Free Bare Bones by Kathy Reichs Page A

gone on this one. But most of the teeth are intact. Looks like he might have seen a dentist at some point in this mil ennium or the last.
    He definitely saw his tattoo artist. Check out the artwork.”

    Larabee offered the lens.

    The man’s lower back must have been protected from the flames by contact with the seat. Across it writhed the south end of a snake, taloned and winged. Red flames danced through the coils and around the edges of Mr. Serpent.

    “Recognize the design?” I asked.

    “No. But someone should.”

    “Guy looks white.”

    Larabee sponged upward on the tattoo. More snake emerged from the soot, like a message on a Burger King scratch-and-win. The skin between the scales was pasty white.

    “Yeah,” he agreed, “but check this out.”

    Snugging a hand under the pilot’s shoulder, Larabee eased the man up. I leaned in.

    Black patches clung to the man’s chest like tiny charred leeches.

    “That’s the same stuff that’s al over the passenger,” I said.

    Larabee let the pilot’s shoulder drop to the table.

    “Yep.”

    “Any idea what it is?” I asked.

    “Not a clue.”

    I told Larabee I’d be working in the other room.

    “Joe’s got the X rays up on the box,” he said.

    I opened a case file, changed to scrubs, got a smal cart, and walked to the cooler. When I pul ed the handle on the stainless-steel door, a malodorous whoosh of charred and refrigerated flesh blasted my nostrils.

    The gurneys were parked in two neat rows. Seven empty. Four occupied.

    I checked the tags on the body bag zippers.

    MCME 437–02.Ursusand company.

    MCME 415–02. Unknown black male. We cal ed him Bil y in recognition of the site of his discovery, off theBil y Graham Parkway . Bil y was a toothless old man who’d died under a blanket of newspapers, alone and unwanted. In three weeks no one had come forward to claim him. Larabee was giving Bil y until the end of the month.

    MCME 440–02. Earl Darnel Boggs. DOB 12/14/48. I assumed the unfortunate Mr. Boggs went with the lady in Joe Hawkins’s cubicle.

    MCME 439–02. Unknown. The passenger.

    I unzipped the pouch.

    The body was as I remembered, headless, charred, upper limbs curled into the pugilist pose. The hands were shriveled claws. There would be no prints on this one either.

    Hawkins had centered my plastic tubs in a clump above the passenger’s shoulders, as though trying to simulate the shattered head. Transferring the tubs, I rezipped the bag and wheeled the cart to the smal autopsy room.

    The X rays glowed black and white like the test patterns in the olden days of television. The second film showed two metal ic objects mingled with teeth and chunks of jaw. One object looked like a fleur-delis, the other likeOklahoma .

    Good. The passenger had also seen a dentist.

    I gloved, spread a sheet across the table, and emptied container two. It took several minutes to locate and remove the two loose dental restorations. After sealing those items in a vial, I picked out al jaw and tooth fragments, placed them on a tray, and set it aside.

    Then I turned to the skul .

    There would be no reconstruction for this guy. The fire damage was too severe.

    Teasing off charred flesh and flaky black gunk, I began working my way through the jigsaw puzzle of cranial architecture.

    A segment of frontal bone rol ed down into a pair of prominent brow ridges. Occipital pieces showed bulbous mastoids and the largest neck muscle attachment I’d ever seen. The back of the guy’s head must have bulged like a golf bal .

    The rear-seat passenger had definitely been male. Not that useful. Larabee would nail that during his post.

    On to age.

    Taking two steps to the right, I studied the tray of dental fragments.

    Like plants, teeth send roots into their sockets long after the crowns have sprouted through the gums. By twenty-five, the garden is in ful bloom, and the third molars, or wisdom teeth, are complete to their tips. That’s a wrap, dental y