Free Bones to Ashes by Kathy Reichs Page B

bit about Sicard liking stock car racing was dead-on.” Ryan glanced at me and the yellow dashes slid sideways. “And never made public.”
    “Where’s Grissom now?”
    “Paroled in ninety-nine. Killed in a car wreck the same year.”
    “He won’t be of any help.”
    “Not without a séance, but he wouldn’t have helped in any case. We have to rely on Beaumont’s memory.”
    Ryan hung a right. To both sides lay woods. In moments, I saw what I’d been expecting. Pulled to the side of the asphalt were the LSJML crime scene truck, a black coroner’s van, an SQ patrol unit, an unmarked Chevrolet Impala, and an SUV. Apparently the speed and stealth had worked. No cameras or microphones were present. Not a single poised pen. For now.
    Hippo was talking to a pair of uniformed cops. Two morgue technicians smoked by their van. A guy in civvies was filling a bowl from a canteen for a border collie.
    Ryan and I got out. The air hit me like caramel syrup. That morning’s
Gazette
had called for rain and a high in the nineties. June in Quebec. Go figure.
    Walking toward Hippo, Ryan explained the lay of the land.
    “According to Beaumont, Grissom described an abandoned barn off Route 335, in woods backing up to a horse farm.”
    I followed the compass of Ryan’s hand.
    “The highway’s behind us. The Parc équestre de Blainville is off through those trees. Saint-Lin-Jonction and Blainville lie to the south.”
    I felt a heaviness in my chest. “Anne Girardin disappeared in Blainville.”
    “Yeah.” Ryan kept his eyes straight ahead.
    We reached the group. Hands were shaken, greetings exchanged. Maybe it was the sticky heat. Maybe unease over what we might soon unearth. The usual humor and banter were absent.
    “Barn’s about ten yards in.” Hippo’s face was slick, his pits dark. “Good wind will bring her down.”
    “What’s been done?” Ryan asked.
    “Ran the dog through,” Hippo said.
    “Mia,” the dog handler cut in.
    The collie’s ears shot up at the sound of its name.
    Hippo rolled his eyes.
    “Her name is Mia.”
Sylvain
was embroidered on the handler’s shirt.
    Hippo is famous for loathing what he dubs “hot-shit” technology. It was clear cadaver dogs got the same fish eye as computers, iris scanners, and touch-tone phones.
    “
Mia
didn’t seem overly impressed.” Hippo took a tin from his pocket, thumbed open the lid, and palmed antacid tablets into his mouth.
    “The place is full of horseshit.” Sylvain’s voice had an edge. “Throws her off scent.”
    “GPR?” I truncated the exchange with a question about ground-penetrating radar.
    Hippo nodded, then turned. Ryan and I followed him into the trees. The air smelled of moss and loamy earth. The thick foliage hung undisturbed by even a whisper of movement. Within yards, I was perspiring and breathing deeply.
    In thirty seconds we were at the barn. The structure rose from a clearing barely larger than itself, leaning like a ship in an angry sea. Its planks were gray and weathered, its roof partially collapsed. What I assumed had been its main double doors now lay in a heap of rotten lumber. Through the opening, I could see dimness pierced by shafts of dust-filtered sunlight.
    Hippo, Ryan, and I stopped at the threshold. Crooking two fingers, I pulled my shirt by the collar and flapped. Sweat now soaked my waistband and bra.
    The barn’s interior was ripe with the mustiness of moisture and age. Rotting vegetation. Dust. And something sweetly organic.
    The CSU techs looked like astronauts in their masks and white coveralls. I recognized each by movement and body form. The daddy longlegs was Renaud Pasteur. The Demster Dumpster was David Chenevier.
    Hippo called out. Pasteur and Chenevier waved, then resumed their tasks.
    Chenevier was guiding a three-wheeled apparatus in parallel paths back and forth across the barn floor. A rectangular red box hung below the rig’s main axle, its bottom inches from the ground surface. A small LCD screen