Break No Bones (40 page)

"I suspect he's going to ponder that question frequently in the coming years." This time Gulet actualy did grin. "Marshal says he bought a bag of shels the day he murdered

"I suspect he's going to ponder that question frequently in the coming years." This time Gulet actualy did grin. "Marshal says he bought a bag of shels the day he murdered Wilie Helms. Was hoping to find something good among the assortment. Best as he can figure, one shel found its way into a cuff or pocket, maybe at the market, maybe while walking back to the clinic. That one ended up with Helms. He remembers viewing the shels under a scope, then leaving them in his desk drawer for a short time. He thinks the packaging must have been torn."

"So one shel drops from Marshal's clothing onto Helms's body. Another rols into a desk holow. Marshal doesn't notice either."

Gulet nodded. "Marshal was more shocked than anyone that those little buggers turned up. Had to do some fast thinking to weave shel planting into his Corey Daniels setup scenario."

"Foiled by a molusk," Pete said.

"Who dialed Cruikshank from Marshal's office?" I queried detail number two.

"O'Del Towery."

"The cleaning man?"

Gulet nodded. "Towery's slow, but he remembers because it was outside his ordinary routine. Says Marshal instructed him to use his office phone at a specified time. Said he was expecting a message and wouldn't be able to make the cal himself at that time. Told Towery that if no one answered, he should just hang up and give the slip with the number back to Marshal the next day. Marshal had an alibi elsewhere for that time. If problems arose, the cal would at least muddy the picture, at best throw suspicion on Daniels."

Silence.

Gulet's eyes dropped to his hands. "I understand Miz Rousseau's pretty sick."

"She is," I said. My mind wandered.

Emma had been running a fever when I'd visited on Thursday. That night, her temperature shot to 102, and the sweats, headache, and nausea became violent.

Suspecting infection, Russel had hospitalized Emma on Friday. I'd caled Sarah Purvis on Saturday morning. Though just home from Italy, Sarah had immediately set out for Charleston.

Before her sister's arrival, Emma and I had had plenty of time to talk. I described al that had happened since Thursday. She reported that the Berkeley County coroner had ruled Susie Ruth Aikman's death as natural. The old woman had died of a massive coronary.

Then Emma had told the strange tale of the cruise ship incident.

A male passenger died while at sea. When the ship anchored in Charleston, the man's widow authorized cremation, signed the paperwork, then left with the urn. Days later a woman appeared at Emma's office claiming to be the wife of the deceased and wanting the body. Documents showed that lady number two was, indeed, the missus.

Lawsuits were pending concerning disposition of the gentleman's ashes.

"This philandering cad had two women fighting over his remains, Tempe. He was one of the lucky ones." Emma swalowed. I could see that conversation was becoming an effort. "I'm dying, of course. We al know that."

Fighting a tremor in my chest, I'd tried to shush her. She continued to speak.

"My death wil not go unnoticed. I have people in my life. I'l be remembered, maybe even missed. But Marshal and Rodriguez preyed upon society's outcasts. Those dweling alone on the edge, those with no one to mourn their passing. Cookie Godine's disappearance wasn't even reported. Ditto for Helms and Montague. Thanks to you, Tempe, those bodies did not remain anonymous."

Unable to speak, I'd stroked Emma's hair, one gulping, heaving breath away from ful-out sobbing.

Gulet resumed speaking after his own brief reverie. "Doesn't seem right."

"No," I agreed. "It doesn't."

"She's a fine woman, and a true professional."

Gulet stood. I stood.

"Guess it's best not to question the good Lord's ways."

There seemed no reply to that, so I gave none.

"You did a crack-up job, Doc. I learned some things working with you.

Gulet held out a hand. Surprised, I shook it.

The last missing piece went from me to Gulet.

"The leak to Winborne didn't come from your office, Sheriff. At Emma's urging, Lee Anne Miler stirred the pot at the MUSC morgue. Winborne's informant was a second-year autopsy tech." Emma had also told me that on Saturday.

Gulet started to speak. I cut him off. If he was about to offer an apology for having accused me of sabotaging the investigation, I didn't want one.

"Was,"
I emphasized. "The gentleman is currently unemployed."

