“There’s no place closer that they can park?”
“They’d have to haul the stretcher down a long trail and through some thick underbrush. This is easier. Trust me.”
“Give me a second to get them that info.”
The woman moved, arms and legs spasming again and again. A splash of red at the base of her throat was visible even through smears of dirt.
Faye tried to clear the dirt from the open wound, but the effort was futile. She gave up and put both hands on it, pressing gently but firmly in hopes of stopping the bleeding. If it helped, she couldn’t tell. It was possible that the pressure of the earth had stanched the bleeding and saved this woman’s life. For now. She couldn’t wait long for help to come. Later, it would be time to worry about sanitation and infection.
“Okay, I’ve got paramedics on their way to you. What can you tell me about the patient’s condition?”
“She’s injured, but I can’t tell how it happened. Maybe she was shot. Maybe she was knifed. I don’t know, but she’s bleeding from her upper chest. A lot. I’m guessing the person who buried her thought she was dead. Or didn’t care.”
“Any idea how long she was there?”
“No. I mean, I was in this very spot a couple of days ago and she couldn’t have been there then. There was no sign of digging.” She stopped, shaking her head to clear it. “What am I blathering about? This blood is fresh. We’re not talking about days. We’re not even talking about hours. She had to have been here when I got here this morning, because I would have heard digging. And I—” She stopped short and glanced around her.
“Ma’am? Are you okay?”
“I’m sorry. I was thinking. I’ll stand by what I just said. I would have heard somebody digging a hole big enough to dump a body in, and I didn’t. But I did hear footsteps. Maybe I got here just in time to hear the person who did this leave.”
“How’s the patient now?”
“Still breathing, but not well. Ragged.” Faye reached for her wrist. “Pulse is okay, I think. It’s really fast, but it’s there.”
“Do you know CPR? Just in case.”
“I do.”
Faye couldn’t stop thinking about the footsteps. Had she heard this woman’s attacker? Or had she heard Kali?
Praying that the little girl hadn’t seen any of this, she looked toward Kali’s hiding place, but couldn’t see through the leafy undergrowth. She would have loved to hurry over there and look, but the person in front of her was struggling more for every breath. Faye was right where she needed to be.
How had this woman lived more than a few minutes underground? An air pocket was the only explanation. There must have been an air pocket near her nose or mouth, with the overlying soil being just porous enough to keep her alive.
Or to ensure that she died slowly, depending on how you looked at it.
Faye stomped on those thoughts, refusing to imagine what it must have been like for the woman to see the hole waiting, to feel the impact as she was thrown into it, to lie in the iron-cold grave and watch the soil fall on her own body.
Did she fight back? Maybe. Her hands were free. More likely, she’d been unconscious or too injured to move when she was dumped here. It would have been impossible to cover a struggling body so completely.
“Ma’am?” the 911 operator said, and from his tone, Faye realized that he was repeating himself. “Are you still okay? How’s the patient?”
“I’m fine. She’s about the same. I’m going to dig some more of the dirt away from her torso. Maybe it will help her breathe.”
“That sounds like a good idea. But only enough to get her stable, until the police arrive. Evidence.”
Yes. Evidence. Wouldn’t want to mess that up, but I cannot sit here without trying to make this poor woman more comfortable.
Faye began gently pulling soil away from the woman’s chest, careful not to disturb the wound that was spilling more blood by the second. As she worked, she scanned the shallow grave and the area around it, hoping that the butcher who did this had left clues behind. She saw nothing.
She rocked back on her heels to survey her work. There was no more dirt on the woman’s chest or abdomen to restrict her breathing. She was still buried from her pubic bone down, but Faye couldn’t justify disturbing the crime scene any further.
Faye was no doctor, but she’d had extensive first aid training to prepare her for leading field teams on projects that were often remote and in dangerous terrain. One of the first things every first aid instructor said was always, “Look at your patient.”
So Faye looked. She saw dark skin, ashen with shock. She saw eyes rolled back under eyelids, their sclera red, raw, and caked with dirt. The woman’s lips, too, were covered with dirt and the inside of her mouth was still caked with it, impairing her breathing.
Faye kept a rag in her pocket when she worked. An archaeologist never knew when she might need to wipe dirt off something, but this was the first time she’d ever used it to clean soil out of a human mouth.
The mouth moved. Air and a sound passed out, and Faye half-believed that the sound was “Thank you.” The rational half of her believed that this person was too far from consciousness to frame even that reflexive phrase. That rational half also heard the disturbing rattle in the woman’s breathing and hoped the paramedics got there before she had to decide what to do about
