BY NOON THE TEMPERATURE AND HUMIDITY WERE SO HIGH THE city was rendered lifeless. Nothing moved. Trees, birds, insects, and humans held themselves as still as possible, immobilized by the stifling heat. Most stayed out of sight.

The drive was St. Jean Baptiste Day all over again. The tense silence. The smell of air-conditioned sweat. The fear in my gut. Only Claudel’s surliness was absent. He and Charbonneau were meeting us there.

And the traffic was different. On our trip to Rue Berger we had fought holiday crowds. Today we breezed through empty streets, arriving at the suspect’s place in less than twenty minutes. When we turned the corner I could see Bertrand, Charbonneau, and Claudel in an unmarked car, Bertrand’s unit parked behind. The crime scene van was at the end of the block, Gilbert behind the wheel, a tech slumped against the passenger side window.

The three detectives got out as we walked toward them. The street was as I remembered it, though daylight showed it to be even plainer and more worn than it had appeared in the dark. My shirt was pasted to my clammy skin.

“Where’s the stakeout team?” Ryan asked by way of greeting.

“They circled round back.” Charbonneau.

“He in there?”

“No activity since they got here around midnight. He could be asleep inside.”

“There’s a back entrance?”

Charbonneau nodded. “Been covered all night. We’ve got units at each end of the block, and there’s one on Martineau.” He jerked a thumb toward the opposite side of the street. “If lover boy’s in there, he’s not going anywhere.”

Ryan turned to Bertrand. “Got the paper?”

Bertrand nodded. “It’s 1436 Séguin. Number 201. Come on down.” He mimicked the game show invitation.

We stood a moment, sizing up the building as one would an adversary, preparing ourselves for assault and capture. Two black kids rounded the corner and started up the block, rap music blaring from an enormous boom box. They wore Air Jordans and pants big enough to house a nuclear family. Their T-shirts bore totems of violence, one a skull with melting eyeballs, the other the grim reaper with beach umbrella. Death on Vacation. The taller boy had shaved his scalp, leaving only an oval cap on top. The other had dreadlocks.

A mental flash of Gabby’s dreadlocks. A stab of pain.

Later. Not now. I yanked my attention back to the moment.

We watched the boys enter a nearby building, heard the rap truncated as a door closed behind them. Ryan looked in both directions, then back at us.

“We set?”

“Let’s get the sonofabitch.” Claudel.

“Luc, you and Michel cover the back. If he bolts, squash him.”

Claudel squinted, tipped his head as though to speak, then shook it, exhaling sharply through his nose. He and Charbonneau moved off, turned back at Ryan’s voice.

“We do this by the books.” His eyes were hard. “No mistakes.”

The CUM detectives crossed the street and disappeared around the graystone.

Ryan turned to me.

“Ready?”

I nodded.

“This could be the guy.”

“Yes, Ryan, I know that.”

“You all right?”

“Jesus, Ryan...”

“Let’s go.”

I felt a bubble of fear swell in my chest as we mounted the iron stairs. The outer door was unlocked. We entered a small lobby with a grimy tile floor. Mailboxes lined the right wall, circulars lay on the floor beneath them. Bertrand tried the inner door. It was also open.

“Great security,” said Bertrand.

We crossed into a poorly lit corridor shrouded in heat and the smell of cooking grease. A threadbare carpet ran toward the back of the building and up a staircase to the right, secured at three-foot intervals by thin metal strips. Over it someone had laid a vinyl runner, at one time clear, now opaque with age and grime.

We climbed to the second floor, our feet making faint tapping sounds on the vinyl—201 was first on the right. Ryan and Bertrand placed themselves on either side of the dark wooden door, backs to the wall, jackets unbuttoned, hands resting loosely on their weapons.

Ryan motioned me beside him. I flattened myself against the wall, felt the rough plaster pluck at my hair. I took a deep breath, drawing in mildew and dust. I could smell Ryan’s sweat.

