“YES!” MY FREE HAND PUMPED THE AIR.

Limb bones of up to a century in age may fluoresce when viewed under UV light. This fluorescence diminishes over time, the dead zone progressing outward from the marrow cavity and inward from the external surface. A century postmortem, the yellow-green glow is absent altogether.

These babies were smoking like neon doughnuts.

OK, Claudel. That’s step one.

Returning the femora to their respective body bags, I went in search of my boss.

LaManche was slicing a brain in the histo lab. He looked up when I entered, knife in one hand, plastic apron tied behind his neck and waist. I explained what I’d done.

“And?”

“The cut surfaces lit up like novas.”

“Indicating?”

“The presence of organic constituents.”

LaManche laid his knife on the corkboard. “So these are not native burials.”

“These girls died after 1900.”

“Definitely?”

“Probably.” Less vehement.

“The building was constructed around the turn of the century.”

I did not reply.

“Do you recall the remains found near le Cathédral Marie-Reine-du-Monde?”

LaManche was referring to a time he’d sent me downtown to investigate “bodies” discovered by a water main crew. I’d arrived to find backhoes, dump trucks, and an enormous hole in boulevard René-Lévesque. Skull, rib, and long-bone fragments lined the pavement and lay at the bottom of the freshly dug trench. Mingled with the human bits I could see wood slivers and corroded nails.

Easy one. Coffin burials.

Archaeologists later confirmed my opinion. Until a cholera epidemic forced its closure in the mid-eighteenth century, a cemetery had occupied the land where the cathedral now oversees rush hour on René-Lévesque. The repair crew had stumbled on a few souls overlooked during the graveyard’s relocation.

“You think the bloody building was constructed over unmarked graves?” I asked. “I found no evidence of coffins.”

French Canadians are virtuosos of the shrug, using subtle nuances of hands, eyes, shoulders, and lips to convey countless meanings. I agree. I disagree. I don’t care. What can I do? Who knows? You are a fool. Do as you like.

LaManche raised one shoulder and both brows. A “maybe, maybe not” shrug.

“Have you discussed radiocarbon dating with Authier?” I asked.

“Dr. Authier is hosting visitors from the Moroccan Institute of Legal Medicine. I left a message asking that he call me.”

“The testing will take time.” I didn’t mask my agitation.

“Temperance.” LaManche was the only person on the planet to address me thus. On his tongue mon nom had perky little accent marks and rhymed with “sconce.” “You are becoming much too personally involved.”

“I don’t believe these bones are ancient. They don’t have that feel, that look. The context seems wrong. I—”

“Did these girls die last week?” The hound dog face sagged with patience.

“No.”

“Is there great urgency?”

I said nothing.

LaManche gazed at me so long I thought his mind had wandered. Then, “Send off your samples. I will deal with Dr. Authier.”

“Thank you.” I resisted the impulse to hug him.

“In the meantime, perhaps the third skeleton will yield useful information.” With that not so subtle hint, LaManche turned back to his brain.

Elated, I headed downstairs and changed into scrubs.

Lisa stopped me on my way to autopsy room four. The trailer fire victim had no teeth, no dentures, and no printable digits. Identification had become problematical, and Dr. Pelletier wanted my opinion.

I told her I would join Pelletier in half an hour.

Working quickly, I cut a one-inch plug from the midshaft of each femur, raced upstairs, logged onto the Web, and entered the address of the Florida lab that would perform the analyses. Clicking onto the sample data sheet, I filled in the required information, and requested testing by accelerated mass spectrometry.

I paused at the section concerning delivery. Standard service took two to four weeks. With advanced service, results could be available in as little as six days.

At a significantly higher price.

Screw it. If Authier balked, I’d pay.

I checked the second box and hit SEND.

After completing transfer-of-evidence forms, I gave Denis the address, and asked that he package and FedEx the specimens immediately.

Back downstairs.

I had to agree with Pelletier. The owner of the motor home was a sixty-four-year-old white male. The body on the table was wearing the charred remains of a Wonder Bra and handcuffs.

OK. So the guy was kinky.

