Ramona laughed. “You’ve just eased my load, so the least I can do is cover for you. Besides, who’s to say a CI can’t be another cop? I’ll keep your name out of it when I call Detective Price and ask him to get cracking on Evans.”
“Thanks,” Ellie said.
“Are you really going to stay on the sidelines?”
“I guess I’ll have to.”
“How about I keep you informed from my end?” Ramona asked.
“That would be great.”
The two women talked awhile longer, and Ellie hung up with the feeling that if distance didn’t prevent it, Ramona Pino would make a very good friend.
Sara called Kerney at home just as he was preparing for bed.
“I want to apologize,” he said, wondering why Sara called so late. It was midnight, East Coast time. “I shouldn’t be impatient when I’m asking for a favor.”
“There’s no need for that,” Sara said. “But keep that thought in mind and it will stand you in good stead. You’ve got a green light from DOD to do the exhumation.”
“So fast?” Kerney asked.
“We at the Pentagon never sleep.”
“Are you still at work?”
“Back at work, actually. Patrick’s tucked into bed, fast asleep, under the watchful eye of a sitter, so you needn’t fret about him.”
“What did it take for you to pull it off?” Kerney asked.
“Once I connected with the right person and showed him the material you faxed me, it went smoothly. We’ve opened our own investigation into the matter, and I’m your liaison officer. Aren’t you lucky? If the remains prove to be those of someone other than George Spalding, the Army will assume control of the case.”
“You’re a marvel.”
“It’s about time you noticed. The U.S. Attorney and the VA have been notified. Have fun at the cemetery.”
“You sound tired.”
“I’m bushed and want to go home,” Sara said.
“I won’t keep you. Thanks, my love.”
“Give yourself a hug from me. Good night.”
The phone went dead. Kerney punched in the home number of Jerry Grant, the forensic anthropologist, got him on the line, and told him they were on for tomorrow.
He stood at the window and stared into the night, trying to figure out what feelings were eluding him. He felt distant, empty, and totally preoccupied with George Spalding. But why?
Jerry Grant was a transplanted Easterner who taught at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque and did contract forensic work for the state police crime lab. Kerney rounded him up at his office early in the morning, and took the fastest possible route south to Fort Bayard.
A big, beefy man, Grant had thick, droopy eyebrows, a full head of hair badly in need of a trim, and a slightly unruly beard. On the drive, Grant, who’d lived in Albuquerque for ten years, talked eagerly about getting to see a part of the state he’d never visited before.
Kerney wasn’t surprised by Grant’s lack of familiarity with New Mexico. There were many people now residing in the state, especially urban dwellers, who had no inclination to explore their adopted home ground. But they could talk endlessly about exotic, international tourist destinations.
Kerney played historian along the way and filled Grant in on the background of the fort: how it was established on the frontier during the Indian Wars to contain the Apaches; how it had been home to the buffalo soldiers, companies of black enlisted cavalrymen commanded by white officers; how it had been transformed into a military hospital at the end of the nineteenth century and was now a state-run long-term care facility.
When they arrived at Fort Bayard, Grant had to see it, so Kerney took a quick swing through the grounds. He drove by the three-story, ugly block hospital that had been built years after the fort had been decommissioned, and then on to the charming quadrangle where a bronze life-size statue of a buffalo soldier firing a rifle over his shoulder stood on a pedestal.
A row of officers’ quarters, stately Victorian houses with two-tiered porches, lined the street, and the restored post headquarters building, low-slung and sturdy with a wide veranda, sat at the far end of the quadrangle. Behind the building, the Pinos Altos Mountains rose up, masking from view the high wilderness of stream-cut canyons, vast upland meadows, and rugged summits that ranged for hundreds of thousands of acres along the Gila River watershed and continental divide.
“This really is an architectural treasure,” Grant said.
“I’ve always thought so,” Kerney said, remembering the times he’d visited in the past, first as a child with his parents and later on when he and his best friend, Dale Jennings, had competed in the state high school rodeo championships in nearby Silver City.
At the national cemetery, a Veterans Affairs official up from Fort Bliss met them. Looking none too pleased, he guided the way to the Spalding grave site, with a backhoe and a private ambulance following behind.
Evergreen trees scattered across the grounds interrupted the stark lines of gray headstones. The brown earth, almost barren except for sparse native grasses, seemed in somber harmony with the scattered trees.
Kerney signed forms and the backhoe operator went to work, carefully trenching and piling excavated dirt into one large mound. The engine’s sputtering carburetor and the whining of the hydraulics put Kerney on edge.
He wondered why the noise bothered him so much. Was it because he wanted the dead, many who’d seen so much violence and had been killed in battle, to rest quietly? Or was it also because of his own lingering sense of guilt about the men in his platoon who never made it home from Nam?
The thought hit Kerney in the gut, and feelings he thought he’d resolved long ago resurfaced, pushed away the emptiness, and brought back vivid flashes of combat. He could feel his mouth grimace, his jaw tighten.
Digging stopped when the casket was uncovered. Chains were secured to the casket fore and aft, and slowly it was lifted out of the grave onto a waiting gurney.
The backhoe operator shut the engine down and the silence only somewhat eased Kerney’s mood. He watched Grant stop the ambulance driver before he could push the gurney toward his vehicle.
“Might as well take a look before we cart this back to Albuquerque,” Grant said matter-of-factly, brushing dirt off the casket lid. “No sense wasting our time.”
Frozen in place, Kerney watched Grant unfasten the casket lid and push it open.
“There’s no skull,” Grant said.
Kerney approached slowly and looked inside at an assortment of bones, wondering if they represented a soldier unaccounted for and still carried as an MIA, one of the 1,800 Americans killed in Vietnam that had yet to be identified, perhaps a man from his regiment or company. Suddenly, putting a name to the remains became as important as confirming that George Spalding was still alive.
“We got a sternum, two sets of tibias and fibulas, one femur, one humerus, assorted ribs, a scapula, two ulnas, iliums-both with an attached pubis, a collarbone, a radius, and a hip joint-that’s it.”
Grant looked up from the casket. “No skull, finger, or foot bones. Maybe somebody didn’t want these remains to be positively identified.”
“That could be.”
Grant gave Kerney a questioning glance. “Are you okay with this?”
“I’m fine,” Kerney replied, his voice cold and distant.
Grant put on gloves and picked up the radius bone. “According to what you told me, Spalding was killed in a chopper crash that exploded on impact, right?”
“That’s what I understand,” Kerney replied.
“High-octane fuel burns hot and eats flesh away right down to the bone, especially those that lie close to the skin. I don’t see any evidence of burns here, but of course I’ll run tests for hydrocarbons.”
“What else?” Kerney asked. His throat felt scratchy and dry.
Grant pointed into the casket. “Look at the splintered rib and the shattered breastbone. I’d bet this person was fatally shot. Also, the bones look like they’ve been thoroughly cleaned.”