Everyone nodded their silent understanding.
17
CORRIE PAINSTAKINGLY ATTACHED the last flesh-depth marker on a cast of the first skull, glanced at the clock—precisely 5:00 PM—then stood back to admire her handiwork. At John Jay College of Criminal Justice, she’d graduated with a simultaneous BS/MA with a specialty in forensic anthropology and facial reconstruction. Usually, it took a team of two to reconstruct a face from a skull—a forensic anthropologist and an artist—but she had studied both disciplines and was qualified to do an entire facial reconstruction by herself. It was a painstaking process involving both craft and art. Computer simulations, despite what was shown on TV, were just not as good as what could be accomplished by careful reconstruction working by hand.
Of course, Lathrop knew nothing about this, having graduated a million years ago and never making any attempt to keep up with the field. She couldn’t wait for him to retire. But here he was, busying himself with nothing while she warmed up a block of Plasticine in a bowl of water over a Bunsen burner, getting ready to sculpt the muscles on the skull cast.
“Knock, knock,” said Morwood, leaning in the doorway.
“Come in!” cried Lathrop, rushing over to shift some boxes away from the entry. “We’re making brilliant progress, Agent Morwood.”
Corrie waited, saying nothing, while Lathrop led Morwood over to the worktable. Corrie decided to let Lathrop go ahead and talk all he wanted. She was tired of trying to compete with him, and besides, she felt confident that Morwood would see through it.
“As you can see,” Lathrop said, “we’ve made a cast of the male skull, and now we’re about to lay on the muscles and flesh—and give this poor victim a face and, hopefully, a name.”
“Very nice,” said Morwood, bending over the skull with a sidelong glance at Corrie that spoke volumes. “Nice work indeed. Any chance you’ll get that ID soon?”
Morwood had looked at Corrie while asking the question, but Lathrop forged ahead anyway. “Without doubt. We also have dental records. Some rather odd dentistry, actually: the male had four crowns made not of gold, or even the silver amalgam typical of the time, but rather stainless steel.”
The composition of the crown material was something else Corrie had discovered on her own.
Morwood raised his eyebrows. “How unusual is that?”
“Most unusual,” said Lathrop quickly.
“That should help pinpoint where the dental work was done, shouldn’t it?” Morwood asked Corrie directly.
“Quite possibly, sir,” she said quietly.
Abruptly, Morwood was taken by a brief fit of coughing. Then he cleared his throat. “May I make a suggestion? Why not send those four crowns to the main lab in Quantico? They have world-class specialists in dental forensics.”
“An excellent idea,” said Lathrop. “Although unfortunately no prints remained for us to match against the databases, we’ve sent off DNA for sequencing. I’m quite confident, Agent Morwood, that we’ll soon be able to identify both individuals.”
“I’d like you both to present this at our weekly meeting next Tuesday. Think you’ll have an ID by then?”
“Yes,” said Lathrop, even as Corrie said, “No.”
Morwood looked at each of them in turn. “Which is it?”
“The DNA sequencing,” said Corrie, “won’t be done by then. The dental work might lead somewhere, but I doubt we’ll know by Tuesday. That only leaves the facial reconstructions, but they date back over seventy years, so it’s unlikely anyone’s alive to recognize them. It’ll take some time to match them with existing photographs, if we can do it at all.”
“Agent Morwood,” said Lathrop in an ingratiating tone, “I’m rather more sanguine than our resident Cassandra here. On the contrary, I believe we will have an ID for you by Tuesday, or at least something close.”
Morwood nodded and, as his eyes flickered again to Corrie, she thought she caught a veiled warning. He knew how offended she must be, and he was cautioning her not to react. She swallowed hard. Our resident Cassandra here. Was she really going to let that one go?
“You’re both doing a fine job,” Morwood said. “Corrie, as you’re the agent in charge, I’ll expect you to give the main presentation. I hope you won’t mind, Dr. Lathrop.”
He nodded curtly. “Of course not.”
“Very good.” Morwood looked at his watch. “I have to go—the good Dr. Eastchester has granted me a seven o’clock audience at his home in Los Alamos.” And he left.