by Kathy Reichs
Pulling on shorts, I padded barefoot across the boardwalk. The tide was out, and the beach yawned fifty yards to the water’s edge. A gazillion stars winked overhead. Walking the surf, I let my thoughts roam.
Pete, my first love. My only love for over two decades.
Ryan, my first gamble since Pete’s betrayal.
Katy, my wonderful, flighty, finally-about-to-be-a-college-graduate daughter.
But mostly, I pondered that sad grave on Dewees. Violent death is my job. I see it often, yet I never get used to it.
I have come to think of violence as a self-perpetuating mania of the power of the aggressive over those less strong. Friends ask how I can bear to do the work that I do. It is simple. I am committed to demolishing the maniacs before they demolish more innocents.
Violence wounds the body and it wounds the soul. Of the predator. Of the prey. Of the mourners. Of collective humanity. It diminishes us all.
In my view, death in anonymity is the ultimate insult to human dignity. To spend eternity under a Jane Doe plaque. To disappear nameless into an unmarked grave without those who care about you knowing that you have gone. That offends. While I cannot make the dead live again, I can reunite victims with their names, and give those left behind some measure of closure. In that way, I help the dead to speak, to say a final good-bye, and, sometimes, to say what took their lives.
I knew I would do what Emma was asking. Because of who I am. Because of what I feel. I would not walk away.
4
THE NEXT MORNING, I LAY IN BED STARING INTO the breach of the opening day. I had failed to lower the blinds, so I watched dawn tint the ocean, the dunes, and the deck outside Anne’s sliding glass doors.
Closing my eyes, I thought about Ryan. His reaction had been predictable, meant to amuse. But I wondered what he’d say if he were here. If he’d seen the grave. And I regretted my annoyance with him. I missed him. We’d been apart for over a month.
I thought about Pete. Endearing, charming, adulterous Pete. I told myself I’d forgiven him. But had I? If not, why didn’t I file for divorce and cut myself loose?
Lawyers and paperwork. But was that really it?
I turned on my side and pulled the quilt to my chin.
I thought about Emma. She’d be calling soon. What would I tell her?
I had no reason to refuse Emma’s request. Sure, Charleston wasn’t my turf. But Dan Jaffer would be out of the country for several more weeks. Anne was offering “Sea for Miles” for as long as I wanted. Ryan was in Nova Scotia, but had talked of possibly coming to Charleston. Katy was in Chile, doing a four-week course on Spanish literature.
I smiled. “Cervantes and Cerveza,” my daughter had dubbed her summer program. Whatever the project, those last three credits would close out a BA six years in the making. Yes!
Back to Emma. Emma dilemma.
My students could transport the equipment to UNCC. I could complete their evaluations here and e-mail the grades. I could do the same with my site report for the state archaeologist.
Were cases piling up in Montreal? I could call and find out.
What to do?
Easy one. Bagel and coffee.
Throwing back the covers, I dressed.
Quick toilette. Hair in a pony. Done.
That’s probably what attracted me to archaeology. No makeup, no fluffing or mousseing. Every day is casual Friday. Less than casual.
While I worked the toaster, Mr. Coffee brewed. By now the sun was up, and the day was warming. Again, I headed outside.
I’m a news junkie. Gotta have it. When home, my morning begins with CNN and a paper. Observer in Charlotte. Gazette in Montreal. NY Times e-mail edition. When traveling, I fall back on USA Today, the local press, even tabloids if desperate.
There was no home delivery at “Sea for Miles.” While eating, I perused a Post and Courier I’d purchased on Thursday but barely skimmed.
A family had died in a tenement blaze. Faulty wiring was being blamed.
A man was suing after finding an ear in his coleslaw at a fried chicken franchise. Police and health officials had discovered no missing ears among the workers involved in the restaurant’s coleslaw supply chain. DNA testing was being done.
A man was missing, and authorities were seeking help from the public. Jimmie Ray Teal, forty-seven, left his brother’s Jackson Street apartment around three on Monday, May 8, heading for a medical appointment. Teal hadn’t been seen since.
