Old bones, p.5
Old Bones, page 5
As he spoke, an undercurrent of steel crept into his quiet voice. Swanson felt herself stiffen.
“Or I could say that I understand completely.” Morwood put his elbows on his desk, tented his fingers. His voice softened a trifle. “I felt the same way, once upon a time. It’s usually worst about now—three months in. I shouldn’t tell you this, but the staff psychologists at Quantico even have a term for it.”
Swanson sat, still stiff in her chair, uncertain where this was heading.
“Being an FBI agent isn’t like being a doctor. Or even like being a cop. There’s no single path to getting the right kind of experience under your belt. There are plenty of agents—lawyers, programmers—who don’t even wear a weapon and spend their entire careers at their desks. Location makes a difference, too. You happened to catch Albuquerque. A lot of the action around here is drug-related, so the DEA tends to take point.” He leaned forward a little. “But I’ll tell you two more things, Swanson. First—I’m your FTO. That means I’m your judge as well as your guardian angel. While you’re evaluating those cold cases, I’m evaluating you: where your skills lie, where you’ll do the most good—what weak points need the most work.”
Swanson tried not to show her surprise. She’d never considered—certainly never noticed—that Morwood might be watching and evaluating her with any particular attention.
“Second—and you have to believe me on this—your time will come. And it’ll probably come when you least expect it. It might not even be an official assignment. Something might happen while you’re out installing those damn pole cams. Or driving home at night. It might turn out to be the investigation you were born to solve. Or it might be the most boring, most frustrating catch of your career. Either way, I can promise you this: those cold cases you’re reviewing now will come in handy.”
He took a sip of his coffee. After a few moments of silence, Swanson realized the conversation was over and that she was being dismissed.
She stood up. “Thanks for your time, sir.”
“Don’t mention it.” Morwood picked up the phone and began to dial.
Swanson made her way thoughtfully back to her desk. As she reached it, she frowned. There was something on it that hadn’t been there before—a package, sealed in an oversize buff envelope. Picking it up, she tore it open. Inside lay a fat, well-thumbed folder full of photographs and reports.
Cold case number six.
With a sigh, she sat down, pulled out the folder, and—blinking a little blearily—put it to one side while she finished typing up the summary on the I-25 robber, still at large and sought by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
7
April 22
THE MAN KNOWN as Bricktop had done a lot of weird shit for money in his life, but this job had to take the cake. Grave robbing was supposed to have gone out of fashion two hundred years ago, but here he was, in a cemetery, digging up a body under the full moon. But for five grand, what the hell—it was better than dealing Oxy, quicker, and a lot less risky.
Although he had driven through New Mexico before, he’d never been in this part of the state, and it was a lot greener than he expected. And mountainous, looking more like Colorado. The cemetery was a good twenty miles east of Santa Fe, on a forested hill, with a wrought iron gate and fence. There was a plaque of some sort at the entrance, which he didn’t bother to read. There sure as hell weren’t any tourists coming up at this time of night, and there wasn’t anything else to do around here except chop down trees. The lights of Glorieta twinkled in the valley below, and a ribbon of I-25 could be seen among the hills, the slow-moving lights of cars crawling along. It was chilly at night up here, but Bricktop was glad of it, as he was working up a sweat digging. They were predicting rain later, but for now the clouds were just patchy and the full moon was all the illumination he needed.
Funny how jobs like this came together. He knew a guy who knew a guy, and all of a sudden he was getting precise directions to the spot. Like the rest of the place, there was no tombstone for the grave, just a small stone monument with some kind of old, official-looking metal medallion—almost like a Rotary Club seal—stuck into the ground beside it.
Bricktop paused for a moment and checked his watch: eleven fifty. He had been working for about an hour and was already halfway done. He took a breather, resisted the urge to light up, and then resumed, sinking his shovel into the loose, dry soil, tossing it out onto the tarp, and repeating, all in an easy, rhythmic motion. It wasn’t all that different, he told himself, from working out at his local gym in Kirtland. The song “Brick House” was stuck in his head and the beat provided a rhythm to his work.
