Bones: Buried Deep

by Max Allan Collins

  “Sweetie, there’s seldom empirical proof that anybody is anything.”

  Brennan couldn’t argue with that. “What else?”

  “Nothing for Parks. Information was pretty sketchy. Long time ago… but that wasn’t quite as true for the other skull.”

  “Who was he?”

  “A small-time mobster named Johnny Battaglia.”

  The back of Brennan’s neck prickled.

  Angela was saying, “He disappeared in the fall of 1963, leaving behind a wife and two daughters and an arrest record the length of the lakefront.”

  “Probably not gay,” Brennan said.

  “You never know,” Angela said, a shrug in her voice.

  “But didn’t you say Booth was investigating the Gianelli crime family, before you got there?”

  The prickly neck was gone but an uneasy queasiness had seeped into her stomach. “Yes. Till our cobbled-together skeletons rudely interrupted him.”

  “Well,” Angela said, “Battaglia allegedly worked with Raymond Gianelli’s father back in the forties and fifties.”

  “I don’t see what this has to do with our skeletons,” Brennan said.

  “Nobody on this end has any ideas, either; but we’re still working on that and DNA identification of the other bones.”

  “Did you copy the Parks and Battaglia info to Booth?” Brennan asked.

  “Yes — he’s had them awhile.”

  “Good.”

  A female orderly arrived bearing a tray with a cup of coffee, a glass of juice, a covered bowl, and a covered plate. Right behind her came a blond nurse in a flowered smock and white slacks.

  “You’re not supposed to be using a cell phone inside the hospital, Dr. Brennan.”

  The wide blue eyes and straight-lipped frown made the nurse look serious but not quite cross.

  What is this, Brennan thought, an airplane?

  “Gotta go,” Brennan told Angela, and rang off.

  She sat quietly while the nurse checked her vitals.

  “Feeling better?” the nurse asked, giving Brennan a little smile.

  She had to admit, she did feel better; maybe the hospital had been the best place to spend the night, even though she longed to get reacquainted with that hotel room.

  “Dr. Keller will be by to see you soon,” the nurse said. “In the meantime, enjoy breakfast… and no more cellular calls, all right?”

  The nurse left Brennan to her meal and her thoughts.

  The tray of food was nothing special — including oatmeal that looked about as appetizing as something off her worktable — but she ate it all, and was soon even wishing for a second cup of carburetor-fluid coffee.

  Making sure there was no sign of the blond nurse in the corridor beyond her open door, Brennan got out her cell again, speed-dialed Booth, gave him a quick update, and suggested that he check his e-mail and print out the files Angela had sent him… and bring them along when he came to get her.

  “Why,” he asked, “are they releasing you again?”

  “They never released me in the first place,” she said.

  “Good point. On my way.”

  An hour later, Booth walked through the door in his usual dark suit, conservative tie, and crisp white shirt.

  Dr. Keller, on the other hand, had yet to make an appearance — “soon” being a relative term in any hospital — and Brennan wondered if the physician was punishing her for yesterday.

  Booth, carrying two fat manila folders under an arm, plopped into the chair next to her bed.

  “Well?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “I haven’t looked at ’em yet — didn’t waste the time. Knew you’d want to see them, too.”

  “I like this new thoughtful side you’re showing,” she said, granting him a small smile. “I’ll have to check into the hospital more often.”

  “Anyway, it’s hard to read and drive at the same time.”

  Brennan took the file, surprised by its heft. “I didn’t think Angela had this much….”

  “She didn’t. When I saw that name Battaglia, I called over to the Chicago PD. They e-mailed me the files on both Battaglia and Parks, and I printed those out, too. Seems the Chicago PD has been transferring over their old files onto disk.”

  “Isn’t science wonderful?” she said, and settled back on the bed, using the motor to raise her about forty-five degrees.

  The name scribbled on the tab in Booth’s handwriting was PARKS.

  Not surprisingly, Booth had kept the mobster’s file for himself, and was starting in on it as she read hers.

