Bones of the Lost(9)

Slidell twisted his mouth to one side.

“A white mark,” Larabee simplified. “After about ten hours the red blood cells and capillaries would have decomposed sufficiently so blanching wouldn’t have occurred.”

“And rigor’s when the stiff gets stiff.” Slidell pronounced it rigger.

Larabee nodded. “When the body arrived, rigor was complete in the small muscles, but not in the largest ones. Her jaws were locked, but I could still bend her knees and elbows.”

“So she died more than seven hours before she got here, but less than ten.” Slidell did the math in his head. It took a while. “Sometime between eleven and two.”

“It’s not a precise science,” Larabee said.

“What about stomach contents? Once you get her open?”

“Ninety-eight percent of her last meal would have left her stomach within six to eight hours of ingestion. With luck I might find some fragments, corn, maybe tomato skin, in a rugal fold in the gastric mucosa. I’ll let you know.”

“What about vitreous?” I was asking about fluid drawn from the eye. “Can you test for potassium?”

“I took a sample, but it won’t really narrow the range.”

“How close was she to the light rail?” I asked Slidell.

“She was on the shoulder, on the side opposite the railway.”

“How often do trains pass during those hours?”

“Last one runs by there just after one A.M. The next isn’t until five A.M.”

“What about metallic spray?” I asked Larabee. “Or oil. Did you find any deposits on her skin or hair?





“KILL THE LIGHTS, PLEASE.”

Slidell clumped to the wall, back to the table.

Larabee clicked on a small UV light and directed it toward the girl’s inner left thigh.

A scatter glowed blue-white on her skin.

Semen.

As Larabee slowly moved the beam, some stains fluoresced more intensely than others.

“Multiple donors?” I asked.

“We’ll need DNA to confirm,” Larabee said. “But that’s my impression.”

“We talking rape?” Slidell’s mouth was right at my ear.

“I found no vaginal tearing or abrasions. No sign of anal entry.”

“So we’re back to my first guess.” I heard Slidell straighten. “The kid was on the stroll.”

I bit back a response.

Larabee thumbed off his flash. “Get the switch?”

Slidell did.

“Think you can narrow the age estimate?” Larabee spoke to me as the fluorescents buzzed to life.

“Has Joe taken dentals?” I was referring to Joe Hawkins, most senior of the lab’s autopsy techs.

Larabee indicated a brown envelope lying on a countertop light box.

I crossed to it and poured the small black squares onto the box’s viewing plate. After pushing the on button, I arranged the films anatomically and studied the illuminated dentition.

“All four second molars are in occlusion, with the roots fully formed down to the tips. That puts her, minimally, above twelve. The third molars are unerupted and show little root development. I’m not an odontologist, but, dentally, I’d say she’s in the range of thirteen to seventeen.”

The men waited as I continued to study the X-rays.

“Left first molar’s got a mean abscess. Lots of caries, but not a single restoration.”

“No evidence she ever saw a dentist.” Larabee got my meaning.

“So I don’t bust my ass chasing dental records.” Slidell parked his hands on his hips. “An abscess. Wouldn’t that hurt like a sonofabitch?”

“People have different thresholds for pain,” Larabee said. “But yes, probably. What are you thinking?”

“Maybe she went to one of those free clinics. You know, looking for drugs or something.”

“Good idea, detective.”

Like a mail-order toy, the human skeleton comes with assembly required. Most bones are present at birth but lack the knobs, bumps, and borders that make them complete. Throughout infancy and adolescence, these fiddly bits, called epiphyses, appear and fuse to the shafts or main bony elements. The fusion takes place with age predictability.

I shifted my attention to the skeletal X-rays. More than a decade of working with me had made Joe Hawkins savvy to the exact views I needed. As usual, he’d nailed them.

I started with a plate showing the girl’s hand and arm bones. Slidell’s insistence she was a hooker had my nerves on edge. Knowing it would annoy him, I went all “jargony.” Petty, but I did.

“The distal radial epiphysis is in the process of fusion, the distal ulnar epiphysis has recently fused. The rest of the hand bones are complete.”