Page 44 of The Bone Code
Wednesday, October 13
Stretching for more than nineteen miles, rue Sherbrooke is a major east-west artery and the second-longest street on the island of Montreal. Our Centreville condo sits toward one end. Le Repos Saint-François d’Assise lies toward the other.
At seven Wednesday morning, I was motoring east. As I had done on Tuesday.
As I had done one bleak fall day in 2010.
LaManche’s call had sent me scrambling. With no explanation for the stunning reversal, he said he’d decided to greenlight the exhumation. He suggested that I contact Rémi Arbour, manager of Le Repos.
I did that. A nanosecond past Tuesday morning’s opening bell. Though unenthused, Arbour had agreed to see me. Suggested we meet at his office at noon.
I’d arrived a half hour early. Arbour had rolled in ten minutes late. In his forties, wheezy, and obese, the guy had heart attack written all over him.
A recent hire, Arbour possessed no knowledge of burials older than two years. And zero interest in learning about them.
With much urging on my part, he’d agreed to help me search thearchives. Then we’d set out across the grounds in Arbour’s pickup. A few landmarks looked familiar to me. A statue of St. Frank. A dragon.
Eventually, we’d located the section used for the interment of unknowns back in 2010, the year LSJML-41207 and LSJML-41208 were finally laid to rest. Alighting from the truck, we’d walked the rows until we’d found their graves.
I’d checked the scene against the photos I’d brought. An old maple was gone, a stand of shrubbery greatly expanded. Otherwise, the backdrop was a match to the one from a decade earlier.
Ditto the cold hollowness filling my chest.
So. Here I was behind the wheel as I had been the day before, squinting into a saffron dawn, pulse hammering way too fast.
To allay my anxiety, I reviewed the knowledge I’d gleaned via one quick late-night Google search.
Established in 1724, Le Repos Saint-François d’Assise is one of the oldest burial grounds in Montreal. Having undergone several name changes and relocations over the years, the current cemetery offers both burial and cremation, along with three options for long-term storage: columbarium, mausoleum, or old-fashioned grave. No matter your vision for the hereafter, Saint Francis of Assisi has you covered. No pun intended.
Another fact, one not touted online. Back in the day, Le Repos was under government contract to provide plots for those making the poor decision to die penniless or nameless.
Just past rue Saint-Germain, the SUV in front of me stopped suddenly. I hit the brakes.
Work on a pipeline had half the street torn up, and traffic was at a standstill in both directions. A woman with a neon-orange vest, a rotating pole sign, and a Napoleon complex was controlling the flow. The little general was in no hurry.
I sat finger-drumming the wheel, listening to a twenty-four-hour all-talk station, CJAD, for possible mention of our little exhumation party. Heard none. The twenty-minute delay, and the day’s news, did nothing to calm my agitation.
The sun was well above the horizon when I pulled throughle cimitière’s main entrance near rue Langelier. After much winding among headstones and roller-coastering up and down knolls and depressions, I drew close to the gravesites that Arbour and I had ID’d.
And cursed. I was late to the dance.
Parked beside the narrow lane were an SQ cruiser, an SIJ crime-scene truck, a coroner’s van, a golf cart, and Arbour’s pickup. After adding my Mazda to the back of the line, I got out and hurried toward the group, mentally logging details.
No precautions had been taken to safeguard confidentiality. No temporary fencing. No plastic tenting. No sawhorses strung with yellow tape.
A backhoe stood ready, operator at the controls, drinking from the cap of his thermos. Plywood panels covered the ground to either side of each grave.
Nine people stood chatting in clumps of two or three. Two SQ uniforms, the van driver and his partner, two SIJ techs, Arbour. Off to one side, a pair in matching boots, jeans, windbreakers, and scowls leaned on long-handled spades.
Good call on the privacy issue. No protection was needed. Not a single journalist had turned up. Perhaps the media hadn’t heard. Perhaps, as in the past, they didn’t care.
“Sorry I’m late,” I tossed out to no one in particular.
One of the coroner’s transporters crossed to me. Gaston something. I’d done other recoveries with him.
“Bonjour, doc.” Gaston proffered a Styrofoam cup.
“Thanks.” The cup’s contents weren’t quite tepid. Gaston had been here a while. The others also, I presumed.
