Kathy Reichs - Temperance Brennan 05 - Grave Secrets

GRAVE SECRETS

KATHY REICHS

First published in the United Kingdom in 2002 by William Heinemann

For the innocents:

Guatemala 1962-1996

New York, New York

Arlington, Virginia

Shanksville, Pennsylvania

September 11,2001 I have touched their bones. I mourn for them.

I AM DEAD. THEY KILLED ME AS WELL."

The old woman's words cut straight to my heart.

"Please tell me what happened that day." Maria spoke so softly I had to strain

to catch the Spanish.

"I kissed the little ones and left for market." Eyes down, voice toneless. "I

did not know that I would never see them again."

K'akchiquel to Spanish, then reversing the linguistic loop, reversing again as answers followed questions. The translation did nothing to blunt the horror of

the recitation.

"When did you return home, Senora Ch'i'p?"

"A que bora regreso usted a su casa, Senora Ch'i'p?"

"Chike ramaj xatzalij pa awachoch, Ixoq Ch'i'p?"

"Late afternoon. I'd sold my beans."

"The house was burning?"

"Yes."

"Your family was inside?"

A nod.

I watched the speakers. An ancient Mayan woman, her middle-aged son, the young cultural anthropologist Maria Paiz, calling up a memory too terrible for words.

I felt anger and sorrow clash inside me like the thunderheads building on the horizon.

"What did you do?"

"We buried them in the well. Quickly, before the soldiers came back."

I studied the old woman. Her face was brown corduroy. Her hands were calloused, her long braid more gray than black. Fabric lay folded atop her head, bright reds, pinks, yellows, and blues, woven into patterns older than the mountains around us. One corner rose and fell with the wind.

The woman did not smile. She did not frown. Her eyes met no one's, to my relief.

I knew if they lingered on mine even briefly, the transfer of pain would be brutal. Maybe she understood that and averted her gaze to avoid drawing others into the hell those eyes concealed.

Or perhaps it was distrust. Perhaps the things she had seen made her unwilling

to look frankly into unknown faces.

Feeling dizzy, I upended a bucket, sat, and took in my surroundings.

I was six thousand feet up in the western highlands of Guatemala, at the bottom

of a steep-sided gorge. The village of Chupan Ya. Between the Mountains. About one hundred and twenty-five kilometers northwest of Guatemala City.

Around me flowed a wide river of green, lush forest interspersed with small

fields and garden plots, like islands. Here and there rows of man-made terraces burst through the giant checkerboard, cascading downward like playful waterfalls. Mist clung to the highest peaks, blurring their contours into Monet softness.

I'd rarely seen surroundings so beautiful. The Great Smoky Mountains. The Gatineau, Quebec, under northern lights. The barrier islands off the Carolina coast. Haleakula volcano at dawn. The loveliness of the backdrop made the task

at hand even more heartbreaking.

As a forensic anthropologist, it is my job to unearth and study the dead. I identify the burned, the mummified, the decomposed, and the skeletonized who

might otherwise go to anonymous graves. Sometimes the identifications are generic, Caucasoid female, mid-twenties. Other times I can confirm a suspected

ID. In some cases, I figure out how these people died. Or how their corpses were mutilated.

I am used to the aftermath of death. I am familiar with the smell

of it, the sight of it, the idea of it. I have learned to steel myself

emotionally in order to practice my profession.

But the old woman was breaking through my determined detachment.

Another wave of vertigo. The altitude, I told myself, lowering my head and breathing deeply.

Though my home bases are North Carolina and Quebec, where I serve as forensic anthropologist to both jurisdictions, I'd volunteered to come to Guatemala for one month as temporary consultant to the Fundacion de Antropologia Forense de Guatemala. The Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation, FAFG, was working to locate and identify the remains of those who vanished during the 1962 to 1996 civil war, one of the bloodiest conflicts in Latin American history.

I'd learned a lot since my arrival one week before. Estimates of the missing ranged from one to two hundred thousand. The bulk of the slaughter was carried out by the Guatemalan army and by paramilitary organizations affiliated with the army. Most of those killed were rural peasants. Many were women and children. Typically, victims were shot or slashed with machetes. Villages were not always as fortunate as Chupan Ya. There they'd had time to hide their dead. More often, bodies were buried in unmarked mass graves, dumped in rivers, left under the ruins of huts or houses. Families were given no explanations, no lists of those missing, no records. A UN Commission for Historical Clarification referred to these massacres as a genocide of the Mayan people.

Families and neighbors referred to their missing members as the "desaparecidos." The disappeared. The FAFG was trying to find them, or, more accurately, their remains. And I had come to help.

Here in Chupan Ya, soldiers and civil patrollers had entered on an August

morning in 1982. Fearing they'd be accused of collaborating with the local guerrilla movement and punished, the men fled. The women were told to gather

with their children at designated farms. Trusting, or perhaps fearing, the military, they obeyed. When the soldiers located the women where they'd been sent, they raped them for hours, then killed them along with their kids. Every house in the valley was burned to the ground.

Survivors spoke of five mass graves. Twenty-three women and

children were said to lie at the bottom of the well behind Senora Ch'i'p.

The old woman continued her story. Over her shoulder I could see the structure we'd erected three days earlier to protect the well site from rain and sun. Backpacks and camera cases hung from metal uprights, and tarps covered the opening of the pit beneath. Boxes, buckets, shovels, picks, brushes, and storage containers lay as we'd left them early that morning.

Rope had been strung from pole to pole around the excavation to create a

boundary between spectators and workers. Inside the restraint sat three idle members of the FAFG team. Outside it stood the villagers who came each day to observe in silence.

And the police guards who'd been told to shut us down.

We'd been close to uncovering evidence when we received the order to halt. The soil had begun yielding ash and cinders. Its color had changed from mahogany to graveyard black. We'd found a child's hair clip in the sifting screen. Fragments of cloth. A tiny sneaker.

Dear God. Did the old woman's family really lie only inches below the point at which we'd stopped?

Five daughters and nine grandchildren. Shot, macheted, and burned in their home together with neighboring women and children. How does one endure such loss? What could life offer her but endless pain?

Shifting my gaze back to the surrounding countryside, I noted half a dozen farmsteads carved out of the foilage. Adobe walls, tile roofs, smoke curling

from cooking fires. Each had a dirt yard, outdoor privy, and an emaciated brown dog or two. The wealthier had chickens, a scrawny hog, a bicycle.

Two of Senora Ch'i'p's daughters had lived in the cluster of huts halfway up the eastern escarpment. Another had lived on top, where we'd parked the FAFG

vehicles. These women were married; she didn't remember their ages. Their babies were three days, ten months, two, four, and five years old.

Her youngest daughters were still at home. They'd been eleven and thirteen. Families, connected by a network of footpaths, and by a network of genes. Their world was this valley.

I imagined Senora Ch'i'p returning that day, perhaps descending the same dirt trail our team struggled down each morning and up each evening. She had sold her beans. She was probably happy.

Then horror.

Two decades is not long enough to forget. A lifetime is not long enough.

I wondered how often she thought of them. Did their phantoms walk with her as she trudged to market, following the same course she'd taken the fatal day? Did they slip past the tattered rag covering her window when darkness claimed the valley each night? Did they people her dreams? Did they come to her smiling and laughing as they'd been in life? Or bloodied and charred as she'd found them in death?

My vision blurred, and I dropped my head again, stared at the dirt. How was it possible for human beings to do that to other human beings? To helpless and unresisting women and children? In the dis-tance, I heard the rumble of thunder. Seconds, maybe years later, the interview stopped, an untranslated question left dangling in space. When I looked up Maria and her interpreter had shifted their attention to the hill behind me. Sefiora Ch'i'p remained focused on her sandals, hand to cheek, fingers curled like a newborn's.

"Mateo's back," said Elena Norvillo, an FAFG member from the

El Peten region. I turned as she pushed to her feet. The rest of the team observed from under the tent.

Two men were working their way down one of the many footpaths

that meandered through the gorge, the leader in blue windbreaker, faded jeans, brown cap. Though I couldn't read them from where I

sat, I knew the letters above his brim said FAFG. The six of us waiting wore identical caps. The man following was suited and tied and Carried a collapsible chair.

We watched the pair pick their way through scraggly corn sur-

roundnded by a half dozen subsidiary crops, careful to damage nothing. A bean seedling. A potato plant. Minor to us, but critical food or income to the family that owned it.

