Cross Bones

by Kathy Reichs

  “It’s a long shot.”

  “But it might.”

  “It might,” I conceded.

  “Who does these tests?”

  I told him.

  “Visit your dentist, see what he says about the odd tooth. Then take samples. And cut enough bone for radiocarbon analysis, too.”

  “The coroner’s not going to foot the bill,” I said.

  “I’ll use my grant money.”

  I was zipping my parka when Ryan came through the door.

  What he told me sent my thoughts winging a one-eighty.

  14

  “MIRIAM FERRIS IS RELATED TO HERSHEL Kaplan?”

  “Affinal tie.”

  “Affinal.” I was having trouble wrapping my mind around Ryan’s statement.

  “It’s a kinship term. Means linked by marriage.” Ryan gave his most boyish smile. “I use it in tribute to your anthropological past.”

  I sketched a mental diagram of what he’d just said. “Miriam Ferris was married to Hershel Kaplan’s wife’s brother?”

  “Former wife.”

  “But Miriam denied knowing Kaplan,” I said.

  “We asked about Kessler.”

  “One of Kaplan’s known aliases.”

  “Confusing, isn’t it?”

  “If Kaplan was family, Miriam would have known him.”

  “Presumably,” Ryan agreed.

  “She’d have recognized him at the autopsy.”

  “If she’d seen him.”

  “You really think Kaplan is Kessler?” I asked.

  “You were reasonably convinced by the mug shot.” Ryan was looking at the box on my table.

  “Is Kaplan’s wife’s brother still alive?”

  “Former wife. Before the divorce, Miriam’s husband would have been Kaplan’s brother-in-law. Anyway, the guy died of diabetic complications in ninety-five.”

  “So Kaplan and his wife split, leaving him single. And Miriam’s husband died, leaving her single.”

  “Yep. Ferris’s murder was a return engagement for the grieving widow. You’d think she’d be better at it. What’s in the box?”

  “I’m taking Morissonneau’s skull to Bergeron for an opinion on the teeth.”

  “His patients should love that.”

  Ryan pulled his lips back in a ghoulish grimace.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “When did Miriam tie the knot with Avram Ferris?” I asked.

  “Ninety-seven.”

  “Pretty quick after her first husband’s death.”

  “Some widows bounce right back.”

  Miriam didn’t strike me as a bouncer, but I kept the thought to myself.

  “How long has Kaplan been divorced?” I asked.

  “The missus bailed during his second stretch at Bordeaux.”

  “Ouch.”

  “I checked Kaplan’s prison sheet. The guy caused no problems, appeared sincere in his desire to improve himself, got cut loose at half time.”

  “So he has a parole officer?”

  “Michael Hinson.”

  “When was he released?”

  “Two thousand and one. According to Hinson, Kaplan’s been a legit businessman ever since.”

  “What business?”

  “Guppies and guinea pigs.”

  I raised a quizzical brow.

  “Centre d’animaux Kaplan.”

  “He has a pet store?”

  Ryan nodded. “Owns the building. Guppies down, Kaplan up.”

  “Does he still meet with the PO?”

  “Monthly. Been a model parolee.”

  “Admirable.”

  “Never missed a check-in until two weeks ago. He failed to call or show up on February fourteenth.”

  “The Monday following the weekend Avram Ferris was shot.”

  “Want to pet the Pomeranians?”

  “Bergeron’s expecting me at one.”

  Ryan looked at his watch.

  “Meet you downstairs at two-thirty?”

  “I’ll bring a Milk-Bone.”

  * * *

  Bergeron’s office is at Place Ville-Marie, a multitowered high-rise at the corner of René-Lévesque and University. He shares it with a partner named Bougainvillier. I’d never met Bougainvillier, but I always pictured a flowering vine with glasses.

  After driving to the centre-ville, I parked underground, and rode an elevator to the seventeenth floor.

  Bergeron was with a patient, so I settled in the waiting room, box at my feet. A large woman sat opposite, thumbing a copy of Châtelaine. When I reached for a magazine, she looked up and smiled. She needed a dentist.

