CORCORAN AND I FOUND TWO POSSIBILITIES.

One was a heroin overdose victim, a white male with an estimated age of twenty to twenty-five. The naked body had been found sixteen months earlier on the city’s South Side, near Forty-fifth and Stewart, between the Chicago & Western Indiana Railroad tracks and the edge of Fuller Park. No friend or family member had come forward. A records search had led nowhere. Ditto for dentals and prints. The man was still in the freezer.

The other was a skeleton. Descriptors had been entered as: white; male; eighteen to twenty-four years of age. The bones had been in storage for thirty-eight months.

We bombed on both fronts.

Though the information had yet to be entered into the system, Corcoran learned that Freezer Man had finally been IDed two days earlier. Turned out the body was that of a nineteen-year-old student from Ohio State, a schizophrenic who’d dropped out to hit the big city without calling home. What had happened on the mean streets was anyone’s guess. Mom and Dad were awaiting delivery of the body.

By phoning Cukura Kundze, I learned that Lassie stood six-two and weighed roughly 190. Long bone measurements put Skeleton Man’s height at five-six, tops.

I pulled the case to double-check the stature estimate. Right on.

“Not your boy,” Corcoran said.

“No,” I agreed.

We were standing beside a worktable in the CCME storage room. Corcoran was watching as I replaced Skeleton Man’s bones in their box.

“Who does your anthropology?” I asked, snugging the lid into place.

“For years we used a guy out of Oklahoma. Now that he’s retired, it’s pretty haphazard. Sometimes a graduate student. Sometimes a resident doing a rotation here. Sometimes a staff pathologist.”

“People who’ll work for free,” I guessed.

“Walczak claims there’s no money in the budget.”

“One day that approach will bite him in the ass.”

“Hey, don’t jump on me. I agree we should use only board-certified specialists. Would make my job easier.”

“Who analyzed this fellow?” I laid a palm on Skeleton Man’s box.

Corcoran checked the case file.

“AP. That would be Tony Papatados, a doctoral candidate at UIC. Excavates bones in Peru. Or maybe it’s Bolivia. I don’t remember.”

“An archaeologist.”

“Weren’t you an archaeologist?”

“Yes. Don’t get me wrong. Many bio-archaeologists and physical anthropologists are excellent researchers. Many know a lot of osteology, how to estimate age, sex, how to measure bones properly. But they’re not trained in the full range of forensic issues. Most have little experience with modern populations.”

Sudden thought. If Walczak had underqualified people working his anthropology cases, it was possible some remains had been improperly evaluated.

“Mind if I spend a little time in here?”

“Fine with me. Why?”

“Laszlo Tot was military. And reported missing. If he came here, even as a decomp, the ID would have been a snap with dentals and prints. But suppose his body wasn’t found for a while. What if he was skeletonized and the bones were examined by someone with, shall we say, limited skills?”

“We could be overlooking him because the report is misleading.”

“Or flat-ass wrong.”

“I guess it’s possible.” Corcoran sounded dubious.

“Can you search your database for unidentified decomps and skeletons arriving during the past four years?”

Corcoran tapped the computer keyboard, peered at the monitor, tapped some more, then hit a single key.

“Hold on. There’s a printer in my office.”

He returned moments later with a list containing fourteen CCME numbers. He’d also pulled the police incident, morgue intake, and anthropology reports for each case.

Seven corpses had arrived badly decomposed. For those, the flesh had been stripped, then the skeletons cleaned by boiling. One individual had been burned, one mummified. For those, the remains had been left untouched. Five folks had rolled in as nothing but bone.

“They’re all over there.” Corcoran indicated the shelving to which I’d returned Skeleton Man in his absence. “But you’re on your own. A battered toddler just showed up. I caught the autopsy.”

“No problem.”

Corcoran showed me where the necessary equipment was stored, and jotted a number should I have need of a tech. Then he was gone.

Starting with those who’d arrived as skeletons, I constructed a biological profile for each: age, sex, race, and height. When finished, I checked my findings against the case files.

At one fifteen Corcoran came to see if I wanted to break for lunch. Over a machine sandwich of very questionable-looking chicken salad, a six-pack of Oreos, and a Diet Coke, we discussed my intentions with regard to Jurmain. I told him I’d be phoning Edward Allen first thing in the morning, maybe even driving to Winnetka to pay a surprise call.

Corcoran apologized again. As before, I assured him he was not the target of my ire.

At one forty-five I returned to the storeroom.

By four I’d finished the skeletons. One Mongoloid female had been classified as Negroid. One elderly white male had a surgically pinned right “humerus” that was actually a femur from a very large dog.

No Lassie candidate.

Knowing I’d need X-rays, I skipped the mummified and burned individuals and moved on to the cleaned-up decomps. On the third set of bones I hit pay dirt.

