Reliquary

= 22 =

MARGO UNLOCKED THE door to the Forensic Anthropology laboratory, smugly pleased to find the room dark and empty. This was the first morning she’d managed to beat Dr. Brambell into work. Most mornings, he would be sitting on a lab stool when she arrived, sipping a cup of Museum coffee and arching his narrow eyebrows over the rim at her in greeting. He would then go on to point out that the Museum must percolate its coffee in secondhand formaldehyde borrowed from the Animal Conservation department. Other mornings, she would arrive to find Frock in before her as well, the two scientists bent over a table or a report, carrying on their usual argument in polite undertones.

She slung her carryall into a drawer and shrugged into her scrubs, stepping over to the window as she did so. The sun had broken over the Fifth Avenue buildings, bathing the magisterial frontage in hues of gold and copper. Below the window, the Park was waking up: mothers walking children toward the zoo, joggers trotting the long oval course around the Reservoir. Her eye moved southward, lighting at last on the purple bulk of Belvedere Castle, and she shuddered slightly as she stared into the dark wooded area at its rear where Nicholas Bitterman had met with violent death. His headless corpse, she knew, was due to arrive in their lab later that morning.

The door opened and Dr. Frock wheeled himself inside, a large silhouette against the dimness of the lab. As he came forward into the sunlight, Margo turned to wish him good morning. Seeing the expression on his face, she stopped short.

“Dr. Frock?” she asked. “Are you all right?”

He came toward her slowly, the normally ruddy face drawn and pale.

“There’s tragic news,” he said in a low voice. “I received a call very early this morning. Simon Brambell was murdered last night on his way home from the Museum.”

Margo frowned, drawing in her breath. “Simon Brambell?” she repeated, uncomprehending.

Frock rolled closer and took her hand. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, my dear,” he said. “This is all so horribly sudden.”

“But how?” Margo asked.

“It appears he was attacked on Eighty-first Street,” Frock said. “His throat was cut. Beyond that…” Frock spread his hands, which Margo noticed were shaking with emotion.

It seemed unreal, like some kind of dream; she could not believe the man who had been standing in front of that huge screen the previous afternoon, manipulating the remote pointer like a samurai sword, was now dead.

Frock sighed. “Though you may not have known it, Margo, Simon and I didn’t always see eye to eye. We had our professional differences. But I always had great respect for the man. It’s a huge loss to the Medical Examiner’s office. And to our work, coming at this critical moment.”

“Our work,” echoed Margo automatically. She paused. “But who did it?”

“There were no witnesses.”

They remained motionless for a moment, Frock’s hand on hers, warm and gently reassuring. Then he slowly rolled away. “I don’t know who the ME’s office will give us as a replacement, if anyone,” he said. “But I think Simon would want us to continue in the spirit in which he began.” He rolled over to the far wall and switched on the theater lights, flooding the center of the room. “I’ve always found work the best antidote for grief.” He was silent for a long moment. Then he sighed, as if forcing himself to continue. “Would you mind removing Cadaver A from the refrigerator? I have a theory about a potential genetic anomaly that might have caused this deformity. Unless you would like the day off?” He raised his eyebrows.

“No,” Margo said, shaking her head. Frock was right. Brambell would want them to continue. Standing slowly and walking across the room, she knelt, opened a cabinet door, and pulled out the long metal tray inside. The unidentified body which lay on it had been reduced and rearranged to a mere series of irregular lumps under the blue sheet. She slid it onto a stretcher and rolled it under the lights.

Frock carefully pulled off the sheet and began the painstaking process of measuring the carpal bones of the deformed skeleton with a pair of electronic calipers. Feeling an eerie sense of unreality, Margo went back to examining yet another series of MRI scans. The lab fell into a long silence.

“Do you have any idea what lead Simon was referring to yesterday?” Frock asked at last.

“I’m sorry?” Margo said, looking up. “Oh. No, I don’t. He never discussed it with me. I was as surprised as you were.”

“A shame,” said Frock. “As far as I know, he left no notes about it, either.” He fell silent again for some time. “This is a real setback, Margo,” he said at last in a quiet voice. “We may never learn what it is he discovered.”

“Nobody ever makes their plans as if they’re going to die the next day.”