Ryan nodded to Bertrand. The anxiety bubble swelled up into my throat.

Bertrand knocked.

Nothing.

He knocked again.

No response.

Ryan and Bertrand tensed. My breath was coming fast.

“Police. Open up.”

Down the hall a door opened quietly. Eyes peered through a crack the width of a security chain.

Bertrand knocked harder, five sharp raps in the sweltering silence. Silence.

Then. “Monsieur Tanguay n’est pas ici.”

Our heads whipped toward the sound of the voice. It was soft and high-pitched, and came from across the corridor.

Ryan gave Bertrand a stay-here gesture and we crossed. The eyes watched, their irises magnified behind thick lenses. They were barely four feet off the floor, and angled higher and higher as we approached.

The eyes shifted from Ryan to me and back, seeking the least threatening place to land. Ryan squatted to meet them at their level.

“Bonjour,” he said.

“Hi.”

“Comment ça va?”

“Ça va.”

The child waited. I couldn’t tell if it was a boy or girl.

“Is your mother home?”

Head shake.

“Father?”

“No.”

“Anyone?”

“Who are you?”

Good, kid. Don’t tell a stranger anything.

“Police.” Ryan showed him his badge. The eyes grew even larger.

“Can I hold it?”

Ryan passed the badge through the crack. The child studied it solemnly, handed it back.

“Are you looking for Monsieur Tanguay?”

“Yes, we are.”

“Why?”

“We want to ask him some questions. Do you know Monsieur Tanguay?”

The child nodded, offered nothing.

“What’s your name?”

“Mathieu.” Boy.

“When will your mother be home, Mathieu?”

“I live with my grammama.”

Ryan shifted his weight and a joint cracked loudly. He dropped one knee to the floor, propped an elbow on the other, rested chin on knuckles, and looked at Mathieu.

“How old are you, Mathieu?”

“Six.”

“How long have you lived here?”

The child looked puzzled, as though other possibilities had never occurred to him.

“Always.”

“Do you know Monsieur Tanguay?”

Mathieu nodded.

“How long has he lived here?”

Shrug.

“When will your grammama be home?”

“She cleans for people.” Pause. “Saturday.” Mathieu rolled his eyes and nibbled his lower lip. “Just a minute.” He disappeared into the apartment, reappeared in less than a minute. “Three-thirty.”

“Sh... Shoot,” said Ryan, uncoiling from his hunched position. He spoke to me, his voice tense, just above a whisper. “That asshole may be in there and we’ve got an unattended kid here.”

Mathieu watched like a barn cat with a cornered rat, his eyes never leaving Ryan’s face.

“Monsieur Tanguay’s not here.”

“Are you sure?” Ryan crouched again.

“He’s gone away.”

“Where?”

Another shrug. A chubby finger pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

“How do you know he’s away?”

“I’m taking care of his fish.” A smile the size of the Mississippi lit his face. “He’s got tetras, and angelfish, and white clouds.” He used the English names. “They’re fantastic!” Fantastique! Such a perfect word. Its English counterpart never quite matches it.

“When will Monsieur Tanguay be back?”

Shrug.

“Did Grammama write it on the calendar?” I asked.

The child regarded me, surprised, then disappeared as he had before.

“What calendar?” Ryan asked, looking up.

“They must keep one. He went to check something when he wasn’t sure when Grammama would be home today.”

Mathieu returned. “Nope.”

Ryan stood. “Now what?”

“If he’s right, we go in and toss the place. We’ve got a name, we’ll run Monsieur Tanguay down. Maybe Grammama knows where he’s gone. If not, we’ll pop him as soon as he comes anywhere near here.”

Ryan looked to Bertrand, pointed at the door.

Five more raps.

Nothing.

“Break it?” asked Bertrand.

“Monsieur Tanguay won’t like it.”

We all looked at the boy.

Ryan lowered himself a third time.

“He gets really mad if you do something bad,” said Mathieu.

“It’s important that we look for something in Monsieur Tanguay’s apartment,” explained Ryan.

