Swamp Bones

by Kathy Reichs

  “I’ll go home when I’m ready.” I was plenty ready, but I don’t like being told what to do.

  “Your call.” Yellen turned and walked toward the cruiser. “But you’re doing another autopsy first thing tomorrow.”

  Chapter Six

  Necropsy. Not autopsy. I’d explained the difference to Yellen, but he wasn’t “interested in semantics.”

  I’ve examined victims lacking both arms and legs before, but none that had been born that way. My current subject was a sixteen-foot Burmese python, weighing 130 pounds and measuring eight inches in diameter. Except for the midsection, which showed a large bulge.

  Lisa and I had risen at dawn. Over a breakfast of cold pizza on her terrace with its “angle your head just right” slash of canal view, we’d discussed possible motives for the James murder. The list had been longer than the snake.

  There was tension among the python hunt contestants. Tension between the once-a-year amateurs and the full-time professional wranglers. Tension between the legal hunters and the poachers.

  Then there was Kiley James herself. She’d been acting secretive and suspicious. She’d dropped Dusty Jordan as her python hunting partner. She’d had a violent encounter with Buck Cypress. Perhaps she’d tipped a poacher that she was on his or her trail.

  After our healthy morning meal, Lisa had gotten a lift to her lab, generously leaving me her car. By eight I was back at Miami-Dade. Elvis waved as I passed the bustle of activity in autopsy one. I picked up that a car had been dredged from a canal, and there’d been decomps inside. No problem. Instead of Elvis, I needed Aaron Lundberg by my side. Today I was playing a supporting role to his leading man.

  Yellen had issued a requisition to Fish and Wildlife. All reptiles captured in the vicinity of Hardwood Hammock were to be taken to the morgue and presented to Lundberg and yours truly. Since human remains were involved in the homicide we were trying to solve, the head pathologist didn’t object, as long as the snakes were no longer breathing. A qualifier I enthusiastically applauded.

  “Yellen was smart to order the roundup.” Lundberg hadn’t stopped talking since I’d arrived. “FWC is working assembly-line style—one person making incisions, another examining stomach contents, a third studying sex organs.”

  We’d rolled a gurney end to end with the autopsy table to accommodate the full length of our subject. Even knowing the snake was dead, I’d had to gird myself to touch it. Irrational, I know. But creatures without eyelids creep me out.

  Still, I felt sorry for the snake. It hadn’t chosen to be born in trigger-happy Florida rather than Southeast Asia.

  “It looks alive,” I said.

  “There are two ways to ethically euthanize a python.” Lundberg handed me one end of a retractable tape measure. I held the little metal tab at the tip of the snake’s tail while he stretched the working portion to the end of its snout.

  “By chemical injection or brain destruction.” Lundberg jotted a number, then looped the tape around the snake’s midsection and jotted again. When done, he glanced up.

  I must have looked appalled.

  “Like all reptiles’, the python’s central nervous system is tolerant to low oxygen and low blood pressure, so the brain can remain active for up to an hour after decapitation, allowing the snake to experience pain. To minimize suffering, you want immediate loss of consciousness and brain destruction.”

  Lundberg took a Nikon from the counter and began snapping pics, all the while maintaining the flow of his lecture.

  “For challenge participants, we recommend using a captive bolt or a firearm. A captive bolt works like a gun, where compressed air drives a steel bolt into the animal’s brain. FWC officials euthanized this catch by lethal injection.”

  “He was captured in the same location as the python containing the turkey vulture and the foot?” I asked.

  “She. Yes. Just yards away. Pythons aren’t territorial, so you can find more than one animal in close proximity. Especially during mating season.”

  Lundberg circled to my side of the table and snapped a series of close-ups. At his direction, I repositioned the case marker for each.

  “This female would have attracted multiple males to the vicinity. What we call a breeding aggregation.”

  “How does one determine gender?”

  “With most snakes you can’t tell just by looking. You have to probe, or open them up to observe the genitalia. But pythons have vestigial organs in the pelvic girdle, left over from a time their ancestors had hind limbs. Look here, on either side of this vent.” He set down the camera and pointed a gloved finger to tiny spurs toward the tail end of the beast. “The small size indicates that this is a female. They’d be larger in a male.”

