“Window fixed?”
“Yes.”
“I missed you this weekend.”
“Did you?”
“Your friend still there?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll talk when she’s gone.”
“Anne doesn’t bite.”
Long pause. Ryan broke it.
“Let me know what LaManche says. Page me if I’m out.”
Before launching into my analysis of the third skeleton, I made a detour to the main autopsy room. Pelletier had the first of the crack twins on table one. LaManche had Louise Parent on table two.
Parent had arrived wearing a granny gown. The long flannel nightie lay spread on the counter. Red roses on pink. Lace-trimmed yoke with tiny pearl buttons.
Flashbulb memory. Gran, shuffling to bed with her Dearfoam slippers and her chamomile tea.
My gaze shifted to the body.
Parent looked small and pitiful on the perforated steel. So alone. So dead.
Stab of sorrow.
I pushed it down.
LaManche gently twisted the dead woman’s head. Opened her jaw. Levered one shoulder. The wrinkled back and buttocks were purple with livor.
LaManche pushed a finger into the discolored flesh. The pressure point did not blanch.
LaManche allowed the body to resettle onto its back, then lifted a lifeless hand. Paper-thin peelings were loosening from the underlying dermis.
“Lividity is fixed. Rigor mortis has come and gone. Skin slippage has barely begun.”
As LaManche jotted his observations, my eyes roamed the geography of Parent’s corpse.
The woman’s muscles were withered, her hair gray, her skin pale to the point of translucence. Her shriveled breasts lay limp on her bony chest. Her belly was going green.
“How long do you think she’s been dead?” I asked.
“I see no marbling, no bloating, only minimal putrefaction. The house was warm, but not excessively hot. I will of course check her stomach contents and eye fluids, but at this point I’d say forty-eight to seventy-two hours.”
Another stab of pain.
I had blown this woman off on Wednesday. She had phoned me again on Thursday. LaManche’s estimate placed her death on Friday or Saturday.
I noticed a thin white line on her abdomen.
“Looks like she’s had some sort of surgery.”
LaManche was already sketching the scar onto a diagram.
My eyes moved to Parent’s face.
Both eyes were half open and covered with dark bands.
In death, the eyelid muscles relax, exposing the corneas, and allowing the epithelial tissue to dry.
I leaned in and inspected Parent’s teeth. Though worn, they were clean and only moderately discolored. The gums showed little swelling or resorption. Dental hygiene had been good.
I was straightening when my eye fell on something lodged between the right lateral incisor and canine. I drew closer.
Something was definitely there.
Digging a handheld lens from a drawer, I returned to the table.
Under magnification, details were clearer.
“Dr. LaManche,” I said. “Take a look at this.”
19
LAMANCHE CIRCLED THE TABLE AND I HANDED HIM THE LENS. He studied Parent’s dentition, then spoke without straightening.
“A feather.”
