Skin Deep (37 page)

James Bowers was a forensic anthropologist who worked at the Peabody Museum at Harvard. He was a tall man with a long, thin, tanned face and salt-and-pepper hair. Dressed in jeans and a polo shirt he looked more like someone who was going to spend his day on a golf course than in trays of bones. Steve found him in a lab with benches and rows of chemical containers. Two complete human skeletons hung from stands, and students were working, some examining specimens through microscopes. The back wall had green chalkboards with notes and diagrams on them.

“You said you'd been hired to reconstruct the remains of the Essex River case.”

“Yeah, about ten years ago. She'd been found off of Hogg Island.” Bowers led Steve to the rear of the lab, passing a student at a table reconstructing a face with modeling clay. There were pegs looking like baby fingertips sticking out of the base at various lengths.

Bowers explained that reconstruction began with a plaster copy of the skull to which a couple of dozen pegs were attached at key points and cut to various thicknesses to aid the sculptor's filling in of the clay for the flesh, guided by charts on thickness samples. “The hardest are the eyes, which are almost entirely tissue. The same with the ears, nose, and lips, because their size and shape is impossible to determine.”

“So, all you can really recapture is the general facial structure.”

“Exactly. The rest is guesswork.”

“But you guys sometimes are dead-on in identifying people.”

“Only because the guesswork was dead-on. It's as much luck as science.”

They sat at a free bench. On it sat two skulls and some line illustrations of facial types drawn according to three generic face templates: ectomorph, ectomesomorph, and endomorph. Steve picked one up and held it to his face. “What do you think?”

Bowers smiled and pretended to study Steve's facial proportions for a moment.

“My wife would say Neanderthal.”

Bowers laughed. “Close.” He glanced at the different charts and held up one then another. “You have more of a triangular than rectangular face with wide cheekbones and a narrow slightly pointed chin. I'd say you are the classic ectomorph.”

“Is that good?”

“You'll be happy to know that it's one of the most idealized male face types—the kind you almost always see in pencil drawings in men's fashion ads and on mannequins. Also found on most movie and music idols.”

“I can't wait to tell her,” he said. “Okay, the Essex case…”

“Yes, that was particularly difficult since skeletal remains in salt water tend to disintegrate. They were found by sport divers, but when police divers were called, they retrieved more bones, including part of the rib cage and vertebrae. A woman's stocking was found enmeshed with the remains, which had settled in an underwater gulley. Fortunately, most of the skull was intact, so that we could determine the gender, race, and approximate age.”

“How do you do that?”

“Well, males usually have a more prominent browridge, eye sockets, and jaw.”

“What about race?”

He held up a skull. “We can pretty much determine racial group by the size and shape of the nose holes. This is a Caucasian, which you can see is triangular. African-Americans or, technically, the Negroid's is square, and Mongoloids' are diamond-shaped.

“As for age, we look at the teeth, bones, and joints. The smoother the skull, the older the individual. In this case, the victim was between thirty-five and forty.”

“How were you able to determine how she died?”

“Well, that was a stroke of luck. The skull told us how she hadn't died. There were no signs of trauma—bullet holes or marks from a knife blade or axe or such. In a mass of debris surrounding her skull and jawbone, we found the hyoid bone from her throat, which was fractured, leading us to conclude that she'd been strangled.”

“That must be a small bone.”

“It is, and luckily it had gotten enmeshed with enough tissue and biomass to be preserved.”

“The report also says that the ligature was preserved also.”

“Yes. After the skull was found, divers found a length of a nylon-Lycra compound attached to the vertebrae. Because of the synthetics, it didn't decompose and was identified as a woman's black stocking that had been knotted into a small noose a third smaller than the circumference of the average neck size of a woman. The suspicion was that she had been dumped into the water after being strangled. No other article of clothing was found, so investigators theorized that she was possibly naked when she was murdered.”

“She's still not been identified, but we're reopening the case.”

“Glad to hear that. I'm sure her loved ones still anguish over her disappearance.”

“No doubt. The case file had photographs of the skeletal remains and various police reports. What seems to be missing is a digital reconstruction, which I understand you made.”

