And Claudel would be here in less than four hours.
Having begun the day down, my mood was descending by the moment.
I continued on to room four. My room. A room specially ventilated for decomps, floaters, mummified corpses, and other aromatics.
As do the others, room four has double doors leading to a morgue bay. The bay is lined with refrigerated compartments, each housing a double-decker gurney.
Tossing my clipboard onto the counter, I pulled a plastic apron from one drawer, gloves and mask from another, donned them, snagged a small metal cart from the corridor, and pushed backward through the double doors.
Bed count.
Six white cards. One red sticker.
Six in residence, one HIV positive.
I located those cards with my initials. LSJML-38426. LSJML-38427. LSJML-38428.
Normally, I would have taken the cases sequentially, fully analyzing one before beginning another. But Detective Delightful was due at one-thirty. Anticipating Claudel’s impatience, I decided to abandon protocol, and do a quick age-sex assessment of each set of remains.
It was a mistake I would later regret.
Moving from one stainless steel door to a second, then a third, I selected the same bones I’d viewed in the pizza parlor basement, and wheeled them to room four.
After jotting the relevant information onto a case form, I began with 38426, the bones from Dr. Energy’s crate.
First the skull.
Gracile muscle attachments. Rounded occiput. Small mastoids. Smooth supraorbital ridges ending in sharp orbital borders.
I switched to a pelvic bone.
Broad, flaring hip blades. Elongated pubic portion with a tiny, elevated ridge coursing across the belly side. Obtuse subpubic angle. Wide sciatic notch.
I checked off these features on the “gender evaluation” page, and penned my conclusion.
Female.
Flipping to the “age evaluation” section, I noted that the basilar suture, the gap between the occipital and sphenoid bones at the base of the skull, had recently fused. That told me the girl was probably in her mid to late teens.
Back to the pelvis.
Throughout childhood, each pelvic half is composed of three separate elements, the ilium, the ischium, and the pubis. In early adolescence, these bones fuse within the hip socket.
This pelvis had seen puberty come and go.
I noted furrows running across the pubic symphyses, the faces where the two pelvic halves meet in front. I flipped the bone.
The superior border of the hip blade showed squiggles, indicating the absence of a finishing crescent of bone. Squiggles were also evident on the ischium, near the point at which the body is supported when sitting.
I felt the familiar cold creep into my belly. I would check the teeth and long bones, but all indicators supported my initial impression.
Dr. Energy’s stowaway was a girl who had died in her mid to late teens.
Replacing 38426 on the cart, I turned to the bones I’d selected from 38427. Then 38428.
The world retreated into a different dimension. Phones. Printers. Voices. Carts. All disappeared. Nothing existed but the fragile remains on my table.
I worked straight through lunch, my sense of sadness mounting with each observation.
I am often accused of feeling more warmth toward the dead than toward the living. The charge isn’t true. Yes, I grieve for those on my table. But I am also keenly aware of the sorrow visited on those left behind. This case was no exception. I felt great empathy for the families who had loved and lost these girls.
At exactly one thirty-four the phone shrilled. Lowering my mask, I crossed to the desk.
“Dr. Brennan.”
“You have finished?” Though he did not identify himself, I knew the voice.
“I have some preliminary information. Room four.”
“I am waiting in your office.”
Sure, Claudel. That’s fine with me. Make yourself at home.
“Would you like to observe what I’ve found?”
“That will not be necessary.”
