Bones of the Lost

brink.
    “How’d you finger Gross for the doer? He was never on our radar.”
    “His tattoo.”
    Slidell’s brows floated up in question.
    “I saw it at the Article 32 hearing at Camp Lejeune. But only part of the lower half, below his cuff, so I got it wrong. I thought it said RIP, meaning rest in peace.”
    “No better friend, no worse enemy.”
    It surprised me that Slidell knew a Corps slogan.
    “Except Gross is a disgrace to the military,” I said.
    “Fuckin’ A. He ain’t what marines are about.”
    I wondered if Slidell had history with the Corps unknown to me. Was sure I wouldn’t ask.
    “Anyway, I saw the tattoo again in the tavern snapshot of John-Henry Story and Dom Rockett, but it didn’t register. The image was reflected in a mirror, so everything was reversed. When I was going over photos Thursday night, it suddenly clicked. I’d seen the Task Force Ripper patch hanging in Rockett’s living room. RIP. Ripper. Gross was the guy shooting the pic. That connected him to Rockett and Story.”
    “I hear you.”
    “I checked the Article 32 charge sheet, saw that Gross’s middle initial was H. Henry. Then I confirmed that his mother was born Marianna Story. John-Henry Gross was the nephew of John-Henry and Archer Story. After that, it all started tumbling.
    “Gross was on his fourth deployment to Afghanistan. I compared the photo I’d found in my backpack to the one I’d taken of the hit-and-run victim. Our Jane Doe’s hair had been bleached, but it was definitely the same kid. Also in the shot was Khandan, the girl who spoke to me at Bagram. When I looked carefully, I could identify a distinct rock formation behind the village of Sheyn Bagh.”
    “The place you dug up the bones.”
    “Yes. That’s when it all made terrible sense. The man I had helped at Camp Lejeune had in fact murdered Aqsaee and Rasekh. Aqsaeehad seen Gross take Ara away. When Aqsaee recognized Gross at the cordon-and-knock he ran toward him yelling ‘Ara,’ not ‘Allah.’ Gross panicked and used the firefight to gun him down, Rasekh as well.”
    “You think this kid Khandan slipped the Polaroid into your backpack?”
    I nodded. “Shortly after she approached me we spent time sitting side by side in a bunker.”
    “Who snapped it?”
    “We may never know that.”
    “How’d Khandan come to have it?”
    “No idea. But she must have treasured that photo. She’d put the thing in a plastic sleeve.”
    I was about to ask a question when Slidell beat me to it.
    “How’d Ara come to have John-Henry Story’s US Airways club card?”
    “Has Archer commented on his brother’s involvement with the massage parlors?”
    “He claims to know shit.” Dripping with disgust. “But Mrs. Tarzec said John-Henry had been a regular customer.”
    “Maybe John-Henry dropped the card. Maybe Ara lifted it from him. For whatever reason, she kept it.”
    “Good thing. That hunk of plastic was our first leg up.”
    For a beat we both gnawed on that. Then, “You sure Story died in that fire?”
    “Larabee reviewed the entire file,” I said. “He still feels confident about the ID.”
    For several moments we watched orange tendrils twist and curl behind the filigreed brass. Charlie used the interlude to squawk one of his favorites.
    “I want your sex!”
    Slidell’s eyes stayed on the flames. I felt compelled to explain.
    “It’s a line from an old George Michael song.”
    “Tell me this.” Slidell looked my way. “How’d you know to go to that warehouse?”
    “An inspired guess, really. Larabee found a sliver of ivory embedded in Ara’s scalp. Not many uses of ivory these days, but it was once common on piano keys. Impact against a keyboard explained the patterned injury on Ara’s shoulder.”
    Slidell hitched his shoulders. And?
    “The FBI report listed difluoroethane among the ingredients in the smear on Ara’s purse. Difluoroethane is a propellant added to aerosol paints.”
    Again the shoulders.
    “The warehouse across from John-Henry’s Tavern was supposed to be converted into lofts, but the project never went forward. So it was empty. The day we talked to Sam Poland, I saw an old piano on the loading dock.”
    “Spray-painted with graffiti.” Slidell snapped a finger and pointed it at me. “Not bad, doc. And by the way, that’s the last time you go swanning off after one of your hunches without me. I’m the detective. You’re the anthropologist.”
    “Noted.”
    Slidell nodded sharply, as