Read One Grave Less for Free Online

if there is a vehicle. The road to Alta is here.” She pointed at the map. “I think we are here.”
    They collected the spoils of their victory over the man and Maria glanced at him once more before they set off. Already ants had found him. She felt another pang of guilt.
    Maria concentrated hard on making a minimum of noise as she moved. Rosetta seemed to be a natural. They had walked about five minutes when they saw the vehicle—a beat-up four-wheel-drive pickup. There was a man sleeping in the driver’s seat.

Chapter 6
    “Is it some kind of voodoo paraphernalia?” asked Garnett.
    “Looks more like a Native American medicine bundle,” said Jin.
    “Just looks spooky,” said Izzy.
    Diane, freshly attired in jeans and a T-shirt, having surrendered her clothes to Neva to process for blood and any other evidence, looked at the large high-definition TV screen on the wall near the shiny, round stainless-steel conference table in the crime lab. The screen image showed the contents of the knapsack laid out on white butcher paper in one of the evidence rooms. Diane had installed the cam system so people like Chief Garnett could have a look at the evidence before it was processed without worrying about contaminating it with any of their own trace. She and several members of her crime lab crew stood around the conference table looking at the items on the screen.
    There were several brightly colored feathers of blue, red, green, and yellow; two dried monkey paws; a large orange beak; numerous sharp teeth; several talons; and a long bone. All had been stuffed in a long woven black textile bag embroidered with sunbursts and what appeared to be stylized leaves.
    “What does all this mean?” asked Garnett, looking at Diane as if she should know.
    “I don’t know, but the bone is a humerus from a human,” she said.
    “Who had this? Did your friend hide it?” asked Garnett.
    “I don’t know,” Diane answered.
    “I think the chief’s right,” said Izzy. “Looks like voodoo to me.”
    “I don’t know what it is,” she repeated.
    She stared at the bone. The epiphyses—ends of the long bones and the place of growth—were missing. They had become detached because they hadn’t yet fused.
    “The bone is from a child. A young child.”
    Each of them sat down around the table and stared, as if getting off their feet would give them more energy to figure out what the collection meant. They studied the items without speaking. The various machines in the glassed-in cubicles of the crime lab gave off a soft, quiet background hum. The jarring sound of the opening of the elevator doors startled them.
    There were two main entrances to the crime lab—one on the museum side and one from an elevator that went up the outside of the west wing of the building. The entrances could be accessed only by members of the crime lab, so none were surprised when David stepped out of the elevator into the room. He made his way through the warren of glass cubicles to the stainless-steel table.
    “You weren’t going to call me on something like this?” he said. He looked at Diane as he pulled up another chair and sat down.
    David Goldstein was a friend from World Accord International. He knew Simone. Like all the members of the WAI team, he suffered from the loss of their friends. After drifting around the country and after the breakup of his marriage, he had come to Diane for a job. She was glad to have him. He was one of the best forensic investigators.
    “We figured that since you were out doing something normal for a change, we wouldn’t bother you,” said Jin.
    David made an exasperated face at Jin. He rubbed the dark fringe of hair around his balding head as his attention focused on the contents of the bag.
    David had been out on a date. One of the rare times he ventured away from work to do something simply for the fun of it. Diane had been reluctant to disturb him.
    “How did you find out?” asked Diane.
    “I have my