Bones on Ice: A Novella by Kathy Reichs

Nine to twelve days.
    “So the ranger went looking after two weeks?” I hazarded.
    “Exactly. He located the body on January sixteenth at an altitude of sixty-four hundred meters, in a deep channel. It appeared Ms. Fuentes had fallen to her death. The remains were retrieved and transported to authorities in Mendoza.”
    “How was identity confirmed?”
    “Identity was never in question.” Puzzled. “Ms. Fuentes was carrying her permit and her passport.”
    “Do you have the number of the Mendoza morgue?”
    I scribbled the information, hung up, and immediately punched in more digits. Minutes later I was connected to Dr. Ignacio Silva of the Cuerpo Médico Forense, Morgue Judicial. Again, I started in Spanish. Again the reply came in English. Well, muchas friggin’ gracias.
    “I remember the case.” Silva’s words were music to my ears. “It is a great pity when such a young woman dies.”
    “Can you describe Ms. Fuentes?” Barely breathing.
    “Caucasian female, blond, approximately one hundred and seventy-three centimeters in height.”
    More quick math. Sixty-eight inches.
    “Fit, no signs of disease or abnormality. Or course, there were significant injuries resulting from her fall. The drop was estimated to be a minimum of twenty meters.”
    “Did you take X-rays?”
    A moment of hesitation. When Silva spoke again, there was a very slight edge to his perfectly honed English. “Due to budgetary constraints, there are times when we must make difficult decisions. I deemed X-ray unnecessary in this case. It was clear to me that the victim had died as a result of a fall followed by exposure.”
    Shit
.
    “Next of kin had no reservations?”
    “Sadly, there really were no next of kin. Ms. Fuentes had a mother who was institutionalized with advanced Alzheimer’s disease. But identity was never in question.” He paused. “We did take fingerprints, for our records, before cremating the body.”
    “Is there any way you could share those?” Masking my excitement.
    “Certainly. Provide an email address and I’ll send you images.”
    Silva was true to his word. And efficient. Minutes after we disconnected, my inbox pinged notice of an incoming message. I opened the file and took a quick look. Then I sat awhile. Thinking and sipping coffee.
    When that approach triggered no hundred-watt lighting up over my head, I pushed from my desk and went to make hard copy of the image Silva had sent. When the machine spit out its product, I checked the detail. Each dark little oval was full of loops or swirls or arches or whatever.
    On to autopsy room five. I looked at the cast. The isolated bones. The card showing the prints taken from the mummy in the cooler. I lay Silva’s prints next to those obtained by Joe Hawkins.
    Considered.
    Quick call to Blythe Hallis. Decision. I dialed Slidell to explain what was winging his way. And what I needed.
    “Get someone to run them through AFIS.”
    I was asking that the prints I was sending be input into the FBI’s Automated Fingerprint Identification System.
    “The guys in the lab ain’t gonna like it.”
    “Then you do it.”
    “What’re the chances she’ll be in the system?”
    “She could be.” It was a long shot, but I was hoping.
    “Eeyuh.”
    “Look, only law enforcement can submit prints to AFIS.”
    “No shit.”
    “Tell them it’s for me.”
    “That should do the trick.”
    It did. Or maybe it was Slidell’s captivating personality. Ninety minutes later I had my answer.
    I leaned back in my chair. Stunned. Not really believing.
    I’d learned from Blythe Hallis that Brighton had interned with the National Park Service during her college summers. And I knew the AFIS database includes prints of individuals employed by the federal government. My long shot had paid off. One of the candidate “matches” generated by the search was Brighton Hallis.
    Brighton Hallis had indeed perished atop a treacherous Seven Summit peak. But not on Everest. And not in