Kathy Reichs - Bones Are Forever

Had Beck and his companion fought following a night of drugs, alcohol, or both? Was Snook wrong about her half brother’s new commitment to sobriety?

The murder-suicide scenario wasn’t persuasive. Face-to-face shootings rarely involve a rifle. I made a note to ask if remnants of a weapon had been found at the scene.

Had Beck or the older man torched the house? Had someone else? Was the fire accidental?

Who was the older guy? Why had no one reported him missing? Was he not local?

I flipped to a blank page in my notebook and began a time line.

Farley McLeod died in 2007, Daryl Beck in 2008, Annaliese Ruben and Ronnie Scarborough yesterday. All were connected by kinship. Were their deaths connected? How?

Castain was also murdered yesterday. He wasn’t a relative. Where did he fit in?

Castain and Scarborough were taken out in drive-bys. Ruben was shot by a man on foot, almost certainly with a rifle. Beck and his buddy were killed with a hunting rifle.

Had the same weapon been used in all five shootings? Had the drive-bys been by pistol?

McLeod went down in a Cessna. His body was never recovered. Ruben’s body was also missing. Was this coincidental? Significant?

I felt agitated. Too many questions and too few answers. So complicated.

Too complicated.

And such a high body count. Even excluding the babies.

Courtney returned with the cranial fragments and X-rays.

Snowing on some, not on others. I saw no feature to allow assignment as Beck or non-Beck.

Courtney looked at me, eager for the inside poop.

“Thank you so much for your help.” I smiled an ultra-sincere smile. “I couldn’t have done this without you.”

She opened her mouth to speak.

“Do you have something I can use to keep the bones separated?”

She hurried off, hurt darkening her hazel eyes.

I was placing Beck’s bones in the tub when she returned with two cotton towels. I wrapped the cranial fragments in one, the older man’s remains in the other, tucked the bundles next to Beck, and pressed the lid into place.

“And the casket?” A wee bit petulant.

“Call,” I said. “The funeral home will collect it. And again: thank you so much. Maureen will be very pleased.”

Courtney nodded, trying but failing to hide her disappointment.

“I’m sorry. You know I can’t share details of an investigation.”

“I know.”

“Please keep everything you’ve seen here confidential.”

“Of course.”

“You’d make an excellent forensic nurse, Courtney.”

“Honestly?”

“If you’d like, I’ll send information.”

“Yes, please. And … anytime.”

* * *

“First I’ll explain what I see. Then you’ll explain why I’m looking at it on a beautiful Sunday morning.”

Marc Bergeron hadn’t given me the same time-zone consideration I’d given him. His call blasted me awake at six-forty-five.

“Do you have the images?” Booting my laptop.

“I’ve transferred them to my computer.”

I pictured Bergeron squinting through grimy lenses, dandelion hair backlit by the screen.

“Are they clear enough to determine which teeth have the root canals?” I asked.

“They will do. I assume the issue is identity.”

“The fragment was recovered from a house fire. It’s from the right posterior, near the mandibular angle.”

“I see that.”

I’d also downloaded the images to my Mac. During the pause that ensued, I opened the file so we were looking at the same thing.

“I also see evidence of a gunshot wound,” Bergeron said.

“Yes.”

I waited quite a long time.

“From the positioning of the sockets relative to the ramus, their sizes, and the recurve and compression of the roots themselves, I’d say the mesial tooth is forty-seven and the distal tooth is forty-eight.”

I’d been expecting him to say thirty-one and thirty-two. Then I remembered. CPIC uses the FDI dental scoring system, NCIC the universal system.

“The right second molar and wisdom tooth,” I said.

“Though small, as is common, the third molar is well formed and fully erupted. Whatever necessitated the root canal came later. It’s quite unusual to see one in a third molar.”

“Terrific. Thanks. Listen, the coroner is striking out with MP reports here in Yellowknife. Can you get this into CPIC for me?”

“Is this a lab case?” Bergeron was a stickler for rules.

“Yes.” In the very broadest sense, true. Three of Ruben’s babies were found in Quebec. My involvement had started there.

I could practically hear Bergeron frown.

“I’d have Ryan do it, but I’m afraid he’d screw up the coding,” I said.

“Does Dr. LaManche know of this case?”

“He does.” I made a note to e-mail the chief immediately.

“Please give me the details.”

“All we know is that the victim was male, in his forties, and not overly large. He died in March 2008.”

“That’s not much.”

“It’s not.”

“If the system finds a match, we must request original records.”

“Of course.”

After shooting a note to LaManche, I grabbed my new books and headed downstairs.

Another dawn in the Trader’s Grill. My fellow diners were an elderly couple all atwitter about wildflowers.

I didn’t expect to see Snook and didn’t. I ordered eggs and toast, then checked e-mail. Mostly out of boredom. It was too soon to hear from Bergeron, and I doubted King had learned much since midnight.

I was opening the book on Fipke and his pals when Ryan appeared. He looked like hell. Baggy eyes. Tension in his jaw that made him look gaunt. He spotted me and crossed to my table.

“Company?”

“Sure.”

Ryan dropped into the other chair and looked around. “Glad I found an empty seat.”

“Apparently, it will be hopping later.”

Ryan cocked a brow.

“The place is famous for Sunday brunch.”

“Don’t they do brunch every day?”

“I’m just reporting what I read.”

The waitress brought my eggs and poured Ryan coffee. He ordered what I was eating, and she left.

“Haven’t seen much of you,” he said.

“Things aren’t going as we’d hoped.” And the locals think I’m hitting the sauce . I didn’t say it.

“You show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”

I smiled. It was our code for sharing info on cases. In the good days.

I briefed him on the exhumation and outlined my conversation with Bergeron.

He told me Rainwater had some of Unka’s thugs cooling their heels at G Division. He and Ollie were heading over there shortly.

Updates exchanged, we sat, avoiding each other’s eyes.

Ryan’s breakfast came. He ate it.

Across the restaurant, the two gray-hairs pored over their book of flora. My gaze drifted to them. I thought, How happy they look. How perfectly matched .

I felt Ryan’s fingers graze the back of my hand. They ran to my wrist, rested at my watch. My skin tingled in their wake. Startled, I looked over at him.

His eyes were on my face. I met them.

So impossibly blue. And tormented, like my own staring back from the rearview mirror.

“Lily’s in jail,” he said softly.

“She’s using again?” I was shocked. “She was doing so well.”

“The kid’s a born actress.”

“Oh, Ryan. I’m so sorry. How … ?” I let the question hang.

“She reconnected with the creep she was seeing last year. He provided a few freebies, then she was on her own. Security nailed her boosting a smartphone at the Carrefour Angrignon.”

“The mall out in LaSalle?”

“Yeah. This time there was nothing I could do.”

Ryan looked so dejected, I wanted to wrap him in my arms and hold him close. To feel the scratch of his stubble against my cheek. To breathe the scent of his cologne.