Kathy Reichs - Grave Secrets

“What could you not rule out, Señor Minos?” Galiano broke in.

“Dog.” Minos sounded wounded by Galiano’s lack of interest in mammalian hair.

“Ay, Dios.” Galiano puffed air out of his lips. “How often would dog hair turn up on clothing?”

“Oh, it’s very, very common.” Minos missed Galiano’s sarcasm.

“So I decided to double-check myself.”

He walked to a desk and pulled a manila folder from a slotted shelf.

“Once I’d eliminated everything but cat and dog, I took measurements and did what I call a medullary percentage analysis.”

He withdrew a printout and laid it on the counter beside me.

“Since cat and dog hair is so frequently encountered at crime scenes, I’ve done a bit of research on discriminating between the two. I’ve measured hundreds of dog and cat hairs and set up a database.”

He flipped a page and pointed to a scatter graph bisected by a diagonal slash. The line divided dozens of triangles above from dozens of circles below. Only a handful of symbols crossed the metric Rubicon.

“I calculate medullary percentage by dividing medullar width by hair width. This graph plots that figure, expressed as a percentage, against simple hair width, expressed in microns. As you can see, with few exceptions, cat values cluster above a certain threshold, while dog values lie below.”

“Meaning that the medulla is relatively wider in cat hairs.”

“Yes.” He beamed at me, a teacher pleased with a bright student. Then he pointed to a clump of asterisks in the swarm of triangles above the line.

“Those points represent values for randomly selected hairs from the Paraíso sample. Every one falls squarely with the cats.”

Minos fished in the folder and withdrew several color prints.

“But you asked about scales, Detective. I wanted a good look at surface architecture, so I popped hairs from the Paraíso sample into the scanning electron microscope.”

Minos handed me a five-by-seven glossy. I felt Galiano lean over my shoulder.

“That’s the root end of a Paraíso hair magnified four hundred times. Look at the outer surface.”

“Looks like a bathroom floor.” Galiano.

Minos produced another photo. “That’s farther up the shaft.”

“Flower petals.”

“Good, Detective.” This time Galiano was the recipient of the proud smile. “What you’ve so aptly described is what we call scale pattern progression. In this case the scale pattern goes from what we call irregular mosaic to what we call petal.”

Minos was what we call a jargon meister. But the guy knew his hair.

Print number three. The scales now looked more honeycombed, their margins rougher.

“That’s the tip end of a hair. The scale pattern is what we call regular mosaic. The borders have become more ragged.”

“How is this relevant to cats and dogs?” Galiano.

“Dogs show wide variation in scale pattern progression, but, in my opinion, this progression is unique to cats.”

“So the hairs on the jeans came from a cat.” Galiano straightened.

“Yes.”

“Are they all from the same cat?” I asked.

“I’ve seen nothing to suggest otherwise.”

“What about the Specter sample?”

Minos leafed through his folder.

“That would be sample number four.” He smiled at me. “Cat.”

“So everything comes up feline.” I thought a moment. “Is the Paraíso sample consistent with any of the other three?”

“That’s where it gets interesting.”

Minos selected another page, scanned the text.

“In sample number two, the average length of the hairs was greater than in any of the other three samples.” He looked up.

“Over five centimeters, which is quite long.” Back to the report.

“Also, the hairs were more consistently of the fine variety.” He looked up again. “As opposed to coarse.” Back to the report. “And the surface architecture of each hair showed a mixture of smooth-edged regular mosaic and smooth-edged coronal scale types.”

Minos closed the folder, but offered no explanation.

“What does that mean, Señor Minos?” I asked.

“Sample two derives from a different cat than the other three samples. My guess, and it’s only a guess, won’t go into my report, is that cat number two is Persian.”

“And the other samples are not from Persian cats?”

“Standard shorthairs.”

“But the Paraíso sample is consistent with the other two samples?”

“Consistent, yes.”

“How was sample two labeled?”

Again Minos consulted the folder.

“Eduardo.”

“That would be Buttercup.”

“Persian?” Minos and I asked simultaneously.

Galiano nodded.

“So Buttercup wasn’t the donor of the Paraíso hairs,” I said.

“A Persian cat wasn’t the donor of the Paraíso hairs,” Minos corrected.

“That puts Buttercup in the clear. What about the Gerardi or Specter cats?”

“Definite candidates.”

I felt a sudden surge of optimism.

“Along with a million other shorthairs in Guatemala City,” he added.

The optimism plunged like an elevator in free fall.

“Can’t you determine if one of the other samples matches the hairs from the jeans?” Galiano asked.

“Both display similar characteristics. Individualization is impossible based on hair morphology.”

“What about DNA?” I asked.

“That can probably be done.”

Minos tossed the folder onto the counter, removed his glasses, and began cleaning them on the hem of his lab coat.

“But not here.”

“Why not?”

“There’s a six-month backlog on human tissue cases. You’ll have a birthday waiting for results on cat hair.”

I was wrapping my mind around that when Galiano’s cell phone sounded.

His face tensed as he listened.

“¡Ay, Dios mío! Dónde?”

He was silent a full minute, then his eyes met mine. When he spoke again he’d gone back to English.

“Why wasn’t I called sooner?”

A long pause.

“Xicay’s there?”

Another pause.

“We’re on our way.”

11

AT 3 P.M. THE STREETS WERE ALREADY IN GRIDLOCK. LIGHTS FLASHING, siren screaming, Galiano snaked forward as drivers edged over to allow us to pass. He kept his foot on the accelerator, barely slowed at intersections.

Shotgun Spanish crackled over the radio. I couldn’t follow, but it didn’t matter. I was thinking about Claudia de la Alda in her plain black skirts and pastel blouses. I tried to remember her expression in the photos, came up blank.

But other images flooded back from the past. Shallow graves. Putrefying bodies rolled in carpets. Skeletons covered with fallen leaves. Rotten clothing scattered by animals.

A sludge-filled skull.

My stomach knotted.

The faces of distraught parents. Their child is dead, and I am about to tell them that. They are bewildered, stricken, disbelieving, angry. Bearing that news is an awful job.

Damn! It was happening again.

My heart tangoed below my ribs.

Damn! Damn! Damn!

Señora De la Alda had received a phone call about the time I was heading out to learn more about cat hair. A male voice said Claudia was dead and told her where to find the body. Hysterical, she’d called Hernández. He’d called Xicay. The recovery team had located bones in a ravine on the far western edge of the city.

“What else did Hernández tell you?” I asked.

“The call was placed at a public phone.”

“Where?”

“The Cobán bus station in Zone One.”

“What did the caller say?”

“He told her the body was in Zone Seven. Gave directions. Hung up.”

“Near the archaeological site?”