Kathy Reichs - Grave Secrets

I’d just finished recording long bone lengths for stature calculation, when a phone rang in the anteroom. The technician answered, returned, and told me my time was up.

I stepped back from the table, lowered my mask, and stripped off my gloves. No problem. I had what I needed.

Outside, the sun was dropping toward cotton candy clouds billowing from the horizon. The air smelled of smoke from a trash fire. A light breeze floated wrappers and newspaper across the sidewalk.

I took a deep breath and gazed at the cemetery next door. Shadows angled from tombstones and from dime-store vases and jelly jars holding plastic flowers. An old woman sat on a wooden crate, head veiled, withered body swathed in black. A rosary dangled from her bony fingers.

I should have felt good. Though it was incomplete, I’d scored a victory over Díaz. And my initial assessment had been right on. But all I felt was sad.

And frightened.

Three months had passed between the day Claudia de la Alda was last seen alive and the day Patricia Eduardo went missing. Just over two months had passed between the disappearances of Patricia Eduardo and Lucy Gerardi. Chantale Specter vanished ten days after Lucy Gerardi.

If one maniac was responsible, the intervals were growing shorter.

His blood lust was increasing.

I pulled out my cell and punched in Galiano’s number. Before I hit send, the thing rang in my hand. It was Mateo Reyes.

Molly Carraway had regained consciousness.

13

SHORTLY AFTER DAYBREAK, MATEO AND I WERE ROLLER-COASTERINGthe blacktop to Sololá, shooting through pink, slanted sunshine on the ups, plunging through pockets of fog on the downs. The air was chilly, the horizon blurred by a damp morning haze. Mateo pushed the Jeep full out, face deadpan, hands tight on the wheel.

I rode in the front passenger seat, elbow out the window like a trucker in Tucson. Wind whipped my hair straight up, then forward into my face. I brushed it back absently, my thoughts focused on Molly and Carlos.

Though I’d met Carlos only once or twice, I’d known Molly a decade. Roughly my age, she’d come to anthropology late in life. A high school biology teacher grown frustrated with cafeteria duty and bathroom patrol, Molly had shifted direction at age thirty-one and returned to graduate school. Upon completion of a doctorate in bioarchaeology, she’d accepted a position in the Anthropology Department at the University of Minnesota.

Like me, Molly had been drawn into medical examiner work by cops and coroners oblivious to the distinction between physical and forensic anthropology. Like me, she donated time to the investigation of human rights abuses.

Unlike me, Molly had never abandoned her study of the ancient dead. Though she did some coroner cases, archaeology remained her main focus. She had yet to achieve certification by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology.

But you will, Molly. You will.

Mateo and I wound through the miles in silence. Traffic lightened when we drew away from Guatemala City, increased as we approached Sololá. We raced past deep green valleys, yellow pastures with scruffy brown cows grazing in clumps, villages thick with roadside vendors laying out that morning’s stock.

We were ninety minutes into the drive when Mateo spoke.

“The doctor said she was agitated.”

“Open your eyes to a two-week hole in your life, you’d be agitated, too.”

We flew around a curve. A pair of vehicles rushed by in the opposite direction, blasting air through our open windows.

“Maybe that’s it.”

“Maybe?” I looked at him.

“I don’t know. There was something in that doctor’s voice.”

He crawled up the bumper of a slow-moving truck, shifted hard, passed.

“What?”

He shrugged. “It was more the tone.”

“What else did he tell you?”

“Not much.”

“Is there permanent damage?”

“He doesn’t know. Or won’t say.”

“Has anyone come down from Minnesota?”

“Her father. Isn’t she married?”

“Divorced. Her kids are in high school.”

Mateo drove the remaining distance in silence, wind puffing his denim shirt, reflected yellow lines clicking up the front of his dark glasses.

The Sololá hospital was a six-story maze of red brick and grimy glass. Mateo parked in one of several small lots, and we walked up a tree-shaded lane to the front entrance. In the forecourt, a cement Jesus welcomed us with outstretched arms.

People filled the lobby, wandering, praying, drinking soda, slumping or fidgeting on wooden benches. Some wore housedresses, others suits or jeans. Most were dressed in Sololá Mayan. Women swathed in striped red cloth, with burrito-wrapped babies on their bellies or backs. Men in woolen aprons, gaucho hats, and wildly embroidered trousers and shirts. Now and then a hospital worker in crisp white cut through the kaleidoscope assemblage.

I looked around, familiar with the atmosphere, but unfamiliar with the layout. Signs routed patrons to the cafeteria, the gift shop, the business office, and to a dozen medical departments. Radiografía. Urología. Pediatría.

Ignoring posted instructions to check-in, Mateo led me directly to a bank of elevators. We got off on the fifth floor and headed left, our heels clicking on polished tile. As we moved up the corridor, I saw myself reflected in the small rectangular windows of a dozen closed doors.

“¡Alto!” Hurled from behind.

We turned. A fire-breathing nurse was bearing down, hospital chart pressed to her spotless white chest. Winged cap. Hair pulled back tight enough to cause a fault line down the center of her face.

Nurse Dragon extended her arm and the chart and circled us, the crossing guard of the fifth floor.

Mateo and I smiled winningly.

The dragon asked the reason for our presence.

Mateo told her.

She drew in the chart, eyed us as though we were Leopold and Loeb.

“¿Familia?”

Mateo gestured at me. “Americana.”

More appraisal.

“Numero treinta y cinco.”

“Gracias.”

“Veinte minutos. Nada mas.” Twenty minutes. No more.

“Gracias.”

Molly looked like a still life of cheated death. Her thin cotton gown was colorless from a million washings and clung to her body like a feathery shroud. One tube ran from her nose, another from an arm bearing little more flesh than the skeletons at the morgue.

Mateo inhaled sharply. “Jesucristo.”

I placed a hand on his shoulder.

Molly’s eyes were lavender caverns. She opened them, recognized us, and struggled to raise herself higher on the pillows. I hurried to her side.

“¿Qué hay de nuevo?” Slurry.

“What’s new with you ?” I replied.

“Had one dandy siesta.”

“I knew we were working you too hard.” Though his words were light, Mateo’s voice was not.

Molly smiled weakly, pointed to a water glass on the bedside table.

“Do you mind?”

I swung the table in front of her and tipped the straw. She closed dry lips around it, drank, and leaned back.

“Have you met my father?” One hand rose, dropped back to the gray wool blanket.

Mateo and I swiveled around.

An old man occupied a chair in the corner of the room. He had white hair, and deep lines chiseled down his cheeks and across his chin and forehead. Though the whites of his eyes had yellowed with age, the blues were as clear as a mountain lake.

Mateo went to him and held out a hand. “Mateo Reyes. I guess you’d say I’m Molly’s boss down here.”

“Jack Dayton.”

They shook.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Dayton,” I said from beside the bed.