Disturbing the Bones

Freddy Evans gazed at the freshly excavated set of human remains with a peculiar feeling in his stomach. It made him pull on the strap of his denim overalls as he towered over Anchee Chang, the young archaeologist who held her brush beside the bones encased in dirt with the touch of an artist.

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“Something wrong?” he asked.

“We shouldn’t move anything until Dr. Moore gets here,” Anchee said, a microphone dangling from her earbud. “Dr. Moore, we need you at quadrant 14.”

The urgency in Anchee’s voice unnerved Freddy. This was his first dig. He ran a hand through his dreadlocks.

Anchee waved a small yellow pickax in the air, motioning for the archaeological site director to come over a small hill. Freddy remained transfixed by the bones. He looked at the intact skeleton sitting atop a lattice of other remains. The skull dominated the shattered ruins, as if it had been rearranged on different terms.

An arena of mud had been excavated from the valley, divided into cross sections, revealing burial mounds, rafts of skeletons, and stacks of crates and equipment. Staircases descended into pits. Ladders scaled down. The flattened quadrants of land stretched like a football field marked by dark pockets, earthen holes, and moving figures.

Everyone had shed their long sleeves with the heat. Anchee, a graduate student researcher at Southern Illinois University, had kept the floppy hat. She focused on the edge of a skull at one end, which looked like it had been cushioned by the other bones. It reminded Anchee of her first dig near her university in western China, when a flood had swept centuries of history into a gorge.

As Dr. Molly Moore trudged within sight of the quadrant, Freddy held out his hand to create a protective border to hold back a small group of curious volunteers. The constant movement at the archaeological site came to a halt.

“We haven’t touched it, Dr. Moore,” Freddy said, his voice shaking.

He looked at his site director with a mix of awe and horror.

“Molly, dude, call me Molly,” she said, moving with a clear authority, and then she knelt by Freddy and Anchee. It seemed to Freddy like Molly was leading them in some sort of ritual. Both looked proud but also overwhelmed by their discovery. Crouching down, the site director pulled her reddish-blond hair into a ponytail, a red bandana dangling around her neck. Molly looked younger than her twenty-eight years. She was fit, with a freight-train metabolism that kept her on the move.

As Anchee clicked off a series of photos, Molly pulled out a thin brush from her pocket, and then started to shave away dirt from the skull and a set of teeth.

“Sandeep, we need you down here,” she said into a microphone from her cell phone, which hung from the top button of her blouse. She knew their ground-penetrating radar could examine the level of disturbances to the soil.

Freddy rose, leading the group of volunteers as he stepped away. One of the few locally hired crew—and one of the only Blacks from the nearby historic town of Cairo—he seemed more at ease with the volunteers, despite being in his early twenties.

“I’ll get another sifting screen,” he said to Molly, who nodded without saying a word, and then he walked away, taking lanky strides in his overalls.

Molly put her mouth just above the trace of the skull’s jaw bone, and then blew off a veil of dust. Using a penknife, she cut a line from the teeth across the dirt, scraping off a clump from a plant. Her knife gently nudged the dirt until she heard a click.

“We need to get the laser scanner to map the interface,” she said, looking back at Anchee.

The graduate student pointed at Molly’s knife. Something glimmered with a metallic edge. Molly pushed the knife forward, popping out a heart-shaped locket.

Her brush grazed the locket like a goldsmith, until it caught a flicker of light.

“This sure isn’t prehistoric,” Molly whispered.

There was an eerie silence about her as she climbed up to her knees, crouching by the display of bones. She pushed away more soil.

As the locket dangled from the tip of her knife, a latch suddenly opened, revealing the remains of a faded heart-shaped photo, which had been eroded by the elements.

“Definitely not prehistoric,” she mumbled, breaking a pained smile, though it didn’t last long.

Molly didn’t want to alarm her students—or the crowd of volunteers at the site. Rumors could get passed quickly. She insisted on keeping ahold of the information in the same way she gripped the locket inside her fist.

“Back to work, folks,” Molly announced, trying her best to act casual. “We’ll let everyone know what we found once we do some tests.”

The workers in the crowd slowly dispersed, though not without a last lingering look over their shoulders at the pit. Warned by Molly to keep to the rules, everyone had resisted taking a photo, other than Anchee. All discoveries at this site remained a secret until Molly made the first public disclosure.

Within an hour, the crew’s lead technology expert, Sandeep Agarwal, had scanned Anchee’s photos of the burial site, and then projected a 3D recording of the soil, moving magically through time.

With Molly and Anchee by his side, Sandeep stood at his outdoor lab station, refusing to take a seat. His turban was plastered in dust. His lab looked more like a game center than an archaeological site. A set of scratched music speakers rested to the side, awaiting a DJ. The constant, though quiet, thump of Punjabi hip-hop, in fact, kept the beat. A canopy of tents and plastic walls protected it from wind and dust. A large grid map of the archaeological site was posted on one of the plastic walls. To the side, two more tables were covered in trays of bones and artifacts gathered from the dig.

“What do you got for me?” Molly asked.

