“Kate, we’re missing approximately twenty-five percent of the bones,” Doc Coblentz begins.

“We’ve got the occipital bone. The lower jaw.” Harris indicates each bone as he names it, a scientist inventorying some project that has nothing to do with the death of a human being, but a puzzle that must be solved. “Both ulnas, only one of which is intact, and radius bones. The pelvis. Both femurs. Tibia and fibula are present. Most of the spinal vertebrae. Scapula.” He raises his gaze to mine. “Interestingly, the carpals, metacarpals, phalanges, tarsals, metatarsals, and lower phalanges are missing. Not just a few, but all of them.”

“The hands?” I ask.

“And feet,” Coblentz puts in.

“Is it possible they’re still at the scene?” I ask. “They’re small bones, and it seems likely they could be scattered. Maybe they’re buried?”

Harris shakes his head adamantly. “I don’t believe that’s the case. However, depending on our findings regarding cause and manner of death, at some point the issue of missing bones may become a legal one, so Stevitch is going to go back out to the scene with GBR, or ground-based radar.”

“To definitively rule out the possibility that something was overlooked,” Doc Coblentz finishes.

“He won’t find anything,” Harris says. “Stevitch knows the soil properties. He knows what he’s looking for. If there were bones in the ground on that site, they’re here in front of us.”

“Maybe animals carried the bones away over the years,” I surmise. “Dogs or coyotes.”

“Of course that’s a possibility,” Doc Coblentz says. “Anytime remains are unprotected, they are vulnerable to scavenger activity.”

“But that doesn’t explain the markings I found on some of the bones,” Harris tells me. “Nor does it explain why so many of the smaller bones are missing.”

“Markings?” Puzzled, sensing they’re withholding the punch line to a private joke and I’m being left in the dark, I look from man to man. “Signs of trauma? What?”

“Well, basically, both hands and feet are missing,” Doc Coblentz says.

I’ve heard of cases—homicides—in which killers removed the hands of their victims so the police were unable to identify the victims using fingerprints, but I didn’t expect it on this case. “So we’re dealing with a homicide,” I say slowly.

“Probably, but we can’t say for certain,” Harris says.

“But if the hands were cut off—” I begin.

Coblentz interrupts. “Not cut off, Kate. Chewed off.”

“Chewed?” It’s the last thing I expected him to say, and for the first time I understand why they’re so titillated. Not because they’re macabre, but because their scientific minds have been confronted by a particularly challenging puzzle.

“By what?” I ask.

“We don’t know,” Doc Coblentz admits. “We’re trying to identify the tooth marks now.”

“Tooth marks? Seriously?” Incredulity rings hard in my voice. If the circumstances were different—if we weren’t dealing with the death of a human being—I’d expect one of them to burst into laughter and shout, “Surprise!”

“Let me explain.” With gloved hands, Harris picks up a bone that’s slender and curved and about a foot in length. “This is the left proximal ulna, which is at the distal end of the forearm.”