head was partly bandaged, but I could see a clear tube protruding from her scalp, inserted to monitor intracranial pressure. An endotracheal tube ran down her throat and into her trachea and esophagus, placed in order to oxygenate the lungs and to block regurgitation from the stomach. Catheters for IV infusion remained in her subclavian, inguinal, and femoral vessels, and the circular white patches for EKG electrodes were still pasted to her chest.

    Such a frantic intervention, almost like an assault. I closed my eyes and felt tears burn the backs of my lids.

    I dragged my eyes back to the small body. Emily Anne wore nothing but a plastic hospital bracelet. Next to her lay a pale green hospital gown, bundled clothing, a pink backpack, and a pair of high-top red sneakers.

    The harsh fluorescent light. The shining steel and tile. The cold, sterile surgical instruments. A little girl did not belong here.

    When I looked up, LaManche’s sad eyes met mine. Though neither of us made reference to what lay on the stainless steel, I knew his thoughts. Another child. Another autopsy in this same room.

    Putting a choke hold on my emotions, I described the progress I was making with my own cases, reassembling the corpses of two bikers who’d been blown apart by their own folly, and asked when antemortem medical records would be available. LaManche told me that the files had been requested and should arrive on Monday.

    I thanked him and went to resume my own grim task. As I sorted tissue, I remembered my previous day’s conversation with LaManche, and wished I were still in the Virginia woods. Was it only yesterday LaManche had called me there? Emily Anne was alive then.

    So much can change in twenty-four hours.

    THE DAY BEFORE I HAD BEEN IN QUANTICO TEACHING A BODY recovery workshop at the FBI Academy. My team of evidence recovery technicians was unearthing and mapping its skeleton when I looked up to see a special agent approaching through the trees. He reported that a Dr. LaManche urgently wished to speak to me. Feeling uneasy, I left my team and started out of the woods.

    As I threaded my way toward the road, I thought about LaManche and the news his call might bring. I began consulting for the Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale after going to Montreal in the early nineties as part of a faculty exchange between McGill and my home university in Charlotte. Knowing I was certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology, LaManche had been curious as to whether I could be of any use to him.

    Quebec Province had a centralized coroner system, with sophisticated crime and medico-legal labs, but no board-certified forensic anthropologist. Then, as now, I served as consultant to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in North Carolina, and LaManche wanted me for the LSJML. The ministry funded an anthropology lab, and I enrolled in an immersion course in French. For more than a decade now, the skeletonized, decomposed, mummified, burned, or mutilated cadavers of Quebec Province have come to me for analysis and identification. When a conventional autopsy is of no use, I tease what I can from the bones.

    Rarely had LaManche left me a message marked urgent. When he had, it had never been good.

    Within minutes I crossed to a van parked on the side of a gravel road. I released my hair and ran my fingers backward across my scalp.

    No ticks.

    After reclipping the barrette, I dug my pack from the back of the van and fished out my cell phone. The tiny screen told me I had missed three calls. I punched up the list of numbers. All three had come from the lab.

    I tried dialing, but the signal cut in and out. That’s why I’d left the phone in the van. Damn. Though my French had become fluent over the past ten years, background noise and bad connections often caused me problems. Between the language exchange and the weak signal, I’d never get the message straight on this phone. I had to hike down to headquarters.

    I unzipped my Tyvek jumpsuit and threw it in a box in the back of the van. Slinging my pack over my shoulder, I headed downhill.

    High above the trees a hawk circled some falconid target. The sky was a brilliant blue, with randomly spaced cotton puff clouds drifting leisurely. The course is usually held in May, and we’d worried that this year’s April scheduling might mean rain or cooler temperatures. No problem. The mercury was in the high seventies.

    As I walked, I took in the sounds around me. My boots crunching on gravel. Birdsong. The whumping of helicopter blades low overhead. The pop of distant gunfire. The FBI shares Quantico with other federal police agencies and with the Marine Corps, and the activity is constant and very earnest.

    The gravel road met blacktop at Hogan’s Alley, just below the simulated town square used by the FBI, DEA, ATF, and others. I skirted far to the left to avoid intruding on a hostage rescue exercise and turned right on Hoover Road downhill to the closest module of a concrete complex of gray and tan with antennae jutting from the highest roofs like new shoots in an old hedge. Crossing a small parking area to the Forensic Science Research and Training Center, I rang a bell at the loading dock.

    A side door parted and a man’s face appeared in the crack. Though young, he was completely bald, and looked as if he’d been that way for some time.