  The information was discouragingly thin, albeit with wrinkles that Angela hadn’t provided over the phone.

  In 1948, David Parks had graduated from Northwestern as a certified public accountant, worked for a medium-sized company for two and a half years, then left under circumstances not outlined in the police report.

  Four months later, Parks opened his own business in an office in the Silversmith Building at 10 South Wabash, which — for the eleven years prior to going missing — was his sole source of income.

  The file indicated Parks had made a substantial living, at least by the standards of the nineteen fifties; but — after the investigation into his disappearance — the authorities began to suspect his practice may not have been entirely legitimate.

  The missing person’s report had been filed by one Terence Rhyne, who claimed that on the night of July 14, 1959, he had been scheduled to meet Parks at the Berghoff restaurant after work for drinks and dinner; but the accountant had not shown.

  Known to be meticulously punctual, Parks had not phoned or messengered Rhyne, canceling their appointment (date?). Rhyne had grown worried and contacted the police. For the next six months, detectives searched for Parks with no success. Eventually, Parks went into the cold case file.

  Brennan read and reread certain passages.

  Around noon of the day of his disappearance, Parks had been seen at lunch in the Loop in the company of a man named Mark Koch, who also had an office in the Silversmith Building. A jeweler, Koch had lunch with Parks most days, and said that July fourteenth had been just like most every other shared luncheon with the accountant.

  More witnesses, more statements… more of the same, and as Angela had suggested, everyone involved with the case indeed was male.

  Unmarried, Parks had no noteworthy female acquaintances, not even sisters (he had none), and his mother was deceased.

  The last page was Parks’s client list, which was — as the police report noted — quite short.

  Seven names…

  …but one leapt at her.

  Her eyes flashed to her partner, engrossed in the Battaglia file.

  “Booth,” she said.

  Without looking up, he held up an index finger: he would be with her in what… a second, a minute, an hour?

  This was one of the things about him that drove her mad. Whatever he was doing was always more important….

  Not this time.

  “Booth!”

  “What?” he said with a start.

  A nurse leaned in. “Is everything all right?”

  “Sorry,” Brennan said sheepishly. “Didn’t mean to yell.”

  The nurse cast her slitted-eyed disapproval, but said nothing and departed.

  Brennan asked Booth, “You didn’t look at these at all?”

  “No,” he said, one eye on the Battaglia file. “When I talked to Greene on the phone, he just said Parks was some accountant, and this goombah Battaglia mob muscle, not a real player.”

  “Well, the accountant?”

  “Yeah?”

  “He only had about a half dozen clients.”

  Booth shrugged. “And?”

  “And one of them was named Anthony Gianelli.”

  Booth slammed closed the Battaglia file, rose and crossed to the bed in two steps. He snatched the thick file folder out of her hands.

  “Help yourself,” she said, folding her arms, an eyebrow arched.
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  “Thanks,” he said, reading the file but not her sarcasm.

  Dr. Keller came in, took in the FBI agent, whose nose was buried in the manila folder. “I suppose I shouldn’t ask.”

  Ignoring Keller, Booth said, “This has to be the connection… but does it mean Jorgensen was somehow mobbed up? Tied to Gianelli?”

  “Excuse me?” Dr. Keller asked. “I’m sure your case is important, Agent Booth. But so is mine, and her name is Brennan.”

  “Sorry,” Booth said, shutting the folder.

  Skirting the FBI agent, Dr. Keller asked, “Feeling better, Dr. Brennan?”

  “Yes, thank you. A good night’s sleep can do wonders.”

  “Often the best medicine,” he said, and gave her a quick exam, cursory enough not to require Booth’s absence, and pronounced her fit enough to check out.

  “Good to hear, Doctor,” she said.

  The youthful physician half-smiled. “Really? Weren’t you going to leave anyway?”

  “Probably.”

  He sighed. “Well, I would hate to call security to restrain you, so let’s just check you out. Your injuries are going to need time to heal, and I want you to take it easy.”

