Chapter 16 Jo
Chapter 16
Jo
“It never gets any easier,” said her younger brother, Finn. “Recovering a body.”
They were in Jo’s car, headed to the ME’s office in Augusta, with Jo at the wheel. Since the Maine Warden Service had transferred Finn up to Aroostook County in the north, they hadn’t been able to spend as much time together the way they used to, pitching their tents in the backwoods or clambering up mountains with their dogs. He’d always been her best friend, and really, how could anyone not like Finn? He was a taller, skinnier version of their father, Owen, with the same goofy laugh and ambling gait. But unlike Owen, Finn was more than a little terrified of conversing with women his age, which might explain his state of eternal bachelorhood.
With his sister, though, Finn never stopped talking.
“At least this recovery was easy. Not like that one in February,” he said. “I hate having to dive under the ice. And that lake was full of tannins, murky as hell.”
“That was the kid on the snowmobile?”
“Yeah. Windchill was like twenty below, wicked hard day to be in the water. And his dad and mom were right there , standing by the lake, watching. They must have known their kid was already dead, but they were hanging on. Hoping they were wrong. When I brought it up in the bag, Jesus, the screams. Like wild animals. That’s what I never get used to, Jo. I can deal with the bodies, even the messed-up ones. But I’m no good at dealing with parents.”
“No. That’d be the hardest.”
“So I was really glad it wasn’t that girl’s body we pulled up, with her mother there and all. As it was, she seemed kinda crazy.”
Yes she did, Jo thought. Susan Conover had been unstoppable, clambering aboard the dive boat, clawing open the body bag. But what mother wouldn’t be half-insane, trying to reach her child?
“So where do you think that missing girl is?” asked Finn.
“I don’t know.”
“At least we know she’s not in that pond. It was a nice gravel bottom, easy to search. We didn’t spot any other anomalies on side-scan.”
“Instead, you handed me another mystery.” Jo sighed. “Thanks a lot.”
“Well, it is called Maiden Pond. We know at least one girl has drowned there.”
“That was a hundred years ago. And she’s buried at Mountain View Cemetery.”
“So who’s the skeleton?” He looked at her. “You have any idea?”
“Whoever it is, he—or she—has been down there a long time.”
“How long, you think?”
“Months? Years?” Jo turned onto the driveway for the medical examiner’s office and pulled into a parking stall. “Let’s hope we get some answers.”
“Why, if it isn’t the Thibodeaus,” said Dr. Wass, greeting Jo and Finn with a smile as they walked into the morgue. Jo had met the chief medical examiner years ago, when she had viewed her first autopsy as a student at the Maine Criminal Justice Academy. Until that day, she’d never seen a dead human up close, and certainly had never looked inside one. With the rest of her class, she’d stood at the morgue table and watched Dr. Wass make the first incision. That had been the worst part, seeing the blade slice into skin, followed by the horror of hearing the ribs being cracked open. But once the chest cavity was open and the organs bared, what she saw looked very much like the insides of the deer that she and Finn used to hunt and gut in the field. On the inside, humans were scarcely different from animals, she’d thought, and that had made the rest of the autopsy easier to watch. But watching the first incision still made her cringe, because the skin being sliced open was clearly human, and very much like her own.
She was glad that today’s visit would not involve scalpels or skin. Instead, what lay on the table were bones, arranged in their approximate anatomical positions. Bending over those bones now was the state’s forensic anthropologist, Dr. Julie Volberding, whose lectures at the academy on body decomposition were legendary because of her stomach-turning slideshow. For a woman who spent her workdays boiling down human bones and collecting maggots from rotting flesh, Dr. V. always seemed as serene as a silver-haired grandmother happily puttering around in her kitchen.
“Julie, you remember Jo Thibodeau and her brother Finn?” said Wass. “Jo’s now the acting police chief in Purity. And Finn’s with the warden service. He brought up the remains.”
“Sister and brother? Keeping it all in the family, eh?” said Volberding.
“I enjoyed your lectures at the academy,” said Jo.
“Now let’s see how much you remember.” Volberding nodded at the bones on the table. “There’ll be a quiz afterward.”
“We should wait for Detective Alfond,” said Wass. “He ought to be here any minute.”
