The Bone Code

by Kathy Reichs

  A lumpy shadow fell across the grave. I pointed. The shadow’s hands shot to its hips.

  “The remains will be in body bags inside pressed-wood boxes.” Knees protesting the sudden reorientation, I stood. “Those are remnants of a box. We’re close.”

  Arbour hand-signaled again. He appeared to enjoy it.

  The cemetery workers jumped into the trench and manned their spades. The sun crept higher, warming the chilly air and melting the pale lens of frost tinting the lawn. Eventually, both men shed their jackets.

  New sounds filled the void left by the stilled backhoe. The thunk of shovels gouging the earth. The shush of soil sliding from blades. The crackle of static sputtering from the cruiser’s radio. Occasionally, an optimistic bird threw in a few hopeful notes.

  Like autopsies, exhumations don’t make for heart-thumping drama. There, too, the process is tedious and slow. To pass the time, I intermittently checked my phone. And my surroundings.

  The cemetery remained mostly deserted. Now and then, a car or groundskeeper’s truck passed by. At one point, a woman drove up in a blue Hyundai, got out, and wove through the headstones across the road. She wore a black leather jacket and a long green skirt. Her hair, short and wiry, was a most unfortunate carroty orange. I watched her discreetly, wondering who it was she mourned.

  Carrot Hair stopped at a pink granite marker shaped like a cross. Arms crossed, feet spread, she appeared to study the inscription.

  “Yo! We can pull her up.” Arbour’s bellowing brought me back.

  The diggers had climbed out of the pit. Both were sweating and gulping water from plastic bottles.

  I walked past them and looked down.

  The burial lay fully exposed. Saturated by percolating groundwater and crushed by the weight of overlying soil, the makeshift coffin had collapsed and now wrapped the body bag like a sodden diaper.

  Pulling on gloves, I raised my bandanna from my neck to my mouth, grabbed a trowel, and dropped into the grave. A few minutes of scraping muddy soil exposed the tag. A little thumb action cleared the tag’s surface enough to read the number.

  I took a deep breath. Let it out slowly. We’d found the child.

  Accepting a hand up to ground level, I gave the word.

  One of the SIJ techs snapped pics while the other shot video. When they’d finished, Gaston and his partner lifted LSJML-41208 and gently placed her on a stretcher.

  The backhoe cranked to life.

  As the second exhumation began, I tracked the coroner’s team to their van and watched them slide the stretcher inside. Saw and heard the rear doors slam shut.

  Beyond our parked vehicles, Carrot Hair was still at the cross-shaped headstone, seemingly deep in thought. Prayer? Long time for a visit with the dead, I thought.

  Peeling off my dirty gloves, I crossed to the cooler. Was straightening, water bottle in hand, when my eyes again drifted across the road.

  My spine tensed, and my pulse spiked.

  Carrot Hair’s phone was pointed directly at me.

  Seeing my reaction, the woman dropped the mobile into her shoulder bag, hurried to the Hyundai, and drove off.

  Had Carrot Hair been filming me? Was it my imagination?

  Better question: Why the hell hadn’t I noted her plate?

  * * *

  The whole operation took six hours. I left Arbour yelling instructions about refilling the graves.

  Arriving at the lab, I called downstairs. The disinterred remains were there and had been logged. I asked that both cases be brought to salle quatre, a space outfitted with special ventilation. While I anticipated minimal odor, I like working in the “stinky” room, the farthest down the hall of the four autopsy suites. More solitude, less interruption.

  I keyed in and descended in the coroner’s elevator. At morgue level, the basement, I changed into scrubs, then hurried to salle quatre.

  Two stainless-steel gurneys sat snugged to opposite walls. Each held a mud-coated body bag. An extra gurney was parked beside the floor-bolted table at the room’s center.

  After filling out separate case ID cards, I unzipped each pouch and shot backup Polaroids. Lisa arrived as I was setting down the camera.

  A word about Lisa Savard. Bright and self-motivated, Lisa anticipates and doesn’t require direction at every step. Having worked with many morgue techs over the decades, she remains my favorite.

