“What? No. At least, I don’t think so.”
“They look like one,” she said. “Or like they could have been one, if they’d had the chance. They make me think of all those Renaissance paintings of the Holy Family, except that they’re Native American.” She laughed softly. “And skeletons. But still . . .”
She laid a hand on my arm for just an instant, then turned and walked out, leaving me to ponder the dead Indians, the Holy Family, and the mysterious ways of women.
CHAPTER 15
I FELT STUPID. MIRANDA WAS MY STUDENT; I WASN’T just her boss, I was her doctoral adviser and dissertation-committee chairman, so I occupied a far loftier rung of the academic and intellectual ladder. In theory, that is.
But reading her dissertation—or, rather, attempting to read it—made me feel like an impostor and ignoramus. Hell, even the title intimidated me: “An Empirical Examination of Frontal Sinus Outline Variability Using Elliptic Fourier Analysis.” The good news was, I was on solid ground for the first nine words. The frontal sinus—the airspace in the bones of the forehead, just above the brow ridges—was familiar territory. Roughly fan shaped with scalloped edges, the frontal sinus sometimes reminded me of the lobes of a chanterelle mushroom. Forensically, the frontal sinus was a useful tool for confirming a dead person’s identity, provided that an antemortem x-ray of the person’s skull, showing the frontal sinus, could be found for comparison to the postmortem x-ray. Like fingerprints, teeth, DNA profiles, and snowflakes, frontal sinuses were unique: no two alike. So when it came to frontal sinus outline variability, and its forensic value, I was on board.
But then, after breezing through the first nine words, I slammed into those final three: “Elliptic Fourier Analysis.” I knew, from looking him up, that Joseph Fourier was a French mathematician and physicist born in the 1700s. I also knew that he had found ways to use mathematical formulas to define shapes, outlines, and patterns. The main thing I knew, though, was that it took someone far more mathematically gifted than I was just to follow his thinking, let alone to harness it, to use it—as Miranda had done—to map the intricate, intracranial coastline of the frontal sinus. I didn’t know what the hell regular old Fourier analysis was, let alone elliptical Fourier analysis.
Mercifully, Miranda’s dissertation committee included members who were quite comfortable with its terminology and methodology. My colleague Richard, the developer of ForDisc, didn’t bat an eye at the mention of Fourier analysis; it was quite possible that ForDisc relied on the magic of Fourier analysis—straight or elliptical or even zigzag, for all I knew—to evaluate unknown skeletons and issue its predictions about stature and race. And Dr. Gerald Grimes, who headed the Radiology Department at UT Medical Center, had seen thousands of frontal sinus x-rays in his long career, so if anybody qualified as an expert on the shape of the frontal sinus, surely he did.
I knew, having discussed the matter with them, that I could rely on Richard and Dr. Grimes to ask most of the questions at Miranda’s dissertation defense. Still, I felt a responsibility to read it, even if I couldn’t fully understand it. And so, with a sense of heavy foreboding—or was it rapid-onset sleepiness?—I opened the cover and began to read.
Sometime later, I felt my eyelids open, as heavily as if they had weights attached to them. Glancing down, I saw that I had made it only to page six before nodding off. Blinking and shaking off the grogginess, I realized that what had awakened me was not my subconscious sense of professorial duty, but a steady tap-tap-tapping at my door. “Come in,” I called, hastily straightening up from the slumped posture in which I’d been dozing.
The door opened slowly, tentatively, and a head peered around the edge. “Dr. Brockton? Are you in there?”
“Come in, Delia,” I said. “I didn’t hear you knocking at first. I was . . . immersed in Miranda Lovelady’s dissertation. Using elliptical Fourier analysis to compare frontal-sinus shapes. Fascinating work. Another great tool for identification.”
“I’ll have to take your word for that,” she said. “Fourier analysis is way above my pay grade.”
“Oh, it’s like anything else,” I told her. “Just dive in, and pretty soon you’ll get the hang of it.” I laid the dissertation aside before she could ask any more questions. “What brings you down here to my inner sanctum? Something important, or Peggy wouldn’t have steered you here. She knows I only hide out here when I need to hunker down and think hard. You’re not having trouble with that finger bone I gave you, I hope?”
“No, not at all. I just came to give you the results from the DNA analysis.”