Jo winced at the mention of Alfond’s name. Because this death was a possible homicide, a state police detective would routinely be assigned to the case, but why did it have to be Alfond? She’d already tangled with him once, back in February, when a woman’s body was found in Maggie Bird’s driveway. Even though it had happened in her town, on her beat, Alfond had effectively locked Jo out of that investigation.
She felt an ominous sense of déjà vu when the morgue door opened and Robert Alfond walked in. He took one look at her, and it was clear, by the expression on his face, that he was no happier than she was about them being thrown together again.
“You remember Jo Thibodeau, don’t you?” Wass said.
Alfond gave a grudging nod. “Of course.”
“And this is her brother, Finn.”
Alfond laughed. “What is this, Take Your Family to Work Day?”
“I’m with the Maine Warden Service, sir ,” Finn said, and he took a step toward his sister to form a united front. The Thibodeaus always stuck together. “I’m the diver who brought up the remains.”
“Let’s get down to business, shall we?” said Volberding, and she looked at Finn. “Tell us about the recovery. Describe the location.”
“Maiden Pond,” said Finn. “The pond has a maximum depth of around forty-two feet, but these remains were lying at a depth of twenty-one feet, about fifty feet off the western shore. We were about two hours into our search grid when we spotted the irregularity on side-scan. The bottom there is mixed gravel and sediment. The water clarity was fair. Not much of a current, and the wind was from the south.”
“And this was a surprise discovery? I’m told you were actually looking for a missing girl.”
Jo nodded. “A fifteen-year-old visitor who went missing on Monday. Her family’s staying in their summer home on Maiden Pond.”
“Well, these certainly aren’t her bones,” said Volberding. “These have been in the water for quite some time.”
“How long?” asked Alfond.
“I don’t have an easy answer for you.” With gloved hands, Volberding picked up the skull. “In fresh water, in the summer, a body could skeletonize within a month.”
“So this death could be as recent as a month ago?”
“Slow down, I’m just getting started. You can see, there isn’t even a trace of adipocere on these bones. That’s what we used to call ‘grave wax,’ or decomposed fatty tissue. In submerged bodies, adipocere can linger on a corpse for years. The lack of it here argues for a much longer submersion than just a month. Also, there’s complete disarticulation of the joints, plus we’re missing a few of the carpals. The hand bones. Which means we’re not talking mere months, but most likely years of immersion.” Volberding looked at Finn. “You’re sure you recovered everything?”
“Yes, ma’am. And we scooped up some of the surrounding rocks and debris, because I thought they might be relevant. They were in that bag, there.” He pointed to a yellow plastic pouch on the steel tray.
“Good for you, because that debris is relevant. It’s just a pity it didn’t include anything to help identify her.”
“Her?” said Jo.
“Oh, yes.” Volberding pointed to the pelvis. “Remember my lecture at the academy, about the skeletal clues that tell you an individual’s sex? Look at the shape of this pubic arch, the pelvic inlet. And look at the contours of the iliac crests. This individual is clearly a female. And using the length of the femur as a guide ...” She pulled out a tape measure and held it against the thigh bone. “I’d say her height was between five foot three to five foot five. Which again supports the conclusion this is a female.”
“An adult?” said Jo. “Or someone not fully grown?”
“She has all four wisdom teeth, so she’s at least eighteen years old. And the epiphyses have closed.”
“The what?” said Finn.
Wass explained, “That’s the cartilage plate at the end of the long bones. When you stop growing, that plate closes over, and the bone fuses.”
“Which again tells us she was an adult,” said Volberding. She picked up one of the spinal bones. “There’s no lipping of the vertebral bodies, no osteoporotic changes, so she wasn’t particularly old.” Volberding reached for the skull and rotated it to view the underside. “And the basilar suture is not quite fused.”
“What does that mean?” asked Finn.
“A newborn’s skull needs to be a little flexible, to help it pass through the birth canal. The cranium’s actually made up of separate bones, which are loosely connected. Over the years, the sutures between those bones begin to fuse together, and that makes the adult skull rigid. One of the last sutures to fill in is here, at the bottom. The basilar suture.” She held out the skull to show them. “Do you see how this suture is not completely filled in with bone?”
