by Kathy Reichs
“Think there could be anything useful there? Prints on the cup or can? Something in the trash?”
Slidell licked a thumb, flipped pages, and scribbled in his spiral.
In the next series, the girl was covered by a red wool blanket, a corner of her skirt and one leg visible along the left side. The limb twisted outward from the hip at an impossible angle. Beside it, not on the foot, was the other boot.
The mound below the blanket looked pitifully small. Tracing its contours I could see that the other leg lay straight, with the foot crooked unnaturally toward the head. One arm appeared to be outstretched. The position of the other was unclear.
Bands of anger and sadness squeezed my chest. I drew a deep breath.
“Who covered her?” I knew it hadn’t been CSU. No way trained technicians would risk transferring fibers or disturbing trace evidence.
Slidell spit-thumbed pages in his notepad.
“Lydia Dreos.”
“The teacher?”
“Yeah. I forgot that part. She had the blanket in her trunk.”
In the next several photos the girl lay exposed, with the blanket folded inside a plastic evidence bag beside her. Her skin looked ghostly white against the backdrop of oil-darkened gravel, blacktop, and mottled vegetation.
A thought struck me.
“She had no jacket.”
I sensed Slidell shake his head.
“It was forty-eight degrees last night.” I added the obvious.
No one replied.
I moved on, through close-ups of the battered face, the crushed hands, the sad little boots.
“The height of the hamstring bruising will allow us to estimate front-bumper height. We should be able to narrow vehicle type from that,” Larabee said.
“Find any paint on her?” I asked.
“None,” Larabee said. “But there’s a smear on the purse. Black. Could be from the vehicle. I’ll send it off for analysis.”
“Any scraping on her back from the undercarriage?”
“No.”
“Do you have a maximum anterior-posterior body width? For vehicle clearance?”
“Pelvis nineteen point one centimeters. If she’s lying flat on her belly.”
“Injuries to the chin and fingers suggest that was the case,” I said.
“What’s that in inches?” Slidell asked.
“Seven and a half.”
“Nothing on wheels rides lower,” Slidell said. “’Cept maybe a skateboard.”
“Anything noteworthy about the bruising across her thighs?” I asked.
“Two inches top to bottom,” Larabee said. “No patterning.”
“So no grill,” Slidell said.
Good one, Skinny.
Slidell finished jotting. Punctuated his note with a tap of the pen. Then, “So lemme get this. The kid’s running—”
“Or walking,” Larabee cautioned.
“The bumper slams the back of her thighs. She goes down. Her chin smacks the pavement. Her arms fly out. The vehicle rolls over her, crushing her fingers.”
I could see her in the darkness, a silhouette backlit by double beams fast closing in. Lungs burning. Heart hammering. Goose-bumped skin slick with sweat. High-heeled boots wobbly on her feet.
“So what killed her?”
“Though I see no fracture, the cranial X-rays suggest devastating trauma. When I open her skull I’m certain I’ll find subdural, subgaleal, and intracerebral hematoma accompanied by massive edema in the parieto-occipital region.”
Slidell just looked at him.
“A blow to the head caused bleeding into her brain.”
Slidell thought about that. “The kid’s hit from behind and goes belly down with her brain busted bad. How’s she end up so far off the pavement?”
“Perhaps the force of the impact.”
“Or?” Slidell picked up on something in Larabee’s tone.
“Hematoma doesn’t necessarily cause death right away.”
“You suggesting she might have dragged herself some?”
Larabee nodded glumly.
“If the bastard had pulled over, the kid would have lived?”
“Medical intervention might have saved her life. Might have.”
Intent or not, that’s murder in my book. I didn’t need to say it.
I see violent death on a regular basis. I know the cruelty and stupidity and insensitivity of which humans are capable. And yet, every time, the same question.
How?
How could someone run down a kid and leave her to die? Unless that was the plan.
The men watched me walk to the drying rack and pick up the skirt. The skirt that would have ended just above the impact site.
I turned to Slidell.
“Have this tested.”
“For what?”
“Paint.”
“What are the chances—”
“DNA, parsley, fucking life from Mars! Just have it tested!”
Many males are embarrassed in the presence of strong female emotion. Most have mastered the art of nonreaction. The averted eyes. The shifting feet. The unneeded cough.
Slidell went to his fallback, the pointless wristwatch check.
Larabee returned to the table and, unaided, repositioned the girl on her back.
“I’m sorry.” I was. “That was uncalled for.”
“I’m sure you noticed these.” Larabee proceeded as though my outburst had never taken place.
I rehung the skirt and walked to his side. Slidell followed.
Larabee lifted and rotated one of the girl’s arms.
Angry ridges snaked the flesh of her inner elbow.
“Well, that goes to motive.” Slidell was so close I could smell his sweat and hair oil. “Kid probably crossed her pusher and the prick took her out.”
“There’s something else,” Larabee said quietly.
“KILL THE LIGHTS, please.”
Slidell clumped to the wall, back to the table.
Larabee clicked on a small UV light and directed it toward the girl’s inner left thigh.
A scatter glowed blue-white on her skin.
Semen.
As Larabee slowly moved the beam, some stains fluoresced more intensely than others.
