Fire and Bones (Temperance Brennan #23)

Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

Thacker held the four fire DOAs for standard postmortems but asked that I remain on call, saying she was certain my expertise would be needed for trauma assessment. Due to my involvement in the recovery of the subcellar vic, she requested that I handle those remains. Said—whined?—that she was short-handed due to staff illnesses, requests for personal time off, a resignation, blah, blah, blah.

Though eager to get back to Charlotte to salvage some sort of getaway with Ryan, I agreed, but added that I wanted to begin without delay. Thacker had no problem with my working on Sunday.

Breakfast was French toast and grilled peaches, served by Lan. Who apparently put in very long days.

DC’s Consolidated Forensic Laboratory has four autopsy suites offering a total of seven stations. Though it was Memorial Day weekend, the place was buzzing. Because it was Memorial Day weekend. Americans excel at harming themselves and others during holiday breaks. Too much booze? Too much pent-up frustration? Too many contact hours with family? Whatever. Celebratory fiestas send increased numbers rolling through morgue doors.

By eight a.m. I was suited up and prepping in one of the lab’s single-table rooms. The equipment was shiny new but standard. Stainless-steel counters, fixtures, and scales. Computer terminal. Whiteboard. Smartboard. Sealed waste receptacles for biohazard materials. Plastic-lined cardboard boxes for regular trash. Overhead fluorescents. Epoxy-coated concrete floor.

Jamar was already there when I arrived. Like Lan, the tech logged some serious hours. In response to my comment about his holiday schedule, he smiled, tipped his head, and purred one word. “Overtime!”

While I created a case file on my laptop—call me paranoid, but I always keep my own copy, both hard and digital—Jamar went to the cooler in search of the subcellar DOA. Case #25-02106.

I was masking and pulling on surgical gloves when Jamar reappeared, dreads bobbing, pushing a rolling gurney through the door. Centered on the stainless-steel was the burlap sack.

Slowly, the room began yielding to the familiar odors of death. Mildewed fabric. Moldy leather. Refrigerated flesh.

After snugging one end of the gurney to the sink, Jamar moved to the computer terminal and worked the keyboard to log us into the system.

Meanwhile, I ran a quick check of my tools. The lab’s tools.

Satisfied that all was in order, I turned my attention to #25-02106.

The burlap bag looked more colorful than I recalled. Though faded and stained, I could make out a logo that had once been bright red and green. The words Swifty Spud and Potatoes arced above and below a cartoonlike potato running in bipedal fashion.

The bag also looked smaller than I remembered.

As did the lumpy object it held.

Had I been mistaken? Were the contents not human?

Another, worse thought.

Was I about to examine the remains of a little girl?

Get on with it, Brennan.

Deep breath.

I began dictating notes, taking measurements, and directing Jamar as he shot stills. Videos weren’t necessary, as the entire exam was being recorded by overhead cams.

Having considered options, which were few, Jamar and I decided that cutting the bag would be the least destructive approach. When satisfied with my external observations, I gave the word and Jamar untied the rope, then used scissors to sever the burlap along one side. As he snipped, I tugged, gently teasing the fabric free of the thing inside.

The process was painstakingly slow, but eventually Swifty’s booty lay fully exposed.

Mixed feelings.

Relief that I hadn’t been wrong.

Sadness that I hadn’t been wrong.

The bag held the corpse of a very small woman. Its limited capacity had forced her head down onto her chest and compressed her spine and limbs into a fetal curl. Her unknown time in the basement had cemented her into that posture. Her hours in the cooler had added the extra finishing touch.

Jamar and I tried to lay the woman supine and straighten her arms and legs.

No go.

We both knew that exposure to a higher ambient temperature would help somewhat.

While I recorded observations, Jamar captured the body on film. Pixels?

Then we waited.

Ninety minutes of warming allowed us—with a lot of muscle and maneuvering—to roll the lady onto her back and partially straighten her limbs.

