Cross Bones (14 page)

“What does it mean?”

“I’m seeing our odontologist this afternoon.”

There was a long, long pause. Then, “I want you to pul that molar and one or two others.”

“Why?”

“For DNA testing. I also want you to cut femoral segments. Is that a problem?”

“If Ferris and Lerner are right, these bones are almost two thousand years old.”

“It’s possible to extract mitochondrial DNA from old bone, right?”

“It’s possible. But then what? Forensic analysis is based on comparison, either to the victim’s own DNA, or to that of a family member. If mtDNAcould be extracted and amplified, to what would you compare it?”

Long Jake pause. Then, “New finds are unearthed every day. You never know what wil turn up, or what wil be relevant down the road. And I’ve got grant money specifical y earmarked for this type of thing. What about race?”

“What about it?”

“Wasn’t there a recent case where profilers said the perp was white and some lab predicted, correctly, that the guy was black?”

“You’re thinking of the Derrick Todd Lee case in Baton Rouge. That test relies on nuclear DNA.”

“Can’t nuclear DNA be extracted from ancient bone?”

“Some claim to have done it. There’s a growing field of study on aDNA.”

“aDNA?”

“Ancient DNA. Folks at Cambridge and Oxford are working on getting nuclear DNA from archaeological material. Here in Canada, there’s an institute cal ed the Paleo-DNA Laboratory in Thunder Bay.”

I remembered a recent article inThe American Journal of Human Genetics.

“A French group reported on nuclear and mitochondrial DNA from skeletons dug from a two-thousand-year-old necropolis in Mongolia. But Jake, even if you could get nuclear DNA, racial prediction is very limited.”

“How limited?”

“There’s a Florida company that offers a test that translates genetic markers into a prediction of likely racial mix. They claim they can predict the percentage present of Indo-European, Native American, East Asian, and sub-Saharan-African ancestry.”

“That’s it?”

“For now.”

“Not much help with the bones of an ancient Palestinian.”

“No,” I agreed.

I listened to another of Jake’s pauses.

“But either mito or nuclear DNA analysis might show whether that odd molar belonged to a different individual.”

“It’s a long shot.”

“But it might.”

“It might,” I conceded.

“Who does these tests?”

I told him.

“Visit your dentist, see what he says about the odd tooth. Then take samples. And cut enough bone for radiocarbon analysis, too.”

“The coroner’s not going to foot the bil ,” I said.

“I’l use my grant money.”

I was zipping my parka when Ryan came through the door.

What he told me sent my thoughts winging a one-eighty.

14

“MIRIAMFERRIS IS RELATED TOHERSHELKAPLAN?”

“Affinal tie.”

“Affinal.” I was having trouble wrapping my mind around Ryan’s statement.

“It’s a kinship term. Means linked by marriage.” Ryan gave his most boyish smile. “I use it in tribute to your anthropological past.”

I sketched a mental diagram of what he’d just said. “Miriam Ferris was married to Hershel Kaplan’s wife’s brother?”

“Former wife.”

“But Miriam denied knowing Kaplan,” I said.

“We asked about Kessler.”

“One of Kaplan’s known aliases.”

“Confusing, isn’t it?”

“If Kaplan was family, Miriam would have known him.”

“Presumably,” Ryan agreed.

“She’d have recognized him at the autopsy.”

“If she’d seen him.”

“You real y think Kaplan is Kessler?” I asked.

“You were reasonably convinced by the mug shot.” Ryan was looking at the box on my table.

“Is Kaplan’s wife’s brother stil alive?”

“Former wife. Before the divorce, Miriam’s husband would have been Kaplan’s brother-in-law. Anyway, the guy died of diabetic complications in ninety-five.”

“So Kaplan and his wife split, leaving him single. And Miriam’s husband died, leaving her single.”

“Yep. Ferris’s murder was a return engagement for the grieving widow. You’d think she’d be better at it. What’s in the box?”

“I’m taking Morissonneau’s skul to Bergeron for an opinion on the teeth.”

“His patients should love that.”

Ryan pul ed his lips back in a ghoulish grimace.

I rol ed my eyes.

“When did Miriam tie the knot with Avram Ferris?” I asked.

“Ninety-seven.”

“Pretty quick after her first husband’s death.”

“Some widows bounce right back.”

Miriam didn’t strike me as a bouncer, but I kept the thought to myself.

“How long has Kaplan been divorced?” I asked.

