KATHY REICHS - 206 BONES

“This is very disappointing.”

I said nothing.

“This is a homicide.”

“Yes.”

“If the woman downstairs is Christelle Villejoin, this case will go very high profile. If a third old woman is dead, this Marilyn Keiser, that profile will go into the startosphere.”

Feeling correction would not be appreciated, I held my tongue.

“Maybe these phantom phalanges were never there. Maybe the killer hacked off this woman’s finger.”

“Why would I record a total of fifty-six?”

“Carelessness?”

“I’ll check the fifth right metacarpal for cut marks.” I didn’t believe I’d find any. I’d have noticed while sorting.

English speakers profane by reference to body functions and parts. Don’t need to elaborate. French Canadians rely on liturgical reference. Ostie: host. Câlice: chalice. Tabarnac and tabarnouche: tabernacle.

“ Ostie. ” Hubert pooched air through his lips. “What about trauma?”

“I’m still working on that.”

There was a beat of silence.

“Actually, there could be four,” I said.

“Four what?” Hubert looked at me as though I’d been sniffing glue.

“Elderly women murdered in the Montreal area. If Marilyn Keiser has been murdered. And we don’t know that, of course-”

“Who’s the fourth?”

“Rose Jurmain.”

“Who?”

“Last March a female skeleton was found near Sainte-Marguerite. Turned out to be a woman missing two and a half years.”

Hubert shot forward. Rolls large enough to hide squirrels tumbled his torso.

“Of course.” A finger jabbed the air. “Jurmain was a wealthy American. The father had connections. How could I forget? The old man was a pain in my shorts. You and Ryan just transported the bones to Chicago. But that woman wasn’t so old.”

“Fifty-nine.” I explained Rose’s prematurely aged appearance.

“ Tabarnac. ”

Hubert’s face was now the color of his shirt. I decided to delay querying about my problem with Edward Allen.

“I could cut bone samples from the skeleton downstairs. Submit them for DNA testing.” I knew it was dumb as soon I said it.

“Christelle Villejoin had one relative, a sister, now dead. You tell me she never had surgery, so we won’t get lucky with hospital-stored gallstones or tissue samples. It’s been two and a half years. The house has undoubtedly been cleaned of toothbrushes, combs, tissues, chewing gum. To what would we compare this DNA?”

“I thought there was family in the Beauce. Have attempts been made to locate those relatives?”

Hubert didn’t bother to answer. Then I remembered. Ryan said that had been done. But done well? I made a note to ask him to double-check.

“Marilyn Keiser has offspring somewhere out west,” I said. “We could at least establish that the skeleton is or is not hers.”

“And if it’s not we’re still up shit creek.”

“We could exhume Anne-Isabelle.”

“Cremated.” Hubert packed an encyclopedia of disdain into one little word.

“I’m happy to go back out to Oka.”

Now the hand flapped at me.

The small office filled with tense silence.

What the hell? I was already on Hubert’s list.

“This may not be the time, but I’d like to discuss an issue arising from the Jurmain case.”

Hubert’s stare was beyond stony and out the back door. Ignoring it, I began to explain my dilemma concerning Edward Allen’s informant.

The phone chose precisely that moment to ring.

Hubert answered, listened, the scowl never leaving his face. Then, palming the mouthpiece, he spoke to me.

“I want your trauma report as quickly as possible.”

A not so subtle kiss-off.

THE REST OF THAT DAY WAS DEVOTED TO THE OKA WOMAN.

Four hours with the bones revealed no further indignities to her person. No cut marks. No stab wounds. No bullet holes. No postcranial trauma of any kind.

The skull fracture, however, was a doozy.

When I surfaced at five, it had been dark for an hour. No new Demande d’expertise en anthropologie form lay on my desk. There were no urgent phone messages from cops or prosecutors. No update from Ryan.

Zipped, mufflered, booted, and gloved, I headed out.

The snow mounding curbs and sidewalks had already turned black. Along my route to the metro, aggravated drivers herniated themselves disinterring their cars. Exhaust fumes glowed red against a backdrop of traffic-stalled taillights. Salt crunching underfoot, I congratulated myself on my choice of mass transit.

Without Birdie or Charlie, my condo seemed dark and empty. For company, I popped in a Dorothée Berryman CD. Singing duets with Dorothée as she covered tunes by Mercer, Vaughan, and Fitzgerald, I whipped up a concoction of linguini, pine nuts, tomatoes, and feta. It wasn’t bad.

After supper, I logged onto the Net.

Few things have improved my life more in recent years than the reinstatement of US Airway’s incredibly fabulous direct nonstop service between La Belle Ville and the Queen City.

Good-bye, connection in Philadelphia! Hello, luggage in Charlotte!

Within minutes, I’d booked a seat on Thursday morning’s flight. As I closed the laptop, my face wore a smile with the wingspan of a 747.

“Going home, going home, I’m a-going home.”

Dorothée did not begrudge me my solo.

Tuesday I was up at seven, in the lab by eight.

The morning’s autopsies included a worker crushed in a microbrewery and a bookkeeper who’d used timers and wrist leads to electrocute herself. Conscientious even in death, the lady had pinned a note to her sweater warning of potential hazard.

By ten, I’d drawn and photographed the Oka woman’s cranial trauma and composed my report. Then I photocopied my diagram and printed superior, lateral, and interior views of the skull.

After downing a mug of very bad coffee, I hiked downstairs to the Bureau du coroner.

Hubert was in his office. The day’s shirt was lavender, the tie still red and green. Candy canes and holly had replaced Monday’s tree and banner motif.

“She was struck once from behind, once after she was down.”

Hubert laid aside his pen.

Circling the desk, I placed the prints and diagram on his blotter. On each, I’d labeled the fractures alphabetically.

Using my finger, I traced a jagged break running from right to left across the back of the Oka skull.

“Letter A marks a radiating fracture caused by a blow to the right posterior parietal.”

I indicated an indentation beside the sagittal suture at the top of the vault. A starburst of cracks spread from its center.

“Letter B marks a crush fracture.”

“Caused by a blow to the crown.”

“Yes.”

A pudgy finger came down on an in-bending paralleling one side of the crush fracture. “ Bonjour. ”

“I’ll come back to that. The letters C mark radiating and concentric fractures associated with B . Notice that every C terminates at A .”

Hubert made a noise in his throat.

“Once formed, a crack will propagate until its energy is dissipated. In other words, when it hits an opening, it’s done. So fracture A preexisted fracture B , and all its progeny, the C s.”

Hubert got it. “The crown was hit after the parietal.”

“Exactly. The first blow may have been lethal, but the killer was taking no chances. After she fell, he blasted her again to make certain she wasn’t getting up.”

“With what?”

I indicated the edge of the depression fracture that had caught Hubert’s attention.

“The shape of the in-bending suggests a cylindrical object that widens into a flat surface with a raised central ridge.”