Part 19 (1/2)
Big help if crate-man lived in Israel two thousand years back.
I went through the trait list on my form. Prominent nasal bones. Narrow nasal opening. Flat facial profile when viewed from the side. Cheekbones hugging the face. On and on.
Everything suggested Caucasoid, or at least European-like ancestry. Not Negroid. Not Mongoloid.
I took measurements and ran them. Every comparison placed the skull squarely with the whites.
Okay. Computer and eyeb.a.l.l.s were in agreement.
What then? Was the man Middle Eastern? Southern European? Jewish? Gentile? I knew of no way to sort that out. Nor did DNA testing offer any help.
I moved on to stature.
Selecting the leg bones, I eliminated those with eroded or damaged ends, and measured the rest on an osteometric board. Then I plugged the measurements into Fordisc 2.0, and asked for a calculation using all males in the database, with race unknown.
Height: sixty-four to sixty-eight inches.
I spent the next several hours scrutinizing every k.n.o.b and crest and hole and notch, every facet and joint, every millimeter of cortical surface under magnification. I found nothing. No genetic variations. No lesions or indicators of illness. No trauma, healed or otherwise.
No penetrating wounds in the hands or feet.
Killing the fiber-optic light on the scope, I arched backward and stretched, my shoulders and neck feeling like someone had set them on fire.
Could it be I was getting older?
No way.
I crossed to my desk, dropped into my chair, and checked my watch. Five fifty-five. Midnight in Paris.
Too late to phone.
Jake answered sounding groggy and asked me to wait.
”What's up?” Jake had returned, whoos.h.i.+ng a pop-top.
”It ain't Jesus.”
”What?”
”The skeleton from the Musee de l'Homme.”
”What about it?”
”I'm looking at it.”
”What?”
”It's a middle-aged white guy of average stature.”
”What?”
”You're not holding up your end of this conversation, Jake.”
”You have Lerner's bones?”
”The skeleton he liberated is here in my lab.”
”Christ!”
”Not this guy.”
”You're sure?”
”This guy saw forty come and go. My best estimate says he was at least fifty at death.”
”Not eighty.”
”No way.”
”Could he have been seventy?”
”I doubt it.”
”So it's not the older Masada male referred to by Yadin and Tsafrir.”
”Do we know for a fact that Yadin's old guy was the isolated skeleton?”
”Actually, no. The older bones could have been mixed in with the main heap. That would leave the isolated skeleton as one of the fourteen males aged twenty-two to sixty.”
”Or totally unaccounted for.”
”Yes.” There was a long pause. ”Tell me how you got the skeleton.”
I told him about Morissonneau and my visit to the monastery.
”Holy s.h.i.+t.”
”That's what Ryan said.”
When Jake spoke again his voice was almost a whisper.
”What are you going to do?”
”First off, tell my boss. These are human remains. They were found in Quebec. They're the coroner's responsibility. Also, the bones may be evidence in a homicide investigation.”
”Ferris?”