the skin above the lip. ‘‘In a shorter nose, that part of the face is parallel to the plane of the face, but in a long nose it angles forward.’’
‘‘So this guy would have that characteristic,’’ said Neva.
‘‘I believe so. Look how far the tip of the nasal spine is from his maxilla—where his upper teeth are.’’
Neva nodded and reached out and touched the skull with her fingertips, along the spine and down the max illa. She stopped abruptly and drew her hand away. ‘‘This is one of the hanging victims, isn’t it? How did his bones get so clean?’’
‘‘Yes, he is one of the victims. The diener at the morgue cleans the bones after we take all the samples we need from the flesh.’’
‘‘What a job—I’d hate to have to do that.’’
‘‘He seems to enjoy it. Having the proper equip ment helps.’’
Neva laughed nervously. ‘‘But it has to be a mess.’’
‘‘Not a lot messier than dealing with his clothes— and you had to do that.’’
‘‘That’s true. Thank God for latex gloves.’’
‘‘And Febreze,’’ said Diane.
‘‘Oh, God, yes. When we got out of the woods, I had to spray myself down good with Febreze to kill the odor. You’d think the woods would be well ventilated.’’
‘‘Another feature that is a consequence of a large nasal spine like this one is nostrils that appear arched. That shape exposes a larger-than-normal portion of the inside of the nose—the surface of the septum.’’
‘‘Yeah, I’ve seen that in people.’’
Diane touched a point on the bridge of the nose directly between the eyes. ‘‘This is the nasion. It’s a craniometric point. Here just below the opening of the nose is the nasospinale. For physical anthropologists, the length of the nose is measured between these two points. However, the relative position of the bones as they are situated in the face determines how we per ceive the length of the nose.’’
Neva furrowed her brows, looking hard at the skull as Diane continued.
‘‘See how the bridge of the nose stands away from the face, forming a straight line from the forehead to the nose? It’s different from, say, mine.’’ Diane rubbed her finger across the nasal bone of the skull and then touched her own.
‘‘His is kind of like those Roman statues.’’
‘‘Exactly. That would make the nose look longer. In this kind of nose there is a perception that the nose is longer than it actually is because your eye sees the nose as starting at the forehead, rather than where the nose actually starts.’’
‘‘Okay, I see. What about people with a bump on their nose, like the mummy? What would the bone look like?’’
‘‘The nose is supported by bone and cartilage. You see the bone here in Green Doe’s skull, but the carti lage was destroyed by the cleaning of the bones. When a body decomposes, the cartilage decomposes— though more slowly than flesh. The bump on the nose in the mummy resulted when the supporting cartilage decomposed and collapsed following death, and the nose drooped, revealing the end of the nasal bone— making it look like a bump. The mummy wrappings have pressed the nose down so that the nasal bone has a prominence that it wouldn’t have had while he was alive. Looking at all the pictures of Egyptian mummies in our reference books, it’s easy to think that Egyptian pharaohs all had nose bumps—making them all look alike.’’
‘‘That’s funny. I did think that all those pharaohs had bumps on their noses.’’
‘‘Bet you thought they were old and lean, too.’’ Neva grinned. ‘‘Yes, I did.’’
‘‘In more modern skeletal remains, you can tell from the upward angle of the lower part of the nasal bone that some noses probably had a bump. A person can appear to have a bump on their nose if they have damaged the cartilage supporting the tip of the nose, like from an accident or just getting hit hard in the nose.’’
‘‘And that would show up in the skull?
‘‘Not necessarily. You might see a break in the nasal bone, but you wouldn’t know how the break mani fested itself. Is that more than you wanted to know about how to determine the shape of the nose from the skull?’’
‘‘No. This is good. I’ve seen all those nose types in people. It never occurred to me that it had anything to do with their bones. How about the eyes and lips?’’
‘‘Those are more of a problem. You know how far apart the eyes were because you have the sockets. But you don’t get much help beyond that. Information about gender and race helps, along with knowledge of the geometry of the face—like where the corners of the lips are in relation to the other features. And age plays a big part. As you get older the eyelids sag, the lip line isn’t as distinct. As I said, much of this is intuitive. You do the best you can with the informa tion you have. But you go as far as you can with the bones.’’
The phone on Diane’s desk rang, lighting up the in house line. Diane reached and pressed the speaker button.
‘‘Fallon, here.’’
‘‘Dr. Fallon, it’s Andie. I’ve been going through your E-mail, and there’s one that’s kind of strange.’’ ‘‘Strange? How?’’
‘‘I’ll read it to you. It says: ‘Sometimes the dead are guilty.’ ’’ Neva and Diane exchanged glances.
‘‘The dead are guilty? What does that mean?’’ asked Neva.
‘‘I don’t know. I’m going downstairs. You stay here and work with the software.’’
Diane left her lab and headed for the elevators. Andie was sitting at her desk when she entered the private
