“Eight.” His face was set like granite as he stared out at the scene. “This is your procedure, Lieutenant.”
“Evac can confuse the dogs. It would be my choice to leave that until we believe all remains are located and marked.”
“Do so. There’s nine,” he murmured.
They worked, inside the house, outside in the rain. Dozens of cops moving like ghosts in their gray gear. Dogs barked, droids signaled, and flags were marked on the ground.
“Call them off,” she ordered when thirty minutes passed without an alert. “Move in the evac team. Let’s have some lights,” she called out as she started across the spongy ground. “Two evac teams, one far west, one far east. Morris.”
“I’m with you.”
“I need IDs as soon as possible. Sooner.”
“I’ve got dental for the missings on the city list, and those we’ve culled from this area. It doesn’t come up to this number.” He scanned the ground where the evac units were beginning to dig. “But I’ve got equipment in the portable that will match the dentals for what we have. Others are going to take a little longer.”
“Ground’s rocky under this sponge,” Roarke commented. “Muddy now as well. It’ll take awhile for the robot diggers to get through this muck.”
“Can you operate one?”
“I can, yes.”
“Get this man a machine,” Eve shouted out, and turned to Roarke. “Start due south. Morris, assign one of your guys to Roarke. Let’s get this done.”
She shoved on the mask, engaged the filter, and strode toward the first marker. She stood, much as the search dog had, and waited.
“Got remains,” the operator announced. The robot was shut down. It was handwork now, a careful excavation with sensors beeping, reading out hair, flesh, bone, beneath the thin layer of dirt.
She saw hands first, fingers laced—or what was left of them. The filter couldn’t mask the full impact of what death slowly does to flesh. But still she crouched, came closer, as the shell of a woman was unearthed.
Her hair was long. Longer than it had been at death, Eve thought. In one of those mysteries, hair continued to grow after life winked out. It was dark with dirt, but it would be light brown.
You’re found now, Eve thought. We’ll give you back your name. The one who did this to you is boxed and caged. That’s all I can do.
“How long she been in there?” Eve asked Morris.
“Few months, maybe six, I’d say. I’ll tell you more when we get her in.”
“Get her out,” Eve said, and, straightening, moved to the next marker.
The false twilight the rain brought deepened toward night. The air was cold, damp, and carried the pitiful stench of death. Tagged bodies lay bagged beside gaping holes in the earth until they could be transported. Remains lay on tarps shielded by tents while the ME’s team worked to identify.
The yard took on the look of a mass grave.
Overhead, the media copters circled, spun out their lights. Word was more reporters were camped on neighbors’ lawns. It hadn’t taken them long. Even now, she assumed, the scene where she stood, the misery and horror of it was being relayed to screens all over the state—the country. The damn world.
And people sat in their homes and watched. Grateful to be warm and dry and alive.
Someone brought her coffee, and she drank it without tasting it, without thought. Snagging another, she walked to Roarke.
“This is the third I’ve done.” Absently, he wiped rain from his face. He shut down the machine, boosted it aside so the hand team could work. “And you were right. It’s worse than anything I could imagine.”
“Take a break.” She handed him the coffee.
He stepped back and shoved up the mask as she had done. It barely helped now in any case. Beneath it his face was pale, damp with sweat. And grim as a grave.
“I won’t be put in the ground when my time comes,” he said, quietly. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, whatever the hell, I won’t make that transition in the bloody dirt. I’ll take the fire, quick and clean.”
“Maybe you can bribe God and live forever. You’ve got more money than He does.”