Bones ik-7

by Jan Burke

  “You’ve got to find something to do with yourself,” Travis was saying. “You can’t just sit here, getting more and more freaked out about this. Find something to occupy your time.”

  Lost in his thoughts about Parrish, for a moment Frank merely stared at Travis. The suggestion that he keep himself busy — which had at first seemed ridiculous — began to take hold, and now made perfect sense.

  He reached for his car keys.

  “Where are you going?” Travis asked.

  “To visit Mr. Newly in his sickbed.”

  10

  WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, MAY 17

  Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains

  J.C. caught up to us again when about half of the plastic had been uncovered. If he was weary from the additional hiking he had done or by difficulties in helping Phil Newly to the plane, he didn’t show it.

  Bingle noticed J.C.’s presence at the other end of the meadow before I did. Because I had been watching the dog, I caught the change in the focus of his attention before the others did. During the last few hours, I had been spending much of my time ensuring that Bingle didn’t sneak closer to the open grave — after he made one nearly successful attempt, David taught me how to say “¡Quédate!” — which means “stay” — in a tone of voice that Bingle would obey.

  “You can also say, ‘No te muevas,’ ” David said. “If you say it in a no-nonsense tone of voice — let him know you mean what you say — you’ll get him to set aside his other impulses, even the ones that tell him he was on to something really great and now we’re having all the fun. He’d like to join in, but his notions of amusement wouldn’t be too helpful for our purposes.”

  I shuddered.

  “I know, I know,” David said. “But in order to do this kind of work, he has to be interested in that smell. He behaves himself for the most part, but the trouble is, Bingle tends to feel a little proprietary about his finds.”

  Now, as J.C. approached, Bingle’s ears were pitched forward and he watched the ranger closely. Dogs — natural hunters — see motion better than detail, and Bingle’s body posture said that he was on guard against this approaching figure. Eventually he must have managed to catch J.C.’s familiar scent — although how he could do so over the increasingly intense smell of the grave, I’ll never know — because suddenly he let out a happy bark of welcome.

  For a time, work stopped as we greeted J.C. and caught up with one another. He applied some smell compound as he listened to the story of Bingle’s find, and praised the dog, who was happy to bask in his attention.

  He had seen the coyote tree, and his disgust over it was plain; he was all for bringing charges against Parrish for it. “Not a big deal to someone going down on a double murder rap, I suppose, but still—” He shook his head, as if ridding himself of the memory of the tree. He bent down to pet Bingle. “So you’ve found Mrs. Sayre, eh, Bingle?”

  “We don’t know who or what this is yet, J.C.,” Ben reminded him, handing him a pair of gloves. “We haven’t even opened the plastic.”

  “Well,” the ranger said, looking amused, “the plastic seems to rule out an American Indian burial site, and I can tell you that there aren’t any legal cemeteries in this meadow, and no hunting allowed here, either. So whoever or whatever it is, it doesn’t belong here.”

  “When will the plane be back?” I asked him.

  “Tomorrow, weather permitting. Some rain in the forecast, so they might be delayed a day or so. Did you bring rain gear?”

  I nodded.

  “We’d better get back to work,” Ben said. “The last thing I want to cope with is a flooded site.”

  J.C. had apparently done this work before, but even with his help, things could only progress at a certain pace. Eventually, the top surface of the plastic was uncovered. It was a dull, dark green. It appeared to be of a heavier gauge than the plastic used to make trash bags, more like the type used for ground cover by landscapers.

  Thompson paced, muttering none-too-quietly about guys who think they’re working on a pharaoh’s tomb instead of a crime scene; about wishing to God he could bring in a backhoe; damning Parrish’s hide for picking this place out beyond East Jesus to bury a body — and other unhelpful remarks that made life a little less pleasant for everyone within earshot.

  Ben didn’t gratify Thompson with a response. He walked over to him, though, while Andy, J.C., and David stood back from the grave to allow more photographs to be taken of the lumpy plastic.

