Page 32 of The Summer Guests

“You remember Jo Thibodeau, don’t you?” Wass said.

Alfond gave a grudging nod. “Of course.”

“And this is her brother, Finn.”

Alfond laughed. “What is this, Take Your Family to Work Day?”

“I’m with the Maine Warden Service,sir,” Finn said, and he took a step toward his sister to form a united front. The Thibodeaus always stuck together. “I’m the diver who brought up the remains.”

“Let’s get down to business, shall we?” said Volberding, and she looked at Finn. “Tell us about the recovery. Describe the location.”

“Maiden Pond,” said Finn. “The pond has a maximum depth of around forty-two feet, but these remains were lying at a depth of twenty-one feet, about fifty feet off the western shore. We were about two hours into our search grid when we spotted the irregularity on side-scan. The bottom there is mixed gravel and sediment. The water clarity was fair. Not much of a current, and the wind was from the south.”

“And this was a surprise discovery? I’m told you were actually looking for a missing girl.”

Jo nodded. “A fifteen-year-old visitor who went missing on Monday. Her family’s staying in their summer home on Maiden Pond.”

“Well, these certainly aren’t her bones,” said Volberding. “These have been in the water for quite some time.”

“How long?” asked Alfond.

“I don’t have an easy answer for you.” With gloved hands, Volberding picked up the skull. “In fresh water, in the summer, a body could skeletonize within a month.”

“So this death could be as recent as a month ago?”

“Slow down, I’m just getting started. You can see, there isn’t even a trace of adipocere on these bones. That’s what we used to call ‘grave wax,’ or decomposed fatty tissue. In submerged bodies, adipocere can linger on a corpse for years. The lack of it here argues for a much longer submersion than just a month. Also, there’s complete disarticulation of the joints, plus we’re missing a few of the carpals. The hand bones. Which means we’re not talking mere months, but most likely years of immersion.” Volberding looked at Finn. “You’re sure you recovered everything?”

“Yes, ma’am. And we scooped up some of the surrounding rocks and debris, because I thought they might be relevant. They were in that bag, there.” He pointed to a yellow plastic pouch on the steel tray.

“Good for you, because that debrisisrelevant. It’s just a pity it didn’t include anything to help identify her.”

“Her?” said Jo.

“Oh, yes.” Volberding pointed to the pelvis. “Remember my lecture at the academy, about the skeletal clues that tell you an individual’s sex? Look at the shape of this pubic arch, the pelvic inlet. And look at the contours of the iliac crests. This individual is clearly a female. And using the length of the femur as a guide ...” She pulled out a tape measure and held it against the thigh bone. “I’d say her height was between five foot three to five foot five. Which again supports the conclusion this is a female.”

“An adult?” said Jo. “Or someone not fully grown?”

“She has all four wisdom teeth, so she’s at least eighteen years old. And the epiphyses have closed.”

“The what?” said Finn.

Wass explained, “That’s the cartilage plate at the end of the long bones. When you stop growing, that plate closes over, and the bone fuses.”

“Which again tells us she was an adult,” said Volberding. She picked up one of the spinal bones. “There’s no lipping of the vertebral bodies, no osteoporotic changes, so she wasn’t particularly old.” Volberdingreached for the skull and rotated it to view the underside. “And the basilar suture is not quite fused.”

“What does that mean?” asked Finn.

“A newborn’s skull needs to be a little flexible, to help it pass through the birth canal. The cranium’s actually made up of separate bones, which are loosely connected. Over the years, the sutures between those bones begin to fuse together, and that makes the adult skull rigid. One of the last sutures to fill in is here, at the bottom. The basilar suture.” She held out the skull to show them. “Do you see how this suture is not completely filled in with bone?”

“Which makes her how old?” asked Jo.

“No older than her midthirties.” Gently Dr. Volberding set the skull down on the morgue table.

A young woman. Maybe my age,thought Jo, staring at that skull. For years, this woman had been lying at the bottom of Maiden Pond as the seasons passed. The water above her froze and thawed and froze again, peeling away skin and flesh until all that remained was what now lay on this table.

“Do you have any open missing persons cases?” Alfond asked Jo.

Jo shook her head. “Nothing I could find. I grew up in Purity, and I don’t recall hearing about any missing women.”

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