  “You can count on me, Doctor.”

  “Yes,” Dr. Keller said, lifting both eyebrows, “but for what?”

  Half an hour later — five minutes of which were devoted to Brennan refusing to ride in a wheelchair — she and Booth were in the hospital parking lot.

  “We should go see Gianelli,” Booth said, somehow managing to be glum and excited at once.

  “Which one? Father or son?”

  “Either. Both.”

  “With what for evidence?”

  Booth kept walking, thinking, obviously trying to come up with an answer; but by the time they were seat-belted into the Crown Vic, he had still said nothing.

  “Okay,” he said finally, starting the car. “Maybe you’re right. We don’t really have anything. We have to go somewhere.”

  “Yes, we do,” Brennan said. “My hotel.”

  He pulled onto the ramp. “I’ll bite — why?”

  “I need my laptop.”

  “What’s on your laptop?”

  “Take me to my hotel and I’ll show you.”

  He snorted a laugh. “A beautiful woman, a hotel room, and a suggestive remark — best offer I’ve had all day.”

  He headed toward the hotel.

  “There was nothing suggestive about—”

  “Joke,” he said.

  Including the “beautiful” part? she wondered.

  Booth managed to keep his curiosity under wraps until they got to her hotel, but he was clearly anxious. They did not converse, however, and she could see he was chasing theories in his mind.

  She did not give in to that pursuit — she preferred to have more data first.

  He allowed her a quick shower and a change of clothes before sitting her down at the little desk with the hotel’s high-speed Internet connection.

  She pulled up the files that Angela had sent of the images she’d created with the Angelator, a program Angie developed that allowed rendering of 3-D holographic images based on measurements from the original skulls. With the Angelator, a face and hair could be given to what had been a bare skull.

  Brennan turned the laptop to share the images with Booth, who had drawn a chair up beside her.

  “This is making my brain hurt,” Booth said.

  “No comment,” Brennan said.

  “Parks was probably gay—”

  “Possibly gay.”

  He gave her that. “Possibly gay, which made him a potential target for Jorgensen… but Battaglia was the furthest thing from Jorgensen’s victim profile.”

  “Can’t a mob guy be gay?”

  “Not one whose first arrest was a rape charge involving a sixteen-year-old waitress.”

  “Oh.” She shifted her position. “And Parks had a connection to the Gianellis.”

  He nodded decisively. “Both these victims had a connection to the Gianellis.”

  They studied side-by-side pictures of the two men.

  Battaglia had a wide, flat mug with the nose and big bulging eyes of a bulldog.

  Parks was blond with blue eyes and angular, sharp features, including high cheekbones, adding up to a vague resemblance to an owl.

  Her cell phone rang and she hit the button. “Brennan.”

  “Zach.”

  Her assistant Zach Addy — thin and bespectacled, with a mop of dark hair — was halfway through two doctorates, but looked more like he was halfway through his senior year in high school.

  “What’s up?” Brennan asked.

  “Third skeleton just arrived, and we’ve started testing already. I thought you’d want to know.”

  “Thanks, Zach. Stay on it.”

  “…Wait a minute, Jack wants to talk to you.”

  Hodgins got on the line. “Been looking more into the soil question.”

  “Hi, Jack. Soil question? Does it have an answer?”

  “The sandy soil the first two skeletons were buried in is different than the soil under that Jorgensen guy’s house.”

  “We knew that.”

  “Yes,” Jack said, “but we know more now. I’ve been doing some further testing and comparisons, and the soil mixture from the skeletons matches a place called the Indiana Dunes Inland Marsh.”

  “Great work,” Brennan said.

  Jack said, “Thanks… just don’t get too effusive. It’s a smaller area to search than all of Chicago, but it’s still several hundred acres.”

  “Where do we start?”

  “I’d suggest the main gate.”

  “…Thanks, Jack. It’s a start. A good one.”

