Kathy Reichs - Devil Bones

“Stomach contents suggest the kid ate several hours before death. Beans. Peppers. Some kind of citrus, lemon, maybe lime.”

“Hopefully we’ll get a hit off the prints,” I said.

“You’re putting his age at sixteen to eighteen?”

I nodded. My preliminary was based on the clavicle, the pubic symphyses, and the X-rays.

“Could be a pisser. Teenagers vanish every day.” Larabee tipped his head in the general direction of uptown. “Most are right out there, living on the streets. Parents start looking, a kid goes to ground. Someone stops showing up, the gang figures the kid’s moved on.”

Hawkins turned to Larabee. The ME nodded.

Hawkins shifted the body from the table to a waiting gurney, covered it with plastic, released the foot brake, and rolled it into the corridor. The door clicked into place behind him.

“I’ll check the vertebrae,” I said. “If there’s an arrest, cut marks could prove useful.”

“Assuming the perp kept his tool and the cops find it. You thinking saw?”

“Striations suggest a toothed or serrated blade. I’ll examine everything under magnification.”

Larabee stripped off his gloves. “I’ll contact Slidell, get the prints into the system.”

I remembered. “Have you looked at the brain?”

Larabee nodded. “I’m no neuroanatomist, but the organization looks human to me.”

“Could try a precipitin test.”

I referred to a procedure in which anti-human antibodies, produced by injecting a rabbit with human blood, are placed on a gel diffusion plate with an unknown sample. If a precipitin line forms where the two samples meet, then the unknown sample is not from a human being. The test can be performed using antidog, antideer, or anti-whatever species is in question. Though usually done with blood, I suspected it might work with brain matter.

“Worth a try,” Larabee said.

“I’ll get on it.”

Circling the empty table, I picked up my bowls and headed for the stinky room.

I was right about the cut marks.

Though neck bones are not ideal for preserving blade characteristics, the fourth cervical vertebra had been sliced transversely, preserving a series of striae exhibiting concave bending with fixed-radius curvature sweeping away from, not around, the breakaway point. The fifth vertebra had a single false start measuring.09 of an inch in width. Every cut surface had a uniform, almost polished appearance. I found little entrance or exit chipping.

Everything suggested a power circular saw.

After photographing the sawn vertebrae, I called the entomologist to whom I’d sent the Greenleaf cellar specimens on Tuesday morning. He had them. He’d looked at them.

He talked about coffin flies from the chicken and empty puparial cases from the goat head. He went on about Collembola, Dermestidae, and cockroaches in the dirt. He gave me numbers and statistical probabilities.

I asked for a bottom line.

Pending final observations, in his opinion, the chicken had been dead roughly six weeks.

I outlined the facts of the Lake Wylie case, and told him another set of samples was en route to his lab.

He said hot damn.

I told him we suspected a body dump, but wanted to rule out that the victim had come from the lake. He said send the plastic wrapping. I agreed.

I bolted a quick sandwich, then began making thin sections from the bone plug removed from the Lake Wylie corpse. If Slidell bombed with the prints, I hoped histology would help me refine my age estimate.

Normally the procedure is grindingly tedious. Using a very sharp diamond blade, you cut cross-sectional slices of bone measuring one hundred microns in thickness. Or, at least they used to. The micron was officially abolished in 1967 by the CGPM, the intergalactic council on weights and measures. The micron is now the micrometer. No matter. The little bugger is still.00004 of an inch. That’s why the slices are called thin sections.

Once placed on slides, the thin sections are eyeballed with a light microscope at a magnification of 100X. Then you count stuff.

Here’s the premise. Bone is a dynamic tissue, constantly repairing and replacing itself. Throughout life, the microscopic bits increase in number. Therefore, a tally of osteons, osteon fragments, lamellae, and canal systems provides a means of evaluating adult age.

My scores supported my initial estimate of sixteen to eighteen years. No surprise.

But something else was.

While counting, I noticed odd discolorations in several of the Haversian canals, the tiny tunnels that allow nerves and vessels to traverse a bone’s interior.

Some sort of invasive microorganism? Soil staining? Mineral deposition? Microfracturing?

Though I doubled the magnification, the irregularities still weren’t clear. The defects could be meaningful or nothing at all. To be certain I’d need mongo magnification. That meant scanning electron microscopy.

Grabbing my cell, I dialed a colleague in the optoelectronics center at UNCC. A cheery voice told me its owner would return on Tuesday and wished me an enjoyable holiday weekend.

In addition to tired and frustrated, I once again felt like the world’s biggest loser.

I was leaving a decidedly less chirpy message, when a call beeped in. I finished and switched over.

Slidell was at the front door. Waiting. Impatiently.

I looked at the clock. Mrs. Flowers had been gone for hours.

Walking to the lobby, I admitted Slidell.

“Thought I’d maybe die of old age out there.”

“I’m working two cases at once.” I ignored Slidell’s dig.

“Got an age on the Lake Wylie kid?”

“Sixteen to eighteen.”

“Cuttin’ tool?”

“Power saw, circular blade.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Slidell pooched out his lips, nodded, then slipped a paper from his pocket.

“Got something you’re gonna like.”

I held out a hand.

He was right.

I liked it.

SLIDELL HAD OBTAINED A WARRANT FOR CUERVO’S SHOP.

“I’m impressed.” I was.

“Erskine B. Slidell don’t let no grass grow. And, by the by, Thomas Cuervo’s a card-carrying citizen of these United States.”

“Really?”

“Looks like Mama managed to slip ashore, give birth, collect little Tommy’s papers, then hightail it back to Ecuador. In the eighties, Cuervo started traveling in and out of the country regularly. Been here steady since ninety-seven. INS has no permanent address for him, either here or south of the border.”

“That’s not surprising.”

“After a second, decidedly shitcan session with Roseboro, I cruised by Cuervo’s little pharmacy. Place was closed, but I shopped his picture around. Thought I was in Tijuana, for Christ sake.”

Slidell made a gesture whose meaning was lost on me.

“Finally smoked out a pair of hombres” – pronounced home-brays – “admitted to a passing acquaintance. Boys had some trouble speaking English, but whaddya know, flashed a couple twenties, their communication skills took a sharp upward turn. Seems hawking tonic and weed are but two of Señor Cuervo’s talents. The guy’s some kinda hotshot faith healer.”

“A santero ?”

“Or maybe that other thing.”

“ Palero ?”

Slidell nodded.

Palo Mayombe.

Mark Kilroy.

I pushed the thought to deep background.

“Where’s Cuervo now?”

“Cisco and Pancho were a bit vague on that. Said the shop’s been closed for a couple of months. Suggested Cuervo may have gone back to Ecuador.”

“Does he have family here in Charlotte?”

“Not according to the two amigos.”

“How did you get a judge to cut paper?”