Hawkins had centered my plastic tubs in a clump above the passenger’s shoulders, as though trying to simulate the shattered head. Transferring the tubs, I rezipped the bag and wheeled the cart to the small autopsy room.
The X rays glowed black and white like the test patterns in the olden days of television. The second film showed two metallic objects mingled with teeth and chunks of jaw. One object looked like a fleur-de-lis, the other like Oklahoma.
Good. The passenger had also seen a dentist.
I gloved, spread a sheet across the table, and emptied container two. It took several minutes to locate and remove the two loose dental restorations. After sealing those items in a vial, I picked out all jaw and tooth fragments, placed them on a tray, and set it aside.
Then I turned to the skull.
There would be no reconstruction for this guy. The fire damage was too severe.
Teasing off charred flesh and flaky black gunk, I began working my way through the jigsaw puzzle of cranial architecture.
A segment of frontal bone rolled down into a pair of prominent brow ridges. Occipital pieces showed bulbous mastoids and the largest neck muscle attachment I’d ever seen. The back of the guy’s head must have bulged like a golf ball.
The rear-seat passenger had definitely been male. Not that useful. Larabee would nail that during his post.
On to age.
Taking two steps to the right, I studied the tray of dental fragments.
Like plants, teeth send roots into their sockets long after the crowns have sprouted through the gums. By twenty-five, the garden is in full bloom, and the third molars, or wisdom teeth, are complete to their tips. That’s a wrap, dentally speaking. From that point on, it’s dental breakdown.
Though the passenger’s enamel was either missing or too crumbly to evaluate, every viewable root was complete. I’d need X rays to observe those hidden in the sockets.
I returned to the cranial wreckage.
As with dentition, skulls come with some assembly required. At birth, the twenty-two bones are in place, but unglued. They meet along squiggly lines called sutures. In adulthood, the squiggles fill in, until the vault forms a rigid sphere.
Generally, the more birthday candles, the smoother the squiggles.
By stripping blackened scalp from the cranial fragments, I was able to view portions of suture from the crown, back, and base of the head.
The basilar squiggle was fused. Most others were open. Only the sagittal, which runs from front to back across the top of the head, showed any bony bridging.
Though vault closure is notoriously variable, this pattern suggested a young adult.
On to ancestry.
Race is a tough call at any time. With a shattered skull it’s a bitch.
The upper third of one nasal bone remained in place on the large frontal fragment. Its slope downward from the midline was acute, giving the nasal bridge a high, angled shape, like a church steeple.
I swapped the piece of forehead for a chunk of midface.
The nasal opening was narrow, with a rolled lower edge and a tiny spike at the midway point. The bone between the bottom of the nose and the upper-tooth row dropped straight down when viewed from the side. The cheekbones ballooned out in wide, sweeping arcs.
The steepled nasal bridge, sharp inferior nasal border, and nonprojecting lower face suggested European ancestry.
The flaring zygomatics, or cheekbones, suggested Asian or Native American ancestry.
Great.
Back to the dentition.
Only one front tooth retained a partial crown. I turned it over. The back was slightly ridged at the point where the enamel met the gum line.
I was staring at the incisor when Joe Hawkins poked his head through the door.
“You look stumped.”
I held out my hand.
“I’m not sure it’s shoveled, but there’s something weird there.”
Joe looked at the tooth.
“If you say so, Doc.”
Shoveling refers to a U-shaped rimming on the tongue side of the center four teeth. Shoveled incisors are usually indicative of Asian or Native American ancestry.
I returned the tooth to the tray and requested X rays of the jaw fragments.
I checked the time. One-forty.