Bricktop had not, of course, met the men who actually hired him. All he got was a phone call, in which he was instructed to go to a parking garage and retrieve an envelope with two grand in it and the instructions. Another three grand was promised when he was finished. The instructions not only told him the night and time he was to do the job, with a detailed map, but also included a list of equipment he’d need: a plastic tarp to pile the dirt on, shovel, pick, gloves, a short ladder, and special hooking bars for opening the lid of the casket. He wasn’t actually to rob the grave: instead, he was just to expose the casket and open the lid, so the deceased could be examined “to determine identity.” The two men who were to make this determination would be arriving at one thirty in the morning, and after they’d had their look the casket would be shut, he’d get the other $3,000, and they’d go away while he refilled the hole. Guys who obviously didn’t like to get their pretty hands dirty. Bricktop figured it must be some inheritance business or identity theft, but he wasn’t about to ask questions or show curiosity: the note had contained a warning that if he tried to make off with the two grand, he’d receive a visit after which he’d be left with a very, very high voice.
It was not easy digging up a grave, but at least the ground was soft and sandy, free of rocks and roots. Now and then he stopped to listen, but there was never anything except the night noises of the surrounding forest. Down he dug, neatly squaring off the hole as he went, digging first on one side and then the other, still humming “Brick House.” Sooner than expected, he heard the blade of his shovel hit something. But it didn’t sound like wood. Bending down, he brushed off the dirt and saw to his great astonishment that the old casket under his feet was made of iron, ancient and pitted. It looked more like a frigging treasure chest than a coffin. Shaking his head, he cleared away the rest of the dirt from the top. The casket had a double lid—at least that was something expected. Digging around the sides, he freed up some space to get the hooking bars in place, then lifted the top half of the lid. It was heavy as a bitch. An unpleasant smell arose from the dark recesses. Keeping his penlight below ground level, he flicked it on to examine the man’s corpse.
Another surprise: it wasn’t a man at all, but a woman. At least, he assumed it was a woman, because it was clothed in a disintegrating brown dress. It was hard to tell from the disgusting face: fuzzy with mold, all shriveled up, more skeleton than visage, mummified lips pulled back in a manic grin. Thank God the identification wasn’t his problem. He obviously didn’t need to pry open the bottom part of the coffin, if identity was what they were after. He’d done the first part of his job and now he just had to wait for the men to come. He checked his watch: one twenty. He was right on time; ten minutes early, in fact.
He climbed out of the hole, perched himself on a nearby grave marker, and lit a cigarette, taking a deep drag. He was trying to quit and had limited himself to two cigarettes a day. Seeing as how it was past midnight, this would count as his first.
Sure enough, at one thirty sharp he saw a glow of headlights on the winding road that came up the hill past the cemetery, and as the car reached the top the lights went off and the car swung into the dirt lane and pulled up next to his. Both doors opened and two men got out. They walked over to him. One of them held a duffel.
“You’re Bricktop?” the man with the duffel asked.
“That’s me. Your guy—I mean, what you want—is down there.”
He showed the men to the grave. They stood on either side, looking down at the open coffin. Clouds had drifted over the moon, and he couldn’t really see their faces. He waited.
Now both guys snapped on latex gloves and put on N95 face masks. One got into the grave and stood on the lower lid of the iron coffin, bent down, and briefly shone a light on the dead woman’s face. Then the other guy pulled a long, serrated bone saw out of the duffel he was carrying and passed it down to the guy in the hole, along with a couple of oversize dry bags. The metal saw gleamed faintly in the moonlight. The man bent over the corpse’s midriff and Bricktop heard a horrible crackling, sawing sound. It was pretty obvious what the guy was doing—and it wasn’t just determining identity. But Bricktop held his tongue. Never ask questions, never show curiosity: that was his mantra.