  Blond and endowed with a legendary rack, Lisa is also a favorite with the cops. At least, with the male demographic.

  “Do you want X-rays?” A Francophone, Lisa always practices her English with me.

  I nodded. “If there’s anything suspicious in there, I want to know about it.”

  Lisa was back in thirty minutes. Together we viewed the films. Spotted no surprises.

  While Lisa spread sheets across the autopsy table and the empty gurney and balanced a screen on the sink, I took a paper apron from a drawer, slipped it over my head, and tied it around my waist. Then I masked, pulled on surgical gloves, and began removing skeletal elements from the bag labeled LSJML-41207.

  Starting at the feet and working toward the head, I arranged the bones in anatomical order. Lisa sifted the fill, screening each handful of soil under gently running water.

  Three hours later, the painstaking process was done.

  One dirt-crusted skeleton lay on the table. Another much smaller one lay on the gurney.

  A collection of insect casings and pebbles sat drying on the countertop, along with one plastic button and one rusted safety pin. The presence of a partial mouse skeleton solved the riddle of the man-made items, puzzling since both sets of remains had been buried nude. We couldn’t guess the appeal of these objects to the late burrowing rodent.

  The wall clock said nine forty-six. I was exhausted, suspected Lisa was equally tired. And hungry. We’d eaten nothing but a vending-machine sandwich around six.

  I thanked Lisa and told her to go home. While she wheeled the adult victim into the morgue cooler, I quick-scanned the child. Skull. Pelvis. Long bones. It was 2006 all over again.

  Charleston all over again.

  Tomorrow I’d do a full inventory and confirm both bio-profiles. But I knew what my conclusion would be. We’d unearthed the right people—the woman and child found in a container near Saint-Anicet.

  I lingered a moment, the skull of LSJML-41208 cradled in my palm.

  “I promise you,” I said softly. “I will find out who you are.”

  The vacant orbits stared up at me, silent in death.

  I was recentering the cranium on its rubber ring when a wink of light caught my eye. A glint of reflection from the overhead fluorescents.

  Curious, I dug a penlight from my bag and pointed the beam at the right orbit. Spotted nothing trapped in or behind the butterfly fissures deep in the socket. I shifted the light. The left orbit was also clean.

  I illuminated the nasal opening.

  My breath caught in my throat.

  12

  WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13–THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14

  Lisa, still there, spoke up.

  “You look like you’ve seen, how do you say, un fantôme?”

  “Ghost. Forceps, please.”

  She handed them to me.

  Moving gingerly, I tweezed the object free of the nasal conchae.

  Lisa had nailed it. A ghost. An achingly sad one.

  Crossing to the sink, I ran water over my find, then set it on the counter. Lisa drew close. We both stared.

  “What is it?”

  I shook my head, not trusting my voice.

  Lisa didn’t press. Something else I like about her.

  Together we placed sheeting over LSJML-41208, and she rolled the child from the room. After stripping off our gear, we changed into street clothes and left the building.

  A final adieu, then we angled into the night in opposite directions.

  * * *

  Ryan was reading in bed.

  “Long day.” Allowing the book to drop to hi
s chest.

  “Which must end with a very long shower,” I said.

  “Need assistance?”

  “I’m good.”

  He helped anyway. Ryan is world-class at lathering and scrubbing. And other things.

  As hot water pummeled my body and Ryan worked his magic, I felt my blood pressure settle back to normal.

  Thirty minutes later, we were both under the covers, smelling of grapefruit and bergamot, nibbling from a cheese plate Ryan had prepared.

  “Nice soap,” Ryan said.

  “Old Whaling Company. What are you reading?”

  “Tess of the d’Urbervilles.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a classic.”

  I couldn’t disagree.

  “The dig went smoothly?” Ryan switched topics. “No surprises?”

  “Actually, there was one.”

  I told him about the object I’d pulled from LSJML-41208.

  “How did a prayer card get into her nose?” Ryan asked.

  “I put it there.”