Gulet thought for a long moment, then turned to Pete.

"My best wishes to you, sir. Do you want to be kept informed as to charges against Lanyard? I expect he'l plead."

"This is your patch, Sheriff. What's acceptable to you and the DA is acceptable to me. When it's done, you might tel me the result, if you don't mind."

Gulet nodded. "I'l do that."

To me, "Seven A.M. Tuesday?"

"I'l be ready," I said.

DAWN BROKE WITH A COOL GRAY DRIZZLE THAT CONTINUED throughout the morning. The sky went from charcoal to slate to pearl, but the sun remained only a dul white smudge.

By eight we were on the back of Dewees Island, in a stand of maritime forest five yards in from the high-tide beach. An occasional gust whispered in the glistening wet leaves. Drops ticked the plastic sheeting as I exposed it with my trowel. Miler's boots squished as she circled, Nikon capturing the melancholy mural.

Gulet stood above me, face impassive, errant breezes puffing his nylon jacket. Marshal watched from a golf cart, manacled arms crossed, a deputy at his side.

Beyond the rain and the wind and the camera, there was a stilness about the scene that seemed fitting. Solemn and somber.

By noon Miler and I were able to free Cookie Godine from her makeshift grave. A mild stench rose, and milipedes skittered back toward darkness as we lifted the sad bundle and carried it to the waiting van.

In my peripheral vision, I noticed Marshal raise a hand to cover his nose and mouth.

===OO=OOO=OO===

Friday morning I rose at nine, put on a dark blue skirt and crisp white blouse, and drove to St. Michael's Episcopal. Leaving my car in the lot, I walked to the Old City Market, made a purchase, then returned to the church.

Inside, the crowd was larger than I'd expected. Emma's sister, Sarah Purvis, silent and pale. Sarah's husband and children. Gulet and a number of his staff. Lee Anne Miler and Emma's employees from the coroner's office. There were also several dozen people I didn't recognize.

I watched the mourners throughout the service, but didn't sing or join in the spoken prayers. I knew I'd weep if I dared open my mouth.

At the cemetery I stood back from the grave site, observing as the casket was lowered and the attendees filed by, each tossing down a handful of dirt. When the group had dispersed, I approached.

For several long moments I stood over the grave, tears streaming down my cheeks.

"I'm here to say good-bye, old friend." A tremor shook my chest. "You know you wil be missed."

With trembling hands, I dropped the bouquet of baby's breath and everlasting life onto Emma's coffin.

===OO=OOO=OO===

It is now Friday night, and I am lying alone in my too empty bed, aching with regret that Emma is gone. Tomorrow, I wil take Birdie and Boyd and return to Charlotte. I wil be sad to leave the Lowcountry. I wil miss the smel of pine, and seaweed, and salt. The ever-changing play of sunlight and moonlight on water.

In Charlotte, I wil help nurture Pete back to health. I could not do that for Emma, could not wil good cels into her body or drive out the
Staphylococcus
that finaly took her life. I wil stil think about my husband's unfaithfulness, and about my perplexing continued attachment to him. I wil try to separate those feelings from the feeling of tenderness engendered by the child who is as much him as she is me.

In a few weeks I wil pack my bags, drive to the airport, and board a flight to Canada. In Montreal, I wil pass through customs, then take a taxi to my condo in centre-vile.

The next day, I wil report to my lab. Ryan wil be eleven floors down. Who knows?

One thing I do know. Emma is right. Whatever the outcome, I am among the lucky. I have people in my life. People who love me.

FROM THE FORENSIC FILES OF DR. KATHY REICHS

At times I scratch my head in puzzlement. After years of obscurity, my field of endeavor is suddenly hot.

When I completed my grad studies, it was the rare cop or prosecutor who'd heard of forensic anthropology, and the rarer one who used it. My coleagues and I formed a tiny club, known to few, understood by fewer. Law-and-order professionals knew little about us. The general public knew nothing.

Awareness and utilization have increased over the years, but there are stil only a handful of board-certified practitioners in North America, consulting to law enforcement, coroners, and medical examiners. The military employs a platoon or so.

