The Burnt Remains

by Alex P. Berg

  Justice tipped his head in the direction of the aisle. A moment later, Dean rounded the corner, once again dressed in a crisp white shirt and grey slacks, but this time wearing a sports coat that was not quite maroon and yet too muddy to be pink. He held a folder in his hands, giving us a nod as he headed to his desk. “Morning, Justice. Phair.”

  “Morning, Dean,” said Justice. “I was just telling Phair how out of the ordinary it is for you not to be the first one in the office.”

  “Could be that there’s a reason for that, hmm?” Dean fanned himself with the folder as he picked up his phone’s receiver and held it to his ear. “Operator? Any messages?”

  Justice rolled his eyes. “Fair enough. Let’s see it.”

  Dean handed the folder over, which Justice opened as Dean responded on the phone. “Alright. Thank you.”

  Justice pulled a page of translucent film from the folder and held it to the light. I wasn’t a radiographer, but even I could tell it was an image of teeth.

  “Stella Vernon’s dental x-rays?” asked Justice.

  Dean nodded as he returned his phone to the base. “I stopped by her dentist’s on my way in. I don’t suppose either of you want to accompany me downstairs to see what the coroner has to say about these?”

  He didn’t have to ask twice. Justice and I both popped up, me a tad slower than he thanks to my hangover, and we all headed to the stairwell.

  I’d been in the Fifth’s basement once, a couple days ago when Dean took me to the records room to have me judge his career on its merits, but I’d never been to the morgue. In fact, I’d never been to any morgue, not counting the crematoriums I’d visited the day before. With that in mind, I couldn’t comment on whether the Fifth’s was representative of them all, but compared to Fogel and Sons, the station’s mortuary was downright clinical. The tile floors had been recently mopped and treated with a lemon-scented cleaner, the stainless steel cadaver vaults along the far wall gleamed, and the half dozen examination tables that were evenly spaced throughout the rectangular room had been cleared and dusted, all except for two. One had a white sheet draped over it and the suggestive shape of a body protruding from beneath, and atop the other, a seemingly complete skeleton had been arranged in painstaking detail.

  In the corner, sandwiched between a pair of filing cabinets and a glass-doored chemical cabinet, was a stainless steel desk. A young elf in a white lab coat sat there, clacking away at a typewriter as he stared at the clipboard next to him, the pages bent over and folded underneath the clip at the top.

  Dean called out as we approached. “Morning, Emmett.”

  The elf startled and popped up, turning to meet us. “Ah. Detective Dean. Good morning. To you too, Detective Justice. And, ah…” The elf’s brow furrowed over his square-rimmed glasses as he set eyes on me, as if he was having a hard time remembering who I was.

  Dean got the gist of the expression, too. “This is Officer Penelope Phair, Emmett. She joined our team yesterday. Phair? Emmett Jowynn, our coroner.”

  Jowynn stuck up a finger. “Well, ah, one of them. There’s also Emily Carruthers and Milton Heel. We split the schedule, though it’s mostly Emily and I. Milton’s more of a night owl, though he takes emergency shifts, too. Anyway. Pleasure to meet you, Officer.”

  The coroner had a shock of unruly brown hair atop his head, which seemed to go with his nervous nature and glasses, but he was kind of cute despite his stammering. “Nice to meet you, Emmett.” I figured if Dean called him by his first name, I should too, though why police naming conventions didn’t extend to the folks poking and prodding the dead bodies, I couldn’t say.

  Dean pointed toward the exam table with the bones atop it. “Are those the remains from the circus?”

  Emmett bobbed his head. “Indeed, Detective. I have my notes about them right here.” He picked up his clipboard. “It’s quite a complete skeleton. Do you need to take another look at it?”

  “The opposite. I need you to.” Dean held the folder out.

  Emmett placed it over his clipboard and opened it. His eyes widened as he spotted the film prints. “Ah. X-rays. Excellent.”

  Dean nodded. “How long do you think it’ll take to see if those are a match?”

