Forever Dead by Suzanne F. Kingsmill Page B

of my puny office.
    â€œReally, Martha. Who told you he was in pieces?” Martha had a habit of being able to take my mind off myself and aim it at something productive. She was sometimes even able to dispel my sad moods before they spiralled down into darkness. If only I could figure outhow she did it, I might be able to prevent depression from ever getting hold of me again. Unlikely, though; I’d fought it all my life.
    Martha winked knowingly at me. “I never reveal my sources, you know that. It simply wouldn’t do.”
    I shared Martha with two other assistant profs who didn’t rate their own lab techs, let alone decent office space. But I felt lucky: no one could replace Martha, even working for me full-time. She was my technician, secretary, bodyguard against students, friend, and jack-of-all-trades, who happened to remind me of a tennis ball, round and bouncy. Her black curly shoulder-length hair sprang like a wire mop from her head — cut page-boy fashion it made her face even rounder. Her features were tiny and, although almost eclipsed by the excess weight, they were beautiful, as though designed for fat and not for lean, and her age seemed to have hovered around forty-five for years. In fact, no one even knew her real age. Everything else about her was round as well: round pudgy hands, round belly and legs, short and squat, and now her mouth pursed into a round
O
. She made me think of the snowmen Ryan and I used to make: three round balls for the body, round raisins for the mouth, and small bright black eyes set against a white face.
    â€œI’m right though? About the pieces? But where in the name of God is Dumoine? That’s where you found him, isn’t it? I’ve missed all the news reports, except yesterday’s. Fill me in. There was no Canadian news in Bermuda.” It was a demand. Martha was the only person I had ever met who knew everything about everyone before they did, without being resented for it. I didn’t even try to keep the smile out of my voice. Gossip was Martha’s lifeblood, but at least she went to great pains to get it right.
    â€œDumoine. It’s up the Ottawa River about two and a half hours from here on the Quebec side. It’s a medium-sized town, and the local police were supremely suspicious of the whole mess. Apparently dead bodies just don’t pop up routinely there, the implication being that they pop up routinely everywhere else. They asked me if I was sure it was a human body, if ‘perchance’ it might not be a dead moose or deer.”
    â€œAs if you couldn’t tell the difference!” huffed Martha indignantly. She was nothing if not loyal.
    â€œTo be fair, they’ve had some woman calling in all kinds of false alarms over the years, dead gophers that look like dead babies, the ribs of a cat mistaken for human remains. How can you mistake a dead gopher for a baby? Anyway, they had no end of stories from her. They thought I was her. It seems our voices sound alike.” I spread out my hands in mock self-defence. “When I finally chiselled a word into the conversation and told them that this body was wearing a man’s size-ten boots, they advised me that they’d be along. We waited hours it seems — since the body was dead and in a remote area there was no huge hurry. Someone else had said the same thing earlier. Rather crass, I thought. In the end, they didn’t need us, to our great relief. The two biologists waiting with us knew by our description exactly where the body was and they made an ID of sorts.”
    â€œTwo biologists? Anyone we know?”
    â€œI’d heard of them, because some profs from here have collaborated with some of the profs at their university, Pontiac it’s called, but I hadn’t met them before. A lot of their study sites are up near Dumoine. They have a biology station up there.”
    I should have known a short answer like that would not