My brain cells hoisted that little flag. Dewees Island?
No way. Teal had been breathing eleven days ago. The victim in our body bag hadn’t drawn oxygen in at least two years.
I was down to the weekly neighborhood section when my mobile sounded. I checked the caller ID. Showtime.
Emma was a street fighter. She went straight for the kidneys.
“Do you want them to win?”
My beach-walk lecture to myself.
“When?” I asked.
“Nine tomorrow morning?”
“What’s the address?”
I wrote it down.
Ten yards offshore, a pair of porpoises arced in and out of the sea, the morning sun glistening their backs a shiny blue-gray porcelain. I watched them nose up, then plunge, vanishing into a world I didn’t know.
Draining my coffee, I wondered.
What unknown world was I about to enter?
* * *
The remainder of the day passed uneventfully.
At the site, I explained to my students what had taken place following their departure the previous day. Then, while I logged last-minute photos and notes, they refilled open trenches. Together we cleaned shovels, trowels, brushes, and screens, returned our carts to the landings building, and boarded the Aggie Gray for her six o’clock crossing.
That evening, the group ate shrimp and oysters at the Boat House at Breach Inlet. After dinner, we reconvened on Anne’s veranda for one final class meeting. The students reviewed what they’d done, and double-checked cataloging on all artifacts and bones. Around nine, they redistributed equipment among their vehicles, exchanged hugs, and were gone.
I suffered the usual post–collective experience letdown. Sure, I was relieved. Field school was concluded without any disasters of note, and now I could focus on Emma’s skeleton. But the students’ departure also left me feeling dismally empty.
The kids could be exasperating, no question. The unending hubbub. The clowning. The inattention. But my students were also energizing, bursting with enthusiasm, and lousy with youth.
I sat a few moments, enveloped by the silence in Anne’s million-dollar home. Irrationally, I felt the stillness as ominous, not calming.
Moving through the house, I extinguished lights, then climbed the stairs to my room. Opening the glass doors, I welcomed the sound of waves on sand.
* * *
By eight thirty the next morning, I was roller-coastering the Cooper River Bridge, a soaring postmodern structure linking Mount Pleasant and the offshore islands with Charleston proper. With its colossal struts and arching backbone, the thing always makes me think of an impressionistic triceratops, frozen in steel. The bridge rises so high above terra firma, Anne still white-knuckles it every time she crosses.
MUSC is in the northwestern part of the Peninsula, halfway between the Citadel and the historic district. Continuing on Highway 17, I found Rutledge Avenue, then wound through campus to the parking deck Emma had indicated.
The sun warmed my neck and hair as I angled across Sabin Street to a massive brick building known simply as the main hospital. Following Emma’s directions, I located the morgue entrance, climbed the ramp, and pressed a buzzer beside a rectangular speaker. In seconds a motor hummed, and one of two gray metal doors rolled up.
Emma looked awful.
Her face was pale, her outfit rumpled. The bags under her eyes looked big enough to hold several changes of clothing.
“Hey,” she said quietly.
“Hey.” OK. It sounds od
d. But that’s how we Southerners greet.
“Are you all right?” I asked, taking one of Emma’s hands in mine.
“Migraine.”
“This can wait.”
“I’m fine now.”
Emma hit a button and the door ground down behind me.
“I’m not leaving town,” I said. “We can do this when you feel better.”
“I’m fine.” Soft, but allowing not an inch of wiggle room.
Emma led me up another concrete ramp. Where the floor leveled, I could see two stainless steel compression doors that I guessed led to coolers. Ahead was a normal door, probably giving access to the more populated side of the hospital. ER. OB-GYN. ICU. Those working for life. We were on the flip side. The death side.
Emma chin-cocked one of the metal doors. “We’re in here.”
We crossed to it, and Emma pulled the handle. Cold air whooshed over us, carrying the smell of refrigerated flesh and putrefaction.
