Authors: Kathy Reichs
The bones of the pelvis encircled a bathroom plunger, its long wooden handle projecting upward like an inverted Popsicle stick, its red rubber cup pressed hard against the pelvic outlet. Its position suggested deliberate placement. Gruesome as the idea was, I didn’t believe the association was spurious.
I stood and looked around, my knees protesting the change to upright posture. I knew from experience that scavenging animals can drag body parts impressive distances. Dogs often hide them in areas of low brush, and burrowing animals drag small bones and teeth into underground holes. I brushed dirt from my hands and scanned the immediate vicinity, looking for likely routes.
Flies buzzed and a horn blared a million miles away on Sherbrooke. Memories of other woods, other graves, other bones skittered through my mind, like disconnected images from old movies. I stood absolutely still, searching, wholly alert. Finally, I sensed, more than saw, an irregularity in my surroundings. Like a sunbeam glinting off a mirror, it was gone before my neurons could form an image. An almost imperceptible flicker caused me to turn my head. Nothing. I held myself rigid, unsure if I’d really seen anything. I brushed the insects from my eyes and noticed that it was growing cooler.
Shit. I continued looking. A slight breeze lifted the damp curls around my face and stirred the leaves. Then I sensed it again. A suggestion of sunlight skipping off something. I took a few steps, unsure of the source, and stopped, every cell of my being intent on sunlight and shadows. Nothing. Of course not, stupid. There can’t be anything over there. No flies.
Then I spotted it. The wind puffed gently, flicking over a shiny surface and causing a momentary ripple in the afternoon light. Not much, but it caught my eye. Hardly breathing, I went closer and looked down. I wasn’t surprised at what I saw. Here we go, I thought.
Peeking from a hollow in the roots of a yellow poplar was the corner of another plastic bag. A spray of buttercups ringed both the poplar and the bag, tiptoeing off in slender tendrils to disappear into the surrounding weeds. The bright yellow flowers looked like escapees from a Beatrix Potter illustration, the freshness of the blooms in stark contrast to what I knew lay hidden in the bag.
I approached the tree, twigs and leaves snapping beneath my feet. Bracing myself with one hand, I cleared enough plastic to get a grip, took firm hold, and pulled gently. No give. Rewrapping the plastic around my hand, I pulled harder, and felt the bag move. I could tell that its contents had substance. Insects whined in my face. Sweat trickled down my back. My heart drummed like the bass in a heavy metal band.
One more tug and the bag came free. I dragged it forward far enough to allow a view inside. Or maybe I just wanted it away from Ms. Potter’s flowers. Whatever it held was heavy, and I had little doubt what that would be. And I was right. As I disentangled the ends of the plastic, the smell of putrefaction was overwhelming. I unwound the edges and looked inside.
A human face stared out at me. Sealed off from the insects that hasten decomposition, the flesh had not fully rotted. But heat and moisture had altered the features, converting them into a death mask bearing scant resemblance to the person it had been. Two eyes, shriveled and constricted, peered out from under half-closed lids. The nose lay bent to one side, the nostrils compressed and flattened against a sunken cheek. The lips curled back, a grin for eternity with a set of perfect teeth. The flesh was pasty white, a blanched and soggy wrapper molding itself closely to the underlying bone. Framing the whole was a mass of dull red hair, the lusterless corkscrew curls plastered to the head by an ooze of liquefied brain tissue.
Shaken, I closed the bag. Remembering the Hydro workers, I glanced over to where I’d left them. The younger was watching me closely. His companion remained some distance behind, shoulders hunched, hands thrust deep into the pockets of his work pants.
Stripping off my gloves, I walked past them, out of the woods and back toward the CUM squad car. They said nothing, but I could hear them following, scraping and rustling in my wake.
Constable Groulx was leaning against his hood. He watched me approach but didn’t change position. I’d worked with more amiable individuals.
“May I use your radio?” I could be cool, too.
He pushed himself upright with both hands and circled the car to the driver’s side. Leaning in through the open window, he disengaged the mike and looked at me questioningly.
“Homicide,” I said.
He looked surprised, regretted it, and put through the call. “
Section des homicides
,” he said to the dispatcher. After the usual delays, transfers, and static, the voice of a detective came over the air.
