Annabelle Underwood's adventures: A dreadful trap (Part 2)

On her way to the North Pole, Annabelle Underwood crosses the wild forests of Canada when a violent storm forces her expedition to take shelter in an old trading post. But at dawn, a scream shatters the silence: a human skeleton has been discovered among the broken branches. Accident, revenge, or a carefully hidden murder? Between buried secrets, threatened nature, and clues left behind in the bones, Annabelle must solve a case where every trace may reveal the truth. 

Transcript

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Welcome to this new investigation by Annelle Underwood. Today we are taking you deep into a distant journey, into a wide, mysterious and unpredictable land, along grandiose landscapes, unpredictable, unconscious, and buried secrets. Annabelle will once again be faced with a troubling mystery. Make yourself comfortable and let yourself be drawn into this new adventure where the beauty of nature stands beside the shadow of mystery. Here is Annabelle Underwood Sixth Investigation: A Dead Foot Trap. So now I will summarize the first part for you, but if you want to listen to it, you can find the link in the description. So, Annabelle is writing from Canada before the final stage of the journey to the North Pole. She describes the beauty of the forests and lakes and introduces the members of the expedition. A violent storm forces them to take shelter in a wooden trading post. In the morning, a scream wakes them. A human skeleton has been discovered outside. So now I'm reading the letter again. After the shock of finding a skeleton in the middle of the forest, I ask everyone to help me recover the different bones so that we could recreate it. Indeed, without having analyzed it yet, the visible impact on the top and back of the skull suggested that this person had probably not died of natural causes. A murder, an accident. It was still too early to say, but one thing was certain. He had been dead for several months already, but no longer than that. Haydn confirmed my assessments, speaking of six months at most. Within a few hours, the bones were gradually discovered in the surrounding area. The skeleton was almost complete by the time the sun was nearing its zenith. No one was really speaking. Some murmured a few words, still somewhat in shock. After all, it is not every day that one comes face to face with a skeleton. We were missing only a few pieces of the tibia, which seems to have been shattered into several fragments the previous night during the storm. One of the two humeri and several phalanges from the right foot. We, nevertheless, had more than enough to analyze the bones and determine the cause of death. I simply hoped that we might later find the rest of his remains so that we could give him a proper burial. All the remains of this dead man were brought inside, while the others prepared a light meal we had not eaten since the day before. Once our stomachs were filled, Haydn and I began to inspect this body while the others continued exploring the surroundings in hope of finding the last missing parts. We gradually reconstituted the body, placing the bone one by one on the table, which has been covered with a white sheet. Haydn was far more knowledgeable than I was in this area. He possesses a solid foundation in medicine and anthropology, knowledge I do not yet have, I would be delighted to learn in his company. During his years in the police force, he had the chance of meeting fascinating people who taught him these precious skills. As for me, as you can imagine, had far more difficulty gaining access to such knowledge. It was mainly experience and my various adventures that taught me. After the death of my parents, I found myself stuck living with my grandfather in Scotland for a few years. And even though I love him with all my heart, it is true that his ideas are still rather gendered and conservative. So there was no question of me touching medicine or human bodies, but drawing and music that was perfectly acceptable. Still, you will see that drawing can be most useful, for with a simple skull, it is possible to reconstruct a person's entire face, but one thing at a time. Let us first return to Haydn's analysis, which I transcribed for you below. Haydn had used his camera to take several photographs of the bones. He photographed them methodically and as carefully as possible. Once his step was complete, he sat down to analyze them. To help himself examine the various visible impacts on the body more closely, he took from the inside pocket of his coat a most astonishing object, a cross between a magnifying glass and a portable microscope. Then he started to speak. From all the parts of the skeleton before me, I can draw several conclusions. First, as you can see here, Anno, the pelvis is somewhat narrower and more vertical, which proves that we are most likely dealing with a male skeleton of about 1 meter and 70 centimeters. The shape of the skull also seems to support this, which