When they drew within twenty yards, Elena shouted.

"Did you get it?"

Mateo gave a thumbs up.

The injunction to suspend excavation had come from a local magistrate. According to his interpretation of the exhumation order, no work was to proceed outside

the presence of a judge, the Guatemalan equivalent of a district attorney. Visiting early this morning and finding no judge on site, the magistrate had ordered digging halted. Mateo had gone to Guatemala City to have this ruling overturned.

Mateo led his companion directly to the two uniformed guards, members of the National Civil Police, and produced a document. The older cop shifted the strap of his semiautomatic, took the paper and read, head down, shiny black bill reflecting the dimming afternoon light. His partner stood with foot thrust forward, a bored expression on his face.

After a brief exchange with the suited visitor, the senior cop returned the

order to Mateo and nodded.

The villagers watched, silent but curious, as Juan, Luis, and Rosa stood and exchanged high fives. Mateo and his companion joined them at the well. Elena followed.

Crossing to the tent, I glanced again at Senora Ch'i'p and her adult son. The man was scowling, hatred seeping from every pore. Hatred for whom? I wondered. For those who had butchered his family? For those who had come from a different world to disturb their bones? For distant authorities who would block even that small effort? For himself for having survived that day? His mother stood woodenly, face impassive.

Mateo introduced the suited man as Roberto Amado, a representative from the

judge/district attorney's office. The Guatemala City judge had ruled that

Amado's presence would satisfy the requirements of the exhumation order. Amado would be with us for the duration, observing and recording in order to validate the quality of work for the court.

Amado shook hands with each of us, moved to a corner of the covered area,

unfolded his chair, and sat. Mateo began issuing orders.

"Luis, Rosa, please sift. Tempe and I will dig. Juan, haul dirt. We'll rotate as needed."

Mateo had a small, V-shaped scar on his upper lip that broadened into a U whenever he smiled. Today, the V remained narrow as a spike.

"Elena, document and photograph. Skeletal inventory, artifact inventory, photo log. Every molecule goes on record."

"Where are Carlos and Molly?" asked Elena.

Carlos Menzes was a member of an Argentine human rights organization who'd been advising the FAFG since its formation in 1992. Molly Carraway was an

archaeologist newly arrived from Minnesota.

"They're driving the other truck out here for transport. We'll need another vehicle when we're ready to leave with all the equipment and artifacts."

He glanced at the sky.

"The storm is two hours off, maybe three if we're lucky. Let's find these people before there's more legal bullshit."

As I collected trowels and placed them in a bucket tied to a length of rope, Mateo zipped the court order into his pack and hung it over a crossbar. His eyes and hair were black, his body a fire hydrant, short and thick. Tubes of muscle bulged in his neck and arms as he and Luis flung back the tarps covering the mouth of the excavation.

Mateo placed a boot on the first of the dirt steps we'd terraced into a pit wall. Edges crumbled, sending dirt two meters to the floor below. The cascading

particles made soft, ticking sounds as Mateo slowly climbed down.

When he reached bottom, I lowered the bucket, then zipped my

windbreaker. Three days had taught me well. May was pleasant in the highlands,

but underground the clammy cold knifed straight to your marrow. I'd left Chupan Ya each evening chilled through, my digits numb.

I descended as Mateo had done, placing my feet sideways, test-ing each makeshift tread. My pulse accelerated as the gloom closed

around me.

Mateo held up a hand and I took it. Stepping off the last riser, I stood in a

hole no more than six feet square. The walls and floor were slick, the air dank and rotten.

My heart thumped below my sternum. A bead of sweat raced down the furrow

overlying my spine. Always in narrow, dark places.

I turned from Mateo, pretended to clean my trowel. My hands

trembled.

Closing my eyes, I fought past the claustrophobia. I thought of my daughter.

Katy as a toddler. Katy at the University of Virginia. Katy at the beach. I pictured my cat, Birdie. My townhouse in Charlotte. My condo in Montreal.

I played the game. First song to pop into my mind. Neil Young. "Harvest Moon." I ran through the lyrics.

My breathing eased. My heart slowed.

I opened my eyes and checked my watch. Fifty-seven seconds. Not as good as yesterday. Better than Tuesday. Much better than Monday.

Mateo was already on his knees, scraping the damp earth. I moved to the opposite corner of the pit, and for the next twenty minutes we worked in silence, troweling, inspecting the ground, scooping dirt into buckets.

Objects emerged with increasing frequency. A shard of glass. A chunk of metal. Charred wood. Elena bagged and recorded each item.

Noise reached us from the world above. Banter. A request. The bark of a dog. Now and then I'd glance up, unconsciously reassuring my id.

Faces peered down. Men in gaucho hats, women in traditional Mayan weaves,

toddlers clinging to their skirts. Babies stared with round, black eyes, secured

to their mothers by rainbow textiles. I saw a hundred variations on high cheekbones, black hair, sienna skin.

On one upward glance I noticed a little girl, arms above her head, fingers

curled around the restraining rope. Typical kid. Chubby cheeks, dirty feet, ponytails.

A stab of pain.

The child was the same age as one of Senora Ch'i'p's granddaughters. Her hair was bound with barrettes identical to the one we'd found in the screen.

I smiled. She turned her face and pressed it to her mother's legs. A brown hand reached down and stroked her head.

According to witnesses, the hole in which we worked had been intended as a cistern. Begun but never completed, it was hastily transformed into an unmarked grave on the night of the massacre.

A grave for people identical to those keeping vigil above.

Fury swirled in me as I resumed digging.

Focus, Brennan. Channel your outrage to uncover evidence. Do that which you are able to do.

Ten minutes later my trowel touched something hard. Laying the implement aside, I cleared mud with my fingers.

The object was slender, like a pencil, with an angled neck ending in a

corrugated upper surface. Above the neck, a tiny cap. Surrounding neck and cap, a circular cup.

I sat back on my heels and studied my find. A femur and pelvis. The hip of a child no older than two.

I looked up, and my gaze met that of the little girl. Again she whipped away.

But this time she turned back, peeked through the folds of her mother's skirt, smiled shyly.

Sweet Jesus in heaven.

Tears burned the back of my lids.

"Mateo."

I pointed at the little bones. Mateo crawled to my corner.

Along most of its length, the femur was mottled gray and black from exposure to fire and smoke. The distal end was crumbly white, suggesting more intense burning.

For a moment neither of us spoke. Then Mateo crossed himself and said in a low voice, "We've got them."

When Mateo stood and repeated the phrase, the entire team gathered at the edge

of the well.

A fleeting thought. We've got whom, Mateo? We've got the victims, not the assassins. What chance is there that any of these government-sanctioned butchers will ever face charges, let alone be punished?

Elena tossed down a camera, then a plastic marker stamped with the numeral "1."

I positioned the case number and took several shots.

Mateo and I went back to troweling, the others to sifting and hauling. After an hour I took my turn at the screen. Another hour, and I climbed back down into

the well.

The storm held off, and the cistern told its story.

The child had been one of the last lowered into the clandestine grave. Under and around it lay the remains of others. Some badly burned, others barely singed.

By late afternoon seven case numbers had been assigned, and five skulls stared out from a tangle of bones. Three of the victims were adults, at least two were adolescents. Number one was a child. For the others, age estimation was impossible.

At dusk, I made a discovery that will stay with me the rest of my life. For over an hour I'd been working on skeleton number five. I'd exposed the skull and

lower jaw and cleared dirt from the vertebrae, ribs, pelvis, and limbs. I'd traced the legs, found the foot bones mingled with those of the person beside. Skeleton five was female. The orbits lacked heavy ridges, the cheekbones were smooth and slender, the mastoids small. The lower half of the body was enveloped in remnants of a rotted skirt identical to a dozen above my head. A coroded wedding band circled one fragile phalange.

Though the colors were faded and stained, I could make out a pattern in material adhering to the upper torso. Between the arm bones, atop the collapsed rib cage, lay a bundle with a different design. Cautiously, I separated a corner, eased my fingertips underneath, and teased back the outer layer of fabric.

Once, at my Montreal lab, I was asked to examine the contents of a burlap bag found on the shore of an inland lake. From the bag I withdrew several rocks, and bones so fragile at first I thought they were those of a bird. I was wrong. The sack held the remains of three kittens, weighted down and heaved into the water

to drown. My disgust was so powerful I had to flee the lab and walk several

miles before resuming work.

