Kathy Reichs: Bones to Ashes

“No.” I didn’t elaborate. It was already past ten. And my mouth was full of chocolate and dough.

“Want your take on something.”

“I do have to get downstairs.”

Hippo dragged a chair toward my desk. “Ten minutes, I’m outta here.” Settling, he licked sugar from his fingers. I handed him a tissue. “It’s not something you gotta do.”

I hand-gestured “Give it to me.”

“It’s bones. I haven’t seen the actual stuff. This comes from an SQ buddy. He’s been with the provincial police for eighteen years, and was just transferred from Rimouski to Gatineau. We had a few beers when he was passing through Montreal.”

I nodded, really thinking about the doughnuts. Had there been another maple syrup frosted in the bag?

“Me and Gaston, that’s his name. We been buds since we was kids. Grew up in a spit little town in the Maritimes.” Finally, an explanation of Hippo’s accent. Chiac , a vernacular French similar to joual but specific to some of the Atlantic provinces.

“There’s this skeleton’s been bugging Gaston for a couple years. He’s half Micmac, you know. First Nations?”

I nodded again.

“He’s got a thing about the dead being buried proper. Thinks your spirit’s screwed if you ain’t planted six feet under. Anyway, some SQ dick at Gaston’s last posting keeps a skull in his desk. Has the rest of the skeleton in a box.”

“How did this detective come to have these bones?” I lifted the bag and held it out. Hippo shook his head. I looked inside, barely interested. Yes! One maple syrup frosted. I set the bag down.

“Gaston doesn’t know. But his conscience is kicking ass because he didn’t do more to get the bones buried.”

“No grave, no afterlife.”

“Bingo.”

“This is where I come in.”

“Gaston asked me if I’d heard of some bone lady here in Montreal. I said, you kiddin’? Doc Brennan and me is sympathique .” Hippo raised and joined two nicotine-stained fingers.

“He’s certain these bones are human?”

Hippo nodded. “Yeah, and he thinks it’s a kid.”

“Why?”

“They’re small.”

“Gaston should call the local coroner.” I reached in and took the maple syrup frosted, casual as hell.

“He did. The guy blew him off.”

“Why?”

“These bones ain’t exactly fresh.”

“They’re archaeological?” Maple syrup wasn’t bad, but chocolate still ruled.

“As I understand it, they’re dry, and there’s cobwebs in the holes where the eyes used to be.”

“Cobwebs would suggest time spent aboveground.”

“Bingo.” Hippo liked the word. Used it a lot. “Coroner said the stuff had been kicking around too long.”

I stopped chewing. That wasn’t right. If the bones were human, technically they were unidentified remains and fell within the coroner’s mandate. It was up to a forensic anthropologist to determine if death had occurred recently enough to be of forensic interest.

“Who is this coroner?” I reached for paper and pen.

Hippo patted his jacket, which is worth mentioning. The fabric had yellow and orange lines running vertically and horizontally through a russet background. With its gold polyester pocket hanky, the garment would have been haute couture in rural Romania.

Locating a spiral pad, Hippo flipped several pages.

“Dr. Yves Bradette. Want the number?”

I nodded, jotted.

“Look, Gaston doesn’t want to jam anybody up.”

My eyes rose to Hippo’s.

“OK, OK.” Hippo pointed two palms in my direction. “Just be discreet. The stuff’s at SQ headquarters, Rimouski.” Hippo looked at his notes. “That’s the District of Bas-Saint-Laurent–Gaspésie–Îles-de-la-Madeleine.” Typical Hippo. Too much information.

“I can’t get to this right away.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pas d’urgence .” Not urgent. “Whenever.”

When a body clocks out it trips one of three pathways: putrefaction, mummification, or saponification. None is pretty.

In a warm, moist setting, with bacteria, insects, and/or vertebrate scavengers looking for lunch, you get putrefaction. Putrefaction features skin slippage, discoloration, bloating, eruption of the abdominal gases, caving of the belly, rotting of the flesh, and, way down the road, disintegration of the bones.

In a warm, dry setting, with bugs and critters excluded, you get mummification. Mummification features destruction of the internal organs by autolysis and enteric bacterial action, and muscle and skin dehydration and hardening due to evaporation.

No one’s really sure, but saponification seems to require a cool setting and poorly oxygenated water, though the water can come from the corpse itself. Saponification features the conversion of fats and fatty acids into adipocere, a cheesy, stinky compound commonly called “grave wax.” Initially white and soaplike, adipocere can harden with age. Once formed the stuff lasts a very long time.

But decomp’s not as simple as door A, B, or C. Putrefaction, mummification, and saponification can occur separately or in any combination.

Geneviève Doucet’s body had lain in a unique microenvironment. Air blowing from the heat vent had been trapped by blankets and clothing, creating a mini-convection oven around her corpse. Voilà! Door B!

Though head hair remained, Geneviève’s features were gone, leaving only desiccated tissue in the orbits and overlying the facial bones. Her limbs and chest were encased in a thick, hard shell.

Gently raising Geneviève’s shoulders, I checked her back. Leatherized muscle and ligament clung to her spine, pelvis, and shoulder blades. Bone was visible where she’d been in contact with the mattress.

I took a series of backup Polaroids, then crossed to the light boxes lining one wall. Geneviève’s skeleton glowed white amid the gray of her tissues and the black of the film. Slowly, I moved through the X-rays.

LaManche was right. There were no obvious signs of violence. No bullets, bullet fragments, casings, or metallic trace. The bones showed no hairline, linear, depressed, or radiating fractures. No joint dislocations. No foreign objects. For a complete examination of the skeleton, the body would have to be cleaned.

Returning to the autopsy table, I started at Geneviève’s head and worked toward her feet, seeking indicators of illness, injury, or insect activity. Anything that might clarify time and/or manner of death.

As with the X-rays, nada.

Next, I tried cutting into Geneviève’s belly. It took some doing, since the overlying skin and muscle had become so hard. My scalpel finally broke through. As I enlarged the incision, a stench seeped out and permeated the room.

With some effort, I created an opening approximately eight inches square. Using a small flashlight, I held my breath, leaned close, and peered into Geneviève’s abdomen.

The internal organs had been reduced to a dark, viscous paste. I spotted not a single maggot, egg, or puparial casing.

Straightening, I removed my goggles and considered.

Observations: Outer tissue dehydration. Skeletal exposure. Visceral breakdown. Absence of fly and beetle activity.

Deduction: Death had occurred the previous winter. Long enough back to account for tissue destruction, at a time when insects weren’t out and about. Geneviève Doucet had died months before her mother.

Welcome to reality, TV crime show buffs. No date, hour, and minute of death. The condition of this body allowed no greater precision.

I didn’t linger on the implications. Geneviève blow-drying in her bed. Dorothée joining her months later. All the while, Théodore commanding U-boats on his PC.

After giving instructions for the cleaning of Geneviève’s remains, I changed from my scrubs, washed, and returned to the twelfth floor.