is more preeminent road ridges on the forehead that is more sloped than round. The same is true of the pelvic bone, which shows a resonary static notch on the flat auricular surface. So you know, I am far from being an expert on this field, but I am almost 100% certain that we are dealing with a male skeleton. And if we look at the degree of cluster of the cranial sutures and the femur bones, which are not yet completely fused, it's proof that he could not have been more than 25 years old. I would even say barely 20. Good lord, he was just a boy. He paused before continuing. This revelation weighed on him far more than I expected. He stood up and waited outside for some fresh air. I followed him in silence and for long minutes we simply contemplated the landscape. We admire the wind blow gently through the leaves of the branches and the mouse on the ground. The birds had resumed their song and were delighting our ears with some smoothing melody. Seeing such an idyllic and peaceful thing, it was difficult not to be stuck by the contrast with what was happening inside. Just as I was about to speak and offer him a few comforting words that might lift his spirits, he turned back. A few seconds later, he was once again absorbed in his work and resumed speaking, continuing the thread of his observations. Next, we can observe that he was not born with any deformities and had not suffered any other trauma before his death. He was well fed through his life and experienced perfectly normal growth for a young boy of his age. He had not even broken a bone while alive. There are no visible fractures apart from the one inflicted several months ago before he died. Fourthly, we can observe the trauma to the bones linked to his death. He presents two powerful impacts to the skull, which pierce the cranium, as you can see here, Ana on the top of the skull and at the back. I believe these two blows were fatal to our unfortunate young man. And although I cannot yet say so, with 100% certainly, I think we are dealing with a murder rather than an accident. That would explain the marks and impacts on his ready is only the bones of the forearm, but also on the various phalanges on his fingers. He looked through he was trying to protect himself from someone attacking him with a very hard and very resistant object, like a metal pipe, a baseball bat, perhaps even the butt of a rifle. I need to continue studying the body, but I sincerely believe we are dealing with murder. The marks told that the cupid did not hesitate much and savagely attacked this poor adolescent without giving him the slightest chance of getting out alive. And lastly, judging by the condition of the bones, I believe the body was not buried but left to decompose in the open air, in the middle of nature. You can see here the marks left by the pick of birds, of scavengers, he says, showing me tiny cuts on the surface of the bones. Perhaps Turkey vultures, large scavengers, present in this forest, and the missing parts may have been carried off by larger predators. Other impacts you can see on the malleus and the scapula might suggest a lynx or a coyote perhaps. But there are only suppositions. I do not yet know the fauna of these regions well enough to be perfectly certain. But it is very much resembles the marks left by animals on a body that has just been lost is so. I have already seen this kind of things, though not the same species, of course, in the United Kingdom. In any case, I was convinced that the body was not buried, but indeed left in the open air to decompose. The murderer fled without taking the time to give the victim a respectable burial. I will try to see whenever I can find other details that might tell us a little more about our victim, but I think I have given you the most important information, especially since this is not my specialty at all. An anthropologist or a forensic doctor would surely be able to tell you far more than I can. He faced silence again as I thank him and immediately plunged back into his work, inspecting every detail of the bones with his microscope minifigure, searching for the slightest information that might have escaped him. After a few moments, as I saw that he was focusing on the marks left on the lateral malleolus, the one at the ends of the fibula, I asked whenever he would let me borrow the skill for a moment so that I might attempt, and I do mean attempt, to recreate a face. It was an exercise I had not done in years, but one I had been fortunate enough to learn during anatomical drawings lessons in Scotland with our private tutor, since Gunfiser had refused to let me enroll at the Lady Literate in Arts. Had the good fortune to come across a wonderful teacher who had understood that I only like anatomy in humans when it was connected to an investigation that allowed me to discover the face of some unfortunate unknown person from history. It was thus, thanks to my teacher and to myself, that we were able to reveal the features of a woman who had drawn a few leagues from my room. We