Inside the bundle clutched by skeleton five, I found an arch of tiny vertebral disks with a miniature rib cage curving around it. Arm and leg bones the size of matches. A minute jaw.

Senora Ch'i'p's infant grandchild.

Among the paper-thin cranial fragments, a 556 projectile, the type fired by an assault rifle.

I remembered how I'd felt at the slaughter of kittens, but this time I felt rage. There were no streets to walk here at the gravesite, no way to work off my anger.

I stared at the little bones, trying to picture the man who had pulled the trigger. How could he sleep at night? How could he face people in the day?

At six Mateo gave the order to quit. Up top the air smelled of rain, and veins

of lightning pulsated inside heavy, black clouds. The locals had gone.

Moving quickly, we covered the well, stored the equipment we would leave behind, and loaded up that which we would carry. As the

team worked, rain began plinking in large, cold drops on the temporary roof

above our heads. Amado, the DA's representative, waited with lawn chair folded, face unreadable.

Mateo signed the chain of custody book over to the police guards, then we set

off through the corn, winding one behind another like ants on a scent trail.

We'd just begun our long, steep climb when the storm broke. Hard, driving rain stung my face and drenched my hair and clothes. Lightning flashed. Thunder boomed. Trees and cornstalks bent in the wind.

Within minutes, water sluiced down the hillside, turning the path into a slick, brown stream of mud. Again and again I lost my looting, hitting hard on one knee, then the other. I crawled upward, right hand clawing at vegetation, left hand dragging a bag of trowels, feet scrambling for traction. Though rain and

darkness obscured my vision, I could hear others above and below me. Their hunched forms whitened each time lightning leapt across the sky. My legs trembled, my chest burned.

An eon later I crested the ridge and dragged myself onto the patch of earth

where we'd left the vehicles eleven hours earlier. I was placing shovels in the bed of a pickup when Mateo's satellite phone sounded, the ring barely audible above the wind and rain.

"Can someone get that?" Mateo shouted.

Slipping and sliding toward the cab, I grabbed his pack, dug out t he handset, and clicked on.

"Tempe Brennan," I shouted.

"Are you still at the site?" English. It was Molly Carraway, my colleague from Minnesota.

"We're just about to pull out. It's raining like hell," I shouted, backhanding water from my eyes.

"It's dry here."

"Where are you?"

"Just outside Solola. We were late leaving. Listen, we think we're being followed."

"Followed?"

"A black sedan's been on our ass since Guatemala City. Carlos triedl a couple of maneuvers to lose it, but the guy's hanging on like a bad cold."

"Can you tell who's driving?'

"Not really. The glass is tinted an—"

I heard a loud thump, a scream, then static, as though the phone had been

dropped and was rolling around.

"Jesus Christ!" Carlos's voice was muted by distance.

"Molly?"

I heard agitated words that I couldn't make out.

"Molly, what is it?"

Shouts. Another thump. Scraping. A car horn. A loud crunch. Male voices.

"What's happening?" Alarm raised my voice an octave.

No response.

A shouted command.

"Fuck you!" Carlos.

"Molly! Tell me what's going on!" I was almost screaming. The others had stopped loading to stare at me.

"No!" Molly Carraway spoke from a distant galaxy, her voice small and tinny and filled with panic. "Please. No!"

Two muted pops.

Another scream.

Two more pops.

Dead air.

WE Found Carlos and Molly about eight kilometers out-side of Solola, more than ninety kilometers from Guatemala City, but thirty short of the site.

It had rained steadily as our convoy lurched and heaved across the narrow dirt and rock trail that connected the rim of the valley with the paved road. First one vehicle then another became mired, requir-ing team effort to free the wheels. After shouldering and straining in an ocean of mud we'd resume our seats and

push on, looking like New Guinea tribesmen daubed for mourning.

It was normally twenty minutes to the blacktop. That night the trip took more

than an hour. I clung to the truck's armrest, body pitching from side to side, stomach knotted with anxiety. Though we didn't voice them, Mateo and I contemplated the same questions. What had happened to Molly and Carlos? What would we find? Why had they been so late? What had delayed them? Had they

actually been followed? By whom? Where were their pursuers now?

At the juncture of the valley road with the highway, Sefior Amado alighted from the Jeep, hurried to his car, and drove off into the night. It was evident that the DA's representative had no desire to linger in our company a moment longer than necessary.

The rain had followed us out of the valley, and even the blacktop was hazardous. Within fifteen minutes we spotted the FAFG pickup in a ditch on the opposite

side of the road, headlights burning at a

cockeyed angle, driver's door ajar. Mateo made a razor U-turn and skidded onto

the shoulder. I flew from the cab before he had fully braked, fear tightening

the knot in my gut to a hard, cold fist.

Despite rain and darkness, I could see dark splatter covering the exterior panel on the driver's side. The scene on the interior turned my blood to ice.

Carlos lay doubled over behind the wheel, feet and head toward the open door, as though shoved in from the outside. The back of his hair and shirt were the color of cheap wine. Blood oozed across the top and down the front of the seat, adding to that pooled around the gas and brake pedals, and to the hideous stains on his jeans and boots.

Molly was on the passenger side, one hand on the door handle, the other palm up

in her lap. She was slumped like a rag doll, with legs splayed and head at an

odd angle against the seatback. Two mushrooms darkened the front of her nylon jacket.

Racing across the shoulder, I pressed trembling fingers to Carlos's throat. Nothing. I moved my hand, testing for signs of life. Nothing. I tried his wrist. Nothing.

Please, God! My heart pounded wildly below my sternum.

Mateo ran up beside me, indicated I should check Molly. I scrambled to her, reached through the open window, and felt for a pulse. Nothing. Again and again

I positioned my fingers against the pale flesh of her throat. Opposite me Mateo shouted into his phone as he mimicked my desperate moves.

On my fourth try I felt a beat, low and weak and uncertain. It was barely a tremor, but it was there.

"She's alive," I shouted.

Elena was beside me, eyes wide and glistening. As she opened the door, I bent in and took Molly in my arms. Holding her upright, rain stinging my neck, I

unzipped her jacket, raised her sweatshirt, and located the two sources of bleeding. Spreading my feet for balance, I placed pressure on the wounds, and prayed that help would arrive in time.

My own blood hammered in my ears. A hundred beats. A thousand.

I spoke softly into Molly's ear, reassuring her, cajoling her to stay with me.

My arms grew numb. My legs cramped. My back screamed under the strain of

standing off balance.

The others huddled for mutual support, exchanging an occasional word or embrace. Cars flashed by with faces pointed in our direction, curious but unwilling to be drawn into whatever drama was unfolding on the road to Solola.

Molly's face looked ghostly. Her lips were blue around the edges. I noticed that she wore a gold chain, a tiny cross, a wristwatch. The hands said eight twenty-one. I looked for the cell phone, but didn't

see it.

As suddenly as it started, the rain stopped. A dog howled and another answered.

A night bird gave a tentative peep, repeated itself.

At long last I spotted a red light far up the highway.

"They're here," I crooned into Molly's ear. "Stay tough, girl. You're going to

be fine." Blood and sweat felt slick between my fingers and her skin.

The red light drew nearer and separated into two. Minutes later an ambulance and police cruiser screamed onto the shoulder, blasting us with gravel and hot air. Red pulsed off glistening blacktop, rain-glazed vehicles, pale faces.

Molly and Carlos were administered emergency care by the paramedics, transferred to the ambulance, and raced toward the hospital in Solola. Elena and Luis

followed to oversee their admittance. After giving brief statements, the rest of us were permitted to return to Panajachel, where we were staying, while Mateo made the trip to police headquarters in Solola.

The team was quartered at the Hospedaje Santa Rosa, a budget hotel hidden in an alleyway off Avenida el Frutal. Upon entering my room I stripped, heaped my

filthy clothes in a corner, and showered, thankful that the FAFG had paid the extra quetzals for hot water. Though I'd eaten nothing since a cheese sandwich and apple at noon, fear and exhaustion squelched all desire for food. I fell

into bed, despondent over the victims in the well at Chupan Ya, terrified for Molly and Carlos.

I slept badly that night, troubled by ugly dreams. Shards of infant skull. Sightless sockets. Arm bones sheathed in a rotting guipil. A tissue-spattered truck.

It seemed there was no escape from violent death, day or night, past or present.

I awoke to screeching parrots and soft, gray dawn seeping through my shutters. Something was terribly wrong. What?

