Break No Bones (4 page)

Though the news had hit Ryan in the old solar plexus, he'd embraced fatherhood and was trying hard. This visit to Nova Scotia was his latest foray into his daughter's world.

But Lily wasn't making her old man's task easy.

"One word," I said. "Patience."

"Roger that, wise one." Ryan knew I'd had run-ins with my own daughter, Katy.

"How long wil you stay in Halifax?"

"We'l see how it goes. I haven't given up on that idea of joining you if you're stil wiling to hang there awhile."

Oh, boy.

"That could be complicated. Pete just caled. He may be here for a day or two."

Ryan waited.

"He has business in Charleston, so Anne invited him. What could I say? It's Anne's house and the place has enough beds to accommodate the Colege of Cardinals."

"Beds or bedrooms?"

At times Ryan had the tact of a wrecking bal.

"Cal me tomorrow?" I closed the topic.

"Scrub your number from that men's-room wal?"

"You bet, sailor."

I was wired after talking to Pete and Ryan. Or maybe it was the unplanned power nap. I knew I wouldn't sleep.

Puling on shorts, I padded barefoot across the boardwalk. The tide was out, and the beach yawned fifty yards to the water's edge. A gazilion stars winked overhead.

Walking the surf, I let my thoughts roam.

Pete, my first love. My only love for over two decades.

Ryan, my first gamble since Pete's betrayal.

Katy, my wonderful, flighty, finaly-about-to-be-a-colege-graduate daughter.

But mostly, I pondered that sad grave on Dewees. Violent death is my job. I see it often, yet I never get used to it.

I have come to think of violence as a self-perpetuating mania of the power of the aggressive over those less strong. Friends ask how I can bear to do the work that I do. It is simple. I am committed to demolishing the maniacs before they demolish more innocents.

Violence wounds the body and it wounds the soul. Of the predator. Of the prey. Of the mourners. Of colective humanity. It diminishes us al.

In my view, death in anonymity is the ultimate insult to human dignity. To spend eternity under a Jane Doe plaque. To disappear nameless into an unmarked grave without those who care about you knowing that you have gone. That offends. While I cannot make the dead live again, I can reunite victims with their names, and give those left behind some measure of closure. In that way, I help the dead to speak, to say a final good-bye, and, sometimes, to say what took their lives.

I knew I would do what Emma was asking. Because of who I am. Because of what I feel. I would not walk away.

4

THE NEXT MORNING, I LAY IN BED STARING INTO THE BREACH OF the opening day. I had failed to lower the blinds, so I watched dawn tint the ocean, the dunes, and the deck outside Anne's sliding glass doors.

Closing my eyes, I thought about Ryan. His reaction had been predictable, meant to amuse. But I wondered what he'd say if he were here. If he'd seen the grave. And I regretted my annoyance with him. I missed him. We'd been apart for over a month.

I thought about Pete. Endearing, charming, adulterous Pete. I told myself I'd forgiven him. But had I? If not, why didn't I file for divorce and cut myself loose?

Lawyers and paperwork. But was that realy it?

I turned on my side and puled the quilt to my chin.

I thought about Emma. She'd be caling soon. What would I tel her?

I had no reason to refuse Emma's request. Sure, Charleston wasn't my turf. But Dan Jaffer would be out of the country for several more weeks. Anne was offering "Sea for Miles" for as long as I wanted. Ryan was in Nova Scotia, but had talked of possibly coming to Charleston. Katy was in Chile, doing a four-week course on Spanish literature.

I smiled. "Cervantes and Cerveza," my daughter had dubbed her summer program. Whatever the project, those last three credits would close out a BA six years in the making. Yes!

Back to Emma. Emma dilemma.

My students could transport the equipment to UNCC. I could complete their evaluations here and e-mail the grades. I could do the same with my site report for the state archaeologist.

Were cases piling up in Montreal? I could cal and find out.

What to do?

Easy one. Bagel and coffee.

Throwing back the covers, I dressed.

Quick toilette. Hair in a pony. Done.

That's probably what attracted me to archaeology. No makeup, no fluffing or mousseing. Every day is casual Friday. Less than casual.

