Sheridan.
He smiled. “You’ll be fine.”
But when the plastic was cut, I-shaped, and then — with a crackling sound — pulled back, I wasn’t so sure I would be fine. I held on by making myself think of the strange mass — the misshapen figure that was in some places bone, some places hair, or liquid, or leathery tissue — to think of this figure that lay before me as something to be studied, something that might tell a secret.
Even then, I could not manage to be a cold observer; perhaps those much touted tricks of divorcing one’s mind from the victim’s humanity worked for someone there, but not for me, and as I glanced at the faces of Ben and David, who had seen this sort of thing so often before, I realized that I didn’t see coldness there at all — only quiet compassion. Perhaps they felt as I did: for all its distorted aspect, there was no doubt that this had been a human being, that this had been someone, and although her fate had been terrible, it would not remain hidden.
Ben caught me studying him, or so I thought, until I realized that the reverse was true — he had quickly studied me, and the others as well.
“Mr. Burden, will you be able to continue?” he asked the photographer, whose face was drained of color.
“Mr. Burden?” Ben asked again.
Flash tore his wide-eyed gaze from the remains, and looked up at him. “Yes, sir,” he said shakily.
“The camera?” Ben prompted gently.
Flash looked down at his right hand in surprise; at some point he had dropped the video camera away from his face, and was now holding it limply at his side.
“Yes, I’ll start taping again,” he said, a little more steadily. He pulled the camera up.
“J.C., you’re taking the notes now?” Ben asked.
“Yes,” the ranger said, his own voice unsteady.
“Let’s get started, then.” Ben gave the date and time, named the persons present and gave the coordinates for the grave. As he calmly recited this information, I found my own nerves steadying, felt the first shock of the sight before me receding. I tried again to study the remains.
The body was lying faceup. The underside was, from all I could see, a gooey mess. The upper portion was part mummy, part skeleton, part waxwork figure — this latter, I was told, was due to the formation of adipocere, a soaplike substance produced during one of the phases of decomposition.
“These observations are preliminary,” Ben was saying, “and subject to verification in the lab. We have one, unknown adult female, of European descent. Age and stature yet to be determined. No clothing is apparent. Position is supine, with arms slightly outstretched. The individual’s head is positioned west along an east-west line. Hair is dark brown.” He paused, then said, “Focus on the left hand, please, Mr. Burden. . . . Subject is wearing a yellow metal band inset with three red stones on the fourth finger of the left hand . . . the left thumb, apparently severed antemortem through the shaft of the proximal phalanx, is not present.”
“It’s her,” Bob Thompson said quietly, and walked away.
11
WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, MAY 17
Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains
Ben noted for the tape that Detective Thompson was no longer present, then made a few additional observations, most of which concerned “apparent antemortem trauma” and also some comments about damage that probably occurred perimortem — near the time of death — or postmortem. He paused, seemed to take a long moment to look at the body as a whole, then said, “Okay, that’s it for now.”
He asked Flash to take some still photos; he named specific shots he wanted. He asked David to tell Flash of any others he might need, and asked him to bag the hands and feet — to place plastic bags over them to help keep them intact. He asked me to follow him, and pulling his mask down, stepped back over to his stack of supplies. I was happy to pull my own mask down again, and wondered briefly if — having already guessed that I have problems with claustrophobia — he had suspected my dislike of having part of my face covered.
He didn’t mention this though, and simply asked me to help him assemble the lightweight stretcher he had brought. He gave me a body bag to carry, and we took both bag and stretcher back to the site.
Thompson had returned by the time these tasks were completed, and Ben, after conferring with him for a moment, gave him a pair of gloves and a new mask.
“You, too, Ms. Kelly, if you don’t mind,” Ben said, motioning to my mask, giving me a pair of gloves as well.
I took the gloves with some trepidation. “What do you want me to do?”
“It’s going to take all of us to lift her out of the grave and into the body bag,” he said.
I felt my mouth go dry. “Is she that heavy?”
“Probably not, maybe a hundred-and-fifteen, hundred-and-twenty pounds. But I’m trying to minimize damage.”
He knelt near the edge of the grave, leaned in and grasped one end of the plastic, near where the skull lay. He pulled slightly on the plastic, as if testing its strength. He then directed each of us to specific places near the edges of the grave; Bob Thompson and Andy were on her right side, David and J.C. on her left. Ben was at her head. I was at her feet. The stretcher and bag were near Bob and Andy.
Flash was back to operating the video camera. I hoped with all my might that he wouldn’t be getting a shot of anything splashing out of the plastic and onto my boots.
Following the others’ lead, I knelt down. David and Ben carefully folded the plastic back into its original position, covering her.
“Please try not to disturb the edges of the grave,” Ben said. “Ready? Take hold.”
The plastic felt cool and stiff beneath my gloved fingers. I told myself that I could cope with feeling the warm, close air of my breath in the mask. I told myself I would not fall into the grave. I moved back a few inches.