The room measured approximately sixteen by twenty, and held a dozen gurneys with removable trays. On six were body bags, some bulging, some barely humped.
Emma chose a bag that looked piteously flat. Toeing the brake release, she wheeled the cart into the corridor as I held open the door of the room she had selected.
An elevator took us to an upper floor. Autopsy suites. Locker room. Doors leading to places I couldn’t identify. Emma said little. I didn’t bother her with questions.
As Emma and I changed from street clothes to scrubs, she explained that today would be my show. I was the anthropologist. She was the coroner. I would give orders. She would assist me. Later, she would incorporate my findings into a central case file with those of all other experts, and make a ruling.
Returning to the autopsy room, Emma double-checked paperwork, wrote the case number on an ID card, and shot photos of the unopened body bag. I booted my laptop and arranged work sheets on a clipboard.
“Case number?” I would use the Charleston County coroner’s labeling system.
Emma held up the ID card. “I coded it 02, undetermined. It’s coroner death two seventy-seven this year.”
I entered CCC-2006020277 into my case form.
Emma spread a sheet over the autopsy table and set a screen over the sink. Then we tied plastic aprons behind our necks and waists, secured masks over our mouths, and gloved.
Emma unzipped the bag.
The hair was in one small plastic container, the isolated teeth in another. I set them on the counter.
The skeleton was as I remembered, largely intact, with only a few vertebrae and the left tibia and femur connected by remnants of desiccated tissue. The disarticulated bones had been jumbled in transport.
We began by extracting all visible insect inclusions and placing them in vials. Then Emma and I cleaned the dirt as best we could from every bone, collecting it for later inspection. As we progressed, I arranged elements in anatomical order on the sheet.
By noon the painstaking process was done. Two tubs and four vials sat on the counter, and a skeleton lay on the table, hand and toe bones fanned like those of a specimen in a biosupply catalog.
We broke for a quick cafeteria lunch. Emma had a large Coke and Jell-O. I had chips and a very questionable tuna sandwich. We were back in the autopsy suite by one.
While I inventoried, identifying bones and separating right and left sides, Emma shot more photos. Then she disappeared with the skull, jaw, and isolated teeth to make dental X-rays.
I was turning my attention to gender when Emma reappeared. I suspected the victim was male, since most bones were large and carried robust muscle attachments.
“Ready for sex?” I asked.
“Got a headache.”
Yep. I liked this woman.
Picking up a pelvic half, I pointed to the front.
“Pubic bone is chunky, its lower branch is thick, and the subpubic angle is more V than U.” I turned the bone and ran my finger inside a hollow below the broad pelvic blade. “Sciatic notch is narrow.”
“You’re thinking Y chromosome.”
I nodded. “Let’s see the cranium.”
Emma handed it to me.
“Large brow ridges, blunt orbital borders.” I rotated the skull. It had a large bump at the midline in back. “Occipital protuberance is large enough to require a zip code.”
“All boy.”
“Oh, yeah.” I noted “male” on my case form.
“Age?” Emma asked.
Generally, the last of the molars appear during the late teens or early twenties, about the same time the skeleton is wrapping up its act. The final skeletal growth center to fuse is a little cap at the throat end of the collarbone. Combined, clavicular fusion and wisdom tooth eruption are good indicators of adulthood.
“All the molars out?” I asked.
Emma nodded.
I picked up the collarbone.
“Medial epiphysis is fused.” I lay the bone on the table. “So he’s no kid.”
I returned to the pelvis. Again, I was interested in the belly side, this time the face that had kissed the face of the other pelvic half during life. In young adults, these faces have topography like the Shenandoah, all mountains and valleys. With age, the mountains wear down and the valleys fill in.
“Pubic symphysis is smooth,” I said. “With a raised rim around the perimeter. Let’s look at the dental X-rays.”
Emma flipped the switch on a light box, then dumped ten black rectangles from a small brown envelope. I arranged the films into two rows, uppers and lowers, with each tooth in proper alignment.