  “We want to dig down a little more on the sides,” Ben told the detective, “just to see if we can find the edge of the plastic. We’d prefer to keep it intact. But if we can’t find an edge, we’ll go ahead and cut it open.”

  Thompson looked up into the sky and said, “Thank you, Lord!”

  “We aren’t being careful just to irritate you,” Ben said. “My guess is that the plastic wrapping, the cool temperatures and altitude here, the lack of animal disturbance—”

  “What is it you’re trying to say?” Thompson snapped.

  “In terms you’ll understand?” Ben shot back.

  Thompson’s face was red, but he said, “As a matter of fact, yes — I’d like the nonegghead version.”

  Ben looked away from him for a moment, as if trying to regain his temper. “This body may be — let’s see, in ‘nonegghead’ terms? It may be a little soupy. With this much odor, I don’t believe we’ll be looking at completely skeletonized remains — what we’re smelling is not just the scent of bones. That’s one reason why I’m not sure these remains are four years old — perhaps they are, perhaps they aren’t. If they aren’t — you may have a different victim here.”

  “Yes, you mentioned that possibility earlier, but—”

  Ben raised a hand, and Thompson — with a visible effort — held his peace.

  “There are lots of ‘ifs’ here, Detective — if the remains are human, if this is a homicide and if this is not Julia Sayre — if all those conditions are met, you will obviously have a new set of charges you can bring against Parrish.”

  Seeing he had Thompson’s interest, he went on. “Obviously, you can bring new charges only if we can prove that he’s the one who put this body here. We’re going slowly, because trace evidence that will link Parrish — or anyone else — to this crime may have been left in the surrounding soil, and if so, we want to find it.”

  Ben paused and smiled, not very pleasantly, then added, “Just think, Detective Thompson, if this is a different victim, you’ll go back to Las Piernas a hero.”

  “The D.A.’s deal with Parrish wasn’t exactly popular, was it?” Thompson said. “We weren’t too happy with it.”

  “The police weren’t the only ones who were outraged that Parrish was protected from the death penalty. I think the D.A. has regretted it. That’s partly why Ms. Kelly was allowed to join us, right?”

  Thompson looked over at me and nodded. “Everybody knows he’s hoping she’ll make his decision look good. She’s been writing about the Sayre case for a long time.”

  I knew he resented my stories about Julia Sayre. As far as Thompson was concerned, they were an ongoing, embarrassing announcement that he had failed to solve the case.

  “With a new case to pursue,” Ben said, “the D.A. could redeem himself with both groups — he’ll claim he tried to find Julia Sayre, but won’t fail to seek the death penalty for a third murder. And with what may be the resolution of another missing persons case, I’m sure the Las Piernas Police Department would be pleased with you.”

  Thompson glanced back toward the camp, where Parrish, surrounded by his guards, stood staring toward us. Parrish was too far away to see us very clearly, or to be clearly seen by us, but he seemed intensely interested in our activities. And even at this distance, the defiance in his stance was unmistakable.

  When I looked back at Thompson, though, I saw that Ben’s words had produced the opposite effect of the one he had intended. If Thompson was anxious to proceed before — when he’d thought
only of being able to get back home with his mission accomplished — Ben’s vision of his heroic return now only intensified his impatience to achieve it.

  “Who else could have left the body here?” he said. “Parrish led us right to it!”

  Ben sighed. “Believe me, Detective Thompson, I want to know what’s underneath that plastic as badly as you do. But remember what I told you about the possible condition of the remains? Lifting the plastic out of the grave might cause the remains to shift, and perhaps to be damaged. We need to proceed with caution.”

  “Christ, Sheridan, you’ve been creeping along like a three-legged turtle! If what you’ve been doing up to now hasn’t been ‘proceeding with caution,’ we’ll all be skeletons by the time you’re ready to get that body out of here!”

  “If you’d like to continue without my help—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Thompson said, but cooled off a little. “Look, I don’t mean to push you—”

  David laughed.

