The Bone Code

by Kathy Reichs

“Do you get good mileage?”

  Vislosky did a one-shoulder shrug.

  A few miles of silence, then I took another stab at conversation. “Did you ever play basketball?”

  “You asking because I’m black?”

  “I’m asking because you’re tall.” Jesus. What was her problem?

  Nothing.

  One more try. “Fun fact,” I said. “I don’t know a single black person named Vislosky.”

  “You know a single white person named Vislosky?”

  Fine. No small talk. Suited me.

  I went for more pastry, then spent the next fifty miles working through the MMM menu and lurking in the site’s chat room. I’d chosen the username bigbirdie.

  No surprise that nothing helpful popped up. It had been half a decade since Harmony had connected with her Canadian friend. If, in fact, the friend existed. And if Harmony and the Canadian girl actually were the Charleston vics, neither had visited MMM in a very long time.

  I was searching for similar sites when the didgeridoo shattered the silence.

  “What the fuck?” Vislosky burst out.

  I clicked on.

  “When do you arrive?” Anne asked without preamble.

  “I’m on my way now.”

  A beat, then, “You’re in a car. Are you driving? From Montreal?”

  “Nashville.”

  “Tell me you’re not banging Toby Keith.”

  “I’m not banging Toby Keith.”

  Vislosky’s head whipped my way, brows floating high above the gold rims of her shades.

  “So. I’ve busted this death mask mother wide open, eh?”

  “I’m sorry, Anne. I haven’t had time to follow up.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I was urgently needed on an investigation.”

  Vislosky snorted.

  “Who’s that?”

  “A detective. Listen, I’ll be in Charleston late this afternoon. We can discuss the death mask tonight.”

  Chilly silence.

  “I’ll bring dinner.”

  “I sure as sugar don’t feel the love coming my way.”

  Three beeps.

  Anne was gone.

  “Want to listen to some music?” I asked, tossing my iPhone onto the dash.

  “No,” Vislosky said.

  “Let me know if you’d like me to drive.”

  “I won’t.”

  Alrighty, then.

  I focused on the world streaming by my window. We’d left the mountains and entered a landscape of rolling hills. Now and then, we passed a small factory, and once what looked like a massive salvage yard. Otherwise, it was nothing but fields and trees and cows.

  Eventually, the monotony made me drowsy. Not sure how long I’d been dozing when Vislosky startled me awake.

  “Point guard.”

  I struggled to connect the dots. “Are you talking b’ball?”

  “Do I look like a hockey player?”

  “What does a hockey player look like?”

  “A dentist’s dream.”

  “Hilarious.”

  “At six foot nothing, I wasn’t tall enough to be up front.”

  “Where did you play?”

  “Wake Forest. My unmatched agility won me a four-year ride.”

  “Not to mention your humility.”

  “And that.”

  “Impressive.” It was.

  “What’s this about a death mask?”

  “What?” The quick segue surprised me.

  “Your abrasive caller is working on some kind of death mask?”

  “Anne is not abrasive.”

  “OK. Your loud caller.”

  “You really want to hear about the mask?”

  “Beats listening to you snoring.”

  “I don’t snore.”

  Vislosky did that guffaw thing again, a sort of choking gurgle in her throat.

  I provided a brief overview. Polly Beecroft’s odd request. The three photos. The uncanny resemblance between Beecroft and her twin sister, Harriet, and between the Beecroft twins and their grandmother and great-aunt, Susanne and Sybil Bouvier. The mysterious disappearance of Sybil in Paris in 1888. The resemblance of all four women to the death mask found in Harriet Beecroft’s home.

  “So what’s Annie Abrasive’s world-shattering breakthrough?”

  “She found the mask on the web.”

  “Everything in creation is on the web.”

  “Do you want the full story?”

  “What the hell. We’ve got another four hours to kill.”

  “It turns out this girl’s death mask isn’t all that rare. During the early years of the twentieth century, hundreds of copies were made and sold, primarily in France and Germany. People hung her face on the walls of their homes as decorative art.”