“He won’t like it if you break his door.”

I squatted next to Ryan.

“Mathieu, do you have Monsieur Tanguay’s fish in your apartment?”

Head shake.

“Do you have a key to Monsieur Tanguay’s apartment?”

Mathieu nodded.

“Could you let us in?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t come out when Grammama’s gone.”

“That’s good, Mathieu. Grammama wants you to stay inside because she thinks it’s safer for you. She’s right, and you’re a good boy to listen to her.”

The Mississippi smile spread north again.

“Do you think we could use the key, Mathieu, just for a few minutes? It’s very important police business and you are correct that we shouldn’t break the door.”

“I guess that would be okay,” he said. “Because you’re police.”

Mathieu darted out of sight, returned with a key. He pressed his lips together and looked straight at me as he held it through the crack.

“Don’t break Monsieur Tanguay’s door.”

“We’ll be very careful.”

“And don’t go in the kitchen. That’s bad. You can’t ever go in the kitchen.”

“You close the door and stay inside, Mathieu. I’ll knock when we’ve finished. Don’t open the door until you hear my knock.”

The small face nodded solemnly, then disappeared behind the door.

We rejoined Bertrand, who knocked again, called out. There was an awkward pause, then Ryan nodded, and I slipped the key into the lock.

The door opened directly into a small living room, its color scheme shades of maroon. Shelves stretched from floor to ceiling on two sides, the other walls were wood, every surface darkened by years of varnishing. Crushed red velvet looped across the windows, backed by grayinglace, which blocked most of the sunlight. We stood absolutely still, listening and peering into the unlit room.

The only sound I heard was a faint buzzing, erratic, like electricity jumping a broken circuit. Bzzt. Bzzzzzt. Bzt. Bzt. It came from behind double doors ahead and to the left. Otherwise, the place was deathly quiet.

Poor choice of adverb, Brennan.

I looked around and furniture shapes emerged from the deep shadow, looking old and worn. The center of the room was occupied by a carved wooden table with matching chairs. A well-used couch sagged in the front bay, a Mexican blanket stretched across it. Opposite, a wooden trunk served as a stand for a Sony Trinitron.

Scattered about the room were small wooden tables and cabinets. Some were quite nice, not unlike pieces I’d unearthed at flea markets. I doubted any of these had been afternoon finds, purchased as bargains to strip and refinish. They looked as though they’d been in the place for years, ignored and unappreciated as successive tenants came and went.

The floor was covered by an aging dhurrie. And plants. Everywhere. They were tucked in corners and strung along baseboards and hung from hooks. What the occupant lacked in furnishings, he’d made up for in greenery. Plants dangled from wall brackets and rested on windowsills, tabletops, sideboards, and shelves.

“Looks like a fucking botanical garden,” said Bertrand.

And smells, I thought. A musty odor permeated the air, a blend of fungus, and leaves, and damp earth.

Across from the main entrance a short hall led to a single closed door. Ryan gestured me back with the same move he’d used in the hall, then slid along the wall, shoulders hunched, knees bent, back pressed to the plaster. He inched up to the door, paused, then shot a foot hard against the wood.

The door flew in, hit the wall, and recoiled toward the frame, then came to rest half open. I strained for sounds of movement, my heart beating with the erratic buzzing. Bzzzzzzt. Bzt. Bzt. Bzzzzt. Da dum dum dum. Da dum. Da dum dum.

An eerie glow seeped from behind the half-open door, accompanied by a soft gurgling.

“Found the fish,” said Ryan, moving through the door.

He flicked a switch with his pen and the room was thrown into brightness. Standard bedroom. Single bed, Indian print spread. Nightstand, lamp, alarm, nasal spray. Dresser, no mirror. Tiny bath to the rear. One window. Heavy drapes blocked a view of a brick wall.