“Yes. Probably just a clerical error.”

“Do you still have one someplace?”

“I'm sure.”

He led Steve to the small office in the rear of the lab. The space was small and shelves were stacked with papers, books, and journals. Boxes of more papers were stacked on the floor.

“Please forgive the mess. We're in the process of moving to a new location.” Bowers moved to a computer behind the desk. “It's been some years, so give me a moment.”

Steve stood and watched as Bowers ran his fingers across the keyboard. A minute later he muttered, “Ah-ha.” He clicked and tapped keys. “Here we are.” He swiveled his monitor toward Steve. “In case you're interested, she was an ectomesomorph—the so-called heart-shaped face, wide at the cheeks and an angled jaw that might be delicately pointed or slightly rounded at the base. There's no way of telling exactly, given the limitations, but this is what we came up with.”

Steve felt as if he had stuck his finger into an electric light socket. On the screen was a three-dimensional head of Dana.

Diane Hewson.

The name still ignited sparks in his brain. She came in hoping to remove years from her face with a brow lift. While not perfect, her face was attractive. But as that first consultation progressed, he had all he could do to contain his distraction from the possibilities.

As she spoke, the muscular changes in her face flickered across the template at the core of his brain, making coincidences that nearly took his breath away. He tried to concentrate on her words, keeping his own face neutral, but in his mind he was making corrections until he was certain that the dead could rise. That Jesus answered prayers.

She was about to turn forty and a brow lift would be a present to herself. A favorite aunt had recently died and left her money so she could afford the indulgence. She had come to him because she had caught a television interview on the new Botox treatments that were becoming the rage.

As his mind tripped over the necessary procedures, another sensation began to distract him—a sensation that, like the venom of a bee sting, starts off as sharp pain and then subsides into a strangely satisfying itch.

So as not to overwhelm her with other options, he explained what a brow lift could accomplish and showed her before-and-after images of women who had elected to do the procedure. Naturally, she was impressed at the improvements—the elimination of droopy eyebrows, forehead lines, and frown creases—all of which took years off the faces.

During a second appointment he raised speculations of other procedures, showing computer afterimages of her with a brow lift, upper lip enhancement, and chin implants because her own was too short. He even showed her what rhinoplasty would do, gently turning up the sales pitch on the benefits of enhanced facial aesthetics. He studied her as she considered the potential, eyes lighting up at the makeover image on the monitor—an image that sent heat pulses through his body. It was Lila who stared back at them.

She joked that the software was the computer equivalent of Mr. Potato Head for cosmetic surgeons. He liked that and chuckled.

“This could invite women to ask for a famous face,” she said. “You know, turn me into Julia Roberts or Christie Brinkley.”

He smiled and said he often got famous face requests. And thought how the face on the monitor was famous, though only to him. A face to die for.

“And what would all of this cost?”

He had to bite his tongue from saying he'd do it pro bono. She had come in for a three-thousand-dollar procedure and was now considering ten thousand in extras. Were he to offer a large discount, she'd wonder why. So he itemized each procedure on the high side then explained, “If you had it done in one session, you would save on having to set different surgical teams, anesthesia, OR costs. I think it could be done for around five thousand.”

“My, my, that's very enticing.”

You have no idea,
he thought.

“What exactly would you do?” she asked, staring at the monitor image.

He explained that she would be under general anesthesia and that the total operation would take between three and four hours. “Brow lift incisions would be done in layers with deep subcuticular stitches that would eventually be absorbed by the body. At the same time, we'd plump up the upper lip with injections of collagen.” He went on to explain the reconstruction of her nose. “For the chin, we would insert silicone implants through a small incision under the chin. After three or four weeks, bruising would be gone and most of the visible swelling.”

Then he tipped his head toward the image on the monitor. “And the results, I think you'd agree, would be”—he had to tame his wording—“very satisfying, I believe.”

