Deadly Decisions (9 page)

“If that’s all you’re offering, Frog, that pipe has your name on it.” Claudel.

“Don’t fuck me over, man. It’s been more than ten years. If the broad knows her shit, she’ll find them.”

As I surveyed the area Rinaldi had indicated, the bully pressed harder on my chest. More than ten years of seasonal flooding. There wouldn’t be a single indicator. No depression. No insect activity. No modified vegetation. No stratigraphy. Nothing to hint at an underground cache.

Claudel looked a question at me. Behind him the stream burbled softly. Overhead a crow cawed and another answered.

“If they’re here, I’ll find them,” I said with more confidence than I felt.

The cawing sounded like laughter.

B
Y NOON WE’D CLEARED VEGETATION AND DEBRIS FROM AN AREA
approximately fifty yards by fifty yards, based on Frog’s hazy recollection of the grave locations. It turned out he’d never actually seen the bodies, but was going on “reliable information.” According to gang lore the victims had been invited for a lawn party, then marched into the woods and shot in the head. Terrific.

I’d marked off a search grid, then set orange plastic stakes along the boundaries at five-foot intervals. Since bodies are rarely stashed below six feet, I’d requested a ground-penetrating radar unit with a 500 MHz antenna, a frequency effective at those depths. It had arrived within the hour.

Working with the radar operator, I’d dug a test pit outside the search area to allow assessment of density, moisture content, layer changes, and other soil conditions. We had refilled the hole, burying in it a length of metal rebar. The operator had then scanned the pit for control data.

He was completing the final tuning of his equipment when Frog got out of the Jeep and sidled over to me, followed closely by his guard. It was one of several forays he’d made, the sniper-free morning having allayed his anxiety.

“What the fuck
is
that?” he asked, indicating a set of devices that looked like a contraption from
Back to the Future.
Just then Claudel joined us.

“Frog, you could benefit from some new adjectives. Maybe get one of those calendars that shows you a different word every day.”

“Fuck you.”

In a way I appreciated the English expletives. They were like sounds of home in a foreign land.

I looked to see if Frog was merely cracking wise, but the pale green eyes suggested a genuine interest. O.K. Where he was going Frog wouldn’t be having a lot of scientifically broadening experiences.

“It’s a GPR system.”

He looked blank.

“Ground-penetrating radar.”

I pointed to a terminal plugged into the cigarette lighter of a four-wheel-drive vehicle.

“That’s the GPR machine. It evaluates signals sent from an antenna, and produces a pattern on that screen.”

I indicated a sledlike structure with an upright handle and a long, thick cable connecting it to the GPR box. “That’s the antenna.”

“Looks like a lawn mower.”

“Yeah.” I wondered what Frog knew about lawn care. “When an operator pulls the antenna across the ground it transmits a penetrating signal, then sends data to the GPR machine. The radar machine evaluates the strength and rebound time of the signal.”

He looked as if he was with me. Though pretending disinterest, Claudel was also listening.

“If there is something in the soil, the signal is distorted. Its strength is affected by the size of the underground disturbance, and by the electrical properties at the upper and lower boundaries. The depth of the feature determines how long the signal takes to go down and back.”

“So this thing can tell you where you’ve got a stiff?”

“Not a body specifically. But it can tell you there’s a subsurface disturbance, and it can provide information about its size and location.”

Frog looked blank.

“When you dig a hole and put something in it, the spot is never the same as it was before. The fill may have less density, a different mix, or different electrical properties from the surrounding matrix.”

True. But I doubted that would be the case here. Ten years of water seepage has a way of obliterating soil differences.

“And the thing that’s been buried, whether it’s a cable, unexploded ordnance, or a human body, will not send the same signal as the soil around it.”

“Ashes to ashes. What if the corpse has oozed into tomorrow’s drinking water?”

Good question, Frog.

“The decomposition of flesh can change the chemical composition and electrical properties of dirt, so even bones and putrefied corpses may show up.”

May.

At that moment the radar operator gave a sign indicating he was ready.

“Quickwater, you want to pull the sled?” I shouted.

“I’ll do it.” Claudel volunteered.

“O.K. Get one of the Ident guys to follow you to control the cable. It’s not complicated. Start where the operator has the antenna set up just outside the cleared area. When you pass the northernmost line of stakes press the remote button twice. It’s on the handle. The signal will set the boundary for that transect. Drag the sled at about two-thirds normal walking pace, keeping your sweeps as straight as possible. Each time you pass an east-west stake, press the button once. When you get to the far end give another double signal to indicate the end of the transect. Then we’ll haul the thing back and start a second sweep.”

“Why can’t we just go back and forth?”

“Because the printouts from adjacent transects won’t be comparable if they’re done from opposite directions. We’ll do the whole area north to south, that’s thirty sweeps, then repeat the procedure east to west.”

He nodded.

“I’ll stay with the operator and watch the screen. If we note a disturbance I’ll holler and your partner can stake the spot.”

•    •    •

An hour later the search was done and everyone was around the van, unwrapping sandwiches and popping sodas. Twelve blue stakes formed three squares inside the survey grid.

The results were better than I’d hoped. Readings from the third
and thirteenth north-south transects showed disturbances with lengths and widths roughly equal. But it was the profile from the eleventh sweep that held my attention. I’d asked for hard copy, which I studied as I ate my bologna and cheese.

The printout showed a grid. The horizontal lines indicated depth, based on our calibration with the control pit, with the ground surface at the top. The vertical lines were dotted, and corresponded to the signals sent by Claudel as each grid stake was crossed.

