“And that means?”
“It means young.”
“How young?”
“Probably late teens.”
He straightened.
The cranial series began halfway down the third stack. As I viewed image after image, my gut curled tighter than it had in the septic tank. Xicay had shot down on the skull from at least six feet away. Mud, shadow, and distance obscured every feature. Even the magnifier didn’t help.
Discouraged, I finished envelope three and moved on. One by one, body parts spread across the sheet. Fusing growth caps on several long bones supported the age range suggested by the ulna.
Xicay had taken at least a half dozen shots of the pelvis. Soft tissue held the three parts together, allowing me to note a heart-shaped inlet. The pubic bones were long, and met above an obtuse sub-pubic angle.
I flipped to the side views.
Broad, shallow sciatic notch.
“Female,” I said to no one in particular.
“Show me.” Galiano returned to my desk.
Spreading the photos, I explained each feature. Galiano listened in silence.
As I was gathering the prints, my eye picked out several oddshaped flecks on the belly side of the right iliac blade. I pulled the image to me and raised and lowered my lens above it. Galiano watched.
Tooth fragments? Vegetation? Gravel? The tiny particles looked familiar, but try as I might, I couldn’t identify them.
“What is it?” Galiano.
“I’m not sure. Maybe just debris.”
I returned the photos to their envelope, and shook out another set.
Foot bones. Hand bones. Ribs.
Galiano was paged to his office. The two detectives plugged away at their boards.
Sternum. Vertebrae.
Galiano returned.
“Where the hell is Hernandez?”
No answer. I imagined two shrugs behind me.
My spine ached. I raised my arms, stretched backward, then to each side.
When I resumed my perusal, a miracle.
While I was overseeing evacuation of the tank, Xicay had returned to the skull. The last series of photographs showed top, bottom, side, and front views, taken from approximately one foot away. Despite the muck, I could see plenty.
“These are good.”
Galiano was immediately at my elbow. I pointed out features on the facial view.
“Rounded orbits, broad cheeks.”
I shifted to a shot of the skull base, and indicated the zygomatics.
“See how the cheekbones flare out?”
Galiano nodded.
“The skull is short from front to back, broad from side to side.”
“Sort of globular.”
“Well put.” I tapped the upper palate. “Parabolic shape. Too bad the front teeth are missing.”
“Why?”
“Shoveled incisors can indicate race.”
“Shoveled?”
“Scooped-out enamel on the tongue side, with a raised border around the edge. Kind of like a shovel.”
I exchanged the basal view for a side view, and noted a low nasal bridge and straight facial profile.
“What’s your thinking?” Galiano asked.
“Mongoloid,” I said, thinking back to my last fleeting view at the scene and correlating that impression with the photos in front of me.
He looked blank.
