Grave Secrets

by Kathy Reichs

  Racing across the shoulder, I pressed trembling fingers to Carlos’s throat. Nothing. I moved my hand, testing for signs of life. Nothing. I tried his wrist. Nothing.

  Please, God! My heart pounded wildly below my sternum.

  Mateo ran up beside me, indicated I should check Molly. I scrambled to her, reached through the open window, and felt for a pulse. Nothing. Again and again I positioned my fingers against the pale flesh of her throat. Opposite me Mateo shouted into his phone as he mimicked my desperate moves.

  On my fourth try I felt a beat, low and weak and uncertain. It was barely a tremor, but it was there.

  “She’s alive,” I shouted.

  Elena was beside me, eyes wide and glistening. As she opened the door, I bent in and took Molly in my arms. Holding her upright, rain stinging my neck, I unzipped her jacket, raised her sweatshirt, and located the two sources of bleeding. Spreading my feet for balance, I placed pressure on the wounds, and prayed that help would arrive in time.

  My own blood hammered in my ears. A hundred beats. A thousand.

  I spoke softly into Molly’s ear, reassuring her, cajoling her to stay with me. My arms grew numb. My legs cramped. My back screamed under the strain of standing off balance.

  The others huddled for mutual support, exchanging an occasional word or embrace. Cars flashed by with faces pointed in our direction, curious but unwilling to be drawn into whatever drama was unfolding on the road to Sololá.

  Molly’s face looked ghostly. Her lips were blue around the edges. I noticed that she wore a gold chain, a tiny cross, a wristwatch. The hands said eight twenty-one. I looked for the cell phone, but didn’t see it.

  As suddenly as it started, the rain stopped. A dog howled and another answered. A night bird gave a tentative peep, repeated itself.

  At long last I spotted a red light far up the highway.

  “They’re here,” I crooned into Molly’s ear. “Stay tough, girl. You’re going to be fine.” Blood and sweat felt slick between my fingers and her skin.

  The red light drew nearer and separated into two. Minutes later an ambulance and police cruiser screamed onto the shoulder, blasting us with gravel and hot air. Red pulsed off glistening blacktop, rain-glazed vehicles, pale faces.

  Molly and Carlos were administered emergency care by the paramedics, transferred to the ambulance, and raced toward the hospital in Sololá. Elena and Luis followed to oversee their admittance. After giving brief statements, the rest of us were permitted to return to Panajachel, where we were staying, while Mateo made the trip to police headquarters in Sololá.

  The team was quartered at the Hospedaje Santa Rosa, a budget hotel hidden in an alleyway off Avenida el Frutal. Upon entering my room I stripped, heaped my filthy clothes in a corner, and showered, thankful that the FAFG had paid the extra quetzals for hot water. Though I’d eaten nothing since a cheese sandwich and apple at noon, fear and exhaustion squelched all desire for food. I fell into bed, despondent over the victims in the well at Chupan Ya, terrified for Molly and Carlos.

  I slept badly that night, troubled by ugly dreams. Shards of infant skull. Sightless sockets. Arm bones sheathed in a rotting güipil. A tissue-spattered truck.

  It seemed there was no escape from violent death, day or night, past or present.

  * * *

  I awoke to screeching parrots and soft, gray dawn seeping through my shutters. Something was terribly wrong. What?

  Memories of the previous night hit me like a cold, numbing wave. I drew knees to chest and lay several minutes, dreading the news but needing to know.

  Flinging back the quilt, I went through my abbreviated morning ritual, then threw on jeans, T-shirt, sweatshirt, jacket, and cap.

  Mateo and Elena were sipping coffee at a courtyard table, their figures backlit by salmon-pink walls. I joined them, and Señora Samines placed coffee in front of me, and served plates of huevos rancheros, black beans, potatoes, and cheese to the others.

  “¿Desayuno?” she asked. Breakfast?

  “Sí, gracias.”

  I added cream, looked at Mateo.

  He spoke in English.

  “Carlos took a bullet in the head, another in the neck. He’s dead.”

  The coffee turned to acid in my mouth.

  “Molly was hit twice in the chest. She survived the surgery, but she’s in a coma.”