  A female who would have cared for her young. Again, I felt a wave of sadness for an animal that had died through no fault of her own.

  “Based on the size of the bulge, I’d guess she was bagged shortly after the swallowing process was complete.”

  “How long does that take?” I dragged my eyes from the telltale little spurs.

  “A python can swallow a good-size mammal or bird in about twenty minutes.”

  “Does the catch ever get away?”

  “Not likely once they have it in their mouth. The prey is dead by the time it’s swallowed. A python strikes fast, then immobilizes the kill with its teeth while wrapping it with body coils. Death is by asphyxiation.”

  I could think of nothing to say.

  “It’s a remarkable creature,” he said.

  But a dead one. I swallowed. “I’m surprised the bones we’ve observed haven’t been more damaged.”

  “Constriction doesn’t actually crush bodies or break bones. That’s Hollywood. Constrictors squeeze just tight enough to prevent the prey from breathing, but not tighter. Death is fast—three to four minutes.”

  “Then they do that jaw unhinging thing?”

  “More media hype. The jaws aren’t attached in a mechanical way. Long tendons and muscles connect the upper and lower jaws.”

  Lundberg leaned close and observed the snake’s right eye, then its left. Made a note on the form on his clipboard.

  “The lower jaw is composed of two separate bones to enhance the snake’s ability to manipulate large intake.” He looked up, slashing light from the overheads across his lenses. “Snakes swallow prey headfirst so the limbs will fold in. Then they work it down the throat into the stomach with rhythmic muscular contractions.”

  “How does the snake breathe during all that?” Despite myself I was becoming interested.

  “It has a special tube in the bottom of its mouth that stays open to one side to allow air inhalation. Shall we get to it?”

  “We shall.”

  For my benefit, Lundberg spoke aloud as he made notes on marking patterns, pigmentation, nasal form, tail shape, old and recent wounds, abnormalities, and overall physical condition. Then, using a hand lens, he searched for external parasites such as ticks and mites. I had to agree with Yellen. There was little difference between an external in a necropsy and one in an autopsy.

  Finally, Lundberg was ready for the internal exam. It’ll be the longest, skinniest Y incision ever, I thought.

  Together, Lundberg and I flipped the subject ventral side up. Then, using a scalpel identical to the one I’d used the day before, he sliced the length of the belly. Before examining the organs, he observed and then removed and weighed the glossy yellow layer underlying the skin.

  “Fat’s a good indicator of health. It can also signal that a female has had a clutch. A Burmese doesn’t leave her eggs to hunt. While brooding, she survives off stored fat. Recent mothers have little of it left.”

  Again, the ping of grief. Crap. This was almost as bad as working a homicide vic.

  At last, the organs. Lundberg went through his routine, excising, observing, then recording size, weight, color, and consistency, instructing as he went.

  I let his words roll over me. I was waiting for the big ev
ent.

  And then the stomach.

  “When it comes to the gut, you see a rapid drop in pH after feeding.” Lundberg was still rolling. “A steady maintenance of a very acidic pH during digestion, and a rise in pH upon completion of gastric breakdown. At which time acid production ceases.”

  “Making for quick digestion.”

  “In this case, hopefully not quick enough.”

  With one slash, Lundberg detached the stomach, lifted and placed it to the side of the snake. Using the scalpel tip, he sliced the outer layer and splayed the sack open.

  A stench filled the room. Liquid oozed onto the stainless steel.

  As Lundberg teased free the stomach contents, I scanned each chunk. Several appeared to be bone. I poked and prodded. Scraped off gastric sludge with my scalpel.

  In less than a minute I knew. More than a vulture and a gator had found human chow to their recent liking. This python had also dined on Kiley James.

  Most of the flesh was gone, eaten away by stomach acid, but I could see portions of at least twenty to thirty bones. Small ones. Likely more hands and feet. Not the upper torso I’d been hoping for, but definitely parts of a human skeleton.

