Bone Secrets 03 - Buried

We’ve got a match.” Ray Lusco thumped a fist on his desk in the OSP building.
    “On one of the bodies in the mass grave?” Mason asked. Sitting directly across from Ray at his own antique metal desk, he opened the digital file with the photos of the grave, and thumbnails filled his screen. A few lessons from his son, Jake, had improved Mason’s skill with the computer. He had about ten sticky notes for different procedures dotting his monitor. Patiently outlined by Jake.
    Mass grave
weren’t quite the right words to describe the pit. Each body had been buried at different times. One on top of the other. Why would someone reopen the same site each time? Curiosity? Had he wanted to see what the previous body now looked like? Or maybe the earth was easier to dig since it’d been disturbed several times before.
    The dig had been a forensic nightmare. Bodies mixed together. Remains disturbed every time the killer had added another body. Had he purposefully mixed them together?
    Five adults had been found. Not old, according to Dr. Peres, the forensic anthropologist on the scene. Late teens or early twenties. The woman had been in full work mode. Mason swore the challenge of the pit had put the anthropologist in heaven. She’d called for a dozen assistants and painstakingly photographed and removed every bone. Mason had seen her eyes light up each time a skull was uncovered. For the most part, she worked silently, keeping her theories to herself, barking curt orders to her workers, and simply telling the police the sex of the victims as each was uncovered.
    “Steven James Monroe. Age twenty-four. Arrests for prostitution and possession. Last known address is nearly twenty-five years old. Reported missing a year before our bus vanished. Parents filed the report.”
    “Twenty-four years old,” muttered Mason as he studied the old photo of Monroe. The kid looked innocent, young, fresh. How’d he end up in their hole? “Somebody was active before our kids were taken. How much you want to bet the others will be prostitutes, too? Maybe a Jeffrey Dahmer type had been in the area. But I guess this guy liked men
and
women.”
    “If they do turn out to be prostitutes, it adds weight to a sexual motive.” Ray’s voice tightened, and Mason knew he was getting angry. “Coordinates with the shit we found in that underground tank.”
    “Just because the first one had a shady past doesn’t mean the rest of them will. They could be missing college kids for all we know. Think he kept adults in the tank first?”
    Ray nodded, and Mason heard his teeth grind.
    “Why the switch to kids?”
    Ray shrugged. “You’re asking the wrong person.”
    “Wonder if our unsub is still alive?” They could be chasing a goddamned ghost.
    Mason grabbed up the receiver as his desk phone rang.
    “Callahan.”
    “Detective Callahan? This is Cecilia Brody.”
    Mason’s grip tightened on the phone. “Dr. Brody, what can I do for you?”
    “I’ve been giving some thought to your questions from the other day.”
    Right
, Mason thought.
You mean you’ve finally decided to share something you held back.
He’d felt both parents weren’t saying everything that day in the sick woman’s room. At first he’d thought it was because of the presence of their son, but Mason had rapidly discarded that theory. The parents had talked dispassionately to their son like a stranger.
    “What have you thought of, Dr. Brody?”
    The line was silent for a long second, and Mason worried the woman had changed her mind.
    “You’d asked if there was anyone we could think of who would want to hurt us through Daniel.”
    Mason stayed silent.
    “I’ve been thinking, and I remember about a month before Daniel was taken, I’d had an issue with a patient.”
    “An issue?”
    “A death. He died on my table.”
    Mason straightened in his chair, making it squeal in protest. “He died? Like during surgery?”
    “Yes. And the family laid the blame on me.” Her voice was steady, emotionless. “He was high risk. It was do something or he would definitely die. It was worth a chance, and his wife knew it. I presented my case to her, and she gave me permission to try to save him.”
    “What happened?”
    “I couldn’t save him. Once his chest was open, I saw it was even worse than we’d expected.” Dr. Brody abruptly went quiet.
    Mason waited, wondering if she was about to lose composure. He sincerely doubted it. The slight woman had a spine of