  “Yeah, and I got something off the third skeleton, too. Not sure what it is, but I’ve got it in the gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer now. I’ll call ya back when I know what the substance is.”

  Brennan said, “Thanks,” and ended the call.

  She brought Booth up to speed on what she had learned, and within minutes they were in the car headed for Indiana.

  Booth had an Indiana map in the glove compartment and Brennan unfolded it as he drove.

  “The Indiana Dunes?” Booth asked.

  “Yes… What are you thinking?”

  His eyes narrowed. “I’m thinking maybe it’s the Dunes Express….”

  She had all but forgotten the odd expression Lisa Vitto had used, in relation to her missing boyfriend, that night at Siracusa.

  In her defense, since then Brennan had suffered a mugging, numerous painkillers, and passing out at the Field Museum; but as soon as Booth spoke the words “Dunes Express,” the case made sudden sense.

  “A mob dumping ground,” she said, “a burial ground for traitors and enemies.”

  “Where else do missing mob accountants and washed-up Outfit muscle wind up, after the lights go out?”

  Her heart pounding, she said, “All right — what do we do?”

  “How big is the area again?”

  “According to Jack, several hundred acres.”

  He shook his head, jaw set. “Do we even know what we’re searching for?”

  “Graves, of course.”

  “But probably not with little headstones and white crosses marking them.”

  “Probably not.”

  “And the best part?” Booth said miserably. “It’s in a swamp.”

  “Marsh, actually.”

  He barked a laugh. “Marsh, swamp, what difference does it make?”

  “Swamp has a higher water table. If they were disposed of in a swamp, the bodies most likely would be hidden underwater instead of buried.”

  His eyes bored into her.

  Hers bored back at him. “Would you please not stare at me when you’re driving?”

  He returned his gaze to the road. “What I was trying to say is… it’s going to be hard.”

  “Unlike all the easy times we’ve had,” she said.

 
That got a dry chuckle out of him.

  “It is a big area,” she allowed.

  “It’ll take a ton of agents to search the area, and most of them won’t have any idea what they’re looking for.”

  Brennan thought it over. “Narrow the field, and we could bring in ground-penetrating radar.”

  Around them, traffic slowed as they ran into Chicago’s inevitable construction. Brennan watched out the window as they entered the Chicago Skyway, the scenery becoming more and more desolate.

  The South Side had long been the neglected section of the city, made up predominantly of the working poor and those who were not even that lucky. As the road turned east toward Gary, the prospects did not improve.

  The steel industry, which had once made Gary a thriving community, had for the most part turned to rust; and many of those left living here wore the faces of Titanic passengers as the water rose over the deck.

  They might still be alive, but nothing was left to look forward to except death and release.

  Brennan’s phone chirped, obliviously good-natured, and she answered it to find Jack Hodgins on the other end again.

  “What have you got, Jack?”

  “That dust I told you about before?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It was on all the bones of the other two skeletons, too… but in such small amounts I couldn’t get a breakdown. This time? There was enough.”

  “You gonna keep me in suspense?”

  “Sixty-four percent lime.”

  She hunched over, straining her seat belt. “Jorgensen’s basement?”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, Dr. Brennan…. Don’t get ahead of yourself. Sixty-four percent lime, twenty-three percent silica, seven percent alumina, three percent each of iron oxide and sulfur trioxide.”

  Brennan took only a second to put the pieces together. “Cement.”

  “Cement.”

  “I thought you said the Indiana Dunes — where did the cement come from?”

  Jack said, “My guess? A construction site or a demolition site. Whatever it is, it’ll be in or near the Indiana Dunes Inland Marsh. And your bodies came from that patch of the Dunes.”

  They were off the expressway now, and Booth had turned east onto a two-lane highway, traffic finally moving again.

  “Also,” Jack said, “I’ve found traces of Typha, Cyperaceae, and Potamogetonaceae.”

  “Cattails, bulrushes, and pondweed,” Brennan said. “That helps.”