Kathy Reichs - Bones Are Forever

I wasn’t surprised she’d failed to identify more. In a newborn, the cranial bones are unfinished and unfused. The vertebral arches are separate from the little disk bodies. Each pelvic half is composed of three disconnected bits. The long bones are amorphous shafts lacking the anatomical detail and joint surfaces that make femora, tibiae, fibulae, humeri, radii, and ulnae distinct. Ditto the teeny bones of the hands and feet.

Bottom line: most people wouldn’t recognize a fetal skeleton if it hit them on the head. Even with training in juvenile osteology, classification of specific elements can be tough.

I checked the clock. Already it was going on eleven.

“This will be slow,” I said to Lisa. “If you have things to do, I’m good working alone.”

She seemed undecided, then, “Call if you need me.”

I began by arranging the cranium in a pattern that looked like an exploded rose blossom. The frontal, the parietals, the sphenoid, the temporal and occipital segments. While sorting, I processed detail.

The occipital bone contributes to the back and the base of the skull. In a fetus, it consists of four pieces. The pars squama is the upper, rounded portion. The paired pars lateralis and the single pars basilaris lie down under, surrounding the foreman magnum, the hole through which the spinal cord enters the brain.

I used sliding calipers to measure the chunky little pars basilaris . Its width exceeded its length, placing the baby’s gestational age at over seven months.

I positioned the needles on each end of the left pars lateralis and read the dial. Its length exceeded that of the pars basilaris . That nudged the gestational age to eight months.

I selected the flat, serrate-edged portion of the temporal, the part that had formed the right side of the baby’s skull. A delicate circle of bone, the tympanic ring, was fused to an opening I knew to be the auditory canal.

Ring fusion bumped the gestational age to nine months.

Next I identified the facial bones. The maxillae and zygomatics, the ethmoid, the nasals, the palatines, the swirly little conchae from inside the nose. The mandible.

Until approximately one year postnatal, the human lower jaw remains unfused at the midline. As I examined the right and left halves, tiny teeth rolled around deep in the sockets. No surprise there. Tooth buds appear at nine to eleven weeks in utero. Though I could see the partially formed crowns, X-rays would be needed to evaluate dental development.

Moving on, I laid out the postcranial skeleton, measured the arm and leg bones, and compared the figures to a standardized chart. Each length supported the gestational age suggested by cranial development.

Satisfied that I’d learned what I could about age, I began teasing desiccated tissue from each tiny bone.

At noon Pomier popped in to report that St. Mary’s would make a scanner available after nine that night. A radiologist named Leclerc would meet us in the hospital lobby. Dr. Leclerc was urging discretion. Live patients. Dead babies. I was on the same page.

Lisa stopped by every half hour. Each time I told her I was fine working solo.

Which was true. I didn’t trust the emotions swirling inside me. Flashbacks to Kevin. Anguish for these infants. Fury at the woman who had killed them. I preferred to be alone.

By one I’d finished cleaning the bones. My stomach was growling, and a headache was gathering in my frontal lobe. I knew I should stop for lunch. Couldn’t. I felt driven to learn everything possible before returning the babies to the cold, dark cooler.

After placing a stool by the dissecting scope, I began the painstaking process of observing every bone under magnification. Millimeter by millimeter, I inspected each shaft, metaphysis, epiphysis, groove, foramen, suture, and fossa, looking for indications of disease, malformation, or trauma.

Just past three Ryan called to report that Ralph “Rocky” Trees had no sheet as an adult, but he did have a juvenile jacket. Though the record was closed, Ryan was requesting access.

Rocky’s story checked out. He drove pickup jobs for his brother-in-law, Philippe “Phil” Fast. The brother-in-law owned a small operation with a couple of trucks and a warehouse. Trees was away from Saint-Hyacinthe last Tuesday morning through late Sunday afternoon. Phil scoffed at the notion that Rocky might have a girlfriend.

That was it. No greeting. No “how are you doing.” No good-bye.

By four-forty my gut was acid, my head was a bongo, and my back was on fire. But I’d completed my analysis. Sadly, my form held scant information.

Sex: Unknown .

There are studies that claim jaw or pelvic shape or differentials in postcranial bone growth indicate the gender of a fetus or neonate. I’m not convinced.

Race: Unknown .

Though a broad, low nasal bridge and wide cheekbones hinted at non-European input, there was no way to verify ancestry.

Congenital abnormalities: None .

Pathologies: None .

Trauma: None .

Age: Full-term fetus .

So little to say. Such a short life.

Already in the cellar, my spirits sank further.

Rather than call Lisa or Tanenbaum, I shot a final set of photos myself. Then I gathered the bones into a small plastic tub and wrote LSJML-49278 on the lid and one side.

With robotic motions, I set the tub on the gurney and pushed it through the double doors to the morgue. “Good-bye, little one,” I said softly as the bay clicked shut.

I was wrapping LSJML-49277 in padded plastic sheeting when the desk phone rang. In no mood to talk or even be cordial, I ignored it.

I placed the window-seat baby inside a square plastic tub, packed it with more wadded sheeting, and marked the case number on the outside. Then I filled out and signed an evidence transfer form. Since the mummified baby would leave the morgue with me, chain of custody had to be maintained.

Finished with the remains, I turned to the towels.

Like the filaments I’d plucked from LaManche’s bathroom-vanity baby, the towels would be sent to the hair and fiber guys, perhaps to the folks in biology or DNA. Again, maybe useful, maybe not.

I sealed the attic towel in an evidence bag, jotted relevant information on the label, and set the bag to one side on the counter.

When I lifted the window-seat towel, something dropped with the sound of a tiny bean bag. Curious, I picked the thing up.

Between my gloved fingers was a small velvet sack with a drawstring closure. I teased it open. Inside was what looked like coarse-grain gravel. I poured some onto my palm. In the mix were a few green pebbles measuring a couple centimeters at most.

“Yowza. This’ll crack the case wide open.” My sarcasm was lost on the empty room.

After taking a few photos, I sealed the inclusion in a vial and placed it in a second evidence bag with the yellow towel. Then I called Lisa.

No answer.

I looked at the clock. Six-ten. Of course she was gone. Everyone was gone.

Feeling a heaviness the atomic weight of uranium, I took the tub containing the window-seat baby to a morgue bay adjoining autopsy room three and placed it on a gurney beside the bathroom-vanity baby, now wrapped and sealed in its own container. Then I wound my way to the elevator.

The basement was deserted. So was the twelfth floor. The building hummed with that eerie after-hours quiet unique to abandoned workplaces.

At the desk in my lab, I left Lisa a message asking that she transfer the bagged towels to the trace evidence section. As I cradled the receiver, my eyes drifted to the expanse of glass above my desk.

A dozen floors down, I could see the tops of apartment buildings, church spires, small patches of green I knew to be gardens. In the distance, the Maison de Radio-Canada rose like a giant brick cylinder on boulevard René-Lévesque. Beyond it, the St. Lawrence River yawned gray and forbidding, even in June.