Kathy Reichs: Bones to Ashes

Nevertheless, magnification revealed little. Lipping of the interphalangeal joint surfaces of the right middle toe. An asymmetrical raised patch on the anterior midshaft of the right tibia. Other than those healed minor injuries, Geneviève’s skeleton was remarkably unremarkable.

I phoned LaManche.

“She jammed her toe and banged her shin,” he summarized my findings .

“Yes,” I agreed.

“That didn’t kill her.”

“No,” I agreed.

“It is something.”

“Sorry I don’t have more to report.”

“How do you like the new microscope?”

“The screen resolution is awesome.”

“I am happy you are pleased.”

I was disconnecting when Lisa entered my lab carrying a large cardboard box. Her hair was pulled into a curly ponytail, and she was wearing blue surgical scrubs. Wearing them well. Firm glutes, slim waist, breasts the size of the Grand Tetons, Lisa is very popular with cops. And the best autopsy tech at the lab.

“Say you’re bringing me a skeleton from Rimouski.”

“I’m bringing you a skeleton from Rimouski.” Lisa often used me to practice her English. She did that now. “It just arrived.”

I flipped through the paperwork. The case had been assigned morgue and lab numbers. I noted the latter. LSJML-57748. The remains had been confiscated from agent Luc Tiquet, Sûreté du Québec, Rimouski. In the case overview cell, Bradette had written: adolescent female, archaeological .

“We’ll see about that, hotshot.”

Lisa looked a question at me.

“Jerk thinks he can do my job. Are you busy downstairs?”

“All autopsies are finished.”

“Want to take a look?” I knew Lisa liked bones.

“Sure.”

As I collected a case report form, Lisa set the box on the table. Joining her, I removed the cover, and we both peered inside.

Bradette was right about one thing. This wasn’t a grown-up.

“It looks very old,” Lisa said.

OK. Maybe two things.

The skeleton was mottled yellow and brown and showed lots of breakage. The skull was misshapen, the face badly damaged. I could see spidery filaments deep in the orbits and in what remained of the nasal opening.

The bones felt feather-light as I lifted and arranged them in anatomical alignment. When I’d finished, a small partial-person lay on my table.

I took inventory. Six ribs, most of the finger and toe bones, one clavicle, one tibia, one ulna, and both kneecaps were missing. So were all eight incisors.

“Why no front teeth?” Lisa asked.

“Each has only one root. When the gums go, there’s nothing to hold them in place.”

“There’s a lot of damage.”

“Yes.”

“Peri- or postmortem?” Lisa was asking if the injuries had occurred at the time of or following death.

“I suspect most is postmortem. But I’ll have to study the fracture sites under magnification.”

“It’s young, yes?”

Flashbulb image. A girl in a swimsuit on a Carolina beach. Carrying a small white book with pale green lettering. Reading poetry aloud with an odd French accent.

I pointed to a proximal right humerus, distal right ulna, proximal left fibula, and distal right femur. “See how some long bones look normal on their ends, while these look corrugated and incomplete?”

Lisa nodded.

“That means the epiphyses weren’t yet fused to the shafts. Growth was still ongoing.”

I lifted the skull and rotated the base upward.

Running between dunes. Dark curls dancing wild in the wind.

“The basilar suture is unfused. There are no wisdom teeth, and the second molars show minimal wear.”

I exchanged the skull for an innominate.

“Each hemi-pelvis starts out as three separate bones: ilium, ischium, and pubis. Union takes place around the time of puberty.” I indicated a faint Y trisecting the hip socket. “See that line? Fusion was just wrapping up when she died. Given the teeth, the long bones, and the pelvis, I’d estimate she was around thirteen or fourteen.”

Évangéline Landry, eyes closed, hands clasped, blowing out candles. There were fourteen on the cake.

“And the pelvis shows female?”

“Yes.”

“Was she white?”

“Race is going to be tough since the face is smashed and the palate is history, including the incisors.”

I picked up the skull. And felt a flicker of relief.

“The nasal aperture is wide and rounded. Its bottom edge is broken, but it looks like the nasal spine was small. Those are non-European traits. I’ll know better when I’ve cleaned out the dirt.”

“Why does her head look so”—Lisa floated a palm, searching for the English—“odd?”

“In adolescence, the cranial sutures are still wide open.” I referred to the squiggly gaps between the individual skull bones. “Following brain decomposition, with pressure, the bones can warp, separate, or overlap.”

“Pressure, as in burial?”

“Yes. Although skull distortion can result from other factors, expo sure to sunlight, for example, or to extremes of heat and cold. The phenomenon is very common with children.”

“There’s so much dirt. Do you think she was buried?”

I was about to answer when the desk phone shrilled.

“Can you check the box for anything we might have missed?”

“Sure.”

“How’s it hanging, doc?” Hippo Gallant.

I skipped pleasantries. “Your buddy Gaston’s skeleton arrived from Rimouski.”

“Yeah?”

“My preliminary exam suggests it’s an adolescent female.”

“ Indian?”

“There’s a good chance her racial background is mixed.”

“So it ain’t all that ancient?”

“The bones are dry and devoid of odor and flesh, so I doubt death occurred in the last ten years. Right now that’s about all I can say. She needs a lot of cleaning and it will have to be done by hand.”

“ Crétaque. She got teeth?”

“Some. But there’s no dental work.”

“You going to do DNA?”

“I’ll retain samples, but if no organic components remain, sequencing will be impossible. There’s soil deep in crevices and in the medullary cavities, suggesting burial at some point. Frankly, I suspect the coroner up in Rimouski may be right. The remains may have washed out of an old cemetery or been looted from an archaeological site.”

“How about carbon fourteen or some fancy gizmo?”

“Except for a few specialized applications, C14 dating isn’t useful on materials less than hundreds of years old. Besides, if I report that this girl’s been dead half a century, the powers that be won’t pony up for DNA, radiocarbon, or any other type of test.”

“Think you’ll be able to sort it?”

“I’m going to try.”

“How ’bout I talk with the mope that had her. Get his story.”

“That would be good.”

Replacing the receiver, I returned to Lisa.

“Why does that one look different?” She pointed to the second right metacarpal.

Lisa was right. Though dirt-encrusted, one finger bone seemed to be a misfit.

Brushing free what soil I could without causing damage, I placed the odd metacarpal under my fabulous new scope, increased magnification, and adjusted focus until the distal end filled the screen.

My brows rose in surprise.

8

THE BONE’S OUTER SURFACE WAS A MOONSCAPE OF CRATERS.

“What is that?” Lisa asked.

“I’m not sure.” My mind was already rifling through possibilities. Contact with acid or some other caustic chemical? Microorganism? Localized infection? Systemic disease process?

“Was she sick?”

“Maybe. Or maybe it’s postmortem. There’s still too much impacted dirt to be sure.” Taking the metacarpal from the scope, I moved toward the skeleton. “We’ll have to clean and examine every bone.”