  Emmett cocked his head. “That depends. If I find a definitive matching feature, maybe only a few minutes. It might be a few hours if I have to do a deeper dive. Do you need results now?”

  “I’d rather not waste the morning if I don’t have to.”

  “Of course,” said Emmett. “Detective Justice? Could you grab the skull and the mandible, and all of you join me at the light box?”

  Jowynn waved for us to follow him as he headed to where the aforementioned light box hung over another exam table. He pulled the x-rays from the folder and clipped them into place before clicking the switch on the side of the box. Justice arrived as the thing burst to life, the skull and mandible looking small in his massive mitts.

  “Thank you.” Jowynn plucked rubber gloves from a drawer. “You can set them on the tabletop.”

  Justice did so while Jowynn pulled the gloves onto his hands. Jowynn flicked the switch on a table lamp, one with a magnifying glass attached to it. He pulled on the swivel arm to bring the thing to a comfortable height and picked up the mandible. He peered at it through the lens, then leaned closer to the light box. After a couple rounds of that, I couldn’t tell if he was being meticulous or it his eyesight was that bad.

  “I meant to ask you,” said Dean. “Did you find anything of note while cataloging the remains? Anything that contradicted Cortez’s findings?”

  Emmett blinked and looked away from the mandible, his brow scrunched. “I’m sorry, what?”

  To his credit, Dean didn’t show the slightest hint of annoyance. “I asked if you found anything else of note during your investigation, but if I’m distracting you, I can stay quiet until you finish.”

  “No, it’s not a problem.” Jowynn tilted the mandible back and forth under the light. “Overall, I agree with Detective Cortez. Victim was an adult female, about five foot four. I would guess in early adulthood to middle age, as I didn’t observe any signs of bone density loss women see post menopause, but it’s hard to tell because of the cremation. And the body was certainly cremated. I would assume at high heat for a short period of time, though I couldn’t give you specifics.”

  “Why high heat?” I asked. “Does that affect the process?”

  Emmett blinked at me, a look of mild surprise on his face. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was asking questions at all or because he’d forgotten I was there.

  He recovered quickly and gave me a shy smile, which made me think it was more the latter. “Uh… it does, actually. The cremation process calcifies bones, which leads to embrittlement. The longer you expose bones to high heat, the more calcification occurs. Heck, if you heat a corpse long enough, the bones will decompose into tiny fragments on their own, but most crematoriums don’t do that. Takes too long, and it’s more efficient to turn the last bits of bone to powder by hand or with a mill. The remains recovered from the aviary aren’t that brittle, however. They’re quite clean though, which to me suggests high heat and a short exposure time. Of course, what really clinched it was the bit of molten steel in the ashes.”

  “Molten steel?” said Dean.

  Jowynn lifted an eyebrow as he set the mandible down and picked up the skull. “Did Cortez not tell you? As we were transferring the ashes into a container, we found it at the bottom of the pile, half melted into the dirt. A globule of steel. I’d say it probably was from a belt buckle, button, or key. Easy to miss, not like that diamond and the lump of gold, but steel also melts at a higher temperature than gold. Quite a bit higher, in fact, depending on the composition. That’s what confirms to me the heat.”

  “Hold on,” I said. “The steel was melted into the earth? That would suggest the body was cremated on site, doesn’t it?”

  “It might.” Dean lifted an inquisitive eyebrow and turned it
toward Emmett.

  The young coroner hemmed and hawed. “Well, ah, perhaps that was a poor choice of words. We found it stuck in the dirt, not necessarily melted into the dirt. It could’ve gotten stepped on. I wouldn’t necessarily draw any conclusions from it, although you’re free to examine the globule if you want. It’s on the exam table with the rest of the remains.”

  Justice frowned. “Are cremation furnaces powerful enough to melt steel?”

  Dean gave his head a slight shake. “I couldn’t tell you. We’ll have to research it.”

  Everyone grew quiet, which seemed to bother Jowynn more than anyone else. He chuckled nervously. “Sorry. Didn’t meant to throw a wrench into your investigation. But I do have good news.”

  Dean waved his hand. “Go on.”