The pattern just below the ground surface was a wavy but generally flat line. But superimposed over gridline 11 North was a series of bell-shaped curves, one inside the next, like ribs on a skeleton. The profile indicated a disturbance at the intersection of north-south line 11 and east-west line 4. It lay at a depth of approximately five feet.

I switched to profiles of the area taken on the east-west sweeps. Comparing perpendicular transects allowed me to estimate the size and shape of the disturbance. What I saw made my heart pick up a beat.

The anomaly was roughly six feet long and three feet wide. Grave size.

At grave depth.

“This will work?” I hadn’t heard Claudel approach.

“We’re cookin’.”

“Now?”

“Yep.”

I finished my Diet Coke and climbed into the Jeep. The van slogged along behind as Quickwater drove toward the 11 North 4 East coordinates. We’d decided that I would dig that location while Claudel and Quickwater investigated the other two disturbances. After I laid a simple grid around each site, they would remove the earth in thin slices, screening every shovelful.

I’d instructed the Carcajou investigators on how to watch for differences in soil color and texture. If they spotted any changes they would holler. Each of us would be aided by personnel from the Section d’Identité Judiciaire, or SIJ, and section photographers would shoot and video the entire operation.

And that’s what we did.

Claudel supervised as his team worked the disturbance at 13 North 5 East, approximately ten feet from mine. Now and then I’d glance over to see him standing above his crew, gesturing instructions or asking about something in the dirt. He’d yet to remove his sports jacket.

After thirty minutes a shovel chinked loudly in Claudel’s pit. My head flew up and my stomach tightened. A blade had struck something hard and unyielding.

As Claudel watched, the technicians and I revealed the contour. The object was rusted and caked with mud, but the shape was unmistakable. Claudel’s SIJ screener made the call.

“Tabernac! C’est un Weber.”

“Eh, Monsieur Claudel, you planning a barbecue? Throw on burgers, bring out the lawn chairs, maybe invite girls?”

“Jean-Guy, tell Luc there’s an easier way. They’ve got these things at the Wal-Mart.”

“Yes.” Claudel never cracked a smile. “You are so hilarious we may need a body bag because I’m going to die laughing. Now keep digging. We still have to haul this thing out and make sure there aren’t any surprises underneath.”

Claudel left the grill to his teammates and walked back to 11 North 4 East with me. I resumed troweling at the north end while Claudel stood over my SIJ helper in the south. By two we were down approximately three feet and I’d spotted nothing in the pit or screen to indicate I was nearing a burial.

Then I saw the boot.

It was lying sideways, the heel projecting slightly upward. I used my trowel to clear dirt, widening the area around it. My helper watched briefly, then continued scraping at the far end of the pit. Claudel observed without comment.

Within minutes I’d found the mate. Handful by tedious handful I peeled away dirt until the pair was fully exposed. The leather was wet and badly discolored, the eyelets bent and rusted, but both boots were reasonably intact.

When the footwear was fully exposed I made notes as to level and position, and the photographer captured my find on film. As I pried each boot loose and laid it on a plastic sheet it was obvious that neither contained leg or foot bones.

Not a good sign.

The sky was delft blue, the sun strong. Now and then a breeze teased the branches overhead, tapping them gently against one another. To my right the creek purled softly as it coursed over rocks abandoned by glaciers long ago.

A drop of sweat broke from my hairline and slithered the length of my neck. I pulled my sweatshirt over my head and tossed it on the pine needles bordering our pit. I was uncertain whether my glands had kicked in due to spring warmth or due to the stress I was feeling.

It was always like this at exhumations. The curiosity. The anticipation. The fear of failure. What lies below the next layer? What if it’s nothing? What if it’s something but I can’t get it out undamaged?

I had a desire to grab a spade and tunnel straight down. But strip-mining was not the answer. Tiresome as the process was, I knew proper technique was crucial. Maximum recovery of bones, artifacts, and contextual detail would be important in a case like this, so I plodded on, loosening dirt, then transferring it to buckets for screening. On the edge of my vision I could see the SIJ tech making the same motions, Claudel silent above him. At some point he had removed his jacket.

We saw the white flecks at the same time. Claudel was about to speak when I said, “Hell-o.”

He looked at me with raised brows, and I nodded.

“Looks like lime. That usually means there’s somebody home.”

The flecks gave way to a layer of sticky white ooze, then we found the first skull. It lay faceup, as if the dirt-filled orbits had twisted for one last look at the sky. The photographer shouted the news and the others dropped what they were doing and gathered around our pit.

As the sun moved slowly toward the horizon two skeletons emerged. They lay on their sides, one in a fetal position, the other with arms and legs bent sharply backward. The skulls and the leg and pelvic bones were devoid of flesh and stained the same tea brown as the surrounding soil.

The foot and ankle bones were encased in rotting socks, the torsos covered with shreds of putrefied cloth. The fabric enveloped each arm, clinging to the bones like some scarecrow parody of a
human limb. Wire circled the wrists, and I could see zippers and large metal belt buckles nestled among the vertebrae.

By five-thirty my team had fully exposed the remains. Besides the boots, the plastic sheet held a collection of corroded cartridges and isolated teeth recovered during screening. The photographers were shooting stills and videos when Frog talked his guard into another visit.

“Allô. Bonjour,”
he said, tipping the brim of an invisible hat to the skeletons in the pit. Then he turned to me. “Or maybe I should say bone
jour,
for you, lady.”

I ignored the bilingual pun.

“Holy shit. Why shirts and socks and nothing else?”

I wasn’t in the mood for a lecture.

“That’s right,” he sniggered, staring into the pit. “They made them go shoeless and carry their shoes. But where the fuck are their pants?”