Frock shook his head. “Simon was like most of the MEs I’ve known. Exciting, high-profile cases like this are rare, and when one comes along… well, they can’t always resist the drama.” He looked suddenly at his watch. “Oh, dear. You know, I almost forgot that I have an appointment in Osteology. Margo, I wonder if you would be willing to leave that aside and take over here for a while. Maybe it’s this tragic news, or maybe I’ve just been staring at these bones too long. But I think the work could benefit from a fresh eye.”

“Of course,” said Margo. “What exactly are you looking for?”

“I wish I knew. I’m quite sure this person had a congenital disease. I want to quantify the morphological changes to see if there’s been a genetic shift. Unfortunately, that means measuring almost every bone in the body. I thought I’d start with the wrist and finger bones, since as you know they’re the most sensitive to genetic change.”

Margo looked down at the examining table. “That could take days,” she said.

Frock shrugged in exasperation. “I’m only too aware of that, my dear.” He gripped the rails of his wheelchair and gave himself a powerful push toward the door.

Wearily, Margo began measuring each bone with the electronic calipers and entering the measurements on the workstation keyboard. Even the smallest bones required a dozen measurements, and soon a long column of numbers was scrolling up the nearby screen. She tried not to grow impatient with the tedious work and the tomblike silence of the lab. If Frock was right, and the deformation was congenital, this would greatly narrow their search for the identity of the body. And at this point, they could use any lead they could find: The skeletons from the Physical Anthropology lab had provided no clues. As she worked, she found herself wondering what Brambell would have thought. But the memory of Brambell was too awful. To think of the man, set upon and murdered… She shook her head, forcing herself to concentrate on other things.

The sudden ringing of the telephone jarred her from a particularly complicated measurement. It rang again—two short beeps—and she realized it was an outside call. Probably D’Agosta, calling about Dr. Brambell.

She picked it up. “Forensics.”

“Is Dr. Brambell there?” asked a clipped, youthful-sounding voice.

“Dr. Brambell?” Margo’s thoughts raced. What if it was a relative? What should she say?

“Hello?” came the voice.

“Yes, yes,” said Margo. “Dr. Brambell isn’t available. Can I help you?”

“I’m not sure. It’s a confidential matter. May I ask who I’m speaking to?”

“The name is Dr. Green,” said Margo. “I’m assisting him.”

“Ah! That’s fine, then. This is Dr. Cavalieri from St. Luke’s in Baltimore. I’ve identified that patient he’s looking for.”

“Patient?”

“Yes, the one with the spondylolisthesis.” Margo could hear the shuffling of paper on the other end of the line. “This is one bizarre set of X rays you sent me. At first I thought there was some kind of joke. I almost missed it.”

Margo fumbled for a pad of paper and a pencil. “You’d better start from the beginning.”

“Fine,” came the voice. “I’m an orthopedic surgeon down in Baltimore. There are only three of us here who do corrective surgery to reduce a spondylolisthesis. Dr. Brambell knew that, of course.”

“Spondylolisthesis?”

There was a silence. “You’re not a physician?” Cavalieri asked, his tone suddenly disapproving.

Margo took a deep breath. “Dr. Cavalieri, I might as well tell you. Dr. Brambell was… well, he died last night. I’m an evolutionary biologist helping him analyze the remains of several homicide victims. Since Dr. Brambell is no longer here, I’ll need you to tell me everything.”

“Died? Why, I just spoke to him yesterday!”

“It was very sudden,” said Margo. She did not want to go into any more detail.

“But that’s terrible. Dr. Brambell was well known across the country, not to mention the United Kingdom…”

The voice petered out. Margo, holding the silent phone to her ear, thought again about the last time she’d seen the Medical Examiner: at the front of Linnaeus Hall, smiling deviously, eyes flashing behind the horn-rims.

She was roused by a sigh on the other end of the line. “A spondylolisthesis is a fracture and slippage of one of the lumbar vertebrae. We correct it by fixing a metal plate to the spine with pedicle lag screws. As you tighten the screws to the plate, it draws the fractured vertebrae back into place.”

“I’m not sure I see the connection,” Margo said.

“Do you remember those four white triangles on the X rays Dr. Brambell sent me? Those are the lags for the plate screws. This fellow had an operation for spondylolisthesis. Very few surgeons do the procedure, which makes it easy to trace.”

“I see,” said Margo.