  “That’s morbid.”

  “She was known as L’Inconnue de la Seine. The Unknown Woman of the—”

  “I’ve heard of the river.”

  “Apparently, people were enchanted with the ‘sublimity of the young lady’s smile.’ ” Hooking air quotes.

  “The chick was dead.”

  “Sincerely so. According to most accounts, in the late nineteenth century, probably during the eighteen-seventies or eighteen-eighties, the woman’s body was recovered from the Seine near the quai du Louvre and taken to the Paris morgue for identification. Hold on.”

  I snatched up my phone and scrolled to Anne’s email.

  “At that time, the Paris morgue was located behind Notre-Dame, at the eastern tip of the Île de la Cité, quai de l’Archevêché.” Going full French to annoy Vislosky? “Unknown bodies were displayed for public viewing in the hopes someone might recognize a deceased.”

  “Maybe we should try that.”

  “The Paris morgue was a big deal back then. I’ve read that thousands visited every day.”

  “Nothing like corpses to bring out a crowd.”

  “As the story goes, a morgue pathologist was so smitten by the girl’s beauty that he called in a mouleur—a molder—to preserve her face in a death mask. Some versions have him as a medical assistant. Either way, that first plaster cast became the source of all the mass-produced masks later sold as art.”

  “Was the chick ever ID’d?”

  “No. There’s endless conjecture as to who she might have been. A prostitute. A beggar. An orphan seduced by a nobleman.”

  “Manner of death?”

  “Again, lots of speculation. Because the girl’s body showed no trauma, she was presumed to have committed suicide. Others claim she must have been murdered.”

  “Based on what?”

  “Skeptics say she couldn’t have drowned because her features were too perfect.”

  “That’s lame.”

  “It is. For one thing, it was common practice back then to resculpt death masks.”

  “Like retouching with Photoshop.”

  I scrolled through my pictures to the shot I’d taken of Beecroft’s mask. I had to admit, the girl did look serene. Her cheeks were full, her hair demurely drawn back behind her neck. Her eyelashes, oddly matted, still looked wet. Though pleasant-looking, the girl wasn’t classically beautiful. I estimated her age at late teens.

  “What happened to the body?” Vislosky asked.

  “No one knows.”

  “You’re thinking this unknown woman could be Polly Beecroft’s missing great-aunt?”

  “The resemblance is striking. The girl’s age tallies. The time period fits.”

  “How could you ever prove that she is?”

  An excellent question, detective.

  * * *

  We got to Charleston a little past three and headed directly to the law enforcement center. The scene on Lockwood Boulevard was chaos. People crammed the walks on both sides, some holding signs, a few shouting at passing cars.

  Along one curb, the sentiment seemed to be pro-canine. Don’t pinch my pooch! Back off my beagle! My dog is my best friend. Dog = God spelled backward. />
  Along the opposite curb, the protesters were advocating animal control. Don’t let the hounds out! Woof! Woof! Leash it or lose it! Contagious Canines! I wasn’t sure about Bite Me!

  “What the hell?” I asked, watching a guy wave a placard showing a dog with a baby’s head in its open mouth.

  “Don’t get me started. The media’s been on this capno shit twenty-four seven, broadcasting gore shots and citing infection rates and death counts. It’s like the mask insanity of the COVID pandemic. People have turned the situation political and chosen up sides.”

  “Sides?” As Vislosky entered the garage.

  “Some think the government’s out to confiscate their precious pooch. Others want every dog shot on sight.”

  “Jesus.”

  “And here’s a good one. Your boy Huger’s been fanning the flames.”

  “He’s not my boy. What do you mean?”

  “Huger’s running ads claiming there’s a gene makes some people more susceptible to the virus than others. Says if they mail their spit to his website, he’ll diagnose where they stand.”

  “GeneFree?”

  “One and the same.”

  “What’s his game?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you think he’s in it to score some bucks? Or to provide a valid medical service?”

  “How should I know the fucknozzle’s motive?”

  Though tempted to retort, I held my tongue.

