Kathy Reichs: Bones Are Forever

Santangelo got the floater and the plastic-bag vic. The bludgeoning went to Pelletier, the gunshot death to Morin. As each case was dispensed, LaManche marked his master sheet with the appropriate initials. Pe. Sa. Mo.

La went onto dossier LSJML-49276, the newborn from the bathroom sink. Br went onto LSJML-49277 and LSJML-49278, the babies from the window seat and the attic.

When we dispersed, I returned to my office, pulled two case forms from my plastic shelving, and snapped them onto clipboards inside folders. Each of us uses a different color. Pink is Marc Bergeron, the odontologist. Green is Jean Pelletier. LaManche uses red. A bright yellow jacket means anthropology.

As I was digging for a pen, I noticed the flashing red light on my phone.

And felt the tiniest of flutters. Ryan?

Jesus, Brennan. It’s over .

I dropped into my chair, picked up the receiver, and entered my mailbox and code numbers.

A journalist from Le Courrier de Saint-Hyacinthe .

A journalist from Allô Police .

After deleting the messages, I went to the women’s locker room, changed into surgical scrubs, and proceeded out of the medico-legal section to a side corridor running past the secretarial office to the library. Located there was an elevator requiring special clearance.

When the doors opened, I stepped in and pressed a button that would take me to the morgue. There were only two other options: Bureau du coroner. LSJML.

Downstairs, a left and then a right brought me to a Santorini-blue door marked Entrée interdite . Entrance prohibited. I swiped my card and started down a long narrow hall shooting the length of the building.

On the left I passed an X-ray room and four autopsy suites, three with single tables, one with a pair. On the right, lining the wall, were drying racks for soggy clothing, evidence, and personal effects recovered with bodies, computer stations, and wheeled tubs and carts for transporting specimens to the labs upstairs.

Through small windows in the doors, I could see that Santangelo and Morin were beginning their externals in rooms one and two. With each pathologist was a police photographer and an autopsy technician, or diener.

Gilles Pomier and a tech named Roy Robitaille were arranging instruments in the large autopsy suite. They would be assisting Pelletier and LaManche, respectively.

I continued on to number four, a room specially ventilated for decomps, floaters, mummified corpses, and other aromatics. My kind of cases.

As did every autopsy suite, room four had double doors leading to a morgue bay. The bay was lined with refrigerated compartments designed to hold one gurney each.

Tossing my clipboard on a counter, I pulled a plastic apron from one drawer, gloves and a mask from another, donned them, and pushed through the double doors.

Head count.

Seven white cards. Seven temporary residents.

I located those cards with my initials, LSJML-49277 and LSJML-49278. Both had been affixed to the same door.

Dead babies need so little room , I thought.

Both cards bore the same sad notation. Ossements d’enfant . Baby bones. Inconnu . Unknown.

Flashback. Rocking Kevin in my arms, afraid to squeeze lest I snap the brittle little bones, lest I add more bruises to the milky white flesh.

Standing amid the cold stainless steel, I could still feel the feathery weight of my brother’s body against my chest, hear the soft cadence of his breathing, recall the perfume of little-boy sweat and baby shampoo.

Shake it off, Brennan. Do your job .

I pulled the handle and the door swung open. Cold air whooshed, bringing with it the odor of refrigerated death.

Two folded body bags lay side by side on the top shelf of one gurney. I toed the brake and yanked the gurney out.

When I backed through the double doors, Lisa was arranging equipment on a side counter. Together we maneuvered the gurney parallel to the stainless-steel table floor-bolted in the middle of the room.

“SIJ is shorthanded today.” Wanting practice, Lisa usually speaks English to me. “One photographer will float between us and Dr. LaManche.”

“That’s fine. We’ll do our own pics.”

Fortysomething, Lisa has been a diener since receiving certification at age nineteen. Clever and knowledgeable, with hands as adept as any surgeon’s, she is, far and away, the best autopsy tech at the LSJML.

Lisa is also the favorite of every cop in Quebec. I suspect that, besides her skill and sunny disposition, her blond hair and large bra size figure in.

“They look so little.” Lisa was staring at the bags, sadness on her face.

“Let’s get a series of pics before we remove them.”

While Lisa filled out a case identifier and checked the Nikon, I entered information onto the first of my case forms.

Name: Inconnu . Date of birth: blank. Laboratoire de sciences judiciaires et de médecine légale number: 49277. Morgue number: 589. Police incident number: 43729. Pathologist: Pierre LaManche. Coroner: Jean-Claude Hubert. Investigator: Andrew Ryan. Section des crimes contre la personne, Sûreté du Québec.

As I added the date and began a form for the attic baby, Lisa took pictures of the two black pouches. Then she snapped on gloves, pulled a plastic sheet from a below-counter drawer, spread it across the autopsy table, and looked a question at me.

“Unzip them,” I said.

The rolled towels were as I remembered, one green, one yellow, both dappled brown by the liquids of death. Using two hands, Lisa transferred each to the table. I made notes as she shot more photos.

“We’ll start with the baby from the window seat.” I indicated the yellow bundle.

Using her fingertips, Lisa gently teased free and laid back the outer layer of toweling. Then she rolled the bundle sideways, slowly revealing its contents.

A human baby is a very small biomass. Following death, the scarcity of body fat may lead to mummification instead of putrefaction. Such had been the case in the window seat.

The little corpse was tightly compressed, the head down, the arms and legs flexed and crossed over each other. Desiccated skin, muscle, and ligament wrapped the thorax, abdomen, and limbs, and stretched across the delicate bones of the face. The empty orbits held masses that looked like shriveled grapes.

Lisa was reaching for the Nikon when Pomier stuck his head through the door and spoke to me. “Dr. LaManche has a question.”

“Now?” Slightly annoyed.

Pomier nodded.

Though anxious to begin my analysis, I knew the chief would never interrupt with anything trivial.

“Shoot from every angle, close-up and overview,” I said to Lisa. “Then get a full set of X-rays.”

“All the bones will be superimposed. There is nothing I can do about that.”

“Taking measurements from the X-rays may prove impossible. But do your best. If I’m not back when you finish, unroll and photograph the second baby. Any questions, you know where to find me.”

Lisa nodded.

“Let’s go,” I said to Pomier.

Every morgue is characterized by its own blend of odors, sometimes subtle, sometimes overpowering, but always present. These smells have been a part of my life for so long, I sometimes imagine them in my sleep.

Bodies recovered from water are among the most pungent. In the corridor, the stench of Santangelo’s drowning victim was overtaking the ever-present aromas of disinfectant and deodorizer.

The bludgeoning victim lay on the far table in room three. The woman’s face was swollen and distorted, her left side purpled due to livor mortis, the postmortem settling of blood in a corpse’s downside.

Robitaille was picking through the woman’s hair, searching her scalp section by section. Pelletier was examining her toes.