He pointed to an old man standing outside the tape at the top of the hill.
“Gramps lives one block over. Says he remembers a car prowling around back here last summer. Noticed because this is a dead end street and there’s usually not much traffic. Says the driver returned two or three times, always at night, always alone. The old guy figured it might be a pervert looking for a place to jack off, so he kept his distance.”
“Does he sound reliable?”
Hernandez shrugged. “Probably a weenie whacker himself. Why else would he think that? Anyway, he remembers the car was old. Maybe a Toyota or Honda. He’s not sure. Took this in from his front porch, so he didn’t really get a good look, didn’t get a plate.”
“Find any personal effects?”
Hernandez shook his head. “It’s just like the kid in the septic tank. Clothing on the vic, but nothing else. The perp probably offloaded the body from the road, so he might have heaved something into the
Galiano’s eyes probed the small crowd on the bank above.
“Nothing, and I mean nothing to the media until I talk to the family.”
He turned to me.
“What do you want to do here?”
What I
“I’m going to need a body bag and several hours.”
“Take your time.”
“But not too much,” I said, self-recrimination sharpening my words.
“Take as long as you need.”
I sensed from his tone that Diaz wouldn’t be bothering me this time.
Taking surgical gloves from my pack, I walked to the end of the plateau, dropped to hands and knees, and began crawling the length of the ditch, sifting leaves and dirt through my fingers. As at the Paraiso, Xicay trailed me with his Nikon.
The skull lay six feet from the neck of the corpse, nudged or tugged by scavengers until they’d lost interest. Beside the skull, a mass of hair. Two feet beyond the hair, scattered phalanges led to a concentration of hand bones.
When Xicay had taken pictures and I’d recorded exact locations, I returned the displaced parts to the main body site, finished my survey of the ditch, and walked the plateau in a grid pattern. Then I walked it again, my second grid perpendicular to the first.
Nothing.
Returning to the skeleton, I dug out a flashlight and ran the beam over it. Hernandez was right. After ten months, I doubted I’d find trace evidence, but hoped the plastic might have provided some protection until torn by animals.
I spotted zip.
Though trace recovery seemed hopeless, I was careful to work directly over the sheeting. If there were fragments, hairs, or fibers, we’d find them at the lab.
Laying the flashlight aside, I eased the skeleton onto its back. The odor intensified. Beetles and millipedes skittered in every direction. Xicay’s shutter clicked above me.
In a climate like that of the Guatemala highlands, a body can be skeletonized in months or even weeks, depending upon access by insects and scavengers. If the cadaver is tightly wrapped, decomposition can be slowed significantly. Muscle and connective tissue may even mummify. Such was the case here. The bones held together reasonably well.
I studied the shriveled corpse, remembering the photos of eighteen-year-old Claudia de la Alda. My back teeth ground together.
Not this time, Diaz. Not this time.
Constantly shifting to find more comfortable work positions, I began at what had been the body’s head and inched toward the feet, my whole being focused on my task. Time passed. Others came and went. My back and knees ached. My eyes and skin itched from pollen, dust, and flying insects.
Somewhere along the way I noticed that Galiano was gone. Xicay and Colom expanded their search down into the gorge. I worked on alone, now and then hearing muffled conversation, birdsong, a shouted question from above.
Two hours later the remains, plastic sheeting, hair, and clothing lay in a body bag. The crucifix was sealed into a Ziploc baggie. My inventory form told me I was missing only five phalanges and two teeth.
This time I hadn’t merely identified bones and distinguished left from right. I’d taken a long, hard look at every skeletal element.
The remains were those of a female in her late teens or early twenties. Cranio-facial features suggested she was of Mongoloid ancestry. She had a well-healed fracture of the right radius, and restorations in four of her molars.
What I couldn’t tell was what had happened to her. My preliminary exam revealed no gunshot wounds, no fresh fractures, no blunt or sharp instrument trauma.
“De la Alda?” Galiano had returned.
“Fits the profile.”
