"Reichs, Kathy - Temperance Brennan 01 - Deja Dead" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reichs Kathy)

"Let's go downstairs and see." That'll bring a little sunshine into your
day, I thought. It was petty but I couldn't help it. I knew Claudel's
reputation for avoiding the autopsy room, and I wanted to discomfort
him. For a moment he looked trapped. I enjoyed his unease. Grabbing a
lab coat from the hook on the door, I hurried down the hall and inserted
my key for the elevator. He was silent as we descended. He looked like a
man on the way to a prostate exam. Claudel rarely rode this elevator. It
stopped only at the morgue. The body lay undisturbed. I gloved and
removed the white sheet. From the corner of my eye I could see Claudel
framed in the doorway. He'd entered the room just far enough to be able
to say he'd been there. His eyes wandered over the steel countertops,
the glass-fronted cabinets with their stock of clear plastic containers,
the hanging scale, everything but the body. I'd seen it before.
Photographs were no threat. The blood and gore were somewhere else.
Distant. The murder scene was a clinical exercise. No problem. Dissect
it, study it, solve the puzzle. But place a body on an autopsy table and
it was a different matter. Claudel had put his face in neutral, hoping
to look calm.

I removed the pubic bones from the water and gently pried them apart.
Using a probe, I teased around the edges of the gelatinous sheath that
covered the right pubic face. Gradually it loosened its hold and came
away. The underlying bone was marked with deep furrows and ridges
coursing horizontally across its surface. A sliver of solid bone
partially framed the outer margin, forming a delicate and incomplete rim
around the pubic face. I repeated the process on the left. It was
identical. Claudel hadn't moved from the doorway. I carried the pelvis
to the Luxolamp, pulled the extensor arm toward me, and pressed the
switch. Fluorescent light illuminated the bone. Through the round
magnifying glass, details appeared that hadn't been apparent to the
naked eye. I looked at the uppermost curve of each hipbone and saw what
I'd been expecting.

"Monsieur Claudel," I said without looking up. "Look at this." He came
up behind me, and I moved over to allow him an unobstructed view. I
pointed to an irregularity on the upper border of the hip. The iliac
crest was in the process of attaching itself when death had occurred.

I set the pelvis down. He continued looking at it, but didn't touch it.
I returned to the body to examine the clavicle, certain of what I'd
find. I withdrew the sternal end from the water and began to tease away
the tissue. When I could see the joint surface I gestured for Claudel to
join me. Wordlessly I pointed to the end of the bone. Its surface was
billowy, like the pubic face. A small disk of bone clung to the center,
its edges distinct and unfused.

"So?" Sweat beaded his forehead. He was hiding his nervousness with
bravado.

"She's young. Probably early twenties."