by Kathy Reichs
“You going to tell me bears did that?”
“No. I am not.”
“How do you explain it?” Schechter demanded.
“How do you explain it?” I asked, almost sweetly.
“Clearly that’s a gunshot wound.”
“I see no evidence of that.”
“Meaning?”
“No bullet fragments or metallic trace on the X-ray. No jagged edges. No shattered bits of bone. No radiating fractures or blowout fragments.”
“You’re saying the hole is antemortem trauma?”
“No. I am not.” I knew it was childish to bait Schechter but couldn’t help myself. The guy was so unpleasant I was looking forward to booting him under the bus.
“Explain.”
“The hole did not result from trauma of any kind.”
“Not trauma.” For the first time Schechter’s voice held a note of uncertainty.
“No.”
“Elaborate.”
“My explanation requires an understanding of sternal development.”
Schechter did the hand thing. With a bit less flair than before.
I gathered my thoughts, then began.
“The sternum begins life as two vertical cartilaginous bars lying one beside the other. Eventually, the bars fuse along the midline. The cartilaginous sternum then ossifies, meaning it turns to bone. This ossification progresses from six centers, four of which form the body, or long thin part, of the sternum. If there’s no objection I’ll confine my comments to the sternal body, since that’s where the hole is situated.”
“Please.” It was Schechter’s first use of the word all morning.
I moved the laser sideways across Rose’s sternum.
“Note the transverse ridges. Each marks the site of fusion of separate juvenile elements called sternebrae. Ossification begins in the first sternebra during the fifth to sixth fetal month, in the second and third during the seventh to eighth fetal month, and in the fourth during the first year after birth.
“That is, if things progress normally. But sometimes they don’t. Occasionally a sternebra ossifies from more than one point of origin. In the lower sternebrae this variation usually involves two centers placed one beside the other.”
I paused. To annoy? Maybe.
“Failed union of these side-by-side centers results in an anomaly known as a sternal foramen.” I spoke slowly, a teacher addressing a dull student. “A variation resulting from incomplete fusion of a lower sternal segment as it ossifies from separate left and right centers.”
Schechter scribbled, underlined, then spoke again.
“You’re saying Rose had one of these things.”
“Yes. It’s stated on page three of my report, in the section headed ‘unique identifiers.’ ”
As Schechter flipped pages I projected a new image. With a tight shot of Rose’s foramen filling the screen, I listed characteristics.
“Single, circular defect, with a diameter of fourteen millimeters. Smooth, round edges, like a doughnut hole. Midline location, in the lower third of the sternal body. It’s textbook.”
“Could Rose have functioned normally with something like that?” Schechter’s cheeks had gone blotchy.
“People do it all the time.”
“Would she not have exhibited symptoms?”
“No.”
“How common is this condition?”
“Sternal foramina occur in roughly seven to ten percent of the population.”
No one spoke for what seemed a very long time.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
“You found nothing to suggest that Rose had been shot?”
“Nothing.”
“No evidence of homicide?”
I shook my head. “No signs of strangulation, bludgeoning, stabbing, or slashing. No defense wounds on her finger, hand, or arm bones. Other than damage caused by bears, no signs of violence at all.”
“Show me.”
I took him through the skeleton, bone by bone.
Now and then, a mollified Schechter posed a question.
When my presentation finished we all sat mute.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
I could see Schechter’s mind working, trying to classify new information. Perhaps tallying his billable hours for old Edward Allen.
“Tell me, Mr. Schechter. What prompted all this?” My gesture took in the screen, the reports, the four of us seated at the table.
“That’s hardly—”
“Germane. Indulge me.”
Schechter studied me, lips drawn into a thin hard line. I expected him to gather his pen and tablet and take his leave. To my surprise, he answered.
“Mr. Jurmain was informed that his daughter’s death investigation had either been botched or deliberately falsified.”
“By me.”
“Yes.”
“Informed by whom?”
Schechter hesitated, no doubt deciding how much to share, how much to hold back.
“The caller left no name.”
Anger overrode any triumph I might have felt at besting the man.
“You launched this witch hunt based solely on an anonymous tip?”
“My client believed the call to be genuine.”
“You could have counseled your client concerning proper protocol.”
Again the long stare.
I stared back.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Without comment, Schechter packed his belongings, snapped his briefcase, and walked to the door. Hand on the knob, he turned.
“You have an enemy, Dr. Brennan. I suggest it is in your interest to learn who placed that call.”
With that, he was gone.
5
“RICHIE CUNNINGHAM WAS A BIG HELP IN THERE.”
“Who?”
“You know. Richie and the Fonz? Happy Days?” Ryan pointed at his head. “Red hair?”
“You watch too much television.”
“Improves my English.” Again the hideous French accent.
“Chris gave us a heads-up on Jurmain’s crackpot allegations.” Though I defended Corcoran, I couldn’t disagree with Ryan. My childhood pal hadn’t exactly gone back-to-the-wall for me.
“Way to go, champ.”
Ryan and I were traveling east on Harrison. I was at the wheel. He was riding shotgun. As at the airport and hotel, this arrangement had followed spirited debate. Ryan had claimed superior driving skills. I’d claimed knowledge of the city. A bit of a stretch, but my other argument had trumped his. My rental car, my choice.
