Free Death in Cold Water by Patricia Skalka Page B

slight man or a petite woman.”
    Cubiak winced. “You mean it could be from a child?”
    The medical examiner nodded. “Sadly, yes, or perhaps an adolescent.” Then she added, “But I hope not.”
    They avoided eye contact, Cubiak thinking of his daughter and suspecting that Pardy’s thoughts had gone to her two children.
    â€œYou think it was washed ashore?” she said after a moment.
    â€œPretty likely, yeah.”
    â€œDo you spend much time on the water?”
    â€œA bit.” Two years earlier, Cubiak had helped Evelyn Bathard, the retired coroner, refit an old wooden sailboat. The project took months and when they finished, Bathard had taught the sheriff to sail in return for his efforts.
    â€œIt can get pretty rough out there,” Pardy said.
    â€œI know.” Cubiak had never been caught in a storm but he’d heard harrowing stories from those who had. Nature’s immense power was impossible to ignore when sailing, and he knew an angry sea wouldn’t distinguish between gender or age. Cubiak found it difficult to imagine a child in that kind of danger, but of course it was possible. Children as well as adults were passengers on ships that went down. Before child labor laws were passed, countless young boys worked under harsh conditions aboard ships that regularly traversed the inland water system.
    Children drowned, too. Swimming accidents in summer. Falling through thin ice in late fall and early spring.
    Cubiak wondered how much of this the doctor was thinking as she set the bone back on her desk and slid into her chair. She was tall and sat erect, prompting Cubiak to straighten his shoulders.
    â€œYou ever been to a body farm?” she asked.
    He shook his head.
    â€œVery bizarre when you think about it, yet vital to helping researchers study the decomposition of human skeletons under various conditions. Most of the work focuses on bodies that are left to deteriorate in the open or those buried in different kinds of ground. But there’s some work that’s been done with bones in water.”
    Pardy rubbed the rough edge at the narrow end of the shaft. “Human bone is very durable but not impervious. Anything in the environment will affect it. In acidic water, the inorganic compounds, mostly calcium and phosphate salts, will leach out more quickly. Microflora, mineral content, and even the speed at which the water moves will affect the condition of submerged bones. A lot also depends on the rate of tissue deterioration, which is accelerated in water. Then there’s the corrosive effect of abrasion against rocks and gravel and such, which we can pretty much see.”
    The medical examiner looked at Cubiak. “There are tests I can run to determine how long it’s been in water but I won’t be able to give you anything very exact, more like a range. And it will take time.” She paused. “The FBI could do a better job faster.”
    â€œNo doubt. But they won’t be interested in this.”
    T hat afternoon, Gerald Sneider was the lead story on the TV news broadcast by the three Green Bay stations that served the region. Earlier the Green Bay Packers had announced that the team was offering a ten thousand dollar reward for information about the emeritus director, who, it was reported, had disappeared Sunday afternoon while driving from the game in Chicago to his home in Ellison Bay. In his office, Cubiak flipped through the channels. On one, a talking head breathlessly suggested that Sneider might have fallen ill along the way or become disoriented and gotten lost.
    As a reporter related Sneider’s life story and extolled the virtues of the missing man, the department phones started ringing. The sheriff went into the incident room and confronted Moore. “You know about the reward?” he asked.
    â€œWe approved it.”
    â€œI see,” Cubiak said. So much for being kept in the loop, he thought.