Read Online Havana Bay by Martin Cruz Smith - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Martin Cruz Smith
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directed Arkady's attention to an exhibit of a skull and two-edged ax spattered in dried blood.» This skull might look to you like evidence of trauma."
"It conceivably might."
"But to a Cuban a skull and an ax covered in animal blood may be a religious shrine. The detective can tell you all about it if you want." Osorio squirmed at the suggestion and Bias went on.» So when we make a psychological analysis of a person we use the
Minnesota
profile, of course, but we also take into consideration whether a person is a devotee of Santeria."
"Oh." Not that Arkady had ever used the
Minnesota
profile.
"Nevertheless"—Bias lifted the cloth—"let me prove that, in spite of superstitions, Cuba is still abreast of the world."
Unveiled on a desk was a 486 computer hooked up to a scanner and printer, each running, and an 8-mm video camera mounted lens down above a stand. Rest ing in a ring on the stand and tilted up to the camera was a skull with a hole in the center of the forehead. The cranium was wired together. Missing teeth made for a gaping cartoon smile.
Arkady had only read about a system like this.» This is a German identification technique."
"No," said Bias, "this is a Cuban technique. The German system, including software, costs over fifty thousand dollars. Ours costs a tenth as much by adapt ing an orthopedic program. In this case, for example, we found a head with teeth hammered out." Bias touched the keyboard, and on the screen appeared a color picture of a Dumpster stuffed with palm fronds topped by a decapitated head. At a keystroke the police and Dumpster were replaced by four photographs of different men, one getting married, another dancing energetically at a party, a third holding a basketball, the last slouching on a swaybacked horse.» Four missing men. Which could it be? A murderer might have been confident once in believing a face in advanced decay with no teeth could not be matched to any photograph or records. After all, here in Cuba nature is a very efficient undertaker. Now, however, all we need is a clear photograph and a clean skull. You are our guest, you choose."
Arkady chose the bridegroom, and at once the man's image filled the screen, eyes popping from nervousness, hair as carefully arranged as the frills on his shirt.
Dragging a mouse on the pad, Dr. Bias outlined the groom's head, hit a key and erased his shirt and shoulders. At the tap of a key, the head floated to the left of the screen, and on the right appeared the skull as it stared up at the video camera like a patient waiting for the dentist's drill. Bias repositioned the skull so that it gazed up at the camera lens at precisely the same angle as the face. He enlarged the face to the same size, enhanced the shadows so that flesh melted and eyes sank into hollows, placed white darts on the skull at jaw and crown of the skull, at the outside points of the brow, within the orbital and nasal cavities, across the cheekbones and the corners of the mandible. In com parison to the laborious reconstruction of faces from skulls that Arkady knew in Moscow , the tedious application of plastique to plaster bone, this was manipula tion at the speed of light. Bias added arrows at the same points of the photograph and, with a tap, brought up between each pair of corresponding markers their dis tance measured in pixels, the screen's many thousand phosphors of light. A final keystroke merged the two heads into a single out-of-focus image with an overlay of numbers between the arrows.
"The numbers are discrepancies in measurement between the missing man and the skull when they are exactly matched. So we prove, scientifically, they could not possibly be the same man."
Bias started over again, this time with photo no. 3, a boy smiling proudly in a Chicago Bulls shirt, one hand weighing a basketball. Bias sliced off, enlarged and enhanced the boy's head, then brought up and posi tioned the skull on the screen. The distances between marker darts came
"It conceivably might."
"But to a Cuban a skull and an ax covered in animal blood may be a religious shrine. The detective can tell you all about it if you want." Osorio squirmed at the suggestion and Bias went on.» So when we make a psychological analysis of a person we use the
Minnesota
profile, of course, but we also take into consideration whether a person is a devotee of Santeria."
"Oh." Not that Arkady had ever used the
Minnesota
profile.
"Nevertheless"—Bias lifted the cloth—"let me prove that, in spite of superstitions, Cuba is still abreast of the world."
Unveiled on a desk was a 486 computer hooked up to a scanner and printer, each running, and an 8-mm video camera mounted lens down above a stand. Rest ing in a ring on the stand and tilted up to the camera was a skull with a hole in the center of the forehead. The cranium was wired together. Missing teeth made for a gaping cartoon smile.
Arkady had only read about a system like this.» This is a German identification technique."
"No," said Bias, "this is a Cuban technique. The German system, including software, costs over fifty thousand dollars. Ours costs a tenth as much by adapt ing an orthopedic program. In this case, for example, we found a head with teeth hammered out." Bias touched the keyboard, and on the screen appeared a color picture of a Dumpster stuffed with palm fronds topped by a decapitated head. At a keystroke the police and Dumpster were replaced by four photographs of different men, one getting married, another dancing energetically at a party, a third holding a basketball, the last slouching on a swaybacked horse.» Four missing men. Which could it be? A murderer might have been confident once in believing a face in advanced decay with no teeth could not be matched to any photograph or records. After all, here in Cuba nature is a very efficient undertaker. Now, however, all we need is a clear photograph and a clean skull. You are our guest, you choose."
Arkady chose the bridegroom, and at once the man's image filled the screen, eyes popping from nervousness, hair as carefully arranged as the frills on his shirt.
Dragging a mouse on the pad, Dr. Bias outlined the groom's head, hit a key and erased his shirt and shoulders. At the tap of a key, the head floated to the left of the screen, and on the right appeared the skull as it stared up at the video camera like a patient waiting for the dentist's drill. Bias repositioned the skull so that it gazed up at the camera lens at precisely the same angle as the face. He enlarged the face to the same size, enhanced the shadows so that flesh melted and eyes sank into hollows, placed white darts on the skull at jaw and crown of the skull, at the outside points of the brow, within the orbital and nasal cavities, across the cheekbones and the corners of the mandible. In com parison to the laborious reconstruction of faces from skulls that Arkady knew in Moscow , the tedious application of plastique to plaster bone, this was manipula tion at the speed of light. Bias added arrows at the same points of the photograph and, with a tap, brought up between each pair of corresponding markers their dis tance measured in pixels, the screen's many thousand phosphors of light. A final keystroke merged the two heads into a single out-of-focus image with an overlay of numbers between the arrows.
"The numbers are discrepancies in measurement between the missing man and the skull when they are exactly matched. So we prove, scientifically, they could not possibly be the same man."
Bias started over again, this time with photo no. 3, a boy smiling proudly in a Chicago Bulls shirt, one hand weighing a basketball. Bias sliced off, enlarged and enhanced the boy's head, then brought up and posi tioned the skull on the screen. The distances between marker darts came
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