Bones of the Lost

Larabee found a sliver of ivory in Candy’s scalp.”
    “What’s ivory doing in a hooker’s hair?”
    “Will you let me finish?”
    Slidell looked at his watch.
    “When we were in Rockett’s house I saw a carved tusk in his living room. The thing looked old.”
    “And?”
    “What do you mean,
and
?” Sharp. “The worldwide ban on ivory has been in effect for over twenty years. Who has the stuff just lying around?”
    “I got an ivory marble my granddaddy give me.”
    “Are you listening to me?”
    “Calm down, doc.”
    “I am calm. Did you know that, other than drugs and guns, human beings are the most smuggled commodity on earth?”
    Slidell rubbed his chin.
    A phone rang in the squad room behind us.
    “I’ll write up a warrant. Not saying I’ll get one, but we’ve got Creach’s admission the Passion Fruit is a rub and tug. I’ll go with that. Once inside, we see what we see.”

    While Slidell tried to convince a judge to issue a search warrant, I headed back to the MCME to do some research. I learned the following.
    A United Nations study put the estimated annual global profit from human trafficking at $31.6 billion. And that figure was a few years out of date. Given the industry’s steep growth curve, some were placing the total closer to forty billion.
    At any given time, 2.5 million people worldwide are in forced labor as a result of trafficking. One hundred and sixty-one countries are affected, 127 as exporters, 137 as importers. Asian and pan-Pacific countries are the most common source, followed by African, Middle Eastern, and Eastern Bloc nations.
    The majority of victims are between eighteen and twenty-four years of age, but roughly 1.2 million children are also trafficked annually.
    Trafficked individuals end up in bonded or forced labor, or in sexual servitude. Bonded laborers work to pay off a loan or service, often for years. Forced laborers work against their will, usually in domestic, farm, or sweatshop settings.
    Forty-three percent of all trafficking victims end up in involuntary commercial sexual exploitation. Ninety-eight percent are women and girls.
    After an hour I sat back, sickened.
    Runaways hoping for better lives as nannies, models, or maids. Teens meeting an exciting new date, an exotic stranger, an older man. Kids playing or walking to school, grabbed and thrown into the back of a van. All ending up in an inescapable hell of strip clubs, brothels, and pornographic films.
    I squeezed my eyes tight. The heartbreaking images remained.
    Children jammed in a pen, hands clutching the wire, eyes begging for help. A girl with bound wrists, face devoid of hope. Young boys on mats in a filthy basement.
    I hovered at the edge of a deep well of helpless rage.
    An e-mail pinged me back.
    I noted the sender. Read the subject line.
    Felt needles of ice dance my skin.
    You’re next bitch
.
    [email protected] .
    “Bring it on, you bastard!”
    I opened the vile thing.
    A single image filled my screen, a .jpg transmitted as an attachment.
    The picture showed a woman lying on her back, a dark puddle on the pavement below her head. The woman’s eyes were open and fixed on nothing. Her face was swollen and discolored and streaked with blood.
    My breath caught in my throat.
    The woman’s mouth gaped wide. Too wide.
    “Oh, Jesus. Oh, no.”
    Despite the blood, I could see that the woman’s mouth was empty.
    I stared, shocked and sickened. Knowing. The woman’s tongue had been severed, packaged, and left on my doorstep. Had I met her?
    The woman’s features were too distorted to allow recognition. If I even knew her.
    I ran my gaze down the supine body. The clothing was unremarkable, a jacket, dark pants, sensible shoes.
    I worked my way back up.
    The jacket was stained with what I assumed to be blood.
    My gaze fell on the woman’s neck.
    One heartbeat. Two. A dozen.
    The icy needles burned hotter.
    I grabbed my hand lens. Focused.
    Saw a heart-shaped mark in the hollow of the woman’s throat.
    My fist slammed the desk.
    Goddammit! Goddammit! Goddammit!
    Tears burned the backs of my lids.
    I got up. Paced. Furious. Miserable.
    Culpable?
    When the phone rang I nearly ignored it.
    “What!” More expletive than question.
    “You okay, doc?” Slidell.
    “I … Are you near a computer?”
    “Can be.”
    “I’m forwarding a photo to your e-mail.”
    “Could take a minute.”
    “Call as soon as you get it.” I prayed my voice didn’t reveal how gutted I felt.
    “I