KATHY REICHS - 206 BONES

“Could be,” Labrousse said. “Let me know what you decide.”

After hanging up, I crossed to my worktable and scooped up the younger child’s two baby teeth.

I closed my eyes and digits and willed the tiny molars to speak to me. Claire Clemenceau, drowned while boating? Valentin Gouvrard, killed while flying?

I felt only a prickly hardness in my fist.

Uncurling my fingers, I studied the small crowns with their discolored enamel.

A phrase whispered through my brain.

Cusp of Carabelli.

No surprise I’d missed it. The tiny bump was barely visible, a wee bulge on the lingual surface of the mesiolingual cusp of the upper M2.

I picked up the permanent molar. No cusp.

Odd, but no big deal. The variation is most common on permanent first upper molars, but can be present on baby second molars as well.

Carabelli’s cusp varies in frequency of expression between populations, occurring in a high percentage of Europeans. Its presence suggested the Lac Saint-Jean child was probably white. I already suspected that. The variant was little more than a curiosity.

Frustrated, I returned the teeth to their vial.

Then I paced, thoughts buzzing like yellowjackets in my brain.

Briel had done anthropology when her training was in pathology. Remains were now in danger of misidentification. Briel’s motive didn’t matter. I had to demonstrate her ineptness to Hubert. To stop her over-reaching her professional competence.

Gnawing a thumbnail, I reviewed the facts.

Achille Gouvrard was white. The male skeleton had features suggesting Mongoloid ancestry.

Richard Blackwater was half Montagnais.

Achille Gouvrard had shrapnel embedded in one thigh bone. The man on my table did not.

Claire Clemenceau was a healthy infant.

The younger child’s baby teeth showed tetracycline staining. Obvious. Yet I’d missed it during my preliminary examination.

Claire Clemenceau probably never saw a dentist.

The child on my table had a restoration.

A Carabelli’s cusp on one baby tooth.

Useless.

I’d missed that, too.

Or had I?

Briel found the bullet track.

Briel found the phalanges.

Briel found the staining.

The truth blasted through.

I knew what had happened.

And what I had to do to prove it.

LEAVING MY LAB, I CHECKED THE BOARD AT THE END OF THE HALL. The letters AM were written beside Briel’s name. Absence motivée .

Briel had requested the day off.

Excellent .

I proceeded to admin. Claiming need of a file, I asked for a key to LaManche’s door. No big deal. With the chief on sick leave, the pathologists and I occasionally required dossiers from his office.

My watch said eleven fifty. Back in my office, I forced myself to wait. Twenty minutes. Then my coworkers would be downing lunch meat and microwave pizza.

Overestimation. In ten minutes the medico-legal wing was deserted.

Moving quickly, I went to LaManche’s desk and removed his master keys. Then I let myself into Briel’s office, closed the door, and began searching.

The desk produced nothing.

I worked through the bookshelves, then the credenza. Still nothing.

My palms were damp. I felt like a thief.

With jerky movements, I began pulling drawers in the first filing cabinet. Nada.

Second. Nope.

My eyes flicked to the narrow window paralleling the door. Through the blinds I detected no movement in the hall.

Deep breath.

I started on the last cabinet.

And struck gold.

The ziplock lay in the bottom drawer, in a gap behind the last file separator. Inside were at least forty teeth.

High-fiving myself, I slipped from the room, locked up, and returned the chief ’s keys.

Back in my lab, I spread the collection on my blotter. And sagged in dismay.

There wasn’t a baby tooth in the lot, stained or otherwise.

Had I erred? Misjudged Briel? Was I desperately seeking a way to let myself off the hook?

As before, my gaze drifted to the window over my desk. A frost blossom spread from a lower corner of the glass. I saw a peony. An owl. An old man’s face.

I thought of Katy, our cloud games when she was a little girl. I wished myself home, on my back in the grass on a summer afternoon.

I remembered my conversation with Solange Duclos. Her “spider” molar from Bergeron’s tub. The itsy bitsy spider went up the waterspout . I hadn’t been amused. A sign I was growing old? Losing my ability to imagine? To laugh?

To function professionally?

Hell no. I hadn’t really inspected the damn tooth.

The tooth.

The tub.

I pictured the “spider” itsy bitsying through the air.

My eyes closed.

Flew open.

Carabelli’s cusp!

Grabbing my keys, I shot to the closet, unlocked a cabinet, and yanked out Bergeron’s tub of teaching specimens.

Back to my desk for another triage.

The collection contained twelve baby teeth: eight incisors, three canines, and Duclos’s “spider” molar, an upper first from the right side.

Sonovabitch. The molar had a Carabelli’s cusp.

I carried it to a table-mounted magnifying lens. I was rotating the molar, studying every surface, when the door opened, clicked shut.

I glanced up.

Joe.

Too amped for small talk, I turned back to the lens, hoping, but not really expecting to find what I needed.

I was about to give up when a pinpoint of dullness caught my attention, not so much a stain as a subtle flattening of the enamel.

Barely breathing, I took the molar to the stereomicroscope and cranked up the power.

Yes! A wear facet.

After sealing the molar in a vial, I scrolled to a number on my mobile and dialed.

“Department of Anthropology.”

“Miller Barnes, please.”

A voice answered, broad and flat as a Kansas prairie.

I said hi. Miller said hi. We both agreed it had been a long time. Miller asked about Katy. I asked about his wife. Finally, I was able to make my request.

“Is there a scanning electron microscope on the McGill campus?”

“Engineering has one. What do you need?”

I explained.

“When do you need it?”

“Yesterday.”

Miller laughed. “I play racquetball with one of the guys over there. Always get my ass whupped. Should work for us.”

I paced, gnawed.

Joe cast curious glances my way. I ignored him. I’d buy cookies.

An eon later the phone rang.

“Ever watch The Price Is Right ?” Miller asked.

“Back in the Pleistocene.” Quiz shows?

“Come on down.” He mimicked the coveted invitation.

Locking Briel’s ziplock in my desk and Bergeron’s tub in its cabinet, I pocketed the vial containing Duclos’s “itsy bitsy spider” tooth, an upper-right M1, and the one containing the teeth from the Lac Saint-Jean child. Then I grabbed my jacket and purse and flew out the door.

McGill University lies in the heart of centre-ville , so parking a car is like dumping nuclear waste. Not here, sister.

After three loops up University and through a neighborhood dubbed the McGill ghetto, I spotted a possibility. Playing bumper cars for a good five minutes, I managed to wedge the Mazda into a gap probably vacated by a scooter.

I got out. The vehicles fore and aft had at least a foot each.

Attagirl!

The sky was tin, the temperature up a notch. Moist air pressed down on the city like a heavy wet quilt.

As I entered campus through the east gate, fat flakes began lazing down. Most melted on contact with the pavement. Others lingered, minimally enthused by thoughts of collective action.

Around the main quad, gaunt stone buildings climbed from Sherbrooke to Docteur Penfield, gray and solid as Mont Royal at their backs. Students scurried the pathways, shoulders rounded, heads and backpacks coated with wet snow doilies.