Murder Among the Angels by Stefanie Matteson

the river at the same place.”
    Charlotte knew the Hudson was famous for its eccentric currents. A tidal river almost to Albany, the current could flow either north or south, depending on the tides. The Indians had called it “the river that flows both ways.”
    “How much did the butt weigh?” asked Lister.
    “About ten pounds,” Jerry answered.
    “Then it probably went in somewhere close to where it was found,” Lister said. “A body part weighing that much wouldn’t have traveled far.”
    As he spoke, a thought suddenly struck Charlotte. “I assume the butt, as you call it, must have had flesh on it to weigh that much,” she said.
    Jerry nodded.
    She looked down at the gleaming skull. “But the skull’s bare.”
    Jerry nodded again. “The killer must have macerated the skull.”
    “Macerated it?” she said.
    “Boiled it to remove the flesh,” Lister explained. “Usually you throw in a little detergent to help dissolve the fat and get rid of the smell,” he added with a little grin. “Tide is good; Fab, anything with enzymes.”
    “To get your wash whiter than white,” said Jerry.
    Charlotte shuddered.
    Lister was still bent over the skull. “I think your killer used something more than just detergent, though. This skull is like the other one in that it’s unnaturally white. I would bet that both of them were bleached.”
    “But why would somebody bother?” Charlotte asked. To say nothing of bothering to leave it in a cemetery with a bouquet of lilies of the valley, she thought.
    Lister shrugged. “That’s not my department. I leave that up to the shrinks. But skulls are my department, and I think we may be in luck here.”
    “What do you mean?” Jerry asked.
    “If you can’t match the skull to the body parts, the next best thing is to have a skull with some unique identifying feature,” he said. “I call your attention to the victim’s chin.”
    Charlotte and Jerry bent down to look at the skull.
    “The underside,” Lister added.
    At first Charlotte didn’t see anything, but as she tilted her head to get a better look at the underside of the chin, she noticed a faint rectangle etched into the bone. “I see some lines,” she said. “What are they from?”
    “A surgeon’s knife,” he replied. “She’s had plastic surgery. A complete facial reconstruction, I would venture to guess. The rectangle on her chin is from a chin reconstruction.”
    “No kidding!” Jerry exclaimed as he leaned over to take another look.
    “I’m guessing here—you’ll have to confirm this with Leonore—but it looks like a wedge-shaped section has been added to the chin, which would have had the effect of making it longer. But that’s not all.”
    “What else?” Jerry asked.
    “See this abraded area?” He pointed to an area under the eye socket where the surface of the bone was rougher than elsewhere. “Again, I’m guessing. But I think there was an implant here. To build up the zygomatic bone.”
    Jerry whistled softly.
    “It’s the prominence of the zygomatic bone, or cheekbone, that gives a woman that high-cheekboned look that is so desirable,” he said. Then he pointed to the ridges above the eye sockets. “Same thing here. Brow implants on the superorbital ridges.”
    “That would explain why the flesh was removed,” Charlotte observed. “The murderer may have been worried that the victims could be identified through the facial implants.”
    “Exactly,” said Lister. “Only a trained eye would notice that the implants had left their mark on the bone. Now for the most interesting part.” He slid the cast of the first victim’s skull over next to the skull that had just been found. “Look at this,” he said, pointing at the cheekbones.
    Charlotte and Jerry leaned over again to look at the first victim’s skull. The surface of the cheekbones was rough, exactly as with the second skull.
    “Same thing,” Jerry said.
    Lister nodded. “I had noticed the abrasions before, of