Free Bare Bones by Kathy Reichs Page B
Authors: Kathy Reichs
speaking. From that point on, it’s dental breakdown.
Though the passenger’s enamel was either missing or too crumbly to evaluate, every viewable root was complete. I’d need X rays to observe those hidden in the sockets.
I returned to the cranial wreckage.
As with dentition, skul s come with some assembly required. At birth, the twenty-two bones are in place, but unglued. They meet along squiggly lines cal ed sutures. In adulthood, the squiggles fil in, until the vault forms a rigid sphere.
General y, the more birthday candles, the smoother the squiggles.
By stripping blackened scalp from the cranial fragments, I was able to view portions of suture from the crown, back, and base of the head.
The basilar squiggle was fused. Most others were open. Only the sagittal, which runs from front to back across the top of the head, showed any bony bridging.
Though vault closure is notoriously variable, this pattern suggested a young adult.
On to ancestry.
Race is a tough cal at any time. With a shattered skul it’s a bitch.
The upper third of one nasal bone remained in place on the large frontal fragment. Its slope downward from the midline was acute, giving the nasal bridge a high, angled shape, like a church steeple.
I swapped the piece of forehead for a chunk of midface.
The nasal opening was narrow, with a rol ed lower edge and a tiny spike at the midway point. The bone between the bottom of the nose and the upper-tooth row dropped straight down when viewed from the side. The cheekbones bal ooned out in wide, sweeping arcs.
The steepled nasal bridge, sharp inferior nasal border, and nonprojecting lower face suggested European ancestry.
The flaring zygomatics, or cheekbones, suggested Asian or Native American ancestry.
Great.
Back to the dentition.
Only one front tooth retained a partial crown. I turned it over. The back was slightly ridged at the point where the enamel met the gum line.
I was staring at the incisor when Joe Hawkins poked his head through the door.
“You look stumped.”
I held out my hand.
“I’m not sure it’s shoveled, but there’s something weird there.”
Joe looked at the tooth.
“If you say so, Doc.”
Shoveling refers to a U-shaped rimming on the tongue side of the center four teeth. Shoveled incisors are usual y indicative of Asian or Native American ancestry.
I returned the tooth to the tray and requested X rays of the jaw fragments.
I checked the time. One-forty.
No wonder I was starving.
Stripping off gloves and mask, I washed with antibacterial soap and threw a lab coat over my scrubs. Then I went to my office and washed down a granola bar with a can of Diet Coke.
As I ate, I scanned my phone messages.
A journalist from theCharlotte Observer.
SkinnySlidel . Something about the Banks baby case.
Sheila Jansen. She’d cal ed early. The NTSB works hard.
The fourth pink slip caught my attention.
GenevaBanks.
I tried the Bankses’ number. No answer.
I tried Jansen.
Her voice mail invited a message.
I left one.
I stopped back into the main autopsy room. The passenger lay where the pilot had been, and Larabee had just made his second Y incision of the day.
I walked over and looked at the body. Though gender was clear, age and race were not. Those aspects would have to be determined skeletal y.
I explained the discrepancy in racial features. Larabee said he’d spotted nothing useful in the body.
I asked for the pubic symphyses, the portions of the pelvis where the two halves meet in front, and the sternal ends of the third through fifth ribs to tighten my age estimate. Larabee said he’d send them over.
Larabee told me he’d talked with Jansen. The NTSB investigator would be dropping by in the late afternoon. Neither Geneva Banks nor Skinny Slidel had phoned him.
When I returned to the stinky room, Hawkins had popped the dental X rays onto the light boxes.
The roots of the left canine and second molar, and of
Though the passenger’s enamel was either missing or too crumbly to evaluate, every viewable root was complete. I’d need X rays to observe those hidden in the sockets.
I returned to the cranial wreckage.
As with dentition, skul s come with some assembly required. At birth, the twenty-two bones are in place, but unglued. They meet along squiggly lines cal ed sutures. In adulthood, the squiggles fil in, until the vault forms a rigid sphere.
General y, the more birthday candles, the smoother the squiggles.
By stripping blackened scalp from the cranial fragments, I was able to view portions of suture from the crown, back, and base of the head.
The basilar squiggle was fused. Most others were open. Only the sagittal, which runs from front to back across the top of the head, showed any bony bridging.
Though vault closure is notoriously variable, this pattern suggested a young adult.
On to ancestry.
Race is a tough cal at any time. With a shattered skul it’s a bitch.
The upper third of one nasal bone remained in place on the large frontal fragment. Its slope downward from the midline was acute, giving the nasal bridge a high, angled shape, like a church steeple.
I swapped the piece of forehead for a chunk of midface.
The nasal opening was narrow, with a rol ed lower edge and a tiny spike at the midway point. The bone between the bottom of the nose and the upper-tooth row dropped straight down when viewed from the side. The cheekbones bal ooned out in wide, sweeping arcs.
The steepled nasal bridge, sharp inferior nasal border, and nonprojecting lower face suggested European ancestry.
The flaring zygomatics, or cheekbones, suggested Asian or Native American ancestry.
Great.
Back to the dentition.
Only one front tooth retained a partial crown. I turned it over. The back was slightly ridged at the point where the enamel met the gum line.
I was staring at the incisor when Joe Hawkins poked his head through the door.
“You look stumped.”
I held out my hand.
“I’m not sure it’s shoveled, but there’s something weird there.”
Joe looked at the tooth.
“If you say so, Doc.”
Shoveling refers to a U-shaped rimming on the tongue side of the center four teeth. Shoveled incisors are usual y indicative of Asian or Native American ancestry.
I returned the tooth to the tray and requested X rays of the jaw fragments.
I checked the time. One-forty.
No wonder I was starving.
Stripping off gloves and mask, I washed with antibacterial soap and threw a lab coat over my scrubs. Then I went to my office and washed down a granola bar with a can of Diet Coke.
As I ate, I scanned my phone messages.
A journalist from theCharlotte Observer.
SkinnySlidel . Something about the Banks baby case.
Sheila Jansen. She’d cal ed early. The NTSB works hard.
The fourth pink slip caught my attention.
GenevaBanks.
I tried the Bankses’ number. No answer.
I tried Jansen.
Her voice mail invited a message.
I left one.
I stopped back into the main autopsy room. The passenger lay where the pilot had been, and Larabee had just made his second Y incision of the day.
I walked over and looked at the body. Though gender was clear, age and race were not. Those aspects would have to be determined skeletal y.
I explained the discrepancy in racial features. Larabee said he’d spotted nothing useful in the body.
I asked for the pubic symphyses, the portions of the pelvis where the two halves meet in front, and the sternal ends of the third through fifth ribs to tighten my age estimate. Larabee said he’d send them over.
Larabee told me he’d talked with Jansen. The NTSB investigator would be dropping by in the late afternoon. Neither Geneva Banks nor Skinny Slidel had phoned him.
When I returned to the stinky room, Hawkins had popped the dental X rays onto the light boxes.
The roots of the left canine and second molar, and of
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