Nope. X-rays showed a diaphragm center stage in the pelvis.

It was late afternoon when we finally got it sorted.

The fire victim was female, white, and toothless, with healed fractures of the right radius and both nasal bones. She’d been walking the earth thirty-five to fifty years.

Where was Trailer Man? That problem now belonged to the cops.

At three-forty, I washed, changed, and returned topside, grabbing a Diet Coke and two powdered sugar doughnuts on the way to my office.

The phone was flashing like a sale light at Kmart. Bolting from the door, I grabbed the receiver.

Anne. Her flight would arrive at five twenty-five.

Arthur Holliday, the man who would perform the Carbon 14 test. His message asked that I contact him before sending the samples.

Racing to the secretarial office, I checked the mound of outgoing mail. FedEx had yet to collect my package. I dug it out, returned to my office, and dialed the lab in Florida, puzzled as to what the problem could be.

“Tempe, good, good. I called as soon as I got your e-mail. Have you sent off the bone samples?”

“They’re ready, but still here. Is there a problem?”

“No, no. Not at all. Terrific. Good. Listen, do your unknowns have teeth?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Good. Listen, we’ve got a little research project going down here, and we wondered if place of birth might be of interest in your case.”

“I hadn’t considered that angle, but yes, that information might be useful. Can you do that?”

“Is there a lot of groundwater in that basement?”

“No, it’s fairly dry.”

“I can’t promise anything, but we’re getting some pretty good results with our strontium isotope analyses. If you’ll allow us to store the results in our database, then get back to us when your unknowns are eventually identified, I’ll be glad to perform this experimental test on your samples gratis.”

“Gratis?”

“We need to expand our reference database.”

“What should I send?”

He told me and started to expound on the reasons for needing both bone and tooth specimens. The clock said three-fifty. I cut him off.

“Art, could you explain this when we discuss results? If I want these specimens to go out with today’s FedEx pickup, I have to get back to the skeletons and pull the teeth within the next thirty minutes.”

“Yes, yes. Of course. We’ll talk then. Tempe, this may go nowhere, but, well, you never know.”

Disconnecting, I descended to the morgue, cut another plug of bone from the femur of each set of remains, replaced the bone, removed the jaw, returned to my lab, photographed the jaw, removed the right second molar from each, repacked everything, and returned the parcel to the mound of uncollected mail, thankful that I’d already had dental X-rays made.

By four-thirty, I’d resettled in my office.

Crossing my ankles on the window ledge, I sipped diet soda, nibbled my first doughnut, and forced my thoughts to subjects other than the pizza basement girls.

Katy.

What about Katy? I had no idea what my daughter was doing at that moment. Or even her specific whereabouts. Call? I looked at my watch. She was probably out, studying at the library or in class. Right.

Presumably, Katy was diligently attending classes and planning her future beyond university. I was not being kept advised. Had my little girl slipped into an adulthood in which I would play only minor walk-ons?

That smiley-face thought cranked my mind back to the girls who were now skeletons.

Why no single shred of clothing? Had I missed something? Should I have used a finer mesh screen? Had the owner gathered more than buttons? What could explain three girls buried naked in a basement?

Diet Coke. Mental right turn.

Anne.

Why the unexpected visit? What was behind the funny sound in her voice?

With the second doughnut, my mind took another go at the skeletons.

If all three girls died at the same time, why adipocere only with the third set of remains? OK. The wrapping. But why just that one burial?

Nope. New topic.

A sweater I’d seen in Ogilvy’s window. A ratchety noise in my car’s engine. An odd brown spot on my right shoulder.

At the end of the second doughnut, my mind made another hard run at the skeletons.

The bodies had been less than six inches down. Why so close to the surface? Native burials typically lie much deeper. So do historic graves.

What if Art really could tell me where each of the girls had been born? Would that be helpful? Or would his analysis merely indicate that they were locals?

Maybe LaManche had a point. Maybe I was becoming obsessed. I was jumpy and defensive. I wasn’t sleeping well. The case had even entered my dreams.

My mind veered down another alley.

