Kathy Reichs: Cross bones

Ryan picked up Kessler’s print.

“What am I looking at?”

“A skeleton.”

Ryan’s eyes rolled up.

“Kessler-” I stopped. “The mysterious bearded stranger told me it came from Israel.”

“The photocame from Israel, or was shot there?”

Another screw-up on my part.

“The picture’s over forty years old. It’s probably meaningless.”

“When someone says it caused a death, it’s not meaningless.”

I reddened.

Ryan flipped the photo as I had. “What’sM de 1 H?”

“You think that’s anM?”

Ryan ignored my question.

“What was going on in October of sixty-three?” he asked, more of himself than of me.

“Oswald’s thoughts were on JFK.”

“Brennan, you can be a real-”

“We’ve established that.”

Crossing to Ryan, I reversed the photo and pointed at the object to the left of the leg bones.

“See that?” I asked.

“It’s a paintbrush.”

“It’s a cocked-up north arrow.”

“Meaning?”

“Old archaeologist’s trick. If you don’t have an official marker to indicate scale and direction, place something in the shot and point it north.”

“You think this was taken by an archaeologist?”

“Yes.”

“What site?”

“A site with burials.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“Look, this Kessler’s probably a crackpot. Find him and grill him. Or talk to Miriam Ferris.” I flapped a hand at the print. “Maybe she knows why her husband was freaked over this thing.” I slipped off my lab coat. “If hewas freaked over the thing.”

Ryan studied the photo for a full minute. Then he looked up and said, “Did you buy the tap pants?”

My cheeks flamed. “No.”

“Red satin. Sexy as hell.”

I narrowed my eyes in a “not here” warning look. “I’m calling it a day.”

Crossing to the closet, I hung up my lab coat and emptied the pockets. Emptied my libido.

When I returned, Ryan was on his feet, but again staring at Kessler’s photo.

“Think any of your paleo pals might recognize this?”

“I can make a few calls.”

“Couldn’t hurt.”

At the door Ryan turned and flashed his brows.

“See you later?”

“Wednesday’s my tai chi night.”

“Tomorrow?”

“You’re on.”

Ryan pointed one finger and winked. “Tap pants.”

My Montreal condo is on the ground floor of a U-shaped low-rise. One bedroom, one study, two baths, living-dining room, a walk-through kitchen narrow enough to stand at the sink and pivot to reach the fridge behind you.

Through one kitchen archway, I cross a hall to French doors opening onto a central courtyard. Through the other kitchen archway, I cross through a living room to French doors opening onto a tiny enclosed yard.

Stone fireplace. Nice woodwork. Ample closets. Underground parking.

Nothing fancy. The building’s selling point is that it’s smack downtown. Centre-ville. Everything I need is within two blocks of my bed.

Birdie didn’t appear at the sound of my key.

“Hey, Bird.”

No cat.

“Chirp.”

“Hey, Charlie.”

“Chirp. Chirp.”

“Birdie?”

“Chirp. Chirp. Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.” Wolf whistle.

Stuffing my coat into the closet, I dropped my laptop in the study, deposited my take-out lasagna in the kitchen, and continued through the far archway.

Birdie was in his sphinx pose, legs tucked, head up, front paws curled inward. When I joined him on the love seat, he glanced up, then refocused on the cage to his right.

Charlie tipped his head and eyed me through the bars.

“How are my boys?” I asked.

Birdie ignored me.

Charlie hopped to his seed dish and gave another wolf whistle followed by a chirp.

“My day? Tiring, but disaster-free.” I didn’t mention Kessler.

Charlie cocked his head and viewed me with his left eye.

Nothing from the cat.

“Glad you two are getting along.”

And they were.

The cockatiel was this year’s Christmas present from Ryan. Though I’d been less than enthused, given my cross-border lifestyle, Birdie had been smitten at first sight.

Upon my rejection of his bid for cohabitation, Ryan had proposed joint custody. When I was in Montreal, Charlie would be mine. When I was in Charlotte, Charlie and Ryan would batch it. Birdie usually traveled with me.

This arrangement was working, and cat and cockatiel were firmly bonded.

I moved to the kitchen.

“Road trip,” Charlie squawked. “Don’t forget the bird.”

I was lousy at tai chi that night, but afterward I slept like a rock. Okay, lasagna isn’t great for “Grasp Sparrow’s Tail” or “White Crane Spreads Its Wings,” but it kicks ass for “Internal Stillness.”

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

I spent my first hour identifying, marking, and inventorying the fragments from Avram Ferris’s head. I wasn’t yet undertaking an in-depth examination, but I was noticing details, and a picture was emerging. A baffling picture.

That morning’s staff meeting ran the usual roster of the brainless, the brutal, and the sadly banal.

A twenty-seven-year-old male electrocuted himself by urinating in the track bed at the Lucien-L’Allier metro.

A Boisbriand carpenter bludgeoned his wife of thirty years during an argument over who would go out for logs.

A fifty-nine-year-old crackhead overdosed in a pay-by-the-night flophouse near the Chinatown gate.

Nothing for the anthropologist.

At nine-twenty, I returned to my office and phoned Jacob Drum, a colleague at UNC-Charlotte. His voice mail answered. I left a message asking that he return my call.

I’d been with the fragments another hour when the phone rang.

“Hey, Tempe.”

In greeting, we Southerners say “hey” not “hi.” To alert, draw the attention of, or show objection to another, we also say “hey,” but air is expelled and the ending is truncated. This was an airless, four-A “hey.”

“Hey, Jake.”

“Won’t get above fifty in Charlotte today. Cold up there?”

In winter, Southerners delight in querying Canadian weather. In summer, interest plummets.

“It’s cold.” The predicted high was in negative figures.

“Going where the weather suits my clothes.”

“Off to dig?” Jake was a biblical archaeologist who’d been excavating in the Middle East for almost three decades.

“Yes, ma’am. Doing a first-century synagogue. Been planning it for months. Crew’s set. Got my regulars in Israel, meeting up with a field supervisor in Toronto on Saturday. Just finalizing my own travel arrangements now. Pain in the gumpy. Do you have any idea how rare these things are?”

Gumpies?

“There are first-century synagogues at Masada and Gamla. That’s about it.”

“Sounds like a terrific opportunity. Listen, I’m glad I caught you. Got a favor to ask.”

“Shoot.”

I described Kessler’s print, leaving out specifics as to how I’d obtained it.

“Pic was shot in Israel?”

“I’m told it came from Israel.”

“It dates to the sixties?”

“‘October ’63’ is written on the back. And some kind of notation. Maybe an address.”

“Pretty vague.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be glad to check it out.”

“I’ll scan the image and send it by e-mail.”

“I’m not optimistic.”

“I appreciate your willingness to take a look.”

I knew what was coming. Jake reran the shtick like a bad beer ad.

“You gotta come dig with us, Tempe. Get back to your archaeological roots.”

“There’s nothing I’d like better, but I can’t take off now.”