Authors: Kathy Reichs
I examined the arms where they’d been detached at the shoulders. The end of each humerus was fully formed. I could see no line demarcating a separate cap on either side. The other ends were useless—they had been cleanly severed just above the wrists. I’d have to find those fragments later. I looked at the legs. The head of the femur was also completely formed on both right and left.
Something about those severed joints disturbed me. It was a feeling apart from the normal reaction to depravity, but it was vague, ill-formed. As I allowed the left leg to settle back onto the table my guts felt like ice. The cloud of dread that first touched me in the woods returned. I shook it off and forced myself to focus on the question at hand. Age. Fix the age. A correct age estimate can lead to a name. Nothing else will matter until she has a name.
I used a scalpel to peel back the flesh around the knee and elbow joints. It came away easily. Here, too, the long bones were fully mature. I’d verify this on X ray, but knew it meant bone growth had been completed. I saw no lipping or arthritic change in the joints. Adult, but young. It was consistent with the lack of wear I’d observed on the teeth.
But I wanted more precision. Claudel would expect it. I looked at each collarbone where it met the sternum at the base of the throat. Though the one on the right was detached, the joint surface was encased in a hard knot of dried cartilage and ligament. Using a scissors, I snipped away as much of the leathery tissue as I could, then wrapped the bone in another wet rag. I returned my attention to the pelvis.
I removed that rag and, again using a scalpel, began gently sawing through the cartilage connecting the two halves in front. Wetting it down had made it more pliable, easier to cut, but still the process was slow and tedious. I didn’t want to risk damaging the underlying surfaces. When the pubic bones were finally separate, I cut the few strips of dried muscle uniting the pelvis to the lower end of the spine in back, freed it, carried it to the sink, and submerged the pubic portion in water.
Next I returned to the body and unwrapped the collarbone. Again, I teased off as much tissue as possible. Then I filled a plastic specimen container with water, positioned it against the rib cage, and stuck the end of the clavicle in it.
I glanced at the wall clock—12:25
P.M
. Stepping back from the table, I peeled off my gloves and straightened. Slowly. My back felt like a Pop Warner league had been practicing on it. I placed my hands on my hips and stretched, arching backward and rotating my upper body. It didn’t really relieve the pain, but it didn’t hurt either. My spine seemed to hurt a lot lately, and bending over an autopsy table for three hours tended to aggravate it. I refused to believe or admit it was age-related. My newly discovered need for reading glasses and the seemingly permanent upgrade from 115 to 120 in my weight were likewise not the result of aging. Nothing was.
I turned to see Daniel, one of the autopsy technicians, watching from the outer office. A tic pulled his upper lip, and his eyes pinched shut momentarily. With a jerk he shifted, placing all his weight on one leg and cocking the other. He looked like a sandpiper waiting out a wave.
“When would you like me to do the radiography?” he asked. His glasses rode low on his nose and he seemed to peer over rather than through them.
“I should finish up by three,” I said, tossing my gloves into the biological waste receptacle. I suddenly realized how hungry I was. My morning coffee sat on the counter, cold and untouched. I’d completely forgotten it.
“Okay.” He hopped backward, pivoted, and disappeared down the hall.
I flipped the goggles onto the counter, withdrew a white paper sheet from a drawer below the side counter, unfolded it, and covered the body. After washing my hands I returned to my office on the fifth floor, changed into street clothes, and went out for lunch. This was rare for me, but today I needed the sunshine.
Claudel was true to his word. When I returned at one-thirty he was already in my office. He sat opposite my desk, his attention focused on the reconstructed skull on my worktable. He turned his head when he heard me, but said nothing. I hung my coat on the back of the door and moved past him and into my chair.
“
Bonjour
, Monsieur Claudel.
Comment ça va?
” I smiled at him across my desk.
“
Bonjour
.” Apparently, he was uninterested in how I was doing. Okay. I waited. I would not succumb to his charm.
A folder lay on the desk in front of him. He placed his hand on it and looked at me. His face brought to mind a parrot. The features angled sharply from his ears to the midline, plunging forward into a beaklike nose. Along this apex his chin, his mouth, and the tip of his nose pointed downward in a series of V’s. When he smiled, which was rare, the V of his mouth sharpened, and the lips drew in, rather than back.
