Page 11 of The Lovers (Echoes from the Past #1)
“Is that all you can tell me?” Quinn asked, slightly disappointed. She hoped for something more to go on before starting her quest for the identity of these two, and Gabe had made it clear that time was of the essence.
“Oh no, my dear. I have lots of surprises for you,” Dr. Scott replied, his tone jovial. “We have been able to recover several strands of hair, bits of fabric, and scraps of leather as well as several metallic objects that you can evaluate at your leisure.”
Dr. Scott led her to a side counter where the specimens were displayed in labeled plastic bags.
He was practically glowing with excitement.
Quinn supposed that this was a welcome break from autopsying cadavers, a historical puzzle rather than the final journey of someone who was now nothing more than a slab of meat, dissected and analyzed for the benefit of the family who needed answers or for the police, desperate for clues in an investigation.
“Although we found hair, we were unable to extract any nuclear DNA due to the lack of a root. We did, however, find a few broken nails, which were much more helpful. We did extensive DNA testing, and here’s what we found.
The man’s hair was dark; it appears to have been either a dark brown or black, and he had light eyes.
He was Caucasian, of Norman and Saxon descent, and he was not related to the woman.
Can’t say that last bit surprises me,” Dr. Scott joked, implying that the man and woman were romantically involved.
They might have been, but Quinn didn’t wish to jump to any conclusions that might sway her findings until she knew more.
“As I mentioned before, he enjoyed a plentiful diet for a man of his time. He might have suffered from a mild calcium and vitamin C deficiency, but that was common since people subsided mostly on bread and meat and hardly ate any vegetables, fruit, or dairy. The deficiency wasn’t severe enough to make him lose his teeth, at least not yet.
We x-rayed his skeleton and saw no evidence of disease, which would have appeared as holes or lesions.
Bone density is normal. We found that he had a version of the Klotho gene associated with long life. ”
Dr. Scott smiled ruefully at Quinn. “So, what we have here is a healthy young man, with a predisposition for a long life, who died at an unnaturally young age. We did discover a type of monoamine oxidase enzyme which accounts for impulsive behavior, so he might have been something of a hothead.”
Dr. Scott paused dramatically to give Quinn a moment to draw her own conclusions as to the type of behavior that might have resulted in someone being locked in a chest while still alive and left to die a slow and agonizing death.
Quinn shuddered, imagining what it must have felt like to be buried alive, entombed with no avenue of escape and the knowledge of certain death.
She hoped that the man and woman had already been dead and the chest used in lieu of a coffin, but Dr. Scott immediately disproved that theory by pointing to a small baggie containing slivers of torn nails .
“There were scratches on the inside of the lid, which was what accounted for us finding the broken nails. They were both alive and conscious when they went into that chest.”
Quinn sighed, longing for this interview to be over. She felt claustrophobic in this windowless room and couldn’t wait to get outside. “Tell me about the woman.”
“The woman had reddish-blonde hair and light eyes. Her ancestry was Saxon with a few Scots thrown in. She tested positive for the brCA1 gene, which meant that she would have most likely developed breast cancer at some point in her life, and showed PER2, which would have made her an early riser. She had a vitamin D deficiency and, judging from the condition of her teeth, didn’t get enough calcium in her diet, but otherwise she was a healthy young woman. ”
“Is that all we know about her?” Quinn asked, hoping for something more to go on.
Dr. Scott gave Quinn a triumphant look that nearly made her laugh. He’d really missed his calling as a stage actor.
“Sarita and I found traces of a third source of DNA,” he announced, his eyes shining as he allowed this bit of information to sink in.
“Do you mean you found the DNA of whoever forced them into the chest? Their murderer?”
“I’m afraid not. What I’m referring to is some additional bones that we found at the bottom of the chest. They were tiny and very fragile.”
“A baby?” Quinn breathed, suddenly sickened by the scenario playing in her mind.
“Yes. The woman was pregnant. About fourteen weeks. The child was male, and our man here was his father. ”
Quinn averted her eyes for a moment, embarrassed by the moisture that suddenly blurred her vision.
“I know. It’s heartbreaking, isn’t it?” Dr. Scott said, having correctly interpreted her reaction. “I was quite overcome myself. And they wouldn’t have died quickly, which made it even worse.”
“What kind of monster would do that to a young family?” Quinn asked, still feeling weepy. The young woman would have known she was with child by the second trimester, and she would have had to bear the pain of knowing that her child would die with her, never even having drawn breath.
“A monster that likely wore gloves while he went about his business. We found no traces of anyone else’s DNA. No hair, no nails, nothing.”
“And what of the material evidence?” Quinn asked, finally tearing her gaze away from the grinning skeletons on the slab. She couldn’t begin to imagine the look of agony these two actually wore at the time of death, their suffering now erased from history by the decomposition of flesh.
“We found bits of fabric from what we believe to have been the woman’s gown.
It was made of heavy damask and might have been a deep blue at one point.
The dye was made of indigo, so it was all natural—consistent with the approximate time period, which I would place at mid-seventeenth century, give or take a decade or two.
The pieces of leather likely came from the man’s attire.
Perhaps he wore a leather doublet and boots.
There are no chemicals found on the leather, so again, it’s consistent with the time period when the leather would have been tanned by hand, using only natural methods and organic dyes. ”
“And the metal?”
“There is a brass belt buckle from the man and two silver shoe buckles that belonged to the woman. And there is this!” Dr. Scott pulled out a Ziploc bag containing a piece of jewelry and passed it to Quinn. “Here, you can examine it more closely.”
Quinn opened the bag and reached inside, taking out an ornate brooch.
The brooch was made of yellow gold, with a sapphire flower in the center of a filigree background set with small round sapphires and seed pearls, creating an exquisite and delicate pattern.
It must have been pinned to the bodice of the blue gown worn by the young woman.
Quinn felt a tremor as she looked at the brooch.
She was grateful for the layer of latex between the brooch and her skin.
She would examine the brooch more carefully later, when she was alone, but for now she needed to return it to the bag.
The brooch, more than anything else, would serve as a bridge between herself and the unknown woman whose mortal remains now rested on the slab.
It had belonged to her and was an item that she touched and valued, more so than shoe buckles or bits of fabric.
The brooch was the key, as was the belt buckle.
The man would have handled it regularly, so the buckle would be imprinted with his memories.
“Thank you, Dr. Scott. I’d just like to get a copy of the test results and take some photos of the skeletons and the chest. You’ve been very thorough.”
“It’s not often that I work with people who died hundreds of years ago. I suppose I felt some strange need to give them something of their identity back,” Dr. Scott replied. “Although, it won’t make a jot of difference to them now.”
Quinn nodded, overcome by a wave of sadness.