    Finishing early?

    No. I need to call my lab.

    You can use my office.

    Thanks, Craig. I’ll only be a minute. I hope.

    I’m checking equipment, so take your time.

    The academy is often compared to a hamster cage because of the labyrinth of tunnels and corridors connecting its various buildings. But the upper floors are nothing compared with the maze below.

    We wound our way through an area stacked with crates and cardboard boxes, old computer screens, and metal equipment trunks, down one corridor, then along two others to an office barely large enough to hold a desk, chair, filing cabinet, and bookshelf. Craig Beacham worked for the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, NCAVC, one of the major components of the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group, CIRG. For a time the entity had been called the Child Abduction and Serial Killer Unit, CASKU, but had recently reverted to the original name. Since the training of evidence recovery technicians, or ERT’s, is one of the functions of NCAVC, it is this unit that organizes the annual course.

    When dealing with the FBI, one must be alphabet savvy.

    Craig gathered folders from his desk and stacked them on the cabinet.

    At least that will give you some space to take notes. Do you need to close the door?

    No, thanks. I’m fine.

    My host nodded, then disappeared down the hall.

    I took a deep breath, made a mental shift to French, and dialed.

    Bonjour, Temperance. Only LaManche and the priest who baptized me have ever used the formal version. The rest of the world calls me Tempe. Comment ça va?

    I told him I was fine.

    Thank you for calling back. I fear we have a grisly situation up here and I am going to need your help.

    Oui? Grisly? LaManche was not prone to overstatement.

    "Les motards. Two more are dead."

    Les motards. Bikers. For more than a decade rival outlaw motorcycle gangs had been battling for control of the drug trade in Quebec. I’d worked on several motard cases, gunshot victims who had also been burned beyond recognition.

    Oui?

    So far, this is what the police have reconstructed. Last night three members of the Heathens drove to the Vipers’ clubhouse with a powerful homemade bomb. The Viper working the surveillance cameras spotted a pair approaching with a large bundle between them. He took a shot and the bomb exploded. LaManche paused. The driver is in the hospital in critical condition. For the other two, the largest portion of tissue recovered weighs nine pounds.

    Ouch.

    Temperance, I’ve been trying to get in touch with Constable Martin Quickwater. He’s there in Quantico, but he’s been in a case-review meeting all day.

    Quickwater? It was not a typical québécois name.

    He’s Native. Cree, I think.

    Is he with Carcajou?

    Opération Carcajou is a multijurisdictional task force created to investigate criminal activities among outlaw motorcycle gangs in the province.

    Oui.

    What would you like me to do?

    Please tell Constable Quickwater what I have told you, and have him contact me. Then I would like you to come here as quickly as possible. We may have difficulty with these identifications.

    Have they recovered printable digits or dental fragments?

    No. And it is not likely.

    DNA?

    There may be problems with that. The situation is complicated and I would rather not discuss it by phone. Is it possible for you to return earlier than you had planned?

    Following my normal pattern, I’d wrapped up the spring term at UNC-Charlotte in time to teach the FBI course. Now I only had to read the final exams. I’d been looking forward to a brief stay with friends in D.C. before flying to Montreal for the summer. The visit would have to wait.

    I’ll be there tomorrow.

    Merci.

    He continued in his very precise French, either sadness or fatigue deepening the timbre of his rich, bass voice.

    This does not look good, Temperance. The Heathens will undoubtedly retaliate. Then the Vipers will draw more blood. I heard him pull a long breath, then exhale slowly. I fear the situation is escalating to full-scale war in which innocents may perish.

    We hung up and I called US Airways to arrange for a morning flight. As I was replacing the receiver Craig Beacham appeared in the doorway. I explained about Quickwater.

    Constable?

    He’s RCMP. Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Or GRC if you prefer French. Gendarmerie royale du Canada.

    Um. Huh.

    Craig punched in a number and asked about the constable’s whereabouts. After a pause he jotted something down and hung up.

    Your guy’s in a major case management session in one of the conference rooms down here. He offered the number he’d written, then gave me directions. Just slide in and take a seat. They’ll probably break at three.

    I thanked him, and wormed my way through the halls until I’d located the room. Muffled voices came through the closed door.

    My watch said two-twenty. I turned the knob and slipped in.

    The room was dark save for the beam of a projector and the apricot glow of an illuminated slide. I could make out half a dozen figures seated around a central table. Some heads turned in my direction as I eased into a chair against the side wall. Most eyes stayed fixed on the screen.

