Déjà Dead by Kathy Reichs Read Free Book Online Page A

correct it. I had to do that on my own. Occasionally I overcompensated, and many found me a genuine pain in the ass. This had not been the case with Claudel. I realized I’d been avoiding a confrontation.
    I took a deep breath and began, choosing my words carefully.
    “Monsieur Claudel, have you considered the possibility that this murder is connected to others that have taken place during the past two years?”
    His features froze, the lips drawn in so tightly against his teeth as to be almost invisible. A cloud of red began at his collar and spread slowly up his neck and face. His voice was icy.
    “Such as?” He held himself absolutely still.
    “Such as Chantale Trottier,” I continued. “She was killed in October of ’93. Dismembered, decapitated, disemboweled.” I looked directly at him. “What was left of her was found wrapped in plastic trash bags.”
    He raised both hands to the level of his mouth, clasped them together, fingers intertwined, and tapped them against his lips. His perfectly chosen gold cuff links, in his perfectly fitted designer shirt, clinked faintly. He looked straight at me.
    “Ms. Brennan,” he said, emphasizing the English label. “Perhaps you should stick to your area of expertise. I think we would recognize any links which might exist between crimes under our jurisdiction. These murders share nothing in common.”
    Ignoring the demotion, I forged on. “They were both women. They were both murdered within the past year. Both bodies showed signs of mutilation or attempt—”
    His carefully constructed dam of control ruptured, and his anger rushed at me in a torrent.
    “
Tabernac!
” he exploded. “Do you wo—”
    His lips pursed to form the despised word, but he stopped himself just in time. With a visible effort, he regained his composure.
    “Do you always have to overreact?”
    “Think about it,” I spat at him. I was trembling in rage as I got up to close the door.

4
    I T SHOULD HAVE FELT GOOD JUST TO SIT IN THE STEAM ROOM AND sweat. Like broccoli. That had been my intention. Three miles on the StairMaster, a round on the Nautilus, then vegetate. Like the rest of the day, the gym was not living up to my expectations. The workout had dissipated some of my anger, but I was still agitated. I knew Claudel was an asshole. It was one of the names I’d stomped on his chest with each pump of the StairMaster. Asshole. Dickhead. Moron. Two syllables worked best. I’d figured that out, but little else. It distracted me for a while, but now that my mind was idle I couldn’t drive the murders out. Isabelle Gagnon. Chantale Trottier. I kept rolling them around, like peas on a dinner plate.
    I shifted my towel, and allowed my brain to reprocess the events of the day. When Claudel left, I’d checked with Denis to see when Gagnon’s skeleton would be ready. I wanted to go over every inch of it for signs of trauma. Fractures. Gashes. Anything. Something about the way the body had been carved up bothered me. I wanted a close look at those cut marks. There was a problem with the boiling unit. The bones wouldn’t be ready until tomorrow.
    Next I’d gone to the central files and pulled the jacket for Trottier. I spent the rest of the afternoon poring over police accounts, autopsy findings, toxicology reports, photos. Something lingered in my memory cells, nagging at me, insisting the cases were linked. Some forgotten detail hovered just beyond recall, coupling the victims in a way I didn’t understand. Some stored memory that I couldn’t access told me it wasn’t just the mutilation and bagging. I wanted to find the connection.
    I readjusted my towel and wiped sweat from my face. The skin on my fingertips had gathered into little puckers. Everywhere else I was slick as a perch. I was definitely a short-timer. I couldn’t take the heat for more than twenty minutes, no matter what the alleged benefits. Five more.
    Chantale Trottier had been killed less than a year ago, in the fall of my