He sighed. He was being very patient with me. I hadn’t worked with Claudel before, but knew his reputation. He thought himself an exceptionally intelligent man.
“I have several names,” he said. “Possibles. They all disappeared within the last six months.”
We’d already discussed the question of time since death. My morning’s work hadn’t changed my mind. I was certain she’d been dead less than three months. That would place the murder in March or later. Winters are cold in Quebec, hard on the living but kind to the dead. Frozen bodies do not decay. Nor do they attract bugs. Had she been dumped last fall, before the onset of winter, there would’ve been signs of insect infestation. The presence of casings or larvae would’ve indicated an aborted fall invasion. There were none. Given that it had been a warm spring, the abundance of maggots and the degree of deterioration were consistent with an interval of three months or less. The presence of connective tissue along with the virtual absence of viscera and brain matter also suggested a late winter, early spring death.
I leaned back and looked at him expectantly. I could be cagey too. He opened the folder and thumbed through its contents. I waited.
Selecting one of the forms, he read, “Myriam Weider.” There was a pause as he sifted through the information on the form. “Disappeared April 4, 1994.” Pause. “Female. White.” Long pause. “Date of birth 9/6/48.”
We both calculated mentally—forty-five years old.
“Possible,” I said, gesturing with my hand for him to go on.
He laid the form on the desk and read from the next. “Solange Leger. Reported missing by the husband,” he paused, straining to make out the date, “May 2, 1994. Female. White. Date of birth 8/17/28.”
“No.” I shook my head. “Too old.”
He placed the form at the back of the folder and selected another. “Isabelle Gagnon. Last seen April 1, 1994. Female. White. Date of birth 1/15/71.”
“Twenty-three. Yeah.” I nodded slowly. “Possible.” It went on the desk.
“Suzanne St. Pierre. Female. Missing since March 9, 1994.” His lips moved as he read. “Failed to return from school.” He paused, calculating on his own. “Age sixteen. Jesus Christ.”
Again I shook my head. “She’s too young. This isn’t a kid.”
He frowned, pulling out the last form. “Evelyn Fontaine. Female. Age thirty-six. Last seen in Sept Îles on March 28. Oh yeah. She’s an Innu.”
“Doubtful,” I said. I didn’t think the remains were those of an Indian.
“That’s it,” he said. There were two forms on the desk. Myriam Weider, age forty-five, and Isabelle Gagnon, age twenty-three. Maybe one of them was lying downstairs in room 4. Claudel looked at me. His eyebrows rose in the middle forming yet another V, this one inverted.
“How old
was
she?” he asked, emphasizing the verb and his long-suffering patience.
“Let’s go downstairs and see.” That’ll bring a little sunshine into your day, I thought.
It was petty but I couldn’t help it. I knew Claudel’s reputation for avoiding the autopsy room, and I wanted to discomfort him. For a moment he looked trapped. I enjoyed his unease. Grabbing a lab coat from the hook on the door, I hurried down the hall and inserted my key for the elevator. He was silent as we descended. He looked like a man on the way to a prostate exam. Claudel rarely rode this elevator. It stopped only at the morgue.
The body lay undisturbed. I gloved and removed the white sheet. From the corner of my eye I could see Claudel framed in the doorway. He’d entered the room just far enough to be able to say he’d been there. His eyes wandered over the steel countertops, the glass-fronted cabinets with their stock of clear plastic containers, the hanging scale, everything but the body. I’d seen it before. Photographs were no threat. The blood and gore were somewhere else. Distant. The murder scene was a clinical exercise. No problem. Dissect it, study it, solve the puzzle. But place a body on an autopsy table and it was a different matter. Claudel had put his face in neutral, hoping to look calm.
I removed the pubic bones from the water and gently pried them apart. Using a probe, I teased around the edges of the gelatinous sheath that covered the right pubic face. Gradually it loosened its hold and came away. The underlying bone was marked with deep furrows and ridges coursing horizontally across its surface. A sliver of solid bone partially framed the outer margin, forming a delicate and incomplete rim around the pubic face. I repeated the process on the left. It was identical.
