GRAY MATTER by Gary Braver

several profile shots of the Dixon skull. “It’s got the same holes.”
    “That’s what I called you for.”
    There were two clusters each of ten small holes on the left side of the Dixon skull——one group between the eye socket and ear hole; the other above the left ear.

    Joe opened his desk drawer and pulled out a folder with photos of the Sagamore Boy’s skull. “When this came in three years ago, my guess was the holes were some marine-animal artifacts.” From the same drawer he removed three large white quahog shells. “Also from Sagamore Beach,” he said. He laid the shells under the desk light. Each of the shells had small-bore holes of roughly the same diameter. “These were made from calcium-loving worms called polychaetes. They bore holes that are almost perfectly round, about one to two millimeters in diameter.”
    “They look like the skull holes.”
    “And that’s what threw me,” Joe said. “Same size, but they’re not from polychaetes or any other aquatic organism I know of. These skull holes occurred premortem.”
    “How do you know that?”
    “First, the animal holes are random and only partially clustered—maybe a dozen holes in an area then random spacing over a broader surface. Sometimes, as in this shell, you only get two or three on the whole surface, and some don’t go all the way through. But the Sagamore skull and the Dixon boy each have a cluster of ten and twelve above the temple and another cluster of ten above the ear,” he explained, moving from shell to photos. “And no other holes anywhere else on either skull, or the leg bone.”
    Greg studied the photos. Both hole clusters were located in exactly the same areas on the skulls. Too much for a coincidence.
    “That’s when I stopped guessing and put it under the scope.” From the same folder he pulled out other enlargements.
    “On the right is a polychaete bore, on the left a hole from the Dixon skull—both straight-on.”
    “They look the same.”
    “That’s right.” Then he laid out two more enlargements. He pointed to the photo on the right. “This is the cross section of a polychaete hole in skull bone. Notice the homogeneous field of small pockmarks.” Joe then placed next to it another enlargement. “And this is one of the skull holes. See the difference?”
    Greg studied the two for a moment. Laying his finger on the right photo, he said, “This one looks grooved.”
    “That’s right. The polychaete worms leave smooth cavities. Those are cut marks from a drill.”

    “Jesus!” Instantly Greg conjured up Geoffrey Dahmer-style horrors.
    “But it’s not what you may think,” Joe said. “From the angles and the smoothness of the bores, it looks like these were done with very high-speed cranio-blade drills under precision guidance.”
    “Meaning what?”
    “Meaning nobody attacked the kid with a Black and Decker. He had some kind of medical procedure. There are no signs of the drill bit sliding on the skull or forced entry. Also, the cutting was fast and controlled—no microchipping or breakage like with a slower handheld instrument. This kid had some kind of sophisticated brain operation.”
    Greg looked at him blankly. “Like what?”
    “If they were bigger and fewer holes, I’d say they were drainage shunts to relieve internal bleeding—say if he had sustained some kind of trauma such as a car accident.” Joe let out a whimper as if reminding himself of his daughter. “With so many holes, my guess is some kind of biopsy.”
    “You mean if he had brain tumors.”
    “Or lesions, because something was either taken out of his brain … or put in.”
    “Like what?”
    “Well, if he were an old man, he might have been treated for Parkinson’s disease—except six-year-old kids don’t get Parkinson’s. Another possibility is he had several tumors. It’s rare, but if that were the case, surgeons might have implanted radioactive seeds.”
    “Any way to test for that?”
    “I asked