Monday Mourning (19 page)

“One was quite short. One broke her arm.”

“If these people died in the fifties this is a waste of time.”

“Their families might disagree.”

“Any relatives will be scattered. Or dead.”

“These girls were stripped naked and buried in a basement.”

“If these girls were associated with Cataneo, they were probably hookers.”

Deep breath. The man is a troll.

“Yes, they may have been prostitutes, guilty of the sins of ignorance and need. They may have been runaways, guilty of the sins of poor judgment and bad luck. They may have been random innocents, yanked from their lives and guilty of nothing. Whoever they were, Monsieur Claudel, they deserve more than a forgotten grave in a moldy cellar. We could not help these girls when they died, but perhaps we can prevent others from joining them in the future.”

Now the pause was of Claudel’s making.

“You’ve said the skeletons show no signs of violence.”

I ignored this. “As we both discovered” — pause to let Claudel know that I knew of his visit — “that building presently belongs to Richard Cyr. As
I
discovered, the previous owner was Nick Cataneo, and Cataneo’s period of ownership comes damn close to one of the Carbon 14 ranges.”

The silence that followed was long and hostile.

“You do realize the number of hits this may produce?”

I did.

“I’ll reexamine the bones to see if there’s anything else I might possibly help you with.”

“That would be appropriate.”

Dial tone.

Over many years I’d come to think of Claudel as obstinate and rigid, rather than outright loathing his attitude. This case was threatening a reversal in that trend.

Quick trip downstairs for coffee.

Quick call to Anne suggesting lunch.

As feared, she begged off.

I told her about the Carbon 14 results.

“You have at it with your bones, Tempe. I’ll just hang here.”

“OK, but let me know if you change your mind. I’m flexible.”

When we’d disconnected, I cleared the two worktables and the side counter in the lab, and laid out each of the skeletons. I was examining the Dr. Energy girl’s tibia when Marc Bergeron appeared.

To say Bergeron is peculiar-looking is like saying fudge contains a wee bit of sugar. Standing six feet three, perpetually stooped, and weighing in on the downside of one sixty, Bergeron has all the grace and coordination of a wading stork.

Bergeron is Quebec’s forensic odontologist. For thirty years he has drilled and filled the living Monday through Thursday, and examined the teeth of the dead each Friday.

We exchanged greetings. I expressed surprise at seeing Bergeron at the lab on a Thursday.

“Family wedding. Tomorrow I must be in Ottawa.”

Bergeron walked to the closet, freed a lab coat from a hanger, and slipped into it. The coat hung on him like a bedsheet on an unstuffed scarecrow.

“Who are these folks?” Bergeron flapped a hand at the skeletons.

“Found in the basement of a pizzeria.”

“Reflection on the food?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Old?”

“All I know is that they died after 1950. Ideas?”

Bergeron adjusted his collar and fluffed his hair. It is extraordinary hair, white and frizzy, starting a mile north of his brows. Against all fashion logic, Bergeron lets it grow long enough to halo wildly around his head.

“Carbon 14 dates suggest death occurred either during the fifties or during the eighties and nineties.”

Bergeron stick-walked to a drawer, withdrew a penlight, picked up the Dr. Energy skull, and peered at the dentition.

“Very poor hygiene. You pulled a molar for sampling?”

I nodded.

“I assume you’d first requested X-rays.”

I unclipped a brown envelope from the LSJML-38426 case file, and slid ten small films onto the light box. Bergeron studied them, the dandelion hair electrified by the fluorescence.

“Besides extensive decay, there’s little of note. A slightly rotated upper right canine.” He tapped one X-ray with a bony finger.

“Age estimate?” I asked.

“Sixteen, maybe as old as eighteen.”

“That was my thought.”

Bergeron had shifted to LSJML-38428.

“That one was buried wrapped in a leather shroud.”

“Was this body autopsied?”

“What do you mean?” His question threw me.

“These cuts on her temporal bone. Could they have been made during retraction of the scalp?”

“I hadn’t considered that.”

Carrying the skull to the dissecting scope, I viewed the marks under low, then higher-power magnification. Bergeron continued along his train of thought.

