Reichs, Kathy - Death Du Jour

Gently, I teased away charred tissue, revealing the joint between the pubic bones, the pubic symphysis. The pubes themselves were wide, the angle below them broad. Each had a raised ridge angling across its corner. The lower branch of each pubic bone was gracile and gently recurved. Typical female features. I noted them on my case form and took more Polaroid close-ups.

The intense heat had shrunk the connective cartilage and pulled the pubic bones apart along the midline. I twisted and turned the charred mass, trying to peer into the gap. It looked like the symphyseal surfaces were intact, but I couldn’t make out any detail.

“Let’s take the pubes out,” I said to Lisa.

I smelled burned flesh as the saw buzzed through the wings connecting the pubic bone to the rest of the pelvis. It took just seconds.

The symphyseal joint was singed, but easily readable. There were no ridges or furrows on either surface. In fact, both faces were porous, their outer edges irregularly lipped. Erratic threads of bone projected from the front of each pubic element, ossifications into the surrounding soft tissue. The lady had lived a long time.

I turned the pubes over. A deep trench scarred the belly side of each. And she had given birth.

I reached again for the frontal bone. For a moment I stood there, the fluorescent light showing in harsh detail what I’d first suspected in the basement, and what the metallic scatter on the X-ray had confirmed.

I’d held my feelings at bay, but now I allowed myself to grieve for the ravaged human being on my table. And to puzzle over what had happened to her.

The woman had been at least seventy, undoubtedly a mother, probably a grandmother.

Why had someone shot her in the head and left her to burn in a house in the Laurentians?

5

BY NOON ON TUESDAY I WAS FINISHING MY REPORT. I’D WORKED past nine the night before, knowing Ryan would want answers. Surprisingly, I’d yet to see him.

I read what I’d written, checking for errors. Sometimes I think gender agreements and accent marks are Francophone curses specifically designed for my torment. I try my best, but I always blow a few.

In addition to a biological profile of the unknown, the report included an analysis of trauma. On dissection I found the radiopaque fragments in the femur were the result of postmortem impact. The small bits of metal were probably blasted into the bone by the explosion of a propane tank. Most of the other damage was also due to the fire.

Some was not. I read my summary.

Wound A is a circular defect, of which only the superior half is preserved. It is localized to the midfrontal region, lying approximately 2 centimeters above glabella and 1.2 centimeters to the left of midline. The defect measures 1.4 centimeters in diameter and presents characteristic beveling of the inner table. Charring is present along the margins of the defect. Wound A is consistent with a gunshot entrance wound.

Wound B is a circular defect with characteristic beveling of the outer table. It measures 1.6 centimeters in diameter endocranially, and 4.8 centimeters in diameter ectocranially. The defect is localized to the occipital bone, 2.6 centimeters superior to opisthion and 0.9 centimeters to the left of the midsagittal line. There is focal charring of the left, right, and inferior margins of the defect. Wound B is consistent with a gunshot exit wound.

While fire damage made a complete reconstruction impossible, I was able to piece together enough of the vault to interpret the fractures lacing between the exit and entrance holes.

The pattern was classic. The old woman had suffered a gunshot wound to the head. The bullet entered the middle of her forehead, traversed her brain, and exited at the back. It explained why the skull had not shattered in the flames. A vent for intracranial pressure had been created before heat became a problem.

I walked the report to the secretarial pool and returned to find Ryan sitting across from my desk, gazing out the window behind my chair. His legs stretched the length of my office.

“Nice view.” He spoke in English.

Five floors down the Jacques Cartier Bridge arched across the St. Lawrence River. I could see minuscule cars crawling across its back. It was a nice view.

“It distracts me from thinking about how small this office is.” I slipped past him, around the desk, and into my chair.

“A distracted mind can be dangerous.”

“My bruised shins bring me back to reality.” I swiveled sideways and propped my legs on the ledge below the window, ankles crossed. “It’s an old woman, Ryan. Shot in the head.”

“How old?”

“I’d say she was at least seventy. Maybe even seventy-five. Her pubic symphyses have a lot of miles on them, but folks are variable up in that range. She has advanced arthritis and she’s osteoporotic.”

He dipped his chin and raised his brows. “French or English, Brennan. Not doctor talk.” His eyes were the shade of blue on the Windows 95 screen.

“Os-te-o-po-ro-sis.” I spoke each syllable slowly. “I can tell from the X-rays that her cortical bone is thin. I can’t see any fractures, but I only had parts of the long bones. The hip is a common site for breaks in older women because a lot of weight is transferred there. Hers were O.K.”

“Caucasian?”

I nodded.

“Anything else.”

“She probably had several kids.” The laser blues were fixed on my face. “She has a trench the size of the Orinoco on the back of each pubic bone.”

“Great.”

“Another thing. I think she was already in the basement when the fire started.”

“How’s that?”

“There was absolutely no floor debris below the body. And I found a few tiny scraps of fabric embedded between her and the clay. She must have been lying directly on the floor.”

He thought for a moment.

“So you’re telling me someone shot Granny, dragged her down to the basement, and left her to fry.”

“No. I’m saying Granny took a bullet in the head. I don’t have a clue who fired it. Maybe she did. That’s your job, Ryan.”

“Did you find a gun near her?”

“No.”

Just then Bertrand appeared in the doorway. While Ryan looked neat and pressed, his partner’s creases were sharp enough to cut precious gems. He wore a mauve shirt keyed to the tones of his floral tie, a lavender and gray tweed jacket, and wool trousers a precise half note down from shade four in the tweed.

“What have you got?” Ryan asked his partner.

“Nothing we didn’t already know. It’s like these people were beamed down from space. No one really knows who the hell was living in there. We’re still trying to track down the guy in Europe that owns the house. The neighbors across the road saw the old lady from time to time, but she never spoke to them. They say the couple with the kids had only been there a few months. They rarely saw them, never learned their names. A woman up the road thought they were part of some sort of fundamentalist group.”

“Brennan says our Doe is a Jane. As in Baby Jane. A septuagenarian.”

Bertrand looked at him.

“In her seventies.”

“An old lady?”

“With a bullet in her brain.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

“Someone shot her and torched the place?”

“Or Granny pulled the trigger after having lit the barbecue. But, then, where’s the weapon?”

When they’d gone I checked my consult requests. A jar of ashes had arrived in Quebec City, the cremains of an elderly man who died in Jamaica. The family was accusing the crematory of fraud, and had brought the ashes to the coroner’s office. He wanted to know what I thought.

A skull was found in a ravine outside the Côte des Neiges Cemetery. It was dry and bleached, and had probably come from an old grave. The coroner needed confirmation.