The only uncommon items were the tanks that lined the back wall. Mathieu was right, they were fantastique. Electric blues, canary yellows, and black-and-white stripes darted in and out of rose and white coral and foliage of every shade of green imaginable. Each tiny ecosystem was illuminated in aquamarine and lulled by a rolling oxygen sonata.

I watched, mesmerized, feeling an idea about to form. Coaxing it. What? Fish? What? Nothing.

Ryan moved around me, using his pen to sweep back the shower curtain, open the medicine cabinet, poke among the food and nets surrounding the tanks. He used a hanky to open dresser drawers, then the pen to leaf through underwear, socks, shirts, and sweaters.

Forget the fish, Brennan. Whatever idea was in my mind, it was as elusive as the bubbles in the tanks, rising toward the surface only to disappear.

“Anything?”

He shook his head. “Nothing obvious. Don’t want to piss off recovery, so I’m just doing a quick check. Let’s case the other rooms, then I’ll turn it over to Gilbert. Pretty clear Tanguay’s elsewhere. We’ll nail his ass, but in the meantime we might as well find out what he has here.”

Back in the living room Bertrand was inspecting the TV.

“State of the art,” he said. “Boy likes his tube.”

“Probably needs a regular Cousteau fix,” said Ryan absently, body tense, eyes scanning the gloom around us. No one would surprise us today.

I wandered to the shelves containing the books. The range of topics was impressive, and, like the TV, the books looked new. I scanned the titles. Ecology. Ichthyology. Ornithology. Psychology. Sex. Lots of science, but the guy’s taste was eclectic. Buddhism. Scientology. Archaeology. Maori art. Kwakiutl wood carving. Samurai warriors. World War II artifacts. Cannibalism.

The shelves held hundreds of paperbacks, including modern fiction, both French and English. Many of my favorites were present. Vonnegut. Irving. McMurtry. But the majority were crime fiction novels. Brutal murderers. Deranged stalkers. Violent psychopaths. Heartless cities. I could quote their cover blurbs without even reading them. There was also an entire shelf of nonfiction devoted to the lives of serial and spree killers. Manson. Bundy. Ramirez. Boden.

“I think Tanguay and St. Jacques belong to the same book club,” I said.

“This butt wipe probably is St. Jacques,” said Bertrand.

“No, this guy brushes his teeth,” said Ryan.

“Yeah. When he’s Tanguay.”

“If he reads this stuff, his interests are incredibly broad,” I said. “And he’s bilingual.” I glanced over the collection again. “And he’s compulsive as hell.”

“What are you now, Dr. Ruth?” asked Bertrand.

“Look at this.”

They joined me.

“Everything’s arranged by topic, alphabetically.” I pointed to several shelves. “Then by author within each category, again alphabetically. Then by year of publication for each author.”

“Doesn’t everyone do that?”

Ryan and I looked at him. Bertrand was not a reader.

“Look how every book is aligned with the edge of the shelf.”

“He does the same with his shorts and socks. Must use a square edge to stack them,” said Ryan.

Ryan voiced my thoughts.

“Fits the profile.”

“Maybe he just keeps the books for show. Wants his friends to think he’s an intellectual,” said Bertrand.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “They’re not dusty. Also, look at the little yellow slips. He not only reads this stuff, he marks certain things to go back to. Let’s point that out to Gilbert and his commandos so they don’t lose the markers. Could be useful.”

“I’ll have them seal the books before they dust.”

“Something else about Monsieur Tanguay.”

They stared at the shelves.

“He reads some weird shit,” said Bertrand.

“Besides the crime stories, what interests him most?” I asked. “Look at the very top shelf.”

They looked again.

“Shit,” said Ryan. “Gray’s Anatomy. Cunningham’s Manual of Practical Anatomy. Color Atlas of Human Anatomy. Handbook of Anatomical Dissection. Medical Illustration of the Human Body. Christ, look at this. Sabiston’s Principles of Surgery. He’s got more of this shit than a med school library. Looks like he’s heavy into knowing what a body’s got inside.”

“Yeah, and not just the software. This squirrel’s into the hardware.”

