“I’m not surprised. The Villejoin sisters were blessed with remarkable genes. I saw both of them from the mid-seventies until my retirement in ’ninety-eight. They rarely had an ailment. Oh, a bellyache now and then. Common cold. Maybe a rash. Anne-Isabelle and Christelle may have been the two healthiest patients I treated in my entire forty-six years of practice. Never smoked, never drank. Took only drugstore vitamins, an aspirin now and then. No magic potions or lifestyle secrets. Just whoppin’ good DNA.”

“The coroner provided no dental records.”

“The girls weren’t so lucky there. Brushed and flossed like the devil, but still lost their teeth. Didn’t matter how much I scolded. Both hated dentists. Got it from their mama, I think.”

“I see.” Discouraged, I slumped back in my chair.

“Fact is, they distrusted medicine in general. As far as I know, they gave up on doctors altogether when I retired. I referred their files to the young fellow who took over my practice, but he once told me he never laid eyes on either. Funny, them working all their lives at the hospital.”

Is it? I thought. Maybe they’d seen too much.

“I remember the attack,” Rayner said. “Poor Anne-Isabelle. I suppose the same demented animal also killed Christelle that day?”

“I’m sorry. I can’t discuss an open investigation.”

Rayner wasn’t fooled.

“It’s a harsh world we live in.”

I couldn’t disagree with that.

“Dr. Rayner, can you think of anything that might help me determine if this skeleton is Christelle’s? Perhaps something you noticed while examining her? Something she told you? Something you spotted in older records that no longer exist?”

Down the hall I heard a door open, close. Footsteps. The pause continued so long I thought we’d been disconnected.

“Sir?”

“Actually, there was something.”

Sitting upright, I said, “Tell me about it.”

“Christelle had a ninety-degree flexion contracture in the proximal interphalangeal joint of her right little finger. When I asked about it she said her pinky had been crooked since birth.”

“What about the other joints in that finger?” I grabbed pen and paper.

“They were fine. At first. Whenever I saw Christelle I checked her hand. Over the years compensatory deformity developed in the metacarpo-phalangeal and distal interphalangeal joints.”

“Camptodactyly?” I guessed.

“I think so.”

“Congenital?”

“Yes.”

“Bilateral or just on the right?”

“Just the one hand was affected.”

“Did you take X-rays?”

“I offered repeatedly. Christelle always refused. Said the thing never caused her any pain. The finger wasn’t a complaint, and there was never any treatment, so I didn’t chart it. Didn’t seem important.”

Suddenly, I was in a froth to get back to the bones.

“Thank you so much, doctor. You’ve been very helpful.”

“Call if you need anything further.”

Though an affected finger may look painfully distorted, camptodactyly is usually asymptomatic. And, like Christelle, many with the condition seek no medical attention.

Not particularly useful from an antemortem records perspective.

But two things were very useful.

Camptodactyly occurs in less than one percent of the population.

Camptodactyly leaves its mark on the joints.

After disconnecting, I shot upstairs, grabbed a Diet Coke, then practically danced back down to Salle 4.

Scooping the unsorted phalanges, I began to triage.

Row: Proximal. Middle. Distal.

Digit: Thumb. Two. Three. Four. Five.

Side: Left. Right.

Done.

I stared in disbelief.

IMPOSSIBLE.

Joe and I had recovered all fifty-six.

I checked every inch of the autopsy table. The entire skeleton. The gurney. The body bag. The floor. The counter. The sink. The plastic sheet I’d used to cover the remains.

I had no distal phalange from the right third finger and none of the three from the right fifth finger.

I checked again.

Nope.

Phalanges are small, often lost from corpses left out in the elements. Had the missing bones been carried from the grave by rodents? Wood rats are known to collect body parts in their nests. Had they been washed away by percolating ground water?

Or had I screwed up?

The skeleton had darkened to the same deep brown as the soil. Had I failed to spot the phalanges in the pit? Missed them in the screen? I’d dug an extra six inches below the skeleton. Had burrowing roots or insects dragged the little buggers deeper than that?

Was it something more sinister? Had Christelle’s little finger been severed before she was placed in the earth? If so, what had happened to her middle finger tip?

And, more important, why? Did removal of the pinky imply a killer who knew his victim, a killer savvy to the forensic value of a finger deformity?

Sweet Jesus, this couldn’t be happening. The camptodactyly was all I had. Hubert would be calling soon.

Wrong.

Hearing footsteps, I whirled.

Hubert’s belly was rolling through the door. The rest of the coroner was right behind.

“Dr. Brennan.” Cheek-popping grin. “What have you got for me?”

“Actually, I haven’t quite finished.”

Hubert retracted a cuff and checked his watch.

“I have no X-rays, dental records, or adequate medical history. With this other elderly lady gone missing-”

Hubert frowned. “What other elderly lady?”

I summarized Ryan’s account of Marilyn Keiser.

“Eh, misère.”

“But I may have found something.”

Hubert sighed through his nose. It whistled. “How long?”

“Soon.”

“I’ll be in my office.”

When Hubert had gone, I made another sweep of the autopsy room. The phalanges were definitely not there.

I stood a moment, arms wrapping my waist.

Skeletal inventory sheet?

I checked.

At graveside, I’d indicated recovery of fifty-six phalanges. Beyond that, the information was useless. After identifying carpals, metacarpals, tarsals, and metatarsals, I’d merely tallied phalange totals, then bagged the hands and feet. Had I miscounted? Mistaken twigs for middles? Pebbles for distals?

Joe?

Thinking the tech might remember what we’d gotten, I hurried down the hall. The large autopsy suite was deserted. I called upstairs, got Joe’s voice mail. Of course. Lunchtime.

Morgue photos?

It had been a Saturday. I’d worked alone. The bones had required no cleaning, so there’d been no risk of unintentional modification. Other than overview shots documenting condition upon arrival, I’d decided to delay photography until the skeleton was reassembled.

Scene photos?

Though a long shot, the right little finger might be visible in close-ups.

Climbing the back stairs to the main level, I exited to the lobby and took an unrestricted elevator to the second floor. A guy named Pellerin greeted me in the Service de l’identité judiciaire.

I requested the scene shots from the Oka recovery. Pellerin asked me to wait and disappeared into the back. After a short delay, he reappeared with a thick brown envelope. I thanked him and went back downstairs.

Sliding a spiral-bound album from the envelope, I started flipping through 5 by 7 color prints.

The opening sequence showed the usual terrain overviews, approach routes, and angles of a yellow-taped patch of earth. Only the tent was atypical.

I skipped quickly through those. My interest was in bones.

There were several photos of the skeleton lying in the pit, taken from a distance of at least six feet. Because the victim lay twisted to one side, the right hand and arm were difficult to see.

I tried a magnifying glass. It didn’t help much.

I continued flipping through prints.