crack of gunfire.
The skeletal remains were laid out on a silver table with tiny holes in it. The holes made it easier to clean by simply spraying it with a hose. The floor was tile and tilted toward a drain in the center, like the shower room at a health club, which also made it easier to get rid of debris. Muse didn't want to think what got caught up in such drains, what they used to clean it out, if Drano did any good at all or if they had to use something stronger.
Lowell stood on one side of the table, Muse on the other with Tara O'Neill.
"So what's up?" Lowell asked.
"First off, we're missing some bones. I'll go out later and take an other look. Small stuff, nothing major. That's normal in a case like this. I was about to run some X-rays, check the ossification centers, especially up at the clavicle."
"What will that tell us?"
"It gives us an idea of age. Bones stop growing as we get older. The last place of ossification is up there, pretty much where the clavicle meets the sternum. The process stops around the age of twenty-one. But that's not important right now."
Lowell looked at Muse. Muse shrugged.
"So what's the big thing you found?"
"This."
O'Neill pointed to the pelvis.
Muse said, "You showed me that before. That's the proof that the skeleton belonged to a female."
"Well, yes. The pelvis is wider, like I said before. Plus we have the less prominent ridge and smaller bone density-all the signs that she's female. There is no doubt in my mind. We are looking at the skeletal remains of a female."
"So what are you showing us?"
"The pubic bone."
"What about it?"
"You see here? We call this notching-or better, the pitting of the pubic bones." "Okay." "Cartilage holds bones together. That's basic anatomy. You probably know this. We mostly think of cartilage in terms of the knee or elbow. It's elastic. It stretches. But you see this? The marks on the face of the pubic bone? That's formed on the cartilaginous surface where the bones once met and then separated."
O'Neill looked up at them. Her face was glowing.
"Are you following me?"
Muse said, "No."
"The notches are formed when the cartilage is strained. When the pubic bones separate." Muse looked at Lowell. Lowell shrugged. "And that means?" Muse tried. "That means that at some point in her life, the bones separated.
And that means, Investigator Muse, that your victim gave birth."
Chapter 37
Things do not slow down when you have a gun pointed at you.
To the contrary, they speed up. When Ira pointed the gun at me, I expected to have time to react. I started to raise my hands, the primitive demonstration of being harmless. My mouth began to open to try to talk my way through this, to tell him I would cooperate and do what he wanted. My heart raced, my breathing stopped, and my eyes could only see the gun, nothing but the opening of that barrel, the giant black hole now facing me.
But I didn't have time for any of that. I didn't have time to ask Ira why. I didn't have time to ask him what had happened to my sister, if she was alive or dead, how Gil had gotten out of the woods that night, if Wayne Steubens was involved or not. I didn't have time to tell Ira that he was right, I should have let it lie, I would let it lie now and we could all go back to our lives.
I had no time to do any of that.
Because Ira was already pulling the trigger.
A year ago I read a book called Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. I don't dare simplify his arguments but part of what he says is that we need to rely on our instincts more-the animal part four brain that will automatically jump out of the way if a truck is bearing down on us. He also notes that we make snap judgments, sometimes seemingly based on little evidence, what we used to call hunches, and that they are often right. Maybe that was at work here. Maybe something in Ira's stance or the way he pulled out the gun or whatever made me realize that there would indeed be no talking to him, that he was going to fire and that I was going to die.
Something made me jump right away.
But the bullet still hit me.
He had aimed for the center of my chest. The bullet hit my