The Bone Code

by Kathy Reichs

  As expected, the faces were expressionless and unnaturally symmetrical. I stared at each.

  The woman’s eyes were large, her nose long and narrow. Her jaw tapered sharply to a prominent chin. The artist had given her center-parted hair swept behind unremarkable ears. The slender, arched brows were pure speculation.

  The child’s forehead was high, her hair done in the same unobtrusive style as the woman’s. Her eyes were wide-set and angled downward toward her temples. Same brows.

  Both subjects were depicted with tightly closed lips. No teeth meant no telltale dental detail to help prompt recall.

  Viewing the child’s face triggered the troubling memory of the ring. The heartbreaking image of her attempt to hide it from her killer. I thought of all the things she’d never experience. The Christmas trees she’d never trim. The sandcastles she’d never build. The proms she’d never attend.

  Stop!

  I shifted from the child’s sketch to that of the woman.

  Staring at her face, a bad feeling slowly took hold of me.

  Those eyes.

  No way. A gaggle of brain cells cautioned.

  That chin.

  It’s not that unique. The cells reasoned.

  Suddenly, I felt dread.

  Pit-of-my-stomach-type dread.

  13

  FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15–MONDAY, OCTOBER 25

  Winter blasts into Montreal like an icy five-kiloton bomb.

  On Thursday, the mercury had risen to a mild fifty-six degrees.

  On Friday, I awoke to temperatures in the teens and four inches of snow.

  A true daughter of Dixie, I love sandals and sundresses, the smell of Hawaiian Tropic, the sound of palm fronds scraping against my screen. It can never be too balmy or too tropical for me.

  And yet I work north of the forty-ninth parallel.

  Each winter, I have a pep talk with myself. It will be cold. Very cold. There is no bad weather, only bad clothing. You will dress properly and be ready.

  I never am.

  Maybe les Quebecois weren’t ready that year, either. Depressed by the rapidly decreasing hours of daylight? Dreading another long, dark season? Pissed that it was too damn early to be so damn cold? Whatever the impetus, the locals had gotten busy culling the herd.

  Giving me plenty to do while awaiting DNA results.

  A farmer in Saint-Félicien strangled his wife and buried her in his barn. Two days later, he hallucinated that she’d started nagging again. A sleepless week, then hubby dug her up and phoned his priest. The missus rolled through our doors not looking her best.

  A pharmacist in Trois-Rivières overdosed on product he’d pilfered from his shelves. His girlfriend found him three days gone, slippered feet propped on a space heater, quilt covering his legs. The gentleman’s love of warmth hadn’t worked to his benefit.

  A tweaker in Val-d’Or crawled into a culvert and rammed a knitting needle into her temple. Not sure on the chronology of those actions. A maintenance crew found the body while investigating a blockage.

  Fishermen netted a pair of legs in Lac Saint-Jean.

  You get the picture. Every day, I had to navigate to the lab and back.

  Full disclosure. Hanging out with a putrefied or dismembered corpse, no sweat. But driving on snow or ice scares the crap out of me. Not totally my fault. Mention a flake, and Charlotteans dive for cover until the world thaws.

  That’s not how Montreal rolls. Following a blizzard, the main thoroughfares are plowed by the next morning’s rush hour, and it’s business as usual.

  For others, at least. Me? I’d look down on the snow-covered cars lining rue Sherbrooke and weigh the merits of car versus Métro. Mass transit meant being squashed elbow to earlobe in a small, poorly ventilated space. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, not an option for me. Instead, I’d don heavy socks, boots, parka, mittens, and muffler and, ignoring Ryan’s jibes about Eskimos and the Pillsbury Doughboy, trudge down to the garage.

  White-knuckling the wheel, sweaty but undaunted, I’d join the army of wooly-hatted commuters puffing exhaust from their tailpipes in icy little clouds. Since the small streets in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve were passable only via tire tracks snaking down their centers, I’d pay to park in the Wilfrid-Derome lot. Then, attentive to ice, I’d step out into the frigid air and, head down, face wrapped in cashmere, scuttle to the building.