“Chris has never been assertive,” I said.
“A guppy is assertive compared to that guy. He should take lessons from Schechter.”
“Right.” I snorted. “Schechter’s a peach.”
“And you plucked him.”
Ryan was grinning and doing that flicky thing he does with his brows.
Smiling, I raised my right palm. He high-fived it.
I drove a few moments, thinking a very unsmiley thought. Ryan voiced it.
“Schechter was right about you needing to identify the source.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Want me to talk to Jurmain?”
“Thanks, Ryan. I can do it.”
“I keep going back to one question.”
“Who’s the scum-sucking bastard that made the call?”
“Well, yeah. But also, why? What’s the motivation to jam you up? Have you pissed someone off lately? I mean, more than normal?”
I gave Ryan the Face.
“Eyes on the road. This stuff’s slick.”
Ryan was right. Sleet had been pelting the windshield as we’d made our way to the CCME early that morning. The stuff was now coming down even harder. Temperatures hovered around freezing, and the sun hadn’t mustered the strength to penetrate the thick, cobalt clouds covering the sky. Semifrozen slush topped cars and mailboxes and lay along sidewalk borders and curbs. Harrison was coated with what looked like bl
ack ice.
“It has to be personal,” Ryan went on. “Someone you’ve opposed in some context.”
“That’s my thinking. An insider, in all likelihood in Quebec. Who else would be privy to the fact that I’d worked Rose Jurmain?”
“Did the case draw attention?”
“I vaguely remember a line or two in Le Journal when the remains were found. Or maybe following the ID. But that was nine months ago. Jurmain got his call just two weeks back.”
Anger began to blossom anew. I checked the dashboard clock. One forty. I changed the subject.
“What time is your flight?”
“Six thirty.”
“Are you hungry?”
“Starving.”
“Suggestions?”
“Your town. Your choice.”
“Right answer.”
“Where are we?” Ryan asked.
“Just west of downtown. In Chicago it’s called the Loop.”
“Why?”
“Something about the old el tracks forming a circle.”
“El?”
“Elevated CTA tracks.”
“CTA?”
“Come on, Ryan. You could figure that one out. Chicago Transit Authority. In this town, mass transit is part subway, part surface, part elevated. The whole enchilada is called the el, short for elevated.”
“You’re talking about commuter trains.”
“Here it’s never called the train, except by suburbanites or out-of-towners. To Chicagoans, the ‘train’ is Metra, which connects the Loop to the burbs.”
“What does this multifaceted marvel loop?”
“Do you see me carrying a sign on a stick?”
“Meaning?”
“I’m not a tour guide.”
“You said you knew this place like the back of your hand.”
I had said that. What I hadn’t said was that I’d moved from Chicago to Charlotte almost three decades earlier, and that my recall of detail might be hazy. But this one was a lollipop.
“The old el tracks run along Lake Street on the north, Wabash Avenue on the east, Van Buren Street on the south, and Wells Street on the west. Inside that loop is the city’s original central business district. But I think the nickname might predate the el. I think it actually came from a streetcar loop that existed in the late 1880s.”
“You’re making this stuff up.”
“You want a professional, take a Gray Line.”
“Do you know where you’re going?”
“Yes.”
To our left, a Blue Line el clicked along ground-level tracks in the center of the Eisenhower Expressway. Around it, lanes of cars lurched and braked in truculent rivers attempting to flow east and west.
“That place looks a bit past its shelf life.” Ryan indicated a Beaux Arts structure stretching for two blocks to our right.
“Cook County Hospital. I think it’s now called Stroger. And I think there’s a plan to tear it down. A lot of folks are opposed.”
“Doesn’t look that old on ER,” Ryan said.
“Really. Too much TV.”
“I turn it on for Charlie.”
“Our cockatiel likes dramas?”
“Actually, he prefers sitcoms. Digs the laugh tracks.”
Charlie was a Christmas surprise from Ryan. Part of the gift was that he kept the bird while I was away from Montreal. At first, I was skeptical. But the arrangement works and, despite his bawdy beak, the little avian has grown on me.
Ironic. Ryan dumped me, but my feathered pal stayed true.
“That part looks pretty good.”
I glanced to my right. “We’re beyond County now. That’s Rush Presbyterian.”
We were passing beneath a pedestrian bridge connecting the el to the Rush medical complex when el turisto struck again.
“Does that building get bigger from bottom to top?”
Without looking, I knew what Ryan was eyeing. “That’s UIC. University of Illinois–Chicago. Used to be called Circle Campus.”
“So what’s the funky building?”
“University Hall. Houses faculty and administrative offices. Tapers out twice, so the top is some twenty feet wider than the bottom.”
Ryan was craning forward to peer up through a wiper-cleared fan on the windshield.
“Brutalism,” I said. “Ditto for the campus.”
“That’s harsh.”
“The term was coined by an architect calling himself Le Corbusier—I forget his real name. Comes from the French béton brut, or ‘raw concrete.’ You should have picked up on that.”
