Outside, the morning sun was painting the clouds a luminescent pink. When we broke through I could see a tiny shadow plane paralleling the one in which I rode.
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 SBJ lab. She'd already brought the remains from the medical examiner's office in Chapel Hill, and secured a room where we could work. If samples were to be taken for DNA analysis, all 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 smallest 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 allows 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 Shallotte is not that big a place. The kids that did recognize her name or photo couldn't tell 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 really bum deal. Miserable family. No friends. Anyway, you can tell she wasn't very big."
I looked at the photo and felt a surge of pity.
The girl sat on a blanket, one scarecrow arm clutching her middle, the other held palm out to fend off the picture taker. She wore a one-piece bathing suit that showed skin so pale it was almost blue. She'd been hiding her face, but the camera caught her looking up, eyes enormous behind thick lenses. In the distance I could make out the horizontal slash of waves meeting shore.
As I stared at the wan little face, I ached inside. What could have prompted an attack on someone so fragile? Did a stranger force her at knifepoint, then strangle and leave her to the dogs? When did she realize she was going to die? Did she scream in terror, knowing no one would hear her cries? Had she died in her own home, to be hauled off and dumped? As her eyes closed for the last time did she feel terror or resignation or hatred or numbness, or merely bewilderment? Had she felt pain?
"Compare cranial features."
Kate was pulling X rays from a large brown envelope and popping them onto a wall illuminator
"This is a cranial series taken just four months before Savannah disappeared."
I got my X rays from the athletic bag and clipped them next to the hospital films. Starting with the facial views, I compared the shape of the frontal sinuses. Varying from small and simple to large and multichambered, these hollow spaces above the orbits are as unique to an individual as his or her fingerprints.
Savannah's sinuses rose into her forehead like a crest on the head of a cockatoo, the configuration on her hospital X rays matching exactly the one in the skull on my film. And the surgical burr hole was clearly visible in every view, the shape and position identical on the antemortem and postmortem films.
There was no doubt that the skull unearthed in St-Basile was Savannah Claire Osprey. But could we link the skull and femora to the partial skeleton found near Myrtle Beach?
Before leaving Montreal I'd removed a sliver of bone from the shaft of one of the femora and extracted a molar from the upper jaw in the skull, thinking that if relatives could be located, or antemortem samples of the victim's tissue or blood could be recovered, DNA sequencing might confirm the suspected identity. While the dental and radiographic evidence now rendered DNA testing unnecessary for purposes of identifying the bones from Montreal, I had another goal in mind.
Using a bone saw, I cut a one-inch chunk from all of the tibiae and fibulae that Kate had been saving all these years. She watched in silence as the circular blade buzzed through the dry bone, sending up a powdery white spray
"It's not likely the hospital will come up with samples after all this time."
"No," I agreed. "But it happens."
It was true. Gallstones. Pap smears. Blood spots. Old DNA had been found in all sorts of strange places.
"What if there are no relatives?"
"By comparing the sequencing from the Myrtle Beach bones to that found in the St-Basile-le-Grand bones we'll at least know if all the remains come from the same individual. If they do we have essentially identified the Myrtle Beach bones because we have a firm ID on the Montreal skull. But I would like to get a DNA."
"What if there's no DNA?"
"I've already had microscope slides made from one of the St. Basile thigh bones. When I get back I'll do the same with these samples, then I'll examine everything under high-powered magnification."
"What will that tell you?"
"Age, for one thing. I'll see if that's consistent between the two sets of remains. I'll also look for details in microstructure that might be useful."
It was almost one when we'd labeled and numbered the four specimens and Kate had done the paperwork necessary to release them to me. We decided to grab a quick lunch before tackling the case file. Over cheeseburgers and fries at the local Wendy's she related what was known of Savannah Osprey's last hours.
According to the parents, Savannah had had a routine week. Her health was good and she was looking forward to an event at her school, though they couldn't remember what it was. On the day of her disappearancc she spent the early afternoon studying for a math exam, but didn't appear particularly anxious about it. Around two she said she needed something at the drugstore, and left the house on foot. They never saw her again.
"At least that was Daddy's version," Kate concluded.
"He was at home that day?"
"Until around three-thirty, when he made a pickup in Wilmington, then set out for Myrtle Beach. The departure time was confirmed by his employer He showed up a little late with the delivery but blamed the delay on traffic."
"Were you able to search the house or truck?"
"Nope. We had nothing on him, so we could never get a warrant."
"And the mother?"
"Brenda. She's another piece of work."
Kate took a bite of burger then wiped her mouth with a paper napkin.
"Brenda was working that day. I think she cleaned motel rooms. According to her statement, when she returned at five the house was empty She didn't begin to worry until it got dark and Savannah didn't call or show up. By midnight Mama was panicked and reported her daughter missing."