Bones to Ashes by Kathy Reichs Read Free Book Online

all morning. Though I’d left word to call the minute anything arrived from Rimouski, no one phoned or popped into my lab.
    That no one included Ryan.
    At lunch, I told LaManche what I was finding out about the Lac des Deux Montagnes woman. He told me that Théodore Doucet had undergone the first in his series of psychiatric interviews.
    According to the doctor, Doucet was oblivious to the deaths of his wife and daughter. Delusional, he believed Dorothée and Geneviève had gone to church and would be home shortly to prepare supper. Doucet was being held at the Institut Philippe-Pinel, Montreal’s main legal psychiatric hospital.
    Back in my lab, I found the fire victim’s pelvis and upper arm and leg bones spread out on a counter. Gloving, I transferred the remains to a second worktable and began my exam.
    Though severely damaged, sufficient structure remained to confirm the gender as male. The pubic symphysis, coupled with advanced arthritis, suggested a skeletal age consistent with ninety-three.
    Age and sex consistent. Orthopedic implant serial number a match. Known resident at the address. Known bed smoker. Good enough for me. Now it was up to the coroner. By three I’d completed my report and delivered it to the secretarial office for typing.
    It isn’t protocol to notify me of a skeleton’s arrival. Normally, a case goes to one of the lab’s five pathologists, and via him or her, to me. But I’d asked for a heads-up on the bones Bradette was sending from Rimouski. On the chance they’d forgotten, I checked with morgue intake.
    Nothing.
    Geneviève Doucet’s were the third set of remains that had simmered overnight. Using long-handled tongs, I fished out her skull, pelvis, and several long bones, then spent an hour teasing off flesh. The stuff was resilient as gator hide, so I accomplished very little.
    I was lowering Geneviève’s basket back into its compartment when my lab door opened. I turned.
    Of course. Ryan has a knack for showing up when I’m looking bad. I waited for a crack about steam-lank hair and eau de poached flesh. He made none.
    “Sorry I didn’t bring Charlie last night.”
    “No problem.” I settled the stainless steel cover over the well and checked the temperature gage.
    “Lily,” Ryan sort of explained.
    “Nothing serious, I hope.” Backhanding hair from my face with a lab coat sleeve.
    “I’ll come by tonight.” Ryan jabbed a thumb at the skeleton laid out behind me. “That my floater?”
    “Yes.” I stepped to the table, holding wet, greasy gloves away from my body. “She’s young. Fifteen to eighteen. Mixed racial background.”
    “Tell me about that.”
    “Except for the front teeth, I’d have said she was white. Nasal opening is narrow and spiked at the bottom, nasal bridge is high, cheekbones aren’t especially flaring. But all eight incisors are shoveled.”
    “Meaning?”
    “There’s a high probability she’s part Asian or Native American.”
    “First Nations?”
    “Or Japanese, Chinese, Korean. You know, Asian?”
    Ryan ignored the dig. “Show me.”
    I rotated the woman’s skull so her upper dentition was visible. “Each of the four flat teeth in front has a raised border around its outer perimeter on the tongue surface.” Picking up the jaw, I indicated a similar raised ridge. “Same with the lowers.”
    I set down the jaw.
    “I took cranial measurements and ran them through Fordisc 3.0. Metrically she falls in the overlap region for Caucasoid and Mongoloid.”
    “White and Indian.”
    “Or Asian.” A teacher correcting a dull pupil. “Any interest in age indicators?”
    “Hit me with the high points.”
    I indicated a roughened area on the base of the skull. “The basilar suture is fused.”
    “The wisdom teeth aren’t fully out,” Ryan observed.
    “Correct. The third molars have emerged but aren’t yet in alignment with the tooth row.”
    Moving farther down the table, I ran my finger over an irregular line curving below the upper