Bones to Ashes

Mia was summoned and led to the spot. She alerted by sitting and barking once, sharply.

By noon I’d marked off a ten-foot square with stakes and string. Ryan and I started in with long-handled spades. Pasteur shot pics. Chenevier sifted.

Hippo stood to one side, mopping sweat and shifting from foot to foot. Now and then one hand would go into a pocket. The jangle of keys would join the click of Pasteur’s shutter and the hiss of soil trickling through mesh.

The barn floor was rich with organics, easy to dig, easy to sift.

By twelve-thirty we’d exposed an amoeba-like splotch visibly darker than the surrounding earth. Soil staining. A sign of decomposition.

Ryan and I switched to trowels and began scraping dirt, both anticipating and dreading what we’d find beneath the discoloration. Now and then our eyes would meet, drop back to the hollow we were creating.

The first bone turned up in the screen.

“Got something.” Chenevier’s voice cut the silence.

“Gaubine!” Hippo popped antacid.

Chenevier crossed to me and extended a hand.

Sitting back on my heels, I took what lay in his palm.

There are 206 bones in the adult human skeleton, all varying in size and shape. Singly, they yield few clues about a person’s life story. But together, like interlocking puzzle pieces, they say a lot. Age. Sex. Ancestry. Health. Habit. The more bones, the more is revealed.

Chenevier’s find, however, disclosed the jigsaw solo.

Slender and less than ten centimeters long, the bone looked like a pin that might be worn to keep a topknot in place. Thicker at one end, it tapered to a subtle knob on the other.

I looked up to eight curious eyes.

“It’s a baculum.”

Four blank stares.

“A bone found in the penis of most mammals. I’d guess this one comes from a large domestic dog.”

Still no one spoke.

“The os baculum aids in copulation when mating must take place during brief encounters.”

Pasteur cleared his throat.

“When animals have to perform quickly.” I adjusted my mask.

“Pour l’amour du bon Dieu!” Hippo’s expletive suggested the same emotions swirling in me. Relief. Bewilderment. Hope.

I handed the bone to Pasteur. As he photographed and bagged it, Ryan and I resumed digging.

By three, Grissom’s “victim” lay fully exposed. The snout was broad, the cranium rugged. Caudal vertebrae snaked between hind legs seemingly too short for the torso.

“Long tail.”

“Some kind of pit bull mix.”

“Maybe shepherd.”

The testosterone set seemed inordinately interested in the dog’s heritage. I couldn’t have cared less. I was sweaty, itchy, and desperate to shed my Tyvek coveralls. Designed to protect wearers from blood, chemicals, and toxic liquids, the things reduced air circulation and were hotter than hell.

“Whatever his breed, the guy was a player.” Pasteur held up the ziplock containing the dog’s penis bone. Chenevier raised a palm. Pasteur high-fived it.

Already the jokes had begun. I was glad I hadn’t told them that the os baculum is sometimes called a hillbilly toothpick. Or that best in show goes to the walrus, whose males occasionally reach thirty inches. It was going to be bad enough as it was.

During graduate school a fellow student had studied the os baculum of rhesus monkeys. Her name was Jeannie. Now professors and respected researchers, my old classmates still tease her about “Jeannie’s penies.”

By two the dog’s bones had been packaged and placed in the coroner van. Probably unnecessary, but better to err on the side of caution.

By six Ryan and I had taken the entire ten-foot square down twenty-four inches. Nothing had turned up in the pit or the screen. Chenevier had resurveyed the barn and surrounding field, and found no indications of additional subsurface disturbance.

Hippo approached as I was peeling off my coveralls.

“Sorry to drag you out here for nothing.”

“It’s the job, Hippo.” I was ecstatic to be out of the Tyvek. And relieved that we hadn’t unearthed Kelly Sicard.

“How long since Old Yeller strutted his stuff?”

“The bones are fleshless, odorless, and uniformly soil-stained. The only insect inclusions I found were dried puparial casings. Buried at that depth, inside the barn, I’d estimate the dog’s been dead at least two years. But my gut feeling says more.”

“Ten years?”

“Possibly.”

“Could have belonged to Grissom. Or Beaumont.”

Or Céline Dion, I thought.

Hippo looked off into the distance. Grime coated his lenses, making it hard to read the expression behind them. I suspected he was scripting a chitchat with his erstwhile informant.

“You want to hang around a few, I’ll give you a lift.”

I looked over at Ryan. He was talking on a cell phone. Behind him, heat shimmered mirage-like above the blacktop and the vehicles parked along it.

Catching Ryan’s eye, I gestured that I’d ride with Hippo. He flicked a wave, continued his conversation.

“Sure,” I said.

“I’ll fill you in on Luc Tiquet.”

I stared at Hippo.

“Sûreté du Québec, Rimouski? My buddy Gaston’s bones?”

“What’s his story?”

“I’ll tell you in the car.”