  “Snakes don’t normally eat carrion.” Lundberg’s brow was furrowed above his silver frames.

  “James was dismembered with a chain saw. There’s no way she was alive when this snake consumed her.”

  Lundberg sighed. “The more we learn about snakes, the more we realize how little we know. The Burmese in particular are very adaptable. I suppose there’s nothing to say they wouldn’t eat a fresh carcass. They definitely take advantage of wounded prey.”

  We spent another twenty minutes tweezing bones onto a tray, which Lundberg then handed to me. I shifted to the sink and carefully cleaned away tissue and flesh. Details emerged. A joint surface. An articular facet. A portion of shaft retaining a nutrient foramen.

  A tiny fizz of electricity sparked in my chest. What?

  I sorted the bones into piles, starting with the smallest, moving to the largest. Finger. Toe. Wrist. Ankle. Ulna. Radius. Early projections pointed to a pair of hands, a lower right arm, and one foot.

  At one point, Lundberg approached with another tray. “Hair and fingernails.”

  I heard the rattle of metal on metal but remained focused on the task of arranging bones. Before long I had assembled two complete hands. Then the distal portion of a right forearm.

  As I took and recorded measurements, the fizz grew stronger. The bones were surprisingly large for a petite woman.

  I turned to the foot. Arranged. Measured.

  Knew something was wrong.

  “Where’s the James file?” Keeping my voice even.

  “On the desk in the anteroom.”

  I retrieved the folder and flipped pages until I found the entry I needed.

  The fizz blossomed into full-blown dread.

  Chapter Seven

  “The foot does not belong to Kiley James,” I repeated.

  “You’re sure?” Yellen asked for the third time, as if hoping my answer might change.

  “Unless she had one size five, one size twelve, and they were both left feet, yes.”

  “What the blazes?” The sheriff’s mutter was to himself.

  “That’s all I can tell you for now.”

  Yellen pinched the bridge of his nose. “And why can’t you go back at it?”

  “We got bumped.” More repetition. “A fisherman found what the cops think is a child missing since last week. In a lagoon. The media’s going berserk. That postmortem takes priority.”

  We’d been hustled out of autopsy room two by the chief medical examiner himself. Jane Barconi had caught the case. Her taut expression had made yesterday’s seem downright relaxed.

  I was delivering the news to Yellen in a corner of the staff kitchen. The lobby and parking lot were swarming with press.

  “They needed the decomp room. Our snake exam got pushed to the bottom of the totem pole,” I said. Again.

  “What can you tell me now?”

  Very little. I’d realized what I was seeing only minutes before the mêlée broke out.

  “Rough measurements suggest a medium-size male.”

  “Goddammit.” Yellen sounded furious, as though somehow I were the root of his problem.

  “I’ll know more once I can get back in.” For clarification, I added, “When they’ve finished autopsying the little girl.”

  “I have body parts poppin’ up in the bellies of every critter in the swamp, and I’ve got to cool my heels until who the hell knows when?”

  “Any new intel on Buck Cypress?” I asked, mostly to distract him.

  Yellen sighed. “Still MIA. We hauled Deuce into district. Genius managed to cough up a name. If there’s nothing going on here, you might as well come along while I follow up.”

  We cut through the throng outside, heads lowered, eyes down. A few journalists recognized Yellen and shouted questions. A few cameras and mikes swung his way. He ignored them. Being a stranger, I drew no attention at all.

  “Where to?” I asked, buckling my seat belt.

  “Every woman’s dream. Shopping.”

  “Hilarious.”

  A short ten blocks brought us to Miami’s Design District. Art galleries and overpriced lofts jockeyed for square footage with designer boutiques and Korean clothing shops. Women’s apparel, jewelry, and handbags sparkled in every other store window.

  “Ritzy,” I observed.

  “Didn’t used to be,” Yellen said. “Until the Koreans worked their magic this district was nothing but vacant warehouses, boarded-up buildings, and thugs. Drop by back in the eighties, you’d get jacked. Now it’s the swankiest five-block stretch along I-95.”

  Most of the merchandise looked light-years beyond my price range.

  “What neighborhood is this?”

