Free Final Grave by Nadja Bernitt Page B

know. This wide, butterfly shape is female. Men are more narrow in the pelvis, tighter, almost square.” His heavy brows knitted together. “What interests me is the lack of tissue. I’m running a mass spec.” He explained, “That’s a gas chromatograph, mass spectrometer.”
    She knew a little about this testing, very little. “And?”
    “These machines can determine the molecular level of anything. Just as an aside, we can pinpoint a person’s residence by the toxins in tissues. Of course, we don’t have tissue in this case.” He paused, as though uncomfortable, then went on. “We’ll look for corrosives and poisons as possible cause of death. We’ve checked for signs of trauma, gun shots or breaks indicating injury from blunt or sharp objects. But we found nothing indicating that.”
    The infinite possibilities overwhelmed her. She felt exhausted. “Is there a backlog on these tests, too?”
    “Nope. Two or three days and I’ll have them and maybe some answers for all of us.”
    “I hope. There’s so little to go on at this point.”
    She studied the bones in the drawer, lured to the mystery they held, one that belonged to the victim and could never be fully revealed to her or anyone else. “Can you give me a moment alone?”
    He twisted his mouth sideways, slanting his mustache. “I’m not supposed to leave evidence unattended,” he said without much commitment. “But what the hell, I think I hear the phone.”
    The minute he stepped outside, she reached into the drawer and laid her hand on the femur. A strange electrical sensation riveted through her palms. She closed her eyes and whispered, “Are you my mother?”
    Her index finger trailed along the smooth pelvis, the embryonic cradle where she’d rested as a child—if this was her mother. If , but there was no if . She felt her mother’s presence. The day’s sad discoveries faded. Nothing mattered, not Wheatley, not his wife, not Aunt Pauline.
    She lowered her head, let the bone touch her face, the same way she had her mom’s sweater. It might be a freaky thing to do, but she did it. Then she stood back, touched the spot on her cheek.
    Her knees trembled as she closed the drawer.
    She went to the window, stood with her hands on the sill, searching beyond the expanse of the parking lot to a barren field. A dust devil spun. The mini-cyclone whipped dirt and fast-food wrappers the same way her mind whipped questions.
    Who did this? Who killed her mother? What indignities had she suffered before this final indignity of being shuffled through an indifferent bureaucracy and shoved in a drawer as evidence? Meri Ann’s hands tightened on the sill. A chill slid down her back, a cold epiphany. Until she buried these bones, she couldn’t say goodbye.
    Uberuaga tapped on the open door. “How you doing in there?”
    She turned to face him, her shoulders squared with purpose. “Much better.”

Chapter Eleven  
    D usk lasts forever in the northwest. Meri Ann had forgotten that, but it now came back to her. Like magic, the sky hung on in luminous pale shades and the deep purple shadows exaggerated the folds in the mountains. Mendiola had dropped her at her car, and she watched him pull out of the lot, heading toward town, the direction she should be going. But before she went to Becky’s, she needed fifteen minutes alone. She steered the Miata east toward the perfect place.
    The sleek corporate office buildings lining Park Center Boulevard bordered the Boise River on the south side of town. She drove past one edifice after another until she came to Albertson’s corporate headquarters. She swung into the parking lot.
    At six o’clock, half a dozen cars dotted the spaces allotted to the executives. Lights on in the buildings made it easy to see silhouettes of several office junkies in a corner suite. The way they milled about, it appeared a meeting was breaking up. She parked in the back row under the trees bordering the greenbelt and made her way