Another Clue?

In “The Betrothal”, Miriam accompanied by Phoebe goes to the morgue to see whether a corpse could be Zoe, the woman she’s been charged to find.

Phoebe asks, “Is this Zoe?”

“Hard to tell. Half her flesh is gone. Forget about her heart-shaped face and stubby-lashed eyes. What remains is bloated and bloodless with algae sprouting from one eye socket, the other caved in. The tag on her toes says she was retrieved yesterday from the canal that crosses the dreaded Rhakotis quarter. Lacy with scum, the canal is infamous for the corpses that surface each day to soak, bloat, and float in the next day’s baking sun.”

The cause of death was not obvious until I lifted her skull and found the rear portion crushed into a spongy mass, the result of a savage blow. At least her height, figure, and overlapping front teeth matched Zoe’s father’s description, but the rest was unrecognizable. The clumps of flesh that remained had turned into a black grease, and most of her face had been devoured by the scavengers living in the canal’s fungoid filth.

Only when Miriam grabbed one of the lanterns and directed its beam to the corpse’s left hand was she sure. “Look, Phoebe, these last two fingers are curled, but Zoe had no deformities.”

The condition, now known as Dupuytre’s Contracture, results in the fingers curling into the palm. See how reading these Miriam bat Isaac’s stories prepares you for a career as a sleuth? To learn more about this story, click here.