Carved in Bone

pelvis.” She paused, then added, “Not that you asked, but I can also tell you that the skull shows no obvious signs of trauma, blunt or sharp. She has three unfilled cavities, suggesting either low socioeconomic status or limited access to dental care. Probably both, if she grew up in Cooke County. And she has no lateral upper incisors, probably because of a genetic anomaly rather than tooth loss—the maxilla shows no resorption of bone, which we’d see if an empty socket had gradually filled in.” God, she was good! Miranda was going to make a spectacular forensic anthropologist, if she didn’t get lured away by some smart medical school first.
    “Great start,” I said, “let’s move on.” Miranda set the skull down on the counter and we returned to the headless corpse. As I began cleaning the remaining cervical vertebrae, we both leaned in closer. Miranda saw it first. “There.” She pointed with a gloved finger. A small, curving bone, about the thickness of a wishbone from a chicken breast, nestled in front of the third cervical vertebrae. Reaching in with a six-inch pair of tweezers, she grasped it and held it steady while I flooded it with hot water.
    “Don’t sneeze,” I said.
    “Don’t make me laugh,” she retorted. “Oh, wait, I forgot—no risk of that. I’ve heard your jokes before.”
    I worked the spray back and forth to extend the exposed region, and gradually the unmistakable U-shaped arch of the hyoid bone emerged from the goo. When it was completely free, Miranda bore it to the countertop as if it were a prize. Still holding it with the tweezers, she braced her elbows on the countertop as I swiveled an illuminated magnifying glass into position. She hunched in concentration, studying the bone from every angle. Finally, wordlessly, she pulled back so I could look.
    Reaching in with both hands, I slid my fingers over hers onto the tweezers. “Okay, got it,” I said, and she let go and stepped back.
    The hyoid is an arch measuring an inch to an inch and a half high, and about the same in width. Under the magnifying glass, it looked five times that size. Once upon a time this hyoid had supported the dead woman’s tongue and the other muscles she used to talk. Now I hoped the bone itself could tell us how she died.
    Attached to the central arch, or “body,” of the hyoid are two thinner arches, called the “horns.” Normally, the arch’s height is roughly the same as its span, or the distance between the tips of the horns. In this case, though, the horns were much closer together. It was easy to see why: where the horns joined the central body, the cartilage looked ripped from the bone, and the body itself was cracked at the midline. I had seen dozens of damaged hyoids in my time, but none so mangled as the one I held now. This young woman had been strangled with crushing force. The story of her death was written in bone.
    I straightened and looked at Miranda. She raised her eyebrows, and I gave her a grim smile. “Well, now we know she didn’t just crawl in that cave and die on her own,” I said. We had just reached a crucial milestone. Before, I had suspected that a murder had occurred; now I knew it. The small, fragile bone I held in my hand not only proved that a murder had been committed, it also told us how it happened. A rush of excitement surged through me. I liked to think of it as the wholesome satisfaction of a fruitful scientific inquiry. The truth was, though, it was more like a drug. Other people were hooked on cocaine or cigarettes or runner’s high; I was addicted to forensic discovery.
    “We’ll want lots of photographs of this,” I said. “Thirty-five millimeter; use the closeup lens and get in as tight as you can. Take it over to the engineering lab, too, and use their scanning-electron microscope. Besides these visible fractures, the SEM will probably show lots of microscopic avulsion fractures, too, where the cartilage has torn from the bone. We’ll need good evidence photos if this ever comes to trial.” Miranda nodded. “Okay, let’s pry off that pendant and then see what the clavicles tell us.”
    We returned to the remains on the gurney, and I slid a long, thin spatula beneath the rectangular lump near the top of the sternum. It pried loose with a spackling sound, like cold bacon grease letting go. I gave it an exploratory feel; it was thin and hard, with well-defined edges beneath the irregular layer of goo. Miranda held open a small