Bones (11 page)

"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?"

We nodded.

"Gently. One . . . two . . . three . . ."

There was a crackle as we began lifting.

"Easy . . . easy . . ."

Ben was watching me as we began to feel the weight. I tried not to let my uneasiness show. The remains weren't heavy, but knowing what we were holding was unnerving.

"Slowly. . . . What do you think, David?"

"It will hold," David said.

There was a sloshing sound. The plastic moved as if it were alive, rippling toward me.

"A little higher, Andy and J.C.," Ben said calmly. "Easy . . ."

We continued lifting, Ben guiding our way, watching one another, listening to the slight shiftings, the small rustling sounds of the plastic.

When it was above the burial pit, we slowly straightened our backs, so that we were sitting up over our knees, and the plastic was stretched a little tighter. Ben waited a moment, then he asked Bob Thompson and Andy to step away. The four of us edged the body away from the pit. Next, Ben and David briefly managed the body alone, placing it in the body bag. The bag was zipped up and locked with a crimped metal seal. The stretcher was already beneath the bag.

I turned to look back into the grave. "Oh, Jesus!"

The others hurried over, stood next to me, peering down.

Stained and moldy, but laid out in neat array, were articles of women's clothing: a black jacket and skirt, a once white blouse, black pumps and purse. Underwear. A bra. A slip. There were other objects as well--some candles, some wire, a knife. A gold necklace.

Some objects were loose, some encased in clear plastic bags.

The Polaroid photographs were in bags.

As much as I knew that they were photographs that never should have been taken, of things that never should have happened to anyone, I could not keep myself from staring at them, all the while not wanting them to be there.

They stared back.

She stared back.

I felt a strong hand on my shoulder, and someone said, "Come away. Come and sit next to Bingle. Come on. He's worried about you."

Ben, I realized. He pulled the mask off my face, kept talking to me. I don't know what he said. I let him lead me over to Bingle. The dog nuzzled me as I sat down next to him.

I held on to Bingle, and looked back toward the grave, toward the black body bag.

I thought of a girl who had once wished her mother dead, and knew that Julia Sayre must have wanted her daughter's wish to come true long before it did.

** CHAPTER 12

WEDNESDAY NIGHT, MAY 17

Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains

I sat at the edge of my tent that evening, listening to laughter. The gathering around the campfire had been quiet and solemn at first. After a long day of laboring over the grave and its artifacts--photographing, mapping, collecting, and labeling its grim contents--the team of workers was tired and subdued.

Parrish, now being watched by Duke and Earl, was kept away from the rest of the group. He was taken to a tent after Merrick had another flare-up with him, this one undoubtedly resulting in Parrish receiving a bruise or two.

It had started when Parrish, handcuffed, had seen a moth fluttering not far from his face. He watched it intently, then snapped at it with his open mouth, and exaggerated the act of chewing and swallowing it. "Why the hell did you do that?" Merrick asked, disgusted.

Parrish stared at him, smiled, then glanced at the body bag. "It reminded me of someone."

Merrick tackled him to the ground before Manton could stop him. Later, even Merrick acknowledged that Parrish seemed pleased to have goaded him into that loss of self-control.

No one blamed Merrick for his edginess. While yesterday Parrish might have been guided to a place and told to take a seat, today he was shoved down, and roughly yanked up again when his guards were ready to go. We didn't protest at all. A line, it seemed, had been moved. Having just seen photos of Parrish pouring hot wax into one of his victim's ears, I was not willing to champion his civil liberties.

All day, Parrish had met with increasing hostility and disgust; while most of us kept our tempers in check, no one wanted to be anywhere near him.

I looked toward the body bag, which had been brought to the camp and now lay nearby. J.C. sat next to it, taking his turn watching over it. David had told me that from now until it reached the lab, the body would always be guarded--not just from Parrish, whose request to see it had been denied--but also from any animals that might be attracted by the smell. "And it's evidence, of course," he said, "so we have to be able to account for it during every moment that it's in our possession."

Still, its nearness was unnerving. Again and again, I found my eyes drawn to it. I tried to force my thoughts along other channels, but before many minutes passed, I was thinking about it and its contents.

Duke, who was whittling a little wooden horse for his grandson, would stop every so often, look toward the long black bag, then return to his carving with a vengeance.

The others, I noticed, often looked toward the body, too.

David started the clowning. It began during dinner, while Ben was on duty near the stretcher. David gave Bingle a command to do a headstand, which--without lifting his hind legs--the dog attempted. The dog not only looked ridiculous, with his head upside down on the ground and his forepaws flattened next to it, he "talked" the whole time he held this position, making a sort of half-howling, half-barking sound. He brought the house down.

David said, "Bien," and Bingle raised his head up, glancing around the laughing group with that grinning look that dogs sometimes get on their faces, wagging his tail, seeming for all the world to be enjoying the joke with the rest of us.