  “I don’t mean to push you into doing anything that will destroy evidence,” Thompson went on, “but I also don’t have the time or resources to allow you to make this into a museum-quality archeological dig.” He glanced back toward the camp, and missed the derisive looks the others exchanged. He turned again to Ben. “Among other problems, I need to get Parrish back into a cell as soon as possible.”

  “If we’re allowed to get back to work,” Ben said meaningfully, “you’ll get your answers sooner.”

  It was, in fact, not much later that Ben said, “We’re not going to be able to unwrap the body without risking damage. We’re ready to cut the plastic.”

  David, seeing me come to my feet, said, “I can get Bingle to stay there if you want to come closer — at least long enough for you to take a look.”

  “If this is not Julia Sayre,” Ben objected, “there may be details here that we don’t want released to the public.”

  Thompson said in exasperation, “Agree to keep it off the record, will you, Kelly? If it isn’t Sayre, you can report that another victim has been found. The rest you keep out of the paper — write about it only after we release the information.”

  “The rest goes to the Express first,” I said.

  “All right, fine. Sheridan, get on with it.”

  Ben didn’t try to hide his contempt for me, but being in this line of work, I had my disapproval vaccinations a long time ago and don’t expect I’ll ever be killed by a snub. The sooner he realized that all his wishing I would go to hell wasn’t going to keep me from doing my job, the better for both of us.

  “Acuéstate,” David commanded Bingle, and the dog lay down. “Bien, Bingle. No te muevas.”

  David offered the jar of smell compound again, and a mask. I reluctantly took the mask after he told me that everyone who stood near the grave would have to wear one. I put mine over my head, but knowing how confining it would feel, didn’t pull it up over my mouth and nose just yet.

  Watching me, David said quietly, “This isn’t going to be pretty. You’ve seen decayed remains before?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “This will probably be worse. Much worse. My guess is that it’s going to be tough on these cops, because even though they see some horrible things, usually the bodies they find are — well, fresher. Seldom this far gone.” He paused, then said, “If you’re going to get sick, for God’s sake, run as far away from the site as you can to do it.”

  Seeing my look of apprehension, he added, “Ben really hates the smell of barf.”

  I laughed, felt better for it, and told him I’d probably try to pick some other way to get back at Dr. Sheridan.

  He smiled. “You’ll be fine.”

  But when the plastic was cut, I-shaped, and then — with a crackling sound — pulled back, I wasn’t so sure I would be fine. I held on by making myself think of the strange mass — the misshapen figure that was in some places bone, some places hair, or liquid, or leathery tissue — to think of this figure that lay before me as something to be studied, something that might tell a secret.

  Even then, I could not manage to be a cold observer; perhaps those much touted tricks of divorcing one’s mind from the victim’s humanity worked for someone there, but not for me, and as I glanced at the faces of Ben and David, who had seen this sort of thing so often before, I realized that I didn’t see coldness there at all — only quiet compassion. Perhaps they felt as I did: for all its distorted aspect, there was no doubt that this had been a human being, that this had been someone, and although her fate had been terrible, it would not remain hidden.

  Ben caught me studying him, or so I thought, until I realized that the reverse was true — he had quickly studied me, and the others as well.

  “Mr. Burden, will you be able to continue?” he asked the photographer, whose face was drained of color.

  “Mr. Burden?” Ben asked again.

  Flash tore his wide-eyed gaze from the remains, and looked up at him. “Yes, sir,” he said shakily.

  “The camera?” Ben prompted gently.

  Flash looked down at his right hand in surprise; at some point he had dropped the video camera away from his face, and was now holding it limply at his side.

  “Yes, I’ll start taping again,” he said, a little more steadily. He pulled the camera up.

  “J.C., you’re taking the notes now?” Ben asked.

  “Yes,” the ranger said, his own voice unsteady.

