Note: Hello all! Sorry this chapter took so long a *lot* of research went into it. I left a few things for you guys to figure out/look up on your own, if you get stuck on any of them just ask me and I'll go into more detail. ;) Now then let's have some fun with science!
This chapter is coming to you from New York city as I am visiting!
Chapter Sixteen
"How did my life get so…weird?"
"Just think of it like a museum, Peter."
Peter gave Neal a doubtful look before reaching into his jacket and snapping off the strap that kept his gun secure in its holster. Neal doubted that they would need to use lethal force to defend themselves against Arvid, but he had to admit it was hard to not be on edge surrounded by the vast macabre collection.
Arvid had left them in the front room while he excused himself to change into something more suitable for entertaining guests. Neal had taken a breath to assure him that wasn't necessary but stopped himself when he realized that it would mean having a chance to look around unsupervised. Clearly Arvid wasn't nervous about having two Federal Agents loose in his home, although that didn't automatically mean he had nothing to hide. It just meant that he didn't keep anything he didn't want people seeing out in the open.
What he did have on display was impressive. Peter was currently looking up at a fully articulated zebra skeleton that was rearing up as a skeletal lion pounced on its hindquarters with its toothy skull open wide to bite into the missing zebra flesh. Arvid's set up was very much like a museum with pillars around the room with displays on them each with a brass name plate that described the piece and where it originated from. The detail put into everything gave Neal the impression that somewhere Arvid had a giant ledger that catalogued each item in his collection in further detail. The real question was whether or not he had a second ledger for items acquired illegally.
Hands back in his pockets Neal wandered up to a few of the displays. The first was a small glass case with a red velvet pillow inside that had three tiny bones resting on top of it. The label identified them as the small inner bones of the human ear: malleus, incus, and stapes. Sitting next to the delicate bones was a dime to emphasize just how small the bones were, all three could easily fit on top of the thin coin with plenty of room to spare. The next display was a taxidermy work with four small sparrows reduced to bone all perched delicately on a branch set in a wooden base. One bird's beak was open in a silent song, one was just resting, the other had its stick like wing bones spread read to fly, the last had its beak pointed down towards its chest as though preening the feathers that once adorned the bird.
The navy blue painted walls were crowded various shadow boxes full of other full animal skeletons as well as single bone specimens. Some of the items were easy to identify: fish, frogs, birds, snakes, each with its own brass plate. Others needed an explanation beyond just the label such as a collection of a dozen thin slightly curved bones with a variety of lengths that was simply labeled 'Assorted Baculum'. Remembering the word Neal decided he would look up what it meant later. The far right wall was covered floor to ceiling with a lattice work of wooden cubby holes of different sizes made of fine teak. Each hole held a skull of some description mostly animal but a few Paleolithic looking skulls of human ancestors were mixed in as well.
Peter had stepped up to a pedestal near the wall of skulls and put his hand on his hips as he inspected it. Neal joined him and looked down at the item that had caught Peter's interest. Neal was taken a little off guard at first at the human skull mounted on a thick metal rod that past through the bone just under the left eye and protruded from the top of the skull. The jaw was left hanging open giving the skull an appearance of a grin despite its painful fate.
"This is not normal." Peter muttered. "Arvid is insane."
"I don't know about that there is a certain artistry to his collection."
"This isn't art," Peter said distastefully looking at the impaled skull "this is gruesome."
"I think that's Phineas Gage."
"Right," Peter nodded in agreement but still obviously unimpressed by the fact that he had to look at Gage "the railroad worker with tamping rod that went through his head."
"He changed a lot about what scientist know about personality and the brain when friends and family notices that 'Phineas was no longer Phineas' after he recovered from his injury. His tragedy lead to advances in thinking about what it is to be human."
"Still a disturbing display to have his head on a pike in the front room."
"It's just a reproduction, Agent Burke." Arvid's voice joined the conversation. "Although the real Phineas is on display at the Warren Anatomical Museum at Harvard, I have visited him several times. He's a good listener."
Neal glanced at Peter silently asking him if he felt Arvid was kidding about that last comment or not. Peter just shrugged slightly showing that he could believe it either way with Arvid.
"It's a very impressive collection you have here, Mr. Arvid." Neal commented honestly.
"Thank you, there is a lot more to see. Come, we'll take a quick tour through on our way to the study."
