Freezing

TWENTY-NINE

When Greg Parker, the archaeology professor, hailed them, Jayne and Steelie came over from where they had been training his graduate students to discriminate between human and non-human juvenile bone. Greg was using a trowel to expose a partial, skeletalized hand. The arm it was attached to still had some tissue adhering to the bones and it disappeared into the wall of the depression Greg had created in accordance with the grid pattern laid over the yard. When he had the hand sitting on a pedestal of soil, he leaned back on his heels, holstering the trowel on his tool belt. ‘Take a look.’

Jayne got on her knees and peered at the bones. ‘Can I borrow a brush?’ He handed her a small paintbrush. She gently brushed the cut edge of the bones and confirmed what she thought she had seen: a bright, dry cross-section and a general absence of fractures radiating from the cut edges. Then she let Steelie take a look.

In short order, Steelie said, ‘Postmortem cuts.’

Jayne nodded and they all pulled down their masks, sitting back on undisturbed soil.

Greg launched in. ‘As you can see, I came at that hand from this side of the grid, so I know the fingers aren’t here. They’re gone. And this isn’t the first area of the yard where I’ve come across this.’

Jayne asked, ‘You’re thinking someone dug through this body when digging another hole?’

‘Maybe he wasn’t paying attention where he buried previous bodies and he hit things with his shovel as he buried someone else?’ Greg offered.

Steelie weighed in. ‘This actually reminds me of some of the graves around Zvornik.’

Jayne knew what she meant. They hadn’t worked directly on the Drina River flanking Serbia but it was common knowledge that mass graves there had been ‘robbed’ of the bodies of people killed near Srebrenica. Someone had attempted to remove the bodies and hide them in a second location but, because the exhumations were done hastily, perhaps at night and with the clumsy broad strokes of a backhoe bucket, body parts or fragments of clothing were left behind.

Jayne looked back at the hand in question. She could see that there was nothing beyond their cut edges, just soil all the way to the fence-line. Greg Parker had done a nice job of isolating the feature.

Steelie explained to Greg, ‘I don’t think this is someone accidentally cutting through previous interments. I mean, some of it may turn out to be just Gee . . . the perp double-digging in one spot but not this. This is someone taking out parts.’ She looked across the yard. ‘And they may not all be here.’

Dr Penman had joined them. ‘Are you saying we might dig up this whole yard and not find all the parts of a single body?’

‘I’m saying it’s a possibility,’ she replied. ‘I’m not up on serial killer behavior but I’m not sure that the person who wants to kill and dismember is the same person who wants to go back and move already-buried decomposing parts around his backyard just for fun.’

‘Yeah,’ said Greg with a little laugh. ‘The latter sounds more like what you guys are known for.’

Jayne glanced at Steelie and they stood up. An uncomfortable silence followed that Greg tried to fill.

‘Like the Body Farm,’ he said uncertainly. ‘At UTK . . .’

Dr Penman was staying on topic. ‘What do you recommend?’

Jayne looked around the site. ‘Look, you were always going to have to grid off the whole yard. I’d suggest that you carry on with that process but be alert to any remains that show disturbance or fragmentation from postmortem damage, then carefully go from the known to the unknown wherever you see it. Since you’re likely dealing with already dismembered bodies, it’s going to take just that much more attention to whether the cuts are peri or post.’

‘So, I’m looking for the usual perimortem signs; radiating fractures, lifting and bending?’

‘Yes.’ She looked at Greg, who was getting to his feet. ‘And Greg can cover what’s familiar to him with postmortem breaks from the archaeological setting.’

Steelie said, jovially, ‘You guys are a dream team.’

‘Actually,’ he replied. ‘I’ve just realized it takes two of us to do what just one of you can do.’

‘Perhaps, but neither of us can tell what’s a stone tool and what’s just a battered rock, nor could we analyze stomach contents.’

‘Nor would you want to,’ Greg commented, as he slapped Dr Penman on the back.

Just then, Scott walked over on the step stones. ‘What’s going on?’

Dr Penman explained the apparent disturbance of the burials.

