Bones of the Lost: A Temperance Brennan Novel

I WAS STARING AT A photograph, faded and worn around the edges. Someone had placed it inside a clear plastic sleeve that was badly scratched.

Had Katy put the photo in my pack? Stashed it while I wasn’t looking?

At first I thought that must be the answer. I wasn’t focusing on the scene depicted, just on the fact of the picture’s existence among my belongings.

Then I noticed a few technical details. The photo measured three by five and was printed on paper with a weight and finish that suggested a source other than a home computer or drugstore processor.

A recently stored memory flared. A comment about backups.

Of course. The print had been made with an instant camera, a Polaroid or some similar brand.

I brought the sleeve close to the window and studied the pic.

The image was grainy and slightly blurred, snapped quickly, or when the lens was in motion. Centered in it was a group of Afghan girls in head scarves and traditional dress.

I counted. Six in all. Five with arms linked, eyes all giggles and shyness. The sixth girl stood behind the group, forking “devil’s horns” over the head of another.

That seemed wrong. Weren’t devil’s horns a very Christian reference? Where had these kids learned it? Had they seen Western troops do it?

Five of the girls were facing directly into the lens. Though their heights varied, each appeared to be in her early teens, probably twelve to thirteen. The sixth girl was partially obscured but seemed a bit taller than the rest. All six had dark eyes and glossy black hair crossing their foreheads.

Adolescent girls caught in a playful moment. The subject matter argued against Katy as the source. Unless she’d taken the picture while out with her unit.

But Katy would use a smartphone or a digital camera, not an instant. And why sneak the photo into my pack? It seemed an odd memento. And, if that was her intent, why not simply give it to me?

My mind shifted from the question of how I’d gotten the picture to the question of its provenience. Afghanistan? Probably.

The girls stood a few yards from the corner of a modest stone house not unlike those I’d seen in Sheyn Bagh. Beyond the house, arid desert stretched in all directions. On the far left, a distant rock formation needled into a cloudless blue sky, dark and featureless, all detail lost to the camera’s limited depth of field.

The moment could have been captured at any one of a hundred villages across Southwest Asia. Perhaps a thousand.

My mind shifted again. To the photographer.

Slim chance a local farmer would possess an instant camera. But it was possible. A gift from overseas. Maybe from one of the allied forces who’d visited the village.

Perhaps the photographer was a U.S. service member. Maybe picture taking was a ploy used to schmooze the locals. To win hearts and minds, as the military put it.

I moved my gaze from face to face. The girls looked excited but shy, the way kids are around strangers. That tracked with the soldier theory.

I flipped the sleeve and read what was written on the back of the print. A list, inked in block letters, all caps.

LAILA. KHANDAN. MAHTAB. ARA. TAAHIRA. HADIYA.

Six girls. Six names.

Definitely not Katy’s handwriting. Her scrawl looked like tracks left behind by a snail on a bender.

What intrigued me was the fact that the names were written in English. Pashto and Dari both use versions of the Persian alphabet.

Perhaps a soldier or marine had taken the shot, then written the names as the girls provided them. That also tracked with the hearts-and-minds theory.

I pictured the scene. Wondered. Had adults looked on in silent disapproval? Had they enjoyed the smiles of their children? Had the girls agreed to a quick pic while off the parental radar?

I flipped the photo back and forth. Faces. Names. Did the order of the names match the lineup in which the girls stood? Was that order meaningful?

To which girl had the photo been given? Had she been allowed to keep it? Or had it been taken from her?

Another possibility. Had the soldier kept the photo, perhaps to mail to family back home? To give them a sense of the place. To assure a mother or a wife the locals were just ordinary people.

Or perhaps photos were taken for record keeping. More hearts-and-minds maneuvering. On the next sweep through the village, ask about the kids by name. Every parent loves that.

But it was all speculation. And no theory explained how the photo had ended up in my pack. At least I could eliminate or confirm one suspect.

Descending to the study, I slipped the print from its sleeve, photographed it with my iPhone, and attached it to an e-mail. Then I wrote the following note to Katy.

Found this in my backpack. Your work? If so, thanks. If you met these girls I’d love to know the story. BTW, the print looks like a Polaroid. Are instant cameras common over there? (In other words, I’m curious why you didn’t send the image by e-mail.)

Returning the three-by-five to its sleeve, I was struck by a realization. Whoever had taken the photo, and wherever, and for whatever reason, someone had cared enough to seal it in plastic. To preserve it.

So why give it to me?

