Bones to Ashes Part 14

Cranial shape was distorted by breakage and warping. No help there. I rotated the skull and looked at the remnants of the face. The nasal spine was almost nonexistent. A nonwhite trait. Though dirt packed the opening, the orifice seemed wider than is typical of Europeans.

I went back to teasing dirt. Time pa.s.sed, the only sounds in my lab the competing hums of the refrigerator and the overhead fluorescents.

The eyeb.a.l.l.s are separated from the frontal lobe by the paper-thin bone forming the floor of the anterior cranial fossa. Clearing the right socket, I found jagged breaches in that floor. I moved on.

I'd emptied the left orbit when something caught my attention. Laying aside my pick, I dampened a cloth and swiped a fingertip over the orbital roof. Dirt came away, revealing pitted, porous bone in the upper, outer corner of the socket.

Cribra orbitalia.

Now we were getting somewhere. Or were we? While cribra orbitalia has a fancy scientific name, and the lesions are known to occur most commonly in kids, their cause has yet to be satisfactorily explained.

I did one of my mental rundowns. Iron deficiency anemia? Vitamin C inadequacy? Infection? Pathogenic stress?

All of the above? None of the above? A and B only?

I was as puzzled as ever.

Findings to this point included modification of toe bones, enlargement of nutrient foramina in the hands and feet, cortical destruction on at least one metacarpal, and now cribra orbitalia. Abnormally pitted orbits.

I had plenty of dots. I just had to connect them.

One thing was becoming clear. This girl had been sick. But with what? Had the ailment killed her? Then why the caved-in face? Postmortem damage?

Using warm water, I cleaned the entire left orbit. Then I picked up a magnifying lens.

And got my second surprise of the morning.

A black squiggle crawled the underside of the supraorbital ridge, just inside the thickened upper border of the socket.

A root impression? Writing?

I hurried to the scope and balanced the skull face-up on the cork ring. Eyes on the screen, I jacked the magnification.

Tiny hand-lettered characters leaped into focus.

It took several minutes, and several adjustments, but I finally managed to decipher the inscription.

L'ile-aux-Becs-Scies.

The quiet of the empty building enveloped me.

Had Jouns marked his skeleton with the name of the island on which he'd found it? Archaeologists did exactly that. He'd claimed to have been one in his youth.

I flew from my lab, down the corridor, and into the LSJML library. Locating an atlas, I flipped to a map of Miramichi.

Fox Island. Portage. Sheldrake. Though I pored over the map portions depicting the rivers and the bay, I found no ile-aux-Becs-Scies.

Hippo.

Back in my lab, I dialed his cell. He didn't pick up.

Fine. I'd ask him later. He'd know.

Returning the skull to my worktable, I began freeing dirt from the nasal orifice with a long, sharp probe.

And encountered my third surprise of the morning.

13.

T HE APERTURE RESEMBLED AN UPSIDE-DOWN HEART, NARROW AT HE APERTURE RESEMBLED AN UPSIDE-DOWN HEART, NARROW AT the top, bulging at the bottom. Nothing spiked from the dimple on the heart's lower edge. the top, bulging at the bottom. Nothing spiked from the dimple on the heart's lower edge.

OK. I'd been right about the wide nasal opening and reduced nasal spine. But the nasal bridge was narrow with the two bones steepling toward the midline. And I could now see that the periphery of the orifice looked spongy, indicating resorption of the surrounding maxilla.

The girl's nasal pattern didn't mean she was Indian or African. The spike had been reduced, the shape modified by disease.

What disease?

Defects on the hands, feet, orbits, nose.

Had I missed something on the skull?

I examined every millimeter, inside and out.

The cranial vault was normal. Ditto for the base. What remained of the hard palate was intact. I was unable to observe the premaxillary, or most forward part of the roof of the mouth. That portion was missing, along with the incisors.

I rechecked the postcranial skeleton and found nothing beyond what I'd already spotted.

Hands. Feet. Orbits. Nose. What disease process would lead to that kind of dispersed bone damage?

Again, I considered possibilities.

Syphilis? Lupus vulgaris? Thala.s.semia? Gaucher's disease? Osteomyelitis? Septic or rheumatoid arthritis? Blood-borne parasite? Infection due to direct extension from the overlying skin?

Diagnosis would take research. And with so much bone missing or damaged, I wasn't optimistic.

I was pulling out Bullough's Orthopaedic Pathology Orthopaedic Pathology when Hippo came through the door. He was wearing a shirt festooned with bananas and red palm trees, gray pants, and a hat that would have made a drug lord proud. when Hippo came through the door. He was wearing a shirt festooned with bananas and red palm trees, gray pants, and a hat that would have made a drug lord proud.

Despite the "don't worry, be happy" attire, Hippo did not appear to be having a good day. The bags under his eyes were heavier than usual, and he was frowning.

Hippo took a seat on the opposite side of the table. He smelled of bacon and stale deodorant.

"Sat.u.r.day casual?" I asked, smiling.

Hippo didn't smile back.

"I found the kid sister."

"Where?" Suddenly Hippo had all my attention.

"I want you to hear me out."

I settled back, elated, yet anxious at the same time.

"I did some poking into the husband."

"David Bastarache."

"b.a.s.t.a.r.d would be more fitting. Your pal's little sis married into a family of smugglers and bootleggers."

"You're kidding."

"David's granddaddy, Simeon, made a nice chunk of change running rum in the twenties, invested in real estate. Bars in Tracadie and Lameque. A rooming house in Caraquet. David's daddy, Hilaire, put his inheritance to good use. Turned some of the old man's properties into 'hides,' safe havens for illegal booze and contraband."

