“I’m confident you’re going to tell me what that is.”
“Ma Huang is an Asian herbal poison, known on the streets as ‘herbal ecstasy.’”
“Let me guess. Ma Huang contains ephedrine.”
“Step to the head of the class.”
“Park knew Snow had a bad heart.”
“Probably gave him tea laced with Ma Huang. It’s often administered that way. Wham-o. Cardiac arrest.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Same reason he poisoned Cagle. He was becoming nervous over too much interest in the headless skeleton.”
“How did he poison Cagle?”
“Not knowing Cagle’s medical susceptibility, our hero had to step up to something more powerful. Something that would do in even a healthy man. Ever hear of tetrodotoxin?”
“It’s a neurotoxin, called TTX for short, found in fugu.”
Ryan looked at me like I’d spoken Romanian.
“Fugu is Japanese puffer fish,” I explained. “Gram for gram, TTX is about ten thousand times more lethal than cyanide. Diners die from it every year in Asia. The terrifying thing about TTX is that it paralyzes the body but leaves the brain fully aware of what’s happening.”
“But Cagle survived.”
“Is he talking yet?”
“No.”
“So we don’t know how Park administered the stuff.”
Ryan shook his head.
“How do you know Park used TTX?” I asked.
“Tetrodotoxin looks like heroin. In addition to the Ma Huang, Park’s pharmacopoeia included a packet of white crystalline powder. Woolsey had it tested.”
A seagull circled, landed, bobbed at us like one of those breakfast table water toys.
“Why the snakes?” I asked.
“Your death had to look accidental.” Ryan mimicked a TV newscaster. “While hiking in heavy forest in Lancaster County, an anthropologist was tragically nailed by a rattler today.” Ryan’s voice returned to normal. “Except Park was the one who got nailed.”
I shuddered, remembering the sound of Park’s head cracking on the cement. According to the police report, Park had suffered fatal skull fractures both from a falling object and from striking his head against the concrete floor.
Spotting a gull floating toward shore, Boyd charged across the beach. The bird took off. Boyd followed its flight path, then returned and shook himself, bombarding us with sand and salt water.
“Heineken?” I asked, covering my face with my arms.
“S’il vous plaît.”
I opened the cooler and dug out a beer for Ryan, bottled water for Boyd, and a Diet Coke for myself.
“Why do you suppose Park sent me the Grim Reaper e-mails?” I asked, handing Ryan his beer. Boyd raised his snout and I dripped water into his mouth.
“Wanted you to back off from the privy skull.”
“Think about your own reasoning, Ryan. The e-mails started on a Wednesday. How could Park have known who I was or what we’d found at that point?”
“Rinaldi sent out his query about the headless skeleton on Tuesday. It probably went to Lancaster and included the coroner. We’ll find out eventually. Slidell’s convinced Tyree will roll over.”
“Slidell,” I snorted.
“Skinny isn’t so bad,” Ryan said.
I didn’t reply.
“He saved your life.”
“Yes,” I agreed.
Boyd flopped onto his side in the shade of my sand chair. Ryan went back to his Terry Pratchett. I went back to my E magazine.
I couldn’t concentrate. My thoughts kept hopping to Skinny Slidell. Finally, I gave up.
“How did Slidell know where I was?”
Ryan stuck a finger in his book to mark the page.
“Rinaldi’s background check on Dorton turned up the fact that Ricky Don’s Marine Corps smuggling buddy all those years ago was none other than the current Lancaster County coroner. Slidell tried to warn you about Park when he phoned your cell with the news about Aiker’s note.”
“I cut him off.”
“According to Rinaldi, Slidell fumed for a while, then agreed to drop by the annex. You weren’t at home, but Geneva showed them your note.”
“Which said I was going to South Carolina.”
“Slidell put that together with your funeral wisecrack, and he and Rinaldi hauled ass to Lancaster. Got there right about the time the rattler was introducing himself to you. Woolsey was with them and she hauled you to the hospital, practically drove her patrol car through the ER doors, Skinny said.”