  Five minutes after my arrival, the Châtelaine woman was invited into the inner sanctum. I suspected she’d be there awhile.

  Moments later a man exited the inner sanctum. His jacket was off and his tie was loose. He was moving fast.

  Bergeron appeared and led me to his office. A high whining emanated from down the hall. I pictured the Châtelaine woman. I pictured the plant in The Little Shop of Horrors.

  As I unpacked my box, I sketched some background for Bergeron. He listened, bony arms crossed on bony chest, white frizz luminous in the window light.

  When I’d finished Bergeron took the skull and examined the upper teeth. He examined the jaw. He articulated the jaw and studied the molar occlusion.

  Bergeron held out a hand. I placed the tiny brown envelope in it.

  Clicking on a light box, Bergeron arranged the dental X-rays and leaned close. His hair haloed like a dandelion in the bright fluorescence.

  Seconds passed. A full minute.

  “Mon Dieu, no question.” A skeletal finger tapped the second and third right upper molars. “Look at these pulp chambers and canals. This man was at least fifty. Probably older.”

  The finger moved to the row’s first molar.

  “There’s much less dentin deposition here. This tooth is unquestionably from a younger person.”

  “How much younger?”

  Bergeron straightened, pooched air through his lips. “Thirty-five. Maybe forty. No more.”

  Bergeron returned to the skull.

  “Minimal cusp wear. Probably the lower end of that range.”

  “Can you tell when the molar was reinserted?”

  Bergeron looked at me as though I’d asked him to calculate quadratic equations in his head.

  “A rough estimate?” I amended.

  “The glue is yellowed and flaking.”

  “Wait.” I raised a palm. “You’re saying the tooth’s glued in?”

  “Yes.”

  “So it wasn’t reinserted two thousand years back?”

  “Definitely not. Maybe a few decades back.”

  “In the sixties?”

  “Very possible.”

  Option B or C, insertion during Yadin’s excavation, or at the Musée de l’Homme. My gut was still going with the former.

  “Would you mind extracting those three upper molars?”

  “Not at all.”

  Bergeron reboxed the skull and hurried from the office, his six-foot-three frame moving with all the grace of an ironing board.

  I gathered the X-rays, wondering if I was making a big deal over nothing. The odd tooth came from a younger individual. Someone stuck the thing into the wrong jaw. Maybe a volunteer digger. Maybe Haas. Maybe an unskilled museum worker.

  Down the hall, the whining continued.

  There are myriad points at which errors of individuation can occur. Recovery. Transport. Sorting. Cleaning. Maybe the admixture took place in the cave. Maybe in Haas’s lab. Maybe later at the museum in Paris.

  Bergeron returned and handed me the box and a ziplock bag.

  “Anything else you can tell me?” I asked.

  “Whoever replaced that molar was a dental jackass.”

  * * *

  Le centre d’animaux Kaplan was a two-story glass-fronted store in a row of two- and three-story glass-fronted stores on rue Jean-Talon. Signs in the window offered Nutr
ience dog and cat foods, tropical fish, and a special on parakeets, cage included.

  Two doors opened directly off the sidewalk, one wood, one glass. Chimes jangled as Ryan pushed through the latter.

  The shop was crammed with odors and sounds. Tanks bubbled along one wall, birdcages lined another, their occupants ranging from the drab to the flamboyant. Beyond the fish I could see other representatives of the Linnaean hierarchy. Frogs. A coiled snake. A small furry thing curled into a ball.

  Up front were rabbits, kittens, a lizard with a wattle to rival my great aunt Minnie’s. Puppies dozed in cages. One stood, tail wagging, front paws pressed to the wire mesh. One gnawed a red rubber duck.

  Parallel shelves shot the center of the store. A kid of about seventeen was sliding collars onto hangers halfway down the side opposite the birds.

  Hearing chimes, the kid turned, but didn’t speak.

  “Bonjour,” Ryan said.

  “Yo,” the kid said.

  “Some help, please.”

  Dropping his carton, the kid slouched toward us.

  Ryan badged him.

  “Cops?”

  Ryan nodded.

