I joined her, and we entered what was now a different type of incident morgue. Stan and Maggie worked at autopsy tables, arranging bones where crash victims recently had lain. Four tables held unopened cardboard boxes.
I greeted my team and hurried to the cubicle I was using as an office. As I exchanged my jacket for a lab coat, Crowe took the chair opposite my desk, zipped open the case, and withdrew several folders.
“Nineteen seventy-nine came up zilch. All MPs accounted for. There were two from 1972.”
She opened the first folder.
“Mary Francis Rafferty, white female, age eighty-one. Lived alone over in Dillsboro. Her daughter checked on her every Saturday. One week Rafferty wasn't in her home. Never seen again. It was presumed she wandered off and died of exposure.”
“How often have we heard that?”
She went to the next folder.
“Sarah Ellen Deaver, white female, age nineteen. Left home to go to her job at a convenience store on Highway 74. Never got there.”
“I doubt we've got Deaver out there. Anything from Tommy Albright?”
“George Adair's positive,” Crowe confirmed.
“Dental?” I asked.
“Yes.” Pause. “You know that first alcove burial was missing its left foot?”
“Albright phoned me.”
“Jeremiah Mitchell's daughter thought she recognized some of the clothing. We're getting blood from a sister.”
“Albright asked me to cut bone samples. Tyrell's promised to rush them through. Did you check the other dates?”
“Albert Odell's family provided the name of his dentist.”
“He's the apple farmer?” I asked.
“Odell's the only MP still out from eighty-six.”
“Many dentists don't keep records past ten years.”
“Dr. Welch didn't sound like the brightest bulb in the marquee. I'm driving over to Lauada this afternoon to see what he has.”
“What about the others?” I knew what her answer would be even as I asked the question.
“The others will be tough. It's been over fifty years for Adams and Farrell, over forty for Tramper.”
She withdrew three more folders and laid everything on my desk.
“Here's what I've managed to dig up.” She stood. “I'll let you know what I get from the dentist.”
When she'd gone I spent a few moments perusing the folders. The one for Tucker Adams contained only the press items I'd already seen.
Edna Farrell's record was a little better, and included handwritten notes taken at the time of her disappearance. There was a statement by Sandra Jane Farrell, giving an account of Edna's last days and a detailed physical description. Edna had fallen from a horse as a young woman, and Sandra described her mother's face as “lopsided.”
I snatched up a black-and-white snapshot with scalloped edges. Though the image was blurry, the facial asymmetry was obvious.
“Way to go, Edna.”
There were photos of Charlie Wayne Tramper, and his disappearance and death were reported in several newspaper articles. Otherwise, there was little in the way of written information.
The following days were like the first I'd spent at the Alarka Fire Department, living with the dead from dawn until dusk. Hour after hour I sorted and arranged bones, determined sex and race, estimated age and height. I searched for indicators of old injury, past illness, congenital peculiarity, or repetitive movement. For each skeleton I built as complete a profile as was possible working from remains devoid of living tissue.
In a way, it was like processing a crash, where names are known from the passenger roster. Based on Veckhoff's diary, I was convinced I had a limited population because the dates entered in his lists matched precisely the disappearance dates of seniors from Swain and adjoining counties: 1943, Tucker Adams; 1949, Edna Farrell; 1959, Charlie Wayne Tramper; 1986, Albert Odell.
Believing them to be the earliest in time, we started with the four tunnel burials. While Stan and Maggie cleaned, sorted, numbered, photographed, and X-rayed, I studied bones.
I found Edna Farrell early. Skeleton number four was that of an elderly female whose right cheekbone and jawbone deviated sharply from the midline due to fractures that had healed without proper intervention.
Skeleton number five was incomplete, lacking portions of the rib cage, arms, and lower legs. Animal damage was extensive. Pelvic features told me the individual was male and old. A globular skull, flaring cheekbones, and shoveling on the front teeth suggested Native-American ancestry. Statistical analysis placed the skull squarely in the Mongoloid camp. Charlie Wayne Tramper?
Number six, the most deteriorated of the skeletons, was that of an elderly Caucasoid male who had been toothless at the time of his death. Save for a height estimate of over six feet, I found no unique markers on the bones. Tucker Adams?
Skeleton number three was that of an elderly male with healed fractures of the nose, maxilla, third, fourth, and fifth ribs, and right fibula. A long, narrow skull, Quonset hut nasal bridge, smooth nasal border, and anterior projection of the lower face suggested the man was black. So did the Fordisc 2.0 program. I suspected he was the 1979 victim.
Next, I examined the skeletons found in the alcove with Mitchell and Adair.
Skeleton number two was that of an elderly white male. Arthritic changes in the right shoulder and arm bones suggested repeated extension of the hand above the head. Apple picking? Based on the state of preservation, I guessed this individual had died more recently than those buried in the tunnel graves. The apple farmer, Albert Odell?
Skeleton number one was that of an elderly white female with advanced arthritis and only seven teeth. Mary Francis Rafferty, the woman from Dillsboro whose daughter had found her mother's house empty in 1972?
By late afternoon Saturday, I felt confident I had matched the bones with their proper names. Lucy Crowe helped by finding Albert Odell's dental records, the Reverend Luke Bowman by remembering Tucker Adams's height. Six foot three.
And I had a pretty good idea as to manner of death.
The hyoid is a small, horseshoe-shaped bone embedded in the soft tissue of the neck, high up behind the lower jaw. In the elderly, whose bones are often brittle, the hyoid fractures when its wings are compressed. The most common source of compressive force is strangulation.
Tommy Albright phoned as I was preparing to close up.
“Find any more hyoid fractures?”
“Five out of the six.”
“Mitchell, too. He must have put up a helluva fight. When they couldn't strangle him, they smashed his head in.”
“Adair?”
“No. But there's petechial hemorrhage.”
Petechiae are minute blood clots that appear as dots in the eyes and throat, and are strong indicators of asphyxiation.
“Who the hell would want to strangle old people?”
I did not answer. I'd seen other trauma on the skeletons. Trauma I found puzzling. Trauma I would not mention until I understood more.
When he hung up, I went to burial four, picked up the thighbones, and brought them to the magnifier light.
Yes. It was there. It was real.
I collected the femora from every skeleton, and took the bones to a dissecting scope.
Tiny grooves circled each right proximal shaft and ran the length of each linea aspera, the roughened ridge for muscle attachment on the back side of the bone. Other gashes ran horizontally, above and below the joint surfaces. Though the number of marks varied, their distribution was consistent from victim to victim.
I cranked the magnification as high as it would go.
When I focused, the grooves crystallized into sharp-edged crevices, V-shaped in cross section.
Cut marks. But how could that be? I'd seen cut marks on bone, but only in cases of dismemberment. Except for Charlie Wayne Tramper and Jeremiah Mitchell, these individuals had been buried whole.
Then why? And why only the right femora? Was it only the right femora?