The expression on Diane Hewson's face told him that she liked what she heard and saw, but she said that she wanted to think it over. The next day she called to say she would have all the procedures done but the chin implant. She just didn't think she needed that. He wanted to tell her that she was dead wrong, but tempered his reaction by explaining that it was a short and common procedure that would bring balance to her face and eliminate any appearance of a fleshy neck. But she refused. He buried his disappointment by saying the timing was perfect because he could take her the following Tuesday because he had just gotten a cancellation. She said fine, and when he got off the phone he was trembling.

She had come in looking like Lila's homely older sister and in a month could pass for her double with a too-short chin.

 

The operation went well, and she rigorously followed recovery procedures. She kept her head elevated for forty-eight hours; she changed the dressing regularly. She took care not to bump herself or do strenuous maneuvers, and not to expose herself to the sun. She used frozen peas as a compress for the swelling.

Over the next month he saw her at various stages of her recovery. And in spite of her weak chin, the resemblance began to take form in his brain.

And with it an ember of an idea that began to glow brighter each day.

Over the weeks it increased in intensity, and he blew on it like a man on a mission—a mission that across the days and nights evolved into obsession as the growing resemblance stirred up torturous longings, as well as the hurt, grief, and rage: all the hot muck that pressed to the surface.

For days he went about his work having imaginary conversations with this woman—driving in a convertible, going to the beach, having dinner at a fancy restaurant, listening to her laughter. He also taunted himself with images of her nude and with a single black lace-top stocking.

And there were the dreams.

One night she showed up at his bedside in her baby dolls and caressed him while he cried because he didn't want her to go away. But she said she had to and kissed him on the mouth then wrapped the stocking around her neck and hanged herself. He woke up with his chest aching, his pillow damp, and his head splitting with pain. Another night he dreamt of her peeling off a black stocking and twirling it across her naked body. He felt the arousal, and reached for it like a lure, but suddenly it grew into an entangling thicket that enclosed him and threatened to choke off his air. Thankfully, he shook himself awake. But for the better part of the day, he went about his appointments feeling heavy with guilt.

At first, he didn't know exactly what his mission was—just some vague notion that made him want to see Diane Hewson. She was single and so was he. So in a moment of bravado following her final checkup he said that he had two tickets to a Boston Symphony concert and would love to have her join him. And because she was already in town on business, they met at Symphony Hall. After that they went for a drink at a quiet bar. She said she had a fine time and so did he.

Then the plan took on form and substance.

 

Weeks followed, as did his growing need for gratification and release. Although he did not quite divine the kind of promise it would hold, he began to think cunning thoughts while studying Lila's photo album—the nudes, the drawings, the ads, and publicity posters—and sniffing her clothes and putting her lock of hair to his lips.

One day, parched with desire, he gave Diane Hewson a call and made a date for the next day. She said she was delighted. Because she lived in Weston, a suburb twenty miles southwest of Boston, she agreed to meet him in the parking lot of the Burlington Mall. They met the next day and he drove them north on Route 128 toward Essex.

She was dressed for outdoor adventure—cargo shorts, T-shirt, sneakers, and a windbreaker. It was a beautiful early fall day and in the rear seat was a basket of fancy picnic food he had bought at Bread & Circus and a bottle of chilled Taittinger.

She was a talker and went on about how pleased she was with her surgery and how so many people complimented her. She jokingly hoped that her commercial real estate business would improve as a result. He responded politely, while feeling his head throb with annoyance over her chin, which he kept fixing in his mind, giving it greater length and squaring off the sharpness. And there was that hair. It was a shade too red. Plus she also wore some citrusy perfume that reminded him of cleaning fluid, not the sultry scent of Shalimar.

It took them an hour to reach Cape Ann. He drove to a secluded launch on the Essex River where the day before he had secured a canoe. Nobody was around.

“How cool,” she said. “I haven't been canoeing in years.”

He untied the rope and pulled the boat out from the brush. They loaded the cooler and picnic basket and then he steadied the boat so she could get in. She would ride in front. In a few minutes they were paddling down the river and into open water toward Hogg Island. Visible was a large old brown house which, he explained, was part of the set for the movie version of Arthur Miller's play
The Crucible,
filmed out there a few years ago.

