Kathy Reichs: Grave Secrets

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 Sololá, 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 Señor 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 Atitlán, I gazed at the peaks on her far side.

Vulcan San Pedro. Vulcan Tolimán. Vulcan Atitlán.

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 Siméon Cañas, 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 Siméon Cañas. 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.”

“De nada.”

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?”

“Sí.”

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 Bartolomé Galiano.”

Oh, God. Was Molly dead?

“Does this have to do with the shooting near Sololá?”

“No.”

“What is it?”

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

“The subject is sensitive.”