The man put something heavy into one of the dry bags, sawed some more, put something else in the other bag. Then, sealing them, he handed them carefully to the man standing above. Then he stripped off his gloves and mask and slipped them into a pocket.
“Are we good?” Bricktop asked.
“We’re good.” The man reached into his coat and withdrew a manila envelope. “Remember: this never happened.”
Bricktop nodded, opened the envelope that was handed to him, and saw it contained fresh banded hundreds. Three bands, each labeled $1,000. He riffled through and then slipped the envelope inside his jacket.
“Okay,” said the man. “Close the lid and refill the hole.”
Bricktop was only too eager to finish the job and get the hell out of there. He bent down, grasping the heavy lid. It was just as he thought—the crazy fuckers had sawed the corpse in half and taken it from the waist up. None of his business. Pulling out the hooking bars, he heaved it closed with a muffled thump.
He felt a sharp tickle against the back of his skull—and that was it.
* * *
The man in the grave bent over the figure sprawled on the coffin, then dispassionately squeezed off a second round from the silenced Maxim 9 pistol, taking off the top of the gravedigger’s head. Pulling the latex gloves on again, he gingerly reached inside the man’s jacket and took out the envelope with the money, along with wallet, car keys, and the instruction document. He climbed back out and the two men, in silence, dragged the tarp and some of the dirt it held into the freshly dug hole, loosely covering the corpse and his tools. The dry bags and saw went back into the duffel. Dark clouds now began to blot out the moon, the arrival of the predicted front, bringing thunderstorms and heavy rain. The man with the pistol got into the dead man’s car, and the man with the duffel got into the other. Bricktop’s car went off one way, and a few minutes later the other drove off in the opposite direction.
Hefty drops of rain began spattering into the graveyard, first a few and then many, while lightning split the sky and thunder rolled among the hills.
8
April 23
THE PHONE ON Swanson’s desk rang. Two short bursts: an internal call.
She picked it up. “Yes?”
“Swanson?” It was Morwood.
“Yes?”
“Would you mind stepping into my office for a moment?”
“I’ll be right there, sir.”
Swanson pushed aside the files she’d been examining—cold case number seven—and stood up. It wasn’t like Morwood to call her into his office like this; not at this hour of the morning. He was quite punctual about their weekly debriefs and review sessions, every Thursday afternoon at two. From long habit, the first feeling she had was of guilt and anxiety. Shit, had she done something wrong?
Over the last couple of weeks, in addition to the ongoing desk work, Morwood had let Swanson ride shotgun with two DEA teams on meth lab raids in northeast Albuquerque. They were low-level busts, and she’d been no more than an observer in body armor—she suspected that Morwood had specifically chosen the ops for their minimal danger potential—but in the process she’d gotten some firsthand experience with interagency rivalry.
She’d already heard the FBI’s opinion of the DEA: knuckle-dragging Neanderthals whose main talent was for cracking skulls. But on these ride-alongs, she’d learned the DEA’s own impression of the FBI. The assault teams had let her know, in no uncertain terms, that she’d joined the wrong agency, and that the FBI was a sorry collection of pencil-necked, limp-dicked, nerdy accountants who rarely if ever broke leather their entire careers. At first, Swanson had endured the ribbing good-naturedly. But by the end of the second ride-along, just yesterday, one crew-cut-sporting agent in particular just wouldn’t let the joke go, and as they’d returned to headquarters—suspects in cuffs, the crank in evidence lockers, and Clandestine Lab Enforcement securing the site—Swanson’s anger had gotten the better of her, and she’d let her tormentor know, in graphic detail, precisely where he could shove the meth they’d just confiscated.
It was only later in the evening that she’d learned Breitman, the agent with the crew cut, had been squad leader.
As she approached the open door of Morwood’s office, her anxiety spiked. Shit, it had to be that. Almost four months now, and she hadn’t blown her top once. Figures she’d do it just at the worst time, and at the worst guy possible. She knew that, as her FTO, Morwood had the power to fire her. While that was almost unheard of, he could certainly put a note in her jacket that would be an anchor on her career for a long time.
