Page 40 of Fire and Bones

The woman had stood four feet eleven inches and, based on muscle mass and the weight of her desiccated body, had tipped the scales at around eighty pounds. She would have gotten no bigger. Every growth plate in every long bone was fused.

The woman’s teeth had all erupted and completed full root development. Except for one rotated canine, her dentition was in reasonably good alignment. She had a single cavity in an upper left first molar. She had undergone no restoration or other dental treatment.

The woman had no scars, moles, congenital or medical anomalies. No evidence of healed fractures, surgeries, or disease. No tattoos or piercings.

The woman’s bone density appeared normal for someone her age.

Though decomp made it impossible to say much about the state of her internal organs, overall, #25-02106 presented as a healthy young adult female.

A young adult female with a depressed fracture of her right parietal radiating out into an explosion of linear fractures. A jaw broken in two midway up the right ascending ramus.

What caused the trauma? A transportation accident? A fall? A blast? A blunt instrument blow? Repeated punches to the face?

I couldn’t say.

Had the trauma killed her?

I couldn’t say.

I could state nothing concerning manner of death. Homicide? Suicide? Accident? So why was the woman’s body secured in a bag?

I could state nothing concerning time of death.

For now. I hoped the clothing and potato sack could be used to bracket a possible time range.

At four-ten, I headed to the locker room to shower and change back into civvies. It had been hours since Lan’s breakfast. My stomach was again on a rampage.

Except for the security guard and a man approaching the elevator from which I was exiting, the lobby was deserted. I was heading for the doors, thinking about the food trucks I’d seen on the street the previous day, when I noticed the man cut sharply to his left.

To avoid me?

I took a closer look. Narrow shoulders, pudgy body. Thinning hair swirling his scalp like a blond fingerprint.

Snap.

Luis “Lubu” Burgos.

Clearly the fire inspector had no wish to talk to me.

I decided to make his day.

“Sergeant Burgos.” Waving and cutting right so our paths would intersect. “It’s Tempe Brennan.”

Burgos slowed but, unsmiling, stayed the course toward me.

“So nice to bump into you,” I said when we were face-to-face.

Burgos made some sort of noise in his throat.

“You’re also working on a Sunday on a holiday weekend? I guess we both need to get a life.” Accompanied by my most self-deprecating smile.

“I have a report and pics for Doc Thacker.” Burgos tapped a large brown envelope tucked under his left arm. “I was nearby, figured I’d just leave this on her desk.”

“Conveyed the old-fashioned way.” Delivered with another big grin.

“I suppose.”

“I’ve just completed my examination of the body from the subcellar.”