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”

Now the pause was of Claudel’s making.

“You’ve said the skeletons show no signs of violence.”

I ignored this. “As we both discovered”—pause to let Claudel know that I knew of his visit—“that building presently belongs to Richard Cyr. As I discovered, the previous owner was Nick Cataneo, and Cataneo’s period of ownership comes damn close to one of the Carbon 14 ranges.”

The silence that followed was long and hostile.

“You do realize the number of hits this may produce?”

I did.

“I’ll reexamine the bones to see if there’s anything else I might possibly help you with.

”

“That would be appropriate.”

Dial tone."

"Over many years I’d come to think of Claudel as obstinate and rigid, rather than outright loathing his attitude. This case was threatening a reversal in that trend.

Quick trip downstairs for coffee.

Quick call to Anne suggesting lunch.

As feared, she begged off.

I told her about the Carbon 14 results.

“You have at it with your bones, Tempe. I’ll just hang here.”

“OK, but let me know if you change your mind.

I’m flexible.”

When we’d disconnected, I cleared the two worktables and the side counter in the lab, and laid out each of the skeletons. I was examining the Dr. Energy girl’s tibia when Marc Bergeron appeared.

To say Bergeron is peculiar-looking is like saying fudge contains a wee bit of sugar. Standing six feet three, perpetually stooped, and weighing in on the downside of one sixty, Bergeron has all the grace and coordination of a wading stork.

Bergeron is Quebec’s forensic odontologist.

For thirty years he has drilled and filled the living Monday through Thursday, and examined the teeth of the dead each Friday.

We exchanged greetings. I expressed surprise at seeing Bergeron at the lab on a Thursday.

“Family wedding. Tomorrow I must be in Ottawa.”

Bergeron walked to the closet, freed a lab coat from a hanger, and slipped into it. The coat hung on him like a bedsheet on an unstuffed scarecrow.

“Who are these folks?” Bergeron flapped a hand at the skeletons.

“Found in the basement of a pizzeria.

”

“Reflection on the food?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Old?”

“All I know is that they died after 1950. Ideas?”

Bergeron adjusted his collar and fluffed his hair. It is extraordinary hair, white and frizzy, starting a mile north of his brows. Against all fashion logic, Bergeron lets it grow long enough to halo wildly around his head.

“Carbon 14 dates suggest death occurred either during the fifties or during the eighties and nineties.