Bad to the Bone

Chapter 1. The Girl In the Lake

Detective Joseph Armistead stood in silence as divers recovered greatly decomposed remains of some poor, forsaken sole.  Lake Merritt is often described as “the jewel of Oakland”, a beautiful and popular spot in a city plagued with violence.  He doubted that he would ever see it in the same way again and felt a rush of anger towards whoever had did this, to the person who had not only taken a life but had breached his sanctuary.  He made the resolve right then that he would do whatever it would take to solve this case, to find this person and bring them to justice.

Joseph remained silent as he watched the medical examiner inspect the body; the look on his face was not encouraging.  No one was entirely sure of how old Dr Melvin Harris was or exactly how long he had worked for the medical examiner’s office: the only thing that was certain is he was as talented as his hair was white.  An intense and eccentric old man, he was the best pathologist in the county and Joseph had worked with him on many an occasion and had never seen him react in the way he did.

“The victim’s female but with so little soft tissue remaining I don’t know how much more I’ll be able to tell you.” 

As Dr Harris and the victim made the solemn trip to the morgue Joseph made his way over to the police divers to see if anything else had been recovered, not expecting to have any luck.  His expectations were met.  Not a thing.  Hoping for a purse containing I.D was pushing it.  There was nothing more that could be done at the scene so feeling deflated it was back to the precinct.

The Oakland police department occupies a large, unassuming white building in a now rather quiet area of downtown, the view largely limited to construction sites.  If you’re lucky and have an office on one of the higher floors you get a view of the freeway.  Joseph was one of them and actually quite enjoyed watching the cars continually zooming by.  It was a fun distraction he used whenever his mind needed a rest, a guessing game; who was driving that car, where were they going?  He was currently theorizing about the driver of what he thought was a Mercedes, trying to do something to escape the scene that had occurred not ten minutes away but it was no good. His mind kept returning to the young woman whose life had been so cruelly cut short.  Of course at the moment they had no actual evidence that it had been murder but bodies rarely enter lakes under innocent circumstances.  Maybe it was just an accident.  Joseph very much doubted this.  He thought of Dr Harris and for the first time in his career he doubted him, Melvin himself had doubted how useful he would be given the state of decomposition.  This was not the kind of homicide that Oakland was used to; drug dealers killing other drug dealers, robberies going bad, people beaten and left to die, these were the typical homicides that law enforcement dealt with on a regular basis.  This case was going to test everyone’s abilities to the max.  They needed specialised help.  It was this thought that set Joseph’s brain in motion.  A flash of a newspaper article and the beginnings of an idea came to mind.  He dug around in the stacks of paper that had taken over his workspace and threatened to keel over at any given moment until finally he found what he had been looking for.  In the two days previous newspaper there was a small article on a team of scientists in one of the many research institutes affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley.  The team had applied their research in areas of science, some of which Joseph had never heard of to solve a puzzling case of an apparent murder of an ice age hunter.  What was even more amazing is that they had located a living relative in England.  Surely if they could identify someone who had died over 15,000 years ago they could identify someone who had died much more recently.  He decided that it was worth a go.

A mere fifteen minutes drive and Joseph was sitting in the office of Dr Friedman, the director of the lab.  He was everything that the mind would conjure up when told to imagine a research scientist; he was middle aged with a quickly receding hairline. A pair of spectacles sat precariously on the edge of his nose and he sat almost as though he was still hunched over a microscope.  He had explained to Joseph a bit more about what went on in the lab but he didn’t want to admit that he had only followed about half of what he was saying.  Friedman was still pondering over his proposal but it seemed that he approved.

“It certainly would be an interesting departure from what we normally do here but it seems my team has appreciated a change of pace as of late.  I have no doubt that they would be of great use to you.  After all the unknown is the realm of the scientist.  Come, let me introduce you”.

He stood and strode forward without any indication of direction, assuming that Joseph would follow along behind him.  He had to quicken his step to keep up.  Finally they entered into a large, clinical, open planned room filled with people who did not look up as they walked by.  Joseph was caught off guard as Dr Freidman suddenly came to a stop at a raised section of the room, causing him to almost trip over his own feet.

“Sorry to disturb you when you are so hard at work Dr Juarez but I’d like to introduce you to detective Armistead here; he has a rather unusual request to make of you”.

Fulfilling his role Freidman shuffled off, leaving Joseph at a loss for words.  Dr Juarez was standing over a light table on which sat what was clearly a human arm bone, along with several vials of liquid that Joseph couldn’t even hazard a guess as to what exactly was inside.  She saw that he was staring intently at them.

“That’s the humerus bone; we’re experimenting on more efficient ways of extracting DNA intact from ancient bones.”

They both stood in silence for a moment or so longer before she spoke once more.

“You’ll have to forgive Dr Friedman’s abruptness, he’s a little strange but he’s a great scientist.  I’m Dr Matilda Juarez, what is strange request that you have?”

He proceeded to inform her about the case that he was working on and how the medical examiner did not have high hopes of being able to tell much.
“Doesn’t the police lab have a forensic anthropologist that could be of use?”

“The Oakland police?  No, that’s why I had to be creative; I read the story in the paper about the iceman and thought that you might be able to help”

“Well, I don’t see why not.  What do you need?”