“I want my Aunt Jean, Doc,” he said. “I know she’s one of those three hundred bodies they’re hauling out of the woods. It’s gonna kill my Uncle Edgar to find out how she was treated. If there’s any way you can go back down there and find her, so we can get her home and try to set this thing right, I’d be forever grateful.”
The request surprised me, and impressed me. “I’ll see, Burt,” I said, “but I can’t promise anything. Everybody who ever sent a loved one there is going to be clamoring to get in, you know.”
“I know,” he said. “But you’re the guy who uncovered the truth.”
“I’ll see, Burt,” I repeated. “That’s all I can do.”
“I understand. Thanks, Doc. I ’preciate you.”
CHAPTER 19
WHEN I DIALED SEAN RICHTER, I GOT HIS PAGER, which didn’t surprise me. Sean would have his hands full, and then some, for quite a while. During their first day’s search of the woods surrounding the crematorium, the GBI and FBI evidence teams had found nearly three hundred bodies and skeletons. Recovering them could take weeks; identifying them could take months, if not years. DMORT had brought in a couple of inflatable morgues, and the GBI had trucked in a small fleet of refrigerated trailers to house the bodies while they figured out how to process them. My guess was they’d end up building a massive new morgue and DNA lab dedicated to this one case.
The gruesome scene in the Georgia backwoods was the lead story on every major television network, wire service, and Internet news site in the country. It was also, I learned from the stack of printouts Miranda had put on my desk, the topic of dozens of international headlines—variations on the theme of “Americans are barbarians,” many of them. Atop the stack Miranda had left a sticky note: “How come you couldn’t have found this in Tennessee instead of Georgia? Jealous Junior Anthropologist.”
Sean returned my page within ten minutes, which did surprise me. “I didn’t think you’d get a chance to call me back for…oh, about ten or twenty years.”
“It’s a zoo,” he said, “and it’ll stay that way for a long time. But since you’re the one who steered us to this, I figure if you page me, I return the call. You’re number three on my priority list, right after the GBI director and my wife.”
“She outranks me now? You’re obviously not under my thumb anymore,” I said.
“Yet here you are,” he said good-naturedly, “still pulling my strings.” He took a deep breath and puffed it out. “You’re not calling to tell me about another big batch of bodies somewhere in Georgia, I hope?”
“How’d you guess?” I laughed. “No, not today. I’m calling to ask a favor—to see if you can pull a string or two for me.”
“You want us to just ship everything up to the Body Farm, right?”
“I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” I said. “But now that you mention it, I’d love to add another three hundred skeletons to the collection. Can you have ’em here tomorrow?”
“Sure,” he joked, “piece of cake.” We both knew that eventually—once the bodies were identified—they’d need to be returned to their families, or to whoever had sent them to be cremated.
“Anything else on your wish list?”
“This might be nearly as difficult to arrange,” I said, “but if you can’t bring the mountain of bodies to Mohammed, how about if Mohammed comes down to the mountain? I’d love to take a quick look around. Not just for curiosity,” I hastened to add. “You know the woman whose bogus cremains caused me to start poking around in the woods? I’m wondering if you’d be able and willing to let me take a quick look for her.” I was pretty sure Burt’s Aunt Jean was one of the hundreds of bodies chilling in those refrigerated trailers, but it might be months before Sean got to her. To him she was just one among hundreds, but to me—and to Grease, who’d asked whether I could get into the makeshift morgue and find her fast—she was a priority.
“Ah,” he said. “I understand. I’d certainly have no problem with that. But it’s not my call. This is the highest-profile case anybody around here can remember, and the director and the public-affairs people are pretty touchy. So far, access is limited to the GBI, FBI, and DMORT teams. Hell, we even turned away the governor, who wanted to come up and hold a press conference in the woods with that grungy crematorium in the background.” He paused, and in the distance I could hear the hum of refrigeration units, the beep of a truck backing up, and the squawk of a public-address announcement asking somebody or other to report to the command post.
“Well, I’d appreciate it if you’d give it a shot at least,” I said.
“Could save you a little time and money,” I added. “If I find her, that’d be one less person for you to ID. One less DNA test to pay for.”
“Good point,” he said. “We’re at three hundred twenty-seven bodies already, and we haven’t finished searching. Can you maybe help us ID another fifty or sixty?”
“If I say yes, does that give me a better shot at getting in to look for Aunt Jean?”