"Wait. Rumrunners?"

"Remember that proud moment in American history brought to you by the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act?"

"Prohibition."

"Nineteen twenty to 1933. Republican and Prohibition parties jumped in bed with the Temperance Movement." Hippo gave a half grin. "That where you got your name?"

"No."

"But you're a Pepsi hugger, right?"

"Diet c.o.ke. Back to Bastarache."

"As you will recall from your history lessons, some politicos and Bible thumpers may have taken the pledge, but a great many Americans did not. Familiar with Saint-Pierre et Miquelon?"

Lying south of Newfoundland, the little island cl.u.s.ter is the last remnant of the former colonial territory of New France. Essentially under French control since 1763, a 2003 const.i.tutional reform changed its status from territorial collective to oversees region, like Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Caribbean, French Guiana in South America, and Reunion in the Indian Ocean. With its own postal stamps, flag, coat of arms, and sixty-three hundred fiercely Francophile souls, Saint-Pierre et Miquelon is the Frenchest of French outposts in North America.

I nodded.

"Americans still wanted their c.o.c.ktails, and the French didn't give a rat's a.s.s about Prohibition, so Saint-Pierre et Miquelon stepped up to the plate. In the twenties, the place was awash with booze. I ain't just talking Canadian whiskey. Champagne from France. West Indian rum. British gin. And all that hooch needed distribution. That meant good times for many small villages in Atlantic Canada."

Hippo misread my impatience for disapproval.

"A man could make more running one load of booze than he could freezing his a.s.s all year in a fishing boat. What would you choose? Anyway, right or wrong, booze flowed down the eastern seaboard and into Rum Row."

Hippo gave me a questioning look. I nodded again. I'd also heard of Rum Row, the flotilla of ships anch.o.r.ed beyond the three-mile limit off the U.S. East Coast, waiting to offload liquor for entrepreneurs such as Al Capone and Bill McCoy.

"You know the outcome. Twenty-first Amendment pulled the plug on Prohibition, but Uncle Sam taxed booze up the wazoo. So smuggling continued. Eventually, the States and Canada independently declared war on the Atlantic rumrunners. Ever hear the Lennie Gallant song about the Nellie J. Banks Nellie J. Banks?"

"Maybe at Hurley's."

"The Nellie J. Banks Nellie J. Banks was Prince Edward Island's most notorious rumrunner. Also her last. Boat was seized in thirty-eight. Ballad tells the story." was Prince Edward Island's most notorious rumrunner. Also her last. Boat was seized in thirty-eight. Ballad tells the story."

Hippo's eyes wandered to a spot over my shoulder. For one awful moment I thought he was going to sing. Mercifully, he continued talking.

"The RCMP and Canada Customs still got their hands full. But it's not like the old days. The slimeb.a.l.l.s working the coast now mostly deal in drugs and illegal immigrants."

"Your knowledge is impressive."

Hippo shrugged. "Rumrunners are kind of a hobby. I've read up."

"This has something to do with Obeline's husband?"

"Yes. I'm getting to that. Hilaire Bastarache was second in line. Wanting to up the profits, after World War II, he added a new wrinkle."

"Not smuggling."

Hippo shook his head. "The skin trade. t.i.tty bars. Wh.o.r.ehouses. Ma.s.sage parlors. Proved very lucrative.

"David, the third in line, is a strange duck, kind of a cross between Howard Hughes and some sort of urban militiaman. Keeps to himself. Distrusts anything having to do with government or its inst.i.tutions. Schools. Military. Health care. Guy's never registered for social security, Medicare, voting. Was. .h.i.t by a truck once. Refused to be taken to the hospital. And, of course, cops. Bastarache especially hates cops."

"I can see why someone in vice would be wary of the police, but why the paranoia about authority in general?"

"Part of the blame goes to Daddy. Little David was homeschooled, kept on a very short leash for a very long time. Hilaire Bastarache wasn't what you'd call gregarious. But it goes deeper than that. When the kid was ten he saw his mother gunned down in a botched raid on one of the old man's warehouses."

"Was she armed?"

Hippo shook his head. "Wrong place wrong time. Ruby Ridge kind of thing."

Hippo referred to the 1992 siege of an Idaho cabin by U.S. Marshals. During the incident, an FBI sniper shot and killed a woman while she was holding her ten-month-old son.

"Despite his hang-ups, Bastarache manages to take care of business. Keeps himself insulated with layers of hired muscle. Granddaddy's establishment in Caraquet got busted several years back. The current Bastarache hadn't a clue the place was being used as a cathouse. Thought he was renting rooms to upstanding young women." Hippo snorted derisively. "The court bought it. Prossie named Estelle f.a.get took the fall.

"Bastarache owns a strip club in Moncton off Highway 106. Le Chat Rouge. Shifted his base there in 2001. But I understand he's spending a lot of time in Quebec City these days. Has a bar there called Le Pa.s.sage Noir."

"Why the relocation?"

"Got caught nailing a stripper. Turned out the kid was sixteen. Bastarache decided it was in his interest to leave Tracadie."

"Christ." My voice dripped with disgust.

Hippo pulled a folded paper from his pocket. When I reached out, he pressed it to the tabletop.

"My sources say Bastarache doesn't payroll choirboys." Hippo's eyes locked onto mine. "Word on the street is his enforcers play very rough."

"Real stud," I snorted. "Cheating on his wife with a bubble-gummer."

"Let me share a story. Guy named Thibault sold Bastarache a car back in ninety-seven. Bastarache complained the crankshaft was bad. Guy blew him off. Three days later, a body turned up under the Little Tracadie River Bridge No. 15. Had a crankshaft protruding from his rib cage."