  Ryan’s brows shot up.

  “Not in her nose,” I corrected myself. “On top of her skull. Just before the burial.”

  “How could it slip into a nostril?”

  “Seriously? That’s your first question?”

  Ryan shrugged.

  “It was some sort of miniature. Maybe meant for a key or a neck chain.”

  Ryan said nothing.

  “The plastic coating helped. Still, the image was almost destroyed.”

  “Image of who?”

  “Whom.” Ryan and I love to catch each other using incorrect grammar.

  “Point for your side.”

  “Mother Mary MacKillop. She’s depicted wearing an old-fashioned nun’s habit.”

  “Why her?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I’ve got all night.” Ryan Groucho waggled his brows. “Perhaps you’d prefer to—”

  “There was a mourner at the burial back in 2010, a parishioner named Ariel something from a nearby church. She said one member of her devotional group attends every anonymous interment.”

  “Committed to giving the nameless a send-off.”

  I nodded.

  “A very kind gesture.”

  “It is. Was. I’m not sure they still do it.”

  I helped myself to a hunk of cheddar.

  “Anyway, Ariel asked that I slip the holy card into the child’s body bag. She was very keen, and it seemed harmless, so I figured what the hell?”

  “Why MacKillop?”

  “She’s the patron saint of abused girls.”

  “She’s been canonized?”

  “Yes. That was the other reason she was on Ariel’s mind. You’re familiar with Brother André, right?” I was referring to André Bessette, a Holy Cross brother and a much-loved figure in Montreal.

  “Are you kidding? When those asshats snatched his heart, the whole town went berserk.”

  It happened before my time, but the story remained legend. For years, the brother’s heart rested in a glass vessel atop a marble pedestal below the basilica of Saint Joseph’s Oratory. In 1973, thieves stole it for ransom. When the organ was recovered the following year, our lab did the ID.

  “According to Ariel, Brother André and Mother Mary MacKillop had both become saints the previous week. On the same day.”

  Funny how the brain works, retaining some details and deleting others. That day was October 17. Did I recall the date because it was also my baby brother’s birthday? Was that the reason I’d acted so impulsively? Had I agreed to Ariel’s request because of Kevin?

  “Nothing else weird?” Ryan asked. “No gawkers or journalists to lion-tame?”

  “Actually, there was one odd thing. A woman visited a grave across the road from where we were working.”

  I paused, unsure if the incident was worth mentioning.

  “And?” Ryan prompted.

  “I caught her taking pics of the exhumation.” Maybe.

  “Morbid curiosity?”

  “Who knows? Perhaps she hopes to sell the story to Dateline.”

  “What’s on for tomorrow?”

  “I’ll do an overview of both skeletons, for the record, but the main goal is sampling.”

  “The quest for the golden double helix.”

  “Bone isn’t ideal, but we could get lucky. I may also request radioisotope testing.”

  “I’m sure you’ll explain that.”

  “Using bone, radioisotopes can show where a person spent the last ten years before they died. Using teeth, they can show where they spent their first five to ten.”

  “Where they grew up.”

  “Presumably. Hair can be even better. By dividing a hair into growth increments, you can track a person’s actual movements during the last period of their life.”

  “Do you have some?”

  “Teeth, no.” Unsure which he was asking about. “I’ll recheck for hair, but I’m not optimistic.”

  “Sounds like another day of giggles and laughs.”

  * * *

  Ryan was right. It was another fun day.

  I woke at seven. Again, my roommate had beaten me out the door. Damn, he was quiet in the morning.

  I fed Birdie, something from a can involving chicken. He sniffed the brown glump and walked away in protest.

  Note to self: stock up on the cat’s preferred brand.

  Quick teeth and hair. Different brushes, same level of effort. Whom would I see that I needed to impress?

  After throwing on jeans and a sweater, I scooped up my mobile. Anne had phoned. And texted. Twice.

  Though anxious to be off, I returned her call. Got voice mail. Left a message.