“The missus bailed during his second stretch at Bordeaux.”

“Ouch.”

“I checked Kaplan’s prison sheet. The guy caused no problems, appeared sincere in his desire to improve himself, got cut loose at half time.”

“So he has a parole officer?”

“Michael Hinson.”

“When was he released?”

“Two thousand and one. According to Hinson, Kaplan’s been a legit businessman ever since.”

“What business?”

“Guppies and guinea pigs.”

I raised a quizzical brow.

“Centre d’animaux Kaplan.”

“He has a pet store?”

Ryan nodded. “Owns the building. Guppies down, Kaplan up.”

“Does he stil meet with the PO?”

“Monthly. Been a model parolee.”

“Admirable.”

“Never missed a check-in until two weeks ago. He failed to cal or show up on February fourteenth.”

“The Monday fol owing the weekend Avram Ferris was shot.”

“Want to pet the Pomeranians?”

“Bergeron’s expecting me at one.”

Ryan looked at his watch.

“Meet you downstairs at two-thirty?”

“I’l bring a Milk-Bone.”

Bergeron’s office is at Place Vil e-Marie, a multitowered high-rise at the corner of René-Lévesque and University. He shares it with a partner named Bougainvil ier. I’d never met Bougainvil ier, but I always pictured a flowering vine with glasses.

After driving to the centre-vil e, I parked underground, and rode an elevator to the seventeenth floor.

Bergeron was with a patient, so I settled in the waiting room, box at my feet. A large woman sat opposite, thumbing a copy ofChâtelaine. When I reached for a magazine, she looked up and smiled. She needed a dentist.

Five minutes after my arrival, theChâtelaine woman was invited into the inner sanctum. I suspected she’d be there awhile.

Moments later a man exited the inner sanctum. His jacket was off and his tie was loose. He was moving fast.

Bergeron appeared and led me to his office. A high whining emanated from down the hal . I pictured theChâtelaine woman. I pictured the plant inThe Little Shop of Horrors.

As I unpacked my box, I sketched some background for Bergeron. He listened, bony arms crossed on bony chest, white frizz luminous in the window light.

When I’d finished Bergeron took the skul and examined the upper teeth. He examined the jaw. He articulated the jaw and studied the molar occlusion.

Bergeron held out a hand. I placed the tiny brown envelope in it.

Clicking on a light box, Bergeron arranged the dental X-rays and leaned close. His hair haloed like a dandelion in the bright fluorescence.

Seconds passed. A ful minute.

“Mon Dieu,no question.” A skeletal finger tapped the second and third right upper molars. “Look at these pulp chambers and canals. This man was at least fifty. Probably older.”

The finger moved to the row’s first molar.

“There’s much less dentin deposition here. This tooth is unquestionably from a younger person.”

“How much younger?”

Bergeron straightened, pooched air through his lips. “Thirty-five. Maybe forty. No more.”

Bergeron returned to the skul .

“Minimal cusp wear. Probably the lower end of that range.”

“Can you tel when the molar was reinserted?”

Bergeron looked at me as though I’d asked him to calculate quadratic equations in his head.

“A rough estimate?” I amended.

“The glue is yel owed and flaking.”

“Wait.” I raised a palm. “You’re saying the tooth’s glued in?”

“Yes.”

“So it wasn’t reinserted two thousand years back?”

“Definitely not. Maybe a few decades back.”

“In the sixties?”

“Very possible.”

Option B or C, insertion during Yadin’s excavation, or at the Musée de l’Homme. My gut was stil going with the former.

“Would you mind extracting those three upper molars?”

“Not at al .”

Bergeron reboxed the skul and hurried from the office, his six-foot-three frame moving with al the grace of an ironing board.

I gathered the X-rays, wondering if I was making a big deal over nothing. The odd tooth came from a younger individual. Someone stuck the thing into the wrong jaw. Maybe a volunteer digger. Maybe Haas. Maybe an unskil ed museum worker.

Down the hal , the whining continued.

There are myriad points at which errors of individuation can occur. Recovery. Transport. Sorting. Cleaning. Maybe the admixture took place in the cave.

Maybe in Haas’s lab. Maybe later at the museum in Paris.

Bergeron returned and handed me the box and a ziplock bag.

“Anything else you can tel me?” I asked.

“Whoever replaced that molar was a dental jackass.”