While I worked the toaster, Mr. Coffee brewed. By now the sun was up, and the day was warming. Again, I headed outside.

I'm a news junkie. Gotta have it. When home, my morning begins with CNN and a paper.
Observer
in Charlotte.
Gazette
in Montreal.
NY Times
e-mail edition. When traveling, I fal back on
USA Today,
the local press, even tabloids if desperate.

There was no home delivery at "Sea for Miles." While eating, I perused a
Post and Courier
I'd purchased on Thursday but barely skimmed.

A family had died in a tenement blaze. Faulty wiring was being blamed.

A man was suing after finding an ear in his coleslaw at a fried chicken franchise. Police and health officials had discovered no missing ears among the workers involved in the restaurant's coleslaw supply chain. DNA testing was being done.

A man was missing, and authorities were seeking help from the public. Jimmie Ray Teal, forty-seven, left his brother's Jackson Street apartment around three on Monday, May 8, heading for a medical appointment. Teal hadn't been seen since.

My brain cels hoisted that little flag. Dewees Island?

No way. Teal had been breathing eleven days ago. The victim in our body bag hadn't drawn oxygen in at least two years.

I was down to the weekly neighborhood section when my mobile sounded. I checked the caler ID. Showtime.

Emma was a street fighter. She went straight for the kidneys.

"Do you want
them
to win?"

My beach-walk lecture to myself.

"When?" I asked.

"Nine tomorrow morning?"

"What's the address?"

I wrote it down.

Ten yards offshore, a pair of porpoises arced in and out of the sea, the morning sun glistening their backs a shiny blue-gray porcelain. I watched them nose up, then plunge, vanishing into a world I didn't know.

Draining my coffee, I wondered.

What unknown world was I about to enter?

===OO=OOO=OO===

The remainder of the day passed uneventfuly.

At the site, I explained to my students what had taken place folowing their departure the previous day. Then, while I logged last-minute photos and notes, they refiled open trenches. Together we cleaned shovels, trowels, brushes, and screens, returned our carts to the landings building, and boarded the
Aggie Gray
for her six o'clock crossing.

That evening, the group ate shrimp and oysters at the Boat House at Breach Inlet. After dinner, we reconvened on Anne's veranda for one final class meeting. The students reviewed what they'd done, and double-checked cataloging on al artifacts and bones. Around nine, they redistributed equipment among their vehicles, exchanged hugs, and were gone.

I suffered the usual post-colective experience letdown. Sure, I was relieved. Field school was concluded without any disasters of note, and now I could focus on Emma's skeleton. But the students' departure also left me feeling dismaly empty.

The kids could be exasperating, no question. The unending hubbub. The clowning. The inattention. But my students were also energizing, bursting with enthusiasm, and lousy with youth.

I sat a few moments, enveloped by the silence in Anne's milion-dolar home. Irrationaly, I felt the stilness as ominous, not calming.

Moving through the house, I extinguished lights, then climbed the stairs to my room. Opening the glass doors, I welcomed the sound of waves on sand.

===OO=OOO=OO===

By eight thirty the next morning, I was roler-coastering the Cooper River Bridge, a soaring postmodern structure linking Mount Pleasant and the offshore islands with By eight thirty the next morning, I was roler-coastering the Cooper River Bridge, a soaring postmodern structure linking Mount Pleasant and the offshore islands with Charleston proper. With its colossal struts and arching backbone, the thing always makes me think of an impressionistic triceratops, frozen in steel. The bridge rises so high above terra firma, Anne stil white-knuckles it every time she crosses.

MUSC is in the northwestern part of the Peninsula, halfway between the Citadel and the historic district. Continuing on Highway 17, I found Rutledge Avenue, then wound through campus to the parking deck Emma had indicated.

The sun warmed my neck and hair as I angled across Sabin Street to a massive brick building known simply as the main hospital. Folowing Emma's directions, I located the morgue entrance, climbed the ramp, and pressed a buzzer beside a rectangular speaker. In seconds a motor hummed, and one of two gray metal doors roled up.

Emma looked awful.

Her face was pale, her outfit rumpled. The bags under her eyes looked big enough to hold several changes of clothing.

"Hey," she said quietly.

"Hey." OK. It sounds odd. But that's how we Southerners greet.