“Hmm.”
“He also phoned me from the hospital to fill me in.”
“Hmm.”
“And he’s admitted he was wrong about Tamela.”
“He has?”
“Took the family a chrysanthemum.”
“Skinny did that?”
“Yellow one. Made a special trip to Wal-Mart for it.”
Skinny took Gideon Banks a plant.
Hmm.
“I guess I’ve been pretty hard on Skinny. I hate to admit it, but the guy really is a good cop.”
A smile tickled Ryan’s mouth.
“How about Agent Cousins?”
“All right. Maybe I misjudged Cousins. Anyway, Katy never went to Myrtle Beach with him.”
“Where was she?”
“Spending a few days in Asheville with Pete. She didn’t bother to tell me because she was miffed over my pressing her about the Grim Reaper e-mails. But it doesn’t matter, anyway. Katy called from Charlottesville this morning all agog over some premed student named Sheldon Seabourne.”
“Ah, fickle youth.”
Ryan and I settled back to our reading. With each page I was realizing how naïve my faith in the Green Movement had been. At moments my disgust boiled over. One such moment arrived shortly.
“Did you know that more than nine million turtles and snakes were exported from the United States in 1996?”
Ryan dropped his book to his chest. “Bet you can think of a couple you wish had been among them.”
“Ever hear of the Captive Bred Wildlife Foundation in Arizona?”
“No.”
“Their slogan is ‘When turtles are outlawed, only outlaws will have turtles.’”
“That’s idiocy that rings a bell.”
“These kind citizens will be happy to sell you a pair of Galápagos tortoises for eight to ten thousand bucks. You could take a sparrow, put it on the endangered species list, and some asshole would pay two grand for it.”
“There’s CITES,” Ryan said. “And the Endangered Species Act.”
“Protection on paper,” I said with disdain. “Too many loopholes, too little enforcement. Remember Rachel Mendelson’s tale of the Spix’s macaw?”
Ryan nodded.
“Listen to this.” I quoted from the article I’d been reading. “‘In 1996 Hector Ugalde pled guilty to federal conspiracy charges in Brazil for smuggling hyacinth’s macaws.’” I looked up. “Ugalde got three years’ probation and a ten-thousand-dollar fine. That’ll really stop him.”
Boyd came over and put his snout on my knee. I stroked his head.
“Everyone knows about whales, and pandas, and tigers, and rhinos. Those animals are sexy. They have foundations and sweatshirts and posters.”
Boyd followed a sandpiper with his eyes, considered.
“Fifty thousand plants and animals become extinct each year, Ryan. Within half a century one-quarter of the world’s species could be gone.” I flapped a hand at the ocean. “And it’s not just over there. One-third of all U.S. plants and animals are at risk of extinction.”
“Take a breath.”
I did.
“Listen to this.” I resumed reading, selecting excerpts. “‘At least four hundred and thirty medicines containing eighty endangered and threatened species have been documented in the United States alone. At least one-third of all patented Oriental medicine items available in the United States contain protected spe
cies.’”
I looked up.
“The illegal trade in black bear galls in California alone is estimated at one hundred million a year. Think about that, Ryan. Ounce for ounce, bear gall is worth more than cocaine, and hairbags like Dorton and Park know that. They also know they’ll get a slap on the wrist if they get caught.”
I shook my head in disgust.
“Deer are killed for their antler velvet. Siberian tigers are hunted for their bones and penises. Sea horses are killed to help men grow hair.”
“Sea horses?”
“Rhinos are shot, electrocuted, and driven into pits lined with sharpened bamboo stakes so men in Yemen can make dagger handles. There are only a few thousand rhinos left in the world, Ryan. Jesus, you can go on the Web and buy smoked gorilla paws.”
Ryan got up, squatted by my chair.
“You feel very strongly about this.”
