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was
relieved when the phone rang and took her out of the
depressing thoughts of her finances.

    "Dr. Chamberlain, John Booth here. I've finished cleaning
the bones. Anytime you want to come down, I'll be here."
    "Thanks. I'll come this afternoon."
    "Cousin Edgar take care of you okay?"
    "Just fine. I've got an abundance of crystal-clear water."
    The detritus left on bones is important in discovering cause
of death, but Lindsay still preferred clean white bones to
examine. The bones of the woman whose x-rays identified
her as Shirley Pryor Foster, Ph.D., lay on the shiny metal
table in the autopsy room and had, for the most part, a pristine glow like polished ivory. Booth, who was the only one
assisting Lindsay that morning, had done a good job. Lindsay acknowledged her satisfaction with a nod as she examined the bones as if for the first time.
    Shirley Foster, forty-year-old full professor in both the
Art and History departments, was five feet, eight inches tall.
She had taken ballet for several years and practiced diligently, as indicated by the large attachments for her calf,
thigh, and hip muscles. She probably quit because she was
plagued by pain from stress fractures in her feet. She had the
beginnings of arthritis in her hands, but it was mild, perhaps
even unnoticeable to her except in cold weather. The blow
to her face resulting in the LeFort fractures was hard enough
to have caused brain damage; however, her bones were thinner than normal and probably broke with a lesser force. She
was completely ambidextrous, something Lindsay rarely
saw. Even people who can use both hands well usually favor
one over the other. Shirley Foster's pelvic girdle gave no
indication that she had ever delivered a child.
    Lindsay looked at the polished cross section of a tooth
under a dissecting microscope, paying particular attention to the cementum, the bony layers surrounding the root of
the tooth. She saw indications that Shirley Foster was
undernourished for a time in her life. The lack of proper
nutrition was also suggested by the slightly thinner cortex
of her long bones. Lindsay thought about the capped teeth
and wondered if Shirley had been bulimic as a teenager or
young adult.

    "This arrived today." John Booth showed her a large
white envelope.
    "What is it?" she asked. Booth opened it and took out a
set of x-rays and a letter. Lindsay recognized the x-rays as
Shirley Foster's teeth. She read over the letter that Booth
held in front of her. "Ah, it's the dentist who capped her
teeth. He is from New Jersey. I thought so. He thought she
was bulimic as well. Attach these to the report."
    Lindsay began a careful examination of each of Shirley
Foster's bones, looking for any mark or nick that might
indicate how she was killed. She found nothing.
    "I'm finished. You can release her bones for burial if the
coroner approves it," she told Booth. He nodded. "Unless
something shows up in the tissue samples, we may not be
able to tell how she died."
    Lindsay finished her report in Eddie Peck's office before
she went back to campus. She was relieved to be finished.
Even though Shirley Foster disappeared before Lindsay
came to work for the university, there was something haunting about examining the bones of a fellow faculty member.
    Lindsay's usual parking space behind Baldwin Hall was
taken by a shiny black Jeep loaded with wooden crates. All
the other spaces in the small lot were full, so she had to park
in the lot for the Psychology Building across the street. She
took a copy of the Red and Black, the campus newspaper,
from the rack on the way into the building. Across the front
page the large black headline read: "Another Student Killed on Corner of Jackson and Baldwin Streets." It was the
second student killed there in as many years. Students were
so prone to step out into the street without looking, as if
being on campus put them in a state of grace, immune to
realities such as sudden