  Weekends, I never left the condo.

  The first Saturday morning, while I prepared cheesy scrambled eggs and bacon, one of my few culinary talents, Ryan ventured forth for a copy of the Gazette. After breakfast, he built a fire, and we divided the paper. I started with news and art. He went for sports and finance.

  I was on page four of the local section when a photo caught my eye. Grainy black-and-white, below the fold. The accompanying article was one column inch, ten lines. I read it quickly.

  “Sonofabitch!” I exploded.

  “Atta girl.” Not looking up.

  “I don’t believe this.”

  “More snow?”

  “Remember that woman I told you about?”

  “The one who sold you the bad Camembert?”

  “The one in the cemetery the day of the exhumation.”

  “You didn’t like her hair.”

  Eyes rolling, I thrust the paper at Ryan.

  A quick glance at the photo, then, “That’s you.”

  “It is.”

  “You look good.”

  I definitely did not.

  “Did you speak with her?” Ryan asked.

  “No way.”

  “The coverage seems accurate. 2006. A woman and a child. The—”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “There’s no byline credit. Do you think your carrot-headed shutterbug wrote the story?”

  I shrugged. “Who knows?”

  “Maybe Arbour acted as a source?”

  “Or one of his employees.”

  Ryan thought a moment. Then, “No harm, no foul. Exposure might even help. You know, spur the public into thinking about the victims again.”

  “Maybe.”

  I let it go.

  My mistake.

  That night, Ryan walked to Le Roi du Wonton for Chinese takeout. After dinner, he watched the Canadiens play the Bruins, the Islanders play the Sharks, someone else play someone else. I took a stab at Polly Beecroft’s request.

  Seated at the dining-room table, I booted my laptop and pulled up the shots I’d taken of Beecroft’s death mask photo. Then, unsure what else to do, I started with Anne’s discovery about UCL.

  As Anne said, the Robert Noel Collection of Life and Death Masks, consisting of thirty-seven specimens, was the work of an avid nineteenth-century German phrenologist. By casting the heads of both the living and the dead, Noel hoped to validate his belief that cranial lumps and bumps provided insight into a person’s character.

  As Anne also said, Noel’s collection was displayed at various times in the past. Once at the Galton Eugenics Laboratory, once at the Slade School of Fine Art. Until recently, little else was known about it. The first breakthrough concerning its history came when one of the cast heads was offered to a group of museum studies students as their second-year collections curatorship module. The specimen chosen was the only one retaining its original documentation, the inscription Irmscher N; 34, murderer, decapitated 1840 hand-scrawled on a label attached to its neck.

  I already knew, again thanks to Anne, that the crafty students had managed to unearth an obscure volume in the British library: Notes Biographical and Phrenological Illustrating a Collection of Casts. Authored by Noel, the book provided background on every individual in his assemblage.

  What Anne hadn’t conveyed was the absolutely mesmerizing nature of Noel’s undertaking. Nor had she mentioned the YouTube clips describing subjects in both of his “criminal” and “intellectual” categories.

  As Ryan focused on nets and pucks, occasionally erupting with a shout or a groan, I found myself caught up in the videos. It w
as like wandering among old tombstones, imagining the tragedies reflected in the inscriptions.

  Carl Gottlob Irmscher drowned his two-year-old son in a stream, then returned the dead child’s body to his bed. Later, fearful of discovery, Irmscher sent his wife to the cellar for potatoes and killed her with an ax as she descended the stairs. He was executed by decapitation with a sword. Irmscher’s mask shows a man with lips parted, eyebrow hairs embedded in the plaster.

  Christian Gottlieb Meyer murdered his children by throwing them down a mine shaft. He was convicted and died in prison. Interestingly, Noel’s take on Meyer differed sharply from his assessment of Irmscher. According to Noel’s notes, the region of Meyer’s head reflecting love of children was quite prominent, and nothing on his skull indicated a tendency toward violence. Meyer’s actions, Noel concluded, derived from overuse of alcohol and fear of institutionalization of his kids. Despite the infanticide, Noel classified Meyer as “nonviolent.” A little fudging of the data, doc?

