Jeff Abbott - No Rest for the Dead

Olsen rocketed forward, fingers squeezing his armrests. “You exhumed Christopher Thomas.”

McGee studied him, then slid his eyes left.

“An exhumation wasn’t possible,” Nunn explained. “At my request, Dr. McGee analyzed the dossier compiled at the time of Thomas’s death.”

“Wasn’t everything written in German?” Olsen asked.

“I had the reports translated,” McGee said.

“And you found proof of Rosemary’s innocence!” Olsen said.

Irritation filed the edge of McGee’s rich baritone. “Who else thinks he knows how my movie ends?”

Olsen flicked an angry glance at Nunn. Who the hell is this guy?

Nunn raised two placating palms. “Let Dr. McGee walk us through his findings without interruption. Then you can ask all the questions you want, okay?”

Face locked into neutral, Olsen settled back.

Twisting sideways, McGee swung his case to the desktop and withdrew two folders, one brown and battered, the other bright pink and OfficeMax new. Setting the former aside, he flipped the cover on the latter.

“The original paperwork is here if anyone sprecht Deutsche . My comments will focus on my interpretation of the evidence.”

Not pausing to gauge reaction, McGee pulled a multipage document from the folder.

“According to the pathologist”-he flipped to the back-“one Bruno Muntz, the remains were soup and bones, rendering visual identification impossible. Most of the teeth were toast.”

McGee’s gaze crawled the faces of those fanned out before him. Frowning, he ran a hand across his perfectly formed jaw. “Muntz was unable to determine cause of death. Understandable. Due to decomp and damage inflicted by the maiden, the body was hamburger. No Germanic pun intended.”

The corners of McGee’s mouth twitched in what might have been a grin.

No one smiled back.

“Where Muntz erred big-time was in failing to solicit the opinion of a specialist. In going solo on the anthro he jumped into dung way over his head.”

McGee took a mustard-colored envelope from his briefcase, unwound the string, and fanned out a dozen autopsy photos onto the desktop.

Four chairs scooted forward as one.

“Fortunately, Muntz had a kick-ass photographer. This is a close-up showing what remained of the victim’s left hand. Missing from each digit is the distal phalange, the little arrow-shaped bugger that underlies the fingertip.”

McGee rotated a print for the benefit of those opposite. “Anything strike you as odd?”

No one ventured an opinion.

Snatching up a pen, McGee pointed to the tubular bones that had once formed fingers. “Look at the first four sets of phalanges.”

Everyone did.

McGee rotated another photo, this one showing the bones of a single digit.

“These are the bones of the left fifth finger after removal of the soft tissue. Again, look at the phalanges.”

“The fingertip is present,” said Olsen.

“Yes. This was the digit that yielded the one partial print. What else?”

“These bones seem skinnier and smoother than the ones in the other fingers. And they flare out more at the ends,” said Justine.

“Head of the class, little lady.”

Normally, Olegard would have bristled at the “little lady” endearment. Given McGee’s stature, she let it slide.

“What does it mean?” Olsen asked, eyes glued to the photos.

McGee ignored him and produced a magnifying lens from the briefcase. He handed it to Justine, along with the first autopsy shot of digits one through four.

“Note there are tiny slashes at the ends of each of the first four middle phalanges.”

Leaning forward, McGee reached out and shifted his pen from thumb, to pointer, to middle, to ring man. Justine followed its progress with the lens.

“The horizontal lines?” she asked.

“Yes. Those are cut marks created by a nonserrated blade. The marks are absent on the middle phalange of the pinkie but present on its proximal phalange, the one at the near end. Cut marks are also present on the fifth metacarpal, adjacent to where the finger articulates with the hand.”

“So the left pinkie was the only digit to retain its tip and to have no cut marks at that end?” Justine said. She addressed no one in particular, as though sifting data in her mind. “The left pinkie was also the only digit to have cut marks at the end where the finger joined the hand.”

“Again, the little lady nailed it.”

The little lady handed the photo and lens to Olsen.

“May I hypothesize?” Justine asked, encouraged by McGee’s smile in her direction.

McGee dipped his chin.

Justine took it as assent. “The fingertips were removed from every digit but the left pinkie. That finger was severed intact.”

“Bravo.”

Meyer performed an eye roll directed at Nunn. Are you believing this lunatic? “You’re saying the killer hacked off nine of Thomas’s fingertips but cut off his left pinkie and left it intact?”

“No,” McGee said. “I am not.”

Meyer’s brows reached for his hairline.

“Moving on. Muntz based his positive ID on three things.” McGee raised a hand and moved a stumpy thumb from finger to finger. “First, the presence of a belt buckle belonging to Christopher Thomas. Second, a match to a partial print taken from a left fifth finger. Third, consistency between the skeletal profile obtained from the remains and Christopher Thomas’s known age, sex, race, and height.”

McGee replaced the hand-bone shots with views of the skull. As before, he pen-pointed at features in the photo.

“Short, globular head shape. Wide face, flaring cheekbones. Broad palate and nasal opening. Complicated zigzag suture pattern. Accessory bone at the back of the skull. To me that configuration screams Mongoloid.”

Blank looks.

“Those traits indicate Asian or Native American ancestry.” Slowly, teacher to dull pupils.

“You saying Thomas was Asian?” Tony Olsen made no effort to mask his skepticism.

McGee ignored the interruption. “Muntz made another error. In calculating stature he relied on only one bone, the femur. He then chose an inappropriate formula for performing a regression equation and misinterpreted the statistical significance of the estimate that equation generated. I remeasured leg-bone lengths, using the scale provided in the photographs, and recalculated stature applying statistics appropriate to Asians. My height estimate for the decedent is 162 to 168 centimeters. Christopher Thomas measured 183 centimeters.”

“What about the print?” Tiny vessels had blossomed in Tony Olsen’s cheeks. “Fingerprints don’t lie.”

“I have to admit that bothered me too. ‘Iggy,’ I said to myself, ‘it doesn’t add up. Or does it? What’s the pattern? You got a boatload of dots, now link them together.’”

Again, a stumpy thumb worked stumpy fingers, ticking off points.

“Dot: the vic is supposed to be a tall white guy, but his skull says he’s Asian and his leg bones say he’s too short.

“Dot: the left-fifth-finger bones look different from all the other finger bones, smoother and more gracile in the shafts and broader at the ends.

“Dot: every fingertip was removed but the one on the left fifth finger.

“Dot: nine digits were reduced to bone, but the left fifth finger retained its soft tissue.”

McGee did his best at crossing his arms on his chest. It didn’t go well.

“Then I remembered. The glycerin.”

Mystified looks all around.

McGee scanned the text, then read aloud from Muntz’s autopsy report: “‘One digit was deeply embedded in the femoroacetabular junction.’”

Not a single Aha! expression.