During the first half of the twentieth century, Cook County was one of the leading producers of limestone and dolomite in the U.S. The bulk of the stone came from quarries situated in suburbs to the west and south of Chicago: Elmhurst, Riverside, La Grange, Bellwood, McCook, Hodgkins, Thornton. Most was shipped on the Illinois & Michigan Canal, later on the Sanitary and Ship Canal.

Though the golden age of quarrying has long since passed, the scarred landscapes remain. I’m not talking little dents in the ground. These pits are whoppers.

And great places to off-load bodies.

According to Police Officer Cyril Powers, on July 28, 2005, a decomposed corpse was spotted floating facedown just south of a bridge carrying the Tri-State Tollway over the Thornton Quarry. Powers contacted personnel at the Material Service Corporation, owners and operators of the quarry, then called for grappling hooks and a morgue van.

The remains were logged in as 287JUL05. A staff pathologist named Bandhura Jayamaran was assigned to the case. Jayamaran estimated PMI at two to three weeks.

Due to advanced putrefaction and severe cranial damage, including absence of most of the left side of the face and all of the lower jaw, only three teeth remained, the upper-right premolars and the first molar. None had a unique characteristic or dental restoration.

Fingerprinting was not an option. Concluding that little could be done with the body, Jayamaran ordered it cleaned and the bones stored pending anthropological analysis.

One month later, 287JUL05 was examined by someone identified only by the initials ML, who determined that the individual was a white male, approximately thirty-five years of age, with a height of five foot eight, plus or minus one inch. Age was based on the condition of the pubic symphyses, the small surfaces where the pelvic halves meet in front. Stature was calculated using the length of the femur.

ML noted trauma to the vertebrae, ribs, and skull, caused by the victim’s fall into the quarry, and healed antemortem fractures of the right distal radius and ulna. ML ventured no opinion as to manner of death.

ML’s descriptors were entered into a database at the Chicago PD missing persons unit, one week later into NCIC, the FBI’s National Crime Information Center. Neither submission resulted in a positive ID.

287JUL05 went onto a shelf in the CCME storage room on September 4, 2005. He’d been there ever since.

OK, ML. Let’s see how you did.

First, I arranged the cranial fragments into what resembled an exploded skull. Then I aligned the postcranial bones anatomically.

I began my assessment with gender, viewing first the skull, then the pelvis.

The right frontal bone bulged into a large, rounded ridge at the bottom of the forehead, above the orbit. The occipital had a prominent muscle attachment site dead center at the skull’s back. The right mastoid, a hunk of bone projecting downward behind the ear opening, was impressive.

When articulated, the pelvis had a chunky pubic area, with an acute angle below the point where the two halves meet in front. Laterally, each side curved upward into a deep, narrow notch inferior to the hip blade.

OK. Agreed. 287JUL05 was male.

I made notes then turned to ancestry.

This was tougher, since little facial architecture remained, and the skull was too damaged to yield meaningful measurements. Nevertheless, I could see that the cranium had been moderate with regard to shape, not particularly long and narrow or short and globular. The cheekbones had been tight to the maxilla, the nasal bridge high, the nasal opening quite narrow.

Agreed again. 287JUL05 was white.

I made notes, then turned to age

On the left innominate, or hip bone, the pubic symphyseal face was badly eroded. Damage was less extensive on the right, and detail, though abraded, was observable. Taking the bone to a dissecting scope, I examined the surface under magnification.

And felt a tingle at the back of my neck.

Returning to the skeleton, I selected the fourth and fifth ribs and took them to the scope. At the sternal, or chest end, each rib terminated in a shallow indentation bordered by a smooth, wavy-rimmed wall.

Another tingle.

I made notes, then turned to stature.

After locating an osteometric board, I measured the right femur, tibia, and fibula. I was considering the estimates generated on my laptop with FORDISC 3.0 when Corcoran pushed through the door.

“Lord in heaven, girl. You’re still here?”

“I may have found him.”

“You’re kidding.”

I tipped my head at 287JUL05. “Someone with the initials ML examined this skeleton.”

Corcoran looked thoughtful, then shook his head. “Don’t recall an ML. I remember July of 2005, though. I was working a strange one, actually wrote it up for the JFS.”

“I think …”

“Listen to this. A sixty-eight-year-old female is last seen alive at a family picnic on the Fourth of July. No one hears from her for two weeks. The daughter finally checks, finds a corpse on the living room floor. Needless to say, by this time Mama’s not looking too good.

“I do the autopsy, find nothing to suggest cause of death, so I sign her out as undetermined. Next thing I know, there’s a cop telling me one of the grandkids has admitted to shooting the old lady. Apparently the little creep needed drug money and Grandma wasn’t coughing up. I’m skeptical, because I’ve found no perforated organs, no nicked bones, no bullets or bullet fragments, no metallic trace on X-ray. Nothing.”

“Uh. Huh.” I didn’t want to appear rude, but the case held no interest for me.

“But old Sherlock here goes back in. And guess what?”

I prepared my “I’m impressed” face.