"Are you al right?" I asked, taking one of Emma's hands in mine.

"Migraine."

"This can wait."

"I'm fine now."

Emma hit a button and the door ground down behind me.

"I'm not leaving town," I said. "We can do this when you feel better."

"I'm fine." Soft, but alowing not an inch of wiggle room.

Emma led me up another concrete ramp. Where the floor leveled, I could see two stainless steel compression doors that I guessed led to coolers. Ahead was a normal door, probably giving access to the more populated side of the hospital. ER. OB-GYN. ICU. Those working for life. We were on the flip side. The death side.

Emma chin-cocked one of the metal doors. "We're in here."

We crossed to it, and Emma puled the handle. Cold air whooshed over us, carrying the smel of refrigerated flesh and putrefaction.

The room measured approximately sixteen by twenty, and held a dozen gurneys with removable trays. On six were body bags, some bulging, some barely humped.

Emma chose a bag that looked piteously flat. Toeing the brake release, she wheeled the cart into the corridor as I held open the door of the room she had selected.

An elevator took us to an upper floor. Autopsy suites. Locker room. Doors leading to places I couldn't identify. Emma said little. I didn't bother her with questions.

As Emma and I changed from street clothes to scrubs, she explained that today would be my show. I was the anthropologist. She was the coroner. I would give orders. She would assist me. Later, she would incorporate my findings into a central case file with those of al other experts, and make a ruling.

Returning to the autopsy room, Emma double-checked paperwork, wrote the case number on an ID card, and shot photos of the unopened body bag. I booted my laptop and arranged work sheets on a clipboard.

"Case number?" I would use the Charleston County coroner's labeling system.

Emma held up the ID card. "I coded it 02, undetermined. It's coroner death two seventy-seven this year."

I entered CCC-2006020277 into my case form.

Emma spread a sheet over the autopsy table and set a screen over the sink. Then we tied plastic aprons behind our necks and waists, secured masks over our mouths, and gloved.

Emma unzipped the bag.

The hair was in one smal plastic container, the isolated teeth in another. I set them on the counter.

The skeleton was as I remembered, largely intact, with only a few vertebrae and the left tibia and femur connected by remnants of desiccated tissue. The disarticulated bones had been jumbled in transport.

We began by extracting al visible insect inclusions and placing them in vials. Then Emma and I cleaned the dirt as best we could from every bone, colecting it for later inspection. As we progressed, I arranged elements in anatomical order on the sheet.

By noon the painstaking process was done. Two tubs and four vials sat on the counter, and a skeleton lay on the table, hand and toe bones fanned like those of a specimen in a biosupply catalog.

We broke for a quick cafeteria lunch. Emma had a large Coke and Jel-O. I had chips and a very questionable tuna sandwich. We were back in the autopsy suite by one.

While I inventoried, identifying bones and separating right and left sides, Emma shot more photos. Then she disappeared with the skul, jaw, and isolated teeth to make dental X-rays.

I was turning my attention to gender when Emma reappeared. I suspected the victim was male, since most bones were large and carried robust muscle attachments.

"Ready for sex?" I asked.

"Got a headache."

Yep. I liked this woman.

Picking up a pelvic half, I pointed to the front.

"Pubic bone is chunky, its lower branch is thick, and the subpubic angle is more V than U." I turned the bone and ran my finger inside a holow below the broad pelvic blade. "Sciatic notch is narrow."

"You're thinking Y chromosome."

I nodded. "Let's see the cranium."

Emma handed it to me.

"Large brow ridges, blunt orbital borders." I rotated the skul. It had a large bump at the midline in back. "Occipital protuberance is large enough to require a zip code."

"Al boy"

"Oh, yeah." I noted "male" on my case form.

"Age?" Emma asked.

Generaly, the last of the molars appear during the late teens or early twenties, about the same time the skeleton is wrapping up its act. The final skeletal growth center to fuse is a little cap at the throat end of the colarbone. Combined, clavicular fusion and wisdom tooth eruption are good indicators of adulthood.

"Al the molars out?" I asked.

Emma nodded.

I picked up the colarbone.

"Medial epiphysis is fused." I lay the bone on the table. "So he's no kid."