  The silence continued as Vislosky and I entered PD headquarters, rode the elevator, and walked to the violent-crimes unit. After placing the box on her desk, Vislosky punched digits on her phone and spoke to someone in the forensic-sciences division.

  A staff photographer showed up a half hour later. He was small and dark and may have weighed less than his equipment. His name badge said Denton.

  We all moved to a counter running along the back wall of the squad room. Vislosky and I pulled on latex gloves. My pulse hummed as I watched her disengage and lay back the flaps loosely sealing the box.

  Denton shot video and stills as each object came out. Vislosky entered everything on an evidence sheet.

  The contents included the following: a hinged plastic case holding an assortment of cheap costume jewelry; a frayed pet collar with a tag that said Missy; a snow globe housing a village that would have blended well in Zermatt; a stuffed lamb missing most of the fur on its belly; and a faux-leather diary with a tiny brass lock, broken.

  The final article caused a frisson of pain to sweep through me. At the very bottom of the box was a framed print of a Ralph Waldo Emerson poem: “This Is My Wish for You.” I knew the words, had given a copy to Katy when she was a very little girl.

  Had Bonnie Bird chosen the same gift for her daughter? If she loved Harmony, how could she have abandoned her? Had Harmony left willingly or under duress? Had Bonnie Bird also come to harm?

  “Am I done here?”

  Denton’s voice snapped me back to the present.

  “You got everything?” Vislosky chin-cocked the objects spread out on the counter.

  Denton nodded. “I’ll shoot the e-file to you right away. Get you hard copy by tomorrow.”

  “Thanks.”

  As Denton collected his cameras, Vislosky picked up the diary. It looked very small in her oversize hands.

  She moved to her desk. I followed. Watched as she randomly flipped pages.

  I was reaching for my purse when Vislosky muttered, “Hot fucking damn.”

  I looked a question at her.

  She slid the diary across the desktop, opened to the page that had triggered the expletive.

  I read the entry.

  25

  FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12

  The handwriting was cramped, the ink faded in spots. I had to struggle to make out some lines.

  It was the diary’s final page that had caught Vislosky’s attention.

  February 5, 2018

  Dear Di,

  Off to Charleston this aft. Wish me luck. Thumbing it. Hope I don’t get picked up by cannibal cultists. Ha!

  Feel bad about Paps, not that he’ll notice I’m gone. (Like the $40 I snagged from his pants!)

  Hope Lena turns out to be cool, not a salty noob.

  OMG! We’ve been emailing and texting for almost a year. I’m sure she’s totally lit.

  Backpack stuffed!

  Thumb cocked!

  I’ll take a cannibal cultist over this snotrag we’re dogging any old day.

  YOLO!

  HWB

  My eyes flew to Vislosky’s. “Harmony wrote this the day France remembers her leaving.”

  “Heading to Charleston.”

  “To meet a kid named Lena.”

  “Maybe a kid.”

  I gestured that Vislosky had a valid point. “Lena could be Mama Gertie’s Canadian contact.”

  The other murdered girl. Neither of us voiced the dreadful thought.

  I riffled through the pages. Each one was filled with the same girlish scrawl.

  “May I take this with me overnight?”

  When I looked up, Vislosky seemed to be wrestling with it.

  “I’ll sign it out,” I assured. “Dot all your bloody i’s.”

  Vislosky’s desk phone rang. She ignored it.

  “Be honest.” I waggled the little book. “With all this capno hysteria, will you have time to read this?”

  “Fine.” Green eyes narrowing. “But—”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know.”

  * * *

  Anne was at the stove doing Joplin and stirring a large pot. Hearing my footsteps, she sang the next line into her spoon: “Windshield wipers slappin’ time…”

  She extended the spoon-mic toward me: “I was holdin’ Bobby’s hand in mine…” I added.

  In reasonable sync: “We sang every song that driver knew.”

  We both laughed. My first in a long time.

  I set my purse and a bag on the counter.

  “The wanderer returns bearing food,” Anne said.