Could work dissatisfaction be at the root of my problem with Ryan? Were anxiety and frustration transferring to him and firing my own destruction in that arena?

Ryan.

As though triggered by some errant electron escaping that synapse, the phone rang. I swiveled and snatched the receiver, this time nearly upsetting my drink.

“Dr. Brennan.”

Susanne informed me that a detective was on his way to my office.

Claudel. Just what I needed.

Only it wasn’t.

Standing six feet two, wearing khakis, fawn linen, and a tweed jacket, Ryan looked like a cross between Pierce Brosnan and the older guy in an Adidas ad. He shook his head at the Diet Coke in my hand and the sugar powdering my desk blotter.

“The woman is a swirling mass of contradiction.”

“I have eclectic tastes.”

“Your tastes must confuse the hell out of your pancreas.”

“It’s my pancreas.”

Ryan looked surprised at the sharpness of my response.

“Catching you at a bad time, cupcake?”

“I was expecting someone else.” I set down the can. “Honey bun.”

“I’m hearing that a lot lately.”

“Honey bun?”

“That I am other than your expectations.”

“I thought someone might be calling with information on a case.”

“Once more I’ve dashed hopes of which I know nothing.”

“You sound like Winston Churchill,” I said, slumping back in my chair.

“That is nonsense up with which I will not put.”

“A for grammar, D-minus for clarity.” I pressed powdered sugar onto the tip of my finger.

“Winnie said it.”

“You repeated it.”

“How are things going with Claudel?” Ryan leaned against the doorjamb and crossed arms and ankles. As usual, I found my eyes drawn to his. No matter how often I experienced it, the intensity of the blue always caught me off guard.

“Claudel’s running on a limited supply of brain cells. The few he has need to e-mail each other regularly to maintain contact.”

“And the system is down?”

“I haven’t heard from Claudel today. Actually, I’m looking forward to sharing something with him.”

I licked sugar from my finger and dipped more from the blotter.

“You going to share it with Honey Bun?”

“LaManche authorized expenditure for a special test I requested.”

“Without passing it by Authier?”

I nodded.

“LaManche can be a rascal. What test?”

“Carbon 14.”

“As in mummies and mastodons?”

I walked Ryan through the short course I’d given LaManche, but decided against mentioning the strontium isotope analysis. Too iffy.

“How far out for results?”

“Hopefully, no more than a week. LaManche suggested I move on to the third skeleton. Basically, he’s telling me to forget about PMI for now.”

“Not bad advice.”

“It’s frustrating.”

“Goes with the job.”

Ryan’s beeper sounded. He checked the number and clipped the gizmo back on his belt.

“Granted, these kids didn’t die last week, or even last month,” I went on. “But I can’t shake the thought that time is being wasted. I just have a bad feeling about this case.”

“Why?”

I told Ryan about Mrs. Gallant/Ballant/Talent.

“What exactly did she say?”

“That she knew what had gone on in that building.”

“Which was?”

“We didn’t get that far.”

“She could be a crackpot.”

“She could be.”

“You say she sounded old.”

“Yes.”

“It’s possib—”

“I’ve thought of that, Ryan. But what if she is sharp and she is on the level? And she does know something?”

“She’ll ring back.”

“She hasn’t.”

“Are you having her call tracked?”

“Yes.”

“Want me to see what I can find out?”

“I can handle it.”

“What threat could an old lady pose to anybody?”

“This woman knows about our little field trip to the basement. God knows who else read or heard about it. You saw Le Journal. The media were on the thing like cats on a fish wagon.”

“Other than its age, what do you know about this building?”

“Three dead girls were buried in its basement.”

“You can be a pain in the ass, Brennan.”

“I work at it.”

“Have dinner with me tonight?” Ryan asked.

“I’m busy.”

Deafening quiet slipped across the office. Thirty seconds. A full minute.

Uncrossing his ankles, Ryan straightened from the wall. The ice blue eyes looked straight into mine. It was not a happy look.

“We need to talk.”

“Yes,” I said.

Adios, cowboy, I thought, watching Ryan disappear through the door.