Still puzzled, I placed the photo on my desk, stashed the empty backpack, dressed, and headed out.

• • •

I arrived at the MCME just past noon. The public area was deserted and there wasn’t a pathologist, death investigator, or technician in sight.

Mrs. Flowers was not at her post. I guessed she was downing her usual tuna or chicken salad sandwich, or tending her section of the staff container garden in the courtyard. Her specialty was lettuce and basil.

I went straight to my office. The message light on my phone was flashing, and files and papers covered my desk.

After stowing my purse, I started on the mound. A request for expertise in anthropology lay on top. Mrs. Flowers’s outhouse was actually a Porta-John, and the noggin was actually a partial cranium. Doo-doo needs no translation.

Though the prospect was unappealing, I hoped Joe had left cleaning of the skull to me. One never knows what might be trapped in adhering material. Shit happens?

I opened a file and placed the request in it. Then I dug out the reports on the semen. Each listed the case number under which the sample had been submitted, the name, age, last known address, and criminal history of the person whose genetic profile it matched.

The first DNA hit named Cecil Converse “CC” Creach. Creach’s adult priors included multiple bumps for distribution of meth and weed, two for vandalism, and one for B&E. Of his forty-two years on the planet, Creach had spent seventeen behind bars. His juvie record was sealed and would require a warrant to open.

Creach’s LKA was in an area of town known as Five Corners, near the Johnson C. Smith University campus. He was currently on parole, having served two of five years for hanging bad paper.

The second semen donor was Ray Earl Majerick. Before I could read his list of priors, my e-mail pinged.

A reply from Katy. Already?

Not guilty, but cute kids. Polaroids aren’t uncommon here, or it could be a Fotorama, a knock-off made by Fuji. Some missions are tasked with taking pics of the LNs to jolly them up. Instant cameras are used because they spit out a snapshot you can hand over right away. For personal use, troops use digitals or smartphones.

I went back to the printout on Majerick. His arrest history told a different story from that of Creach. Armed robbery. Assault. False imprisonment. Forcible rape. The guy sounded like seriously bad news. No current tail, but Majerick’s last known address came from the state parole board. It was in Concord.

I placed another call to Slidell. Voicemail. Didn’t people answer their phones anymore?

Easy, Brennan. He may already be talking to Creach and Majerick.

I turned my attention to the bone Larabee had found in Jane Doe’s scalp. As promised, it sat on the blotter, sealed inside a small plastic vial.

After gloving, I removed the vial’s cap and slid the thing onto my palm. The fragment was off-white in color, triangular in shape, and measured approximately two centimeters long by a half centimeter across at the wider end. The narrow end tapered to a very sharp point.

The color looked right. The weight was okay.

I pressed the little triangle to my wrist. It felt cool against my skin. Good.

Yet something was off.

Uneasy, I dug a hand lens, matches, and a safety pin from my desk drawer.

Under magnification, the outer surface of bone should appear to have tiny pores, sometimes black or brown due to soil and other contaminants. Larabee’s sliver looked strangely homogenous, like porcelain or china.

Plastic? Resin?

Placing the sliver on the blotter, I pulled out the business arm of the pin, lit a match, and heated the tip until it glowed red. Then I pressed the hot point to the sliver.

Though a faintly organic smell tinged the air, the surface did not burn. The sliver was not plastic or resin. That left bone or ivory.

But the material looked far too smooth and uniform for bone.

Mind buzzing, I hurried to the stinky room and positioned the sliver under the dissecting scope, fractured edge up. Then I adjusted lighting and magnification.

And there they were in the cross section. Schreger lines. Tiny angled marks, like stacked chevrons. Their presence meant the material came from an elephant or mammoth tusk. The angle of the little Vs could indicate which, but my memory failed me on that.

I stared, bewildered. How did ivory end up in the scalp of a hit-and-run victim?

Suddenly I was in a froth to talk to Slidell. Hurrying back to my office, I returned the sliver to its vial and punched in his number.

For the third time that day, I was rolled to voicemail.

“Sonofabitch!”

Agitated, and not wanting to scoop poop from a brainpan at that moment, I jabbed the message button on my phone, then, not so gently, entered my mailbox code.

One by one, I worked through ten days of accumulated drivel.

A question from the chief ME in Raleigh. Another from a colleague in Wisconsin. Those I saved. Two hang-ups. An interoffice appeal concerning abuse of the refrigerator in the staff lounge. Three queries from members of the media. All those I deleted.

The final message froze the fingers I was drumming on the blotter.