Presumption of Guilt Read Free

tape and metal barricades.
    They were met by a serious young man with a clipboard. “Could I see your identification and get your names, please?”
    They complied, although Joe could see Sam suppressing a smile at the formality. But he and she were both ex-military, if a generation apart, and he found value in the ritual nature of the exchange. And as he’d said at the office, he sensed they’d be having few problems maintaining the scene’s integrity—often a hassle in the real world.
    Free to proceed, they advanced to a couple of dark-clad officers standing next to a twentysomething man in a hard hat—a pair of earbuds dangling over his collar—not far from a jackhammer’s compressor.
    As they drew near, Joe announced conversationally, “Special Agents Joe Gunther and Samantha Martens, VBI.”
    One of the security men indicated the man in the hard hat. “This is Nelson Smith. He was breaking up the slab for removal when he found…” He paused, groping for a description, and finished lamely with, “what he found.”
    â€œI stopped for lunch,” Smith volunteered, “and saw the sun reflecting off the white bone. I couldn’t figure it out, first. Gave me a real shock.”
    â€œSo you saw nothing while you were working the jackhammer?” Sam asked as Joe drifted off toward the tool itself, which was lying still and quiet at the edge of the broken field.
    â€œNo. It was just dumb luck that I stopped when I did.” Smith paused before adding, “I woulda stabbed right through it if I’d kept going.”
    Joe crouched low, bringing his eyes to within a few inches of everyone’s topic of interest.
    Sam joined him from the other side. “Damn,” she said quietly. “What d’you think?”
    Wearing a latex glove, Joe reached out and shifted a small chunk of material that was leaning against the ring finger, revealing a bony mate still half encased in untouched concrete. It vaguely looked like a dollhouse-sized version of a dinosaur dig.
    â€œIf I were a betting man,” he said, “I’d say these two are attached to an impressively well-preserved skeleton.”
    They both looked up as Jim Matthews joined them, squatting down to their level. “So?”
    Joe tapped gently on the one fully revealed finger. “I was just telling Sam that this is probably the tip of the iceberg. That’s a guess, of course—could be these two fingers’re all there is. Don’t know why, though. If I’d wanted to get rid of a body when all this was going up, this place would’ve seemed like a gift from heaven.”
    Matthews shook his head. “Christ. So you know, both the state’s attorney and our vice president in charge of operations are here, looking to be briefed.”
    â€œI’ll get to them in a second,” Joe said, unhappy to be facing such conversations so early on.
    â€œWhen was the slab put in?” Sam asked.
    Jim looked at her, his expression showing a preference for facts over politics. “Nineteen seventy. I have the exact date in my office. I looked it up. They documented everything as it went in, almost brick by brick—not that they used bricks, come to think of it.”
    â€œAny changes since?” Joe asked. “Additions, repairs to the floor, anything?”
    â€œIt was a metal warehouse,” Matthews said. “It went up, served its purpose, and they decided to take it down. As far as the records go, this floor’s been untouched for over forty years.” He paused before reflecting, “Wonder who this is.”
    Joe smiled grimly. “Unless we get lucky, I’d say somebody who’s going to keep us busy for a while.” He rose and said to Jim resignedly, “Better take me to the grand pooh-bahs.”
    They were waiting for him in a small security building built into the inner fence system. The interior consisted of a row