Memories of the previous night hit me like a cold, numbing wave. I drew knees to chest and lay several minutes, dreading the news but needing to know.

Flinging back the quilt, I went through my abbreviated morning ritual, then

threw on jeans, T-shirt, sweatshirt, jacket, and cap.

Mateo and Elena were sipping coffee at a courtyard table, their figures backlit by salmon-pink walls. I joined them, and Senora Samines placed coffee in front

of me, and served plates of huevos rancheros, black beans, potatoes, and cheese

to the others.

"Desayuno?" she asked. Breakfast?

"Si, gracias."

I added cream, looked at Mateo.

He spoke in English.

"Carlos took a bullet in the head, another in the neck. He's dead."

The coffee turned to acid in my mouth.

"Molly was hit twice in the chest. She survived the surgery, but she's in a coma."

I glanced at Elena. Her eyes were rimmed by lavender circles, the whites watery red.

"How?" I asked, turning back to Mateo.

"They think Carlos resisted. He was shot at close range outside the truck."

"Will an autopsy be performed?"

Mateo's eyes met mine, but he said nothing.

"Motive?"

"Robbery."

"Robbery?"

"Bandits are a problem along that stretch."

"Molly told me they'd been followed from Guatemala City."

"I pointed that out."

"And?"

"Molly has light brown hair, fair skin. She's clearly gringo. The

cops think they were probably targeted as a tourist couple in G City, then

tailed until the truck hit a suitable ambush site."

"In plain view along a major highway?"

Mateo said nothing.

"Molly was still wearing jewelry and a wristwatch," I said.

"The police couldn't find their passports or wallets."

"Let me get this straight. Thieves followed them for over two hours, then took their wallets and left their jewelry?"

"Si." He lapsed into Spanish.

"Is that typical for highway robbery?"

He hesitated before responding.

"They might have been scared off."

Senora Samines arrived with my eggs. I poked at them, speared a potato. Carlos and Molly had been shot for money?

I had come to Guatemala fearing government bureaucracy, intestinal bacteria, dishonest taxi drivers, pickpockets. Why was I shocked at the thought of armed robbery?

America is the leading producer of gunshot homicides. Our streets and workplaces are killing fields. Teens are shot for their Air Jordans, wives for serving the pot roast late, students for eating lunch in the high school cafeteria.

Annually, over thirty thousand Americans are killed by bullets. Seventy percent

of all murders are committed with firearms. Each year the NRA spoons up propaganda, and America swallows it. Guns proliferate, and the slaughter goes on. Law enforcement no longer has an advantage in carrying arms. It only brings the officers up to even.

But Guatemala?

The potato tasted like pressed wood. I laid down my fork and reached for my coffee.

"They think Carlos got out?" I asked.

Mateo nodded.

"Why take the trouble to shove him back into the truck?"

"A disabled vehicle would draw less interest than a body on the ground."

"Does a robbery scenario sound reasonable to you?" Mateo's jaw muscles bulged, relaxed, bulged again.

"It happens."

Elena made a sound in her throat, but said nothing. "Now what?"

"Today Elena will keep watch at the hospital while we continue at Chupan Ya." He tossed coffee dregs onto the grass. "And we all pray."

My grandmother used to say that God's tonic for sorrow was physical labor. She also felt toads caused infertility, but that was another issue.

For the next six days the team ingested megadoses of Gran's elixir. We worked at the well from sunrise until sunset, hauling equipment up and down the valley, troweling, hoisting buckets, shaking screens.

In the evenings we dragged ourselves from our hospedaje to one of the

restaurants lining Lake Atitlan. I enjoyed these brief respites from death. Though darkness obscured the water and the ancient volcanoes on the far shore, I could smell fish and kelp and hear waves lapping against rickety wooden piers.

Tourists and locals wandered the shore. Mayan women passed with impossible

bundles on their heads. Notes drifted from distant xylophones. Life continued. Some nights we ate in silence, too exhausted for conversation. On others we

talked of the project, of Molly and Carlos, of the town in which we were

temporary residents.

The history of Panajachel is as colorful as the textiles sold on its streets. In another age, the place was a K'akchiquel Mayan village settled by ancestors of

the current citizens when a force of rival Tzutujil warriors was defeated by the Spanish. Later, the Franciscans established a church and monastery at "Pana,"

and used the village as a base for missionary operations.

Darwin was right. Life is opportunity. One group's loss is another's gain.

In the sixties and seventies the town became a haven for gringo gurus, hippies, and dropouts. Rumors that Lake Atitlan was one of the world's few "vortex energy fields" led to an influx of cosmic healers and crystal watchers.

Today Panajachel is a blend of traditional Mayan, contemporary Guatemalan, and nondescript Western. It is luxury hotels and hospedajes; European cafes and comedores; ATMs and outdoor mar-

kets; guipils and tank tops; mariachis and Madonna; Mayan brups and Catholic priests.

By late Wednesday we'd finished our excavation at Chupan Ya. In all, we'd

removed twenty-three souls from the well. Among the skeletons we'd found

thirteen projectiles and cartridge casings and two broken machete blades. Every bone and object had been recorded, photographed, packaged, and sealed for

transport to the FAFG lab in Guatemala City. The cultural anthropologist had recorded twenty-seven stories, and taken DNA samples from sixteen family members. Carlos's body had been transported to the Guatemala City morgue, where an

autopsy confirmed the impression of the local police. Death was due to gunshot wounding at close range.

Molly remained comatose. Each day one of us made the drive to the San Juan de

Dios Hospital in Solola, sat by her bedside, reported back. That report was

always the same. No change.

The police found no prints or physical evidence, located no witnesses,

identified no suspects. The investigation continued.

After dinner on Wednesday, I went by myself to visit Molly. For two hours I held her hand and stroked her head, hoping that the fact of my presence would

penetrate to wherever it was her spirit had gone. Sometimes I talked to her, recalling shared times and acquaintances from our years before Guatemala brought us back together. I told her of the progress at Chupan Ya and spoke of her role

in the work ahead. Otherwise, I sat silent, listening to the muted hum of her cardiac monitor, and praying for her recovery.

On Thursday morning we loaded the trucks and Jeep under the indifferent eye of Senor Amado and set out for the capital, winding our way up the precipitous road from Panajachel. The sky was flawless, the lake blue satin. Sunlight speared the trees, turning leaves translucent and glistening in the spiderwebs overhead.

As we made the hairpin turn high above Lake Atitlan, I gazed at the peaks on her far side.

Vulcan San Pedro. Vulcan Toliman. Vulcan Atitlan.

Closing my eyes, I said one more silent prayer to whatever god might be willing

to listen.

Let Molly live.

The FAFG is headquartered in Guatemala City's Zone 2. Built on a spit of land between steep ravines, or barrancas, the lovely, tree-shaded neighborhood was once an enclave for the well-to-do. But the grand old quarter had seen better times.

Today, businesses and public offices sit cheek to jowl with residences hanging

on by suction cups. The National Baseball Stadium looms over the far end of

Calle Simeon Canas, and multicolored buses stop at graffiti-covered shelters

along both curbs. Vendors hawk fast food from pushcarts and metal huts with

slide-up windows. From one, Pepsi. From another, Coke. Tamales. Chuchitos. Hot dogs plain. Hot dogs shuco. Dirty. With avocado and cabbage.

The FAFG labs and administrative offices are located in what was once a private family home on Simeon Canas. The two-story house, complete with pool and walled patio, sits across four lanes of traffic from a similar domicile now housing the Kidnapping and Organized Crime Unit of the Public Ministry.

Arriving at the compound, Mateo pulled into the drive and sounded the horn. Within seconds a young woman with an owl face and long dark braids swung the

gate wide. We entered and parked on a patch of gravel to the right of the front door. The other truck and Jeep followed, and the woman closed and locked the gate.

The team spilled out and began unloading equipment and cardboard boxes, each coded to indicate site, exhumation date, and burial number. In the weeks to come we'd examine every bone, tooth, and artifact to establish identity and cause of death for the Chupan Ya victims. I hoped we'd finish before professional commitments required my return home in June.

I was going back for my third box when Mateo pulled me aside.

"I have a favor to ask."

"Of course."

"The Chicago Tribune plans to do a feature on Clyde."

Clyde Snow is one of the grand old men of my profession, the founder of the subspecialty of forensic anthropology.

"Yes?"

