Carol O'Connell - Bone by Bone

True enough.

In U.S. Army terminology, he had exploited too many such holes from Bosnia to Baghdad, gathering evidence of mass murders so cruel that some had encompassed whole villages, and bullets had not been wasted on babies to spare them the slow death of live burial. The graves had always yielded clues to the manner of murder, and he had no desire to be here when his brother's grave was found.

"You want me to go? Fine," said Oren. "Give me the keys to your office and that file cabinet."

Too late.

They ran toward the sound of the scream.

The elderly owner of the dry-goods store, Mrs. Mooney, had found the burial site by falling into it. After treading on a canvas tarp, camouflaged by windblown leaves and dry brush, she had fallen into the narrow trench beneath it. The canvas now covered the old woman as well, almost like a shroud, and possibly that had also been her own thought when she screamed. Her gnarly white hands reached out of the grave to be saved.

Oren dragged out the tarp, then climbed into the hole and gently lifted the old woman up and into the waiting hands of volunteers.

The last time he had stood on the floor of a grave, there had been so many bodies, fifty or more, and a plethora of clues to the cause of death: bullet holes and blindfolds still tied around the skulls, hands bound behind the backs of men and women. Some of the evidence collected for identification had been small toys taken from the skeletal hands of children.

This more barren grave was a greater assault on his mind. He was not ready for this. He stood frozen, looking down at a familiar belt buckle, a shred of his brother's rotted blue jeans and a freshly exposed shard of bone.

Part of a yellow plastic garment jutted out from the loose dirt, and this must belong to the stranger whose remains had been mixed with Josh's in the coffin. Oren and his brother had owned yellow slickers that same color, but both of them were back at the house, still hanging side by side near the kitchen door-exhibits in his father's museum.

The sheriff, to his credit, pretended no surprise at this find, and he called out to one of the deputies, "Get that body bag out of the trunk!"

"Not so fast." Oren kept his voice low as he climbed out of the hole. "You have to call the Justice Department. They'll find you a team for the excavation-specialists."

"No time for that, son." The sheriff slowly turned his head to stare in disbelief. A female volunteer, a tourist in an out-of-state T-shirt, stepped up to the edge of the grave to snap a picture of her summer vacation.

"That's enough of that!" Cable Babitt snatched the disposable-box camera, and a deputy led the souvenir hunter away. "Oren, the reporters must've heard that scream. They'll be here any second. Anyway, there's nothing in that hole but rags and bones."

And evidence of a grave robber." Oren took the camera from the sheriff's hands and snapped a picture of the hole. He raised his voice for an approaching deputy to hear. "See the ridges on the sides? The shovel had a nick in it. Almost as good as a fingerprint." He snapped another picture of that shallow wall of dirt, and then he heard the sound of running feet. The reporters were coming through the woods, and they were legion.

Almost here.

"You don't want to lose this evidence, do you?" Oren pushed the film forward and snapped a photo of Cable Babitt. There was no flash, but the sheriff blinked in surprise.

Unwilling to trust this man to follow any protocols, Oren barked orders, military style, to the nearest deputy. This woman never even glanced at Cable for confirmation, but ran to her jeep to radio a request for an evidence officer on the scene. Oren issued another order to fence off the site with crime-scene tape. "And get these people out of here! Now! No reporters within thirty feet of the hole!"

He turned his back on his brother's grave and walked uphill toward the turnout where he had parked the judge's car.

"Son? Wait up!"

"I'm in a hurry, Sheriff." Oren kept walking, making the older man run to catch up. "Lots of work to do. I have to check out toolsheds for a nicked shovel. Maybe just one shed-yours."

"You're not a cop anymore! You've got no authority to-"

"I think we're past that little technicality." Without breaking stride, Oren glanced over one shoulder to see deputies pushing the reporters back and others stringing yellow tape from tree to tree-all on the authority of a man who was not a cop anymore.

"Son, you only think you know what's going on."

"Well, you tell me when I get something wrong." Whirling around, he faced the startled sheriff. "You tampered with a crime scene." As Oren walked toward him, Cable Babitt stepped backward. "You hand-delivered evidence to the judge, a suspect at the top of your list. You spent six weeks playing ugly little games with my brother's bones. I bet you even know the day when my father bought Josh's coffin… and then you left him more bones. You son of a bitch."

The sheriff had his back against a tree. "I was working this case. I knew I wouldn't have much time before all hell broke loose."

"When you found Josh's skull in your garage, was it in a bag or a box?"

"A plain old cardboard box. No prints on it. I still got the box. I'll show it to you."

"You'll need to voucher it as evidence."

"Oren, you know I can't do that. It's gone too far. What with the search party and all those reporters-"

"Right. And how could you explain leaving all those bones for a grieving old man to find in the dead of night? Why couldn't you work this case the right way?"

"It was a favor to your father." The sheriff almost whined this line, and then he flinched, as if afraid that the younger man was going to strike him.

Oren only folded his arms and kept his silence-waiting.

"I wanted to see what the judge would do when I left that skull on his porch. It was like a test."

Oren saw it as an act of cowardice. The sheriff, a political animal, had not wanted to risk the wrath of an influential man by asking an honest question. "So you stayed to watch. Did my father cry?"

"No, he just sat there on the porch for the longest time. I hoped he'd call me, but he never did. He didn't do anything. A week went by."

"And you left him more of his son's bones. Did you think he wouldn't feel anything?"

"When Josh went missing, your father was a sitting judge, and he had a lot of clout, but he never pushed for results, never once asked me for an update. Not one damn call to my office." The sheriff lifted both hands to stay Oren's next words. "I know he got help from William Swahn. But I figure that man's job ended when he found you an alibi."

"The soil analysis led you to an open grave." Oren rolled one hand, motioning for the older man to continue that thought.

"Yeah. Like I said, the hole was a small one. No sign of digging anywhere near it. Whoever left me that skull knew right where to look and found it on the first try. I had to widen it some to dig up more bones."

"Did you put that sheet of canvas over the grave?"

"Well, yeah. I had to protect my evidence."

Ironical was not the word that Oren was looking for. Clown would fit the sheriff better.

"Son, if you don't happen to find a nicked shovel at my place, I can hold on to this case and see it through."

"Don't call me son." And now-a little payback, a little fear. "You sent my brother home one piece at a time. For six weeks, you drove the judge crazy with those bones. Why should I help you?"

"Because I need more time to clear your father. Just something to think about, Oren. If I lose this case to the state, they'll tear into that old man. He'll be at the top of somebody else's list. You have to help me."