  “Fried shrimp and oysters. I called ahead to the Long Island Café.”

  “An excellent choice. Which my chowder will complement nicely.”

  While Anne ladled soup into bowls, I set places and divvied up the seafood. As we ate, I half-listened to her tale of woe featuring a horse and her ex-husband and one of her twins. Made comforting noises at all the right spots.

  “So,” I said, eager to move things along. “Tell me everything you’ve discovered about the death mask.”

  Finished venting, Anne retrieved a downloaded photo of L’Inconnue and her copy of Beecroft’s print and laid both on the table. We agreed. There was absolutely no doubt. It was the same face.

  Anne launched into an excruciatingly detailed account of her death mask quest. Though I nodded approvingly and asked a question now and then, my heart wasn’t in it. Every few minutes, I discreetly checked the time, anxious to get to Harmony’s diary.

  When Anne finished, I granted that she had, indeed, made a major breakthrough. Assured her that Polly Beecroft would be thrilled.

  “But how could you ever prove that Sybil Bouvier was the lady in the Seine?” she asked, tone wistful.

  “That would be tough,” I said.

  “Or figure out how she ended up in the river?”

  “Even tougher.”

  As we chewed on that, and on the last of the shrimp, my eyes drifted to the photos.

  Again, I felt that soft elbow nudge from my id. What? The woman couldn’t possibly look familiar. No matter her name or fate, she’d died almost a century before I was born. Our paths could never have crossed.

  “How’s Ryan doing?” Anne and I had discussed the hit-and-run incident by phone.

  “Sketchy haircut but nimble as ever.”

  “Why would some dickwad run you down?”

  “That question is currently under investigation.” Not mentioning Claudel’s theory as to which of us was the real target.

  “Did you make progr
ess on your cold case?”

  I gave a very brief accounting. Exhumation. DNA. Genetic genealogy. Dr. Aubrey Sullivan Huger.

  “Why the trip to Nashville?”

  Again, quick and succinct. Digger France. Harmony Boatwright. Amity House. MMM. The online Canadian friend. The diary.

  “How did you get here from Nashville?”

  “Caught a ride with the lead detective on the Charleston case.”

  “How long did the drive take?”

  “A millennium and a half.”

  * * *

  By the time I made my escape, it was nine fifteen.

  Up in my room, I took a quick shower, climbed into bed, and phoned Ryan.

  Got voice mail. Left a brief message.

  Beyond the French doors, the ocean was calm. Inside my chest, the situation was anything but. Opening the diary, I felt my heart beating double time.

  The first page was dated January 2, 2017. The entry was short and direct. Harmony explained that the diary was a gift, that she’d give journaling a shot but wasn’t sure writing was her thing. She named the little book Di.

  For a while, she penned only brief narrative accounts listing the day’s activities. Eventually, her entries became more frequent. And more creative.

  And, to my dismay, more cryptic.

  Her style, one of direct conversation with her fictional confidante Di, evolved into a hodgepodge of kid lingo and texting abbreviations. Devolved?

  Some acronyms I knew. BFF. TBH. OMG. YOLO. LMAO. WTF.

  Others I hadn’t a clue.

  Lacking a bubble-gummer to translate, I found a teen slang dictionary online.

  MMD: Made my day. AFAIK: As far as I know. ROTFL: Rolling on the floor laughing. 4YEO: For your eyes only.

  Page by page, Harmony’s personality materialized through her words. She wrote: School is way basic. Read: boring. dm told me something that was totally cap. Read: untrue. st was flexing again today. Read: showing off. es went full on emo in the caf. Read: emotional/drama queen in the cafeteria.

  Individuals were referenced by lowercase initials. Opening a Word document, I started a list. dm. st. es.

  P911 appeared a lot. Parent alert. I wondered. If Digger was taking no notice of his granddaughter, who was this hovering authority figure?

  As my fluency in teenage-ese improved, the process went faster. I skimmed through days and weeks of typical adolescent angst. Is the hair too rad? Paps is such a dick! And the perennially popular: I think ak is into me!