“Multiple donors?” I asked.
“We’ll need DNA to confirm,” Larabee said. “But that’s my impression.”
“We talking rape?” Slidell’s mouth was right at my ear.
“I found no vaginal tearing or abrasions. No sign of anal entry.”
“So we’re back to my first guess.” I heard Slidell straighten. “The kid was on the stroll.”
I bit back a response.
Larabee thumbed off his flash. “Get the switch?”
Slidell did.
“Think you can narrow the age estimate?” Larabee spoke to me as the fluorescents buzzed to life.
“Has Joe taken dentals?” I was referring to Joe Hawkins, most senior of the lab’s autopsy techs.
Larabee indicated a brown envelope lying on a countertop light box.
I crossed to it and poured the small black squares onto the box’s viewing plate. After pushing the on button, I arranged the films anatomically and studied the illuminated dentition.
“All four second molars are in occlusion, with the roots fully formed down to the tips. That puts her, minimally, above twelve. The third molars are unerupted and show little root development. I’m not an odontologist, but, dentally, I’d say she’s in the range of thirteen to seventeen.”
The men waited as I continued to study the X-rays.
“Left first molar’s got a mean abscess. Lots of caries, but not a single restoration.”
“No evidence she ever saw a dentist.” Larabee got my meaning.
“So I don’t bust my ass chasing dental records.” Slidell parked his hands on his hips. “An abscess. Wouldn’t that hurt like a sonofabitch?”
“People have different thresholds for pain,” Larabee said. “But yes, pro
bably. What are you thinking?”
“Maybe she went to one of those free clinics. You know, looking for drugs or something.”
“Good idea, detective.”
Like a mail-order toy, the human skeleton comes with assembly required. Most bones are present at birth but lack the knobs, bumps, and borders that make them complete. Throughout infancy and adolescence, these fiddly bits, called epiphyses, appear and fuse to the shafts or main bony elements. The fusion takes place with age predictability.
I shifted my attention to the skeletal X-rays. More than a decade of working with me had made Joe Hawkins savvy to the exact views I needed. As usual, he’d nailed them.
I started with a plate showing the girl’s hand and arm bones. Slidell’s insistence she was a hooker had my nerves on edge. Knowing it would annoy him, I went all “jargony.” Petty, but I did.
“The distal radial epiphysis is in the process of fusion, the distal ulnar epiphysis has recently fused. The rest of the hand bones are complete.”
I moved to a film showing the shoulder and left arm.
“The acromial epiphyses are present on both scapulae, but remain unfused.”
I pointed to the broken humerus.
“The medial epicondyle and the distal composite and proximal epiphyses are in the process of fusing.”
On to the pelvis.
“The iliac crest is present but still separate.” I was referring to a sliver of bone that would eventually form the superior border of the hip bone.
The upper leg.
“The femoral head and trochanter are fused. The distal epiphysis is in the process of fusing.”
Lower leg.
“The proximal and distal epiphyses of the tibiae and fibulae are in the process of fusing.”
The foot.
“The proximal phalanges—”
“So what’s it all mean?” Slidell cut me off.
“She was fourteen to fifteen years old when she died.”
Far too young to catch a hint of what life had to offer. Fifteen years. She should have had eighty.
Rotten teeth. Needle tracks. Semen stains. Fifteen crappy years.
For a full minute the only sounds in the room were the fluorescents overhead and the air whistling in and out of Slidell’s nose.
“Might be I could work the clothing, track down where it was sold.” Slidell shoved his notepad into his jacket. “Boots might be a goer.”
My mind had moved from how to who. Who had left this kid facedown on the asphalt? A drunk too impaired to see her in the dark? Too callous to stop? Or a killer fully intending the result?
“Anything else?” Barely trusting my voice.
Larabee gave a tight shake of his head.
Nodding to Slidell, I returned to my office. Sat at my desk. Antsy. Uneasy.
Slidell was a good cop. But he had a habit of falling captive to defeatist mind-sets. Convinced the girl was undocumented, a prostitute, and a junkie, would he devote sufficient energy to finding her killer?
Yes, he would, I admitted to myself. Druggie hooker or not, the kid turned up dead on Skinny’s patch, and he would look upon it as a personal challenge.
Then why so anxious?
Katy? My abandoned vehicle and purse? The goddamn blisters?
Whatever.
I crossed to the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. Took a look in the mirror. Assessed the face looking back.
Intense green eyes. Weary, but determined. A few starbust wrinkles at the corners, well earned. Chin and lids holding firm. Dark blond hair yanked into a pony, not having a good one.
“Right, then. Peruvian dogs.”
The image in the glass mouthed the same words. Nodded the same nod.
I bunched and tossed my hand towel and headed out.
While the new MCME facility is immense, the same is not true of my office. Were a realtor to advertise it for rental, she’d use descriptors like “cozy” and “snug.” My desk takes up most of the space. File cabinets, coat tree. If Larabee steps in, it’s crowded. If the visitor is Slidell, forget about breathing.
I’m good with the square footage. It’s mine. No one encroaches. Mostly I use it for writing reports or examining files. Like the one lying on my blotter.
