“No clothes or shoes. Hands missing. Chances are the body was disposed in a garbage bag and hidden in that crawl space.” I look from man to man. “It’s got to be homicide. But we need to be able to prove it, and we can’t do that without an official ruling from you.”

“We can only go by the facts,” Harris tells me. “These bones are not going to reveal their secrets easily.”

“So what’s your theory?” I ask.

Coblentz nods at Harris. “John?”

“Let me preface by giving you some preliminary info on how we’ve arrived at this non-conclusion, if you will,” Harris begins. “Typically, we have three types of bone injury: antemortem, which is an injury that takes place when the decedent is still alive. We can tell the injury occurred before death because there’s some level of bone remodeling or healing. The second type of injury is postmortem, which takes place after death. In the instance of a postmortem bone injury, the edges of the bone will be rough or worn, if you will. And, of course, there’s no remodeling.

“The third type of bone injury is perimortem. As with the postmortem bone injury, there is no bone remodeling. But with a perimortem injury, the edges of the damaged area are relatively sharp and crisp.” Dr. Harris removes his glasses and looks at me. “We believe the injuries on the distal area of the ulna, as well as the lower extremities of both fibulas, occurred perimortem.”

“You’re going to have to explain that in English.” But even as I say the words, in some small corner of my mind I already know, and a shiver hovers between my shoulder blades.

“The injury occurred at or near the time of death,” Doc Coblentz tells me.

I stare at the two men, trying to get my mind around the repercussions of that. “Let me get this straight,” I say. “The bone injuries you’re referring to are tooth marks?”

“Correct,” Harris says.

Coblentz meets my gaze. “These tooth marks, carved into those three large bones, occurred shortly before or shortly after death.”

“Are you telling me this individual may have died because of those tooth marks?” I ask.

“I’m telling you it’s a possibility,” Harris says.

I look down at the bones, and the chill that had been hovering moves through me. “So this decedent could have been attacked by an animal and killed?”

“An animal or animals as yet unidentified,” Harris tells me.

“Could that have occurred in the crawl space beneath the barn?” I ask. “Maybe he was working on the foundation and a coyote or dog attacked him? Or was he killed elsewhere and his remains moved and hidden in that crawl space?”

“We have no way of knowing for certain,” Doc Coblentz says.

“And, of course, we don’t yet know which species of animal,” Harris points out.