  “Cool.”

  “Way cool. And you would be?”

  “Bernie.”

  Bernie was scrupulously adhering to his interpretation of gangsta chic. Low-slung jeans with knee-level crotch, shirt unbuttoned over a grungy T. He was way too skinny to make the look work. Everyone was.

  “I’m Detective Ryan. This is Dr. Brennan.”

  Bernie’s eyes slid to me. They were small and dark and overset by brows that met in the middle. Bernie’d probably bought his share of Clearasil.

  “We’re looking for Hershel Kaplan.”

  “He’s not here.”

  “Is Mr. Kaplan often away?”

  Bernie raised one shoulder and cocked his head.

  “Do you know where the gentleman is today?”

  Bernie shrugged both shoulders.

  “Are these questions too tough for you, Bernie?”

  Bernie scraped hair from his forehead.

  “Shall I start over?” Ryan’s voice could have frozen margaritas.

  “Don’t bust my ass, man. I just work for the guy.”

  A puppy began yapping. It wanted out.

  “Listen carefully. Has Mr. Kaplan been here today?”

  “I opened up.”

  “Has he called?”

  “No.”

  “Is Mr. Kaplan upstairs?”

  “He’s on vacation, aw’right?” Bernie shifted weight from one leg to the other. There wasn’t much to shift.

  “It would have been helpful if you’d said that at the outset, Bernie.”

  Bernie looked at the floor.

  “Do you know where Mr. Kaplan has gone?”

  Bernie shook his head.

  “When he’ll be back?”

  The head shake continued.

  “There’s something wrong here, Bernie. I’m getting the feeling you don’t want to talk to me.”

  Bernie kept eyeing the mud on his sneakers.

  “This going to mess up that bonus Kaplan promised?”

  “Look, I don’t know.” Bernie’s head came up. “Kaplan told me to keep the place running and not talk it up that he’d split.”

  “When was that?”

  “Maybe a week ago.”

  “Do you have a key to Mr. Kaplan’s apartment?”

  Bernie didn’t respond to that.

  “You still live at home, Bernie?”

  “Yeah.” Wary.

  “We could swing by, ask Mom to help clear this up.”

  “Man.” Whiny.

  “Bernie?”

  “His key might be on the ring.”

  Ryan turned to me.

  “Do you smell gas?”

  “Maybe.” I sniffed. I smelled many things. “Yes, you could be right.”

  “How about you, Bernie? You smell gas?”

  “That’s the ferret.”

  “Smells like gas to me.” Ryan moved a few feet to his left, then to his right, nose working the air. “Yeah. Gas. Dangerous stuff.”

  Ryan turned to Bernie.

  “Would you like us to check it out?”

  Bernie looked skeptical.

  “Wouldn’t want to guess wrong with all these creatures depending on you,” Ryan said, the essence of reasonableness.

  “Yeah. Sure, man.”

  Bernie crossed to the counter and pulled keys from below the register.

  Ryan took the keys and turned to me.

  “Citizen asked us to check out a gas leak.”

  I gave a shrug that would have made Bernie proud.

  Ryan and I exited the glass door, hooked a left, and reentered the building through the wooden door. A narrow staircase rose steeply to a second-floor landing.

  We clumped up.

  Ryan knocked. There was no answer. Ryan knocked again, harder.

  “Police, Mr. Kaplan.”

  No answer.

  “We’re coming in.”

  Ryan inserted key after key. The fourth worked.

  Kaplan’s apartment had a small kitchen, a living room, a bedroom, a bath with black-and-white tile and a freestanding tub. Venetian blinds covered the windows, and genuinely awful mass-market landscapes decorated the walls.

  Some concessions had been made to evolving technology. The tub had been jerry-rigged with a handheld shower. A microwave had been placed on a kitchen counter. An answering machine had been connected to a bedroom phone. Otherwise, the place looked as if it had been ripped from a low-budget thirties movie.

  “Elegant,” Ryan said.

  “Understated,” I agreed.

  “I hate it when decorators get carried away.”

  “Lose all appreciation for linoleum.”