  I glanced at Elena. Her eyes were rimmed by lavender circles, the whites watery red.

  “How?” I asked, turning back to Mateo.

  “They think Carlos resisted. He was shot at close range outside the truck.”

  “Will an autopsy be performed?”

  Mateo’s eyes met mine, but he said nothing.

  “Motive?”

  “Robbery.”

  “Robbery?”

  “Bandits are a problem along that stretch.”

  “Molly told me they’d been followed from Guatemala City.”

  “I pointed that out.”

  “And?”

  “Molly has light brown hair, fair skin. She’s clearly gringo. The cops think they were probably targeted as a tourist couple in G City, then tailed until the truck hit a suitable ambush site.”

  “In plain view along a major highway?”

  Mateo said nothing.

  “Molly was still wearing jewelry and a wristwatch,” I said.

  “The police couldn’t find their passports or wallets.”

  “Let me get this straight. Thieves followed them for over two hours, then took their wallets and left their jewelry?”

  “Sí.” He lapsed into Spanish.

  “Is that typical for highway robbery?”

  He hesitated before responding.

  “They might have been scared off.”

  Señora Samines arrived with my eggs. I poked at them, speared a potato. Carlos and Molly had been shot for money?

  I had come to Guatemala fearing government bureaucracy, intestinal bacteria, dishonest taxi drivers, pickpockets. Why was I shocked at the thought of armed robbery?

  America is the leading producer of gunshot homicides. Our streets and workplaces are killing fields. Teens are shot for their Air Jordans, wives for serving the pot roast late, students for eating lunch in the high school cafeteria.

  Annually, over thirty thousand Americans are killed by bullets. Seventy percent of all murders are committed with firearms. Each year the NRA spoons up propaganda, and America swallows it. Guns proliferate, and the slaughter goes on. Law enforcement no longer has an advantage in carrying arms. It only brings the officers up to even.

  But Guatemala?

  The potato tasted like pressed wood. I laid down my fork and reached for my coffee.

  “They think Carlos got out?” I asked.

  Mateo nodded.

  “Why take the trouble to shove him back into the truck?”

  “A disabled vehicle would draw less interest than a body on the ground.”

  “Does a robbery scenario sound reasonable to you?”

  Mateo’s jaw muscles bulged, relaxed, bulged again.

  “It happens.”

  Elena made a sound in her throat, but said nothing.

  “Now what?”

  “Today Elena will keep watch at the hospital while we continue at Chupan Ya.” He tossed coffee dregs onto the grass. “And we all pray.”

  * * *

  My grandmother used to say that God’s tonic for sorrow was physical labor. She also felt toads caused infertility, but that was another issue.

  For the next six days the team ingested megadoses of Gran’s elixir. We worked at the well from sunrise until sunset, hauling equipment up and down the valley, troweling, hoisting buckets, shaking screens.

  In the evenings we dragged ourselves from our hospedaje to one of the restaurants lining Lake Atitlán. I enjoyed these brief respites from death. Though darkness obscured the water and the ancient volcanoes on the far shore, I could smell fish and kelp and hear waves lapping against rickety wooden piers. Tourists and locals
wandered the shore. Mayan women passed with impossible bundles on their heads. Notes drifted from distant xylophones. Life continued.

  Some nights we ate in silence, too exhausted for conversation. On others we talked of the project, of Molly and Carlos, of the town in which we were temporary residents.

  The history of Panajachel is as colorful as the textiles sold on its streets. In another age, the place was a K’akchiquel Mayan village settled by ancestors of the current citizens when a force of rival Tzutujil warriors was defeated by the Spanish. Later, the Franciscans established a church and monastery at “Pana,” and used the village as a base for missionary operations.

  Darwin was right. Life is opportunity. One group’s loss is another’s gain.

  In the sixties and seventies the town became a haven for gringo gurus, hippies, and dropouts. Rumors that Lake Atitlán was one of the world’s few “vortex energy fields” led to an influx of cosmic healers and crystal watchers.

