Free Bones by Jan Burke

continue to stimulate your olfactory cells--which will keep you smelling decomp throughout the day. It may also result in your brain connecting the good smell to the bad."
    "You mean that every time I use anything with a menthol or camphor or eucalyptus odor--"
    "Yes. Your brain might add decomp to the mix."
    I looked over at David. He had used the smell compound, why shouldn't I?
    "Of course," Ben said, "I don't expect you to be able to handle this situation at all, so do whatever you need to do."
    That settled it, of course. David obviously thought I was a fool, but didn't say so--he just checked in with me every so often to see how I was bearing up. He offered the smell compound to the others; Ben and I were the only ones who didn't take him up on it. As he was passing it around, he pointedly skipped Parrish. Parrish just grinned and drew a deep breath.
    "Move him back to the camp," Thompson ordered the guards.
    The excavation went on, now even more slowly, as the sides of the grave were carefully uncovered. Ben focused on defining the grave's edges with painstaking care; David gently scraped away at the inside layers; Andy sifted for objects that might have been missed, bagged certain portions of the removed soil, labeled it, and made notes as needed.
    From time to time the odor from the grave would suddenly seem worse. Ben would look over at me, smirking. I smiled back, taking satisfaction in knowing that whenever he looked over at me like that, he must have just gotten a beak full of it, too.
    Flash continued to videotape the process, and to take still photographs at Ben's or David's request. Ben and David had a second camera, and took some photos on their own.
    "Why are you photographing the edges of the grave?" I asked Ben.
    He hesitated, then said, "Possible tool marks."
    "From the shovel that was used to dig the grave?"
    "Perhaps."
    "If you know who did this, why do you need to gather evidence?" I asked.
    "We don't necessarily know who made this grave," he said. "We have to treat this site as we would any other. Objectively."
    "But Parrish has confessed--"
    "Confessions can be recanted. Convictions are appealed. Deals fall apart, Ms. Kelly. We never know what we may need to prove, what evidence may become important. So we work carefully." He paused, then added, "The rules of evidence are much stricter in courtrooms than in newsrooms."
    I turned away to keep him from seeing me grit my teeth.
    After the first few layers of earth had been removed, a layer of large rocks appeared, scattered over the pit. When Thompson asked about them, Ben, not stopping his work, said, "My guess is that they were supposed to discourage carnivores from raiding the grave."
    "Coyotes?" Thompson asked.
    Sheridan looked up. "Yes, we know he's thought about coyotes."
    Once the rocks were removed, the slow, scraping process began again. David was working on the portion near the center of the grave when he suddenly said, "Hold up."
    Ben and Andy stopped what they were doing and began to focus on the area where David had been scraping soil away. They stepped back a little, and called Flash in to take a few photographs. After a moment, they called Thompson over.
    I stood up and moved a little closer.
    The object of all this scrutiny was a tuft of dark green plastic. Soon we would all come to realize what the forensic anthropologists already suspected.
    This was a shroud.
    ** CHAPTER 9

WEDNESDAY MORNING, MAY 17
    Las Piernas
    Frank Harriman hung up the phone and turned to his wife's cousin. "The lawyer's back--he's in the hospital." He drew a deep breath, let it out slowly. "Courtesy of his client."
    "What happened?" Travis asked.
    "Parrish stomped on Newly's foot. Caused multiple fractures. They had a tough time getting him back out--fainted a couple of times from the pain."
    "She'll be all right," Travis said, knowing where Frank's concern lay, repeating a refrain that might have been wearying had Frank not needed to hear it.
    "All the guards