Scott looked serious. ‘Do you know how many people you’ve got so far?’

‘A minimum number of three, based on the fifteen body parts we’ve exhumed so far. We’ve had two right clavicles with the sternal end fused and one left clavicle with a fully unfused sternal end.’

‘In English?’

Steelie answered him. ‘Collarbones. Two right collarbones, so that’s two people, and they’re both fused at the business end, so both people are probably over twenty-five years. Then one left collarbone from someone under twenty-five, which makes three. Minimum. Though only one cranium so far.’

‘OK,’ replied Scott. ‘From the garage, we’ve got ID cards or driver’s licenses from eight different people, all female. We’re going to be working on cross-checking to see if any of them have missing person reports – besides Eleanor Patterson and the two names I recognize of local missing prostitutes. Not all the trophies may be from women he killed; there could be some assault victims we don’t know about yet. But I came over here to tell you to keep looking.’

‘Say no more,’ said Greg, who went to give instructions to his graduate students.

‘And I’m afraid, Doctor Penman, that I’ve got to take away these two ladies. They’ve got a plane to catch.’

The ME shook Jayne and Steelie’s hands as though they’d known each other for years and then the women gained the concrete behind Scott. He turned and spoke under his breath. ‘Look at this.’ He was holding a set of clear evidence bags, which he fanned out in his hands. ‘King made copies of those photos from Kigali.’

Steelie flicked on her flashlight and concentrated it on the corner of the top photograph. ‘Look at the photo board, though. The others had a UN CivPol case number. These are different.’

He turned the photos toward him. The board read EK-001. Scott whistled softly before translating. ‘Eugene King: first victim.’

‘A perfect trophy,’ Jayne muttered.

‘Yeah,’ agreed Steelie. ‘These aren’t copies; they’re fresh photos and anyone seeing them thinks they’re legit crime scene or case photos. He can explain them away; after all, he worked for the FBI and who knows what you weird Bureau employees carry around.’

Scott dropped the photos to his side. ‘All right, I’ve got your ride out front. He’ll take you back to your motel, drop you with some dinner, then we’ll be sending an Agent Carter to take you to the airport. He’ll have your boarding passes.’

Steelie detoured to say goodbye to Greg’s students while Jayne preceded Scott into the house. As she mounted the back stairs, she noticed it was getting dark. She turned on her flashlight and felt the chill of that house go into her bones again. She could barely believe she actually knew the person who lived here or was responsible for what was in that yard. That partial hand bothered her. Where was the rest of that person?

She came out the front door of the house and was halted by the scene in the street directly ahead: men, women, and children, dressed in exercise clothes, school uniforms, suits. They were holding lit candles and something else . . . Jayne gradually perceived that they were photographs but only photos of women. Some portraits were big, while others were snapshots; women holding children, women laughing, women looking dubiously at the camera, women in graduation clothing. Women who were alive. Alive but missing.

Then Scott was in the doorway next to her. ‘They already know, Jayne. Or they suspect. I recognize some of the relatives of the women who went missing on my watch.’ He set off for the tent.

Jayne looked at the relatives one last time. She felt they were identical to a group who’d waited for the bodies strapped down in the back of their UN truck in Kigali in 1996 after an exhumation. Everyone is the same, everywhere. Jayne followed in Scott’s footsteps, feeling like she could be in Kigali, walking into the UN’s old morgue tent, then stripping off mask, booties, gloves – just like this. Putting everything into red biohazard bags – just like this. Movements so familiar, she could have done them in her sleep back then. Now, inside this tent, she couldn’t tell where she was, what year it was. She could go out and find that it was 1996 again and Gene would be there; everything was the same and the families were waiting.

She hesitated and Scott said, ‘Follow me. When I stop to talk to the relatives, keep going to my right. The black Suburban down the street has an agent in it, waiting for you. Just get in.’

Jayne followed him out into the deepening darkness. She noticed a television camera when a bright lamp came on to focus on Scott. She heard Scott announce his name and title and tell them that there was no official information yet. She kept walking, focused on the dark bulk of the Suburban in the distance. Then a hand pulled her to the side.