    For the next thirty minutes I saw LaManche’s premonition brought to life in horrifying detail. A bombed-out bungalow, tissue spattered on the walls, body parts strewn across the lawn. A female torso, face a red mass, skull bones mushroomed by a shotgun blast. The blackened chassis of a sports utility vehicle, one charred hand dangling from a rear window.

    A man seated to the right of the projector commented about biker gang wars in Chicago as he clicked through the presentation. The voice was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t make out the features.

    More shootings. Explosions. Stabbings. Now and then I scanned the silhouettes around the table. Only one had hair that was not closely cropped.

    Finally, the screen blazed white. The projector hummed and dust motes floated in its beam. Chairs squeaked as their occupants stretched and reoriented toward one another.

    The speaker rose and crossed to the wall. When the overhead lights came on I recognized him as Special Agent Frank Tulio, a graduate of the recovery course from years back. He spotted me, and a smile spread across his face.

    Tempe. How’s it hanging?

    Everything about Frank was precise, from his razor-cut gray hair, to his compact body, to his immaculate Italian-made shoes. Unlike the rest of us, throughout the bug and body exercises Frank had remained perpetually well groomed.

    Can’t complain. Are you still with the Chicago office?

    Up until last year. I’m here now, assigned to CIRG.

    Every eye was focused on us, and I was suddenly conscious of my current state of cleanliness and coiffure. Frank turned to his colleagues.

    Does everyone know the great bone doctor?

    As Frank made introductions, those around the table smiled and nodded. Some I recognized, others I did not. One or two made jokes about past episodes in which I’d played a role.

    Two of those present were not affiliated with the academy. The fuller hair I’d spotted belonged to Kate Brophy, supervisor of the Intelligence Unit of North Carolina’s State Bureau of Investigation. Kate had been the SBI’s expert on outlaw motorcycle gangs for as long as I could remember. We’d met in the early eighties when the Outlaws and Hells Angels were at war in the Carolinas. I’d identified two of the victims.

    At the far end of the table a young woman typed on what looked like a stenotype machine. Next to her Martin Quickwater sat behind a laptop computer. His face was broad, with high cheekbones, and eyebrows that angled up at the ends. His skin was the color of fired brick.

    I’m sure you two foreigners know each other, said Frank.

    Actually, we don’t, I said. But that’s why I’m intruding. I need to speak to Constable Quickwater.

    Quickwater graced me with approximately five seconds of attention, then his eyes went back to his computer screen.

    Good timing. We’re ready for a break. Frank looked at his watch, then crossed back to click off the projector. Let’s get some caffeine and regroup at three-thirty.

    As the agents filed past me one of the members of NCAVC made an exaggerated show of squaring his fingers and peering through, as though focusing on me through a viewfinder. We’d been friends a decade and I knew what was coming.

    Nice do, Brennan. Do you get a deal from your lawn man? Hedges and hair trims, one price?

    Some of us do real work, Agent Stoneham.

    He moved on, laughing.

    When only Quickwater and I were left, I smiled and began a fuller introduction.

    I know who you are, said Quickwater in softly accented English.

    His abruptness surprised me, and I fought back an equally impolite rejoinder. Perhaps being sweaty and uncombed had made me touchy.

    When I explained that LaManche had been trying to reach him, Quickwater slipped his pager from his belt, checked the screen, then tapped it hard against his hand. Shaking his head and sighing, he reattached the device to his waistband.

    Batteries, he said.

    The constable watched me intently as I repeated what LaManche had said. His eyes were so deeply brown it was impossible to see a boundary between pupil and iris. When I’d finished, he nodded, then turned and left the room.

    I stood a moment, wondering at the man’s odd demeanor. Terrific. I not only had two vaporized bikers to piece together, I now had Constable Congenial as an associate.

    I picked up my pack and headed back to the woods.

    No problem, Mr. Quickwater. I’ve cracked tougher nuts than you.

    THE TRIP TO MONTREAL WAS UNEVENTFUL, EXCEPT FOR AN OVERT snub by Martin Quickwater. Though we were on the same flight, he did not speak to me or move to one of the empty seats in my row. We nodded at Washington-Reagan, then again as we waited in the customs line at Montreal’s Dorval. His coolness suited me. I really didn’t want to deal with the man.

    I took a taxi to my condo in Centreville, offloaded luggage, and zapped a frozen burrito. My old Mazda turned over after three tries, and I headed to the city’s east side.