"Some reporter wants to interview me about the old man's involvement in our work down here. I invited him weeks ago, then completely forgot."

"And?" Normally reluctant to deal with the press, I didn't like where this was going.

"The guy's in my office. He's very excited that you're here."

"How does he know that I'm in Guatemala?"

"I might have mentioned it."

"Mateo?"

"All right, I told him. Sometimes my English is not so good."

"You grew up in the Bronx. Your English is perfect."

"Yours is better. Will you talk to him?"

"What does he want?"

"The usual. If you'll talk to the guy I can start logging and assigning the Chupan Ya cases."

"O.K."

I would have preferred measles to an afternoon of baby-sitting an "excited" reporter, but I was here to do what I could to help.

"I owe you." Mateo squeezed my arm.

"You owe me."

"Gracias."

"Denada."

But the interview was not to be.

I found the reporter working on a nostril in Mateo's second-floor office. He stopped trolling when I entered, and feigned scratching the scraggly trail of hair tinting his upper lip. Pretending to notice me for the first time, he shot to his feet and stuck out a hand.

"Ollie Nordstern. Olaf, actually. Friends call me Ollie."

I held palms to chest, wanting no part of Ollie's nasal booty.

"I've been unloading the trucks." I smiled apologetically.

"Dirty job." Nordstern dropped his hand.

"Yes." I gestured him back into his chair.

Nordstern was dressed in polyester from his gel-slicked hair to his Kmart hiking boots. His head turtled forward on a neck the size of my upper arm. I guessed

his age at around twenty-two.

"So," we began simultaneously.

I indicated to Nordstern that he had the floor.

"It is an absolute thrill to meet you, Dr. Brennan. I've heard so

much about you and your work in Canada. And I read about your testimony in Rwanda."

"The court actually sits in Arusha, Tanzania." Nordstern was referring to my appearance before the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. "Yes, yes, of course. And those cases you did with the Montreal Hells Angels. We followed that very closely in Chicago. The Windy City has its own biker boys,

you know." He winked and pinched his nose. I hoped he wasn't going back in.

"I'm not the reason you're here," I said, glancing at my watch. "Forgive me. I digress."

Nordstern pulled a notepad from one of the four zillion pockets on his

camouflage vest, flipped the cover, and poised pen above paper. "I want to learn all I can about Dr. Snow and the FAFG." Before I could respond, a man appeared

at the open door. He was dark-skinned, with a face that looked as if it had

taken some hits. The brows were prominent, the nose humped and slightly off angle. A scar cut a tiny white swath through his left eyebrow. Though not tall, the man was muscular and carried not an ounce of fat. The phrase Thugs Are Us popped to mind. "Dr. Brennan?"

"Si.'

The man held out a badge. SICA. Special Crimes Investigative Unit, Guatemala National Civil Police. My stomach went into free

fall.

"Mateo Reyes directed me here." The man spoke in unaccented English. His tone suggested the call was not social.

"Yes?"

"Sergeant-detective Bartolome Galiano."

Oh, God. Was Molly dead?

"Does this have to do with the shooting near Solola?"

"No."

"What is it?"

Galiano's eyes shifted to Nordstern, returned to me.

"The subject is sensitive."

Not good, Brennan. What interest could SICA have in me?

"Could it wait a few minutes?"

His dead gaze gave me the answer.

SERGEANT-DETECTIVE GALIANO TOOK THE CHAIR RELUCTANTLY vacated by Ollie Nordstern, crossed ankle over knee, and impaled me with a stare.

"What is this about, Detective?" I forced my voice steady, scenes from Midnight Express rolling through my head.

Gahano's eyes held me like a bug on a pin.

"We at the National Civil Police are aware of your activities, Dr. Brennan."

I said nothing, lowered hands to lap, leaving two sweaty palm prints on the

plastic blotter.

"I am largely responsible for that." A small oscillating fan ruffled a half

dozen hairs on the crown of his head. Otherwise, the man was motionless.

"You are."

"Yes."

"Why is that?"

"Part of my youth was spent in Canada, and I still follow the news up there.

Your exploits do not go unnoticed."

"My exploits?"

"The press loves you."

"The press loves to sell papers." He may have heard my irritation. "Why have you come to see me, Detective Galiano?"

Galiano withdrew a brown envelope from his pocket and placed

t in front of me. Hand-printed on the outside was a police or coro-ner dossier number. I looked at but did not reach for it.

"Take a look." Galiano resumed his seat.

The envelope contained a series of five-by-seven color photographs. The first showed a bundle on an autopsy table, liquid oozing from the edges to form a

brown puddle on the perforated stainless steel.

The second showed the bundle untangled into a pair of jeans, the lower end of a long bone protruding from one ragged cuff. The third featured a watch, and what

were probably pocket contents: a comb, in elastic hair binder, two coins. The

last photo was a close-up of a tibia and two metatarsals.

I looked at Galiano.

"That was discovered yesterday."

I studied the skeletal elements. Though everything was stained a deep chocolate brown, I could see flesh clinging to the bones.

"A week ago toilets began backing up at the Pension Paraiso, a small hotel in Zone One. Though the place ain't the Ritz, guests grumbled, and the owners went poking in the septic tank. They found the Levi's blocking the exit drain."

"When was the system last inspected?"

"Seems the owners are a bit lax on upkeep. But minor maintenance was done last August, so the body probably went in after that."

I agreed but said nothing.

"The victim may be a young woman."

"I couldn't possibly express an opinion based on these photographs."

"I wouldn't ask you to."

We stared at each other in the stuffy heat of the room. Galiano's eyes were extraordinary, brown with a luminous red cast, like amber caught in sunlight.

The lashes might have landed him a Maybelline contract, had he been of the

female gender.

"Over the past ten months, four young women have gone missing in this city. The families are frantic. We suspect the disappearances may be linked."

Down the corridor, a phone sounded.

"If so, the situation is urgent."

"Lots of people go missing in Guatemala City."

I pictured Parque Concordia, where orphans gathered each night to sniff glue and sleep. I remembered stories of children being rounded up and killed. In 1990, witnesses reported armed men snatching eight street kids. Their bodies were

found a few days later.

"This is different." Galiano's voice brought me back. "These four young women stand out. They don't fit the usual pattern."

"What does this have to do with me?" I had a pretty good idea.

"I described your work to my superiors, told them you were in Guatemala."

"May I ask how you knew that?"

"Let's just say SICA is kept apprised of foreign nationals entering Guatemala to dig up our dead."

"I see."

Galiano pointed at the photos. "I've been authorized to request your help."

"I have other commitments."

"Excavation is finished at Chupan Ya."

"Analysis is just beginning."

"Senor Reyes has agreed to the loan of your services."

First the reporter, now this. Mateo had been busy since our return to the city. "Senor Reyes can examine these bones for you."

"Senor Reyes's experience and training don't compare to yours."

It was true. While Mateo and his team had worked on hundreds of massacre victims, they'd had little involvement with recent homicide cases.

"You coauthored an article on septic tank burial."

Galiano had done his homework.

Three years back, a small-time drug dealer was busted in Montreal for supplying product to the wrong buyer. Not fancying a long separation from his medicine chest, the man offered the story of an associate floating in a septic tank. The provincial police turned to my boss, Dr. Pierre LaManche, and LaManche turned to me. I learned more than I ever wanted to know about human waste disposal, and LaManche and I spent days directing the recovery. We'd written an article for

the Journal of Forensic Sciences.

"This is a local problem," I said. "It should be handled by local experts."

The fan hummed. Galiano's cowlick did plies and pirouettes.

"Ever hear of a man named Andre Specter?"

I shook my head.

"He's the Canadian ambassador to Guatemala."

The name rang a very distant bell.

"Specter's daughter, Chantale, is one of those missing."

"Why isn't this being handled through diplomatic channels?"

"Specter has demanded absolute discretion."

"Sometimes publicity can be helpful."

"There are"—Galiano groped for a word—"extenuating circum-

stances." I waited for him to elaborate. He didn't. Outside, a truck door

slammed. "If there's a Canadian link, liaison between jurisdictions will be useful."

"And I've spent time in septic tanks." "A rare claim. And you've done cases for Canadian External

Affairs."

"Yes." He really had done his homework.

It was then Galiano played his trump card.

"My department has taken the liberty of contacting your min-stry in Quebec, requesting permission to engage you as special

;onsultant."