  We moved to the bedroom.

  A folding table held phone books, ledgers, and stacks of papers. I crossed to it and began poking around. Behind me Ryan opened and closed dresser drawers. Several minutes passed.

  “Find anything?” I asked.

  “A lot of bad shirts.”

  Ryan shifted to the nightstand.

  He made his discovery as I made mine.

  15

  I PICKED UP THE LETTER AS RYAN PRESSED THE button on the answering machine.

  I read while listening to the sugary voice: This message is for Hershel Kaplan. Your reservation for Saturday, February twenty-sixth, has been confirmed on Air Canada flight nine-five-eight-zero, operated by El Al, departing Toronto Pearson International Airport at eleven-fifty P.M. Please be advised that, due to heightened security, El Al requires passenger check-in at least three hours prior to departure. Have a pleasant flight.

  “Kaplan’s gone to Israel,” Ryan said.

  “Kaplan may have known Miriam Ferris better than we thought,” I said. “Look at this.”

  Ryan crossed to me. I handed him a pale gold card.

  Hersh:

  You view happiness as an impossible dream. I have seen it in your eyes. Pleasure and joy have moved to a place beyond the scope of your imagination.

  You are angry? Ashamed? Afraid? Don’t be. We are pushing forward, slowly, like swimmers moving through an angry sea. The waves will recede. We will triumph.

  Love,

  M

  I pointed to initials embossed on the card. “M.F.”

  “The acronym has other meanings.”

  “Rarely on stationery. And M.F. isn’t a common initial combination.”

  Ryan thought a moment.

  “Morgan Freeman. Marshall Field. Millard Fillmore. Morgan Fairchild.”

  “I’m impressed.” I worked it. “Masahisa Fukase.”

  Blank stare.

  “Fukase’s a Japanese photographer. Does amazing images of crows.”

  “Some of Fairchild’s images were pretty amazing.”

  Eye roll. “I have a gut feeling Miriam wrote this. But when? There’s no date. And why?”

  “To cheer Kaplan in prison?”


  I pointed to the note’s last line. “We will triumph?”

  “To encourage Kaplan to pump two slugs into hubby?”

  Suddenly the room felt cold and dark.

  “Time to call Israel,” Ryan said.

  * * *

  Back at Wilfrid Derome, Ryan peeled off to the crimes contre la personne squad room, and I returned to my lab. Selecting the right femur from Morissonneau’s skeleton, I descended to autopsy room four, and placed the bone on the table.

  After connecting the Stryker saw, I masked, and cut two one-inch plugs from the femur’s midshaft. Then I returned to my lab and phoned Jake. Once again, I was rousing him at the midnight hour.

  I told Jake what Bergeron had said about the odd molar.

  “How did someone else’s tooth get into the jaw of that skeleton?”

  “It happens. My guess is the molar somehow became incorporated with the skeleton during recovery of the bones in the cave. The roots fit the socket reasonably well, so someone, maybe a volunteer digger, slipped it into the jaw.”

  “And Haas later glued it.”

  “Maybe. Maybe someone at the Musée de l’Homme. It’s probably just an error.”

  “Did you cut samples for DNA testing?”

  I reiterated my skepticism about the value of DNA in a case in which no comparative samples existed.

  “I want the tests done.”

  “Okay. It’s your grant money.”

  “And carbon fourteen.”

  “Priority or standard delivery on the radiocarbon?”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Days versus weeks. And several hundred dollars.”

  “Priority.”

  I gave Jake the names of the labs I intended to use. He agreed and provided a billing account number.

  “Jake, if carbon-fourteen testing indicates this skeleton is as old as you say it is, you know I’ll have to contact the Israeli authorities.”

  “Call me first.”

  “I’ll call. But I’d like to kn—”

  “Thanks, Tempe.” Quick intake of breath. I sensed Jake was about to tell me something. Then, “This could be explosive.”

  I started to question that, decided not to press. I wanted to get the samples ready for morning pickup.

  After disconnecting, I logged on to the Net, called up the websites, and downloaded two case-submission forms for the DNA testing, and one for the radiometric testing.