I sat down and opened the cover. On top was a form requesting an anthropology consult. I skimmed the contents.
Case number. Morgue number. Police incident number. Investigating officer, agency. Larabee was the requesting pathologist.
I skipped to the Summary of Known Facts. The brief, hand-scrawled paragraph contained nothing I hadn’t heard from Slidell. Suspicion of smuggled antiquities, objects confiscated at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport. Dominick Rockett.
I moved on to Description of Specimens. The items in question were identified as mummy bundles. Four in number. Peruvian in origin. Possibly Inca. Likely obtained from a cemetery.
My eyes dropped to the final section: Expertise Requested. The boxes beside “Exhumation,” “Biological Profile,” and “Trauma Analysis” had been left unchecked. Beside the category “Other” were six scribbled words: Analysis and written report. Human remains?
I set the form aside and thumbed through the stack of paper-clipped photos.
In the first three, the bundles lay side by side, wrappings intact. Though desiccated and discolored with age, each seemed in pretty good shape. Fair enough. The Peruvian desert would have provided a reasonably dry environment, a burial context kind to preservation.
The next several photos showed one of the bundles partially unwrapped. I could see what appeared to be a shriveled dog’s head, eyelids closed, fur still covering one flattened ear.
I dug back to my grad-school days, to a course on South American archaeology. And came up with little beyond the basics. Fifteenth century. The Andes Mountains. Machu Pichu. The Quechua language. Inti, the sun god.
I lined up the photos. Stared. A gaggle of brain cells coughed up an article I’d read maybe five years earlier. National Geographic? The Chiribaya, a pre-Inca population living in the Osmore River valley, some five hundred miles southeast of Lima. The Chiribaya had interred their dogs along with their dead.
I booted my laptop, opened Google, and entered a few key words. Peru. Canines. Mummies.
Yep. The Chiribaya buried their dogs between the graves of their dearly departed. Some with blankets and food for the long journey onward.
Now I understood my involvement in the case. I was to make sure there were no human bones caught up in those bundles.
According to the case board, the dogs were here. I could walk across the hall and unpack them.
I didn’t.
My thoughts kept drifting back to the hit-and-run victim, now under Larabee’s scalpel.
My gaze fell on the photo closest to me, on a slash of white visible below the rolled gum of the unwrapped dog. A tooth. Perfect after centuries.
Unlike the teeth of our young Jane Doe.
I reclipped the photos and closed the file.
Sat a moment.
Reopened the file.
Checked a name.
Picked up and dialed the phone.
“UNITED STATES IMMIGRATION and customs enforcement. How may I direct your call?”
I asked for Luther Dew, the agent working the mummified-dog case.
ICE does not offer music to callers placed on hold. Bored and agitated, my mind started playing What Songs Would Suit? Ricky Nelson’s “Travelin’ Man”? Neil Diamond’s “Coming to America”? Merle Haggard’s “Movin’ On”?
A recorded voice cut the game short.
“Special Agent Dew is not available to take your call. Please leave a message after the beep.”
I left a message.
Glanced at my watch. The time was movin’ on to 5:30 P.M. To be a travelin’ woman I’d need my car.
I opened the file again and stared at the photo of the unwrapped dog. What were they called? Chiribayan shepherds? Looked like a snoozing spaniel to me.
My eyes shifted to the phone, willing it to ring.
It didn’t. Of course.
My mind looped back to the Jane Doe who’d recently left Larabee’s table.
Had I missed something?
Before I could consider the possibility, the landline shrilled its after-hours ring.
“Dr. Brennan?”
“Speaking.”
“Due here.”
Confused, I looked at my watch again. Had I forgotten an appointment?
“Luther Dew. Returning your call.” The voice was high and somewhat effeminate. I pictured Truman Capote in bow tie and fedora.
“Thanks for calling back so quickly.”
Noncommittal silence.
“I’m with the medical examiner’s office.”
“Yes. I just phoned you at this number.”
“I’m working on the Peruvian mummy bundles.”
“You’re the anthropologist?”
“I am.” Matching Dew’s prim with prim. “I wondered if I might have some background on the case. On Dominick Rockett, the importer.”
Dew gave an annoyed little click of his tongue.
“Sir?”
“Importers are legal and adhere to U.S. Customs regulations. They file proper paperwork. They bring in only what is allowed. None of that applies to Mr. Rockett in the matter of these artifacts.”
Of these artifacts?
“Has your agency had other interactions with Rockett?”
“I am not at liberty to say.”
Alrighty, then.
But I hadn’t called Dew to talk about smuggling. His Peruvian dogs were simply my lead-in, a means to schmooze him for what I really wanted to know.
“Can you share anything on Rockett?”
“I cannot divulge the specifics of an open file.”
And I don’t give a rat’s ass about Dominick Rockett.
“I understand, sir. But mummified dogs are unusual for this facility. I assume you got a peek at the one that was partially unwrapped?”
More noncommittal silence. But a hitch in Dew’s breathing suggested he might be thawing.
“If that pooch opened its eyes and asked for Alpo, it wouldn’t surprise me.” I chuckled, congenial as hell. “He’s that well preserved.”