The Cabinet of Curiosities Read Free Page B

almost as if he had read her thoughts: “This has nothing to do with what happened in Utah, by the way. This is an entirely different case.”
    She looked at him again. This dapper study in black and white hardly looked like the G-men she had met out west. He seemed unusual, even eccentric. There was something almost appealing in the impassive face. Then she glanced back down at the skull. “I’m not a physical anthropologist,” she said quickly. “Bones aren’t my field.”
    Pendergast’s only reply was to offer her the skull.
    She reached for it, curious despite herself, turning it over carefully in her hands.
    “Surely the FBI has forensic experts to help them with this sort of thing?”
    The FBI agent merely smiled and walked to the door, closing and locking it. Gliding toward her desk, he plucked the phone from its cradle and laid it gently to one side. “May we speak undisturbed?”
    “Sure. Whatever.” Nora knew she must sound flustered, and was angry at herself for it. She had never met someone quite so self-assured.
    The man settled himself into a wooden chair opposite her desk, throwing one slender leg over the other. “Regardless of your discipline, I’d like to hear your thoughts on this skull.”
    She sighed. Should she be talking to this man? What would the Museum think? Surely they would be pleased that one of their own had been consulted by the FBI. Maybe this was just the kind of “publicity” Brisbane wanted.
    She examined the skull once again. “Well, to start with, I’d say this child had a pretty sad life.”
    Pendergast made a tent of his fingers, raising one eyebrow in mute query.
    “The lack of sutural closing indicates a young teenager. The second molar is only just erupted. That would put him or her at around thirteen, give or take a few years. I would guess female, by the gracile brow ridges.
Very
bad teeth, by the way, with no orthodontry. That suggests neglect, at least. And these two rings in the enamel indicate arrested growth, probably caused by two episodes of starvation or serious illness. The skull is clearly old, although the condition of the teeth suggests a historic, as opposed to prehistoric, dating. You wouldn’t see this kind of tooth decay in a prehistoric specimen, and anyway it looks Caucasoid, not Native American. I would say it’s at least seventy-five to a hundred years old. Of course, this is all speculation. Everything depends on where it was found, and under what conditions. A carbon-14 date might be worth considering.” At this unpleasant reminder of her recent meeting, she paused involuntarily.
    Pendergast waited. Nora had the distinct feeling that he expected more. Feeling her annoyance returning, she moved toward the window to examine the skull in the bright morning light. And then, as she stared, she felt a sudden sick feeling wash over her.
    “What is it?” Pendergast asked sharply, instantly aware of the change, his wiry frame rising from the chair with the intensity of a spring.
    “These faint scratches at the very base of the occipital bone…” She reached for the loup that always hung around her neck and fitted it to her eye. Turning the skull upside down, she examined it more closely.
    “Go on.”
    “They were made by a knife. It’s as if someone were removing tissue.”
    “What kind of tissue?”
    She felt a flood of relief as she realized what it was.
    “These are the kind of marks you would expect to see caused by a scalpel, during a postmortem. This child was autopsied. The marks were made while exposing the upper part of the spinal cord, or perhaps the medulla oblongata.”
    She placed the skull on the table. “But I’m an archaeologist, Mr. Pendergast. You’d do better to use the expertise of someone else. We have a physical anthropologist on staff, Dr. Weidenreich.”
    Pendergast picked the skull up, sealing it in a Ziploc bag. It disappeared into the folds of his suit without a trace, like a magician’s trick. “It is