  Today Panajachel is a blend of traditional Mayan, contemporary Guatemalan, and nondescript Western. It is luxury hotels and hospedajes; European cafés and come-dores; ATMs and outdoor markets; güipils and tank tops; mariachis and Madonna; Mayan brujos and Catholic priests.

  By late Wednesday we’d finished our excavation at Chupan Ya. In all, we’d removed twenty-three souls from the well. Among the skeletons we’d found thirteen projectiles and cartridge casings and two broken machete blades. Every bone and object had been recorded, photographed, packaged, and sealed for transport to the FAFG lab in Guatemala City. The cultural anthropologist had recorded twenty-seven stories, and taken DNA samples from sixteen family members.

  Carlos’s body had been transported to the Guatemala City morgue, where an autopsy confirmed the impression of the local police. Death was due to gunshot wounding at close range.

  Molly remained comatose. Each day one of us made the drive to the San Juan de Dios Hospital in Sololá, sat by her bedside, reported back. That report was always the same. No change.

  The police found no prints or physical evidence, located no witnesses, identified no suspects. The investigation continued.

  After dinner on Wednesday, I went by myself to visit Molly. For two hours I held her hand and stroked her head, hoping that the fact of my presence would penetrate to wherever it was her spirit had gone. Sometimes I talked to her, recalling shared times and acquaintances from our years before Guatemala brought us back together. I told her of the progress at Chupan Ya and spoke of her role in the work ahead. Otherwise, I sat silent, listening to the muted hum of her cardiac monitor, and praying for her recovery.

  On Thursday morning we loaded the trucks and Jeep under the indifferent eye of Señor Amado and set out for the capital, winding our way up the precipitous road from Panajachel. The sky was flawless, the lake blue satin. Sunlight speared the trees, turning leaves translucent and glistening in the spiderwebs overhead.

  As we made the hairpin turn high above Lake Atitlán, I gazed at the peaks on her far side.

  Vulcan San Pedro. Vulcan Tolimán. Vulcan Atitlán.

  Closing my eyes, I said one more silent prayer to whatever god might be willing to listen.

  Let Molly live.

  * * *

  The FAFG is headquartered in Guatemala City’s Zone 2. Built on a spit of land between steep ravines, or barrancas, the lovely, tree-shaded neighborhood was once an enclave for the well-to-do. But the grand old quarter had seen better times.

  Today, businesses and public offices sit cheek to jowl with residences hanging on by suction cups. The National Baseball Stadium looms over the far end of Calle Siméon Cañas, and multicolored buses stop at graffiti-covered shelters along both curbs. Vendors hawk fast food from pushcarts and metal huts with slide-up windows. From one, Pepsi. From another, Coke. Tamales. Chuchitos. Hot dogs plain. Hot dogs shuco. Dirty. With avocado and cabbage.

  The FAFG labs and administrative offices are located in what was once a private family home on Siméon Cañas. The two-story house, complete with pool and walled patio, sits across four lanes of traffic from a similar domicile now housing the Kidnapping and Organized Crime Unit of the Public Ministry.

  Arriving at the compound, Mateo pulled into the drive and sounded the horn. Within seconds a young woman with an owl face and long dark braids swung the gate wide. We entered and parked on a patch of gravel to the right of the front door. The other truck and Jeep followed, and the woman closed and locked the gate.

  The team spilled out and began unloading equipment and cardboard boxes, each coded to indicate site, exhumation date, and burial number. In the weeks to come we’d examine every bone, tooth, and artifact to establish identity and cause of death for the Chupan Ya victims. I hoped we’d finish before professional commitments required my return home in June.

  I was going back for my third box when Mateo pulled me aside.

  “I have a favor to ask.”

  “Of course.”

  “The Chicago Tribune plans to do a feature on Clyde.”

  Clyde Snow is one of the grand old men of my profession, the founder of the subspecialty of forensic anthropology.

  “Yes?”

  “Some reporter wants to interview me about the old man’s involvement in our work down here. I invited him weeks ago, then completely forgot.”

  “And?” Normally reluctant to deal with the press, I didn’t like where this was going.

  “The guy’s in my office. He’s very excited that you’re here.”

  “How does he know that I’m in Guatemala?”

  “I might have mentioned it.”

  “Mateo?”

