By Babblefestival
The talk above the pit faded into silence after I unfolded the striped blanket from the second body. A cold sensation took point in my stomach as Zach photographed the small remains. Over the course of an evening, we had uncovered a child and an adult lying side by side at the four foot mark. Burial had been recent. The backfill had not had a chance to settle and the smell of putrifaction was unmistakable. Both victims were dressed and wrapped in synthetic fabric and the bones were intact. No predation except for insects. Given the minimal scatter, we would be able to do a full reconstruction at the lab.
"Bones?" Booth's bright red tie and blue shirt made him easy to spot amid the somber colors of the other law enforcers.
I ignored my protesting muscles and got to my feet. "A third possible," I said, momentarily distracted by his non-standard footwear. I hunched my shoulders in an effort to stretch discreetly. With one gloved hand, I indicated the untouched patch of dark soil to my right. "Decomposition stain." I tried not to dwell on how tiny it was. Speculation was not in my job description. "Did Mollie find anything else?" The question escaped my lips before I remembered the cadaver dog had already been sent away. Maybe I was more tired than I thought.
"No." Booth's voice was quiet. I didn't need to see his face to know he was thinking of his son.
With a deep breath and a final attempt to ease the kinks from my neck, I crouched down to begin my third retrieval of the evening. The sensation of being watched faded as I skimmed away the soil inch by inch. When my trowel met resistance, I switched to the stiff brush and carefully uncovered yet another blanket, this time a solid blue. The fabric yielded as I pulled at the edges. From somewhere above, someone inhaled sharply. I stared at the small pile of bones, momentarily confused by the configuration, then stretched a hand out towards the skull. A flurry of shutter clicks made me rock back on my heels instead. I waited for Zach to retake the photos properly with scale. "Done?" I couldn't blame him for thinking I had slipped up, but I appreciated the subtle intervention nonetheless.
"Details," he murmured in an apologetic reminder -- my own words of advice truncated into a single word.
I reached for the skull once more and traced its features lightly with one finger. "Feline," I said in explanation to Zach. Looking through a camera lens sometimes distorted the ability to process what you saw. I glanced up at the men lining the excavated hole. "Cat," I announced. A general sigh of relief rippled above my head. One child. One adult. Not a single victim more. Good news was always relative on a multiple.
I left the small pile undisturbed and began to screen the soil around it. We had recovered very little in the way of artifacts despite digging through four feet of strata, but one never knew for certain until the evidence was fully processed back at the lab. When I finished, I got to my feet and mentally ran through my checklist. We were almost through.
"Hey, Bones." Booth slid a backboard down beside the ladder. The small smile on his face was welcome relief from the grim expressions I saw all around me. A year of working together was rubbing off. He knew I was ready to move the remains.
"We'll make a squint of you yet," I murmured before I maneuvered the board into place beside the first victim. Once, she had been a caucasoid woman, thirty to thirty-five years of age, and a mother of children before her life was violently taken from her. Careful to leave the underlying soil undisturbed, Zach and I transferred the remains to a body bag, then looped polypropylene rope around the ends of the board. I had seen too many retrievals to care to watch as the men lifted the board out of the pit. Instead, I studied the second set of remains. Male. Judging from the number of primary teeth, I doubted he was older than three, but I wanted to see the x-rays before making any conclusions.
I was about to zip the bag over him when something unexpected caught my eye. Zach caught my frown and leaned in with me as I twisted the back of the shirt collar to expose a single, embroidered word.
Peter. The boy's name was Peter.