  “It’s the remains. See this stretch of bone that’s darker in color?” Emmett held the skull under the magnifying lamp, pointing to a thin striation I could barely see. “That’s a sign of stress from an old injury. Not necessarily a fracture, but perhaps a bruise from a fall. You can see the same discoloration in the x-ray image here.” Jowynn pointed it out.

  I think Dean had as hard a time making it out as I did. He squinted. “You’re sure that’s the same contusion?”

  Emmett nodded. “Absolutely. Not to mention there’s a slight chip on the right maxillary central incisor that’s present in the specimen as well as the x-rays.” He held the skull forward. “You have yourselves an identification, Detectives.”

  Dean let out a deep breath. “Stella Vernon it is, then. Given what we know about her sudden disappearance, that officially makes this a murder investigation.”

  I didn’t want to make my ignorance known, but I also wanted to know what that meant. “How does that impact our investigation?”

  “In a lot of ways,” said Dean. “First and foremost, it provides us more judicial muscle. We can more easily procure warrants to search her home and pull the financial records for her assets. It lets us clear a lot of procedural hurdles. And it means we have to deliver the bad news to Mr. Vernon.”

  Justice grunted. “You want me to come with you?”

  “I’ll probably take Moss, if she gets in soon,” said Dean. “No offense, but she’s better at delivering that news than you are. You and Phair can get started on the finances.”

  Justice snorted. “Pulling records. My favorite.”

  Jowynn piped up, the skull still in his hands. “If you don’t mind, I have one more thing for you before you go.”

  “Shoot,” said Dean.

  Emmett waved us toward the exam table with the remains. “You know those scraps from the crematorium you dropped off?”

  “From Fogel and Sons,” said Justice. “Were you able to match them to the bones?”

  “Unfortunately, no. As I mentioned before, the remains from the circus—Mrs. Vernon’s remains, I suppose—are in incredible shape given the heat they must’ve been exposed to. I didn’t find any chips or cracks in them, nor was I able to match any of the bone fragments from the crematorium to them. But I did find this.”

  Jowynn replaced the skull on the table and reached into a metal tin. From it, he pinched something between his fingers, placing it on his open palm. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it appeared to be a black pebble, about the size of a pea.

  “Is that obsidian?” asked Dean.

  “It certainly looks like it,” said Jowynn. “To be honest, I’m not sure. I want to do more research before I give you any information that might lead you down the wrong path, but for the record, that’s not the only chip I found. I was able to separate six smaller ones from the ash.”

  “Did you find those in the ashes at the circus, too, or only from the ones at Fogel and Sons?” I asked.

  Emmett waggled his finger at me, as if I’d hammered the nail on the head. “Just the latter. It’s probably nothing, but I figured I’d let you know all the same.”

  “Thanks, Emmett. We appreciate your efforts.” Dean nodded to me and Justice. “Guys? Time to get to work. We have a murder to solve.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Moss was at her desk when we returned to the third floor, so Dean plucked her and headed to Vernon’s. I didn’t envy her, to be honest. I hadn’t enjoyed Vernon’s company the first time, and I’d never been good at delivering bad news. Given that Moss had assured me she’d be on the lookout for any skeevy behavior on Vernon’s part, I didn’t have any reason to return to the man’s mansion.

  Of course, after thirty minutes of serving as Justice’s mule, I wished I’d fought harder for Moss’s spot after all. Not that Justice abused me—he worked as hard as I did—but there was a lot to do. While he called the Captain to arrange for warrants, he tasked me with obtaining the necessary forms. I figured picking them up from the office would be the easy part, but given my intricate knowledge of the case, I made quick work of the papers—or at least as quick as my cramping hand would allow. When I was about three quarters done, Justice ripped them away from me, telling me he’d fill in the remainder on his way to the judge. As he left, he yelled at me to call the banks to find out which one served the Vernons.