“Claudel,” it said, sounding irritated.
Constable Groulx handed me the mike. I identified myself and gave my location. “I’ve got a homicide here,” I said. “Probable body dump. Probable female. Probable decapitation. You’d better get recovery out here right away.”
There was a long pause. No one was finding this good news.
“
Pardon?
”
I repeated what I’d said, asking Claudel to pass the word along to Pierre LaManche when he called the morgue. There would be nothing for the archaeologists this time.
I returned the mike to Groulx, who’d been listening to every word. I reminded him to get a full report from the two workers. He looked like a man who’d just been sentenced to ten to twenty. He knew he wouldn’t be going anywhere for some time. I wasn’t terribly sympathetic. I wouldn’t be sleeping in Quebec City this weekend. In fact, as I drove the few short blocks to my condo, I suspected that no one would be sleeping much for a long time. As things turned out, I was right. What I couldn’t know then was the full extent of the horror we were about to face.
T
HE NEXT DAY BEGAN AS WARM AND SUNNY AS ITS PREDECESSOR
,
A
fact that would normally draw me into high spirits. I am a woman whose moods are influenced by the weather, my outlook rising and falling with the barometer. But that day the weather would be irrelevant. By 9
A.M
. I was already in autopsy room 4, the smallest of the suites at the Laboratoire de Médecine Légale, and one that is specially outfitted for extra ventilation. I often work here since most of my cases are less than perfectly preserved. But it’s never fully effective. Nothing is. The fans and disinfectants never quite win over the smell of ripened death. The antiseptic gleam of the stainless steel never really eradicates the images of human carnage.
The remains recovered at Le Grand Séminaire definitely qualified for room 4. After a quick dinner the previous evening, I’d gone back to the grounds and we’d processed the site. The bones were at the morgue by 9:30
P.M
. Now they lay in a body bag on a gurney to my right. Case #26704 had been discussed at the morning staff meeting. Following standard procedure, the body had been assigned to one of the five pathologists working at the lab. Since the corpse was largely skeletonized, the little soft tissue that remained far too decomposed for standard autopsy, my expertise was requested.
One of the autopsy technicians had called in sick this morning, leaving us shorthanded. Bad timing. It’d been a busy night: a teenage suicide, an elderly couple found dead in their home, and a car fire victim charred beyond recognition. Four autopsies. I’d offered to work alone.
I was dressed in green surgical scrubs, plastic goggles, and latex gloves. Fetching. I’d already cleaned and photographed the head. It would be X-rayed this morning, then boiled to remove the putrefied flesh and brain tissue so that I could do a detailed examination of the cranial features.
I’d painstakingly examined the hair, searching for fibers or other trace evidence. As I separated the damp strands, I couldn’t help imagining the last time the victim had combed it, wondering if she’d been pleased, frustrated, indifferent. Good hair day. Bad hair day. Dead hair day.
Suppressing these thoughts, I bagged the sample and sent it up to biology for microscopic analysis. The plunger and plastic bags had also been turned over to the Laboratoire des Sciences Judiciaires where they’d be checked for prints, traces of bodily fluids, or other minuscule indicators of killer or victim.
Three hours on our hands and knees the previous night feeling through mud, combing through grass and leaves, and turning over rocks and logs had yielded nothing else. We’d searched until darkness closed us down, but came away empty. No clothing. No shoes. No jewelry. No personal effects. The crime scene recovery team would return to dig and sift today, but I doubted they’d find anything. I would have no manufacturer’s tags or labels, no zippers or buckles, no jewelry, no weapons or bindings, no slashes or entrance holes in clothing to corroborate my findings. The body had been dumped, naked and mutilated, stripped of everything that linked it to a life.
I returned to the body bag for the rest of its grisly contents, ready to start my preliminary examination. Later, the limbs and torso would be cleaned, and I would do a complete analysis of all the bones. We’d recovered almost the whole skeleton. The killer had made that task easier. As with the head and torso, he, or she, had placed the arms and legs in separate plastic bags. There were four in all. Very tidy. Packaged and discarded like last week’s garbage. I filed the outrage in another place and forced myself to concentrate.
