She tried desperately to reach Otto, to determine what this was all about, but Otto's secretary told her that Otto had been called away to Bethesda Naval Hospital to attend to his wife.
When the two AFIP men arrived, one clearly believed himself to have been placed in charge of the exhumations, directing the other to go with J.T. Captain Lyle Kaseem introduced himself to them, and then he introduced Lieutenant James Forsythe, both military pathologists. Kaseem was a thin black man, while Forsythe was white and lumpy.
“ We were not briefed about your joining us,” she told them flatly. “In fact, I am in charge of these exhumations, Dr. Kaseem.”
“ Your C.O. spoke to my C O.,” he replied. “And here we are.”
The plane was idling on the strip. They wanted to arrive early enough to get some rest before the grueling work that lay ahead of them, and there were financial constraints to consider. The gravediggers would be at the cemeteries in Iowa City and Paris, Illinois, at 7:30 A.M., the normal time to dig up bodies, for if the body could be autopsied and returned to the grave the same day, the costs could be kept to a minimum. Storage space was the big expense, along with the gravedigger's labor. But it was also less harrowing on an emotional level for the families if an exhumation took no more than a single day out of their lives.
Exhuming a body, whether ten years in the earth or ten days, was a highly dramatic, supercharged situation. Most exhumations occurred a few weeks after death, during a period of time when questions about the cause of death lingered. They were proposing not only to open a grave that had been months ago sealed, but opening old hurts and wounds. They wouldn't be welcomed. The order to disturb the dead was hoisted upon the families by the powerful FBI working through the justice system. Jessica and J.T. would have a great deal to contend with, and now they would have Kaseem and Forsythe looking over their shoulders.
“ We have our orders, too,” shouted Captain Kaseem over the noise of the transport plane.
“ You are, after all, using military equipment,” shouted Forsythe, whom she chose to ignore.
“ All right,” she said to Kaseem, making herself heard over the noise, “but you and Dr. Forsythe will not forget who is in charge here, understood?”
She huddled a moment with J.T. before sending him off, telling him not to be intimidated by Forsythe, that it was an FBI matter and that he was in charge. “Christ,” she moaned, “we'll have enough to do tap dancing around the local path guys, and now these clowns? Why'd Otto do this to us?”
“ Doesn't trust us to do the job?” asked J.T., equally upset.
“ Many hands do not make light work at an exhumation.”
She left him with that thought, rushing to her transport, waving goodbye. Once settled inside, she met Kaseem's dark, brooding eyes. He had dark skin, a rogue's mustache, keen black eyes. He might be handsome if she were not so mad at him.
“ What is so terribly wrong with having some assistance, Dr. Coran?” he asked.
“ I don't need any more assistance. In Iowa, do you have any idea of the number of people who're going to want to be on hand to assist? No, I certainly will not need another assistant.”
“ How many exhumations have you done?”
“ I've been involved in a few.”
He nodded. “Ahh, yes, under Dr. Holecraft at Bethesda, and your father.”
“ That's right. And how many exhumations have you attended?” She wondered about his knowledge of her past.
“ This will be my second.”
“ Your second? And what about Forsythe?”
“ His first.”
“ His first!”
He shrugged. “The idea here is to get experience, and I have no intention of attempting to take over. I am here as the student.”
“ Then you may be terribly disappointed. There'll be no time to hold your hand during an investigation of murder, no time to stop to instruct-”
“ Just the opportunity to watch you work, Dr. Coran, will be instruction enough, I assure you.”
The gluey flattery was a bit too thick to be believed. She said, “You may be disappointed, Doctor.”
He looked in her direction as the transport lifted from the tarmac. “Meaning?”
“ We're likely to have fifteen, maybe twenty minutes tops with the corpse. That's all it will take for me to make the determination I'm going to Iowa for.”
“ But I thought it would be a full autopsy.”
“ Obviously, you were misinformed.”
She fell silent, and he did likewise.
It was going to be a long flight to Iowa.
The Iowa night was complete, as if the world had fallen into a black hole, and that was how Jessica felt about being alone here. Kaseem had invited her to dine with him, but she had declined, begging off with a headache and paperwork. She'd eaten via room service, a rather dull and cold meal, and her room had begun to feel like a prison. She knew no one here. She knew nothing about the city surrounded by cornfields as far as the eye could see.
She understood that Janel McDonell, although buried here by her parents, having been reared in Iowa City, was actually found dead in a little homestead south of the city called Marshall. Her body was in the trailer house she lived in on an isolated highway, hung from the ceiling, her throat slashed. The autopsy report, signed by three men, one an M.E., said that she had died of the brutal slash to the throat and that she had died at another location and had then been placed in the trailer, since very little blood was in evidence. From her reading of the case and her knowledge of the Copeland murder, Jessica believed she'd been killed in her trailer.
She knew that the Iowa doctors would not take kindly to her overt questioning of their findings. An exhumation on an unsolved murder case was tantamount to throwing a glove in the face. She'd have them to contend with along with Kaseem in the morning, and she needed her sleep, so she fought for it, struggling with her own troubled mind.
Before turning in she had wanted to know why the AFIP guys had been sicced on her and J.T. She'd tried Otto at his private number, but only his answering machine was replying.
She'd also tried to reach J.T. in Illinois through the authorities there, but had had no luck. A bad connection and shattering static had caused an argument with a police dispatcher in Paris, Illinois. She'd gone to bed worrying about J.T.'s situation.
Still, she had much to be thankful for. After all, she had managed to get what she wanted; she'd set up the exhumation for the early morning. It would be a difficult chore, but not impossible. Everyone who was in a need-to-know position in the city, county and state had been contacted by Boutine earlier. The local police had been polite, if stiff, and had seen to her transportation and the room. Boutine had paved the way for her. She just needed to step in, go through the motions, get what she came for and return to Quantico.
She wondered about Kaseem's motivations, and his orders. She brooded about Otto's disappearance. Then she went back to fretting about J.T. and the owl-eyed Forsythe in southern Illinois.
Even in her sleep she wondered.
# # #
In rural Paris, Illinois, John Thorpe was ready to strangle someone to death. Absolutely nothing had gone right. Boutine had not smoothed the way for him, and in fact, had somehow been misunderstood. The exhumation was in progress when he arrived, and he was whisked to the cemetery in the middle of the night. Boutine had either so frightened the locals or so angered them that they had decided to either cooperate too much or to cooperate not at all. Either way, the result was about the same.
And Forsythe was no bloody help, getting in the way at every turn.
At the grave site, lights were flashing, sending up crazy, dancing shadows against the tombstones everywhere as the noise of a backhoe was only offset by the occasional roar of thunder and an accompanying lightning bolt. A simpering, misty rain became a downpour. No one had bothered to check the weather report. And into all this came the casket with the remains of Melanie Trent encased within. Thus far, the only stroke of luck was that the casket was intact, but this luck was suddenly exploded when the vault top, held overhead by an arm of the backhoe, suddenly groaned, sending everyone racing, moments before it collapsed atop the casket.