Grave Secrets

“For years successive Guatemalan governments denied that these massacres ever occurred. The current government has abandoned that charade, but it’s unlikely anyone will go to jail. In 1996, a peace accord was signed between the Guatemalan government and a coalition of the main guerrilla groups, formally ending the conflict. That same year immunity was granted to persons accused of committing human rights violations during the war.”

“So why this?” Nordstern waved a hand around the office.

“Survivors and relatives began to speak out, demanding an investigation. Even if they couldn’t expect prosecution, they wanted to cast light on what had taken place.”

I thought of the little girl at Chupan Ya. I felt like an apologist for the offenders to speak of their crimes in such a sterile and detached way. The victims deserved a more impassioned recitation.

“But even before that, in the early nineties, Guatemalan groups representing families of the victims began inviting foreign organizations, including the Argentines, to carry out exhumations. The Argentines, along with scientists from the U.S., trained local Guatemalans. That led to the operation you see here. Over the past decade Mateo and his team have conducted scores of forensic investigations and have established a degree of independence from the organs of government.”

“Like Chupan Ya.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about Chupan Ya.”

“In August 1982, soldiers and civil patrollers entered the village—”

“Under the command of Alejandro Bastos,” Nordstern cut in.

“I don’t know that.”

“Go on.”

“You seem to know more about this than I do.”

Again the shrug.

What the hell. I’d had enough of this man. The massacres were just a story to him. To me they were more. So much more.

I stood.

“It’s getting late, Mr. Nordstern. I have work to do.”

“Chupan Ya or the septic tank?”

I quietly left the room.

8

BABY BUILDING IS A COMPLEX OPERATION, RUN WITH MILITARY precision. The chromosomes form command central, with squads of grunt genes taking orders from control genes, which answer to more control genes higher up the chain.

At first the embryo is an undifferentiated mass. An order is issued.

Vertebrate!

Segmented bones form around a spinal cord, jointed limbs with five digits each. A skull. A real jaw.

The embryo is a perch. A wood frog. A gecko.

The double-helix generals up the ante.

Mammal!

Homeothermy, viviparity, heterodonty.

The embryo is a platypus. A kangaroo. A snow leopard. Elvis.

The generals push harder.

Primate!

Opposable thumbs—3-D vision.

Harder.

Homo sapiens!

Gray matter to die for. Bipedality.

The human skeleton begins to ossify around the seventh week. Between the ninth and twelfth, tiny tooth buds appear.

I identified four cranial elements in the crime scene photos.

The sphenoid is a butterfly-shaped bone that contributes to the orbits and to the cranial base. The large wings arise during the eighth fetal week, the small pair follows a week later.

Using the scope and a calibrating grid, I measured length and breadth. Using the ABFO ruler for scale, I calculated actual size. Greater wing: fifteen by seven millimeters. Lesser wing: six by five millimeters.

The temporal bone also comes with some assembly required. The flat portion forming the temple and the most lateral part of the cheekbone appears during the eighth fetal week. This one measured ten by eighteen millimeters.

The tympanic ring begins life at approximately week nine, grows to three bony slivers during the next twenty-one days. The slivers join to form a ring around week sixteen. Just before baby checks out of the uterine hotel, the ring attaches to the ear opening

That first puzzling speck I’d seen in the pelvic photo was a tiny tympanic ring. Though lines of fusion were still evident, the three segments were firmly attached. The ABFO ruler indicated I was viewing the ring dead on. I measured diameter, corrected, added the figure to my list. Eight millimeters.

I turned my attention to the vial.

A miniature half jaw, with sockets that would never hold teeth. Twenty-five millimeters.

One collarbone. Twenty-one millimeters.

Moving through tables in the fetal osteology book, I checked each measurement. Sphenoid greater wing. Sphenoid lesser wing. Temporal squamous. Tympanic ring. Mandible. Clavicle.

According to Fazekas and Kósa, the girl in the tank had been five months pregnant.

I closed my eyes. The baby had been six to nine inches long and weighed around eight ounces when its mother was killed. It could blink, grasp, make sucking motions. It had eyelashes and fingerprints, could hear and recognize Mom’s voice. If it was a girl, she had six million eggs in her tiny ovaries.

I was feeling overwhelmed by sadness when Elena called out from the doorway.

“There’s a call for you.”

I didn’t want to talk to anyone.

“A Detective Galiano. You can take it in Mateo’s office.”

I thanked Elena, resealed the evidence in its vial, and climbed back to the second floor.

“Five months,” I said, skipping preliminaries.