Page 51 of The Bone Code

“Boo-yah! You’re back in the game.”

“Actually, that’s why I’m calling.”

“Lay it on me.”

I told her about the container and the exhumation and explained that I wanted a DNA-based phenotype sketch and a probability statement concerning geographic ancestry for each victim. Lizzie did this type of analysis regularly. She didn’t need me to diagram the play.

A beat. When Lizzie spoke again, there was doubt in her voice.

“Up to five years in the sea, four more in a cooler, eleven in the ground. Your folks may not be able to sequence shit.”

“They’re going to try,” I said. “And this time, the request will be official.”

During my exile from the MCME, Lizzie did a facial approximation for me, off the books.

“Meaning we’ll get paid?” Throaty laugh.

“Handsomely.”

“Send the form directly to me.”

After promising to meet when both of us were next in Charlotte, we disconnected.

My old hard-copy files for LSJML-41207 and LSJML-41208 were still on my desk. The facial approximations I’d ordered in 2006 had been scanned into the central archives, but, pack rat that I am, I’d retained the originals.

I pulled both sketches and set them side by side on my blotter.

The images uncorked as much heartbreak as had the scene and the autopsy photos. Perhaps more. I studied them, allowing the agonizing memories to breathe in my mind.

Though facial reconstruction was never my thing, I knew what the process was back then. Affix tissue-depth markers to key anatomical points. Scan the marked skull into the computer. Input data on sex, age, and racial background if available. Select and superimpose features from the program’s database.

The result was always a cartoonlike gray-scale image. Beard? Mustache? Glasses? Bangs? Bushy brows? Chubby cheeks? Anyone’s guess based solely on bone. The goal was to achieve a resemblance while adding nothing distracting. If all attempts at identification failed, the cops and media would circulate the images in hopes that someone might recognize the subject.

As expected, the faces were expressionless and unnaturally symmetrical. I stared at each.

The woman’s eyes were large, her nose long and narrow. Her jawtapered sharply to a prominent chin. The artist had given her center-parted hair swept behind unremarkable ears. The slender, arched brows were pure speculation.

The child’s forehead was high, her hair done in the same unobtrusive style as the woman’s. Her eyes were wide-set and angled downward toward her temples. Same brows.

Both subjects were depicted with tightly closed lips. No teeth meant no telltale dental detail to help prompt recall.

Viewing the child’s face triggered the troubling memory of the ring. The heartbreaking image of her attempt to hide it from her killer. I thought of all the things she’d never experience. The Christmas trees she’d never trim. The sandcastles she’d never build. The proms she’d never attend.

Stop!

I shifted from the child’s sketch to that of the woman.

Staring at her face, a bad feeling slowly took hold of me.

Those eyes.

No way. A gaggle of brain cells cautioned.

That chin.

It’s not that unique. The cells reasoned.

Suddenly, I felt dread.