City Of Bones

gently returned the bone to its spot and then leaned over the examination table to look down at the rib cage. Many of the rib bones had been detached and were lying separated on the table.
    “The ribs,” Golliher said. “Nearly two dozen fractures in various stages of healing. A healed fracture on rib twelve I believe may date to when the boy was only two or three. Rib nine shows a callus indicative of trauma only a few weeks old at the time of death. The fractures are primarily consolidated near the angles. In infants this is indicative of violent shaking. In older children this is usually indicative of blows to the back.”
    Bosch thought of the pain he was in, of how he had been unable to sleep well because of the injury to his ribs. He thought of a young boy living with that kind of pain year in and year out.
    “I gotta go wash my face,” he suddenly said. “You can continue.”
    He walked to the door, shoving his notebook and pen into Edgar’s hands. In the hallway he turned right. He knew the layout of the autopsy floor and knew there were rest rooms around the next turn of the corridor.
    He entered the rest room and went right to an open stall. He felt nauseous and waited but nothing happened. After a long moment it passed.
    Bosch came out of the stall just as the door opened from the hallway and Teresa Corazon’s cameraman walked in. They looked warily at each other for a moment.
    “Get out of here,” Bosch said. “Come back later.”
    The man silently turned and walked out.
    Bosch walked to the sink and looked at himself in the mirror. His face was red. He bent down and used his hands to cup cold water against his face and eyes. He thought about baptisms and second chances. Of renewal. He raised his face until he was looking at himself again.
    I’m going to get this guy.
    He almost said it out loud.
    When Bosch returned to suite A all eyes were on him. Edgar gave him his notebook and pen back and Golliher asked if he was all right.
    “Yeah, fine,” he said.
    “If it is any help to you,” Golliher said, “I have consulted on cases all over the world. Chile, Kosovo, even the World Trade Center. And this case…”
    He shook his head.
    “It’s hard to comprehend,” he added. “It’s one of those where you have to think that maybe the boy was better off leaving this world. That is, if you believe in a God and a better place than this.”
    Bosch walked over to a counter and pulled a paper towel out of a dispenser. He started wiping his face again.
    “And what if you don’t?”
    Golliher walked over to him.
    “Well, you see, this is why you must believe,” he said. “If this boy did not go from this world to a higher plane, to something better, then… then I think we’re all lost.”
    “Did that work for you when you were picking through the bones at the World Trade Center?”
    Bosch immediately regretted saying something so harsh. But Golliher seemed unfazed. He spoke before Bosch could apologize.
    “Yes, it did,” he said. “My faith was not shaken by the horror or the unfairness of so much death. In many ways it became stronger. It brought me through it.”
    Bosch nodded and threw the towel into a trash can with a foot-pedal device for opening it. It closed with an echoing slam when he took his foot off the pedal.
    “What about cause of death?” he said, getting back to the case.
    “We can jump ahead, Detective,” Golliher said. “All injuries, discussed and not discussed here, will be outlined in my report.”
    He went back to the table and picked up the skull. He brought it over to Bosch, holding it in one hand close to his chest.
    “In the skull we have the bad-and possibly the good,” Golliher said. “The skull exhibits three distinct cranial fractures showing mixed stages of healing. Here is the first.”
    He pointed to an area at the lower rear of the skull.
    “This fracture is small and healed. You can see here that the lesions are completely consolidated. Then, next we have this more traumatic injury on the right parietal extending to the frontal. This injury required surgery, most likely for a subdural hematoma.”
    He outlined the injury area with a finger, circling the forward top of the skull. He then pointed to five small and smooth holes which were linked by a circular pattern on the skull.
    “This is a trephine pattern. A trephine is a medical saw used to open the skull for surgery or to relieve pressure from brain swelling. In this case it was probably