wall of the shack, was a…was a what? He got up and stood for almost a full minute, hands on his hips, staring intensely at the ground.
At his feet was a flat, shallow trench, roughly oval, about four feet long, three feet across at its widest, and two or three inches deep, scantily grown over with strawlike grasses. The sides had mostly collapsed, but here and there they could still be seen; vertical, now disintegrating walls with convex rims, like the top of an old-fashioned bathtub. Less apparent, but still noticeable—if one knew to look for it—was a smaller depression within the outlines of the first, a slight sinking of the soil, as if someone had scooped out a few more handfuls of dirt from the middle of the larger cavity.
A historical archaeologist must have guessed he was looking at the filled-in entrance to a root cellar. A casual visitor might have guessed, if at all, at hidden treasure.
A forensic anthropologist didn’t have to guess. Gideon hunkered down again, elbows on his knees to examine it more closely. In the profession, this was what was routinely referred to as a soil-compaction site, a nice bland term that might have had to do with something comfortable and homely, like composting techniques or solid-waste landfills. But it didn’t. A soil-compaction site was what you eventually got when you buried a body and tried to leave the ground looking the way it had before, with no mound to give it away. And that, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, meant homicide.
The larger depression was the result of the dug-up, redeposited soil slowly settling; it happened when you dug a grave, it happened when you planted a rosebush. The convex rim resulted from excess soil on the edges of the hole. The smaller sunken area in the center, and this is what gave it inescapably away, was a “secondary depression”—another one of those nice neutral terms—which typically formed a few weeks after burial, when the abdominal cavity bloated, burst, and finally decomposed, allowing the soil above to sink down into it.
The body, he guessed, was about two feet below the surface. Any shallower than that, and the decomposing tissues would have provided a burst of organic fertilizer to the root zone, making the plant growth above it noticeably denser, which it wasn’t. And it wasn’t much deeper than two feet, because they never were. People disposing surreptitiously of unwanted corpses didn’t like to spend any more time digging than they had to. You didn’t find neat, rectangular six-foot-deep graves in places like this. Generally they were a foot or two deep—enough to cover them over with a few inches of soil—and no roomier than they absolutely had to be.
Gideon guessed that the body inside would be folded into the smallest possible bundle, which was on its side, arms and legs pulled up. Years ago, archaeology texts had offered various ingenious theories as to the religious reasons prehistoric people so often buried their dead in the fetal position. Now, forensic anthropology had provided a simpler, more likely explanation: It was the fastest, easiest way to get somebody into the ground and covered up.
He looked up, at the sound of Nelson Hobert’s rattling laugh. Nellie had dropped off Julie and the students somewhere and was on his way to the meeting room for the first session of the day, telling Harlow Pollard about the cremains and waving the last of a glazed donut for emphasis.
“There are
two
sets of cremains out there,” he announced, “probably more. It’s a pretty site, that’s why. The stream, the meadows. One’s a classic sling-and-fling job—are you familiar with Willey’s typology?—the other’s a pump-and-dump…”
He saw Gideon squatting by the side of the trench. “Gideon, Julie’s gone riding. She’ll see you at—ha, what do we have here?”
Gideon stood up and moved out of the way. “Have a look.”
Nellie clambered over the foundation. “Oh, dear,” he said with sharp
At his feet was a flat, shallow trench, roughly oval, about four feet long, three feet across at its widest, and two or three inches deep, scantily grown over with strawlike grasses. The sides had mostly collapsed, but here and there they could still be seen; vertical, now disintegrating walls with convex rims, like the top of an old-fashioned bathtub. Less apparent, but still noticeable—if one knew to look for it—was a smaller depression within the outlines of the first, a slight sinking of the soil, as if someone had scooped out a few more handfuls of dirt from the middle of the larger cavity.
A historical archaeologist must have guessed he was looking at the filled-in entrance to a root cellar. A casual visitor might have guessed, if at all, at hidden treasure.
A forensic anthropologist didn’t have to guess. Gideon hunkered down again, elbows on his knees to examine it more closely. In the profession, this was what was routinely referred to as a soil-compaction site, a nice bland term that might have had to do with something comfortable and homely, like composting techniques or solid-waste landfills. But it didn’t. A soil-compaction site was what you eventually got when you buried a body and tried to leave the ground looking the way it had before, with no mound to give it away. And that, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, meant homicide.
The larger depression was the result of the dug-up, redeposited soil slowly settling; it happened when you dug a grave, it happened when you planted a rosebush. The convex rim resulted from excess soil on the edges of the hole. The smaller sunken area in the center, and this is what gave it inescapably away, was a “secondary depression”—another one of those nice neutral terms—which typically formed a few weeks after burial, when the abdominal cavity bloated, burst, and finally decomposed, allowing the soil above to sink down into it.
The body, he guessed, was about two feet below the surface. Any shallower than that, and the decomposing tissues would have provided a burst of organic fertilizer to the root zone, making the plant growth above it noticeably denser, which it wasn’t. And it wasn’t much deeper than two feet, because they never were. People disposing surreptitiously of unwanted corpses didn’t like to spend any more time digging than they had to. You didn’t find neat, rectangular six-foot-deep graves in places like this. Generally they were a foot or two deep—enough to cover them over with a few inches of soil—and no roomier than they absolutely had to be.
Gideon guessed that the body inside would be folded into the smallest possible bundle, which was on its side, arms and legs pulled up. Years ago, archaeology texts had offered various ingenious theories as to the religious reasons prehistoric people so often buried their dead in the fetal position. Now, forensic anthropology had provided a simpler, more likely explanation: It was the fastest, easiest way to get somebody into the ground and covered up.
He looked up, at the sound of Nelson Hobert’s rattling laugh. Nellie had dropped off Julie and the students somewhere and was on his way to the meeting room for the first session of the day, telling Harlow Pollard about the cremains and waving the last of a glazed donut for emphasis.
“There are
two
sets of cremains out there,” he announced, “probably more. It’s a pretty site, that’s why. The stream, the meadows. One’s a classic sling-and-fling job—are you familiar with Willey’s typology?—the other’s a pump-and-dump…”
He saw Gideon squatting by the side of the trench. “Gideon, Julie’s gone riding. She’ll see you at—ha, what do we have here?”
Gideon stood up and moved out of the way. “Have a look.”
Nellie clambered over the foundation. “Oh, dear,” he said with sharp
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