  With the help of the station’s operator, I started calling the likely suspects. While all of them initially refused to let me know if the Vernons were even clients, they became more cooperative once I told them we had a warrant for the information. I felt a little odd saying as much given I didn’t have the official piece of paper in my hands, but Justice had assured me it was a formality. I figured it would be easier for me to call Vernon’s home and bother Mossbottom for the information, but even with a warrant in hand, we couldn’t compel him or his master to tell us. Besides, there were only so many banks in the city a man such as Vernon would bother soliciting.

  I located the bank in question before Justice returned, earning myself a coffee break, but as soon as the big ogre arrived and I filled him in, we headed to the parking garage, hopped in his Phantom, and drove off in search of the branch of New Welwic Bancorp closest to the Vernon’s estate.

  It wasn’t too far, closer to the circus than to Brentford, in a part of the city that wasn’t technically downtown but was close enough not to make any difference. As we stepped through the bank’s heavy bronze doors into the lobby within, one with marble floors and a high, arched ceiling whose detailed mural would’ve been more at home in a church than a financial establishment, Justice took a quick look around to get his bearings before heading to the nearest teller.

  The young woman behind the counter smiled as we approached. “Good morning. How can I help you?”

  Justice pulled his badge from his pocket. “I’m Detective Justice with the NWPD. Officer Phair here spoke with a Mr. White on the phone about some account records.”

  The woman nodded. “I see. Mr. White’s desk is on your right. I’ll see if I can locate him for you.”

  Justice thanked her, and she headed into the back. Meanwhile, Justice and I retreated to the desk the teller had pointed us to, upon which White’s name shone from a gold plaque. Justice didn’t sit, so I didn’t either. I simply stood there, biding my time, wondering if Justice was going to open his mouth to do anything other than breathe. He hadn’t said much on our ride over, and I’d started to think I’d imagined the fun-loving jokester I’d gotten to know over drinks the night before. Then again, Moss had insinuated on more than one occasion that Justice was the consummate professional. Perhaps I should’ve taken her at her word.

  Still, I figured work-related small talk wasn’t off limits, even if everything else was. “Does Dean always assign you all the grunt work?”

  Justice lifted a thick eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

  I shrugged. “You made an off-hand comment while we were in the morgue. Made me think you got stuck pulling records more often than not.”

  “I was giving Dean a hard time,” said Justice. “He doesn’t play favorites. We’re all as likely to end up filling out paperwork as we are to be kicking down doors. Just depends w
ho’s available and what needs to be done.”

  “Do you think that’s going to change now that I’m around?”

  Justice snorted. “If Dean needed a lackey, he could’ve plucked one from our own precinct. Instead, he went out of his way to bring you aboard. What does that tell you?”

  It told me that he saw something in me, that my ability to solve the New Age Alchemical case impressed him and suggested to him that I had real talent, but I still couldn’t convince myself of it, not when I’d spent most of my morning on the phone, pretending as if I were a real detective and hoping no one would call me on my bluster.

  I’m not sure Justice wanted me to share my insecurities, but fate dictated I shouldn’t have to. A lilting voice carried across the lobby. “Ogden? What are you doing here?”

  Justice and I both turned to find a dapper man in a purple silk shirt and tight trousers approaching. He was shorter than Justice and me, an inch over five and a half feet at most, though his expertly coifed pompadour granted him another couple inches. A pair of mirrored glasses hid his eyes, but the rest of his face was blemish free, as if he regularly treated it with rich lotions and exfoliating creams. His faint aroma of bergamot orange further suggested he did.

  Justice’s brow creased. “Marion?”

  The man pulled his glasses from his face and tucked them daintily into his front shirt pocket. “Well, isn’t this a delight?”

  He opened his arms as he stepped forward, as if he was going to hug Justice, but he stopped short as Justice stuck out a hand. He eyed it with a hint of disdain before giving it a single shake. “Hmm. Yes. Well, how are you? I feel as if I haven’t seen you in ages.”

  “I’m fine,” said Justice, “but I can’t talk. We’re on duty.”

  Marion held his hands up apologetically, his mouth making a delicate little circle. “Oh. My apologies. I won’t keep you. Just saw you and wanted to say hi. But you really must introduce me to your ravishing little friend here.”