Things couldn't get any worse, could they? Surely not.
Enter Dr. Lloyd Aberstock and so much worse I could barely breathe.
"I'm afraid, from preliminary examination, there is more than one set of skeletal remains in this mess." He stood over the box Dad had dropped on the surgical table, the morgue already quiet but now feeling like a tomb as he spoke. His normally jovial tone was gone, grim sorrow replacing it. "I can't identify the victim without a DNA test, I'm afraid. But there is enough bone matter remaining that whoever tried to burn these," he gestured into the box with his gloved hands trailing bits of ash, "failed in their attempt to disguise this poor woman's identity."
"You're sure she was female?" Dad's voice couldn't have been any flatter, empty of all emotion. I guess he'd released what he needed to at the office before bundling all of us up and calling the doc on our way to the hospital, practically ordering the older man to meet us there.