  “All right, I told him. Sometimes my English is not so good.”

  “You grew up in the Bronx. Your English is perfect.”

  “Yours is better. Will you talk to him?”

  “What does he want?”

  “The usual. If you’ll talk to the guy I can start logging and assigning the Chupan Ya cases.”

  “O.K.”

  I would have preferred measles to an afternoon of baby-sitting an “excited” reporter, but I was here to do what I could to help.

  “I owe you.” Mateo squeezed my arm.

  “You owe me.”

  “Gracias.”

  “De nada.”

  But the interview was not to be.

  * * *

  I found the reporter working on a nostril in Mateo’s second-floor office. He stopped trolling when I entered, and feigned scratching the scraggly trail of hair tinting his upper lip. Pretending to notice me for the first time, he shot to his feet and stuck out a hand.

  “Ollie Nordstern. Olaf, actually. Friends call me Ollie.”

  I held palms to chest, wanting no part of Ollie’s nasal booty.

  “I’ve been unloading the trucks.” I smiled apologetically.

  “Dirty job.” Nordstern dropped his hand.

  “Yes.” I gestured him back into his chair.

  Nordstern was dressed in polyester from his gelslicked hair to his Kmart hiking boots. His head turtled forward on a neck the size of my upper arm. I guessed his age at around twenty-two.

  “So,” we began simultaneously.

  I indicated to Nordstern that he had the floor.

  “It is an absolute thrill to meet you, Dr. Brennan. I’ve heard so much about you and your work in Canada. And I read about your testimony in Rwanda.”

  “The court actually sits in Arusha, Tanzania.”

  Nordstern was referring to my appearance before the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

  “Yes, yes, of course. And those cases you did with the Montreal Hells Angels. We followed that very closely in Chicago. The Windy City has its own biker boys, you know.” He winked and pinched his nose. I hoped he wasn’t going back in.

  “I’m not the reason you’re here,” I said, glancing at my watch.

  “Forgive me. I digress.”

  Nordstern pulled a notepad from one of the four zillion pockets on his camouflag
e vest, flipped the cover, and poised pen above paper.

  “I want to learn all I can about Dr. Snow and the FAFG.”

  Before I could respond, a man appeared at the open door. He was dark-skinned, with a face that looked as if it had taken some hits. The brows were prominent, the nose humped and slightly off angle. A scar cut a tiny white swath through his left eyebrow. Though not tall, the man was muscular and carried not an ounce of fat. The phrase Thugs Are Us popped to mind.

  “Dr. Brennan?”

  “Sí.”

  The man held out a badge. SICA. Special Crimes Investigative Unit, Guatemala National Civil Police. My stomach went into free fall.

  “Mateo Reyes directed me here.” The man spoke in unaccented English. His tone suggested the call was not social.

  “Yes?”

  “Sergeant-detective Bartolomé Galiano.”

  Oh, God. Was Molly dead?

  “Does this have to do with the shooting near Sololá?”

  “No.”

  “What is it?”

  Galiano’s eyes shifted to Nordstern, returned to me.

  “The subject is sensitive.”

  Not good, Brennan. What interest could SICA have in me?

  “Could it wait a few minutes?”

  His dead gaze gave me the answer.

  3

  SERGEANT-DETECTIVE GALIANO TOOK THE CHAIR reluctantly vacated by Ollie Nordstern, crossed ankle over knee, and impaled me with a stare.

  “What is this about, Detective?” I forced my voice steady, scenes from Midnight Express rolling through my head.

  Galiano’s eyes held me like a bug on a pin.

  “We at the National Civil Police are aware of your activities, Dr. Brennan.”

  I said nothing, lowered hands to lap, leaving two sweaty palm prints on the plastic blotter.

  “I am largely responsible for that.” A small oscillating fan ruffled a half dozen hairs on the crown of his head. Otherwise, the man was motionless.

  “You are.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Part of my youth was spent in Canada, and I still follow the news up there. Your exploits do not go unnoticed.”

  “My exploits?”

  “The press loves you.”

  “The press loves to sell papers.” He may have heard my irritation. “Why have you come to see me, Detective Galiano?”