The woman had large eyes, a slightly protruding forehead, and a low nasal bridge. Maybe. Decomp and tissue slippage had distorted her face so much it was hard to be sure. Her lower jaw had dropped in death and locked in the open position. While not a good look to wear for eternity, her gaping mouth allowed me a peek at her teeth.

Though I’d be more precise once I’d viewed her entire anatomy and taken X-rays, I estimated she’d died before her fortieth birthday. And that she’d been quite petite.

The woman was fully dressed, her clothing withered and fragile to the touch. And strangely at odds, at least by today’s fashions, with my estimated age range.

Her dress, maybe wool, fell to mid-calf and had small pearl buttons down the front and at the wrists. Her legs were encased in hose held in place by old-style suspender garters. Her feet were shod in chunky-heeled black Mary Janes.

Despite the dress and layer of undergarments, I could see that the remaining soft tissue was shriveled and barely holding the woman’s bones together. Strangely, her scalp and braided hair, which was thin and silky, remained attached to her partially mummified head.

Another series of pics then, with Jamar lifting and me tugging, I gingerly stripped the corpse. Not an easy task. That done, I asked Jamar to take #25-02106 off for full body scans.

My mobile rang as I was spreading the dress and hose across drying racks.

The number was an extension at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Medical Examiner facility. I clicked on.

“Temperance Brennan.”

“Dr. Brennan. It’s Artie Bluestein here. Your dogshit got rolled uphill to me.”

I was lost.

“The—” I heard paper rustle. “Mirek case? I was told you needed a verbal ASAP?”

A moment of confusion. Then synapse.

The mysteriously vanished Norbert Mirek. The munching canines. The bone fragments discovered by Mirek’s nephew. I’d sent samples of the scat for trace evidence analysis, curious what else might be in the mix.

“Of course,” I said. “Forgive me. I’m not in Charlotte.”

“First off, thanks a lot for a couple of real crappy days.” Delivered with a note of levity. I hoped.

“You’re most welcome.”

“Jesus. You could open a roadside zoo with the donors to that mess. Loads of hair and fur. Rat. Opossum. Squirrel. Rabbit. Chipmunk. Probably skunk. And of course, dog. At least one poodle.”

“Anything of relevance to my vic?” I knew I should be more patient. But I also knew Artie Bluestein. The man loved to talk and right then I was busy.

“Perhaps.” Miffed? Hurt? “Some of the hair was human.”

“That’s great. Preserved enough to snag a few chromos?”

“Perhaps.”

“Can you send samples on to the DNA section?” I asked.

“I can.”

“I really appreciate this, Artie. Do you want to give Detective Slidell a call?”

“How about I leave that to you.”

When we’d disconnected, I sat a moment, not relishing the idea of the upcoming exchange with Skinny.

And troubled.

Why?

Then it struck me.

Norbert Mirek. The case I’d been pushing to finish so I could enjoy a getaway to Savannah with Ryan. A getaway that never happened. Clicking over to the Mirek file, I pulled up a picture of Uncle Norbert.

Sonofabitch.

Six hours later I was done with what cutting and dissection was possible for #25-02106. I’d finished collecting and packaging specimens for DNA, hair and fiber, toxicology, odontology, and other analyses. I’d successfully plumped two fingers and managed to roll a pair of partial prints.

Based on gross anatomy and careful observation of the full-body X-rays—that Smartboard projected one whiz-bang display—I knew the following.

The deceased was female.

She had died between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five.

Despite some saddling of the bridge, the woman had an extremely narrow nasal aperture, suggesting she was of European ancestry. The straight and silken brown hair supported this conclusion. Though her skin appeared to be pale, the postmortem conditions to which she’d been subjected rendered this observation of dubious value.

The woman had stood four feet eleven inches and, based on muscle mass and the weight of her desiccated body, had tipped the scales at around eighty pounds. She would have gotten no bigger. Every growth plate in every long bone was fused.

The woman’s teeth had all erupted and completed full root development. Except for one rotated canine, her dentition was in reasonably good alignment. She had a single cavity in an upper left first molar. She had undergone no restoration or other dental treatment.