She recruited Sandeep after she had read his academic paper on using remote sensing at a dig in his family’s native Punjabi region on the border of India and Pakistan. She promised him a potential archaeological discovery that would justify shifting his postdoctoral studies from Canada to southern Illinois.

Sandeep pointed at one of the screens, now commanded by Anchee, which displayed a map in various colors from the remote sensing scans.

“Look there,” he said.

Sandeep enlarged the image on the screen.

“Those are alterations of the soil,” Molly said, placing a finger on the screen.

“Someone was digging here long before us,” Sandeep laughed.

His sarcastic tone had a seriousness about it.

More images of the bones popped up on the other screens.

“The question is when,” Molly said quietly. “No way to know how long ago just by looking at this. Could have been a farmer ten, twenty, a hundred years ago. Maybe two hundred years ago. There’s no way of knowing at this point.”

“This whole area is strange,” Sandeep went on. “I haven’t had time to really understand it, but the radar is picking up disturbances way below this grid.”

“We’re dealing with twelve thousand years of history,” she said, “but I think it’s important to focus on the top layers of soil right now.”

“Still, these laser maps are odd,” Sandeep continued, pointing at the screen. “I need to look deeper into this area.”

“Listen, right now it’s more important that we get a sample of the bones and a mold of teeth to the FBI lab in Chicago,” Molly said, stepping away from the computer table.

“FBI? Are you joking?” Anchee said, alarmed. “What about the forensic unit right on the SIU campus? They can handle this.”

“Uncle Sam’s paying the bills on this dig,” Molly said, moving to the edge of the tent wall. “And federal protocol says he has first dibs on anything that might be considered fresh bones.”

She lifted up one of the side flaps as Freddy entered the lab area carrying a tray of bones.

“I’ve sealed off the area as you requested,” Freddy said.

“Thanks,” Molly said, walking back to the table. She picked up two plastic bags, which held the newly found locket and a shoe. “We had enough delays with the pandemic,” she added. “I don’t want to give the feds any reason to shut us down again.”

*

Patrolling an old riverside warehouse, Detective Randall Jenkins was working on his own “dig.” He had stationed himself on the stern of a twenty-seven-foot Defender-class police boat, which hovered in the middle of the Chicago River Canal. His presence cast the confidence of three decades on the Chicago PD as a veteran investigator.

A stealth police drone pivoted to the opposite side of the river. A police officer operated a radio from the stern as two more cops stood at the railing of the boat.

Chicago’s canals may have drained this city’s swamp, reversing the current of the Chicago River and the history of the city in the process, but Randall knew it hid secrets. It provided the cover for crimes and unknown bodies.

The Chicago River canal system wound through the city with the dark green sheen of something unnatural, cutting through the steel and concrete of high-rises with the precision of the water’s blade.

Randall focused on the old warehouse. The remnants of a retired boat slip were still visible on the ground. Garbage and broken bottles surrounded a riverside deck that once loaded ice.

Randall’s first assignments as a detective, having risen through the patrol ranks in his bureau, took place under the faded signs of the meat-packing houses that covered the walls from another time, another set of rules. The veterans of the Afro-American Patrolmen’s League had updated those rules for Randall. Not that he had changed his professional wardrobe in years. In a corduroy jacket and dark jeans, he carried himself with the build of an ironworker, and the inquisitive gaze of a scientist. His Glock19 handgun was concealed.

A lot was concealed about Randall, at least in the mind of Nikki Zanna, his longtime detective partner. He was a South Side kid; his Bronzeville apartment was his private getaway. “Nicoletta,“ the granddaughter of Sardinian immigrants from the West Side and twenty years Randall’s junior, could not have been more different, and yet, the partners moved with the unspoken agreement of veterans who had solved enough cases to foretell their next steps.

Nikki always wondered if Randall’s unflappable expression masked some other emotions. He carried a pleasant grin that seemed eternally amused. He had a knack for asking the same question in a hundred different ways, in order to get to the answer, without losing his cool. There was something about Randall’s manner that made the far-fetched appear possible. She had never seen him break down—in anger or sadness, or side-splitting laughter, for that matter—and she was not quite sure if that amazed or concerned her. It made her slightly uneasy, though; his self-possession somehow challenged her own.

That knowing look was etched on his face now. Nikki glanced at Randall, and then followed his gaze toward the targeted building in the Fulton River District, surrounded by grids of streets crossed by train tracks and looping highways.

All that bird shit. The windows of the warehouse had not been opened for years. It did not look abandoned, though. The warehouse seemed shrouded like a stalled renovation project that might have lost its investors and now languished like a forgotten building on an inspector’s list.

Randall texted his command.

In place.

As the lead detective on this case, he was ready to move forward.

Within seconds, with the force of a cannon, a loading door came unhinged, flying from the building almost intact until it made impact on the water of the canal. The warehouse suddenly came alive, clouds of smoke pushing out of the door frames.

A SWAT team emerged from the side of the building, toting assault rifles that bumped up against their protective helmets.

