I say we let Mr. King get back to work, the sheriff said, standing over Jake like an overseer with a slave.
Jake looked up into an expression of pure malice. Not until we examine the bones, he said. Right now they represent a puzzle we have to solve.
Can you say for sure the bones are new?
Not yet. Thats why Dr. Harrigan He stopped mid-sentence and pointed to the excavated ground, where a wide swath of topsoil had been removed, revealing the dirt beneath. Most of it was dark brown and compact. But to the left of where the bones had been found, patches of earth were lighter, less firmly packed. Pete, he said, take a look at this.
Harrigan bent, Jake noted, with some difficulty. My God, he breathed.
Whats this? Sheriff Fisk asked, exasperated. What are we playing, Twenty Questions? Youre delaying the most important project ever to come Turners way because you found some bones a dog probably dragged here. Its inexcusable.
Jake stood, making it a point to ignore him. When you bury a body, it disturbs the ground. Even after you fill it back in, the earths never the same. Even if the grass has grown back, underneath the topsoil its still obvious. He indicated the border between the two shades of earth. You can see here where the ground has been dug up and replaced.
So who gives a damn? the sheriff snarled.
Jake stared at him coldly. You will. Judging by the number of disturbed areas, theres more than one body down there.
ONE BY ONE, the bones were painstakingly brought from the ground and laid on the tarp. Jake examined each of them, heedless of the increasingly hot sun, his mind electric with excitement. Its like playing with Gods jigsaw puzzle, he thought, placing the bones together in their anatomical positions. Soon he was working by himself. Pete, weakened by the heat, had gone back to Jakes car for a rest; the others, quickly bored, decided to drive into town for breakfast. The construction workers had been sent home for the day. The foreman stayed and watched from the construction trailer.
Jake was relieved. The human body was to him magnificent, and its building blocks, its bones, never ceased to enthrall him. There was more beauty in the creation of man than there was in sublime music. He sometimes felt, as he felt now, that the mute bones were eloquent, if only he could fully understand their language. He formed skeletons three men and, yes, a woman. What stories could they tell? he wondered. Who had brought them to this field and buried them?
When he was finished, he went back to the car to get Pete. You wont believe it, he told his friend. He knew it was up to them to restore some measure of what the skeletons had lost; it was a debt the living owed the dead. Since these people could no longer speak for themselves, it was their duty to speak for them.
They walked back to the field together and stared down at the skeletons. Pete had been silent since Jake awakened him; now he seemed in a distant place, transfixed by the evidence of so much death.
Look, Jake said, the last bone I found was the mandible belonging to the woman. It matches the upper part of the skull the backhoe dug up originally.
Pete stared, shuddered. The movement seemed to rouse him from his trance. Youre right, he said, as he stooped to examine it with the upper part of its skull. Wed best get the bones to the morgue. Baxter Community Hospitals five miles away. Ill call the others from the trailer and tell them to meet us there. Pete checked his pockets. Left their numbers in your car. Be back in a bit.
Hes sick, Jake realized. It would indeed be their last case together. He was sure of it.
* * *
By four that afternoon, the entire group had reassembled in a basement room next to the morgue. The four skeletons were laid out on four stretchers inside the morgue not complete, Jake knew, but able to tell a partial story. One woman, three men. But there was so much more to be learned from the bones: height, age, race, cause of death, potentially identifying old fractures, and when they had died.
In life they had had names, faces, jobs, opinions, emotions. Now they were reduced to a series of numbers written on pieces of paper at the foot of each stretcher. The audience stood solemnly; even Sheriff Fisk seemed awed.
How do you know Fours a woman? Miss Crespy asked.
Jake indicated the top edge of the socket where the left eye had been. Thats called the glabella the brow ridge. In a woman its smooth. In men, bumpy. He saw that some in the audience were feeling their own eyebrows and stifled a grin. Happened every time. Same with the external occipital protuberance on the back of the skull. He turned the skull around and ran a finger along its gently curved rear surface. Its more prominent in males, smoother in females. He took a closer look at the upper jaw. And she was young. Third molars havent erupted.
Harrington set about taking measurements and dictating notes into a tape recorder. Jake could tell by the expression on his face that he was deeply emotional. Skeleton Four, most bones present, female. In addition to the unerupted third molars, the lack of fusing of both clavicles medially indicates her age to be under twenty-two. Some clumps of dark hair up to six inches long adjacent to the vertex of the skull. All long bones of the upper and lower extremities are present. Right ribs eight and nine posteriorly show fractures. The amount of healing suggests these injuries were sustained approximately two weeks before death. The pitting pattern of the pubic symphysis indicates vaginal childbirth. Pete paused, taking in great gulps of air. Sheriff, this young woman may have a child out there. His pallor seemed unearthly.
Maybe you should get some air, Jake said.
Harrigan shook his head. Lets finish. That scotch is beginning to sound awful good. He put the recorder to his mouth. Skeleton Three. Here, too, most bones are present. Calcification of cartilage of first and second ribs, osteophytes in the thoracic and lumbar spine, and fused skull sutures mean he was at least thirty-five.
Jake turned to the group. Those osteophytes are bony protuberances on the spinal column. They happen as you get older.
Harrington picked up the skull. Here again some dark hair is present; this time it measures two inches in length. Notice the oval-shaped hole at the vertex through the parietal bones at the top of the skull. Looks to be about four by three inches. Its not postmortem deterioration.