“Which makes her how old?” asked Jo.
“No older than her midthirties.” Gently Dr. Volberding set the skull down on the morgue table.
A young woman. Maybe my age, thought Jo, staring at that skull. For years, this woman had been lying at the bottom of Maiden Pond as the seasons passed. The water above her froze and thawed and froze again, peeling away skin and flesh until all that remained was what now lay on this table.
“Do you have any open missing persons cases?” Alfond asked Jo.
Jo shook her head. “Nothing I could find. I grew up in Purity, and I don’t recall hearing about any missing women.”
Alfond said to Volberding: “It’d help if you narrowed down the time frame. How long ago are we talking about? Decades? A century?”
“I wish I could narrow it down, but these remains are completely skeletonized.”
“What about clothing?” Alfond looked at Finn. “Did you see any fragments down there?”
“I’m sorry, sir,” said Finn. “Like I said, I scooped up everything I thought might be relevant.”
“Yeah. Rocks.”
Jo saw her brother flush at Alfond’s dismissive tone, and her protective instincts kicked in. Finn was the one who’d strapped on a tank and jumped into the water. He was the one who’d done the hard work of collecting these bones and hauling them to the surface. “Maybe you’d like to suit up and check the pond for yourself, Detective?” she said to Alfond. “I’m sure the warden service can give you the exact coordinates.”
“The clothing would have decayed by now,” Volberding cut in. “Especially if she was wearing cotton or rayon. There’s a study out of Cornell University demonstrating that within a year, cotton textiles biodegrade almost a hundred percent in fresh water. She was submerged at least that long, and then you have to factor in scavenger activity. It’s no surprise the clothing’s gone.”
“Then you have no idea how long she was down there,” said Alfond.
“Oh, I’m not done yet. I know you’re a busy man, Detective, but do try a little patience.”
Volberding picked up the detached mandible, which had been separated from the skull by the forces of decay. “Here’s where we find some answers. She has excellent dentition, and an amalgam filling in the right third molar.”
“She has a dental filling?” said Jo.
“Yes, but dental amalgams have been in use for quite some time. In fact, the first amalgams were used way back in the fifteen hundreds. But over the last hundred years, amalgam composition has changed. The metallic composition will help us narrow down which decade the work was done.”
“So we’re only down to decades now,” Alfond scoffed. “At least it’s better than centuries.”
Volberding peered at him over her glasses. “If you have more important business to attend to, Detective, I’d be happy to send you the final report.”
“There are cottages all around that pond,” said Finn. “After a few days, a submerged body would fill up with gases and pop to the surface. It’s strange that no one noticed a body floating on the water.”
“Maybe it happened off season, but while there’s still open water,” said Dr. Wass. “In the early spring or late fall, most of those cottages would have been empty.”
“But Finn brings up a good point,” said Volberding. “If she died during the summer, her body would have floated to the surface. Unless something held her down. And that brings us to the manner of her death.” She turned the skull onto its side. “I almost missed it at first, but if you look closely, you’ll notice a hairline fracture in the left temporal bone. While it probably didn’t kill her, it would have stunned her.”
“Maybe she fell in a boat, hit her head, and went overboard,” said Jo. “An accident.”
“Except it doesn’t explain this .” Volberding crossed to the morgue sink and returned with a specimen tray. “When our excellent diver here scooped up the gravel and sediment around the bones, he also collected this .” She held up a fragment of green nylon cord. “I think this was used to tie something to the body. A bag of rocks, maybe, to keep her from surfacing.”
“I didn’t see any bag down there,” said Finn.
“If it was made of cotton, it would have decomposed, just like her clothing. But nylon rope like this, even though it becomes brittle and discolored over time, will last for decades.”
“You can’t narrow it down any further?” said Alfond.
“That’s where good police work comes in. This appears to be a homicide, so the ball’s in your court, Detective Alfond. I’ve given you enough information to start looking. Female, age eighteen to thirty-five. Five foot three to five foot five. Excellent dentition, with one amalgam filling in the second right lower molar. In the meantime ...” She looked at Jo. “This happened in your hometown, Chief Thibodeau. If someone went missing in Purity and was never found, that report should still be somewhere in your case files. Find us a name.”