A False Dawn

SIXTY-SEVEN

The strand of hair was caught in dried dirt in the tip of one dull metal tooth. “Well, what do we have here, Ortega?”

He swallowed, licked his thin lips. “I need an ambulance!”

“That is a lot of blood pouring down your arm. Must be your heart beating faster to compensate for the loss of your blood. I’d say you’re down to about five, many seven minutes before your heart starts pumping air.”

“Call 911 asshole!”

“Tell me where the bodies are buried, and I’ll call an ambulance. If you don’t, we’ll have to follow the backhoe tracks, could take a while. You and me tromping all over the south forty. I know the backhoe was used to dig graves. Where are they?”

He looked at the hair and looked back at me. The color drained from his face. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He blurted, “A half mile, down the easement, past the packing house, follow a dried-up canal to Farm 13. There’s fresh earth there. We don’t use that field. They’re buried there.”

“How many?”

“I don’t know exactly.”

“You don’t know exactly? I ought to let you die! You bastard!”

I saw Manny Lopez standing near one trailer. “Manny, take off your belt, tie it round his upper arm, right above the wound.”

Manny started the tourniquet while I held the gun on Ortega and dialed my cell with one hand. I called Dan Grant and told him what had happened and added, “Send an ambulance. Bring in forensics, the whole team, and a lot of body bags.”

I hung up and called Lauren Miles. “This will be one your folks in Quantico will talk about in classes for years to come. Bring your camera guys, that way your instructors will have illustrations when they teach the chapter on the real killing fields.”

“We’ll take choppers and be there in an hour,” she said.

Two sheriff’s deputies held Ortega under armed guard as he was taken to the hospital in an ambulance.

A small army of investigators and forensics people assembled at Farm 13. The former tomato field looked like it hadn’t been farmed in years. Weeds and Brazilian pepper trees sprouted over the 150 acres of sandy soil. It was easy to see where the backhoe had been. A strip of land, about fifty feet long, was disturbed, fresh-turned soil.

It was here where men in white jumpsuits and masks over their mouths and noses descended with shovels. The first body was found within five minutes. County and federal law enforcement people stood in a near circle while forensics investigators began uncovering the rest of the bodies. The dead were lined in a shallow, mass grave, almost shoulder-to-shoulder. There were seven women and two men.

“Internal organs missing,” the ME said, looking up from ditch of the dead.

I stepped closer. The victims appeared to have dark hair and features, except for one. The matted hair was blonde. I had a feeling I was looking at the partially decomposed body of Robin Eastman. The sad life of a young stripper, caught in a maniacal turf war, ended like a gutted fish.

Lauren and Dan stood next to me and watched the proceedings. Both the FBI and the county investigators were doing a good job documenting with video and numerous digital cameras.

Lauren looked to the west and pointed. “Chopper isn’t ours. Media are coming.”

Dan said, “We got to keep them back a good fifty yards!”

The senior ME came up out from the graves, removed his mask, and said, “In thirty-three years, I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“Any idea the time-line from the first killing to the latest?” I asked.

“That’ll take some lab work, but I’d estimate the one at the far end has been in the ground about five months. The last one down, few days.”

Dan shook his head. “How do you even try a case like this?”

“What do you mean?” Lauren asked.

“Quantity of bodies. Death penalty isn’t enough.”

I said, “Lauren, maybe you can take your FBI team and pay Josh and Richard Brennen a little visit. Their neglect, their handed-down abuse and indifference allowed it to exist in the first place. That’s a crime in my book.”

Dan looked over and held his hand up. To four deputies he yelled, “There’s a bunch of media people coming. I see the satellite trucks. Make sure nobody gets on this side of the tape. I mean nobody!”

I said, “The last puzzle piece has to be found. I need to get on the road to find it.”

“Where’re you going?” Lauren asked.

“Xanadu.”

As I appraoched my jeep, Manny Lopez was standing near it. “You found bodies?”

“Yes. Too many.”

“I never think this would happen when I come to this country.”

He held out his hand. I saw the keys from the Escalade in his dirty fingers. He said, “I took these so Ortega could not go. You take them.”

I smiled and folded his hand over the keys. “You keep them. I have a feeling he won’t need the car.”

“I do not know how to drive.”

“I’ll teach you.”

He smiled, nodded, and put the keys in his pocket.

I cranked the Jeep and started down the dirt road. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw Manny petting the dog I’d freed from the leash. Both the dog and Manny seemed to be grinning.