By the end of the day all the bodies had been autopsied, and all but eight were identified. Of those remaining eight, the forensics team felt they would be able to ID most of them when everyone had been reported missing. It was, after all, still soon after the tragedy and it might be a week or more before some people were confirmed missing and forensic evidence could be collected for comparison.
Diane had yet to determine how many individuals the disarticulated bones represented. Those would be the hardest to identify. Now that the recovered bodies had been processed, she was going to take the remaining bones back to her lab, which was a more efficient operation than this tent city and had much less distraction.
Toward the end of the day when one of the last bodies was being wheeled in by Pilgrim’s diener, a reporter managed to get inside the tent by waiting until one of the rear entrances was unguarded. He crept in with his camera before anyone noticed him but froze when he saw a charred body in the characteristic pugilistic pose roll past him on a gurney. When the stronger flexor muscles shrink and contract from the fire, the arms and hands strike the pose of a boxer. It is a disturbing sight. The burned flesh is bad enough, but the posed appearance of the cadaver looks all the more horrifying. The reporter stared transfixed with his camera in his hand until one of the policemen led him away.
Diane guessed him to be new to this type of story-apparently he’d never seen firsthand a fiery accident or the aftermath of a house fire. She felt sorry for him. These were images no one wants in their head.
“I guess he’ll never do that again,” said Rankin, the ME the body was headed for.
“But his description of what we’re doing in here is going to be worse,” said Lynn.
“How could he possibly describe anything worse than this has been,” said Brewster Pilgrim.
“You have me there,” said Lynn. She took off her lab coat and gloves. “I’m going to sit down by Archie here and do some paperwork, go home, and soak in a hot bath for several days,” she announced. “Or until we get some more dental charts and x-rays to look at.”
“You know what we haven’t seen?” said Rankin.
“What’s that?” asked Pilgrim.
“Meth mouth. Even if most of the students at the party didn’t know what was going on in the basement, which I think may be true, and were not methamphetamine users, what about the cooks in the basement or some of the residents? Or surely there were some buyers at the party. I haven’t seen anybody with the diseased mouth of a serious crystal meth addict.”
“Neither did I,” agreed Pilgrim.
Lynn looked up from her paperwork. “What are you saying that means, exactly?” she asked.
Rankin shrugged his thin shoulders. “I guess maybe if this was just someone cooking for themselves and a few addicted friends, I’d expect to find some of those friends at the party. All I’ve seen is some pretty good dentition. The worst teeth I’ve seen are in our hundred-year-old fellow. If it was a large-scale operation and the meth was going to a distributor, then there might not be many addicts at the party. That’s all. I’m just thinking out loud.”
“It’s a good thought,” said Diane. “The teeth I’ve seen have only been damaged by fire-no signs of methamphetamine use.”
“It’s an idea,” said Pilgrim. “I’m not sure I like the implications. It speaks of a much greater problem.”
“It’s a big problem any way you look at it,” said Archie. “We’re just over an hour from Atlanta. What makes anybody think that Rosewood’s immune to drugs? Let me tell you, we’re just like every other place in the country. I wish we weren’t.”
Diane didn’t like that thought. But he was probably right. Right now, however, her problem was identifying bodies, not finding evildoers. She happily left that to Garnett and others. She took off her lab coat and checked out for the evening, leaving orders for all the bones to be delivered to the crime lab.
It had stopped sleeting several hours earlier and was now hard cold. Diane hurried her pace toward the crime scene to check on David, Jin, and Neva. They must be exhausted, sifting though that huge mess of charred detritus.
They were packing up the crime scene van, about ready to leave the site to the night watchmen.
“How’s it going?” she asked.
“It’s going as well as can be expected,” said Neva. Her face was rosy from the cold. She took a Kleenex out of her pocket and blew her nose. “McNair’s men took most of the evidence away in a truck. Not much we can do. David’s doing a slow burn-pardon the pun.”
David’s features were frozen in a frown. “We were outnumbered and Neva and I were at the coffee tent when they did it. Jin didn’t know about the issue, or he would have called you. They didn’t get the smaller stuff; it was locked in our van.”
Diane could relate to the slow burn David must be doing. Her cheeks were aflame. “I’ll talk to McNair and Garnett,” said Diane. “And whoever else…”
She was interrupted by three vehicles pulling up behind their crime scene van. Doors opened and people started piling out. Diane couldn’t see them clearly for the glare of the headlights in her eyes, but their aggressive movement toward her gave her the distinct feeling she was about to be arrested.
Chapter 14
Diane blinked her eyes when the headlights finally switched off.
“Diane.” One of the individuals was Chief Garnett.
She felt a silly sense of relief. “Chief,” she said as he came into the circle of light cast by the streetlamps.
She could see by the set of his jaw that whatever it was, it wasn’t good. That feeling was reinforced by the presence of the police commissioner and McNair with him, along with two men she didn’t know who seemed to be with McNair.
The police commissioner was a small man who looked as if he would be more at home doing anything but police work. He wore rimless glasses and earmuffs. Part of a gray lapel matching his gray pants peeked out from the front of his black fur-trimmed topcoat. He was shivering. Diane didn’t wonder that he was cold; he wore no hat and he had only a thin layer of hair.
McNair wore his usual smirk, but it had more of a look of triumph to it now.
“We’ve reached a compromise,” said the commissioner.
“I’m taking the evidence you’ve collected,” McNair said.
The commissioner cast him a scowl, but McNair didn’t notice because he was looking at Diane. It was obviously a done deal. Diane was afraid that what they were going to do was compromise the evidence.
If McNair was expecting a howl of protest, he was disappointed. Diane said nothing. She decided to treat them pretty much the way she had treated the Stantons at the hospital-let them confess.
“What he means,” said Garnett, “is that the arson investigation unit will handle all nonhuman evidence and your unit will handle all the bones and nontissue human remains. The medical examiners will handle any tissue samples.”
“That sounds logical,” said the commissioner. He made it sound as though he was asking Diane a question.
She felt like saying it might be logical if anyone but McNair were handling the evidence.
“I’ll take the evidence now,” said McNair.
“If I’m not mistaken, you have already taken most of it,” said Diane.
“Now, I’m taking the rest of it.” McNair nodded to the two strangers and they started for the van.
David stepped in front of the door, blocking their access.
“Commissioner,” said Diane, “perhaps Mr. McNair needs to be reminded that we are all required by law to follow strict protocol for the transfer of custody of evidence. Each item must be individually logged out of our inventory and signed for before it leaves the custody of the crime scene forensics unit.”