This set off a round of dog stories, and then a round of cop and forensic anthropologist stories, and next a round of bizarre homicide stories. The humor was often dark, and most of the tales would, I knew, never be repeated around those whom this group thought of as civilians.

I noticed that the stories and jokes never touched on this day's work or this victim--subjects that by some unspoken agreement were taboo--and that the most any of them got out of Ben was a soft smile.

I called it a night long before most of them were ready to do the same. Now I sat wondering if I would ever get the smell of decay off my hair and skin, wondering if another day or so spent in proximity with the body would permanently mark me with its scent of death.

I heard footsteps in the darkness and gave a start.

"Ms. Kelly."

I sighed in relief. "You scared the hell out of me, Dr. Sheridan."

"Oh." He paused. "I'm sorry."

It must have nearly killed him to say it.

He came a little closer. "Ms. Kelly, you're married to a homicide detective, right?"

"Yes. Frank Harriman. He's with the Las Piernas P.D."

"Then I suppose you understand . . . I suppose you've heard him tell stories or make jokes about things . . ."

"Dr. Sheridan, I've not only heard him make this sort of joke, I've joked with him. If you think I'll misjudge what's happening around that campfire, you misjudge me. But, come to think of it, that seems to be a specialty of yours."

There was a long silence.

"They're just releasing tension," I said. "I know that. Under the circumstances, it's probably one of the healthiest things they could do."

"Yes," he said quietly.

"I know you think that I'm one of a species other than your own--one of an unfeeling life form that crawled out of the sea a little later than the one that became forensic anthropologists--but miraculously, maybe sometime during the Paleozoic Age, reporters developed a sense of humor, too. Someday I'll have to sneak you into a newsroom, Ben Sheridan, so that you can hear our own brand of sick humor. We're getting pretty good at it; you should hear how quickly the jokes start whenever a particularly shocking story comes over the wire. And it works almost as well as it's working over by that campfire."

"Well, yes, I just--"

"You just thought I might write that these guys didn't show proper respect for Julia Sayre. Just thought I wouldn't understand that this really has nothing to do with her--that I lie in wait for anyone in this group to make a mistake or betray a little human weakness so that I can trumpet it to the world. That I don't understand the horror and the strain of . . ." I suddenly felt that horror, that strain, and stopped talking.

He didn't speak or move.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to lecture you," I said. "And I owe you my thanks."

"For what?" he asked, and I could hear the surprise.

"At the grave, when I--I kind of lost it there for a little while. I hadn't expected to see--what I saw."

"Your reaction was understandable, Ms. Kelly. And you don't owe me thanks--I owe you another apology. It was cruel of me to ask you to help."

"I'm not unwilling to help," I said. "I just wasn't ready for . . ."

"No one ever is," he said. "No one."

He started to walk off, then said, "David will want to keep Bingle with him tonight. Will you be all right?"

"Yes."

He looked up at the sky. "Better put the rainfly on your tent."

** CHAPTER 13

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, MAY 17

Las Piernas

When Frank arrived at Phil Newly's hospital room, he found the lawyer looking disconcerted.

"Bad news about the foot, Mr. Newly?" he asked as he walked in.

Newly was frowning, but when he recognized Frank, he smiled broadly at him. Not exactly the reception Frank had expected. Outside of testifying against a couple of his clients, Frank had never spoken to Newly. There had been nothing personal, Frank knew, in Newly's attempts to discredit his testimony on those occasions. Newly was better than most on cross-examination, but his efforts against Frank's testimony had been unsuccessful. Each man had just been doing his job. He hoped Newly thought of it that way, too.

"Detective Harriman!" Newly said. "You cost me the Beringer case, and one other, as I recall." He didn't seem especially bothered by it. "You're also Irene Kelly's husband, right?"

"Yes, I am. That's why I'm here. I'm hoping you can tell me how she's doing."

There was the slightest hesitation before Newly said, "Fine. She's fine--at least, she was when I left the group. Listen, Frank--may I call you Frank?"

He was surprised, but said, "Sure."

"Great. And please call me Phil." He smiled again, this time in a way that Frank was sure was calculated to be disarming. "Now that we're on such friendly terms," Newly went on, "may I ask a favor of you?"

"Nothing that will cause me to be busted down to traffic division?" Frank asked warily.

"No, nothing like that. I just need a ride home."

"You're going home already?"

"Yes, they only kept me overnight for observation. If I weren't a lawyer, they probably would have sent me home yesterday. Always afraid we'll sue, I suppose. Anyway, I'll have to wear this cast for a while, but there's no reason for me to take up a hospital bed."

He figured giving Newly a ride home would allow him the time he needed to talk to him, so he said, "Okay."

"Great! And--if you don't mind--my clothes--in the backpack there? Would you mind handing that to me?"

He supposed that Newly was probably perfectly capable of getting it himself, but he humored him.