  “Let’s get started, then.” Ben gave the date and time, named the persons present and gave the coordinates for the grave. As he calmly recited this information, I found my own nerves steadying, felt the first shock of the sight before me receding. I tried again to study the remains.

  The body was lying faceup. The underside was, from all I could see, a gooey mess. The upper portion was part mummy, part skeleton, part waxwork figure — this latter, I was told, was due to the formation of adipocere, a soaplike substance produced during one of the phases of decomposition.

  “These observations are preliminary,” Ben was saying, “and subject to verification in the lab. We have one, unknown adult female, of European descent. Age and stature yet to be determined. No clothing is apparent. Position is supine, with arms slightly outstretched. The individual’s head is positioned west along an east-west line. Hair is dark brown.” He paused, then said, “Focus on the left hand, please, Mr. Burden. . . . Subject is wearing a yellow metal band inset with three red stones on the fourth finger of the left hand . . . the left thumb, apparently severed antemortem through the shaft of the proximal phalanx, is not present.”

  “It’s her,” Bob Thompson said quietly, and walked away.

  11

  WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, MAY 17

  Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains

  Ben noted for the tape that Detective Thompson was no longer present, then made a few additional observations, most of which concerned “apparent antemortem trauma” and also some comments about damage that probably occurred perimortem — near the time of death — or postmortem. He paused, seemed to take a long moment to look at the body as a whole, then said, “Okay, that’s it for now.”

  He asked Flash to take some still photos; he named specific shots he wanted. He asked David to tell Flash of any others he might need, and asked him to bag the hands and feet — to place plastic bags over them to help keep them intact. He asked me to follow him, and pulling his mask down, stepped back over to his stack of supplies. I was happy to pull my own mask down again, and wondered briefly if — having already guessed that I have problems with claustrophobia — he had suspected my dislike of having part of my face covered.

  He didn’t mention this though, and simply asked me to help him assemble the lightweight stretcher he had brought. He gave me a body bag to carry, and we took both bag and stretcher back to the site.

  Thompson had returned by the time these tasks were completed, and Ben, after conferring with him for a moment, gave him a pair of gloves and a new mask.


  “You, too, Ms. Kelly, if you don’t mind,” Ben said, motioning to my mask, giving me a pair of gloves as well.

  I took the gloves with some trepidation. “What do you want me to do?”

  “It’s going to take all of us to lift her out of the grave and into the body bag,” he said.

  I felt my mouth go dry. “Is she that heavy?”

  “Probably not, maybe a hundred-and-fifteen, hundred-and-twenty pounds. But I’m trying to minimize damage.”

  He knelt near the edge of the grave, leaned in and grasped one end of the plastic, near where the skull lay. He pulled slightly on the plastic, as if testing its strength. He then directed each of us to specific places near the edges of the grave; Bob Thompson and Andy were on her right side, David and J.C. on her left. Ben was at her head. I was at her feet. The stretcher and bag were near Bob and Andy.

  Flash was back to operating the video camera. I hoped with all my might that he wouldn’t be getting a shot of anything splashing out of the plastic and onto my boots.

  Following the others’ lead, I knelt down. David and Ben carefully folded the plastic back into its original position, covering her.

  “Please try not to disturb the edges of the grave,” Ben said. “Ready? Take hold.”

  The plastic felt cool and stiff beneath my gloved fingers. I told myself that I could cope with feeling the warm, close air of my breath in the mask. I told myself I would not fall into the grave. I moved back a few inches.

  “I’ll count to three,” Ben continued. “When I say the number three, we’re each going to lift very slowly, very carefully, very evenly. The remains are fragile. They may shift inside the plastic. We may find that the plastic won’t be strong enough to hold them, and if not, we’re going to have to set them down again. I know this is an awkward way to lift; try not to strain your backs. Anyone having trouble, speak up right away. We’ll come straight up to just above ground level, then I’ll give you instructions from there. Everything should be done as if you’re moving in slow motion. Watch more than the section just in front of you — make sure we’re moving together. Everyone ready?”