I removed the dismembered segments and arranged them in anatomical order on the stainless steel autopsy table in the middle of the room. First, I transferred the torso and centered it, breast side up. It held together reasonably well. Unlike the bag holding the head, those containing the body parts had not stayed tightly sealed. The torso was in the worst shape, the bones held together only by leatherized bands of dried muscle and ligament. I noted that the uppermost vertebrae were missing, and hoped I’d find them attached to the head. Except for traces, the internal organs were long gone.
Next, I placed the arms to the sides and the legs below. The limbs hadn’t been exposed to sunlight, and weren’t as desiccated as the chest and abdomen. They retained large portions of putrefied soft tissue. I tried to ignore the seething blanket of pale yellow that made a languid, wavelike retreat from the surface of each limb as I withdrew it from the body bag. Maggots will abandon a corpse when exposed to light. They were dropping from the body to the table, from the table to the floor, in a slow but steady drizzle. Pale yellow grains of rice lay writhing by my feet. I avoided stepping on them. I’d never really gotten used to them.
I reached for my clipboard and began to fill in the form. Name:
Inconnue
. Unknown. Date of autopsy: June 3, 1994. Investigators: Luc Claudel, Michel Charbonneau,
Section des homicides
, CUM. Homicide division, Montreal Urban Community Police.
I added the police report number, the morgue number, and the Laboratoire de Médecine Légale, or LML, number and experienced my usual wave of anger at the arrogant indifference of the system. Violent death allows no privacy. It plunders one’s dignity as surely as it has taken one’s life. The body is handled, scrutinized, and photographed, with a new series of digits allocated at each step. The victim becomes part of the evidence, an exhibit, on display for police, pathologists, forensic specialists, lawyers, and, eventually, jurors. Number it. Photograph it. Take samples. Tag the toe. While I am an active participant, I can never accept the impersonality of the system. It is like looting on the most personal level. At least I would give this victim a name. Death in anonymity would not be added to the list of violations he or she would suffer.
I selected a form from those on the clipboard. I’d alter my normal routine and leave the full skeletal inventory for later. For now the detectives wanted only the ID profile: sex, age, and race.
Race was pretty straightforward. The hair was red, what skin remained appeared fair. Decomposition, however, could do strange things. I’d check the skeletal details after cleaning. For now Caucasoid seemed a safe bet.
I already suspected the victim was female. The facial features were delicate, the overall body build slight. The long hair meant nothing.
I looked at the pelvis. Turning it to the side I noted that the notch below the hip blade was broad and shallow. I repositioned it so that I could see the pubic bones, the region in front where the right and left halves of the pelvis meet. The curve formed by their lower borders was a wide arch. Delicate raised ridges cut across the front of each pubic bone, creating distinct triangles in the lower corners. Typical female features. Later I’d take measurements and run discriminant function analyses on the computer, but I had no doubt these were the remains of a woman.
I was wrapping the pubic area in a wet rag when the sound of the phone startled me. I hadn’t realized how quiet it was. Or how tense I was. I walked to the desk, zigzagging through maggots like a child playing jacks.
“Dr. Brennan,” I answered, pushing the goggles to the top of my head and dropping into the chair. Using my pen, I flicked a maggot from the desktop.
“Claudel,” a voice said. One of the two CUM detectives assigned to the case. I looked at the wall clock—ten-forty. Later than I realized. He didn’t go on. Obviously he assumed his name was message enough.
“I’m working on her right now,” I said. I could hear a metallic grating sound. “I shou—”
“
Elle?
” he interrupted. Female?
“Yes.” I watched another maggot contract into a crescent, then double back on itself and repeat the maneuver in the opposite direction. Not bad.
“White?”
“Yes.”
“Age?”
“I should be able to give you a range within an hour.”
I could picture him looking at his watch.
“Okay. I’ll be there after lunch.” Click. It was a statement, not a request. Apparently it didn’t matter if it was okay with me.
I hung up and returned to the lady on the table. Picking up the clipboard, I flipped to the next page on the report form. Age. This was an adult. Earlier, I’d checked her mouth. The wisdom teeth were fully erupted.