Having changed into a more formal jacket and tie attire Arvid lead the way through his expansive cluttered home. There was so much to look at that it was difficult to remember that they were in someone's house rather than walking through a curated museum. The next room held several full human skeletons articulated into various poses including one that was casually leaning against the mantle piece with his bony elbow. Many of the bones on display showed some kind of pathology, either healed fractures or abnormal growths. Once skull in particular had a spiked growth coming out of one side that strongly resembled a horn.
As they passed through another room of medical marvels Neal's eye was caught by a large brightly polished stone sitting on top of a mahogany antique chest of drawers against the wall and he paused to inspect it closer. The piece almost looked like it was a quarter section out of the base of a small tree with both its rounded pie shape and the fact that the outside edge was dull and rough in texture as compared to bright smooth surface on the top. Vivid pink, purple, red, and yellow cells of color divided by dark veins radiated out across the top splayed out like a peacock fan. Of everything Neal had seen in the house so far this was the first piece that didn't look like bone.
"Like that?" Arvid asked having noticed that his company had lagged behind.
"It's beautiful." Neal admired.
"It's one of my favorite pieces, Agent Caffrey." Arvid said proudly. "That is dinosaur gem bone, a piece of a vertebra to be specific. It is a kind of fossil where each cell fossilized with a precious mineral instead of common stone."
Despite his love of fossils Peter's attention wasn't on the dinosaur. He had caught sight of the pictures on the wall above the dresser where the bone was on display. At first it looked like images from inside a stone hewn chapel. However it didn't take long for first impression to fade and the cold realization to set in that the walls were constructed with skulls set in mortar. Long bones made up the edges of the walls. Other photos revealed two desiccated skeletal corpses hanging from the ceiling one of which appeared to be that of a child.
"What is this?" Peter asked not sure he wanted an answer.
"These are pictures from my pilgrimage to the Capela dos Ossos, the Chapel of Bones in Evora, Portugal. Built in the 16th century by a Franciscan monk the bones of nearly 5,000 corpses decorate the walls."
Peter shook his head slightly, not understanding the draw Arvid had to death. Undisturbed by the judgment Arvid continued towards the drawing room. The large doorway into the study had a polished mental plate above it that a latin phrase deeply embossed into.
"'Memento mori'." Neal read the large brass panel. "'Remember that you have to die'."
"You know Latin, Agent Caffrey." Arvid said impressed.
"I know the phrase in its artistic context, memento mori are paintings or other icons created to remind the viewer that earthly pleasures are fleeting and try to focus one's thoughts onto the prospect of an afterlife."
"'Remember Man that you are dust and unto dust you shall return'." Arvid quoted in a somber tone.
"Danse macabre: death comes to all no matter your station the Dance of Death unites us all there are none who escape it and none who can stop it." Neal added.
"Yes, exactly." Arvid agreed enthusiastically. "You may be the only person to even hint that they understand that I surround myself with bones to remind myself that I have no control over death."
"A difficult lesson for a doctor to remember at times I'm sure."
"Very much so."
Arvid stared up at the Latin phrase for a moment, lost in thought, before stepping through the doorway. Even once inside the study the show was far from over. Directly to Neal's left was a femur bone that had a large hole through the center of the end near the knee and was cut clean off about half way up the shaft of the bone leaving no characteristic 'ball' end. Once again Arvid pounced on the chance to explain one of his possessions.
"The Civil War brought about an estimated 60,000 amputations such as this one, you can see where the bullet went through and where the femur was sawn through to remove the limb. It only took surgeons four to six minutes to remove a leg they got so practice at it. Luckily despite what Hollywood often says they did have anesthesia in the field usually chloroform and morphine. These specimens are very rare since most of the ambulated limbs were packaged in barrels of whiskey and sent to the Army Medical Museum which is now the National Museum of of Health and Medicine for future study."
Before Neal could react to the gory history lesson, not that he had much to add, Arvid brought Neal's attention to a scapula that had been mounted to a small wooden base. Neal instinctively cringed at the site of the round musket ball that was lodged into the center of the large shoulder blade. The shattered bone had pulled itself back together and had even started to grow around the intrusive bullet. Neal's shoulder began to ache with sympathy for the dead owner of the bone he was looking at. He had never really given much thought as to what his injured scapula looked like these days, but he was sure that if Arvid got a look at it he'd instantly be able to diagnose the damage as a 'GSW'.
"This man survived a gun shot wound to the shoulder, the bone even healed around the bullet. The human body is a miracle, although this poor gentleman was probably in pain for the rest of his life."