Ryan reached for his radio. “Let’s get Gilbert and his raiders up here. I’ll tell the teams out back to go to ground and watch for Dr. Prick. We don’t want to spook him when he shows up. Christ, Claudel’s probably got his nuts in a half hitch by now.”

Ryan spoke into his handset. Bertrand continued to skim the titles behind me.

Bzt. Bzzzzzzt. Bzzt. Bzt.

“Hey, this is your kind of stuff.” He used a hanky to withdraw something. “Looks like there’s just this one.”

He laid a single volume of the American Anthropologist on the table. July 1993. I didn’t have to open it. I knew one entry on its table of contents. “A major hit,” she’d called it. “Fodder for promotion to full professor.”

Gabby’s article. The sight of the AA hit me like a snapped cable. I wanted out of there. I wanted to be gone to a sunny Saturday where I was safe, and no one was dead, and my best friend would be calling with plans for dinner.

Water. Cold water on your face, Brennan.

I lurched toward the double doors and flipped one open with my foot, looking for the kitchen.

BZZZZZT. BZZZZZT. BZT. BZZZZZZT. BZT.

The room had no window. A digital clock to my right gave off a luminous orange glow. I could make out two white shapes and another pale stretch at waist level. Refrigerator, stove, sink, I assumed. I felt for a switch. The hell with procedure. They could sort out my prints.

The back of my hand pressed to my mouth, I stumbled to the sink and splashed cold water on my face. When I straightened and turned, Ryan was standing in the doorway.

“I’m fine.”

Flies shot around the room, startled at the sudden intrusion.

BZZT. BZT. BZZZZT.

“Mint?” He offered a roll of Life Savers.

“Thanks.” I took one. “The heat.”

“It’s a cooker.”

A fly careened off his cheek. “What the fu—” He swatted at the air. “What’s this guy do in here?”

Ryan and I saw them at the same time. Two brown objects lay on the counter, halos of grease staining the paper towels on which they dried. Flies danced around them, landing and taking off in nervous agitation. A surgical glove lay to their left, a twin to the one we’d just unearthed. We went closer, fomenting the flies to excited flight.

I looked at each shriveled mass and thought of the roaches and spiders in the barber pole, their legs dried and constricted in rigor. These objects had nothing to do with arachnids, however. I knew instantly what they were, though I’d only seen the others in photos.

“They’re paws.”

“What?”

“Paws from some kind of animal.”

“Are you sure?”

“Flip one over.”

He did. With his pen.

“You can see the ends of the lower limb bones.”

“What’s he doing with them?”

“How the hell should I know, Ryan?” I thought of Alsa.

“Christ.”

“Check the refrigerator.”

“Oh, Christ.”

The tiny corpse was there, skinned and wrapped in clear plastic. Along with several others.

“What are they?”

“Small mammals of some sort. Without the skin I can’t tell. They’re not horses.”

“Thanks, Brennan.”

Bertrand joined us. “What’ve you got?”

“Dead animals.” Ryan’s voice betrayed his aggravation. “And another glove.”

“Maybe the guy eats roadkill,” said Bertrand.

“Maybe. And maybe he makes lampshades out of people. That’s it. I want this place sealed. I want every friggin’ thing confiscated. Bag his cutlery, bag that blender, bag everything in the goddamn refrigerator. I want that disposal scraped and every inch of this place hosed with Luminol. Where the hell’s Gilbert?”

Ryan moved toward a wall phone to the left of the door.

“Hold it. That phone got a redial button?”

Ryan nodded.

“Hit it.”

“Probably get his priest. Or Grammama.”

Ryan pushed the button. We listened to a seven-note melody followed by four rings. Then a voice answered, and the bubble of fear I’d been carrying all day rose to my head and I felt faint.

“Veuillez laissez votre nom et numéro de téléphone. Je vais vous rappelez le plutôt possible. Merci. Please leave your name and number and I’ll return your call as soon as possible. Thanks. This is Tempe.”