The woman had no scars, moles, congenital or medical anomalies. No evidence of healed fractures, surgeries, or disease. No tattoos or piercings.

The woman’s bone density appeared normal for someone her age.

Though decomp made it impossible to say much about the state of her internal organs, overall, #25-02106 presented as a healthy young adult female.

A young adult female with a depressed fracture of her right parietal radiating out into an explosion of linear fractures. A jaw broken in two midway up the right ascending ramus.

What caused the trauma? A transportation accident? A fall? A blast? A blunt instrument blow? Repeated punches to the face?

I couldn’t say.

Had the trauma killed her?

I couldn’t say.

I could state nothing concerning manner of death. Homicide? Suicide? Accident? So why was the woman’s body secured in a bag?

I could state nothing concerning time of death.

For now. I hoped the clothing and potato sack could be used to bracket a possible time range.

At four-ten, I headed to the locker room to shower and change back into civvies. It had been hours since Lan’s breakfast. My stomach was again on a rampage.

Except for the security guard and a man approaching the elevator from which I was exiting, the lobby was deserted. I was heading for the doors, thinking about the food trucks I’d seen on the street the previous day, when I noticed the man cut sharply to his left.

To avoid me?

I took a closer look. Narrow shoulders, pudgy body. Thinning hair swirling his scalp like a blond fingerprint.

Snap.

Luis “Lubu” Burgos.

Clearly the fire inspector had no wish to talk to me.

I decided to make his day.

“Sergeant Burgos.” Waving and cutting right so our paths would intersect. “It’s Tempe Brennan.”

Burgos slowed but, unsmiling, stayed the course toward me.

“So nice to bump into you,” I said when we were face-to-face.

Burgos made some sort of noise in his throat.

“You’re also working on a Sunday on a holiday weekend? I guess we both need to get a life.” Accompanied by my most self-deprecating smile.

“I have a report and pics for Doc Thacker.” Burgos tapped a large brown envelope tucked under his left arm. “I was nearby, figured I’d just leave this on her desk.”

“Conveyed the old-fashioned way.” Delivered with another big grin.

“I suppose.”

“I’ve just completed my examination of the body from the subcellar.”

Since Burgos was overseeing the arson investigation, I saw no problem sharing, and gave him an abbreviated version of the profile.

“So, your bag lady didn’t die in the fire.” He sounded grudgingly interested.

“Definitely not. I found no smoke or soot in her trachea or in what remained of her lungs.” I left it at that.

“When did she bite it?” The tiny gray eyes narrowing slightly.

“I can’t say for sure, but her death wasn’t recent.” You cold-hearted prick. I didn’t voice that assessment. “Any news on the four upstairs victims?”

Burgos guffawed, one cold note. Shook his head, careful not to dislodge his carefully sculpted do.

“I talked to this asshole Billie Norris who kinda acted as a gatekeeper at the dump. A brain trust he ain’t. By jostling Norris’s memory—the few cells able to break through the haze of blow he was floating in—I got him to cough up some leads.”

“Names?”

Burgos nodded. “Doc Thacker’s headache now. Could be a bitch getting records. The kid that called nine one one might have been Canadian. There was maybe another foreign national in the mix.”

“You’re sure it was arson?” I asked.

“Sure as my granny shits every dawn.”

“Based on what?” Cool. Hopefully hiding my revulsion for the man.

“Origin and spread. The pattern ain’t textbook, but it’s good enough for me.”

“Where did it start?”

“Kitchen area.”

“Did you find evidence of accelerants?”

Burgos sighed a most impatient sigh. “Look, lady. There’s things I gotta do.”

I debated sharing Doyle’s phone tip concerning the meth lab. Decided that wasn’t my place.

“Do you think one of the four upstairs vics might have been targeted?”

“Them or any of the scumbagfest in and out of that hole.”

Without so much as a nod, Burgos sidestepped me and strode off.