You mean somebody bashed his head in? Fisk asked.
Not precisely. If it were a fresh fracture, the edges would be rough. Id say he lived long enough for healing to occur, between two and six months, Id estimate. He proffered the skull. Care to feel it? Smooth.
Fisk recoiled. No, thanks.
Jake had learned a long time ago that machismo was no indication of whether a person would lose his cool in an autopsy room. He knew burly police detectives who couldnt watch him wield a scalpel and petite female MEs who could finish two autopsies and go out and eat sushi.
That looks like a surgical procedure, Jake said. There probably was a replacement with a metal plate but, if so, we didnt find it.
Maybe its still in the ground, Harrigan said. Somebodys going to have to go back and look.
Fisk made a note. Why would a doctor cut a piece out of someones head?
War wound, Jake said. Itll help if you can find the plate.
Harrington turned the skull around so it faced them. Notice the dental fillings. Proof positive that these arent settlers. The probable cause of death is this displaced fracture of the second cervical vertebra the axis which would have damaged the spinal cord.
Amazing, Jake thought.
He saw more than I did. Always pay attention to the body. Its telling you its secrets.
Broken neck, he translated for the group.
Harrigan pointed to a dirty band of elastic that encircled the skeletons pelvic bones.
Is that . . . whats left of his clothes? Miss Crespy asked.
Looks like it. Harrigan gently removed the elastic remnant and handed it to Jake, who had put on new surgical gloves. Jake placed it on a clean paper catch cloth to avoid the loss of any trace evidence.
Came from a pair of mens briefs, Jake noted. Theres some writing on it. He took the elastic to the sink and slowly washed off the dirt into a plastic container. Could be a laundry mark. He leaned over it with a magnifying glass. Cant quite make it out. Anybody have a flashlight?
Fisk handed him his Maglite.
Its hard to read, but I think its . . . T.M.H. 631217. Do you recognize the initials, Pete?
There was no answer. Pete was bent over, arms around his stomach; his breathing was ragged, his face white. A word flashed unbidden into Jakes mind:
cancer.
Pete straightened. His own initials? he answered. Maybe he had monogrammed underpants, like they do for kids at camp.
Maybe, Jake said. Its something to go on. All he wanted was to get Pete home and in bed, find out if his diagnosis was right, and see what he could do about it. But Pete pressed on.
Skeleton Two is less complete than Four or Three. Skull sutures arent fused and theres a lack of rib calcification. Puts him close to thirty. He picked up the skull. Eye sockets look Caucasian. The pelvis confirms its male. Left humerus present. A little clump of hair is still attached to a small amount of grave wax formed from the fat on the front of the pubic bone.
He moved on. Skeleton One. Defleshed bones of left arm and hand. Not much to work with. He eyed the group.
Sheriff Fisks face was red. It was obvious he was finding the facts uncomfortable.
Funny. Youd think hed be fascinated. For him, its the case of a lifetime.
But all Fisk asked was, Whats this going to mean for the mall?
It means, Jake said, your construction sites a crime scene.
Back at the cottage at last, Jake made them a dinner of bacon and eggs. They had eaten the same meal countless late nights in the lab, whipped up on a hot plate in their offices tiny kitchen, and he was feeling nostalgic.
Nostalgic and worried. Color had returned to Petes face, and thered been no recurrence of stomach cramps, but still it was obvious his friend was failing.
His eyes are jaundiced. Must be drinking or sick. How do I bring up the subject? Hes one proud son of a bitch.
After dinner, they went to Petes study and opened the bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue, the granddaddy of blended scotches and, Jake knew, Harrigans favorite guilty pleasure that and a foul-smelling pipe. Jake had received the bottle as a gift from the National Organization of Law Enforcement Officers after hed delivered a lecture on the relationship between police, medicine, and the crime scene. Hed been tempted to sample it but had saved it to share with Harrigan; now he wasnt so sure it was the right thing to do.
Pete sipped, puffed on his pipe, breathed contentment. We had some interesting cases together, didnt we? Remember the ghost spots murder? The Adam Gardiner case?
Use that one to teach about blood spatter, Jake agreed. It was one of the first autopsies I watched you perform.
Gardiner had been found dead in his garage, naked, facedown in his own blood, a gash over his right eye. His body had more than a hundred red and brown bruises, some small, some large. There was blood in the house as well, smears and drops over the kitchen floor. The police thought it was murder. They shipped the body to Harrigan at the morgue.
But the gash on the head couldnt bleed that much, Harrigan went on. And the drops on the floor were evenly spaced. When I saw the blood spatter I knew. Gardiner had been walking slowly; there was no killer coming up behind him. The autopsy findings confirmed it. He had undiagnosed untreated tuberculosis that bled into his lungs; he couldnt breathe and was coughing blood. He was too drunk to call nine-one-one. The bruises were in different stages of healing, indicative of an alcoholic who keeps hitting edges of chairs and walls.
Fall-down drunk,
as the saying goes. Its how he got that gash over his eye: he fell. His death was natural. He killed himself by drinking.
This was the kind of talk Jake adored. He had some of it with Wally, but his assistant would need more experience to know its full pleasure. They never taught us in med school that when a person coughs up blood, it mixes with air and forms bubbles, he said. But you did. So the drops dry with clear centers, unlike blood drops from a cut. The bubble pops when it hits the ground. After it dries, the center appears pale as a ghost. Ghost spots.