Page 16 of The Bone Code
“Fine. What are the parallels?”
Images fired in my brain.
I began listing items using the fingers of my right hand.
Pointer. “In both cases, the bodies were stripped, wrapped in plastic, placed in a waste container, and thrown or dropped into the ocean.” Technically, it was a river in Montreal, but close enough. Middle digit. “In Quebec, I estimated that one individual was a female in her thirties, the other a child between eight and ten. Herrin thinks the victims here are an adult and a kid.”
“Are you certain that’s true?”
Good point, Annie. “No. Herrin is an RN, not a medical doctor or anthropologist.”
“Go on.”
I continued,sansdigits. “In both cases, death was due to gunshot trauma to the head. In both cases, the victims’ fingers were cut off and their teeth were destroyed.”
“So, no prints, no dentals.” Did I mention that Anne watches a lot of crime shows?
I nodded.
“Time since death?”
“It was hard to be precise. I estimated more than one but less than five years.”
“Did Ryan work the case?”
“He and I busted our asses for months. At Ryan’s urging, a taskforce was formed. Members searched missing-persons records to hell and back. Canvassed everyone living anywhere near the site where the container washed up. Pulled marina and port records going back years. Set up special phone lines for call-in tips.”
I recalled the effort as if it was yesterday.
“Ryan floated queries to every elementary school in Quebec asking if any kid had stopped attending, eventually expanded to other provinces and down into Vermont and New York. He spent endless hours checking and rechecking the RCMP, FBI, and other databases.
“I had facial approximations made from the skulls. The sketches were broadcast by a few TV stations and published in some papers. Surprisingly, the media weren’t all that interested.”
“And?”
“And zilch. It all led nowhere.”
“The victims were never ID’d?”
“Nope.”
“What happened to them?”
“Eventually, the bodies were buried.” I went silent, recalling the heartbreak I’d felt at our failure.
“That’s so sad.”
“One of those victims was just a kid. To this day, that kid is lying in a grave marked by nothing but a number. Meanwhile, someone somewhere is wondering what happened to her, and someone else is thinking they got away with it.” Said with far too much emotion.
“That case really got to you,” Anne said softly.
“Child murders always do.”
“Because of Kevin?” Reaching out to place her hand on mine.
When my baby brother succumbed to leukemia at age three, my entire eight-year-old universe collapsed. Though I’m not a believer in Freudian theory, I suspect that at some level, Kevin’s passing is the subconscious force underlying my commitment to the dead.
“No,” I mumbled. “Maybe. Hell, who knows?”