Feeling increasingly uncomfortable Neal reached up and grip down on his wrist to make sure that it didn't start cramping. Peter had been doing his best to stay back and let Neal take the lead on their interactions with Arvid, but he stayed on high alert and flashed Neal a look of concern. Neal gave Peter a reassuring smile. Arivd didn't notice the silent interaction between the pair, his attention had already been drawn away to the large desk at the far end of the room that held a single bone. The almost delicate looking femur bone was the only one that held no label. The stand it was sitting on was made of mahogany with gold fittings to hold the bone up off the table. The long shaft of the bone was unnaturally thickened and bulbous in the middle with some kind of boney growth.
"And this is the bone that started it all." Arvid said quietly as he reached out towards but did not quite touch the bone. "Primary bone cancer is quite rare, less than one percent of all cancers, usually it's other cancers that spread to the bone. Not for Jessica, her cancer started right here, Ewings Sacrcoma…extraordinarily rare in adults and harder to treat. She had a ten percent chance of living past five years, she didn't even make it two."
"I'm sorry for your loss." Neal replied gently after a silent pause. Even though those words had never made him feel any better about Kate's death he didn't know what else to say.
Peter looked down at Arvid's dead spouse's bone without comment.
"I know what you're thinking, Agent Burke, and I will be the first to admit that my bone obsession isn't healthy." Arvid said. "I shouldn't surround myself with the dead if I want to remain in the company of the living."
"Then why do you do it?"
"Psychosis." Avrid admitted freely. "Much like any hoarder the thought of being separated from my collection causes me great anxizity and worse than that I don't even want help so I will never get it."
"You have an amazing amount of insight into your disorder for someone who doesn't want treatment." Neal noted.
"Like I said, even though the death obsession separates me from people it still makes me happy to collect, it's hard to want help against something that makes you happy." Avrid smiled sadly. "Although the notion of 'elephant graveyards' is a myth it is true that when an elephant in the wild encounters the carcass or bones of another elephant they will caress them with their trunks paying particular interest to the ivory. No one really knows why but some say touching the bones seems to bring them comfort from their grief…it certainly helps mine."
As if proving his point Arvid reached out and ran his fingers delicately along the length of the cancer riddled bone. A slight smile touched the corner of Arvid's lips as he connected in some way with the memory of his lost wife through the physical contact with her remains. Peter shifted his weight and silently encouraged Neal to get to what they had come here for with a slight nod in Arvid's direction.
"Mr. Arvid, I apologize, but if we could talk about Fi…"
"Are you injured, Agent Caffrey?" Arvid interrupted suddenly.
"What?"
"There is blood on your cuff." Arvid pointed out.
"Oh," Neal brought his wrist up inspected the bright crimson stain "it's just a cut."
"Do you want me to take a look, I am a doctor after all."
"You let your medical license expire eight years ago."
"Someone did their homework." Arvid smiled, his previous dark mood over his lost wife seemed to have been lifted by the prospect of having a patient again. "However I doubt simple wound care has changed much in that time."
"I'm fine."
"You say that, but you're about to drip blood on my eighteenth century furniture. At least accept something to wrap it with."
With the blood stain slowly expanding Neal agreed to the offer. He shrugged off his jacket as Arvid disappeared into another room. Peter's breath hissed across his teeth as Neal revealed the sleeve of his once white shirt was marred with crimson. The bleeding wasn't too bad, the wicking properties of the shirt made it look worse than it was. Neal rolled up his ruined sleeve, he had broken several of the small stitches near his wrist when he'd gripped down on it while looking at the broken scapula bone causing the wound to seep.
Arvid returned with a wet cloth, a roll of gauze, and a small roll of tape. Neal thanked him for the items and cleaned away the blood. Arvid leaned in and inspected the injury with medical interest. With the area clean Neal wrapped the gauze around the wound before accepting Arvid's help with taping it in place.
"How's the other guy doing?" Arvid asked conversationally.
"The other guy?" Neal asked confused.
"Clearly you didn't lose this fight, so the other guy must be in pretty rough shape."
"Oh, no." Neal shook his head as he slipped his jacket back on. "The 'other guy' was just a bit of fence that I tangled in, not someone I tangled with."
"That lie might work on a layman, but I'm a surgeon, Agent Caffrey. I know what happens when well honed steel meets flesh. That's a knife wound, and not the kind one accidentally gets in the kitchen." Arvid stated confidently. "Don't worry, I understand that whatever happened is 'classified'."
"More than you know." Peter agreed darkly.