    For years the forensic lab had been located on the fifth floor of a structure known as the SQ building. The provincial police, or Sûreté du Québec, had the rest of the floors, except for my office and a detention center on the twelfth and thirteenth. The morgue and autopsy rooms were in the basement.

    The Quebec government had recently spent millions to renovate the building. The jail was relocated, and the medico-legal and crime labs now sprawled throughout the top two floors. It had been months since the move, but I still couldn’t believe the change. My new office had a spectacular view of the St. Lawrence River, and my lab was first-rate.

    At three-thirty on Friday the normal weekday hustle and bustle were beginning to taper off. One by one doors were closing, and the army of lab-coated scientists and technicians was dwindling.

    I unlocked my office and hung my jacket on the wooden hall tree. Three white forms lay on my desk. I selected the one with LaManche’s signature.

    The Demande d’Expertise en Anthropologie is often my first introduction to a case. Filled out by the requesting pathologist, it provides data critical to tracking a file.

    My eyes drifted down the right-hand column. Lab number. Morgue number. Police incident number. Clinical and efficient. The body is tagged and archived until the wheels of justice have run their course.

    I shifted to the left column. Pathologist. Coroner. Investigating officer. Violent death is the final intrusion, and those who investigate it are the ultimate voyeurs. Though I participate, I am never comfortable with the indifference with which the system approaches the deceased and the death investigation. Even though a sense of detachment is a must to maintain emotional equilibrium, I always have the feeling that the victim deserves something more passionate, more personal.

    I scanned the summary of known facts. It differed from LaManche’s telephone account in only one respect. To date, two hundred and fifteen remnants of flesh and bone had been recovered. The largest weighed eleven pounds.

    Ignoring the other forms and a stack of phone messages, I went to find the director.

    I’d rarely seen Pierre LaManche in anything but lab-coat white or surgical green. I couldn’t imagine him laughing or wearing plaid. He was somber and kind, and strictly tweed. And the best forensic pathologist I knew.

    I spotted him through the rectangle of glass beside his office door. His rangy form was hunched over a desk heaped with papers, journals, books, and a stack of files in all the primary colors. When I tapped he looked up and gestured me in.

    The office, like its occupant, smelled faintly of pipe tobacco. LaManche had a manner of moving silently, and sometimes the scent was my first clue to his presence.

    Temperance. He accented the final syllable and made it rhyme with France. Thank you so much for returning early. Please, sit down.

    Always the perfect French, with never a contraction or word of slang.

    We took places at a small table in front of his desk. On it lay a number of large brown envelopes.

    I know it is too late to begin analysis now, but perhaps you are willing to come in tomorrow?

    The face was army mule long with deep, vertical creases. When he raised his brows in a question, the furrows paralleling his eyes elongated and veered toward the midline.

    Yes. Of course.

    You might want to begin with the X rays.

    He indicated the envelopes, then swiveled to his desk.

    And here are the scene and autopsy photos. He handed me a stack of smaller brown envelopes and a videocassette.

    The two bikers carrying the bomb to the Vipers’ clubhouse were pulverized, their remains scattered over an enormous area. A lot of what the recovery team is finding is stuck to walls and caught in bushes and tree branches. Amazingly, the largest fragments retrieved so far have come from the clubhouse roof. One chunk of thorax has a partial tattoo that will be useful for establishing identity.

    What about the driver?

    He died in the hospital this morning.

    The shooter?

    He is in custody, but these people are never helpful. He will go to jail rather than give anything to the police.

    Even information about a rival gang?

    If he talks, he is probably a dead man.

    Are there still no dentals or prints?

    Nothing.

    LaManche ran a hand over his face, raised and lowered his shoulders, then laced his fingers in his lap.

    I fear we will never get all the tissue sorted out.

    Can’t we use DNA?

    Have you heard the names Ronald and Donald Vaillancourt?

    I shook my head.

    The Vaillancourt brothers, Le Clic and Le Clac. Both are full patch members of the Heathens. One was implicated a few years back in the execution of Claude ‘Le Couteau’ Dubé. I don’t remember which.

    The police think the Vaillancourts are the victims?

    Yes.

    The melancholy eyes looked into mine.

    Clic and Clac are identical twins.

    •    •    •

    By seven that evening I’d examined everything but the video. Using a magnifier I’d gone over scores of photos showing hundreds of bone fragments and bloody masses of varying shapes and sizes. In shot after shot arrows pointed to red and yellow globs lying in grass, entangled in branches, and flattened against cinder blocks, broken glass, tar-paper roofing, and corrugated metal.

    The remains had arrived at the morgue in

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