recent one at that, involves this same village of Teotitlan and this same Chief Sandoval of yours. I was looking at it only this morning.”
“Yes, he was telling me about it.” Gideon hesitated. “I can’t say he was too happy with the way the police ran things then. He’s petrified at the idea of going through it again.”
Marmolejo nodded. “I’ve been going over it, and I can’t say that I’m too happy with it either. And as you might guess, it is a case that disturbs me deeply.”
“It does? Why?”
Marmolejo scowled. The question surprised him. “Why? A young girl, an innocent barely into her teenage years, murdered after God knows what was done to her, her body callously thrown down a mine shaft and left for the worms? An investigation ended after a single month, with the child never identified, with no one charged, no credible suspects named? How can I not be disturbed?”
“I see. I didn’t know she was so young.”
“Yes, only thirteen or fourteen. Or so the forensic report concluded. The remains had been there for some time, you see. They were skeletonized.”
“It was a skeleton?” Again Gideon hesitated, not wanting to give offense. But being Gideon, he was interested. “Um, are you sure it was a girl? I mean, when you’re dealing with someone as young as that, determining sex from the skeleton can be tricky.”
“Can it?” Marmolejo asked. “I didn’t realize.”
“More than tricky, really. You see, if the secondary sexual characteristics-the ones on the outside-haven’t fully developed yet, the skeletal indicators aren’t all that reliable either. In fact, until you get to eighteen or so, you’re on pretty thin ice when it comes to sex. I mean, a competent anthropologist might be maybe sixty or seventy percent confident, but that’s not good enough to be much use in an investigation, and it’s sure not good enough to go into court with.”
“You don’t think so? If all my leads had a sixty or seventy percent chance of proving accurate, I would be a happy man. And a far more successful policeman.”
“Not when it comes to sexing a skeleton. Look at it this way. sixty percent right means forty percent wrong. But there are only two sexes to begin with, so you can do damn near as well flipping a coin, and it’s a whole lot less work.”
“Yes, I see your point.” Marmolejo considered. “This interests me. Would you be interested in seeing the report for yourself?”
“If you think I might be able to help, sure.” Or even if not.
“Good.” Marmolejo went to the door. “Alejandro, can you put aside what you’re doing and translate something for Professor Oliver, please? The forensic report on the unidentified child from Teotitlan del Valle. And bring me the entire file.”
As he returned, Gideon was struck all over again by what a truly tiny man Marmolejo was. Standing no more than five-two in his ridiculously small, well-cared-for oxfords, and dressed in guayabera and neatly pressed, light blue trousers, he seemed as improbable a cop as Sandoval. But Gideon knew better. Marmolejo was quick-witted, astute, and thorough, with an enviable intuitiveness, a kind of outside-the-box sixth sense that Gideon liked to think had something to do with the mystical teachings of his Mayan heritage-or rather that he would have thought, had he not been the thoroughgoing rational empiricist that of course he was.
“The new case you’ve brought is interesting too,” Marmolejo said, sitting down. His toes-but not his heels- touched the floor. “A Phillips-head screwdriver? An unusual weapon, wouldn’t you say?”
“First time I’ve ever run into it myself. But there was a report on something similar in one of the journals not long ago. Otherwise, I’m not sure I would have realized what I was looking at.”
“And what do you surmise from it?”
“From the fact that it was a Phillips-head screwdriver? Nothing. Well, no, not quite nothing. I think we can assume that it was unpremeditated, a crime of passion, a spur-of-the-moment thing.”
“On the grounds that a killer planning murder would hardly bring along a screwdriver as his weapon of choice?”
“Right. Listen, Javier, do you think there might be a connection between the two killings? I mean, two dead bodies found in the space of a year near a town that hadn’t had a murder in fifty years…”
“Oh, no, I shouldn’t think so. I understand the man, Garcia, was killed only six months ago. The little girl was found a year ago, and it was estimated that her body had been there for five years.”
“Ah, I didn’t know that either.”
Corporal Vela returned with the translated report and handed it to Gideon. “I’m sorry, this was not easy for me. English to Spanish, I can do this. Spanish to English-not so good. Also, there was some words, scientific words I did not know to translate. I leave them in Spanish.”
“I’m sure it’ll be okay; a lot better than I could do,” Gideon said. It was the syntax of the original, not the technical vocabulary, that would have been likely to give Vela trouble. Scientific terms, inasmuch as they were mostly Latin or derived from Latin, were pretty interchangeable from language to language. While Marmolejo began to go through the case file, he settled back to read. There was only three-quarters of a page, not much more than he had written on Garcia.
Examination of skeleton remains, Case Number 08-Teo dVl, conducted 23 May 2008, by Dr. Gerardo Puente Orihuela, forensic physician, Oaxaca ministerial police. These remains was previously examined by Dr. Bustamente, medico legista, Tlacolula District. Remains are very partial and was too much chewing by animales.
Bones Present:
The craneo and the mandibula, the right clavicula, the right pelvis bone, the left leg bones, numerous bones of the hands or feet, and some tooths.
Time Since the Death:
I estimate that these bones are since five years exposed.
Condiciones patologicas:
None
Trauma:
The craneo is muchly broken into pieces. Frontal bone, zigomatico, maxilar bone all are broke. My conclusion is these breakings are from the fuerza despuntada at the time of the death and that they directly caused or contributed to the death.
Gideon looked up. “ Fuerza despuntada -that would be ‘blunt force’?”
“Blunt force,” Marmolejo agreed.
Gideon nodded. It was impossible to say without more detail, or without having seen the bones for himself, whether or not the doctor’s conclusion was accurate. Conceivably, the damage could have occurred through some kind of accident after death, or could have been due to carnivore foraging. But on the face of it, perimortem blunt force trauma as the cause of death-murder, in other words-certainly seemed like a good bet when you took the context (a body presumably flung down a mine shaft) into consideration. So far, he had no dispute with Dr. Orihuela.
Years:
Was determined from the status of epifisis closings as well as erupcion of the tooths. The second muelas was present, but not the third, indicating the age of more than twelve years.
“ Muelas?” Gideon asked. “Molars?”
“Molar teeth, yes,” said Marmolejo.
“Mm.” Gideon went back to reading.
Certain epifisis of the bones has begun to connect but not yet completed. Other ones are completed. This condition indicates the presence of more than twelve years but not so many as sixteen years. Therefore, I estimate this individual person had thirteen to fifteen years.
Thirteen to fifteen seemed perhaps a little overly specific coming from someone not trained in physical anthropology, but it was also evident that the doctor had some grounding in developmental osteology and dentition, so one could probably assume that he was at least roughly in the ballpark. But the next entry, the last, gave him pause.