Ryan’s face swiveled toward me. “What the hell kind of name is Brutalism? Why not call it Appallingism? Or Atrociousism? Or—”
“Complain to Le Corbusier.”
“Obviously the guy was not into marketing.”
“His invention, his choice.”
“Describe the style.”
I couldn’t tell if Ryan was genuinely interested, just bored, or testing me. Whatever. I pulled from an article I’d read about a zillion years earlier.
“Brutalism involves the use of repetitive angular geometries and gobs of unadorned poured concrete. It was big from the fifties into the seventies, then lost favor.”
“Gee. Why would that be?”
Ryan relaxed into his seat back. “Not bad, Brennan.”
“How do you know I didn’t make all that up?”
“Where are we going?”
“Greektown.”
“Why?”
“Lamb and valet parking.”
“Unbeatable combo.”
I made a left onto Halsted, crossed over the highway, and, minutes later, pulled to the curb at Adams. When I got out of the car, wind whipped my scarf and drove sleet into my face. The ice felt like match heads burning my cheeks.
Accepting a valet ticket from a man in a parka and orange Bears hat pulled low to his brows, I slip-skidded to the restaurant. Ryan followed.
The Santorini’s interior was exactly as promised by its name. Wooden tables with lattice-back chairs and crisp linen cloths, whitewashed walls, stone fireplace, copious fisherman paraphernalia.
Ryan and I hung our coats on a rack. Then a waiter with a Sonny Bono mustache and blue plaid shirt led us to an upper-terrace table. Only a few of the lunch crowd lingered, most wearing suits and retsina glows.
A second waiter brought menus. Same mustache, different shirt. I ordered a Diet Coke. Ryan asked for a Sam Adams.
“People rave about the seafood, but I like the lamb.” Ignoring the menu, I brushed moisture from my hair.
“Not even a glance?”
“I know what I want.”
Ryan studied the selections. “The lamb youvetsi?”
I shook my head.
“Kampana?”
“Nope.”
“You’re being childish.”
“Lamb artichokes.”
“Not today, cupcake.”
I checked. Damn. Ryan was right. Lamb artichokes were offered only on Tuesdays and Sundays.
“No problem.” I leaned back, arms crossed on my chest. “Buttercup.”
First the weather. I hate cold. Wet cold? Don’t ask. Then meeting Schechter and learning of an anonymous enemy. Now no lamb artichokes. Or maybe it was proximity to Ryan. Or his use of the old endearment. My mood was heading into free fall.
Beside us, two men argued the pros and cons of hockey players whose names meant nothing to me. Outside, a siren grew loud, dimmed, faded. Glassware clanked somewhere off to my left.
When the waiter returned I ordered the exohiko lamb. Ryan requested the seafood combo and a second Sam Adams.
A very long time passed without conversation.
Ryan’s mug was half empty when he finally said, “What are you thinking?”
“Don’t men hate being asked that question?”
“Not me.” Ryan beamed a little-boy smile.
I couldn’t help but grin back. We’d been a team for so long, Ryan detecting, me working
the vics. Though the breakup was difficult, I wanted this to continue. We’d been strictly colleagues once, could be again.
“I’m thinking we should eat and get you to the airport. With this weather, the trip to O’Hare could be a bitch.”
“Very practical.” Ryan nodded solemnly.
Minutes ticked by. Beside us, the men disagreed on the abilities of the Blackhawks’ coach.
Our food arrived. Mine turned out to be chunks of lamb and cheese baked inside phyllo.
As I ate, unbidden memories elbowed for attention.
The beginning. My arrival at the Montreal lab, armed with a rule against office romance. Ryan’s disregard for that rule. My eventual surrender.
The middle. Candlelight dinners in Vieux-Montréal. Walks on the mountain. Sofa suppers watching classic films on TV. Trips to the Laurentians. The Carolinas. Israel. Guatemala.
The end. Ryan’s revelation of a newly discovered offspring, angry, addicted to heroin. Daddy’s plan to reconnect with Mommy in an effort to save Daughter.
Our last meal, Ryan’s words ripping a hole in my heart. I was out. Lily and Lutetia were in. Adieu. Sorry. Have a good life.
Then, months later, an admission of error, an apology, an invitation to reunite. Lily was in rehab, and he and Lutetia were living apart. Ryan wanted me. Wanted us.
Whoa, big fella! Do-overs ain’t so simple.
Two months had passed since that conversation. I’d neither vetoed nor embraced détente with Ryan. Once burned, twice shy.
Trite, yes. But there’s a reason some phrases grow into clichés.
“—ovabitch. They’ve shut down O’Hare.” The words intruded on my reverie.
I glanced toward the next table. One of the sports critics was reading his BlackBerry.
“Did you just say the airport is closed?” I asked.
“Can you believe it?”
“Why?”
“A bomb threat, or a security breach, or some freakin’ thing.”
Ryan’s mobile made an odd croaking noise.
“Text message. My flight’s been canceled.” He was already punching keys.
For the next thirty minutes Ryan spoke to airlines, then to a minimum of eight hotels. No flights. No rooms. Even the place we’d just left was fully booked.
“How’d everyone move so fast?” I asked.