Bones Are Forever Read Free Page A

into the window seat, I gently lifted our second little victim. Based on weight and the absence of smell, I suspected the remains were mummified.
    With two hands, I transferred the bundle to the body bag. Like the vanity baby lying by the sofa, it looked pitifully small in its adult-sized sack.
    While Demers held a flashlight, I tweezed half a dozen bones from the interior of the window seat. Each was smaller than a thumbnail. Three phalanges. Two metacarpals. A vertebral body.
    After sealing the isolated bones in a plastic vial, I wrote the case number, the date, and my initials on the cover with a Sharpie. Then I tucked the container below one edge of the stained yellow bundle.
    Demers and I watched in silence as Gioretti shot his final photos. Out on the street, a car door slammed, followed by another. Footfalls sounded on the stairs.
    Gioretti looked a question at me. I nodded.
    Gioretti had just zipped the body bag and folded and strapped its ends when Pomier reappeared. With him were a woman and a border collie. The woman’s name was Madeleine Caron. The collie went by Pepper.
    Trained to respond to the smell of rotting human flesh, cadaverdogs find hidden bodies like infrared systems pinpoint heat. A truly skilled sniffer can nail the former resting place of a corpse even long after its removal. But these hounds of death are as variable as their handlers. Some are good, some are lousy, some are outright scams.
    I was pleased to see this pair. Both were top-notch.
    I crossed to Caron, gloved hands held away from my body. Pepper watched my approach with large caramel eyes.
    “Nice place,” Caron said.
    “A palace. Pomier brief you?”
    Caron nodded.
    “We’ve got two so far. One from the bath, one from the window seat.” I jabbed a thumb over my shoulder. “I’m about to release them for transport. Once the body bags are out of here, run Pepper around, see if anything piques her interest.”
    “You’ve got it.”
    “There’s garbage in the kitchen.”
    “Unless the stuff’s human, it won’t ring her chimes.”
    First Caron took Pepper to the places where the babies had been stashed. Some dogs are taught to alert by barking, some by sitting or dropping to the ground. Pepper was a sitter. At both spots, she parked on her haunches and whined. Each time Caron scratched the dog’s ears and said, “Good girl.” Then she reached down and unclipped the leash.
    After sniffing her way through the kitchen and living room, Pepper padded into the bedroom. Caron and I followed at a polite distance.
    Nothing at the dresser. A slight hesitation at the bed. Then the dog froze. Took a step. Paused, one forepaw six inches off the floor.
    “Good girl,” Caron said softly.
    Muzzle sweeping from side to side, Pepper crept across the room. At the open closet door, her snout went up and her nostrils worked the air.
    Five seconds of testing, then Pepper sat, craned her head toward us, and whined.
    “Good girl,” Caron said. “Down.”
    Eyes glued to her handler, the dog dropped to her belly.
    “Shit,” Caron said.
    “What?”
    Caron and I turned. Neither of us had heard Ryan step up behind us.
    “She’s hit on something,” Caron said.
    “How often is she right?”
    “Often.”
    “She alert anywhere else?”
    Caron and I shook our heads.
    “She ever miss?”
    “Not so far.” Caron’s tone was grim. “I’ll spin her around in here once more, then take her outside.”
    “Please ask the transport driver to wait,” I said. “And tell Pomier. He’s accompanying the remains to the morgue.”
    “You’ve got it.”
    As Caron led Pepper out, Ryan and I crossed to the closet.
    The enclosure was no more than three feet by five. I pulled a chain to light the bare bulb overhead.
    An iron rod held hangers, the solid kind that must have been decades old. They’d been bunched to one side, I assumed by Demers.
    A wooden shelf ran the length of the closet above the rod. A collection of magazines had been transferred to