Le centre d’animaux Kaplan was a two-story glass-fronted store in a row of two- and three-story glass-fronted stores on rue Jean-Talon. Signs in the window offered Nutrience dog and cat foods, tropical fish, and a special on parakeets, cage included.

Two doors opened directly off the sidewalk, one wood, one glass. Chimes jangled as Ryan pushed through the latter.

The shop was crammed with odors and sounds. Tanks bubbled along one wal , birdcages lined another, their occupants ranging from the drab to the flamboyant. Beyond the fish I could see other representatives of the Linnaean hierarchy. Frogs. A coiled snake. A smal furry thing curled into a bal .

Up front were rabbits, kittens, a lizard with a wattle to rival my great aunt Minnie’s. Puppies dozed in cages. One stood, tail wagging, front paws pressed to the wire mesh. One gnawed a red rubber duck.

Paral el shelves shot the center of the store. A kid of about seventeen was sliding col ars onto hangers halfway down the side opposite the birds.

Hearing chimes, the kid turned, but didn’t speak.

“Bonjour,”Ryan said.

“Yo,” the kid said.

“Some help, please.”

Dropping his carton, the kid slouched toward us.

Ryan badged him.

“Cops?”

Ryan nodded.

“Cool.”

“Way cool. And you would be?”

“Bernie.”

Bernie was scrupulously adhering to his interpretation of gangsta chic. Low-slung jeans with knee-level crotch, shirt unbuttoned over a grungy T. He was way too skinny to make the look work. Everyone was.

“I’m Detective Ryan. This is Dr. Brennan.”

Bernie’s eyes slid to me. They were smal and dark and overset by brows that met in the middle. Bernie’d probably bought his share of Clearasil.

“We’re looking for Hershel Kaplan.”

“He’s not here.”

“Is Mr. Kaplan often away?”

Bernie raised one shoulder and cocked his head.

“Do you know where the gentleman is today?”

Bernie shrugged both shoulders.

“Are these questions too tough for you, Bernie?”

Bernie scraped hair from his forehead.

“Shal I start over?” Ryan’s voice could have frozen margaritas.

“Don’t bust my ass, man. I just work for the guy.”

A puppy began yapping. It wanted out.

“Listen careful y. Has Mr. Kaplan been here today?”

“I opened up.”

“Has he cal ed?”

“No.”

“Is Mr. Kaplan upstairs?”

“He’s on vacation, aw’right?” Bernie shifted weight from one leg to the other. There wasn’t much to shift.

“It would have been helpful if you’d said that at the outset, Bernie.”

Bernie looked at the floor.

“Do you know where Mr. Kaplan has gone?”

Bernie shook his head.

“When he’l be back?”

The head shake continued.

“There’s something wrong here, Bernie. I’m getting the feeling you don’t want to talk to me.”

Bernie kept eyeing the mud on his sneakers.

“This going to mess up that bonus Kaplan promised?”

“Look, I don’t know.” Bernie’s head came up. “Kaplan told me to keep the place running and not talk it up that he’d split.”

“When was that?”

“Maybe a week ago.”

“Do you have a key to Mr. Kaplan’s apartment?”

Bernie didn’t respond to that.

“You stil live at home, Bernie?”

“Yeah.” Wary.

“We could swing by, ask Mom to help clear this up.”

“Man.” Whiny.

“Bernie?”

“His key might be on the ring.”

Ryan turned to me.

“Do you smel gas?”

“Maybe.” I sniffed. I smel ed many things. “Yes, you could be right.”

“How about you, Bernie? You smel gas?”

“That’s the ferret.”

“Smel s like gas to me.” Ryan moved a few feet to his left, then to his right, nose working the air. “Yeah. Gas. Dangerous stuff.”

Ryan turned to Bernie.

“Would you like us to check it out?”

Bernie looked skeptical.

“Wouldn’t want to guess wrong with al these creatures depending on you,” Ryan said, the essence of reasonableness.

“Yeah. Sure, man.”

Bernie crossed to the counter and pul ed keys from below the register.

Ryan took the keys and turned to me.

“Citizen asked us to check out a gas leak.”

I gave a shrug that would have made Bernie proud.

Ryan and I exited the glass door, hooked a left, and reentered the building through the wooden door. A narrow staircase rose steeply to a second-floor landing.

We clumped up.

Ryan knocked. There was no answer. Ryan knocked again, harder.

“Police, Mr. Kaplan.”

No answer.