Waved in by a lieutenant, the SWAT team two-stepped their way into the smoking hole of the door, weapons in hand.

Arriving from the boat dock, Randall and Nikki headed to the warehouse as the SWAT team fanned out on the flanks.

A backup team stepped from the shadows. A team of sniffer dogs added their bark. Police congregated outside the blown door hole as Randall and Nikki moved into the warehouse. Nikki held her handgun aloft; Randall had put his away.

The detectives walked to the middle of the vaulted room as if planning to make an announcement. Floating particles of dust wafted around them like flies caught in streaks of light. The SWAT team crouched with their scopes along the perimeter of the room with the precision of surveyors.

It was as empty as it appeared from outside. Still with their guns drawn, the SWAT team huddled around Randall in the middle of the room. Daylight now revealed all four walls. The glare was almost too harsh for the police who had entered in the darkness of the smoke.

“It’s goddamn empty,” Nikki said, sticking her gun into its holster. “Someone was tipped off.”

The SWAT leader touched the camera on his helmet, confirming its presence and his own confusion. He motioned for the SWAT team to fan out again.

Randall had moved to the corner of the room, standing under a set of windows that faced the canal. All of the windows had been covered with some sort of tarp. Pieces now fluttered in the wind, ripped by the blast of the exploding door. Randall tugged at a shipping rope that hung from the ceiling.

“Sorry, Randall,” Nikki said. “Someone blew this call.”

She kicked at a pile of rubble in the middle of the warehouse, which became more cavernous with the increasing light. It had been emptied of any goods years ago.

That knowing grin stretched across Randall’s face in a way that amused Nikki.

“Intzà?” she mumbled to herself, in her grandparent’s language. “Talk to me, man,” she added with a hand gesture that reflected her irritation.

Following the rope to its end, Randall glanced over his shoulder at Nikki, looked back at the rope, and then at the floor. He slowly knelt, withdrew his handgun, and then used the end of the barrel as a stick, scratching at the dust on the floor. Randall reached down and pushed away a pile of trash as a stream of light cut across the side of the room from the top windows.

“Check this out,” Randall said.

One of the cops moved to the side of Randall as a couple more SWAT team members shifted into position. It took Nikki a second before she realized Randall had motioned for her to come by his side.

Outlining a slab in the floor, Randall clipped his forefinger and middle finger under a latch, and then pulled. The frame of a door came into view. Randall leaned back and pulled up the trapdoor, revealing another chamber below. A waft of mildew and mold stung his nose.

“Get me Milan and a bomb squad,” he said, over his shoulder.

As the SWAT leader radioed his command, Randall withdrew a light from his jacket and shined it below.

“But how?” Nikki gasped.

Randall nodded to the trash pushed aside. “Layers,” he said.

He didn’t say anything more, as a heavy-duty robot was lowered into the cellar, its flashing lights capturing all of the attention like a carnival ride. After the bomb squad made a sweep of the warehouse and lower chamber, Randall descended a narrow metal ladder that dropped from the trapdoor. Nikki stayed on the floor level to deal with the communications. A team of bomb-sniffing German shepherds yanked at the chains of two policemen, who strained to hold them back from the action. One dog lunged for the darkness of the trapdoor, nearly pulling its master with it.

“Packed,” came Randall’s voice from below, sounding on the radio.

In full body armor, Lt. Milan Delich grunted his way into the underground room with Randall, followed by three other squad members. With a clipped gray mustache and rounded double chin, Delich moved slowly, betraying his proximity to retirement, but with a precision that had gone through the fire too many times. Their presence filled the tightly packed space, where crates had been stacked from the floor to the low ceiling.

Pointing at one of the crates, Delich grinned at Randall like he had figured out a riddle.

“Rocket launchers?” he said.

“Assault rifles, explosives, ammunition,” Randall responded.

“Randall, I just received a message I need to share with you,” Nikki’s voice on the radio sounded.

Amid the clatter in the room, Randall didn’t hear Nikki.

As Delich bent over a crate to pick up a metal rod, Randall grabbed his arm. A stunned Delich halted his movement, and then looked down again. His black boot came within an inch of a set of drone propellers, which jutted out like a bear trap.

“Jesus. My son’s units used those in Afghanistan,” Delich said. “Who the hell would have access to this kind of military hardware here?”

Randall stepped around another crate, opened a latch, and then pulled out an M4 carbine assault rifle.

“Sure as hell not the Disciples or the Vice Lords.”

The buzz on Randall’s phone broke him from the exchange. Nikki was texting, which surprised him, since she was nearby.

FBI needs you down at lab now. Herby says it’s important.

Randall looked around at the cache of weapons, caught between a feeling of satisfaction and uncertainty, and then stared at the message.

“You going to call the deputy chief?” Delich asked.

Nodding, Randall didn’t say anything. He read Nikki’s message again. A few seconds passed before Nikki followed up with another text.

Getting car. Will be outside.

__________________________________

From Disturbing the Bones by Andrew Davis and Jeff Biggers. Used with permission of the publisher, Melville House Press. Copyright © 2024 Andrew Davis and Jeff Biggers.