"Ready for sex?" I asked.

"Got a headache."

Yep. I liked this woman.

Picking up a pelvic half, I pointed to the front.

"Pubic bone is chunky, its lower branch is thick, and the subpubic angle is more V than U." I turned the bone and ran my finger inside a hollow below the broad pelvic blade. "Sciatic notch is narrow."

"You're thinking Y chromosome."

I nodded. "Let's see the cranium."

Emma handed it to me.

"Large brow ridges, blunt orbital borders." I rotated the skull. It had a large bump at the midline in back. "Occipital protuberance is large enough to require a zip code."

"All boy"

"Oh, yeah." I noted "male" on my case form.

"Age?" Emma asked.

Generally, the last of the molars appear during the late teens or early twenties, about the same time the skeleton is wrapping up its act. The final skeletal growth center to fuse is a little cap at the throat end of the collarbone. Combined, clavicular fusion and wisdom tooth eruption are good indicators of adulthood.

"All the molars out?" I asked.

Emma nodded.

I picked up the collarbone.

"Medial epiphysis is fused." I lay the bone on the table. "So he's no kid."

I returned to the pelvis. Again, I was interested in the belly side, this time the face that had kissed the face of the other pelvic half during life. In young adults, these faces have topography like the Shenandoah, all mountains and valleys. With age, the mountains wear down and the valleys fill in.

"Pubic symphysis is smooth," I said. "With a raised rim around the perimeter. Let's look at the dental X-rays."

Emma flipped the switch on a light box, then dumped ten black rectangles from a small brown envelope. I arranged the films into two rows, uppers and lowers, with each tooth in proper alignment.

Throughout life, pulp chambers and root canals fill with secondary dentin. The older a tooth, the more opaque its image on X-ray. These babies shouted young to middle-aged adult. In addition, all molar roots were complete to their tips, and crown wear was minimal.