Kathy Reichs - Break No Bones

"Do you know where Jimmie Ray was going for his appointment?"

"Weren't no appointment. Jimmie Ray couldn't afford no private doctor."

"Oh?" Calm .

"Uses the free clinic over to Nassau, same as Nellie and me."

"The GMC clinic?" Calm .

"Tha's it. No appointments there. You sit your bottom down, wait your turn."

I gave Ryan a thumbs-up. Taking a hand from the wheel, he returned it, knowing I'd just tied Teal to the clinic.

"Thank you, Mrs. Teal."

"You find Jimmie Ray, you tell him his chicken's waiting."

I clicked off and raised a palm. Ryan high-fived it.

"And then there were three," I said, dialing Gullet.

My jubilation was cut short when Gullet's receptionist said her boss was absent until Tuesday. I stressed the importance of my contacting him. She said the sheriff had gone fishing and could not be reached.

Call Emma? I decided to wait until I'd researched the meaning of the neck fractures.

Pete was out when Ryan and I got back to "Sea for Miles." A blessing. Their alpha male routine was getting real old.

I went straight to my laptop and got online. Suspecting I'd be occupied for some time, Ryan set off in search of climate-appropriate clothing.

I started with the Journal of Forensic Science, bombed, moved on through a dozen more forensic publications. Two hours later I was out of ideas. Though I'd learned a lot about injuries due to traffic accidents, hockey, diving, and "spear-tackling" in football, nothing fit the pattern I was seeing. Try as I might, I couldn't remember where I'd encountered the report I was remembering.

I stared at my computer screen, frustrated, wondering for the billionth time if anything really connected these cases. Cruikshank, Helms, and Montague all exhibited unilateral neck fractures on the sixth cervical vertebrae. Helms and Montague had nicks in their lower back area. Montague was a patient at the GMC clinic. Jimmie Ray Teal was a patient at the GMC clinic. Helene Flynn had worked there.

Montague, Helms, and Cruikshank were dead. Teal and Flynn were missing.

Lonnie Aikman was missing. Susie Ruth Aikman was dead. Had mother or son been a patient at the GMC clinic? Were the Aikmans tied in at all? Were Cruikshank's other MPs?

It had to be the clinic.

Helene Flynn had complained about the clinic to her father before terminating contact with him. And to Herron. Cruikshank had been observing the place.

Or had Cruikshank been observing the people?

On impulse, I Googled the name Lester Marshall. I learned about an Arabian horse breeder and a guy who teaches qigong energy therapy, whatever that is.

When I added "Dr." to the name I was piped into a physician research service. For $7.95 the site promised to cough up everything but a doctor's grandmother's favorite recipe.

Why not?

My eight bucks got me the following.

Lester Marshall's address and phone number at the Nassau Street clinic. Now there was a buy.

Marshall's MD was earned at St. George's Medical School in Grenada.

Marshall's area of practice was family medicine, though he held no board certification in any medical specialty.

Marshall had done no residencies or fellowships.

Marshall had been on staff at a hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma, from 1982 until 1989. He'd hired on with GMC in 1995.

Marshall had been the subject of no state or federal disciplinary actions.

I was printing my results when I heard the front door. From the swishing and crinkling I assumed shopping had been a success.

"Any luck finding your article?" Ryan asked, kissing the top of my head.

"No. But I did a little research on Lester Marshall." I handed Ryan my report.

"Grenada? That a real med school?"

"I think so. Though it's not exactly Johns Hopkins."

"Patchy employment history," Ryan said.

"Exactly. Where was Marshall from eighty-nine to ninety-five?"

"Wonder why he left Oklahoma."

"If Marshall got into trouble in eighty-nine the site wouldn't provide that information. They don't collect data on malpractice or lawsuits, and they don't report disciplinary actions older than five years."

"Did you try the pit bull and Daniels?"

I shook my head.

While Ryan took his purchases to the bedroom, I Googled Corey Daniels and Adele Berry. Nothing relevant came up. When I tried the Charleston white pages, I found a Corey R. Daniels on Seabrook Island.

A nurse living on Seabrook? That was odd. Seabrook and Kiawah islands were some of the priciest real estate in the Charleston area. Nothing low end.

I was thinking about that when Ryan reappeared. He was wearing a black cap with the brim turned backward, black Teva sandals, black shorts, and a black T depicting a devil clobbering an angel with a flashlight. The message read: Electricity comes from electrons, morality comes from morons.

"Nice," I said. Black, I thought.

"I found the message inspirational."

I found it unintelligible, but didn't say so.

"Didn't want to go too preppy," Ryan said.

"Black works with the pink skin," I said. "Hope the babes can resist."

"That can be a problem."

"Want to take a shot at hacking into Cruikshank's computer?"

"Not my strength. But I'll lend moral support."

"Morality's for morons." Pointing at Ryan's shirt, I heard a "psst" in my mind.

What? Electricity? Flashlight? Angel?

Wham-o. It was the Pete's-Hornets-cap-Teal synapse all over again. My mind catapulted the name from somewhere deep in storage.

"Larry Angel!"

"How I love him, how I tingle when he passes by." Ryan mimicked the Carpenters into an imaginary hand mike.

"Not Johnny Angel, Larry Angel. He was a physical anthropologist at the Smithsonian for years. It wasn't a journal article, it was a book chapter."

Ryan followed me to the den and watched as I dug a volume from the stack I'd used as a mini-lending library for my field school students.

And there it was. A black-and-white photo of a sixth cervical vertebra showing a hinge fracture through the anterior lamina and a hairline crack through the posterior lamina of the left transverse process.

"Whoa," Ryan said.

"Yowza," I said.

Together, Ryan and I skimmed the text.

I went cold all over.

I knew how Montague, Helms, and Cruikshank had died.

"I BUSTED A HIT MAN WHO POPPED HIS VICS WITH A SPANISH windlass." Ryan was using the slang term for the weapon described in Angel's chapter. "Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu boy, old school. Hated guns.

"He'd slip a wire noose over the vic's head, loop one side around a solid object, piece of pipe, maybe a screwdriver. Twist the side loop, the noose tightened. Simple but effective means of strangulation."

Exactly as Angel described.

I was almost too repulsed to speak. "That explains why only a single vertebra was fractured, and on only one side. The wire concentrated the force. The side loop was on the left."

I pictured the groove circling Unique Montague's neck, the claw marks left by her desperate struggles for breath.

"It also explains cause of death," I said. "C-6 and C-7 are angled five to ten degrees, so pressure applied to the carotid tubercle from the front would have been directed downward and backward." I swallowed. "Circulation to the brain would have been compromised and air would have been cut off from the lungs."

"You're sure it's the same injury on all three?"

I nodded.

Ryan pierced me with the ice blues. "So your drunken PI didn't kill himself after all."

"Cruikshank, Helms, and Montague were all garroted."

"Why?"

"Don't know."

"Helms and Montague were stabbed, or jabbed, or pierced in some way. Cruikshank wasn't. Why?"

"Don't know."