“Perhaps these are old biological specimens or teaching skeletons. Perhaps someone kept them as curiosities, later lost interest, or decided possession was risky.”

I had considered that. It was not an uncommon scenario.

“There are no drilled holes, no wire fragments, no signs of chemical treatment or mechanical modification. The bones were not assembled for display purposes.”

Magnified, the temporal marks looked like broad V-shaped valleys. Some ran parallel to the ear opening, others were scattered at angles around it. Micro-chipping along the edges suggested the damage had occurred when the bone was dry and defleshed.

“These marks weren’t made by a scalpel. They’re too wide in cross section. Also, the alignment is more random than I’d expect as a result of an autopsy. I think they’re postmortem artifacts.”

An ill-formed thought tapped gently on a mental shoulder.

Why the V-shape? That’s not typical of abrasion damage.

“This one had considerably fewer dental problems.”

I looked up. Bergeron was at the second worktable, examining the jaw fragments belonging to LSJML-38427.

“The apicals are in the file.” I pointed at a yellow folder beside the bones.

Bergeron spread the dental X-rays on the light box.

“Could be a bit younger, I’d say fifteen to seventeen.”

“Do you see anything at all distinctive?”

Bergeron shook his head. The frizz wobbled.

Replacing the mandibular fragments of 38427, Bergeron moved back to 38428, picked up the skull, and aimed his penlight.

“There was something on this one…” Bergeron’s voice trailed off.

“What?”

Bergeron swapped the skull for the jaw, and aimed his beam at the lower dentition.

“Yes.”

Abandoning the scope, I joined him.

“What?”

“This should clarify the uncertainty on your dates.”

Bergeron handed me the skull and penlight.

“T
IP THE CRANIUM, THEN MOVE THE LIGHT BACK AND FORTH
over the molars.”

I did as Bergeron instructed.

“Do you see a glossiness in the folds of the enamel?”

I didn’t.

“Angle the beam.”

Bergeron was right. The shine was subtle but present, way down in the grooves.

“What is it?”

“If I’m not mistaken, the molars have been treated with a pit and fissure sealant.”

When I looked up, Bergeron was gangling his way to the scope. The man was definitely not poetry in motion.

“Sealant is a thin coating of plastic resin that’s applied to the chewing surface of a bicuspid or molar. It’s painted on as a liquid, and in roughly a minute it hardens to form a protective shield.”

“What’s the purpose?”

“To prevent occlusal caries. Tooth decay.”

Bergeron slipped the lower jaw of LSJML-38428 under the lens, peered through the eyepieces, and adjusted focus.

“Oui, madame.
That’s a sealant.”

Hope did a little moth-flutter in my chest.

“When did these sealants come into use?”

“The first commercially available sealants were marketed to dentists in the early 1970s. They’ve been in widespread use since the eighties.” Bergeron spoke without looking up.

The moth exploded into a hummingbird.

The girl in the leather shroud couldn’t have died in the fifties! By elimination, that jumped her to the late eighties!

I tried to keep my voice calm.

“How common are these sealants?”

“Unfortunately for forensic purposes, very. Most pediatric dentists recommend application once the permanent molars erupt. School-based programs have been under way in a majority of American states for at least twenty years. Canada’s a bit behind in that, but sealants have been very popular here since the mid-eighties.”

Bergeron clicked off the fiber-optic light.

“Didn’t help this young lady much.” He thrust his chin at Dr. Energy’s girl. “She’s got more decay than that one over there.”

“So she was seeing a dentist at one point, then quit caring for her teeth.”

“Typical pattern for runaways. The parents provide dental care while they’re growing up, then the kids hit the streets, their diets and hygiene go to hell, and their teeth suffer.”

“How old was she?”

Bergeron returned to the light table and examined the dental X-rays for 38428.

“A little older than the others. I’d give her eighteen to twenty-one.”

Again, Bergeron’s estimate was consistent with what I’d seen in the bones.

“Any evidence of sealant on the other two?”

Bergeron reexamined the teeth of 38426 and 38427. Neither had been treated.

“A pity there are no restorations on any of them. Let me know if there’s anything else I can help you with.”

