Bones to Ashes

Don’t act like an insecure adolescent, I told myself. Ryan’s busy. Concerned about his daughter. About a serial killer. About ear wax buildup. About the mustard spot on his tie.

I didn’t buy it.

6

I USE A HOME-RIGGED SYSTEM FOR CLEANING CADAVERS. ORIGINALLY designed for institutional cooking, the apparatus consists of water intake and discharge pipes, grease filtration gear, a compartmentalized boiling tank, and submersion baskets, the kind used to deep-fry potatoes or fish.

In the square baskets I simmer small body parts—dissected jaws, hands, feet, maybe a skull. In the large, rectangular ones I reduce the big stuff—long bones, rib cages, pelves—once defleshing has been done by morgue technicians. Heat water to just below boiling, add enzyme detergent to minimize grease, stir. The recipe’s a hit every time.

Unless the bones are too fragile, of course. Then it’s hand laundry all the way.

That morning the “cooker” was full to capacity. The Lac des Deux Montagnes corpse. Parts of Santangelo’s charred bed smoker. Geneviève Doucet.

Putrid, sodden flesh means quicker turn-around time. And Ryan’s floater had gone in first. Denis was removing those bones when I arrived following the morning staff meeting.

First, I opened the brown envelopes containing the Lac des Deux Montagnes scene and autopsy photos. One by one I worked from recovery through autopsy completion.

It was obvious why LaManche needed help. When dragged from the river, the body looked like a marionette wrapped in moss-colored Spam. No hair. No features. Large areas of flesh devoured by crabs and fish. I noted that the woman wore only one red sock.

I began constructing the requested portions of the biological profile. It took all morning. Though I’d left word to call the minute anything arrived from Rimouski, no one phoned or popped into my lab.

That no one included Ryan.

At lunch, I told LaManche what I was finding out about the Lac des Deux Montagnes woman. He told me that Théodore Doucet had undergone the first in his series of psychiatric interviews.

According to the doctor, Doucet was oblivious to the deaths of his wife and daughter. Delusional, he believed Dorothée and Geneviève had gone to church and would be home shortly to prepare supper. Doucet was being held at the Institut Philippe-Pinel, Montreal’s main legal psychiatric hospital.

Back in my lab, I found the fire victim’s pelvis and upper arm and leg bones spread out on a counter. Gloving, I transferred the remains to a second worktable and began my exam.

Though severely damaged, sufficient structure remained to confirm the gender as male. The pubic symphysis, coupled with advanced arthritis, suggested a skeletal age consistent with ninety-three.

Age and sex consistent. Orthopedic implant serial number a match. Known resident at the address. Known bed smoker. Good enough for me. Now it was up to the coroner. By three I’d completed my report and delivered it to the secretarial office for typing.

It isn’t protocol to notify me of a skeleton’s arrival. Normally, a case goes to one of the lab’s five pathologists, and via him or her, to me. But I’d asked for a heads-up on the bones Bradette was sending from Rimouski. On the chance they’d forgotten, I checked with morgue intake.

Nothing.

Geneviève Doucet’s were the third set of remains that had simmered overnight. Using long-handled tongs, I fished out her skull, pelvis, and several long bones, then spent an hour teasing off flesh. The stuff was resilient as gator hide, so I accomplished very little.

I was lowering Geneviève’s basket back into its compartment when my lab door opened. I turned.

Of course. Ryan has a knack for showing up when I’m looking bad. I waited for a crack about steam-lank hair and eau de poached flesh. He made none.

“Sorry I didn’t bring Charlie last night.”

“No problem.” I settled the stainless steel cover over the well and checked the temperature gage.

“Lily,” Ryan sort of explained.

“Nothing serious, I hope.” Backhanding hair from my face with a lab coat sleeve.

“I’ll come by tonight.” Ryan jabbed a thumb at the skeleton laid out behind me. “That my floater?”

“Yes.” I stepped to the table, holding wet, greasy gloves away from my body. “She’s young. Fifteen to eighteen. Mixed racial background.”

“Tell me about that.”

“Except for the front teeth, I’d have said she was white. Nasal opening is narrow and spiked at the bottom, nasal bridge is high, cheekbones aren’t especially flaring. But all eight incisors are shoveled.”

“Meaning?”

“There’s a high probability she’s part Asian or Native American.”

“First Nations?”

“Or Japanese, Chinese, Korean. You know, Asian?”

Ryan ignored the dig. “Show me.”

I rotated the woman’s skull so her upper dentition was visible. “Each of the four flat teeth in front has a raised border around its outer perimeter on the tongue surface.” Picking up the jaw, I indicated a similar raised ridge. “Same with the lowers.”

I set down the jaw.