It was not a clearly defined grave-size rectangle with nice, neat edges. But it was not much bigger than a grave might be, and was obviously unlike the area immediately around it.
“Let’s move back from this site,” David said. “We don’t want to disturb evidence.”
We moved over to a level spot nearer to the tree, where David continued to play with Bingle and praise him. The other members of our group must have been watching us, because before David beckoned, Ben and Andy donned packs and headed our way, with Thompson and Flash Burden not far behind. Duke and Earl moved more slowly from the campsite, bringing Parrish; Merrick and Manton managed to sleep through the commotion.
“A hard alert?” Ben called as he came within earshot.
David smiled. “Yes, and my dog doesn’t lie.”
“Where?”
But Andy had already noticed the plants near the place where Bingle had alerted. “Wow. Right there.” Drawing closer, he pointed out several wildflowers and said, “You see? Most of them are shorter than others of the same species, growing right next to them. That might be happening because something’s preventing their roots from developing — the roots may be running into some type of barrier underground.”
David commanded Bingle to stay and we walked with the others to where Andy stood.
David conferred briefly with Bob Thompson and Ben, then said to me, “Would you mind keeping Bingle company while we check this out? You can watch from the shade over there — best spot in the house. You’ll be able to see and hear everything.”
“Look, I’m fond of the dog, but I have a job here, too. I don’t want to be shut out—”
“This is a crime scene—” Bob Thompson began, but Ben interrupted.
“Oh, I think Ms. Kelly should be allowed to stand as close as possible,” he said, and although he wasn’t smiling, I could hear some amusement in his voice.
“Ben—” David protested, in a way that made me all the more unsure of Ben’s motives for suddenly being so cooperative.
Ben ignored him. In quiet, considerate tones, he said to me, “Allow me to explain that we don’t just bring out our shovels and dig, Ms. Kelly. We start slowly and carefully, systematically surveying the burial area, setting up a grid system and so on. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind staying with Bingle while we do the preliminary work. I’ll let you know when we’re about to actually see the body — if there is a body here.”
“She’s there,” I heard a voice say. I turned to see Parrish looking straight at me, smiling. “Yes,” he drawled slowly, “her lovely body is right there.”
“Tranquilo,” David said to Bingle, who was standing between us. The dog had not growled or barked at Parrish’s approach, but I could see what had caused David to give the command to take it easy — Bingle’s stance was rigid.
“I’ll watch Bingle,” I said.
Parrish laughed. “Better let him watch you.”
“That’s enough out of you,” Earl said, pulling Parrish back from the group.
“Ve con ella,” David said to Bingle, and gave me a tennis ball. As he said this, he made a motion with his hand that evidently told Bingle that I was to receive all of his attention. Bingle stared at the ball with the kind of intense concentration that might have been used by a psychic to bend a fork. We played for a while, then sat together and watched as Flash videotaped and photographed the site, Thompson talked to Parrish, and David, Andy, and Ben hovered over maps and studied the ground, defining an outer perimeter several feet beyond the loosened soil.
Our place was, as David had said, the best spot in the house. We were only a few yards from the patch, we were in the shade, and the breeze had shifted toward us — both shade and breeze provided relief to Bingle, who lay panting softly, eyes closed in contentment.
Ben bent over a duffel bag, and handed out gloves. He next removed a set of metal rods, each about half an inch thick, bent at a right angle at one end — the handle. Working from different directions, the men each picked a spot, leaned on the probes — which did not go too far into the ground — then pulled them from the ground and moved them a little closer to the site of the alert. This process continued, until Ben’s probe sank easily into the earth. “Here,” he said. As he pulled it up, Bingle lifted his head, then came to his feet, ears pitched forward. The dog started to move toward Ben.
“Stay,” I commanded. He ignored me, but David had heard me, and snapped the command again — in Spanish this time. Bingle obeyed, but protested with a sharp bark.
“He smells it,” David said. Then, wrinkling his nose, added, “So do I.”
David went back to the duffel bag and took a small jar from it; he dipped a finger into it and then rubbed the substance just beneath his nose, making a small, shiny mustache of it. He offered the jar to Andy, who used it. He didn’t offer it to Ben.
Ben was putting a little marker — a small yellow flag on a wire — near the spot where he had probed. They continued in this fashion until they had a few other places marked. The yellow flags formed a rough oval, about six feet long.
Bingle was agitated — fidgeting but obeying David’s command to stay. Every now and then I would get a whiff of what he was reacting to — an unmistakable smell, a smell that is sweet and pungent all at once — a smell that you instantly know the meaning of, even if you have never smelled it before. Perhaps some primal memory repulses us from this scent, tells us that this is the smell of the death and decay of one of our own.
“I’ll show you what we’re doing,” David said, coming over to calm Bingle. As he moved closer to me, I said, “Vicks VapoRub.”
He moved his hand, just stopped short of touching his upper lip. “A menthol and camphor smell compound that’s sort of similar to it, yes. I use it to mask the decomp odor. Do you need some?”
“Not yet.”
“Don’t wait too long,” he said. “Once the smell is in your nose . . .” He paused, then said again, “Don’t wait too long.”
He began to show me the scene maps they were drawing, with nearby peaks as triangulation points to mark the position of the tree. The grid lines were shown, over which the position of the grave, the outer perimeter boundary, and a cluster of boulders were drawn.
“If we need to testify about any of this in court, we’ll have a precise record of where we found any evidence or remains, how the remains were positioned — and so on.”
Bob Thompson walked up to us. “What’s taking so long? Parrish says she’s there, about two feet down. He’s already confessed. I just need a preliminary identification.”
Behind me, I heard Ben ask, “And what if this is some other victim, Detective Thompson?”
Thompson hesitated, then said, “Fine, but let’s not dawdle, all right? We aren’t going to be able to stay up here forever.”
Ben simply walked off. From one of his duffel bags, he pulled two rolls of screen, one about one-quarter-inch mesh, the other about half-inch. David helped him use these and two sets of support pieces to build two sieves.
Bingle occasionally called out to David, and in Spanish, David answered, “It’s okay, Bingle. Stay with Irene.” Invariably, I’d get a quick kiss from the dog in response.
Whenever I looked over at Parrish, he was watching me, a knowing smile on his face. I repressed the urge to quickly look away, to show how uneasy I was under his scrutiny. But I was always the first to break eye contact, and once, when an involuntary shiver went through me as I turned away, I heard him laugh softly.
With Andy’s help, the anthropologists carefully scraped the surface level of the soil inside the markers away, and put it through the two sieves. They continued in this fashion, a few centimeters at a time — over Thompson’s impatient protests. Although they didn’t seem to be getting anywhere at first, before long I saw more clearly defined edges of the oval they had marked with the flags. The smell was getting stronger.