“I know that this X ray is from a patient of mine, for one very good reason,” Cavalieri continued. “It’s clear that these particular lag bolts were manufactured by Steel-Med Products of Minneapolis, which went out of business in 1989. I performed about three dozen operations using Steel-Med lag screws. I used a special technique of my own, a particular placement of the screws behind the transverse process of the second lumbar. A rather brilliant technique, actually. You can read about it in the Fall 1987 issue of the Journal of American Orthopedics, if you’re interested. It held the bone better, you see, and required less bone fusion. No one else performed it but myself and two residents I instructed. Of course, it was considered obsolete after the Steinmann procedure was developed. So in the end I was the only doctor who used it.” Margo could hear the pride in the doctor’s voice.

“But here’s the mystery: no surgeon that I ever knew would remove the corrective plate for this kind of spondylolisthesis. It simply isn’t done. Yet these X rays clearly show that my patient had the metal plate and screws removed, God knows why, leaving only the lags behind. You can’t remove the lags, of course; they’re set into the bone. But why this fellow had the plate removed…” his voice trailed off.

Margo scribbled notes furiously. “Go on.”

“As I said, when I saw the X rays, I knew immediately that this was one of my patients. However, I was astonished at the condition of the skeleton. That riot of bone growth. I knew I’d never operated on anyone with a condition like that.”

“So the bone growth occurred afterwards?”

“Absolutely. In any case, I went back to my records and, based on the X-ray evidence, I was able to identify the patient. I operated on him the morning of October 2, 1988.”

“And who was the patient?” Margo asked, pencil at the ready. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that Frock had reentered the lab and was rolling toward her, listening intently.

“It’s right here somewhere.” She could hear another rustling of papers. “I’ll fax all these records to you, of course, but I’m sure you’ll still want… here we are. The patient was named Gregory S. Kawakita.”

Margo felt her blood freeze. “Greg Kawakita?” she croaked.

“Yes, Gregory S. Kawakita, Ph.D. No question about it. Funny, it says here that he was an evolutionary biologist, too. Maybe you knew him?”

Margo hung up the telephone, unable to speak. First Dr. Brambell, and now—She glanced at Frock, alarmed to see that his face had gone ashen. “He was slumped to one side of the wheelchair, a hand pressed hard to his chest, his breathing labored.

“Gregory Kawakita?” Frock breathed. “This is Gregory? Oh, my good lord.”

His breathing eased, and he shut his eyes and slowly hung his head. Margo turned quickly and ran to the window, choking back sobs.

Of its own accord, her mind flashed back to that horrible week eighteen months before, when the murders started at the Museum. Then, the opening of the Superstition exhibition, the mass slaughter, and the final killing of the Mbwun. Greg Kawakita had been an assistant curator at the Museum, a colleague of hers, a student of Frock’s. More than anyone else, Greg had helped identify and stop the monster. It had been his genetic extrapolation program that provided the key, that told them what Mbwun was, and how it could be killed. But the horror that followed had affected everyone, especially Greg. He’d left the Museum soon after, abandoning a brilliant career. No one had heard from him since.

No one except her. He’d tried to reach her, leaving a message on her answering machine several months before. At the time, he said he’d needed something, needed her help. She hadn’t even bothered to respond.

And now she could guess why he must have left the Museum: he’d been suffering from some dreadful disease that was deforming his bones, turning him slowly into that twisted skeleton on the gurney. No doubt he was ashamed, probably afraid. Perhaps he had tried to seek treatment. Maybe toward the end he had become homeless. And then, the ultimate insult to a life once so full of promise: murder, decapitation, the frenzied gnawing of bones in the dark.

She stared out the window, shuddering in the warm sun. Whatever end he had suffered, it must have been horrible. Perhaps she could have helped him, had she known. But she’d been too wrapped up in trying to forget it all herself: losing herself in her workouts and her work. And she’d done nothing.

“Dr. Frock?” she called out.

She heard the rumbling of the wheelchair behind her.

“Dr. Frock—” she whispered, unable to continue.

She felt a gentle hand touch her elbow. It was trembling with emotion.

“Let me think for a moment,” Frock said. “Just for a moment, please. How could this be? To think this pathetic collection of bones—that we’ve studied, picked at, disassembled—could be Gregory…” His voice broke. A beam of light shone through the window and highlighted the hand as it slipped from her elbow.

Margo stood motionless, closing her eyes now against the light, feeling the oxygen stream in and out of her lungs. Eventually, she felt able to turn away from the window. But not toward the examining table—she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to face the contents of that table again. Instead, she turned toward Frock. He was there behind her, motionless, his eyes dry and far away.

“We’d better call D’Agosta,” she said.

For a long time, Frock did not speak. Then, silently, nodded his assent.