18
THE REST OF THAT DAY WAS DEVOTED TO THE OKA WOMAN.
Four hours with the bones revealed no further indignities to her person. No cut marks. No stab wounds. No bullet holes. No postcranial trauma of any kind.
The skull fracture, however, was a doozy.
When I surfaced at five, it had been dark for an hour. No new Demande d’expertise en anthropologie form lay on my desk. There were no urgent phone messages from cops or prosecutors. No update from Ryan.
Zipped, mufflered, booted, and gloved, I headed out.
The snow mounding curbs and sidewalks had already turned black. Along my route to the metro, aggravated drivers herniated themselves disinterring their cars. Exhaust fumes glowed red against a backdrop of traffic-stalled taillights. Salt crunching underfoot, I congratulated myself on my choice of mass transit.
Without Birdie or Charlie, my condo seemed dark and empty. For company, I popped in a Dorothee Berryman CD. Singing duets with Dorothee as she covered tunes by Mercer, Vaughan, and Fitzgerald, I whipped up a concoction of linguini, pine nuts, tomatoes, and feta. It wasn’t bad.
After supper, I logged onto the Net.
Few things have improved my life more in recent years than the reinstatement of US Airway’s incredibly fabulous direct nonstop service between La Belle Ville and the Queen City.
Good-bye, connection in Philadelphia! Hello, luggage in Charlotte!
Within minutes, I’d booked a seat on Thursday morning’s flight. As I closed the laptop, my face wore a smile with the wingspan of a 747.
“Going home, going home, I’m a-going home.”
Dorothee did not begrudge me my solo.
Tuesday I was up at seven, in the lab by eight.
The morning’s autopsies included a worker crushed in a microbrewery and a bookkeeper who’d used timers and wrist leads to electrocute herself. Conscientious even in death, the lady had pinned a note to her sweater warning of potential hazard.
By ten, I’d drawn and photographed the Oka woman’s cranial trauma and composed my report. Then I photocopied my diagram and printed superior, lateral, and interior views of the skull.
After downing a mug of very bad coffee, I hiked downstairs to the Bureau du coroner.
Hubert was in his office. The day’s shirt was lavender, the tie still red and green. Candy canes and holly had replaced Monday’s tree and banner motif.
“She was struck once from behind, once after she was down.”
Hubert laid aside his pen.
Circling the desk, I placed the prints and diagram on his blotter. On each, I’d labeled the fractures alphabetically.
Using my finger, I traced a jagged break running from right to left across the back of the Oka skull.
“Letter
I indicated an indentation beside the sagittal suture at the top of the vault. A starburst of cracks spread from its center.
“Letter
“Caused by a blow to the crown.”
“Yes.”
A pudgy finger came down on an in-bending paralleling one side of the crush fracture. “
“I’ll come back to that. The letters
Hubert made a noise in his throat.
“Once formed, a crack will propagate until its energy is dissipated. In other words, when it hits an opening, it’s done. So fracture
Hubert got it. “The crown was hit after the parietal.”
“Exactly. The first blow may have been lethal, but the killer was taking no chances. After she fell, he blasted her again to make certain she wasn’t getting up.”
“With what?”
I indicated the edge of the depression fracture that had caught Hubert’s attention.
“The shape of the in-bending suggests a cylindrical object that widens into a flat surface with a raised central ridge.”
Hubert studied the image. The phone rang. He ignored it.
Finally, “
“That’s my take.”
Selecting the interior view, I pointed to dark staining adjacent to both fracture sites.
“Hemorrhage.” Taut. “Her heart was still pumping.”
I nodded agreement.
Hubert did not raise his eyes to mine.
“A helpless old woman is forced to walk naked and barefoot through the woods. To watch her grave dug. Then she’s bludgeoned with a shovel.”
“Yes,” I said.
“
Despite Hubert’s pessimism, I returned to the lab, cut a bone plug from the Oka woman’s femur, and delivered it to the DNA section. Then, with that case in limbo, I was free to focus on sniffing out Jurmain’s informant.
Since I was currently not topping Hubert’s hit parade, I decided to start with the case file. Perhaps somewhere in the minutiae of the investigation I’d find a clue to the identity of my accuser.
Dossiers are kept five years at the LSJML, then sent to a mountaintop in Mogadishu for permanent storage. Fortunately, Rose had disappeared only three years earlier.
After dropping my report in the secretarial office, I continued down the same side corridor to the library. Felicite Hernandez, a large woman with a penchant for Gypsy fashion and hair like Cher’s after the bleach job, greeted me. We exchanged pleasantries, accompanied by much clacking. Felicite likes her accessories large and dangly.
I requested the master file for LSJML-44893, then took a seat. Five minutes passed. Ten. Though pleasant and thorough, Felicite is not speedy.
Finally, a corrugated binder hit the counter. Saying
For the next two hours I returned to Sainte-Marguerite, L’Auberge des Neiges, the yellow-taped mound in the pines. I reviewed the findings of pathology, toxicology, odontology, and fiber experts. Police incident reports. Witness statements. Information provided by family members.
