Yes, that was it, I thought. That's how I saw the girl at my feet. Though I now had a name, in my mind's eye she remained a shadowy ghost on a formless landscape. I hoped this trip would change that image into a firm identification.

Chapter 18

Kate met me at the Raleigh-Durham Airport and we drove directly to the SBI lab. She'd already brought the remains from the medical examiner's office in Chapel Hil , and secured a room where we could work. If samples were to be taken for DNA analysis, al parties agreed that this arrangement was the most efficient.

I gloved my hands and unwrapped my parcel as Kate retrieved hers from a locked closet. She placed a long white box on the table and stepped away. I could feel the familiar tension in my chest as I unwound the string and folded back the cardboard flaps.

One by one I arranged the bones, placing each in its correct anatomical position. Ribs. Vertebrae. Pelvis. Long bones.

The pathologist had been right in his assessment of animal damage. Scavengers had gnawed away so much that not a border, crest, or joint remained on any but the smal est bones. The pubic symphyses and iliac crests were completely gone, and only fragments of clavicle had survived. But one fact was immediately clean

Both femora were missing.

I added the bones from St-Basile to those that lay on the table. While they did not complete the skeleton, neither did they duplicate any element.

Kate spoke first.

"Looks like a match for size and muscular development. She must have been a tiny thing."

"Using a femur I calculated a height of five foot two, plus or minus. Let's see what your tibia gives us." I indicated two landmarks on the shaft. "There's a regression formula that al ows the use of just this segment."

I took the measurement then did the math. The error range was large but bracketed the estimate I'd gotten with the femur. When I showed her the figure, Kate went to the side counter and riffled through a file that was thicker than a Manhattan phone book.

"Here it is. Savannah was five-one and three-quarter inches."

She riffled some more, then withdrew a five-by-seven envelope and shook free several pictures. She spoke as she studied an image.

"It was so sad. Most of Savannah's classmates had no idea who she was. And Shal otte is not that big a place. The kids that did recognize her name or photo couldn't tel us a thing about her. She was one of those people that no one remembers. Born 1968. Died 1984."

Kate held out a snapshot.

"The kid got a real y bad deal. Miserable family. No friends. Anyway, you can tel she wasn't very big."

I looked at the photo and felt a surge of pity.