Throughout life, pulp chambers and root canals fill with secondary dentin. The older a tooth, the more opaque its image on X-ray. These babies shouted young to middle-aged adult. In addition, all molar roots were complete to their tips, and crown wear was minimal.
“The teeth are consistent with the bones,” I said.
“Meaning?”
“Forties. But keep in mind, males are variable.”
“That’s being generous,” Emma said. “Race?”
I returned to the skull.
Evaluating racial identifiers is usually a bitch. Not with this guy.
The lower face showed no forward projection when viewed from the side. The nasal bones met at a church-steeple angle along the midline. The nasal opening was constricted, with a sharp lower border sporting a bony spike at its center.
“Narrow, prominent nose. Flat facial profile.”
Emma watched as I shined a flashlight into the ear canal.
“Oval opening to the inner ear is visible.”
When I looked up, Emma’s eyes were closed and she was rubbing slow circles on her temples.
“I’ll run measurements through Fordisc 3.0. But this guy looks like a page from the Caucasoid picture book.”
“A forty-something white male.”
“To be safe, I’d go with thirty-five to fifty.”
“Time frame?”
I indicated the plastic vials on the counter. “Lots of empty puparial cases, some dead beetles and shed beetle skins. Your entomologist should be able to provide a solid PMI.”
“Bugs take time. I want to shoot this right into NCIC.”
Emma was referring to the FBI’s National Crime Information Center, a computerized index of information on criminal records, fugitives, stolen properties, and missing and unidentified persons. With such a huge database, the narrower the time frame the better.
“I originally said two to five, but to be certain you don’t exclude any possibles, I’d broaden the interval to one to five years.”
Emma nodded. “If nothing pops with NCIC, I’ll start working local missing persons reports.”
“The dentals will help,” I said. “This guy had some metal in his mouth.”
“Our odontologist will chart him on Monday.” Again Emma rubbed her temples. Though trying hard, she was fading.
“I’ll measure the leg bones and calculate height,” I said.
; Weak nod. “Any other identifiers?”
I shook my head. I’d seen no healed trauma, no congenital anomaly, not a single unique skeletal feature.
“Cause of death?”
“Nothing obvious. No fractures, no bullet entrances or exits, no sharp instrument cuts. I’d like to view the bones under magnification when they’ve been fully cleaned, but for now, nada.”
“Full-body X-rays?”
“Can’t hurt.”
As I began measuring a femur, Emma’s mobile sounded. I heard her walk to the counter and flip the cover.
“Emma Rousseau.”
She listened.
“I can live with it.” Guarded.
Pause.
“How bad?”
Longer pause.
“Now what?” Taut.
I looked up.
Emma had turned her back to me. Though her face was hidden, her voice told me something was very wrong.
5
EMMA TOSSED HER MOBILE ONTO THE COUNTER, closed her eyes, and went still. I watched, knowing she was trying to quell the pounding in her head.
I’ve traveled the migraine trail. I’m familiar with the pain. I knew, even for Emma, sheer willpower wouldn’t prevail. Nothing pacifies dilating cranial vessels but time and sleep. And drugs.
I refocused on my measurements. Best to finish estimating stature so Emma could go home and crash. If she wanted to discuss the phone call, she would.
I heard the door open, click shut.
I’d moved from the osteometric board to my laptop when the door opened again. Footsteps crossed the tile as I entered the last figure and asked the program to calculate.
“I went over the clothes.” Emma was at my shoulder. “No belt, no shoes, no jewelry or personal effects. Nothing in the pockets. Fabric’s rotten and the labels are barely legible, but I think the pants were a thirty-eight long. Assuming they’re his, the guy wasn’t short.”
“Five-ten to six-one.” I shifted to allow her a better view of the screen.
Emma eyeballed the height estimate, then stepped to the table. Reaching out, she stroked the skull.
“Who are you, tall white man in your forties?” Emma’s voice was soft, as intimate as the caress. “We need a name, big guy.”