Page 6 of Badlands (Nora Kelly #5)

T HE FORENSIC LAB in the basement of the Albuquerque FO was brand-new—the previous lab having burned—and Corrie loved working in it.

No expense had been spared, and it was stocked with the latest in forensic tools, including a scanning electron microscope, radiography, and much more.

The previous manager of the lab, a tedious old Englishman who had retired under a cloud, had left her as the only forensic specialist in the entire field office.

As she looked around, she couldn’t help but think: This is all mine.

Corrie had arranged the bones of the victim on one gurney; and next to it, on an evidence table, she had laid out the evidence gathered at the site.

It made quite a contrast—a meager scattering of animal-chewed bones on one side, and on the other a surface chockablock with bagged evidence.

Maybe too much evidence.

Perhaps Gradinski had been right and she’d gone overboard.

Still, she was glad.

It made for more work and was a pain to curate, but at least she could feel reasonably sure they hadn’t missed anything important.

Making a circuit of the human remains, she looked them over again, wanting to get a feel for the bones.

It was hard to explain what exactly she was hoping to see, but having spent several years at John Jay intensively studying human bones, and now after a year with the FBI doing the same thing, she realized that bones could give off a vibe—a mysterious sense of the person they belonged to, who they were and how they died—that she could pick up.

And these bones definitely gave off a vibe.

Looking beyond the animal damage, she could see they were the bones of a young, healthy person.

Gracile. A woman. The teeth were perfectly aligned and brilliantly white—with no cavities or evidence of dental work.

And the hair she had collected at the site was blonde.

She had sent off samples for DNA sequencing, and she knew there would be no problem extracting DNA, since there was plenty still in the bones.

But unless that specific DNA was in a database—which was unlikely—the genetic tracking down of her identity from DNA through commercial databases, such as 23andMe, could take months.

Which meant she would need to make a facial reconstruction.

Her pulse quickened at the thought of it; this was what she lived for.

She had taken a degree in forensic anthropology from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, but she had also studied sculpture and painting.

Normally the reconstruction would be done by a forensic specialist, while the final sculpting of the flesh, hair, lips, ears, and coloring would be done by an artist. Corrie was immensely proud of the fact that she could do both.

A soft knock came at the door and Sharp entered.

He masked up, his sleepy eyes taking in the room in silence.

“Welcome, Agent Sharp,” said Corrie, feeling a little awkward.

He wasn’t reconsidering his decision already—was he?

“Thank you, Agent Swanson,” he said, walking around the gurney, his eyes on the bones.

“I just happened to be in the neighborhood. Mind telling me what you’ve got—one agent to another?”

“What I’ve got,” Corrie began, in her most professional voice, “is a probable white female, between twenty-five and forty years of age, around five feet eleven, blonde, in apparent good health.”

“Tall,” said Sharp.

“Yes. The bones have been visually, stereoscopically, and radiographically examined. No sign of injury, no healed fractures, no orthopedic implants, no evidence of trauma. Excellent dental health, good teeth, no dental work. The bones show no signs of unusual labor or repetitive motion.”

“Pity about no dental work.”

Corrie nodded.

“Quite a few of the bones are missing, including one femur, both ulnas, one radius, one humerus, both tibias, and some smaller ones. The missing ones are the larger bones, probably carried off by coyotes or other animals. The remaining bones have also been gnawed on fairly extensively, mostly by rodents.”

Sharp nodded.

“How long would you say they’ve been out there?”

“That’s a difficult question to answer. Judging from sun damage to the bones, it would be at least two years, probably not more than seven. The condition of the clothing seems to be consistent with that time frame as well.”

“Hmmm,” he said.

“Five years—that’s a rather large window to search for missing persons.”

“Hopefully we’ll learn more once the sequencing comes back.”

He strolled over to the table, hands clasped behind his back, peering down.

“You have quite a bit of physical evidence.”

“Yes,” said Corrie, feeling defensive despite herself.

“I wanted to make sure we didn’t miss anything.”

Sharp nodded.

“Starting with the clothes,” Corrie said, “they’re of the cheapest kind, mass produced in China and Vietnam, in polyester and other cheap materials not suitable to the desert environment. Same goes for the running shoes—they are about the cheapest shoes you can buy. I looked them up online—$8.99. There’s almost no wear on the shoes and none on the clothes. My guess is that the victim purchased this clothing not long before her death at a Walmart or similar discount store. These are mass-market brands that are not readily traceable or dateable.”

“It’s as if she was trying to obscure her identity.”

“I had that same thought.”

“No canteen or water bottle?”

“None, and no hat, either. And nothing in the pockets. As far as the rest of the evidence goes—” she waved at the miscellany of stones, plant material, and wood—“most of it doesn’t appear to be relevant. But that spearpoint was found in the immediate vicinity, and it occurred to me it could have been used as a weapon.”

His eyebrows rose.

“A murder weapon?”

“Maybe. It’s three inches long. It’s possible you could stab someone with that as a handheld object. I’m going to do a scanning electron microscope examination, as well as some residue tests for blood and protein.”

A nod.

He said nothing, but Corrie sensed he was curious about her next steps.

“Now,” she said, “I plan to search that missing persons window for a five-foot-eleven-inch blonde woman with perfect teeth. And… I’m going to do a forensic facial reconstruction.” She shut her mouth against the ingrained instinct to ask for permission.

Sharp merely nodded again.

“I know it’s perhaps premature, but do you have any, shall we say… speculative thoughts about the victim?”

Corrie hesitated.

“Well, I have the sense that she was a poised and intelligent woman.”

His eyebrows arched.

“Intelligent? Going out in the desert dressed like that, with no water and no hat?”

“It’s dumb only if she did it out of ignorance.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

Corrie prepared to reply, then paused just a moment to revise her answer.

“Sir, I’m not exactly sure what I mean, either.”

His lazy expression morphed into a grin.

“Maybe by the next time we bump into each other you will.”