Bones Read Online Free PDF Page A

complications.”
     
     
    The Belgian Malinois named Edith (“a search dog, not a cadaver dog, Lieutenant, but apparently it doesn’t always matter”) had arrived with her handler at one thirty a.m., sniffed around the dump site, then proceeded to race into the marsh. Stopping at a spot thirty feet south of the body, she dove into the outer lip of a pocket of brackish silt no more than six feet from the bank.
    Freezing in place. Barking.
    When the handler didn’t get there fast enough, howling.
    Ordered back on land, the dog just sat there. The handler asked for hip waders. Those took another half hour to arrive and the dog stayed in place for ten minutes, suddenly bolted.
    Setting in another spot, farther up the marsh, panting.
    “Like she was proud of herself,” said Moe Reed. “Guess she should be.”
     
     
    By five a.m., three additional bodies had been confirmed.
    Moe Reed said, “The others seem to be mostly bones, Lieutenant. Could be one of those Indian burial rights situations.”
    One of the crypt drivers had come over. He said, “Sure don’t smell like ancient history.”
    “Maybe it’s natural gas.”
    The driver grinned. “Or the chili someone had for dinner. Or frijoles growing in the marsh.”
    Moe Reed said, “I’ll let you know when you can go,” and led us toward the trio of anthropologists. Groin-high in brown-green soup, the women conferred earnestly around another staked white pennant that drooped in the warm, static air. If they saw us, they gave no notice. We kept going. Around the next bend were the other two flags. Like a weird golf course.
    We retraced. Two of the scientists were young, one black, one white. Both had crammed ample coiffures into disposable caps. An older woman with short-chopped gray hair noticed Reed and waved.
    “Hey, Dr. Hargrove. Any news?”
    “Normally, we’d be setting up the angles for trenching, but this is protected land and we’re not sure what the parameters are.”
    “I can try to find out.”
    “We’ve already got a call in to the volunteer office, someone should be here soon. More important, the earth gets so soft in spots — inconsistently so — that we’re afraid we’ll do more damage than good in terms of finding everything there is to find.” She smiled. “At least it’s not quicksand, I’m pretty sure.”
    The young women laughed. Small, metal tools gleamed in their hands.
    Moe Reed said, “What’s the plan, then, Dr. Hargrove?”
    “We’re going to need time to poke around. The best technique may be to eventually slide something under whatever’s in here, raise it up very gradually, and hope nothing falls off. One thing I
can
tell you, we’re not talking paleontology. There’s soft tissue present under the mandible of this one, and possibly behind the knees. The skin we’ve been able to observe appears dark, but that could be decomp.”
    “Fresh?” said Reed.
    “Not nearly as fresh as the one left out in the open, but I can’t give you a fix. Water can rot or preserve, depending on so many factors. We’re getting moderate pH for samples in the immediate area, despite all the detritus, but there could still be some kind of buffering effect due to specific vegetation that mediates the effects of acid rain, plant decay, all that good stuff. I really can’t tell you more until I get everything out of here.”
    “Soft tissue,” said Reed. “That’s pretty recent, right?”
    “Probably but not necessarily,” said Hargrove. “A few years ago they pulled a Civil War vet out of a mass grave in Pennsylvania, poor fellow just happened to end up in a low-oxygen, low-humidity pocket near a series of subterranean caves and still had skin and muscle adhering to his cheeks. Most of it was mummified, but some wasn’t. His beard looked freshly trimmed.”
    “Unbelievable,” said Reed, catching the eye of the young black anthropologist and turning away. “No way you can guesstimate for me, Doctor? Off the record?”
    “Off