I was inventorying a rib when Díaz reappeared, followed by a man in a beige suit. He had greasy blond hair, a bad complexion, and weighed less than I did.
Díaz and his companion scanned the yard, conferred, then crossed to Galiano.
The new arrival spoke.
“I am here on behalf of the district attorney.” The guy was knobby-joint skinny and looked like a kid in adult clothing.
“And you are?” Galiano removed and folded his shades.
“Dr. Hector Lucas. I am taking possession of the remains found at this site.”
“Like hell you are,” Galiano replied.
Lucas looked at his watch, then at Díaz.
Díaz produced a paper from a zipper case.
“This warrant says he is,” said Díaz. “Pack everything for transport to the central morgue.”
Not a synapse fired in any muscle in Galiano’s body.
Díaz raised the warrant to eye level. Galiano ignored it.
Díaz pressed tinted glasses to nose. Everyone else remained frozen in place. Behind me I heard movement, then the pump cut off.
“Now, Detective.” Díaz’s voice sounded loud in the sudden stillness.
A second went by. Ten. A full minute.
Galiano was still staring when his cell phone shrilled. He clicked on after four rings, never taking his eyes from Díaz.
“Galiano.”
He listened, jaw clenched, then said one thing.
“¡Eso es una mierda!”
Bullshit.
Galiano shoved the phone into his pocket and turned to Díaz.
“Be careful, señor. Be very careful,” he hissed with a low, steady venting of air from his diaphragm.
“¡No me jodas!”
Don’t fuck around with me.
With a jerk of his hand, Galiano gestured me from the body bag. I pushed to my feet and started to step back, reversed myself, knelt next to the skeleton, and peered intently at the skull. Díaz took half a step and started to speak, then bit off whatever he had intended to say and waited until I arose again.
Lucas approached and glanced at the array in the body bag. Satisfied, he pulled gloves from his pocket, tucked the sheet inside, and ran the zipper. Then he stood, a look of uncertainty on his face.
Díaz strode from the yard, returned with two men in gray coveralls, “Morgue del Organismo Judicial” stenciled on their backs. Between them they carried a gurney, legs collapsed beneath.
Under Lucas’s direction, the morgue attendants lifted the pouch by its corners, placed it on the gurney, and disappeared in the direction from which they’d come.
Díaz tried once more to deliver the warrant. Galiano’s arms remained crossed on his chest.
Díaz circled to me, eyes fastidiously avoiding the tank. Sighing, he offered the document.
As I reached to accept the paper, my eyes met Galiano’s. His lower lids crimped, and his chin raised almost imperceptibly. I understood.
Without another word, Díaz and Lucas hurried from the yard.
Galiano looked at his partner. Hernández was already gathering the bagged clothing.
“How much is left in there?” Galiano tipped his head at the tanker truck.
The operator shrugged, waggled a hand. “Ten, maybe twenty gallons.”
“Finish it.”
Nothing else showed up in the screen. I was squeezing the last of the muck through my fingers when Galiano joined me.
“Bad day for the good guys.”
“Isn’t the DA supposed to be a good guy?”
“Stupid little rodent didn’t even think of clothing.”
I felt too ill to reply.
“Does it fit the profile?”
I raised my eyebrows.
“The skeleton. Does it fit the description of one of our missing girls?”
I hesitated, furious with myself for not thoroughly examining the bones, furious with Galiano for allowing them to be taken.
“Yes and no.”
“You’ll know when you’ve examined it.”
“Will I be doing that?”
“I
will
come out the winner,” he said, gazing at the empty tank.
I wondered who the loser would be.
THAT NIGHT I BATHED IN TAHITIAN VANILLA BUBBLES FOR ALMOST
As I ate, the curtains breathed in and out the window on a halfhearted breeze. The metal pull chain clicked against the frame. Three floors below, traffic honked and rumbled. Overhead, a ceiling fan whirred. On the screen inside my skull, the day’s events shifted in and out of focus like a bad home movie.
After clearing wrappers, one paper plate, one plastic fork, and the empty soda can, I phoned Mateo. He told me that Molly remained comatose.
