Kathy Reichs: Bones of the Lost: A Temperance Brennan Novel

Slidell glanced up, resumed scribbling.

“That discoloration is called lividity. It’s due to the settling of blood in the body’s downside once the heart stops beating. When I pressed a thumb to her flesh, the vessels were pushed aside, leaving an area of pallor.”

Slidell twisted his mouth to one side.

“A white mark,” Larabee simplified. “After about ten hours the red blood cells and capillaries would have decomposed sufficiently so blanching wouldn’t have occurred.”

“And rigor’s when the stiff gets stiff.” Slidell pronounced it rigger .

Larabee nodded. “When the body arrived, rigor was complete in the small muscles, but not in the largest ones. Her jaws were locked, but I could still bend her knees and elbows.”

“So she died more than seven hours before she got here, but less than ten.” Slidell did the math in his head. It took a while. “Sometime between eleven and two.”

“It’s not a precise science,” Larabee said.

“What about stomach contents? Once you get her open?”

“Ninety-eight percent of her last meal would have left her stomach within six to eight hours of ingestion. With luck I might find some fragments, corn, maybe tomato skin, in a rugal fold in the gastric mucosa. I’ll let you know.”

“What about vitreous?” I was asking about fluid drawn from the eye. “Can you test for potassium?”

“I took a sample, but it won’t really narrow the range.”

“How close was she to the light rail?” I asked Slidell.

“She was on the shoulder, on the side opposite the railway.”

“How often do trains pass during those hours?”

“Last one runs by there just after one A.M. The next isn’t until five A.M.”

“What about metallic spray?” I asked Larabee. “Or oil. Did you find any deposits on her skin or hair?

“KILL THE LIGHTS, PLEASE.”

Slidell clumped to the wall, back to the table.

Larabee clicked on a small UV light and directed it toward the girl’s inner left thigh.

A scatter glowed blue-white on her skin.

Semen.

As Larabee slowly moved the beam, some stains fluoresced more intensely than others.

“Multiple donors?” I asked.

“We’ll need DNA to confirm,” Larabee said. “But that’s my impression.”

“We talking rape?” Slidell’s mouth was right at my ear.

“I found no vaginal tearing or abrasions. No sign of anal entry.”

“So we’re back to my first guess.” I heard Slidell straighten. “The kid was on the stroll.”

I bit back a response.

Larabee thumbed off his flash. “Get the switch?”

Slidell did.

“Think you can narrow the age estimate?” Larabee spoke to me as the fluorescents buzzed to life.

“Has Joe taken dentals?” I was referring to Joe Hawkins, most senior of the lab’s autopsy techs.

Larabee indicated a brown envelope lying on a countertop light box.

I crossed to it and poured the small black squares onto the box’s viewing plate. After pushing the on button, I arranged the films anatomically and studied the illuminated dentition.

“All four second molars are in occlusion, with the roots fully formed down to the tips. That puts her, minimally, above twelve. The third molars are unerupted and show little root development. I’m not an odontologist, but, dentally, I’d say she’s in the range of thirteen to seventeen.”

The men waited as I continued to study the X-rays.

“Left first molar’s got a mean abscess. Lots of caries, but not a single restoration.”

“No evidence she ever saw a dentist.” Larabee got my meaning.

“So I don’t bust my ass chasing dental records.” Slidell parked his hands on his hips. “An abscess. Wouldn’t that hurt like a sonofabitch?”

“People have different thresholds for pain,” Larabee said. “But yes, probably. What are you thinking?”

“Maybe she went to one of those free clinics. You know, looking for drugs or something.”

“Good idea, detective.”

Like a mail-order toy, the human skeleton comes with assembly required. Most bones are present at birth but lack the knobs, bumps, and borders that make them complete. Throughout infancy and adolescence, these fiddly bits, called epiphyses, appear and fuse to the shafts or main bony elements. The fusion takes place with age predictability.

I shifted my attention to the skeletal X-rays. More than a decade of working with me had made Joe Hawkins savvy to the exact views I needed. As usual, he’d nailed them.

I started with a plate showing the girl’s hand and arm bones. Slidell’s insistence she was a hooker had my nerves on edge. Knowing it would annoy him, I went all “jargony.” Petty, but I did.

“The distal radial epiphysis is in the process of fusion, the distal ulnar epiphysis has recently fused. The rest of the hand bones are complete.”

I moved to a film showing the shoulder and left arm.

“The acromial epiphyses are present on both scapulae, but remain unfused.”

I pointed to the broken humerus.

“The medial epicondyle and the distal composite and proximal epiphyses are in the process of fusing.”

On to the pelvis.

“The iliac crest is present but still separate.” I was referring to a sliver of bone that would eventually form the superior border of the hip bone.

The upper leg.

“The femoral head and trochanter are fused. The distal epiphysis is in the process of fusing.”

Lower leg.

“The proximal and distal epiphyses of the tibiae and fibulae are in the process of fusing.”

The foot.

“The proximal phalanges—”

“So what’s it all mean?” Slidell cut me off.

“She was fourteen to fifteen years old when she died.”

Far too young to catch a hint of what life had to offer. Fifteen years. She should have had eighty.

Rotten teeth. Needle tracks. Semen stains. Fifteen crappy years.

For a full minute the only sounds in the room were the fluorescents overhead and the air whistling in and out of Slidell’s nose.

“Might be I could work the clothing, track down where it was sold.” Slidell shoved his notepad into his jacket. “Boots might be a goer.”

My mind had moved from how to who. Who had left this kid facedown on the asphalt? A drunk too impaired to see her in the dark? Too callous to stop? Or a killer fully intending the result?

“Anything else?” Barely trusting my voice.

Larabee gave a tight shake of his head.

Nodding to Slidell, I returned to my office. Sat at my desk. Antsy. Uneasy.

Slidell was a good cop. But he had a habit of falling captive to defeatist mind-sets. Convinced the girl was undocumented, a prostitute, and a junkie, would he devote sufficient energy to finding her killer?

Yes, he would, I admitted to myself. Druggie hooker or not, the kid turned up dead on Skinny’s patch, and he would look upon it as a personal challenge.

Then why so anxious?

Katy? My abandoned vehicle and purse? The goddamn blisters?

Whatever.

I crossed to the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. Took a look in the mirror. Assessed the face looking back.

Intense green eyes. Weary, but determined. A few starbust wrinkles at the corners, well earned. Chin and lids holding firm. Dark blond hair yanked into a pony, not having a good one.

“Right, then. Peruvian dogs.”

The image in the glass mouthed the same words. Nodded the same nod.

I bunched and tossed my hand towel and headed out.

While the new MCME facility is immense, the same is not true of my office. Were a realtor to advertise it for rental, she’d use descriptors like “cozy” and “snug.” My desk takes up most of the space. File cabinets, coat tree. If Larabee steps in, it’s crowded. If the visitor is Slidell, forget about breathing.