Dead Guilty

Doe.
gripped Diane’s brain and ex stomach—one step forward in
    She went about the meticulous task of measuring the crainometric points on the skull until she had vir tually a mathematical definition of the face—the length, width, the measurement of each feature and its distance from every other feature. It was a narrow Caucasian female face.
    Diane examined each of Blue’s bones for signs of healed breaks, disease, pathology, cuts from knives or chips from bullets. Other than having the tips of her fingers cut off and a shattered hyoid bone from the hanging, there were no other diagnostically impor tant marks.
    With the sex and race established, Diane measured several of Blue’s long bones on the bone board. From one person to another, bones are relatively consistent in their size relationship to each other. The length of any of the long bones when referenced on the stature tables for age and race gives a reasonably accurate estimate of the height of the individual.
    Blue was a five-foot-five-inch woman, girl really, probably between 18 and 23, but not older than that. She was of good health and strong body—attested to by her prominent muscle attachments. The beveling on the glenoid cavity of her right scapula suggested she rotated her right arm in its socket more than the left, and so was probably right-handed. She’d had good enough dental care and hygiene to have avoided cavities. She had no orthodontia, and her third molars, the wisdom teeth, hadn’t yet erupted. Blue had expen sive plastic surgery. These did not appear to be the bones of a homeless waif, as the sheriff thought.
    He—whoever had killed Blue—had taken her fin gertips, so all the terminal phalanxes were missing. Trophy or practicality? She took the medial phalanxes to her dissecting microscope and examined the distal ends. All showed damage. The surface was cut enough on three of them that she could see a striation pattern—two lines, one thicker than the other, per haps representing a flaw on the cutting edge of the tool. She photographed the images.
    After recording the information that now defined Blue Doe, Diane turned to the ropes that had bound her. She took them from the box and laid them out on the table next to the skeleton. The rope was rela tively new and made from hemp. It was rough and stiff in her hands. The loose fibers pricked her sensi tive fingers.
    Diane’s tender skin made her realize how long it had been since she’d been caving. As a caver she didn’t use natural fiber rope but the stronger nylon. Even though she wore special gloves when she caved, her hands were hardened when she was regularly on rope. They had gotten soft.
    She examined each knot in detail. They were as she had described to the sheriff and Garnett—handcuff knot and bowlines backed up by a stopper knot. Diane teased the rope until she loosened the stopper knot.
    Personally, she used a figure eight when she needed a stopper. Whoever tied Blue used a stevedore’s knot—similar to a figure eight but with an extra twist. Further examination showed that he had also tied a stevedore’s knot on the loose end of the bowline that made the neck noose, on the end of the anchor’s bend around the tree limb, on the end of the handcuff knot, and on the end of the loop from the handcuffs to the neck.
    Diane bet to herself that he used the same pattern in all of his knots with the other two victims. Not a significant MO, but certainly one that could help tag a suspect if the sheriff found one.
    Green Doe was at the next table, lying in his clear plastic box with his rope next to him. She opened the boxes and took out the ropes. Bowline, handcuff knot, anchor’s bend—all tied the same way and all with a stevedore’s knot as stoppers. She was right. He made a habit of tying knots a certain way. Another little piece of the puzzle.
    As she stood looking at the knots, basking in the pleasure of her discovery, something about the profile of Green Doe’s skull peeking out from its plastic con tainer caught her attention.

Chapter 14
    Diane cradled the back of Green Doe’s skull in her hand and inspected his face, drawing a finger over the long nasal bone. The nasion, the place between the eyes where the nasal bone meets the frontal bone, the top most landmark that defines the height of the nose, was only slightly indented. The bridge of the nose con nected with the frontal bone, making an almost flat plain. Below the nose opening, the anterior nasal