KATHY REICHS - 206 BONES

I checked undie labels, but the printing was faded beyond legibility. After measuring waist and chest circumferences and shooting a few more pics, I spread the garments on the counter.

Prelims finished, I began reassembling the skeleton. I’d completed an inventory at graveside, distinguishing lefts from rights, so the process went quickly until I got to the fingers and toes. Since individuation is so dreadfully tedious, those bones I’d merely counted and bagged.

A normal adult human has fifty-six phalanges. The thumbs and halluces, or big toes, have two rows each, proximal and distal. Every other digit has three rows, proximal, middle, and distal.

First, I separated hands from feet. Piece of cake for les premiers . Big toe phalanges are distinctly shaped and heftier than those in a thumb.

The reverse is true for pointer, middleman, ringman, and pinky. In those digits, finger phalanges are larger than toe phalanges. They are also flatter on their palm surfaces and more rounded on their backs, and their shafts are shorter and less laterally compressed.

Row position is all about joints. At its proximal end, a first-row phalange has a single facet, or concave oval surface for articulation with a metatarsal in the foot or a metacarpal in the hand. At its distal end are double knobs. A second-row phalange has double knobs at the distal end and double facets at the proximal end. A third-row phalange has a double facet at the near end, a tapered point at the far.

Setting the twenty-eight finger bones aside, I sorted toe phalanges by position. That done, I determined specific digits, two through five. Then I separated lefts from rights.

See what I mean by tedious?

By the time I finished with the feet my back was kinked and my face was itchy from the mask. I was doing overhead arm stretches when I thought I heard movement somewhere down the hall.

I checked the wall clock. 6:40.

I peered out the door in both directions.

Not a soul.

Back to the table.

Saturday-night loser . Scrooge neurons taunted from deep in my brain.

“Fa la la la la.” My song rang cheerless in the empty room.

After another muscle stretch, I dived into the hand bones. Proximal, middle, distal.

I was sorting digits when I heard the muted clink of metal on metal. Again, I checked the hall.

Again, it was empty.

Printer recalibrating? Cooler kicking on?

The ghost of Christmas future coming to kick butt?

Achy and cranky, I turned back to the phalanges. I wanted to finish as quickly as possible. To go home, eat supper, maybe read a good book. Alexander McCall Smith. Or Nora Roberts. A story distant from this parallel universe of death.

Then I remembered. I didn’t have a car because I’d ridden with Ryan. I’d have to take the metro.

Crap.

And it was probably a billion degrees below zero.

Crap. Crap.

As I worked, my mood grew blacker and blacker. I remembered there was no food at the condo. Dinner would be a frozen tourtière .

And I’d eat it alone. Birdie was in North Carolina. So was Katy. Since I wasn’t supposed to be in Montreal, Ryan had Charlie at his place.

Where was Ryan? Probably out wining and dining with friends. Or maybe cocooned by a fire with his ex.

But Ryan swore he and Lutetia were history again. Were they?

Didn’t matter. That ship had sailed.

Had it?

My eyes were burning and my back was seriously cramped. I had to force myself to concentrate.

Unbidden, lyrics came winging through my brain.

I’ll have a blue Christmas without you … .

My eyes swept the room. Not a stocking or jolly Saint Nick in sight.

I was alone in a morgue ten days before Christmas.

I’d be alone at home.

Screw that. I vowed to call Ryan in the morning to ask for my bird. A cockatiel was better than no company at all. Maybe he and I could carol together.

“Four calling birds, three French hens …” I sang.

Screw tinsel and holly. What did Dickens say? Honor Christmas in your heart. Fine. I’d follow Old Charlie’s advice.

Whoa.

Charlie. Charlie.

Until that moment, I hadn’t noticed the coincidence.

Charlie, my cockatiel. Charlie, my old high school crush, now a lawyer in the Mecklenburg County Public Defender’s office in Charlotte.

Charlie and I had barely started seeing each other when I left North Carolina for my late-November rotation in Montreal. And, to be honest, our first date had not gone well.

That’s being charitable. I’d nose-dived from the wagon, binged on Merlot, then blown the guy off for a week.

I pictured Charlie Hunt, NBA tall, cinnamon skin, eyes the color of Christmas holly.

The vision did nothing to improve my mood.

Why was I stuck in this basement slogging through bones? What could I possibly accomplish tonight? I couldn’t establish ID. Hubert hadn’t bothered to provide Christelle Villejoin’s antemortem records.

“Weenie’s probably out swilling eggnog. Parked under mistletoe waiting for a mark.”

I was now in full self-pity mode.

“Two turtle doves …”

Sighing, I snatched up another phalange.

Both joint surfaces were dense and polished, their edges lacy with bony overgrowth. Arthritis. Moving that finger would have hurt like hell.

My mind shot to the same tableau as in the woods. An old woman, trembling by a pit in her skivvies and bare feet.

The image morphed. I saw Gran’s face the day she got lost at South-Park Mall. The panic in her eyes. The relief upon seeing me.

Guilt drop-kicked self-pity into the night.

“So this is Christmas,” I sang Lennon. “… and what have you done?”

I positioned the phalange.

I was selecting another when my mobile shattered the silence. I jumped, and the phalange flew from my hand.

My eyes flicked to the clock. Eight ten.

I checked caller ID.

Ryan.

Removing one glove, I snatched up the phone and clicked on.

“Brennan.”

“Where are you?”

“Where are you?”

“I called your condo.” Did Ryan sound annoyed?

“I’m not there.”

There was a beat of silence. I listened but could hear no background noise.

“Are you still here?” Ryan asked.

“My answer would require knowledge of your present location.” I retrieved the phalange and placed it on the table.

“You’re in the morgue, right?”

“Technically, no. I’m in an autopsy room.”

Rationally, I knew my discontent was not due to Ryan. But he was on the line, so he was taking the hit.

“It’s Saturday night,” Ryan said.

“Just eleven days left, Kmart shoppers.”

Ryan ignored my sarcasm. “You’ve been here since three.”

“And?”

“You working the Oka ID?”

“No, I’m knitting the old gal a sweater.”

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

“Practice pays.”

Pause.

“What’s so urgent it can’t wait a day?” Ryan asked.

“Once I finish the skeletal inventory, I can construct the biological profile and analyze the trauma. Then I can hike my hiney to a latitude where the mercury stands tall.”

“Have you eaten?”

Ryan’s question goosed my already significant irritation.

“Why this sudden interest in my diet?”

“Have you?”

“Yes,” I lied.

“Would you like a ride home?”

I did.

“No, thanks.”

“It’s snowing.”

“Joy to the friggin’ world,” I said.

“I’m upstairs.”

“So I’m not the only loser lacking a life.”

“What would it take to get you to ride with me?” Patient.

“Chloroform.”

“Good one.”

“Thanks.”

There was a long silence before Ryan spoke again.