A second item emerged from Galiano's pocket, this one a fax ivith a familiar

fleur-de-lis logo. The paper came across the desk.

M. Serge Martineau, Ministere de la Securite Publique, and Dr. Pierre LaManche, Chef de Service, Laboratoire de Sciences [udiciaires et de Medecme Legale, had granted permission, pending agreement on my part, for my temporary assignment to the Special Crimes Investigative Unit of the Guatemala National Civil Police.

My bosses in Montreal were part of the ambush. There would be no end run around this.

I looked up at Galiano.

"You have a reputation for finding the truth, Dr. Brennan." The Maybelline eyes were relentless. "Parents are in agony not knowing the truth about their missing kids."

I thought of Katy and knew the fear I'd experience should my daughter disappear, the absolute tenor that would grip me should she

vanish in a place with unknown language, laws, and procedures, peopled by unfamiliar authorities who might or might not exert genuine effort to find her. "All right, Detective. I'm listening."

Zone 1 is the oldest part of Guatemala City, a claustrophobic hive of rundown shops, cheap hotels, bus terminals, and car parks, with a sprinkling of modern chain outlets. Wimpy's and McDonald's share the narrow streets with German delis, sports bars, Chinese restaurants, shoe stores, cinemas, electrical shops, strip joints, and taverns.

Like many ecozones, the sector follows a diurnal rhythm. Come dark, the vendors and pedestrians clogging its streets yield to cigarette sellers and hookers. The shoeshine boys, taxi drivers, buskers, and preachers vanish from Parque Concordia, and homeless children gather to bed down for the night.

Zone 1 is broken pavement, neon, fumes, and noise. But the quarter also has a grander side. It is home to the Palacio Nacional, the Biblioteca Nacional, the Mercado Central, Parque Central, Parque del Centenario, museums, a cathedral,

and a spectacular Moorish post office. Police headquarters is located in an outlandish castle at the intersection of Calle 14 and Avenida 6, one block south of the Igle-sia de San Francisco, famous for its carving of the sacred heart and for the banned books discovered in a roof cavity, hidden decades earlier by rebellious clergy.

Ninety minutes later Galiano and I were seated at a battered wooden table in a conference room on the castle's third floor. With us were his partner, Sergeant-detective Pascual Hernandez, and Juan-Carlos Xicay, head of the evidence

recovery team that would process the septic tank.

The room was a cheerless gray, last painted about the time the padres were stashing their books. Putty-colored stuffing sprouted from my chair, and I wondered how many nervous, bored, or frightened buttocks had squirmed in that same seat.

A fly buzzed against the room's single window. I felt empathy, and I shared the insect's desire for escape. Beyond the window, through filthy blinds, I could

see one of the castle's battlements.

At least there was an upside. I was safe from attack by medieval

Lights.

Sighing, I shifted for the billionth time, picked up a paper clip, and began tapping the table. We'd been waiting twenty minutes for a rep-resentative from

the DA's office. I was hot, tired, and disappointed

be pulled from my FAFG work. And I was not hiding it well.

"Shouldn't be long." Galiano looked at his watch.

"Couldn't I outline the procedure?" I asked. "It may take Senor Xicay some time

to line up the equipment."

Xicay scratched an eyebrow, said nothing. Hernandez gestured his powerlessness

by raising a hand and dropping it onto the tabletop. He was a heavy man, with black wavy hair that crawled down his back. His forearms and hands were also layered with dark, wiry hair.

"I'll check again." Galiano strode from the room, his gait indi-cating annoyance. With whom? I wondered. Me? The tardy DA? Some higher-up?

Almost immediately, I heard Galiano arguing in the corridor, though the Spanish was rapid fire, and I missed many words, the ani-mosity was clear. I caught my name at least twice.

Moments later the voices stopped, and Galiano rejoined us, fol-lowed by a tall, thin man in rose-pink glasses. The man was slightly stooped, with a soft belly that pooched over his belt.

Galiano made introductions.

"Dr. Brennan, may I present Senor Antonio Diaz. Senor Diaz leads up the criminal investigative section of the office of the dis-trict attorney."

I rose and held out a hand. Ignoring it, Diaz crossed to the win-dow and spun toward me. Though colored lenses obscured his eyes, the hostility was palpable

"I have been a prosecutor for almost twenty years, Dr. Brennan. In all that time, I have never required, nor have I requested, outside help in a death investigation." Though heavily accented, Diaz's English was precise.

Stunned, I dropped my hand.

"While you may view our forensic doctors as inadequately trained hacks laboring

in a Third World medico-legal system, or as mere cogs in an antiquated and ineffective judicial bureaucracy, let me

assure you they are professionals who hold themselves to the highest standards."

I looked to Galiano, cheeks burning with humiliation. Or anger.

"As I explained, Senor Diaz, Dr. Brennan is here at our request." Galiano's

voice was tempered steel.

"Why exactly are you in Guatemala, Dr. Brennan?" From Diaz.

Anger makes me feisty.

"I'm thinking of opening a spa."

"Dr. Brennan is here on other business," Galiano jumped in. "She is a forensic anthrop—"

"I know who she is," Diaz cut him off.

"Dr. Brennan has experience with septic tank recovery, and she's offered to help."

Offered? How did Galiano come up with "offered"?

"We'd be foolish not to avail ourselves of her expertise."

Diaz glared at Galiano, his face concrete. Hernandez and Xicay said nothing.

"We shall see." Diaz looked hard at me, then stomped from the room.

Only the fly broke the silence. Galiano spoke first.

"I apologize, Dr. Brennan."

Anger also goads me to action.

"Can we begin?" I asked.

"I'll handle Diaz," Galiano said, pulling out a chair.

"One other thing."

"Name it."

"Call meTempe."

For the next hour I explained the glories of septic disposal. Galiano and his partner listened closely, interrupting now and then to comment or to ask for clarification. Xicay sat in silence, eyes lowered, face devoid of expression. "Septic tanks can be made of rock, brick, concrete, or fiberglass, and come in a number of designs. They can be round, square, or rectangular. They can have one, two, or three compartments, separated by partial baffles or by full walls."

"How do they work?" Galiano.

"Basically, a septic tank is a watertight chamber that acts as an incu-bator for anaerobic bacteria, fungi, and actinomycetes that digest organic solids that

fall to the bottom."

"Sounds like Galiano's kitchen." Hernandez.

"What can we expect?" Galiano ignored his partner.

"The digestion process creates heat, and gases bubble to the sur-fice. Those gases combine with particles of grease, soap, oils, hair, and other junk to produce a foamy scum. That's the first thing we're going to see when we open the tank."

"Bring a little sunshine into your day." Hernandez.

"With time, if left undisturbed, a floating semisolid mat can

form." "Shit pudding." Hernandez was covering his repugnance with

macho humor.

"Tanks should be pumped out every two to three years, but if the owners are as

lax as you say they are, that isn't likely to have happened, so we'll probably encounter this type of sediment."

"So you've got this soup kitchen for microbes. Where does every-thing go from there?" Galiano asked.

"Once a tank fills to a certain level, the altered waste products flow out

through an exit drain to a series of pipes, usually laid out in parallel rows, called a drain field."

"What kind of pipes?"

"Typically, clay or perforated plastic."

"This system dates to the Preclassic, so I'm sure we're talking clay. What goes on there?"

"The drain field rests on a bed of gravel, usually covered by soil and

vegetation. While some aerobic breakdown occurs there, the drain field primarly functions as a biological filter."

"Fine or coarse drip. Now we're talking Mr. Coffee."

Hernandez was starting to get on my nerves.

"As the final step in treatment, the waste water leaks from the pipes and percolates through the gravel bed. Bacteria, viruses, and other pollutants are absorbed by the soil or taken up by the root systems of the overlying plants." "So the grass really is greener over the septic tank." Galiano.

"And a lot happier. What else do we know about this setup?"

Galiano pulled out a small spiral pad and flipped through his notes.

"The tank is located approximately seven feet from the south wall of the pension. It's about ten feet long, five feet wide, and six feet deep, made of concrete, and covered by eight rectangular concrete lids."

"How many chambers ?"

"The owner, one Senior Serano, has no idea what's down there. By the way,

Serano'll never be holding his breath when the Nobels are announced."

"Noted."

"Serano and his son, Jorge, remembered workers near the east end last summer, so that's the lid they lifted. They found the tank nearly full, the jeans jamming

the exit drain."

"The entrance drain will be on the west."