“You’ve helped plenty.”

I flew to my office and dialed Claudel.

He and Charbonneau were tied up in an interview and couldn’t be disturbed. I left a message requesting they call me as quickly as possible.

Returning to my lab, I picked up a fractured segment of jaw that Bergeron had left beside the scope. As I was returning it to LSJML-38427, I noticed a tiny nick on the right mandibular condyle.

Back to the scope.

By angling the fiber-optic light across the bone, I found two more nicks on the ascending ramus, and a minuscule groove at the mandibular angle.

I checked the left portion of the mandible.

No nicks or grooves.

The skull.

No nicks or grooves.

One by one I examined the isolated shards broken from the right cheek and temporal bones.

The light picked out six superficial grooves, each roughly five millimeters in length, grouped in three sets of two.

Another shoulder tap from my hindbrain.

I increased the magnification.

The nicks and grooves, though clearly not natural, looked different from those on 38428. Though V-shaped, these were much narrower in cross section and cleaner at the edges.

Like marks left by a scalpel. In fresh bone.

I leaned back, thinking through what that could mean.

In my mind I reconstructed the skull fragments and articulated the jaw.

The cuts circled the ear opening.

What the hell had gone on?

Coincidence? Something more sinister?

I was about to reexamine the skull and mandible of Dr. Energy’s girl when I spotted Charbonneau through the window over the sink. Gesturing him to my office, I stripped off my gloves, washed, and crossed the hall.

Charbonneau had assumed his usual legs-splayed, shoulder-slumped position in the chair facing my desk. Today’s jacket was cranberry and as glossy as the dental sealant.

“Monsieur Claudel is meeting with the Nobel committee this morning?”

Charbonneau dipped his chin, rolled his eyes up, and raised both palms.

“What? I’m not cool enough? Luc really is busy.”

“Being fitted for another Ermenegildo Zegna?”

Charbonneau looked at me as though I’d spoken Etruscan.

“They make suits,” I said.

Charbonneau suppressed a grin. “He’s going through Cyr’s tenant list.”

“Really?” My brows shot up in surprise.

“Authier phoned.”

LaManche must have spoken with the chief coroner, who then ordered Claudel to get serious about the pizza basement case.

“Not a lot of jolliness in Authier’s message?”

“Luc is viewing the comments as suggested guidelines.”

I explained Bergeron’s discovery.

“Bergeron’s convinced it’s this sealant stuff?”

“Absolutely. I believe that’s what journalists call independent corroboration.”

“So at least one of the three died in the seventies or later.”

“Carbon 14 analysis bracketed this girl’s death in the fifties or in the eighties.”

“Guess we’re talking the eighties.”

“Guess we are.”

“The kid with the broken wrist?”

I nodded. “The skeleton wrapped in the leather shroud.”

“Son of a bitch.” Charbonneau pushed to his feet. “I’ll get her stats into the system right away.”

Charbonneau had barely cleared the door when the phone rang. It was Art Holliday, calling from Florida.

“You got the Carbon 14 report?”

“Yes, thank you. I appreciate your turning it around so quickly.”

“We aim to please. Listen, I may have something else for you.”

I’d forgotten Holliday’s offer to perform additional testing.

“For prosecutorial purposes, strontium isotope analysis is still experimental. But we have applied the technique to forensic questions. In one case, we nailed the point of origin of six white-tail deer. Used the antlers. Course, we knew the animals had to have come from one of two states, so we had isotopically distinct geographic localities from which to measure control groups. That made the job easier.”

Over the years I’ve learned that it is impossible to hurry Art Holliday. You go with the flow, half listen to the buildup, and focus on the conclusions.

“We’re getting good results looking at immigration and settlement patterns with ancient populations.”

That rang an archaeological bell.

“Yours is the group analyzing the pueblo materials from Arizona?’

“Thirteenth- and fourteenth-century burials. Construction and occupation of some of the grander pueblos spanned many generations. Hundreds of people occupied them, probably a mixture of longtime residents and immigrants from outside. We’re trying to sort that out.”

“Strontium isotope analysis can separate newcomers from lifelong inhabitants of a place?”