Bones

Jack understood — he knew Frank didn’t want Travis to see what was undoubtedly waiting out there in the mist, to have to live with some of the memories J.C. was living with. He also knew that Frank depended on him to protect Travis, just in case Parrish was still around. In addition to his knives, he was carrying one of Stinger’s shotguns now. Like Frank, Jack and Travis were also supplied with flares and radios.

“Don’t panic if you hear gunfire,” Frank said. “I may have to fire a couple of shots to clear the buzzards off.”

The gunshots worked for a little while — although they didn’t seem to bother the insects much. He knew the vultures would be back — probably before he walked away. He couldn’t think about that now.

He told himself, as he looked through the field of remains, to treat this as if it were a job. He told himself that she wasn’t here in this mess, that he wasn’t looking at anything that had been part of her.

He managed fairly well by telling himself that, until he found Merrick and Manton. J.C. must have recognized their clothing — there was nothing recognizable left in their faces. Frank looked in their pockets. He had known both of them, and while neither were his close friends, he had worked with them at various times. He made himself move away from them, but he could feel himself losing a battle not to become overwhelmed by what he was seeing.

He checked in with Jack and Travis, just to hear living voices, just to reassure himself that there was more to the world than fog and stench, soft tissue and bone, buzzards and insects.

A light breeze had picked up. He could see Jack and Travis now, which was more than he had been able to do a little while ago. The fog might lift enough to bring Stinger down here after all.

He figured the dogs would give them plenty of warning if Parrish was still around. He doubted Parrish was anywhere near them now; Parrish would have made his escape as soon as possible. And Irene was probably his hostage. Or worse.

He wanted very much to be wrong about that; it was another possibility he didn’t want to think about. But that thought returned to him again and again.

Before they left the ridge, he had asked Stinger to go ahead and call the ranger station — there was too much at stake here to try to go it alone. They had to get a search started for Parrish. If Frank was going to be in trouble for coming up here, so be it. That was less than nothing, if Parrish had her. Or if she were here among these bits of flesh and bone.

Be logical, he warned himself. Think of it as if it were any other crime scene. Do your job.

And so he asked himself the standard questions.

What had happened here? A group had been gathered around the grave, working on it. There had been some sort of explosion.

How did that happen? Parrish didn’t have any weapons on him coming in — of that, he was certain. He’d have to let a bomb expert come up with the particulars, but most likely, the device was already in place, triggered by something the excavation team had done — a booby trap. Parrish must have planned that he would lead them to this particular grave all along. He had led them to Julia Sayre, though. So he gave them one, then enticed them with a second.

Treat it as you would any other crime scene, Frank told himself, wishing he had the time and resources that would have been available if that were true. Dental records and a forensic odontologist, for starters. He’d have to make do with rough guesswork for now. And so he asked himself the question he most wanted to answer:

Who are the victims?

The people closest to the impact would have been working on or near the grave. The two anthropologists, Sheridan and Niles.

From fragments of camera equipment, he had already decided that the photographer, Bill Burden, had been one of the victims. God, what a waste! Flash was a great guy, good man to have working on your team. So young . . . but he couldn’t think about that now.

Thompson? Very likely. Frank knew him, knew Thompson wouldn’t be far away from the dig.

Duke and Earl? He couldn’t be sure. Merrick and Manton were killed by gunshots and not the explosion, which suggested they had been guarding Parrish. Frank had already theorized that Parrish had taken a weapon from one of them in the moments of confusion that must have followed the explosion. Everyone was tired, they had just been through the same routine in the other meadow. Who expected a grave to be rigged with explosives?

Everyone was tired . . . Merrick and Manton were on duty, which meant Duke and Earl were off. They might have been asleep somewhere. Could they have escaped? If they did, they probably pursued Parrish. They would have seen it as their responsibility to catch him. They might be chasing him now. Maybe that was what had happened — maybe they were already on his trail.

He needed a body count of the people killed in the explosion itself. But how? He began looking at the more identifiable pieces of remains, quickly assessing them, not doing more than making a rough inventory.

Boots. The boots seemed to have survived the explosion. He started counting them, looking at them. He found nine boots — men’s boots. Maybe the vultures had carried the tenth one away. Five men, plus the two guards. He was thinking about this when he found part of a woman’s shoe, and nearly came apart, then realized that it was a dress shoe, not a hiking boot. It was stained and stank to high heaven. Irene was not carrying dress shoes. It must have been the buried victim’s shoe.

“Frank?” the radio crackled.

“Yeah, Jack.”

“You hear a dog bark?”

“No — but I’ve been kind of distracted. You hear one?”

“I thought I did. And your dogs are acting kind of interested in something on the other side of the stream. The ranger said Irene might be with the dog, right?”

He wanted to believe that, instead of what he did believe, so he said, “Yes. Let me know if you hear it again.