Shellenberger’s mouth opens. “Aw, come on! You can’t do that! She’s got a broke leg and just lost her baby. Not to mention her home. You can’t take her to jail!”
“She hit a cop,” Tomasetti snaps. “We don’t have a choice.”
“It’s the law,” Rasmussen adds.
“Well, she’s not thinking right,” the man says, looking stressed.
Tomasetti and Rasmussen help Paula Kester to her feet. She’s sobbing now, head down, hair hanging in her face. “I can’t believe you’re doing this to me,” she sobs. “It’s all her fault.”
I want to say something to reassure her. Let her know I’ll help her if I can. But I know she’s too angry, and any commentary from me would probably make things worse.
She raises her head. Her eyes connect with mine. Her lips peel back. Snarling an expletive, she yanks hard against Tomasetti and Rasmussen. “I’m going to get a lawyer and sue you!” she screams. “I’ll sue you for everything you’ve got, you bitch! All of you! Fuckers!”
Rasmussen looks away and shakes his head.
Next to him, the deputy clears his throat. “I’ve got a cage. Do you want me to transport her and book her in?”
The sheriff nods. “Let’s put her in the car.”
“What about her leg?” her father cries.
Tomasetti gives him a withering look. “I guess you should have thought about that before you drove her over here, Einstein.”
CHAPTER 6
It’s nearly 10:00 P.M. by the time Stevitch and his assistant call it a night. Sheriff Rasmussen left an hour ago. Tomasetti, of course, stayed.
Stevitch and Hochheim spent nine grueling hours going over every inch of the site, running the soil through handheld screens and geologic sieves. All the bones were placed in paper bags, labeled, and stowed in plastic tubs. Once the topsoil had been examined, they turned to their shovels and dug a series of shallow holes. Again, the soil was put through geologic sieves. As darkfall neared and they began to run out of light, I radioed Glock and asked him to bring a generator. I called Holmes County and they sent a deputy out with work lights. The two men continued their tedious work beneath the buzz of spotlights, setting aside bones and fabric and anything else that wasn’t indigenous to the site. Finally, once soil samples were taken, Hochheim went over the entire grid area with a metal detector.
Now, while Hochheim packs tools into the canvas bag and carries it to the Prius, Stevitch approaches me. “I think we’ve extracted everything this site is going to relinquish,” he tells me.
“I appreciate your coming out so quickly and on such short notice,” I tell him.
“It is the nature of the beast.” He chuckles. “This may sound morbid, Chief Burkholder, but we anthropologists live for the dig.”
“Any thoughts you can share?” Tomasetti asks.
Sobering, he rubs his beard between his thumb and forefinger. “Interestingly, about twenty percent of the bones are missing. More than likely scavenged by animals.”
“Do you have enough for identification?” I ask.
“Fortunately, we have the teeth, which are typically an excellent source of DNA. I’ll extract samples and send them off to the lab and get us into the queue.”
“Do you think you’ll be able to come up with height or weight?” I ask. “Race?”
“Eventually, but it’s not going to be a speedy process. I’ll get to work on a biological profile as soon as I get everything logged. That includes age, sex, stature, and ancestry.”
“What about clothing?” I ask. “Any personal items?”
“A few scraps of fabric, but it’s very deteriorated.” He lifts a large clear plastic envelope containing several smaller envelopes of different sizes, some of which are paper, some plastic. “Metal detector picked up a couple of interesting items.” He indicates a tiny clear plastic envelope inside. “This ring. Small diamond. Band is probably gold.”
“Looks like a woman’s ring,” Tomasetti says.
“An engagement ring?” I add.
“Or a wedding ring,” Stevitch concurs. “We’ll take a look at it under magnification and see if we can come up with some kind of identifying mark.”
“If we can get the name of the manufacturer,” Tomasetti says, “we might be able to locate the retailer.”
“And maybe the customer.” I think about that a moment. “Can you take some photos of the ring and e-mail them to me?”
“Absolutely.” As if saving the best news for last, he reaches into the envelope and pulls out a large white envelope. “This is probably the most remarkable item we found. The metal detector picked it up. I believe it could be extremely helpful in terms of identifying the decedent.”