Deja Dead Page 0,71

the Pathfinder. Within a few yards I spotted the can of insect repellent. No subtlety there. The bright orange cap shone like a beacon in the foliage.

And there was my camouflaged mound. Below a white oak the ground swelled into a small protuberance covered by leaves and bordered by bare earth. In the exposed soil I could see the marks left by my fingers as I’d scratched up leaves and dirt to conceal the plastic. The results of my hurried camouflage job may have revealed more than concealed, but it seemed the thing to do at the time.

I’ve done many body recoveries. Most hidden corpses are found because of a tip or a lucky break. Informants rat out their accomplices. Excited kids point out their finds. It smelled awful so we started poking around, and there it was! It felt odd to be one of the kids.

“There.” I indicated the leafy hump.

“You sure?” Ryan asked.

I just looked at him. The others said nothing. I set down my backpack and withdrew another pair of garden gloves. Crossing to the mound, I placed my feet carefully to minimize the disturbance. Absurd, in light of my thrashing about the night before, but at an official scene proper technique is expected.

I squatted down and brushed back enough leaves to expose a small portion of the plastic bag. The bulk of it was still embedded in the earth, and the irregular contour suggested that the contents were secure within. It looked undisturbed. When I turned, Poirier was crossing himself.

Ryan spoke to Cambronne. “Let’s get some shots for the travel brochure.”

I rejoined the others and waited silently as Cambronne followed his ritual. He unpacked his equipment, filled out a marker board, and photographed the mound and the bag from several distances and directions. Finally, he lowered his camera and stepped back.

Ryan turned to LaManche. “Doc?”

LaManche said his first word since I’d arrived. “Temperance?”

Taking a trowel from the backpack, I crossed back to the mound. I swept away the remaining leaves, carefully uncovering as much of the bag as possible. It looked as I remembered it. I could even see the small perforation I’d made with my thumbnail.

Using the trowel, I scraped soil upward and outward around the periphery, slowly exposing more and more of the bag. The dirt smelled ancient and musty, as if bound in its molecules it held a minute part of everything it had nurtured since the glaciers released it from their icy grip.

I heard voices drifting from the law enforcement carnival on the street, but where I worked, the only sounds came from the birds, insects, and the steady scraping of my trowel. Branches lifted and fell in the breeze, a gentler version of the dance they’d done the night before. The night theater had been Masai warriors leaping and lunging in mock battle. The morning show was the “Anniversary Waltz.” Shadows moved across the bag, and across the faces of the solemn group witnessing its emergence. I watched the shapes move on the plastic, like puppets in a shadow play.

Within fifteen minutes the mound had become a pit, with more than half the bag visible. I suspected the contents had rearranged themselves as decomposition progressed and bones were freed of their anatomical responsibilities. If there were bones.

Thinking I’d removed enough soil to free the bundle, I put down my trowel, took hold of the twisted plastic, and slowly pulled. It wouldn’t budge. Last night all over again. Was someone underground, holding the other end of the bag, challenging me to a macabre game of tug-of-war?

Cambronne had photographed as I dug, and was now behind me, positioned to fix on Kodachrome the moment of the bag’s release. The phrase popped into my mind: Capture the moments of our lives. And deaths, I thought.

I brushed my gloves along the sides of my jeans, grabbed the sack as far down as I could, and gave a short, sharp yank. Movement. The pit wouldn’t yield its cache with ease, but I’d weakened its grip. I felt the bag shift and the contents relocate slightly. I took a breath and pulled again, harder. I wanted to dislodge the bag, but not rip it. It gave way and then resettled.

Bracing my feet, I gave one more tug, and my underground opponent gave up the contest. The sack started to slide free. I rewrapped my fingers around the twisted plastic, and, inching backward, step by step, teased the bag out of the pit.

When I’d pulled it free of