were thereby able to find and arrest her murderer. But once again, I am disgracing. And it has been quite some time since I handled a pencil. Taking my research notebook and a graphite pencil from my pockets, I first began to trace as identically and faithfully as possible the skull before me. I tried to erase the traumas that had made certain pieces of the skull disappear in order to recover its original shape. Once the skull was finished, I began drawing the eyeballs, then the nose and his nasal cartilage, then come all the muscles that make up the face. Dozens and dozens of muscles gradually gave shapes to my drawing. I added the lips, then the ears and the skin. A little hair to make him seem more alive. I drew several possibilities, adapting the shape of the nose, the mouth, the ears, and the hair. I added a little pigment with a few colored pencil. I had had the good idea to bring on our journey. Please with the results, especially if with my last drawing, I turn it around to show Haydn or ask his opinion. Before I continue, I prefer to warn you I'm sorry, I don't know how to pronounce a new name, so I will try to do my best. So now I'm reading the letter again. No sooner had I returned my drawing around than a cry ran out from the entrance. The man had returned with the missing humerus. They had not found the rest of the body. The cry came from Watchist's throat. He had immediately recognized the face I had just drawn. It collapses on the floor, repeating the same first name for several minutes. Warm chimps streaming down his cheeks. A name that was then unknown to me. That of his brother, his younger brother, who had gone to work in the west of the country several months earlier. His brother, Wasky Squan. He took Wesithu a long time to calm down and managed to articulate understandable words other than his brother's name. He took the drawing I had just made from my hands as tenderly as possible. Despite the shock, his gestures were not advertising, and he took the illustration with the greatest tenderness in the words. Why his eyes could not stop moving back and forth between the bones and the drawing. His friends surrounding him, as did the scientists of the expedition, who were also overwhelmed by shock and emotion. It is always difficult for a human being to be confronted in such a way with their fleeting states, a skeleton. Each bones remind us that our life is only temporary, that we are merely passing through, and being so close to these human remains seems to trouble our whole assembly deeply. Once everyone had recovered, I asked Wesisu to tell us more about his brother and his supposed departure several months earlier, for, judging by the cognitive of the bones, he had certainly never gone farther than a few kilometers from his native lands. Thus, his brother has supposedly left for the great Canadian West. About six months earlier, beavers were becoming increasingly rare, and he no longer wanted to hunt them. He had never liked doing so anyway. He loved them enormously and had an immense love for nature and the animals that inhabited. So he had beavers. He was fascinated by the ability to create entire dams and he loved spending all hours watching them carry branches toward the lodges to shave them. He hated hunting them and had hacked with quite a few people in order to protect them, especially when they were baby beavers. The beaver's population has become extremely fragile. These animals were becoming rarer and rarer. And hunting them was becoming increasingly difficult. But Fur allowed them to earn a living, to survive by exchanging it for other goods they needed. He had often argued with his own brother as well because Watsu was also a hunter. A very skilled one at that. His brother was a true defenser of nature. He refused to destroy anything, even trees were not to be cut down. And yes, many has been fell to make way for the new railway for construction or simply for heating and use in factories. Industrialization and modernization needed these trees to feed themselves. And this boy opposed it. He did everything he could to protect nature from humankind. He could spend entire hours observing the world around him, losing all senses of time and of the world in which he lived. He had left for the West in the hope of finding different work, far from hunting and lodging. It seemed he was looking for a job as a guide for Westerners eager to discover Canadian nature. Foreigners and tourists who had left the city to immerse themselves in the forest for a few weeks. He had broken West Historie's heart to see him live far from his family and his people. And he had taken a long time to accept his decision. Only for him to die like this in the end. And that's all for today. Thank you so much for listening to this episode until the end. I hope you like the episode. And if you do, please don't forget to leave us a like, subscribe, and share the podcast with others. Thank you again for listening and see you very soon for a new adventure with Annabelle Under the Wood.