AN: The Temperance Brennan that I'm borrowing here is not from the series Bones, but rather from the original books by Kathy Reichs. Thanks to all who are reading!
Chapter 11
Grissom went to give the rest of the Night Shift CSI's their assignments, as they were just beginning. Walking over to Ballistics, Sara went to check on Bobby to see if he had any results for her yet.
"You have perfect timing Sara," he said, smiling as she stepped into the room. "I was just about to page you."
"You got something for me then?"
"Sure do. The bullet ya-all recovered from the body, is from a Smith and Wesson .357 revolver."
"One of the most common guns, right. Any match in avis?"
"No ma'am."
"Damm, thanks Bobby. There will be more bullets along to compare shortly." Sara told him as she left.
"I'll be here," he called after her.
Sara was beginning to feel fatigue seeping through her muscles, but this wasn't the first triple she pulled. Flipping her phone open she called Brass to see if someone in the Hall family had a gun registered to them, specifically a Smith and Wesson .357 revolver.
"I think we need to speak to Mrs. Hall senior," Sara continued. "She is the only one who lived long enough and is old enough to know anything about most of the bodies."
"Nick told me about the teenager who hung herself," Brass replied. "She was Justin's sister, Patricia Hall's daughter. I'm heading over there now to ask her a few questions, want to tag along?"
" I'll grab Grissom and meet you at the car" Sara answered eagerly as she hung-up.
Nick met her going the other way.
"Oh good. I was looking for you, the anthropologist arrived from Canada. Apparently she got an earlier flight. Grissom told us to meet him in the morgue."
"I was going to go with Brass to interview Grandma Hall." Sara stopped walking, and hesitated.
"You wanna see the anthropologist doing her thing, don't you?" Nick asked with a grin "It's ok, I'll go with Brass. You and Gruesome Grissom go play with the bodies."
She gave him a huge grin and punched him on the arm.
"Thanks Nicky," she said as she set of to go change into overalls, and into the to-be-used-in-severe-decop-cases underwear. Again.
Reaching the morgue, she found David, Doc Robbins and Grissom standing around one of the autopsy tables. The skeleton from victim number 1 was laid out on the table. At the head was a woman in a white coat, bending over the skull. She looked up as Sara entered.
"Sara, this is Dr. Temperance Brennan." Grissom introduced her.
"Sara Sidle," Sara held out her hand. Dr. Brennan reached for her hand but stopped. She already wore gloves and had started handling the body.
"Pleased to meet you, but I don't think you'd want to shake my hand right at this moment." She held her hands palms up in explanation and Sara agreed completely.
"Don't worry its fine," Sara smiled gratefully.
"Do all visiting anthropologist gets such an audience?" Dr. Brennan asked with a nervous smile looking around her.
"Only those as well published as you," Doc Robbins answered smoothly. "We don't often get anthropologists in the lab".
"Dr. Brennan just confirmed that our victim is male. Unfortunately the mandible was shattered by the bullet, so we can't use dental comparisons for ID. Dr. Brennan will have to reconstruct his skull and then do a facial reconstruction for us." Grissom filled Sara in as she came to stand next to him.
"Nick went with Brass to interview Grandma Hal,l" she said in reply to his unanswered question.
He nodded and looked back at the body.
"Do you have any estimation as to race yet, Doctor?" Sara asked.
"Well it's an area of my field that isn't very precise, and very controversial. But I would say this was a Caucasian." Dr. Brennan started explaining, unconsciously sliding smoothly into the lecturing mode she would use for anthropology students.
"Firstly we have very smooth cranial suture patterns, indicating that the person is probably not of Native American origin. Also there is no Post-Bregmotic depression on the top of the skull. Which means it's probably not someone of African descent. Then we have a large nasal spine," Dr Brennan said as she indicated the area of the bridge of the nose. "As well as a narrow nasal apenture. We have a retreating zygomatic arch, or cheek bone and a clear Matopic trace on the forehead. All this tells me that it is more likely that the person was Caucasian that not. But as I said, it's not exact."
Dr. Brennan carefully disarticulated the head, to pass it to David to be boiled down as it still contained some brain matter. Sara was more than impressed, and vigorously made mental notes of everything the woman was saying.
"Next we move to try and determine the age of the individual." Brennan continued, tapping the relevant parts of the beones as she explained. "In this case, all the epiphysial plates of the long bones are closed, indicating that the person was older that twenty six."
"Can't you use the age of cranial suture closure as well?" Sara asked.
"Yes but recent research has shown it to be unreliable," Brennan replied "It's best to use as many points on the body as possible to arrive at an estimate."
Brennan started measuring area of the pelvis.
"The pubic symphyseal face undergoes regular changes after the age of 18. That's the area where the two pubic bones are joined through cartilage in the front of the pelvic girdle. This was then divided and standardized into six phases to determine the age of the individual. It is fairly accurate and, by combining it with other measurements, you can get a fair estimation of the individual's age. I would say this person is in phase 4, making him somewhere between thirty five and forty five years of age when he died."
Standing back she considered the ribcage.
"The condition of the fourth and fifth rib ends are also places to examine if you're trying to determine the age of the individual. In this case, I would again say this person was in his late thirties, early forties."
They moved on to the last victim to be autopsied, number two. Dr. Brennan determined that it was also a Caucasian man, in his late forties to early fifties. He had severe blunt force trauma to the skull and Dr. Brennan was going to have to carefully reassemble the skull. It was like building a puzzle. It became very clear that the skull had suffered multiple blunt-force traumas. As the reconstruction progressed, it showed that there were four distinct areas of impact.
"Any idea as to the weapon that might have been used?" Grissom asked as they all stood around the finished skull.
"The trauma is too extensive, I'm sorry." Brennan said looking at the skull almost pensively "But I can tell you that this took some force. The first blow would most likely have been fatal, making the other three superfluous. Also we don't know what other trauma there might have been since all the soft tissue is gone. Needless to say this was an extremely violent death."
"This is the oldest body and the only one to show blunt force trauma. All the others were shot. I wonder what that means." Sara remarked.
"Well this was very messy, that's for sure. Maybe the killer decided to switch to using a gun because it's cleaner and less hard work." Grissom theorized.
"This was hard work, I can tell you that," Brennan asserted.
"When we found the other three bodies, their legs were flexed or almost tucked in under the body. This body was found in a more extended position. Do you have any reason as to why this might be Dr. Brennan?" Sara asked. It has been bugging her the whole time.
"Please, call me Tempe, and yes. It probably means that the victims were kneeling in the graves when they were shot and killed. Something similar was found in the mass graves of Kosovo and Croatia. In Rwanda for instance, where the victims were killed, and then buried on a later stage, we find that the limbs are usually extended, as in John Doe number two."
"That implies that the grave was dug before the person was killed. That's premeditation." Grissom added.
"A dead body is heavy and cumbersome to move. Maybe the killer shot them in the grave dug before hand to make things easier." Sara said.
"Or made them dig the grave themselves," Grissom added in a dark tone.