Claudel hadn’t moved from the doorway. I carried the pelvis to the Luxolamp, pulled the extensor arm toward me, and pressed the switch. Fluorescent light illuminated the bone. Through the round magnifying glass, details appeared that hadn’t been apparent to the naked eye. I looked at the uppermost curve of each hipbone and saw what I’d been expecting.
“Monsieur Claudel,” I said without looking up. “Look at this.”
He came up behind me, and I moved over to allow him an unobstructed view. I pointed to an irregularity on the upper border of the hip. The iliac crest was in the process of attaching itself when death had occurred.
I set the pelvis down. He continued looking at it, but didn’t touch it. I returned to the body to examine the clavicle, certain of what I’d find. I withdrew the sternal end from the water and began to tease away the tissue. When I could see the joint surface I gestured for Claudel to join me. Wordlessly I pointed to the end of the bone. Its surface was billowy, like the pubic face. A small disk of bone clung to the center, its edges distinct and unfused.
“So?” Sweat beaded his forehead. He was hiding his nervousness with bravado.
“She’s young. Probably early twenties.”
I could have explained how bone reveals age, but I didn’t think he’d be a good listener, so I just waited. Particles of cartilage clung to my gloved hands, and I held them away from my body, palms up, like a panhandler. Claudel kept the same distance he would with an Ebola patient. His eyes stayed on me, but their focus shifted to thoughts inside his head as he ran through the data, looking for a match.
“Gagnon.” It was a statement, not a question.
I nodded. Isabelle Gagnon. Age twenty-three.
“I’ll have the coroner request dental records,” he said.
I nodded again. He seemed to bring it out in me.
“Cause of death?” he asked.
“Nothing apparent,” I said. “I may know more when I see the X rays. Or I may see something on the bones when they’re cleaned.”
With that he left. He didn’t say good-bye. I didn’t expect it. His departure was mutually appreciated.
I stripped off my gloves and tossed them. On the way out I poked my head into the large autopsy suite and told Daniel I was finished with this case for the day. I asked him to take full body and cranial X rays, A-P and lateral views. Upstairs I stopped by the histology lab and told the head technician that the body was ready for boiling, warning him to take extra care since this was a dismemberment. It was unnecessary. No one could reduce a body like Denis. In two days a skeleton would appear, clean and undamaged.
I spent the rest of the afternoon with the glued-together skull. Though fragmentary, there was, indeed, enough detail to confirm the identity of its owner. He wouldn’t drive any more propane tankers.
Returning home, I began to feel the sense of foreboding I’d experienced in the ravine. All day I’d used work to keep it at bay. I’d banished the apprehension by centering my mind fully on identifying the victim and on piecing together the late trucker. At lunch the park pigeons had been my distraction. Unraveling the pecking order could be all-consuming. Gray was alpha. Brown speckles seemed to be next. Blackfoot was clearly low on the list.
Now I was free to relax. To think. To worry. It started as soon as I pulled into the garage and turned off the radio. Music off, anxiety on. No, I admonished myself. Later. After dinner.
I entered the apartment and heard the reassuring beep of the security system. Leaving my briefcase in the entry hall, I closed the door and walked to the Lebanese restaurant on the corner, where I ordered a Shish Taouk and Shawarma plate to go. It’s what I love most about living downtown—within a block of my condo are representative samples of all the cuisines of the world. Could the weight gain . . . ? Nah.
While I waited for the take-out I perused the buffet selections. Homos. Taboule.
Feuilles de vignes
. Bless the global village. Lebanese gone French.
A shelf to the left of the cash register held bottles of red wine. My weapon of choice. As I looked at them, for the thousandth time I felt the craving. I remembered the taste, the smell, the dry, tangy feel of the wine on my tongue. I remembered the warmth that would start in my gut and spread upward and outward, navigating a path through my body, lighting the fires of well-being along its course. The bonfires of control. Of vigor. Of invincibility. I could use that right now, I thought. Right. Who was I kidding? I wouldn’t stop there. What were those stages? I’d move right on to bulletproof and then to invisible. Or was it the other way around? No matter. I’d carry it too far, and then the crash would come. The comfort would be short term, the price heavy. It’d been six years since I’d had a drink.