  The only female in the Noel collection was Johanne Rehn. Wishing to avoid rejection by a new lover, Rehn threw her daughter into a cesspit headfirst. An autopsy showed that the child had survived the fall but drowned in the filth. Noel categorized Rehn as criminal, noting that her frontal region was small compared to the “hinder part of the crown,” rendering Rehn “deficient in her faculty of love of children.” Rehn was beheaded in front of a crowd of twenty thousand. The executioner missed twice, and the false starts, sutured postmortem, were evident in her death mask.

  On and on, I looped through videos and written accounts, fascinated by the faces and the stories behind them. Not just Noel’s subjects but hundreds of others, some famous, some not. I discovered nothing pertinent to Polly Beecroft’s missing great-aunt.

  When I looked up, the TV was silent, and Ryan was poking the fire.

  I spent most of Sunday in further death mask exploration. Again, learned nothing germane to Beecroft.

  The following week and weekend were rinse and repeat. Cold cycle.

  DNA turnaround isn’t flash-bang as depicted on TV. Results take time. I knew that. Still, the wait made me edgy.

  I phoned Vislosky twice. Got identical feedback in both conversations. Using my profiles, she was pursuing multiple lines of inquiry: MP reports, schools, hospitals, old Amber alerts, juvenile arrest records. So far, she was coming up blank.

  * * *

  I got the call the second Monday out, an hour after arriving at the lab. Ten days after submitting the femora for DNA testing. Willoughby’s preliminary report was finally available. I hurried to see her.

  Willoughby was visible through one of the corridor windows, at the control panel of a complicated-looking machine. When I tapped on the glass, she buzzed me in.

  “Bonjour, hi.” Today Willoughby’s lids were teal. At least, the one I could see. Her hair, now shaved on the left, was streaked with purple and draping her forehead on the right.

  “Hi,” I said, searching the tech’s face for a hint. Good news? Bad news?

  “Let’s go to my desk,” she said.

  We did. Without sitting, or smiling, Willoughby scooped up and handed me two printouts.

  I skimmed the top of the first page, translating as I read. Name; Offense; Case number; Priority; Date requested; Date completed; Date reported; Requested by; Completed by.

  Below that, Evidence received: 1 right femur in sealed container labeled LSJML-41207.

  My gaze fired to the bottom of the form, to the data that interested me.

  Results: Human DNA was recovered and quantified from the femur.

  Yes!

  The recovered DNA was characterized through polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with analysis of the amelogenin locus for sex determination and the following short tandem repeat (STR) loci.

  A paragraph listed the loci.

  Heart banging, I read the second printout.

  My eyes flew up. Willoughby was watching me, arms crossed on her chest.

  “Awesome!” I almost high-fived her.

  She shrugged.

  “You managed to profile both.”

  “Did you doubt me?” The crimson lips hitched up slightly at one corner.

  “Never. How did you do it?”

  “Purify and amplify, baby.” A DNA catchphrase?

  “I imagine techniques have come a long way since 2006.”

  “And equipment.”

  “You ranked my request as top priority. I owe you.”

  “Wouldn’t turn down a bottle of Jimmy B.”

  “Done.”

  “This report is just between us,” Willoughby said. “A prelim.”

  “Understood. How come you bumped me up?”

  “Rumor has it you can be a real pain in the arse.”

  “Thanks.” I think.

  “The whole kit will appear as attachments to the official reports.”

  I nodded.

  “You do know this tells you naught about who your vics were.”

  “Granted. But now I’m certain the child is female.”

  “She is.”

  “And I now have profiles to run through every database on the planet.”

  “A bit of an overreach, I’d say. But that part’s up to the cops.”

  “You get what I mean.”

  “My super says I’m to send the report to a guy named Trout over at SQ.”

  The name wasn’t familiar. “Is it OK if I give Detective Ryan a heads up, too?”