  “Wynwood. Real estate’s way upmarket.” Yellen depressed his turn indicator. “District’s half fashion, half artsy-fartsy. There’s a minute of industry over along Fifth Avenue, textile and fashion. But it’s mostly boutiques.”

  Yellen made a left, then a right. I waited for him to elaborate.

  “Deuce Cypress fingered someone he says buys from the poachers. It’s a label run by four sisters. Esther, Eun, Edie, and Evette Eugene. Name on their birth certificates is actually Yoo-Jin, pronounced the same. Some kind of reality TV wannabes with a fashion line specializing in skins. We’ve got an appointment with Esther at their fancy-pants boutique.”

  Yellen winged onto Second Avenue and pulled to the curb in front of a cool, modern storefront composed almost entirely of smoky glass. EUGENE was emblazoned on the window in sleek white letters.

  The sleek and white theme continued inside with white mannequin busts, carpet, walls, and trim. The only contrast was provided by huge black-and-white photos. In each, four AsianAmerican women pouted affectedly.

  To the right of the entrance, a half dozen safari-chic dresses hung like works of art in a gallery. Facing them, on the left, was menswear in understated tans and taupes. A discreet sign designated the clothes as COLLECTION ARTISANAL FOR WOMEN AND MEN. Front and center, exquisitely tailored snakeskin and alligator-skin bags, belts, and shoes lay on pedestals arranged on white acrylic tables. I discreetly checked a tag or two. Yep. Way out of my range.

  No matter. The merchandise left me cold. I’ve never felt right about putting on the hide of another creature. And my recent close encounters with pythons and gators made wearing reptiles feel especially distasteful.

  “Good morning?” The woman was anorexically slim, her tone more question than greeting. Middle-aged paunchy sheriffs were probably not her typical clientele.

  Yellen badged her. “Got an appointment with Esther Eugene.”

  “This way.” Cool and gracious, devoid of emotion.

  The woman, I assumed a salesclerk, led us through a door at the rear of the showroom. The photos continued down a narrow hallway, dark-haired, dark-eyed beauties
pouting or flirting every ten feet.

  The clerk stopped at an open doorway and gestured for us to proceed.

  The office was, you guessed it, uniformly white, providing maximum contrast for the woman in the tight snakeskin print dress. She had porcelain skin and short black hair bobbed to her jawline. Fake lashes looked like centipedes crawling her upper lids.

  The woman sat behind a creamy French secretary desk, chin resting on one upraised palm. The elegant pose suggested someone interrupted while deep in thought.

  “You must be Sheriff Yellen,” she purred. “Esther Eugene. Please come in.” Tipping her head ever so slightly and elevating one perfect brow. “And you are?”

  “Tempe Brennan.” I kept it short.

  “May I offer you tea?”

  Seriously? Sheriff Crotchety looked like the chamomile and biscuit type?

  “I’ve got a witness says you buy illegally harvested animal skins.” Yellen arrowed straight to the point.

  Esther placed a delicate hand on her chest. The nails were long and painted fire-engine red. “Oh my goodness! That’s totally untrue.” Every move seemed rehearsed. Artificial. “My sisters and I would never engage in unlawful activity. We pride ourselves on maintaining the very highest of ethical standards. We are absolutely committed to the concept of sustainable fashion.”

  I recognized the buzz phrase for what it was. Doubted she understood the concept. Doubted she understood the concept of concept.

  Yellen cut off Esther’s melodramatics. “I’m not here to arrest you for buying poached skins. I’m investigating a homicide.”

  Esther’s brows rose as far on her forehead as the Botox allowed.

  “You know a young woman named Kiley James?”

  Esther’s gasp was off the stage and out the theater door. “Kiley is dead?” The hand fluttered to the perfectly matched crimson mouth. I noticed that it trembled.

  “What do you know about her?” Yellen stayed on point.

  Esther plucked a tissue from a flower-shaped holder on her desk and ran it carefully under each eye. Back to character, mascara intact. “We recently signed Kiley to be the face of our brand. We’re launching a huge advertising campaign for the python line, centered around her. An enormously expensive one.”