Kathy Reichs - Bones Are Forever

“There’s a little of the acetabulum left on each fragment. The hip socket. Eyeballing the partial diameters, I can say that one man was larger than the other.”

I got the calipers from the counter. The others watched as I took measurements to confirm my suspicion.

“Can you say anything about age?” King asked.

“A little.” I held a fragment in each hand. “Notice that the larger man’s articular surface is billowy and that the bone looks granular. That of the smaller man appears smoother and denser.” Oversimplified but close enough.

I looked up. King and Courtney were clearly baffled.

I set the fragments on the table, got the flashlight, and killed the overheads. “Watch this.”

I directed the beam horizontally across each surface. The subtle indentations appeared as transverse shadows on that of the larger man.

Courtney spotted the difference first. “The bigger guy has furrows. The smaller guy has none.”

Maybe King saw it, maybe not. “What does it mean?” she asked.

“The bigger man was younger, probably in his twenties. The smaller man was more likely in his forties. These are very rough estimates. This aging technique only allows for broad ranges, and only a portion of each surface is observable.”

“Daryl was twenty-four,” King said. “A six-footer.”

The hopping hand ticked off seconds.

“So who’s the other guy?” King spoke aloud, more to herself than to us.

I raised both palms in a “who knows” gesture.

“Can you determine race?” King asked.

“Very unlikely. When exposed to extreme heat, fluids in the brain expand, causing the skull to explode. Then the fragments burn. That’s what happened here.”

“Did anyone go missing at the time of the fire?”

Good question, Nurse Courtney .

“You two good here if I leave to check on that?” King asked.

Courtney and I nodded.

“It’s all so black and gray and crumbly.” Courtney was staring at the partial skeleton. “How can you be sure the bones are sorted right?”

Nurse Courtney nails another one. Because of a preconceived mind-set, I’d made the amateur mistake of assuming the remains represented a single individual.

I turned on the lights and studied one jaw fragment under magnification. It was toast. I studied the other.

And felt a little flip in my gut.

“Hot diggety.”

“Zippy whiz bang?”

I looked up. We both smiled.

“This fragment retains about two centimeters of the posterior end of the dental arcade, including two molar sockets. I may see root fragments down in them.”

“Shazam!”

“Nurse Courtney, you’re on for X-ray.”

She did everything but snap a salute.

I got the tray, transferred the jaw fragments, and instructed her on the angles I needed. “While you do that, I’ll reexamine every bone. Then you can shoot films of both individuals.”

The skull fragments were mostly parietal and occipital. All edges and surfaces were fried. Not a single ectocranial or endocranial detail remained. Only DNA would sort them out. I doubted any had survived the fire.

Based on size, I was able to separate what remained of the midshaft portions of the long bones. A femur, tibia, and ulna stayed with Daryl. A femur and tibia transferred to the smaller man. A humerus went with the unassigned cranial fragments.

I was recording observations in my notebook when Courtney returned, pushing a portable light box. The jaw fragments sat atop small brown envelopes on the lower shelf.

“I think you were right.” Electric with excitement. “And I think the older guy had dental work.”

I slid the films free, clamped the first onto the box, and thumbed the switch. The fragments lit up in shades of gray. The one on the right showed nothing but amorphous trabecular bone. Courtney pointed to it. “That’s Daryl. The younger guy.”

The older man’s fragment had more of the dental arch, including the sockets I’d spotted. They appeared as dark indentations in the spongy gray. Deep in each was a tiny white cone, a root fragment. Running vertically up the center of each cone was a brilliant white filament.

“Those are root canals, right? That could get him identified?”

She was correct. On both points.

That wasn’t what stopped the breath in my throat.

THE FRAGMENT LOOKED LIKE IT WAS EXPERIENCING A BLIZzard. A cloud of white dots stippled the lower mandibular border. Outliers spread across the angle and up the ascending ramus.

“What is it?” Courtney asked.

“I want you to x-ray every bone.” I kept my voice calm. “First Beck.” I pointed to the partial skeleton. “Then the other man.” I pointed to the pile containing the chunk of ilia, the femur, and the tibia. “Then those.” I pointed to the cranial fragments and the unassigned humerus. “Do them separately. Do not mix them up. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Start with Beck.” I removed Beck’s jaw fragment and placed his other bones on the tray.

When Courtney had gone, I phoned King. She picked up right away.

“The older vic was shot,” I said.

“No way.”

“There was lead snowstorm on the X-ray of his jaw.”

Silence.

“Very fine particles dispersed as a result of a high-velocity rifle round passing through the body,” I explained.

“Like a hunting rifle?”

“That’s my thinking,” I said.

“Got a few thousand of those babies around here. What about Beck?”

“We’re doing a full-body series. I’m also checking the bones I shifted to the older vic. You finding anything?”

“I pulled Beck’s death certificate. DOD is March fourth, 2008. I checked MP reports for that entire year, moving forward from that date. No one fits your profile.”

“The older guy had root canals on a couple of his lower molars, probably the second and third. We should run the film past a forensic odontologist, get it right before coding the dentals into CPIC.”

“You got one on your speed dial?”

“I do. But he’s in Montreal, and it’s the middle of the night there.” And flexibility was not one of Marc Bergeron’s attributes. I didn’t say it.

“Beck’s been dead a while,” King said. “He can wait a while longer.”

Using my iPhone, I took photos of the older man’s dental work, then e-mailed them to Bergeron. He’d have them when I called in the morning.

I looked at my watch. Twelve-ten. It was morning.

Figuring Ollie was tied up with Scar’s murder investigation, I called Ryan. He and Rainwater were at a bar on Highway 4, following another lead on Unka. I could hear music in the background, the noise of a lot of people in a small space.

“Rainwater thinks we’re being played.” Ryan sounded as tired as I felt. “He’s ordered a sweep, plans to sweat whoever gets caught in the net.”

I told Ryan about the commingled remains and the lead scatter.

“Both were capped?”

“I’ll know soon. The older vic had a couple of root canals.”

“You plan to call Bergeron?”

“Tomorrow. I’ve sent him pics.”

“Good thinking.”

“Keep me in the loop,” I said.

“Ditto.”

Courtney returned as I was disconnecting. While she x-rayed the rest of the older man, I viewed Beck’s postcranial films.

His femur and pelvic fragment were blizzard all the way. That answered one question. But generated more.

Had Beck and the older man both been murdered? If so, why?

Had one shot the other, then turned the gun on himself? If so, why? And which way around?