Jayne and Steelie - 01 - Freezing by Clea Koff Page B

much of the patella have we got?’
    â€˜I don’t think he even nicked it. Take a look.’ Jayne moved to the right to examine the proximal cut, while Steelie bent down to look at the patella, its tip just visible amongst the ligaments and fat of the knee.
    â€˜We don’t have much to go on for sex,’ said Steelie.
    â€˜Not when we can’t expose the femur to do a mid-shaft circumference.’
    â€˜Even that’s just an indication.’
    There was silence as the anthropologists looked at the leg, tilting their heads this way and that.
    Tony cleared his throat. ‘The thigh’s not shaved. Would that indicate male?’
    â€˜Possible, but not reliable,’ replied Jayne, her eyes still on the leg. ‘Not all women shave their thighs and plenty of men do, like swimmers and cyclists. If you can take photos of each cut and from above, we can move on to the fluoro.’
    â€˜No problem.’ He went into action, the recharge of the camera’s flash whining as he took two shots from each vantage point, the latter requiring a stepladder that he wheeled over from the corner. Before turning on the fluoroscope, Tony brought over three lead vests and they all slipped the heavy material over their heads, adjusting them by the shoulder sections until the vests could rest there without too much discomfort.
    Tony turned two switches on the fluoroscope and began pushing and pulling the lens head over the severed leg on the gurney. An X-ray image of everything in the lens’ path beamed out of a monitor on an adjoining trolley.
    Jayne asked, ‘Can you bring it in a slow sweep from one end to the other?’
    The anthropologists’ eyes flicked between the partial leg and the fluoroscope screen, trying to orient the gradations of grey that represented bone and tissue.
    They all noticed that the cut at the top of the femur didn’t reveal any shards of metal or metallic fragments, as might have been expected from forceful cutting action. Steelie asked Tony about the apparent absence of trace evidence.
    â€˜Yeah,’ he replied. ‘There are indications that the perp washed the body parts after he’d done the cutting.’
    As the fluoroscope traveled down the thigh, faint, lighter marks were visible at the distal end of the femur.
    â€˜Hold it there, just above the knee,’ said Steelie. ‘Lines of fusion?’ She looked questioningly at Jayne, who was staring at the screen.
    â€˜Looks like it. Move it down a fraction, Tony . . . and back up?’
    He pushed the lens to where it had been a moment before.
    Steelie said, ‘Lines of fusion.’
    â€˜I’ll be damned,’ breathed Jayne.
    â€˜Talk to me, Thirty-two One,’ said Tony, glancing back and forth at each woman.
    Steelie pointed at the monitor. ‘See those lines at the top of the knee? That’s where the epiphysis, or growth plate, is in the process of fusing to the shaft of the femur. Fusion happens at standard ages across populations and sexes. So, because we can see that line, we know you’ve got a teenager or someone in their early twenties, regardless of sex.’
    He made a low whistle.
    â€˜Make a print of what you’ve got on the screen now,’ Jayne said. ‘Then can you flip the leg over so we can see the same region from the posterior?’
    â€˜What label do you want?’
    â€˜Distal left femoral epiphysis.’
    â€˜Can you spell that?’
    â€˜Left femur will be fine,’ Steelie clarified.
    Jayne looked at the fluoroscope screen and felt a surge of excitement to see that pale jagged line. An identifying marker to narrow the search. A start.
    Tony tapped buttons at a keyboard beneath the screen, then raised the fluoroscope’s neck to make space to turn over the leg.
    He handled the leg carefully, supporting it at each end, barely raising it off of the gurney before laying it back down. He put it on a section of