  “I thought he’d retired.”

  “Never from this case.”

  “That bloke really knows how to fill out a shirt.”

  “When can we expect full profiles?”

  “I won’t be faffing around.”

  Willoughby’s unlikely blend of Queenly pronunciation and rough street slang always amused me. I took that to mean she’d stay on it.

  “There’s one other thing,” Willoughby said.

  Though not a stunner, her observation was definitely useful.

  14

  MONDAY OCTOBER 25–WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27

  Back in my office, yet another demande d’expertise form lay on my blotter. LaManche wanted my opinion on “suspicious body parts” found in a building under construction on rue Verreau.

  Ignoring the request, I phoned Ryan. He answered right away. Background noise suggested he was on the road.

  Supernova pumped, I launched right in.

  “S’il te plaît, ma chère. Lentement.”

  “Willoughby did it.” Slowly, as Ryan had requested. “She sequenced DNA.”

  “From the exhumed bones?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be damned. Has the reopened case been assigned to someone at SQ?”

  “A guy named Trout.”

  “I know Trout.” I sensed words left unsaid. Uncomplimentary ones. “Let me see what I can do.”

  “Really?”

  “I’m a genius, remember.”

  “If I send the official report, can you run the profiles through NDDB, CODIS, the DNA Gateway, whatever?” I was referring to the Canadian national DNA database and the U.S. and Interpol equivalents. And suchlike.

  I waited out an interlude of impatient honking. Then, “Can do.”

  “I’ll update our entries on NamUS and the Canadian sites for missing persons and unidentified remains,” I added.

  “Don’t get your hopes up. We tried this in 2006.”

  “We didn’t have DNA in 2006.”

  “True.”

  “Willoughby did share a couple of interesting things. The child is definitely female.”

  “You knew that.”

  “I strongly suspected that.”

  “She did have that ring.”

  “That’s hardly proof. DNA is. Also, the woman and the child are related.”

  “Mother and daughter?”

  “Maybe.”

  “That’s something.”

  “It is. Where are you?”

  “Driving to Burlington.”
/>   “Vermont?”

  “As I told you, my dead guy’s wife is claiming her husband’s car crash was a workplace-related death. She says she’s owed two hundred thousand big ones.”

  “The policy pays that much?”

  “If she’s right about the circumstances.”

  “Why did she wait four years to file?”

  “That’s what the adjuster would like to know.”

  Sudden guilty realization. I’d been so focused on my own concerns I’d shown no interest in Ryan’s.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Bring me up to speed.”

  “I spent last week poking around down here, learned that the guy’s coworkers never heard of the wife. Her name is Agnes, by the way. His is Rupert. Also, I found out that the accident happened more than a hundred kilometers from the plant where Rupert worked.”

  “A bit odd.”

  “I also tracked down some of Rupert’s former colleagues. Most barely remembered him.”

  “That’s sad.”

  “When you’re dead, you’re dead.”

  “Now what?”

  “During the workweek, Rupert stayed at a trailer park called Idle Acres.”

  “Sounds idyllic.”

  “They allow pets under twenty-five pounds. I’m heading there now.”

  “To continue detecting.”

  “It’s what I do. How about you?”

  “I’m looking at something for LaManche.” Sort of.

  “I should be home by five,” Ryan said.

  “Take care,” I said.

  “Beware the shih tzus and Yorkies?”

  “A pissed-off bichon mangled my grandfather’s toe.”

  When we’d disconnected, I thumbed in another number. Eight-four-three area code.

  A robotic voice apologized with all the warmth of a DMV clerk. Asked for a message. Annoyed, I left one.

  One glance at LaManche’s “suspicious parts” was all I needed. A carpenter or roofer had enjoyed a pork shank in the empty house, then tossed the bones.

  I was finishing a one-line report, thinking about whether I could summon the energy to make osso buco later, when my mobile rang.

  “Thanks for getting back to me so promptly,” I said.

  “This’ll have to be quick. It’s bonkers here.”