“It sickens me.” I let my eyes travel to Ryan’s. “A cache of six metric tons of elephant ivory was seized in Singapore last June. Now a group of South African countries is talking about reversing the ban on ivory trading. Why? So people can make ornaments out of elephant tusks. Every year the Japanese take hundreds of whales for research. Yeah. Right. Research that ends up in the seafood market. Do you have any idea of the length of the evolutionary process that created the animals we have today, and the shortness of the time needed to kill them off?”
Ryan took my face in both his hands.
“We helped do something about it, Tempe. Park and Tyree are going down. No more bears or birds will be dying because of them. It’s not much, but it’s a start.”
“It’s a start,” I agreed.
“Let’s keep at it.” Ryan’s eyes were blue as the Atlantic and steady on mine. “You and me.”
“Do you mean that, Ryan?”
“I do.”
I kissed him, wrapped my arms around his neck, and pressed my cheek to his.
Pulling free, I wiped sand from his forehead and settled back to my reading, eager to find a place to begin.
Ryan took Boyd for a run on the beach.
That night we ate shrimp and crab on the docks at Shem Creek. We walked in the surf, made love, then fell asleep listening to Ryan’s eternal ocean.
From the Forensic Files of Dr. Kathy Reichs
For legal and ethical reasons I cannot discuss any of the real-life cases that may have inspired Bare Bones, but I can share with you some experiences that contributed to the plot.
Monsieur Orignal
Shakespeare spoke of “murder most foul” (Hamlet, 1.5), but not all forensic anthropology cases are the result of violence.
A variety of bones find their way to my lab: trophy skulls smuggled from foreign lands; teaching skeletons spirited from classrooms to fraternity houses; Confederate soldiers buried in unmarked graves; pets laid to rest in backyards or crawl spaces.
It happens all the time. Bones or body parts are discovered. Local authorities, unfamiliar with anatomy, send them to the coroner or medical examiner. Occasionally the “vic” turns out to be a reptile or bird, but most are members of the class Mammalia. I’ve examined spareribs, deer metapodia, ham bones, and elk horns. I’ve gotten kittens in gunnysacks and wood rats mixed in with murder victims. Bear paws, which particularly resemble human hands and feet, also sometimes show up at my lab.
The skeletal remains that found their way into Bare Bones actually entered my life during a blizzard in Montreal on a Thursday in November 1997. Driving as a Southerner versed in snowfall panic, edging my speed up to thirty only in the tunnel, I arrived late to the lab and thus missed the morning meeting at which the day’s cases had been discussed and assigned. One document lay on my desk, a Demande d’Expertise en Anthropologie.
Wasting no time, I skimmed for critical information: case number, morgue number, coroner, pathologist. I was being asked to examine cut marks on leg and pelvic bones to determine the type of saw used for dismemberment. The summary of known facts included one French word unfamiliar to me: orignal. Guilty over my tardiness, I headed straight for the bones, opting for a vocabulary check at a later time.
Throwing on a lab coat, I crossed to the counter reserved for new cases. When I unzipped the pouch, my jaw dropped. Either this victim had a colossal pituitary disorder, or I was looking at Goliath himself.
About-face. Dictionary.
Orignal: élan, n. m. Au Canada on l’appelle orignal.
My dismemberment victim was a moose.
On more careful reading of the request-for-expertise form, I discovered that the analysis had been requested by the Société de la faune et des parcs, the Quebec equivalent of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. A poacher had been killing moose for years with blatant disregard for the annual quota. Conservation agents had decided to prosecute and wanted an opinion. Could I tie the cut marks on the moose bones to a saw recovered from the suspect’s garage?
I could.
Big bones. Big animal. Big lesson in proceeding rapidly while not fully cognizant of the mission.
No need for Shakespeare here.
Thoreau put it well: “Some circumstantial evidence is strong, as when you find a trout in the milk” (Walden).