Suddenly, though, notoriety has overtaken us. Popular literature came first: Jeffery Deaver, Patricia Cornwel, Karin Slaughter, and, of course, Kathy Reichs. Then came television: The breakthrough forensic sleeper
C.S.I,
attracted milions of viewers, and forensic science was in the air. And on the air.
Cold Case. Without a Trace.
We'd had
Quincy
in the seventies, but pathology now dazzled.
Crossing Jordan. DaVinci's Inquest. Autopsy.
Al over the airways scientists were slicing and scoping and simulating and solving. And now there is
Bones.

Bones
is TV's newest forensic show and the nickname of the series' lead character, Temperance Brennan, the fictional forensic anthropologist I created ten years ago in my first book,
Déjà Dead.
In the series, Tempe is at an earlier point in her career, employed by the Jeffersonian Institute, and working with the FBI. And rightly so. The bureau was one of the first agencies to recognize the value of forensic anthropology, caling on Smithsonian scientists for help with skeletal questions way back at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Things were looser then, unstructured. Not so today. Forensic anthropology gained formal recognition in 1972, when the American Academy of Forensic Science created a Physical Anthropology section. The American Board of Forensic Anthropology was formed shortly thereafter.

Throughout the seventies, forensic anthropologists expanded their activities to the investigation of human rights abuses. Labs were set up and mass graves were unearthed in Argentina and Guatemala; later Rwanda, Kosovo, and elsewhere. Our role also grew in the arena of mass disaster recovery. We worked plane crashes, cemetery floods, bombings, the World Trade Center site, and most recently the tragedies of the tsunami and Hurricane Katrina.

Now, after decades of anonymity, we are stars. But the public remains confused concerning the labels. What's a pathologist? What's an anthropologist? What does forensics mean?

Pathologists are specialists who work with soft tissue. Anthropologists are specialists who work with bone. Freshly dead or relatively intact corpse: pathologist. Skeleton in a shalow grave, charred body in a barrel, bone fragments in a wood chipper, mummified baby in an attic trunk: anthropologist. Using skeletal indicators, forensic anthropologists address questions of identity, time and manner of death, and postmortem treatment of the corpse. "Forensics" is the application of scientific findings to legal questions.

And no one works alone. While TV glamorizes the individual heroics of the lone scientist or detective, real police work involves the participation of many. A pathologist may analyze the organs and brain, an entomologist the insects, an odontologist the teeth and dental records, a molecular biologist the DNA, and a balistics expert the bulets and casings, while the forensic anthropologist pores over the bones. Numerous players place pieces in the jigsaw puzzle until a picture emerges.

My training was in archaeology, with a specialty in skeletal biology. I first found my way into forensic anthropology through a request for help in a child homicide investigation. The tiny bones were identified. A five year old girl, kidnapped, murdered, and dumped in a forest near Charlotte, North Carolina. The kiler was never found. The injustice and brutality of that case changed my life. A little girl's life cut short with vicious indifference. Abandoning ancient bones for those of the recent dead, I switched to forensics and never looked back.

I like to think that my own novels played some smal part in raising awareness of forensic anthropology. Through my fictional character, Temperance Brennan, I offer readers a peek into my own cases and experiences.
Déjà Dead
is based on my first serial murder investigation.
Death du jour
derives from work I performed for the Catholic Church, and from the mass murder-suicides that took place within the Solar Temple cult.
Deadly Decisions
stems from the many bones that came to me thanks to les Hels Angels du Quebec.
Fatal Voyage
is based on my disaster recovery work.
Grave Secrets
was inspired by my participation in the exhumation of a Guatemalan mass grave.

Bare Bones
sprang from moose remains I examined for wildlife agents.
Monday Mourning
grew from three skeletons discovered in a pizza parlor basement.
Cross Bones
draws on my visit to Israel, weaving strangely unreported Masada bones, a burial box purported to be that of Jesus' brother James, and a recently looted first-century tomb into a modern murder plot.

Break No Bones
is a bit of a departure from my usual modus operandi in that the story arises not from a single or a pair of cases but from disparate professional encounters and experiences. Prehistoric burial sites excavated early in my career. An archaeological field school taught at UNCC. A coroner case hand-carried to me in a large plastic tub.