His words tipped a delicate balance. I was no longer merely exhausted. Suddenly I just wanted to lie on the bed, bury my face in the pillow, and cry. I felt overwhelmed by sorrow and worry for my friend.
Instead, I shifted topics.
Mateo was outraged when I told him about Díaz, and insisted I continue with the case. I agreed but promised to be at his lab on Saturday.
I spent the next twenty minutes jotting on paper a detailed chronology of what had happened at the Paraíso. Then I washed panties in the bathroom sink.
Teeth. Hand cream. Oil of Olay. Sit-ups.
I turned on CNN. A grim-faced commentator moved through soccer, an earthquake, the world market. Locally, a bus had crashed into a ravine, killing seventeen and hospitalizing a score of others.
It was no go. My mind looped from a septic tank, to an intensive care unit, to a well, and back again.
I pictured the skull, slick with human waste. Why hadn’t I done a more thorough exam? Why did I permit people to intimidate me and prevent me from doing what I knew should be done?
I pictured Molly, tubes running from nose, mouth, and arm.
My emotional equilibrium finally collapsed as I was plugging my cell phone into its charger.
In Charlotte, Birdie would be sound asleep. In Charlottesville, Katy would be studying for finals. Or partying with friends. Or washing her hair.
My chest gave a tiny heave.
My daughter was a continent away, and I had no idea what she was doing.
Stop sniveling. You’ve been alone before.
Killing the lights and TV, I slipped between the sheets.
My mind circled the same holding pattern.
In Montreal, it would be close to midnight. Ryan would be…
What?
I had no idea what Ryan would be doing.
Lieutenant-détective Andrew Ryan, Section des Crimes Contre la Personne, Sûreté du Québec. Tall, craggy, with all the crags in the right places. Eyes bluer than a Bahamian lagoon.
My stomach did that weird little flip.
No nausea there.
Ryan worked homicide for the provincial police, and for a decade our paths had crossed and recrossed as we investigated cases of unnatural death. Always distant, always professional. Then, two years ago, my marriage imploded, and Ryan turned his legendary charm my way.
To say our history since had been rocky would be like saying Atlantis had a water problem.
Suddenly single after a twenty-year hitch, I’d had little knowledge of the dating game, and only one maxim: no office romance. Ryan ignored it.
Though tempted, I kept him at arm’s length, partly because we worked together, partly because of his reputation. I knew of Ryan’s past as a wild-child turned cop, and of his present as the squad room stallion. Both personae were more than I wanted to take on.
But Détective Lothario never eased up, and a year back I’d agreed to a Chinese dinner. Before our first social outing, Ryan vanished undercover, not to resurface for many months.
Last fall, following an epiphany concerning my estranged husband, I’d decided to consider Ryan again. Though still cautious, I was finding Ryan thoughtful, funny, and one of the most annoying men I’d ever encountered.
And one of the sexiest.
Flip.
Though that runner was still in the blocks, the gun was loaded and ready to fire.
I glanced at my phone. I could be talking to Ryan in seconds.
Something in my brain said “bad idea.”
Why?
You’d look like a wimp, the something answered.
I’d look like I care.
You’d look like a grade-B heroine mooning for a shoulder to cry on.
I’d look like I miss him.
Suit yourself.
“What the hell,” I said aloud.
Throwing back the quilt, I grabbed the phone and hit autodial 5. The miracle of modern communication.
A hundred miles north of the forty-ninth parallel, a phone rang.
And rang.
And rang.
I was about to disconnect when a machine answered. Ryan’s voice invited a message in French then English.
Satisfied? The cerebral something smirked.
My thumb moved toward the “end” button, hesitated.
What the hell.
“Hi. It’s Temp—”
“Bonsoir, Madame la Docteure,”
Ryan’s voice cut in.
“Did I wake you?”
“I screen all calls.”
“Oh?”
“Cruise and Kidman split. It’s just a matter of time until Nicole starts ringing.”
“You wish, Ryan.”
“How’s it going on the mudflats?”
“We were in the highlands.”
“Were?”
“We’ve finished digging. Everything’s at the lab in Guatemala City.”