Or Bullwinkle in a body bag.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kathy Reichs is forensic anthropologist for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, State of North Carolina, and for the Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale for the province of Quebec. She is one of only fifty forensic anthropologists certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology and is on the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. A professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina–Charlotte, Dr. Reichs is a native of Chicago, where she received her Ph.D. at Northwestern. She now divides her time between Charlotte and Montreal and is a frequent expert witness at criminal trials. Her first novel, Déjà Dead, brought Dr. Reichs fame when it became a New York Times bestseller and won the 1997 Ellis Award for Best First Novel. Death du Jour, Deadly Décisions, Fatal Voyage, and Grave Secrets also became international and New York Times bestsellers. Bare Bones is her sixth novel featuring Temperance Brennan.
Scribner proudly presents
MONDAY
MOURNING
KATHY REICHS
Available Now
Turn the page for a preview of Monday Mourning . . .
Chapter 1
Monday, Monday . . .
Can’t trust that day . . .
As the tune played inside my head, gunfire exploded in the cramped underground space around me.
My eyes flew up as muscle, bone, and guts splattered against rock just three feet from me.
The mangled body seemed glued for a moment, then slid downward, leaving a smear of blood and hair.
I felt warm droplets on my cheek, backhanded them with a gloved hand.
Still squatting, I swiveled.
“Assez!” Enough!
Sérgeant-detective Luc Claudel’s brows plunged into a V. He lowered, but did not holster his nine millimeter.
“Rats. They are the devil’s spawn.” Claudel’s French was clipped and nasal, reflecting his upriver roots.
“Throw rocks,” I snapped.
“That bastard was big enough to throw them back.”
Hours of squatting in the cold and damp on a December Monday in Montreal had taken a toll. My knees protested as I rose to a standing position.
“Where is Charbonneau?” I asked, rotating one booted foot, then the other.
“Questioning the owner. I wish him luck. Moron has the IQ of pea soup.”
“The owner discovered this?” I flapped a hand at the ground behind me.
“Non. Le plombier.”
“What was a plumber doing in the cellar?”
“Genius spotted a trapdoor beside the commode, decided to do some underground exploration to acquaint himself with the sewage pipes.”
Remembering my own desc
ent down the rickety staircase, I wondered why anyone would take the risk.
“The bones were lying on the surface?”
“Says he tripped on something sticking out of the ground. There.” Claudel cocked his chin at a shallow pit where the south wall met the dirt floor. “Pulled it loose. Showed the owner. Together they checked out the local library’s anatomy collection to see if the bone was human. Picked a book with nice color pictures, since they probably can’t read.”
I was about to ask a follow-up question, when something clicked above us. Claudel and I looked up, expecting his partner.
Instead of Charbonneau, we saw a scarecrow man in a knee-length sweater, baggy jeans, and dirty blue Nikes. Pigtails wormed from the lower edge of a red bandanna wrapping his head.
The man was crouched in the doorway, pointing a throwaway Kodak in my direction.
Claudel’s V narrowed and his parrot nose went a deeper red. “Tabernac!”
Two more clicks, then bandanna man scrabbled sideways.
Holstering his weapon, Claudel grabbed the wooden railing. “Until SIJ returns, throw rocks.”
SIJ. Section d’Identitté Judiciaire. The Quebec equivalent of crime scene recovery.
I watched Claudel’s perfectly fitted buttocks disappear through the small rectangular opening. Though tempted, I pegged not a single rock.
Upstairs, muted voices, the clump of boots. Downstairs, just the hum of the generator for the portable lights.
Breath suspended, I listened to the shadows around me.
No squeaking. No scratching. No scurrying feet.
Quick scan.
No beady eyes. No naked, scaly tails.
The little buggers were probably regrouping for another offensive.
Though I disagreed with Claudel’s approach to the problem, I was with him on one thing. I could do without the rodents.
Satisfied that I was alone for the moment, I refocused on the moldy crate at my feet. Dr. Energy’s Power Tonic. Dead tired? Dr. Energy’s makes your bones want to get up and dance.
Not these bones, doc.
I gazed at the crate’s grisly contents.
Though most of the skeleton remained caked, dirt had been brushed from some bones. Their outer surfaces looked chestnut under the harsh illumination of the portable lights. A clavicle. Ribs. A pelvis.