"That's what we figured."

"O.K., gentlemen. We're going to need a backhoe to lift the concrete lids."

"All eight?" Xicay spoke for the first time.

"Yes. Since we don't know what we're dealing with, we'll uncap the whole thing.

If there are multiple chambers, parts of the skeleton could be anywhere."

Xicay pulled out his own pad and began making a list.

"A commercial septic service vacuum truck to pump out the scum and liquid layers, and a fire truck to dilute the bottom sediment," I went on.

Xicay added them to the list.

"There's going to be a lot of ammonia and methane gas down there, so I want an oxygen pack respiration device."

Xicay looked a question at me.

"A standard full-face air mask with a single strap over the back O2 tank. The

type firemen wear. We should also have a couple of small pressurized spray tanks."

"The kind used to spray weed killer?"

"Exactly. Fill one with water, the other with a ten-percent bleach solution." "Do I want to know?" asked Hernandez.

"To spray me when I climb out of the tank."

Xicay noted the items.

"And quarter-inch mesh screens. Everything else should be stan-

dard equipment." I stood. "Seven A.M.?" "Seven A.M." It was to be one of the

worst days of my life.

THE LAST RED STREAKS WERE YIELDING TO A HAZY, BRONZE DAWN when Galiano arrived

at my hotel the next day.

"Buenos dias."

"Buenos dias," I mumbled, sliding into the passenger seat. "Nice shades."

He was wearing aviator lenses blacker than a hole in space.

"Gracias."

Galiano indicated a paper cup in the central holder, then swung into traffic. Grateful, I reached for the coffee.

We spoke little driving across town then inching our way through Zone 1.1 read

the city as it slid past the windshield. Though not the highest form of Guatemalteca conversation, the billboards and placards, even the graffiti on service station walls, allowed me to improve my Spanish.

And to block out thoughts of what lay ahead.

Within twenty minutes Galiano pulled up to a pair of police cruisers sealing off a small alley. Beyond the checkpoint the pavement was clogged with squad cars,

an ambulance, a fire engine, a septic tank vacuum service truck, and other

vehicles I assumed to be official. Gawkers were already gathering.

Galiano showed ID, and a uniformed cop waved us through. He added his car to the others, and we got out and walked up the street.

The Pension Paraiso squatted at mid-block, opposite an abandoned warehouse. Galiano and I crossed to its side and proceeded past liquor and underwear merchants, a barbershop, and a Chinese takeout, each establishment barred and padlocked. As we walked, I glanced at sun-bleached items in the shop windows.

The barber featured big-haired models with dos that hadn't been stylish since Eisenhower left office. The Long Fu had a menu, a Pepsi ad, a peacock

embroidered in glittery fabric.

The Pension Paraiso was a decrepit two-story bunker made of plaster-covered

brick, once white, but long since aged to the color of cigar smoke. Broken roof tiles, dirty windows, off-angle shutters, retractable metal grille on the front door. Paradise.

Another guard. More ID.

The hotel interior was exactly as promised by its exterior. Thread-bare carpet with yellowed plastic runner, linoleum-covered counter, wooden grid for keys and letters, cracked plaster walls. The air smelled of mold, dust, and years of cigarette smoke and sweat.

I followed Galiano across a deserted lobby, down a narrow corri-dor, and out a rear door to a yard that saw little sunlight and even less care. Ceramic pots

with withered vegetation. Rusted kitchen chairs with split vinyl seats. Plastic lawn furniture, green with mold. An uppended wheelbarrow. Bare earth. A lone tree.

An upholstered sofa missing one leg leaned against the back of the pension, and shards of plaster, fallen bricks, dead leaves, cellophane wrappers, and aluminum pop-tops littered its foundation. The brght yellow backhoe was the only spot of color in the dreary set-ting. Beside the shovel I could see freshly turned soil,

and the con-crete lid removed, then hastily replaced by Sefior Serano and his son. I took account of those present. Juan-Carlos Xicay was convers-ing with a man in a dark blue jumpsuit identical to his own. A driver sat behind the wheel of the backhoe. A uniformed policeman guarded the back entrance to the property. Antonio Diaz hovered done on its far side, rose-tinted glasses hiding his eyes.

I smiled and raised a hand. The DA did not reply, did not look away.

Happy day.

Pascual Hernandez stood with a wiry, rat-faced man wearing sandals, jeans, and a Dallas Cowboys sweatshirt. A sturdy woman

flanked the rat, plastic bracelets on her wrists, breasts hanging heavy inside an embroidered black dress.

Galiano and I crossed to his partner, and Hernandez introduced the innkeepers. Up close I noticed that Senora Serano had one brown eye and one blue one, giving her face an odd, unbalanced look. When she gazed at me I found it hard to decide into which eye I should look.

I also noticed that Senora Serano's lower lip was swollen and cracked, and I wondered if the rat had struck her.

"And these folks are going to be as helpful as Scouts at a jamboree." Hernandez drilled the rat with a look. "Even with the hard stuff."

"I have no secrets." Serano held his hands palms up, fingers splayed. He was so agitated I could barely follow the Spanish. "I know nothing."

"You just happen to have a body in your tank."

"I don't know how it got there." Serano's eyes flicked from face to face.

Galiano turned the shades on Serano.

"What else don't you know, senor?"

"Nada." Nothing. The rat eyes darted like a sparrow seeking a safe perch.

Galiano drew a bored breath. "I have no time for games, Senor Serano. But take this to the bank." He tapped a finger on the big blue "C" in Cowboys. "When

we're finished here, you and I are gonna have a real heart-to-heart."

Serano shook his head but said nothing.

The Darth Vader lenses shifted to the backhoe.

"All set?" Galiano shouted.

Xicay spoke to the driver, gave a thumbs-up. He pointed to me, then to a jumble of equipment near the uniformed guard. A zipping gesture on his chest indicated that I should suit up. I raised my thumb.

Galiano turned back to the Seranos.

"Your job today is to do nothing," he said levelly. "You will do it seated there." He jabbed a finger at the lopsided sofa. "And you will do it without comment."

Galiano made a circular gesture in the air above his head.

I hurried to the equipment locker. Behind me, the backhoe rum-

bled to life.

As I pulled on a Tyvek jumpsuit and knee-high rubber boots, the

driver shifted gears and maneuvered into position. Metal squawked,

the bucket dropped with a thunk, scraped the ground, scooped the

exposed lid, swung left, and laid it aside. The smell of wet soil

drifted on the morning air.

Digging a recorder from my pack, I walked to the edge of the

bank.

One look, and my stomach rolled in on itself.

The chambers were brimming with a hideous dark liquid topped by a layer of organic scum. A million cockroaches scuttled across the gelatinous mass.

Galiano and Hernandez joined me.

"Cerote." Hernandez backhanded his mouth.

Galiano said nothing.

Swallowing hard, I began to dictate. Date. Time. Location. Per-ons present.

The bucket rattled, dropped again. Serrated teeth bit into the ground, swung free, returned. A second concrete lid appeared, was displaced. A third. A fifth. The odor of putrefaction overpowered the smell of damp earth.

As items were revealed, I dictated description and location.

Xicay shot pictures

By mid-morning eight concrete lids lay in a heap, and the tank was fully exposed. I'd spotted an arm bone lodged against the entrance drain on the west side,

fabric in the southeast corner, and a blue plas-tic object and several hand

bones embedded in the scum.

"Cue the truck?" Galiano asked when I'd finished my last entry.

"Have it driven into position. But first I have to remove what's visible and search the top layer."

Turning to Xicay, I indicated that I was ready for a body bag. Then I crossed to the equipment locker and dug out the respirator mask and heavy rubber gloves. Using duct tape, I sealed the top of the boots to the legs of my jumpsuit. "How?" asked Galiano when I returned to the tank.

I pulled the gloves to my elbows and handed him the duct tape.

"Dios mio." Hernandez.

"Need help?" Galiano asked without enthusiasm as he sealed the gloves to my sleeves.

I looked at his suit, tie, and crisp white shirt.

"You're underdressed."

"Shout when you need me." Hernandez walked to the equipment locker, removed his jacket, and draped it over the open lid. Though the day wasn't hot, his shirt

was damp against his chest. I could see the outline of a sleeveless T-shirt through the thin cotton.

Galiano and I circled to the west end of the tank.

Senior Serano watched from the sofa, rat eyes bright and intent. His wife sucked on a strand of hair.