  Traffic was bumper-to-bumper. By the time I’d parked and walked to the lab, it was well past eight. Leaving my purse in one of my desk drawers and my jacket on the coat tree, I hurried downstairs.

  Lisa was suited up and ready to go. I threw on scrubs, and we spent the next hour and a half rechecking the bones, the body bags, and the debris from the screen. Found six stray hairs. All from the mouse.

  Lisa packaged a femur from each victim while I changed. Then I rode the elevator back upstairs.

  Claire Willoughby was the DNA tech doing intake. In her late twenties, tall and willowy, Willoughby carried herself like a woman who knew she was beautiful. She wasn’t, due largely to her taste in makeup.

  Willoughby skimmed the request form, one overplucked brow arched high above one emerald lid. Then she listened to my account.

  “I’ll be straight with you.” British accent so strong it should have been waving a photo of the queen. “I’m not optimistic.”

  “Give it your best shot,” I said.

  We both did the thumbs-up thing.

  Back in my office, I checked my contacts, then entered a number. A voice answered, perky and friendly as the Sugar Plum Fairy.

  “DNA Analysis International. How may I direct you?”

  “Dr. Griesser, please.”

  “May I ask who’s calling?”

  “Temperance Brennan.”

  “One moment, please. You have a blessed day.”

  A Muzak rendering of “Brown Skin Girl”—definitely not Beyoncé—was mercifully truncated by another voice, this one cigarette-rough and tinged with concern.

  “Tempe. How’s haps, girl?”

  “Haps be good. Sorry to phone during working hours.”

  “Is something wrong with Mom?”

  Lizzie Griesser is a molecular biologist employed by DAI, a private DNA lab headquartered in Virginia. We’d met while working the same cases in Charlotte, Lizzie for the CMPD crime lab, me for the MCME. Eventually, collegiality had morphed into friendship.

  Several years after Lizzie was head-hunted away to Richmond, her mother developed dementia and required assisted living. Since the facility isn’t far from my place, I promised Lizzie to visit as often as possible. I’d kept that promise for almost eight years.

  �
��I saw her last week,” I said. “She’s fine.”

  “Thanks for looking in on her.” Relief evident. “So. I hear there’s a new sheriff in town.”

  “Samantha Nguyen.”

  “And?”

  “I like her.”

  “Boo-yah! You’re back in the game.”

  “Actually, that’s why I’m calling.”

  “Lay it on me.”

  I told her about the container and the exhumation and explained that I wanted a DNA-based phenotype sketch and a probability statement concerning geographic ancestry for each victim. Lizzie did this type of analysis regularly. She didn’t need me to diagram the play.

  A beat. When Lizzie spoke again, there was doubt in her voice.

  “Up to five years in the sea, four more in a cooler, eleven in the ground. Your folks may not be able to sequence shit.”

  “They’re going to try,” I said. “And this time, the request will be official.”

  During my exile from the MCME, Lizzie did a facial approximation for me, off the books.

  “Meaning we’ll get paid?” Throaty laugh.

  “Handsomely.”

  “Send the form directly to me.”

  After promising to meet when both of us were next in Charlotte, we disconnected.

  My old hard-copy files for LSJML-41207 and LSJML-41208 were still on my desk. The facial approximations I’d ordered in 2006 had been scanned into the central archives, but, pack rat that I am, I’d retained the originals.

  I pulled both sketches and set them side by side on my blotter.

  The images uncorked as much heartbreak as had the scene and the autopsy photos. Perhaps more. I studied them, allowing the agonizing memories to breathe in my mind.

  Though facial reconstruction was never my thing, I knew what the process was back then. Affix tissue-depth markers to key anatomical points. Scan the marked skull into the computer. Input data on sex, age, and racial background if available. Select and superimpose features from the program’s database.

  The result was always a cartoonlike gray-scale image. Beard? Mustache? Glasses? Bangs? Bushy brows? Chubby cheeks? Anyone’s guess based solely on bone. The goal was to achieve a resemblance while adding nothing distracting. If all attempts at identification failed, the cops and media would circulate the images in hopes that someone might recognize the subject.