Excavation

“Bob,” Joan said, “bring up a surface view of the facial bones first. Let’s see if we can pinpoint where this fellow came from.”

“You can determine that from just the skull?” the reporter asked.

Joan nodded, but did not turn from the computers. “The structure of the zygomatic arch, the brow, and the nasal bone are great markers for ancestry and race.”

“Here it comes,” Dr. Reynolds announced.

Henry turned from the window to look over Joan’s shoulder. A black-and-white image appeared on the monitor’s screen, a cross section of the mummy’s skull.

Joan slipped on a pair of reading glasses and squeaked her chair closer to the monitor. She leaned forward to study the image. “Bob, can you rotate it about thirty degrees?”

The radiologist nodded, chewing on a pencil. He tapped a few buttons, and the skull twisted slightly until it was staring them full in the face. Joan reached with a small ruler and made some measurements, frowning. She tapped the screen with a fingernail. “That shadow above the right orbit of the eye. Can we get a better look at it?”

A few keys were tapped and the image zoomed in closer. The radiologist removed the pencil from between his teeth. He whistled appreciatively.

“What is it?” Henry asked.

Joan turned and tilted her glasses down to peer over their rims at him. “A hole.” She tapped the glass indicating the triangular shadow on the plane of bone. “It’s not natural. Someone drilled into his skull. And from the lack of callus formation around the site, I’d guess the procedure was done shortly after his death.”

“Trepanning… skull drilling,” Henry said. “I’ve seen it before in other old skulls from around the world. But the most extensive and complicated were among the Incas. They were considered the most skilled surgeons at trepanning.” Henry allowed himself a glimmer of hope. If the skull had been bored, maybe he had uncovered a Peruvian Indian.

Joan must have read his thoughts. “I hate to dash your hopes, but trepanning or not, the mummy is definitely not of South American ancestry. It is clearly European.”

Henry could not find his voice for a few breaths. “Are… are you sure?”

She took off her glasses, settled them back in her pocket, and sighed softly, clearly well accustomed to passing on a dire diagnosis. “Yes. I’d say he came from Western Europe. I’d guess Portugal. And given enough time and more study, I could probably pinpoint even the exact province.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Henry.”

He recognized the sympathy in her eyes. With despair in his heart, he struggled to keep himself composed. He stared down at the Dominican cross in his hand. “He must have been captured by the Incas,” he finally said. “And eventually sacrificed to their gods atop Mount Arapa. If his blood was spilled on such a sacred site, European or not, they would have been forced to mummify his remains. It was probably why they left him his cross. Those who died on holy sites were honored, and it was taboo to rob their corpses of any valuables.”

The reporter had been hurriedly jotting notes, even though she had a tape recorder also monitoring their conversation. “It’ll make a good story.”

“Story, maybe… even a journal article or two…” Henry shrugged, attempting a weak smile.

“But not what you were hoping for,” Joan added.

“An intriguing oddity, nothing more. It sheds no new light on the Incas.”

“Perhaps your dig back in Peru will produce more intriguing finds,” the pathologist offered.

“There is that hope. My nephew and a few other grad students are delving into a temple ruin as we speak. Hopefully, they’ll have better news for me.”

“And you’ll let me know?” Joan asked with a smile. “You know I’ve been following your discoveries in both the National Geographic and Archaeology magazines.”

“You have?” Henry stood a little straighter.

“Yes, it’s all been very exciting.”

Henry’s smile grew wider. “I’ll definitely keep you updated.” And he meant it. There was a certain charm to this woman that Henry still found disarming. Add to that a generous figure that could not be completely hidden by her sterile lab coat. Henry found a slight blush heating his cheeks.

“Joan, you’d better come see this,” the radiologist said in a hushed voice. “Something’s wrong with the CT.”

Joan swung back to the monitor. “What is it?”

“I was just fiddling with some mid-sagittal views to judge bone density. But all the interior views just come back blank.” As Henry looked on, Dr. Reynolds flipped through a series of images, each a deeper slice through the interior of the skull. But each of the inner images was the same: a white blur on the monitor.

Joan touched the screen as if her fingers could make sense of the pictures. “I don’t understand. Let’s recalibrate and try again.”