On top of everything else, the Rolling Stones’ “19th Nervous Breakdown” had wormed its way into her head and refused to leave. Here it comes…
Mouth dry, she knocked on the doorframe. Morwood, who was holding a stapled sheaf of papers in one hand, glanced up. As usual, she could tell nothing from his expression. “Swanson,” he said, looking back at the papers. “Come in.”
Usually he asked her to sit. Not this time.
She waited while he turned over one page, then another. Then he cleared his throat and—without looking up—asked: “Are you familiar with what happened at Glorieta Pass?”
Glorieta Pass? That road was unfamiliar to Swanson. She racked her brains, recalling the names of the streets in the Alta Monte neighborhood where their raid had gone down—Candelaria, Comanche—but she couldn’t recall any Glorieta.
“I’m not sure, sir,” she said, bracing herself.
Morwood let the sheaf of papers drop on his desk and finally looked back up at her. “Frankly, Agent Swanson, I’m surprised at you.”
“Sir?” Here it comes, here it comes…
“A student with your depth of scholarship, and you’re going to tell me you don’t know about the Battle of Glorieta Pass?”
Now Swanson was thoroughly confused. With a stab of annoyance she thrust Mick Jagger’s nasal voice out of her mind. “I’m not sure what you mean. There was no battle; the cooks surrendered without a fight. If you’re referring to the incident with Breitman, I want you to know, sir, that I’m sorry if there were any hard feelings—”
“Swanson, are we even on the same planet? I’ve read your John Jay transcript. It says you took a course on the American Civil War your sophomore year. Or maybe you slept through it?”
Swanson swallowed. “I’m sorry, sir. Are we talking about history?”
“Of course. What did you think we were talking about—that DEA dustup yesterday? Sure, Breitman called me. I told him to untwist his underwear and forget about it. No, I’m talking about Glorieta Pass—the westernmost major battle of the Civil War. The Confederacy invaded New Mexico Territory in an attempt to cut the West off from the Union, and got their asses royally kicked. At Glorieta Pass.”
Swanson felt surprise, relief, and then embarrassment. Now that her anxiety was receding, the name did have a familiar ring. But her professor for that class had been boring as hell, and there’d been so many battlefields to remember…
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, a class of mine covered it. Sorry, sir.”
He frowned at her in what she hoped was mock disappointment. “I’m relieved to hear it. Not exactly Gettysburg, of course, but over sixty men, Yanks and Confederates both, lost their lives in that battle. Several of them are buried up there, at a place called Pigeon’s Ranch.”
Swanson was silent, listening. As relieved as she was to learn this had nothing to do with the reaming-out she’d given Breitman the day before, she was mystified as to what Morwood was getting at.
“About an hour ago, a body was discovered in the Pigeon’s Ranch cemetery. Well, two bodies, perhaps—although that remains to be seen. A man was found shot, lying atop a coffin in a freshly dug-up grave.”
Swanson nodded. She wondered if she should be taking notes, decided against it.
“Feel free to chime in anytime, Swanson. Now: Glorieta Pass was a Civil War battle. Part of the battlefield is a national historic park, and that grave was in a small cemetery there.”
At this, Swanson did chime in. “That would make the site federal land.”
“Yes. You may now keep your diploma. Go on.”
“Any crime committed there would be our responsibility to investigate.”
“Correction: your responsibility.” And with that, Morwood picked the sheaf of papers off his desk and handed it to her.
Swanson took the papers gingerly. “Sir?”
“It’s quite simple. As I recall, three weeks ago you came to me asking for a new challenge. An active investigation, perhaps.” Morwood coughed behind one palm, then waved at the sheaf of papers. “I herewith give you a dead body in a vandalized grave in the cemetery at Glorieta Pass.”
When Swanson remained silent, Morwood said: “Isn’t this what you wanted? A case of your own?”
