“Lost?”
“Guimauve drowned.” The black fingernails danced on the black pearls. “Chantale found his little body floating in the pool. She was heartbroken.”
She fell silent a few moments, then, “It’s late, and you must be very tired.”
She stood, smoothed imaginary wrinkles from the perfect gray silk, and stepped onto the path. I joined her.
She spoke again when we’d reached the sidewalk. In the pale orange light of a street lamp I could see that her carefully decorated face had returned to its diplomat’s wife appearance.
“My husband has made a few calls. The DA will contact you to make arrangements for your analysis of the Paraiso remains.”
“I’ll be allowed access?” I was stunned.
“Yes.”
I started to thank her.
“No, Dr. Brennan. It is I who should thank you. Excuse me.”
She drew a cell phone from her purse, and spoke a few words.
We continued in silence. Music edged from open doors as we walked past bars and bistros. A bicycle clicked by. A drunk. A granny with a shopping cart. I wondered idly if she was the old woman we’d seen in the park.
As we approached the hotel, a black Mercedes glided to the curb. A dark-suited man climbed out and opened the rear door.
“I will be praying for you.”
She disappeared behind tinted glass.
At ten the next morning the Kaminaljuyu skeleton lay on stainless steel at the Morgue del Organismo Judicial in Zone 3. I stood over it, Galiano at my side. Dr. Angelina Fereira was at the end of the table, flanked by an autopsy technician.
On Fereira’s instructions, the remains had been photographed and X-rayed before our arrival. The clothing had been removed and spread on the counter at my back. The hair and body bag had been searched for trace evidence.
Cold tile, stainless steel table, shining instruments, fluorescent lights, masked and gloved investigators. All too familiar a scene.
As was the process about to commence. The poking and scraping, the measuring and weighing, the stripping of tissue, the sawing of bone. The relentless exposure would be a final indignity, an assault after death to exceed any she might have endured at the end of life.
A part of me wanted to cover her, to wheel her from these sterile strangers to the sanctity of those who had loved her. To allow her family to put what remained of her in a place of peace.
But the rational part of me knew better. This victim needed a name. Only then could her family bury her. Her bones deserved an opportunity to speak, to scream silently of the events of her last hours. Only then could the police hope to reconstruct what had befallen her.
So we gathered with our forms, our blades, our scales, our calipers, our notebooks, our specimen jars, our cameras.
Fereira agreed with my assessment of age, sex, and race. Like me, she found no fresh fractures or other indicators of violent attack. Together we measured and calculated stature. Together we removed bone for possible use in DNA profiling. It wasn’t necessary.
Ninety minutes into the autopsy Hernandez arrived with Claudia de la Alda’s dental records. One look told us who lay on the table.
Shortly after Galiano and his partner left to deliver the news to the De la Alda family, the door opened again. In came a man I recognized from the Paraiso as Dr. Hector Lucas. His face was gray in the harsh light. He greeted Fereira, then asked that she leave the room.
Surprise flashed in the eyes above her mask. Or anger. Or resentment.
“Of course, Doctor.”
She removed her gloves, tossed them into a biological waste receptacle, and left. Lucas waited until the door swung shut.
“You are to be allowed two hours with the Paraiso skeleton.”
“That’s not enough time.”
“It will have to be. Four days ago seventeen people were killed in a bus accident. Three more have died since. My staff and facilities are overwhelmed.”
While I felt sympathy for the crash victims and their families, I felt more for a pregnant young woman whose body had been flushed like last week’s refuse.
“I don’t need an autopsy room. I can work anywhere.”
“No. You may not.”
“By whose order am I limited to two hours?”
“The office of the district attorney. Senor Diaz remains of the opinion that an outsider is not needed.”
“Outsider to what?” I asked in a rush of anger.
“What are you implying?”