"Intrigue, I love it." Arvid smiled. "I have to admit, Agents, I have not enjoyed having living company this much in a very long time. Perhaps I should entangle myself in illegal actives more often, I certainly get enough offers."
"Care to elaborate on that?" Neal asked hopefully.
"When you are known as the 'Bone Baron' a lot of less than desirable people come out of the woodwork looking to sell you 'one of a kind' items, more often than not they've been illegally obtained. Recently a man calling himself 'Edward Davis' approached me with a Nazca skull for sale, he even brought it along. He had all the necessary documentation however I knew they were forgeries."
"How did you know that? Fitz hasn't made the theft public knowledge. It could have just been a coincidence that Davis approached you for a sale and that his skull was legitimate."
"A day doesn't go by that someone doesn't offer me something, so yes it could have been a coincidence, but it wasn't. I knew his papers were fake because I recognized the skull as being one from the pair that Fitz owned. I have coveted his two skulls for quite some time. They are more far more rare and valuable than even Fitz knows."
"What makes them so valuable?"
"Both skulls show the same rare deformity: Saethre-Chotzen syndrome a kind of acrocephalopolysyndactyly."
"That is not a word I'd want to end up with on a spelling bee." Neal smiled.
"It's a tongue twister for sure. It causes premature closure of some of the cranial sutures. It's easier to identify in the normal population because it causes a cone shape to the skull."
"But the Nazca skulls are all cone shaped through human intervention."
"And these two skulls were no different their natural cone shaped heads were further enhanced by binding, however there are more subtle changes in the facial structure that points towards the two skulls Fitz has having Saethre-Chotzen syndrome. Which also means the two skulls belong to brothers, most likely twins. They would have been revered in life as having a special connection to the Gods since they were born with many of the traits that the Nazca desired."
"You must have been tempted by such a rare skull." Neal pointed out.
"I was. In fact I didn't exactly tell Davis 'no'. I asked him if he had any others, joking that two heads were better than one. He said he might be able to find another one if I gave him a few days."
"So he's going to be back?"
"He didn't bring both skulls along the first time because he's not stupid and he figured that I'd instantly identify them as belonging to Fitz if he presented them as a pair. I offered him an embarrassing amount of money if he could get me both, hinting that I didn't care so much about their origin. I am confident that I will hear from him later today or early tomorrow."
"That's good news." Neal smiled.
"Wait," Peter finally spoke up "I have to ask. Why are you telling us this? You didn't contact the authorities when Davis first approached you, you clearly had intent to buy them despite knowing they were stolen. So why tell us about it now?"
"To keep me from going through with it." Arvid confessed. "I already told you that my collection is a compulsion, I have managed to keep my collection one hundred percent legal, but I have never faced temptation this strong before."
"Were you planing on calling us?" Neal asked.
"No." Arvid shook his head. "Honestly I would have gone through with the sale if you two hadn't arrived in time to save me."
"You had to have known that you'd be the first on the suspect list as at the very least a potential buyer." Peter pointed out.
"I did, but you wouldn't believe how good my lawyers are." Arvid shrugged. "I may have lost the skulls to the law but I would have just been seen as the victim of a con artist not an active participant in the crime. So it would have been low risk to me to buy them."
"The skulls would have haunted you even if you had managed to keep them." Neal added.
"Very true, which is why I see it as providence that you two came to give me a nudge in the right direction."
"Does this mean you'll help us catch Davis?"
"Under one condition."
"Name it." Neal replied without thinking.
"If you want my help with Davis, I want your mandible for my collection in return."
"Oh." Neal said uncomfortably leaning away slightly as he reached up and rubbed at his jawline. "I…uh…I'm still kind of using it. I suppose if I die before…"
"I don't mean the actual bone, Agent Caffrey." Arvid chuckled. "There have been wonderful advances in 3-D printing, I just want a replica. Have you had an MRI lately?"
"Just last night in fact."
"Did that 'fence' hit you on the head?" Arvid asked with a wink.
"Something like that."
"In any case I will gladly trade you copies of your MRI for assistance catching Davis. Deal?"
"Peter?" Neal looked to Peter for permission.
"They are your medical records, Neal, do whatever you want with them."
"Then I guess I'm going to become part of your permanent collection, Mr. Arvid."
"It will be a treasured item I assure you, Agent Caffrey." Arvid smiled. "I can have a copy made for you if you'd like your own Memento Mori."
"No thank you. I prefer a 'Memento vivere' outlook."