Reliquary by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child Page B

corpse to look at them. It was understandable: with a body that was almost completely skeletonized already, X rays weren’t likely to tell them very much.
    “Margo?” Frock called.
    She walked over to the examining table.
    “My dear,” Frock said, pushing his wheelchair away and gesturing toward the microscope, “please examine this groove running down the right femur.”
    The Stereozoom was on lowest power, yet it was still like gazing into another world. The brown bone leaped into view, revealing the ridges and valleys of a miniature desert landscape.
    “What do you make of this?” he asked.
    It wasn’t the first time Margo had been called to give an opinion in a dispute, and she didn’t relish the role. “It looks like a natural fissure in the bone,” she said, keeping her voice neutral. “Part of the suite of bone spurs and ridges that seem to have affected the skeleton. I wouldn’t necessarily say it was caused by a tooth.”
    Frock settled back in his wheelchair, not quite able to mask a smile of triumph.
    Brambell blinked. “I’m sorry?” he asked in disbelief. “Dr. Green, I don’t mean to contradict you, but that’s a longitudinal tooth mark if ever I saw one.”
    “I don’t mean to contradict you, Dr. Brambell.” She switched the stereozoom to higher power, and the small fissure immediately turned into a vast canyon. “But I can see some natural pores along the inside, here.”
    Brambell bustled over and looked into the eyepieces, holding his old horn-rims to one side. He stared at the image for several moments, then stepped away much more slowly than he had approached.
    “Hmm,” he said, replacing his glasses. “It pains me to say it, Frock, but you may have a point.”
    “You mean Margo may have a point,” said Frock.
    “Yes, of course. Very good, Dr. Green.”
    Margo was spared a reply by the ringing of the lab phone. Frock wheeled over and answered it energetically. Margo watched him, realizing that this was the first time she had really stopped to look at her old adviser since D’Agosta’s call had brought them back together the week before. Though still portly, he seemed thinner than she remembered from their days together at the Museum. His wheelchair, too, was different: old and scuffed. She wondered, in sudden sympathy, if her mentor had fallen on hard times. Yet if so, it hadn’t seemed to affect him adversely. If anything, he looked more alert, more vigorous, than during his tenure as Anthropology Department chairman.
    Frock was listening, clearly upset about something. Margo’s gaze drifted away from him and up to the laboratory window and its gorgeous view of Central Park. The trees were rich with the dark green foliage of summer, and the reservoir shimmered in the brilliant light. To the south, several rowboats drifted lazily across the pond. She thought how infinitely preferable it would be in one of those boats--basking in the sun--instead of here in the Museum, pulling apart rotten bodies.
    “That was D’Agosta,” Frock said, hanging up with a sigh. “He says our friend here is going to have some company. Close the blinds, will you? Artificial light is preferable for microscope work.”
    “What do you mean, company?” Margo asked sharply.
    “That’s how he put it. Apparently, they discovered a badly decomposed head during a search of some railroad tunnels yesterday afternoon. They’re sending it over for analysis.”
    Dr. Brambell muttered something in fervent Gaelic.
    “Does the head belong ...” Margo began, then nodded in the direction of the corpses.
    Frock shook his head, a somber expression on his face. “Apparently it’s unrelated.”
    Silence descended on the lab for a moment. Then, as if on cue, the two men slowly returned to the unidentified skeleton. Soon, murmurs of dissent began to rise once again. Margo sighed deeply and turned back toward the electrophoresis equipment. She had at least a morning’s worth of cataloging to get through.
    Her