Xicay's assistant joined us, body bag in hand. I asked his name. Mario Colom. I told Mario to lay the bag on the ground behind me, opened and lined with a clean white sheet. Then I told him to glove and mask.

Handing Galiano my Dictaphone, I secured my own mask over my face. When I

squatted and leaned into the tank, my stomach went into a granny knot. I tasted bile and felt a tremor below my tongue.

Breathing shallowly, I plunged in a hand and drew the arm bone from the decomposing waste. Two roaches scuttled up my glove. Inside the rubber, I felt furtive legs, feathery antennae. My arm jerked and I let out a squeal. Behind me, Galiano shifted.

Stop it, Brennan. You're gloved.

Swallowing, I flicked the insects, watched them right themselves and scurry away. Swallowing again, I curled my fingers and slid the ulna through them. Muck

peeled off its surface and dropped to the ground in slimy globs. I laid the bone on the sheet.

Working my way around the tank, I collected everything I could see. Xicay shot stills. When I'd finished, the ulna, two hand bones, one foot bone, three ribs, and the bow from a pair of glasses lay on the sheet.

After instructing Mario, I returned to the southeast corner and began working my way down the south side of the tank, systematically palpating every millimeter

of floating scum as far out as I could reach. Opposite me, Mario mirrored my efforts.

In forty minutes we'd searched the entire top layer. Two ribs and one kneecap

had been added to the sheet.

The sun was straight up in the sky when Mario and I finished, consensus: no one wanted lunch. Xicay went for the vacuum truck, and in moments it pulled through the opening in the back fence.

As the operator arranged equipment, I glanced over my shoulder at Diaz. The DA maintained his vigil, lenses pink diamonds in the mottled sunlight. He did not approach.

Five minutes later Xicay shouted.

"Ready?"

"Go."

Another motor sputtered to life. I heard sucking, saw bubbles in

the murky, black liquid.

Galiano stood at my side, arms crossed, gaze fixed on the tank, Hernandez observed from the safety of the locker. The Seranos watched from their couch, faces the color of oatmeal.

Slowly, the liquid subsided. One inch, three, seven.

Approximately two feet from the tank's bottom, a layer of sludge appeared, its surface lumpy with debris. The pump fell silent and the operator looked at me.

I showed Mario how to work a long-handled net. Scoop by scoop, he dredged muck and laid muddy globs at my feet. I swabbed and untangled the booty from each.

A floral shirt containing ribs, vertebrae, a sternum. Foot bones inside socks inside shoes. Femora. A humerus. A radius. A pelvis. Every bone was covered with putrid tissue and organic waste.

Fighting back nausea, I scraped and arranged everything on the sheet. Xicay recorded the process on film. Feeling too ill for close inspection, I simply entered the bones into a skeletal inventory. I would conduct a full evaluation after cleaning.

When Mario had netted what he could, I walked to the edge of the tank and sat. Galiano came up behind me.

"You're going in there?" It wasn't really a question.

I nodded.

"Can't we just blast the remaining crap with a pressure hose and

suck everything up?"

I pushed aside my mask to speak.

"After I find the skull."

I repositioned the mask, rolled to my stomach, and lowered

myself over the side. My soles hit the muck with a soft slap. Slime crept up my shins. Odor enveloped me.

Moving felt like slogging through exactly what it was, a stew of human feces and microbial dung. I felt more tremors under my tongue, again tasted bile.

At the southeast corner, I reached up and Mario handed me a long, slender pole. Breathing as shallowly as possible, I began a systematic survey of the tank, inching sideways, probing, inching, probing. Four sets of eyes followed my progress.

On the fourth sweep, I tapped something lodged in the same drain that had held the jeans. Handing up the pole, I swallowed, took a deep breath, and slid my hands into the muck.

The object was roughly the size and shape of a volleyball. It rested on the

tanks' bottom, its top one foot below the surface of the sludge. Despite the queasiness, my pulse ratcheted up a notch.

Gingerly, I explored my find, gloved fingers reading the anatomical Braille. Ovoid globe. Hollows separated by a tented bridge. Rigid bands winging outward beside an oblong aperture.

The skull!

Careful, Brennan.

Ignoring my roiling innards, I bent at the waist, grasped the brain case in both hands, and tugged. The muck refused to yield its booty.

Frustrated, I scooped away handfuls of slime. When I could see a patch of parietal, I rewrapped my fingers around the cranium and applied alternating pressure.

Nothing budged.

Damn!

Barely resisting the urge to yank, I continued the gentle twisting motion. Clockwise. Counterclockwise. Clockwise. Inside my jumpsuit, I felt hot

perspiration roll down my sides.

Two more twists. The seal broke, and the skull shifted.

I cleared what path the sludge would allow, repositioned my fingers, and teased the skull upward. It rose slowly, emerged with a soft sucking sound. Heart thudding, I cradled it in both hands. Slick brown goo filled the orbits and coated the features.

But I saw enough.

Wordlessly, I handed the skull to Mario, accepted his gloved hand, and climbed from the tank. Mario placed the skull on the body bag, and picked up the first

of the two pressure tanks. After spray-ing me with bleach solution, he sprayed

me again with clear water.

"Ty-D-Bol called with a job offer." Galiano.

I lowered my mask.

"Whoa, nice skin tone. Bilious green."

Walking to the equipment locker for a clean jumpsuit, I realized

was trembling.

Next we did as Galiano had suggested. A pressure hose blasted the sludge into suspension, and the tanker truck evacuated the liq-uid. Then the pump was reversed, and we began straining 3,500 gal-lons of liquid through a quarter-inch screen. Mario broke up clumps and plucked out roaches. I examined every fragment and

scrap of debris.

Somewhere during that process, Diaz bailed. Though I didn't see him leave, at

one point I glanced up and the pink lenses were gone.

Daylight was fading to dusk as the last of the liquid poured through the screen. The blouse, shoes, socks, undergarments, and plastic bow were bagged beside the equipment locker. A skeleton lay on the white sheet, complete except for the hyoid, one tibia, some hand and foot bones, two vertebrae, and four ribs. The

skull and mandible lacked eight of the front teeth.

I'd identified, sorted left from right, and recorded every bone, confirming that we had only one inpidual, and ascertained what was missing. I'd felt too ill

to perform further analysis. Though my brief glance at the skull made me uneasy, I'd decided to say nothing to Galiano until I was certain.

I was inventorying a rib when Diaz reappeared, followed by a man in a beige suit. He had greasy blond hair, a bad complexion, and weighed less than I did.

Diaz and his companion scanned the yard, conferred, then

crossed to Galiano. The new arrival spoke.

"I am here on behalf of the district attorney." The guy was knobby-joint skinny and looked like a kid in adult clothing.

"And you are?" Galiano removed and folded his shades.

"Dr. Hector Lucas. I am taking possession of the remains found at this site." "Like hell you are," Galiano replied.

Lucas looked at his watch, then at Diaz.

Diaz produced a paper from a zipper case.

"This warrant says he is," said Diaz. "Pack everything for transport to the

central morgue."

Not a synapse fired in any muscle in Galiano's body.

Diaz raised the warrant to eye level. Galiano ignored it.

Diaz pressed tinted glasses to nose. Everyone else remained frozen in place. Behind me I heard movement, then the pump cut off.

"Now, Detective." Diaz's voice sounded loud in the sudden stillness.

A second went by. Ten. A full minute.

Galiano was still staring when his cell phone shrilled. He clicked on after four rings, never taking his eyes from Diaz.

"Galiano."

He listened, jaw clenched, then said one thing.

"lEso es una mierda!" Bullshit.

Galiano shoved the phone into his pocket and turned to Diaz.

"Be careful, senor. Be very careful," he hissed with a low, steady venting of

air from his diaphragm. "iNo me jodas!" Don't fuck around with me.

With a jerk of his hand, Galiano gestured me from the body bag. I pushed to my feet and started to step back, reversed myself, knelt next to the skeleton, and peered intently at the skull. Diaz took half a step and started to speak, then

bit off whatever he had intended to say and waited until I arose again.

Lucas approached and glanced at the array in the body bag. Satisfied, he pulled gloves from his pocket, tucked the sheet inside, and ran the zipper. Then he stood, a look of uncertainty on his face.

Diaz strode from the yard, returned with two men in gray coveralls, "Morgue del Organismo Judicial" stenciled on their backs. Between them they carried a gurney, legs collapsed beneath.

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