Grave Secrets

The bra was a 34B, the panties size 5. No brand name was visible on either.

“Weird how the jeans are falling apart but everything else is almost perfect.” Galiano.

“Natural fibers. Here today, gone tomorrow.”

He waited for me to go on.

“The jeans were probably sewn with cotton thread. But the lady had a definite fondness for synthetics.”

“Princess Polyester.”

“They may not make the best-dressed lists, but polyesters and acrylics are decomp friendly.”

“Longer lasting through chemistry.”

Sludge oozed onto the plastic as I unrolled the right jeans leg. Aside from dead roaches, I spotted nothing.

I unrolled the left.

“Luma Lite?” I asked.

What had been grudgingly lent was an alternate light source that caused fingerprints, hairs, fibers, semen, and drug stains to fluoresce brightly.

Galiano dug a black box and two sets of tinted goggles from the case Hernández had brought. While he found an outlet and turned off the overheads, I slipped on the plastic glasses. Then I flipped the switch and moved the Luma Lite over the clothing. The beam picked up nothing until I came to the unrolled hem of the left pant leg. Filaments flared like sparklers on the Fourth of July.

“What the hell is that?” I could feel Galiano’s breath on my arm.

I held the beam on the cuff, and stepped back.

“¡Puchica!” Wow!

He squinted at the jeans a full minute, then straightened.

“Hair?”

“Possibly.”

“Human or animal?”

“That’s one for your trace guys. But I’d start asking about family pets.”

“Son of a bitch.”

I dug a handful of plastic vials from my pack, labeled one, tweezed up the filaments, and sealed them inside. Then I rescanned every inch of clothing. No more fireworks.

“Lights?”

Galiano removed his goggles and hit the switch.

After marking the remaining vials with date, time, and location, I scraped muck into each, capped, taped, and initialed. Right sock, exterior. Right sock, interior. Left sock. Right pants cuff. Left pants cuff. Right shoe, interior. Right shoe, sole. Ten minutes later I was ready for the blouse.

“Overheads, please?”

Galiano killed the lights.

The buttons were standard-issue plastic. One by one, I hit them with the Luma Lite. No prints.

“O.K.”

The room lit up as I slipped each button through its hole, peeled back the fabric, and exposed the blouse’s interior.

The object was so small it almost escaped my notice, tangled in the recess of the right underarm seam.

I grabbed my magnifier.

Oh, no.

I took a deep breath, steadied my hands, and eased the sleeve inside out.

Another lay five inches down the sleeve.

I found another, an inch below the first.

“Sonovabitch.”

“What?” Galiano was staring at me.

I went straight to the scene photos, dumped envelopes until I found the right set. Racing through the stack I pulled out the pelvic close-up and magnified the mysterious specks.

Dear God.

Barely breathing, I examined every inch of pelvic bone, then worked my way through the other shots. I spotted seven in all.

Anger rushed through my body. And sorrow. And every emotion I’d felt in the grave at Chupan Ya.

“I don’t know who she is,” I said. “But I may know why she died.”

7

“I’M LISTENING,” GALIANO SAID.

“She was pregnant.”

“Pregnant?”

I held out the first pelvic photo.

“That speck is a fragment of fetal skull.”

I shifted prints.

“So is that. And there are fetal bones in the blouse.”

“Show me.”

Returning to the table, I indicated three fingernail-sized fragments.

“¡Hijo de la puta!” Sonovabitch.

I was startled by his vehemence, and didn’t respond.

“How pregnant?”

“I’m not sure. I’d like to scope these, then check a reference.”

“Sonovafuckingbitch.”

“Yeah.”

Through the closed door I heard male voices, then laughter. The squad room banter seemed a callous intrusion.

“So who the hell is she?” Galiano’s voice sounded a step lower than normal.

“A teenager with a terrifying secret.”

“And Daddy wasn’t looking to be a family man.”

“Maybe Daddy already was one.”

“Or the pregnancy could be coincidence.”

“Could be. If this is a serial killer, his victims could be random.”

The voices in the corridor receded, fell silent.

“Time for another visit with the innkeeper and his wife.” Galiano.

“It wouldn’t hurt to check out women’s clinics and family planning centers in the neighborhood. She might have sought an abortion.”

“This is Guatemala.”

“Prenatal care.”

“Right.”

“Better get pictures before I collect these.” I waved at the blouse.

Xicay arrived in minutes. I handed him my ABFO ruler and pointed out the bones. As Xicay filmed, Galiano shifted gears.

“What about size?”

“Size?”

“How big was she?”

“The clothing suggests average to petite. Muscle attachments are slight. What we call gracile.”

I flipped through the photos until I came to the leg bones.

“I could estimate stature with the femur using the ruler for scale. But it would only be a ballpark guess. Do you know heights for the four MPs?”

“Should be in their files. If not, I’ll find out.”

“Got it,” Xicay said.