Free Deadly Decisions by Kathy Reichs Page A

my right the creek purled softly as it coursed over rocks abandoned by glaciers long ago.
    A drop of sweat broke from my hairline and slithered the length of my neck. I pulled my sweatshirt over my head and tossed it on the pine needles bordering our pit. I was uncertain whether my glands had kicked in due to spring warmth or due to the stress I was feeling.
    It was always like this at exhumations. The curiosity. The anticipation. The fear of failure. What lies below the next layer? What if it’s nothing? What if it’s something but I can’t get it out undamaged?
    I had a desire to grab a spade and tunnel straight down. But strip-mining was not the answer. Tiresome as the process was, I knew proper technique was crucial. Maximum recovery of bones, artifacts, and contextual detail would be important in a case like this, so I plodded on, loosening dirt, then transferring it to buckets for screening. On the edge of my vision I could see the SIJ tech making the same motions, Claudel silent above him. At some point he had removed his jacket.
    We saw the white flecks at the same time. Claudel was about to speak when I said, “Hell-o.”
    He looked at me with raised brows, and I nodded.
    “Looks like lime. That usually means there’s somebody home.”
    The flecks gave way to a layer of sticky white ooze, then we found the first skull. It lay faceup, as if the dirt-filled orbits had twisted for one last look at the sky. The photographer shouted the news and the others dropped what they were doing and gathered around our pit.
    As the sun moved slowly toward the horizon two skeletons emerged. They lay on their sides, one in a fetal position, the other with arms and legs bent sharply backward. The skulls and the leg and pelvic bones were devoid of flesh and stained the same tea brown as the surrounding soil.
    The foot and ankle bones were encased in rotting socks, the torsos covered with shreds of putrefied cloth. The fabric enveloped each arm, clinging to the bones like some scarecrow parody of ahuman limb. Wire circled the wrists, and I could see zippers and large metal belt buckles nestled among the vertebrae.
    By five-thirty my team had fully exposed the remains. Besides the boots, the plastic sheet held a collection of corroded cartridges and isolated teeth recovered during screening. The photographers were shooting stills and videos when Frog talked his guard into another visit.
    “Allô. Bonjour,” he said, tipping the brim of an invisible hat to the skeletons in the pit. Then he turned to me. “Or maybe I should say bone jour, for you, lady.”
    I ignored the bilingual pun.
    “Holy shit. Why shirts and socks and nothing else?”
    I wasn’t in the mood for a lecture.
    “That’s right,” he sniggered, staring into the pit. “They made them go shoeless and carry their shoes. But where the fuck are their pants?”
    “Ashes to ashes, remember?” I said curtly.
    “Shit to shit is more like it.” His voice was tense with excitement, as though the scrambler had been ratcheted up.
    I found his callousness irritating. Death hurts. It’s as simple as that. It hurts those who die, it hurts those who love them, and it hurts those who find them.
    “Actually, you’ve got it backward,” I spat. “It’s the shit that survives longest. Natural fibers, like cotton Levi’s, decompose much sooner than synthetics. Your buddies were into polyester.”
    “Fuck, do they look gross. Anything else in there with them?” he asked, peering into the grave. His eyes glinted, like those of a rat sitting on a carcass.
    “Bad decision about that party, eh?” he snorted.
    Yes, I thought. A deadly decision.
    I began cleaning the blade of my trowel, using activity to calm myself. Two bodies lay dead at our feet and this little rodent was getting high on it.
    I turned to check if the photographers had finished and saw Quickwater walking in my direction.
    Great. Make my day, I thought, hoping he was looking for someone else. He wasn’t. I