Bones of the Lost Read Online Free PDF Page B

swath of grass and foxtails that yielded to tangled underbrush as the ground sloped to a trench beside the supporting wall of the light-rail platform.
    Back on the Rountree side, I noted an irregular smear of dirt and a spray of pebbles on the gravel shoulder, what looked to be a crumpled paper cup, and a beer can. Specks of white peeked from the tangled weeds. Litter?
    “Think there could be anything useful there? Prints on the cup or can? Something in the trash?”
    Slidell licked a thumb, flipped pages, and scribbled in his spiral.
    In the next series, the girl was covered by a red wool blanket, a corner of her skirt and one leg visible along the left side. The limb twisted outward from the hip at an impossible angle. Beside it, not on the foot, was the other boot.
    The mound below the blanket looked pitifully small. Tracing its contours I could see that the other leg lay straight, with the foot crooked unnaturally toward the head. One arm appeared to be outstretched. The position of the other was unclear.
    Bands of anger and sadness squeezed my chest. I drew a deep breath.
    “Who covered her?” I knew it hadn’t been CSU. No way trained technicians would risk transferring fibers or disturbing trace evidence.
    Slidell spit-thumbed pages in his notepad.
    “Lydia Dreos.”
    “The teacher?”
    “Yeah. I forgot that part. She had the blanket in her trunk.”
    In the next several photos the girl lay exposed, with the blanket folded inside a plastic evidence bag beside her. Her skin looked ghostly white against the backdrop of oil-darkened gravel, blacktop, and mottled vegetation.
    A thought struck me.
    “She had no jacket.”
    I sensed Slidell shake his head.
    “It was forty-eight degrees last night.” I added the obvious.
    No one replied.
    I moved on, through close-ups of the battered face, the crushed hands, the sad little boots.
    “The height of the hamstring bruising will allow us to estimate front-bumper height. We should be able to narrow vehicle type from that,” Larabee said.
    “Find any paint on her?” I asked.
    “None,” Larabee said. “But there’s a smear on the purse. Black. Could be from the vehicle. I’ll send it off for analysis.”
    “Any scraping on her back from the undercarriage?”
    “No.”
    “Do you have a maximum anterior-posterior body width? For vehicle clearance?”
    “Pelvis nineteen point one centimeters. If she’s lying flat on her belly.”
    “Injuries to the chin and fingers suggest that was the case,” I said.
    “What’s that in inches?” Slidell asked.
    “Seven and a half.”
    “Nothing on wheels rides lower,” Slidell said. “’Cept maybe a skateboard.”
    “Anything noteworthy about the bruising across her thighs?” I asked.
    “Two inches top to bottom,” Larabee said. “No patterning.”
    “So no grill,” Slidell said.
    Good one, Skinny.
    Slidell finished jotting. Punctuated his note with a tap of the pen. Then, “So lemme get this. The kid’s running—”
    “Or walking,” Larabee cautioned.
    “The bumper slams the back of her thighs. She goes down. Her chin smacks the pavement. Her arms fly out. The vehicle rolls over her, crushing her fingers.”
    I could see her in the darkness, a silhouette backlit by double beams fast closing in. Lungs burning. Heart hammering. Goose-bumped skin slick with sweat. High-heeled boots wobbly on her feet.
    “So what killed her?”
    “Though I see no fracture, the cranial X-rays suggest devastating trauma. When I open her skull I’m certain I’ll find subdural, subgaleal, and intracerebral hematoma accompanied by massive edema in the parieto-occipital region.”
    Slidell just looked at him.
    “A blow to the head caused bleeding into her brain.”
    Slidell thought about that. “The kid’s hit from behind and goes belly down with her brain busted bad. How’s she end up so far off the pavement?”
    “Perhaps the force of the impact.”
    “Or?” Slidell picked up on something in Larabee’s