“She must have been moving when the kid pulled the trigger. I find a bullet track shooting straight down the muscles paralleling the spine. Even though no vital organ was hit, the vic probably bled out.” Corcoran beamed.

“You’re a genius.” I waited a respectful half second. “ML blew it.”

“What? Oh.”

I led Corcoran to the scope.

“Take a look at the pubic symphysis.” I spoke as Corcoran adjusted focus. “That surface undergoes change throughout adulthood. Part of that change involves the formation of a rim circling the perimeter. See that gap on the upper edge?”

“On the belly side?”

“Yes.”

“I see it.”

“In young adults a hiatus like that is normal. The ventral, or belly, side of the rim is still forming. As adults age, the ends of the circle connect and the rim is complete. Then the rim begins to deteriorate. That’s normal, too.”

“First the rim forms, then it breaks down.”

“Exactly. Those with little experience often confuse the two stages. Seeing that gap, ML misinterpreted formation as breakdown. He or she estimated age at thirty-five.”

Corcoran looked up at me.

“This guy was closer to twenty when he died. But that’s not the only problem.”

Corcoran crossed his arms high on his chest.

“ML used an antiquated system for height determination, took measurements incorrectly, and relied on too few bones. He or she then chose inappropriate formulae for performing regression equations, and misinterpreted the statistical significance of the estimates those equations generated. Shall I walk you through the errors one by one?”

“No.”

“ML put height at five-seven to five-nine. I put it somewhere between six feet and six-three.”

“Bottom line?”

“Twenty-eight-seven-July-oh-five was a six-foot white male who died at roughly twenty years of age.”

“Like Lassie.”

“You’ve got it. Did the navy send antemortems so you’d have them in case you got an unknown fitting Tot’s description?”

Corcoran hiked and dropped his shoulders, indicating he didn’t know. “I can check. It’s been less than five years. If we received Tot’s records, they’d still be here.”

There was a beat as we each thought about that.

“Any idea as to manner of death?” Corcoran asked.

“I saw nothing obvious.”

“It doesn’t make sense. Thornton is southwest of the city. Great Lakes is practically in Wisconsin. If this is your friend’s grandson, he either went or was taken on a fairly long ride, and I think you told me his car was found north of the city.”

Another beat passed. I pictured old Cukura Kundze, rheumy eyes eager behind the untrendy lenses. Deep down, I knew the victim in the box was Laszlo Tot.

Suddenly, I felt drained. I looked at my watch. Five fifty. I’d been at the morgue for almost eight hours. And mañana wouldn’t be a cookie and album day, either.

“I can sort the trauma tomorrow,” I said. “After I deal with Jurmain.”

“That would be good.”

Corcoran blushed.

I knew what was coming.

“Walczak won’t pay you.”

“No worries,” I said. “This one’s pro bono.”

Snow was falling when I left the CCME, covering the dark muck frozen in the gutters along Harrison Street. Driving west on the Eisenhower, I let my thoughts wander.

Where had Laszlo Tot gone his last hours on earth? What had he done? Had he invited death by some act of stupidity? Of carelessness? Of greed? What was the day of the baseball game he missed? Friday night, Saturday, Sunday? Where had he intended to sleep?

Again, I saw old Cukura Kundze. If I could stop the pain barreling her way, I would. If I could magically morph 287JUL05 into someone else’s sweetheart’s dead grandson, I would do that, too.

I could do neither. Instead, I would search for answers. For justice. For Cukura Kundze. For Mr. Tot. For Lassie. Every person deserves to be accounted for. Old Horton, again.

Edward Allen Jurmain. What sleaze had filled the old man’s ear with tales of my incompetence? My corruption? Why?

My grip tightened on the wheel.

How would I persuade Jurmain to share what he knew of his mysterious informant? Should I phone? Drive up to Winnetka? Could I manage to wangle my way into Jurmain’s presence?

I thought about Pete and his melon-breasted, twenty-something fiancée, Summer. Were their wedding plans still on track? Did I give a rat’s ass?

Katy. I knew my daughter wasn’t enjoying her job at the Mecklenburg County Public Defenders Office. Had she quit? If so, to do what?

Ryan. I wondered if his flight had gone smoothly. If I missed him. I was heading home to Charlotte on Sunday. Would I want him to come for a visit? Would things ever be as they once were? Could they?

My head hurt. It had been a long day.

I pictured Vecamamma, busy at her ancient Tappan range. Today she was cooking lamb with carrots and cabbage. I wondered if she’d gone ahead and baked the cookies herself.

I smiled, happy someone was making me dinner. I didn’t know who the other diners would be, or how numerous, but I was glad I wasn’t returning to an empty house.

Yessiree. Family was just what I needed. Artery-clogging potatoes and gravy, bread and butter, rhubarb pie and ice cream. Throw-away conversation. Freedom from worries about Pete, Ryan, Katy, Jurmain. Distance from former husbands, old lovers, restless daughters, and back-stabbing tipsters.

Most importantly, distance from violent death.