They spread a blanket on a grassy rise just up from the water and under a large oak that partly blocked their view from the mainland. They ate patés of goose liver and bluefish, goat milk cheese and aged Gouda, sliced tomatoes and Calamata olives with a fresh baguette, followed by sliced fresh kiwi fruit and melons with chocolate pecan truffles. And they washed it down with the bottle of Taittinger. Diane was rightfully impressed.

While they chatted, he studied her face, taking in the angles, adjusting them, trying to forgive where they fell short. At once adoring them when for a microsecond they slotted in place, yet simultaneously hating them when they didn't.

Feeling the glow of the champagne and the warmth of the setting sun, she took his hand. “This is wonderful,” she said, and put her hands around the back of his neck and gave him a long kiss that made giddy sensations in his genitals.

It was just what he had hoped for. Along the horizon were long slashes of deep purple clouds and not a boat in sight. But his head was throbbing to distraction. He fingered two pills from his breast pocket and gulped them down, hoping to God that he wouldn't have a seizure, or if he did that it would be fast and unnoticeable in the dimming light.

“You okay?”

“Just a little headache.”

“I've got some Advil.”

“I just took something.”

She looked toward the horizon. “We'll have enough light to get back, won't we?”

“Yes.”

In a short while he felt the ache level off.

Is it the size of a refrigerator?

Smaller.

She put her hand on his. “How you doing?”

“Better. But maybe you could rub my temples if you wouldn't mind.”

“Of course.”

He laid his head in her lap as she placed her palms against his temples and made gentle circles in the way he showed her. As she massaged away the pain, he stretched out, her breasts hanging above his face. Her nipples were outlined in the white cotton as she moved. And in his mind he saw them rubbing themselves pink and hard with the friction. He groaned.

“Better?”

“Mmmm.”

The next moment she leaned over and kissed him on the mouth. It was a long, open, wet probing kiss that tasted of cool champagne and hot intentions. He pulled himself up to a sitting position and instantly her hands encircled his neck and began caressing the back of his head as she pressed her breasts to his chest.

She pulled back to catch her breath. “I've been to a lot of doctors in my life, but this is the first time I've ever made out with one.”

“Always a first time for everything.”

She smiled. “How's the head?”

“Better.”

She kissed the nape of his neck and munched her way to his ear. He nuzzled his face into her breasts as she slid her hand down his side to his front. Her hand slipped under his shirt and inched down to his belly and lower. She undid his belt and began to zip down his fly.

“No,” he said.

“What?”

“You first.”

Without a word she removed her top and gave her breasts a rub as if to wake them; then she removed her shorts, revealing small white panties. In the afterglow of the sun, he watched her get to her knees then rub the front of his pants. She moaned in disappointment because he was flaccid.

Still in her panties, she pulled down his pants, removed his shoes until he was lying flat in his underpants. She kissed the lump of his genitals, then glanced at him in dismay. She put her knees together and shimmied out of her panties and then restraddled him. He said nothing. Just studied her face.

She grasped the band of his shorts and pulled them down over his feet. She lowered her face to his mouth for several wet seconds, then nibbled a line down his chest, his belly, and below. He closed his eyes and strained with all his might, but nothing. So she put him into her mouth limp as he was.

Again he strained and arched, seeing Lila in his head, groaning against the horrible realization that things were not working. Meanwhile, this woman was doing all she could.

“Wait a sec,” he said, and he reached for his pants and pulled something out of his pocket.

“What's that for?”

In his hand he held a black lace-top stocking. “It might go better if we played a little game.”

“A little game?”

“Get on your knees and drag it across me.” And he showed her.

She looked at him blankly, wondering if he was joking or weird. But she did what he said. She knelt beside him and ran the stocking up and down his body, making curtsies and turns and teasing brushes against him while she had him rub her with his hands. He locked his eyes on her face as she did several passes, occasionally closing his eyes to bring Lila to mind, then opening them again at the slightest twinge. This went on and still he could not be aroused.

“I don't know what the problem is,” she said.

In his head Lila stood over him cooing and teasing him. But not this woman. Her face was off—the weak dwarf chin, the too broad brow that he could do nothing about, nor the green eyes, the carrot hair. And he hated what he saw—an incomplete forgery.