Chapter 11

One look and I knew I'd been wrong. The smooth forehead and occipit, slender cheekbones, and smal mastoid processes told me that bachelor number three was clearly of my own gender.

I got my calipers and took a measurement from one of the bones that lay on the drainboard. The femoral head is a bal -like structure that fits into a socket in the pelvis to form the hip joint. This one had a diameter of only thirty-nine mil imeters, placing it squarely in the female range.

And the victim had been young. I could see a jagged line across the top of the bal , indicating that fusion of the growth cap was incomplete at the time of death.

I returned to the cranium. Squiggly lines separated al the bones. I rotated the skul for a view of the base. Just in front of the foramen magnum, the hole through which the spinal cord leaves the brain, there was a gap between the sphenoid and occipital bones.

I showed Bergeron the open suture.

"She was just a kid," I said. "Probably in her teens."

He made a comment, but I didn't hear. My attention had been drawn to an irregularity on the right parietal bone. Cautiously, I ran my fingers over it. Yes, there was something there.

Taking care to cause no damage, I held the skul under the faucet and teased away dirt with a soft-bristle toothbrush. Bergeron watched as the defect came into focus. It took only moments.

What I'd spotted was a smal round hole, slightly above and behind the ear opening. I estimated its diameter at approximately one centimeter.

"Gunshot wound?" Bergeron suggested.

"Maybe. No. I don't think so."

Though the proper size for a smal -caliber projectile, the perforation didn't look like a bul et entrance. Its border was smooth and rounded, like the inside of a doughnut hole.

"Then what?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe some type of congenital defect. Maybe an abscess. I'l know better when I empty the skul and get a look at the endocranial surface. I'l also need X-rays to see what's going on inside the bone."

Bergeron looked at his watch.

"Let me know when you've finished so I can shoot some bitewings on this one. I didn't see any restorations, but I might spot something on the X-rays.

The right canine has an odd alignment which wil be useful, but I'd prefer having the lower jaw."

"I'l work harder next time.

"Not necessary." He laughed.

When Bergeron left I set the skul upside down in a rubber ring and adjusted the water so it ran gently into the foramen magnum. Then I went back to photographing Gately and Martineau, documenting skeletal features relevant to their identifications. I also took multiple shots of the bul et holes in the back of each man's head.