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when that happened, the respective head honchos agreed to pool resources and create a task force. Putting an FBI agent in charge was a great way to shift the blame to the federal government if the case was never solved, and it also kept their department’s homicide stats in the black.
    Kelly let her eyes trail across the corkboard. It contained a jigsaw of photos, some of nearly complete skeletons, others just a few fragments of bone. Each photo was marked as a John Doe, with a number and a rough estimate of how many months the victim had been dead. The bones in the photos were brown and moldered. It was almost impossible for Kelly to imagine them as people who had laughed and danced and loved, never dreaming that one day they’d end up as so much detritus scattered across a forest floor. “So do we have any leads on who these victims may be? This is a small region. I can’t imagine many people go missing without being reported.”
    “You’d be surprised,” Monica said. “We get a big influx of people in the summertime for all the festivals, then another group in the fall for the foliage. Plus there’s the Appalachian Trail hikers—no record of them but the logbooks. It could be months before anyone realizes they never came back from the hike.”
    “What about those logs? Anyone check those against missing-persons reports?” Kelly asked.
    “Hikers go by handles instead of their real names, so we won’t have much luck there. In addition to them we got the drifters, former deadheads—”
    “Not in Massachusetts,” Doyle muttered.
    “Forgive me for implying that such—undesirables—might cross state lines,” Monica scoffed. “Anyway, I went through our missing-persons reports, and there’s not much. If they were locals they would’ve been missed.”
    “What about you, Lieutenant?” Kelly asked.
    “Same here,” Doyle conceded grudgingly. “Most of what we’ve got is older men skipping out on their families, that sort of thing. We’re at the tail end of the season, lots of tourists still around.” He raised an eyebrow and smirked at her. “So looks like it’s up to your forensics guy to figure out who our arm belongs to.”
    “Looks like it,” Kelly said, straightening out the papers in the file in front of her and silently praying that Dr. Stuart wouldn’t let her down; otherwise, she could be stuck here indefinitely. “As far as jurisdiction goes, here in the command center we’ll keep a record of all evidence corresponding to the remains, including the map marking where they were found. As long as your respective labs are processing the finds in a timely manner, I’m fine with the remains staying where they are. If in the future I feel that everything needs to be consolidated at one central location, I’ll let you know. Agreed?”
    They both nodded.
    “For now, the SAR team keeps going.” She held up a hand to stave off Doyle, who had opened his mouth in protest. “At least for a few more days—we’ll see where we are then. I’ve also called in a K-9 unit to go over the sites where most of the remains were found. And I think we should post warning signs at the trailheads recommending that hikers travel in pairs, and listing a number they can call to report suspicious behavior. Any questions?”
    “Yeah, what the hell are we supposed to do?” Doyle said.
    “Lieutenant Doyle, please contact your lab and tell them I’d like those DNA results back ASAP. Then head back to the boneyard, keep an eye on the search, and assemble that list of all active outdoor groups in this area. Lieutenant Lauer, I need your list as well. And why don’t you check the ViCAP database for young males found in remote areas.”
    Doyle scoffed. “ViCAP is a waste of time. Do you Feds really expect us to fill out forms with a couple hundred questions every time a body falls into our laps? We put our ViCAP forms in a round file.” He jerked his head toward the trash can.
    Kelly’s eyes narrowed, but before