"Reichs, Kathy - Temperance Brennan 02 - Death Du Jour" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reichs Kathy)

I slipped the jacket off, laid it across her arms, and added cap and
gloves. She was the oldest woman that I had ever seen still
breathing.

I followed Father Menard down a long, poorly lit hallway into a small
study. Here the air smelled of old paper and schoolhouse paste. A
crucifix loomed over a desk so large I wondered how they'd gotten it
through the door. Dark oak paneling rose almost to the ceiling.
Statues stared down from the room's upper edge, faces somber as the
figure on the crucifix.

Father Menard took one of two wooden chairs facing the desk, gestured
me to the other. The swish of his cassock. The click of his beads.
For a moment I was back at St. Barnabas. In Father's office. In
trouble again. Stop it, Brennan. You're over forty, a professional. A
forensic anthropologist. These people called you because they need
your expertise.

The priest retrieved a leather-bound volume from the desktop, opened it
to a page with a green ribbon marker, and positioned the book between
us. He took a deep breath, pursed his lips, and exhaled through his
nose.

I was familiar with the diagram. A grid with rows divided into
rectangular plots, some with numbers, some with names. We'd spent
hours poring over it the day before, comparing the descriptions and
records for the graves with their positions on the grid. Then we'd
paced it all off, marking exact locations.

Sister Elisabeth Nicolet was supposed to be in the second row from the
church's north wall, third plot from the west end. Right next to
Mother Aurelie. But she wasn't. Nor was Aurelie where she should have
been.

I pointed to a grave in the same quadrant, but several rows down and to
the right. "O.K. Raphael seems to be there." Then down the row. "And
Agathe, Veronique, Clement, Marthe, and Eleonore. Those are the
burials from the 1840s, right?"

"C'estga."

I moved my finger to the portion of the diagram corresponding to the
southwest corner of the church. "And these are the most recent graves.
The markers we found are consistent with your records."

"Yes. Those were the last, just before the church was abandoned."

"It was closed in 1914."

"Nineteen fourteen. Yes, 1914." He had an odd way of repeating words