“How many?”
“Twenty-three. Looks like mostly women and kids.”
“Rough.”
“It gets rougher.”
“I’m listening.”
I told him about Carlos and Molly.
“Jesus, Brennan. Watch your butt down there.”
“It gets rougher still.”
“Go on.” I heard the sound of a match, then exhaled air.
“The local gendarmerie think they have a serial operating in Guatemala City. They requested my help with a recovery.”
“There’s no local talent?”
“The remains were in a septic tank.”
“La spécialité du chef.”
“I’ve done one or two.”
“How did that pearl float to Central America?”
“I am
not
unknown on the world stage, Ryan.”
“Curriculum vitae posted on the Web?”
Could I tell him about the ambassador’s missing daughter? No. I’d promised Galiano full confidentiality.
“A detective saw one of my
JFS
articles. This may come as a surprise to you, but some cops do read publications unadorned by pictures that fold in the middle.”
A long exhalation. I pictured smoke blasting from his nostrils like steam from a fun-house dragon.
“Besides, there’s the possibility of a Canadian connection.”
As usual, I felt I was justifying my actions to Ryan. As usual it was making me churlish.
“And?”
“And today we recovered a skeleton.”
“And?”
“I’m not sure.”
He picked up on something in my voice.
“What’s eating you?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Does the vic fit their profile?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Didn’t you do a prelim on site?”
How could I explain? My tummy was upset?
“No.” Again, the burning guilt. “And I probably never will.”
“Oh?”
“The DA confiscated the bones.”
“Let me get this straight. These yokels ask you to do the leprous slog, then the DA lays paper and boogies with the goods?”
“The cops were given no choice.”
“Didn’t they have their own paper?”
“It’s a different legal system. I didn’t inquire.” My voice dripped icicles.
“It’s probably a minor glitch. The coroner will be calling you first thing tomorrow.”
“Doubtful.”
“Why?”
I searched for a tactful way to explain Díaz. “Let’s just say there’s resistance to the idea of outside help.”
“What about the Canadian connection?”
I pictured the skull.
“Dubious. But I’m not certain.”
“Jesus, Brennan—”
“Don’t say it.”
He did.
“How do you get yourself into these things?”
“They asked me to recover bones from a tank,” I spat. “I did that.”
“What moron was in charge?”
“What difference does it make?”
“I may nominate the guy for dumb-ass of the year.”
“Sergeant-detective Bartolomé Galiano.”
“SICA?”
“Yes.”
“Holy shit.”
“What?”
“Face like a bulldog, eyes like a Guernsey?”
“They’re brown.”
“The Bat.” It was almost a whoop.
“What bat?”
“I haven’t thought of the Bat in years.”
“You’re making no sense, Ryan.”
“Bat Galiano.”
Galiano said he’d spent time in Canada.
“You know Galiano?”
“I went to school with him.”
“Galiano went to St-F.X.?”
St-Francis Xavier, Antigonish, Nova Scotia. The small university town was the scene of many of Ryan’s more colorful performances. Then a cokehead biker opened his carotid with the shattered neck of a twelve-ounce Bud. Following serious stitching and introspection, Ryan changed sides. His allegiance shifted from booze and bars to the boys in blue, and he never looked back.
“Bat lived across the hall my senior year. I graduated, joined the SQ. He wrapped up a semester later, returned to Guatemala to become a cop. I haven’t spoken to him in ages.”
“Why ‘Bat?’”
“Never mind. But clear your calendar. You’ll be looking at bones before the week is out.”
“I should have refused to hand them over.”
“A gringo intermeddler bucking local authority in a system known for massacring dissidents. There’s good thinking.”
“I should have examined them on site.”
“Wasn’t everything coated in shit?”
“I could have cleaned it.”
“And possibly done more damage than good. I wouldn’t lose sleep over this one. Besides, you’re down there for another reason.”
But lose sleep I did, tossing and turning, captive to uninvited images from the day. Downstairs, traffic receded to a hum, then to the sound of individual cars. Next door, a TV went from the muted cadence of baseball, to a talk show, to silence.