“Maybe it’s natural gas.”

The driver grinned. “Or the chili someone had for dinner. Or frijoles growing in the marsh.”

Moe Reed said, “I’ll let you know when you can go,” and led us toward the trio of anthropologists. Groin-high in brown-green soup, the women conferred earnestly around another staked white pennant that drooped in the warm, static air. If they saw us, they gave no notice. We kept going. Around the next bend were the other two flags. Like a weird golf course.

We retraced. Two of the scientists were young, one black, one white. Both had crammed ample coiffures into disposable caps. An older woman with short-chopped gray hair noticed Reed and waved.

“Hey, Dr. Hargrove. Any news?”

“Normally, we’d be setting up the angles for trenching, but this is protected land and we’re not sure what the parameters are.”

“I can try to find out.”

“We’ve already got a call in to the volunteer office, someone should be here soon. More important, the earth gets so soft in spots-inconsistently so-that we’re afraid we’ll do more damage than good in terms of finding everything there is to find.” She smiled. “At least it’s not quicksand, I’m pretty sure.”

The young women laughed. Small, metal tools gleamed in their hands.

Moe Reed said, “What’s the plan, then, Dr. Hargrove?”

“We’re going to need time to poke around. The best technique may be to eventually slide something under whatever’s in here, raise it up very gradually, and hope nothing falls off. One thing I can tell you, we’re not talking paleontology. There’s soft tissue present under the mandible of this one, and possibly behind the knees. The skin we’ve been able to observe appears dark, but that could be decomp.”

“Fresh?” said Reed.

“Not nearly as fresh as the one left out in the open, but I can’t give you a fix. Water can rot or preserve, depending on so many factors. We’re getting moderate pH for samples in the immediate area, despite all the detritus, but there could still be some kind of buffering effect due to specific vegetation that mediates the effects of acid rain, plant decay, all that good stuff. I really can’t tell you more until I get everything out of here.”

“Soft tissue,” said Reed. “That’s pretty recent, right?”

“Probably but not necessarily,” said Hargrove. “A few years ago they pulled a Civil War vet out of a mass grave in Pennsylvania, poor fellow just happened to end up in a low-oxygen, low-humidity pocket near a series of subterranean caves and still had skin and muscle adhering to his cheeks. Most of it was mummified, but some wasn’t. His beard looked freshly trimmed.”

“Unbelievable,” said Reed, catching the eye of the young black anthropologist and turning away. “No way you can guesstimate for me, Doctor? Off the record?”

“Off the record, I’ll go out on a limb and say probably not decades. There is one thing: The right hand’s gone from all of them. But we haven’t started examining closely, there could be other parts missing.”

“Animal scatter?” said Reed.

“Don’t imagine coyotes or raccoons diving into this, but you never know. Some of the bigger birds-herons, egrets, even a pelican or a gull-might’ve picked out a tidbit or two. Or a human predator-someone taking a trophy. We’ll backtrack weather reports, try to find out if wind on water could’ve been a factor in terms of drift and alteration of surface temperature.”

“Complicated,” said Milo.

Hargrove grinned. “It’s what we live for, but I’m sorry for you guys.”

The young black anthropologist, pretty, with a heart-shaped face and a bow mouth, said something to Hargrove.

Hargrove said, “Thank you, Liz.” To us: “Dr. Wilkinson wants you to know that all three bodies seem to be facing east. Was that true of the one left out in the open?”

Reed thought. “As a matter of fact, it was. Interesting…”

Dr. Wilkinson spoke up. “On the other hand, we’re talking about an n of-a small sample from which to draw a significant conclusion.”

Reed said, “Four out of four sounds significant to me, Doc.”

Wilkinson shrugged. The other young anthropologist, freckled and rosy-cheeked, said, “East. As in facing the dawn? Some sort of ritual?”

“Facing Mecca,” said Hargrove. She grimaced. “We won’t even go there.”

Reed had kept his eyes on Dr. Liz Wilkinson. “Thanks for being so observant.”

Wilkinson tugged at her hair cap. “Just thought you should know.”

Reed, Milo, and I returned to the entrance of the marsh. The coroner’s van was gone. Two uniforms remained on guard, looking bored. One said, “The ghouls went to catch a bite.”

Reed said, “Any ideas, Lieutenant?”

“Sounds like you’ve got everything covered.”

The young detective fiddled with his sunglasses. “Tell you one thing, I’m happy for the help.”

“Why’s that?”

“It’s shaping up like a team case, right?”

Milo didn’t answer, and Reed’s sunburned spot turned crimson. “To be honest, I’m not exactly Sherlock, Lieutenant.”

“How long on the job?”

“Joined the department after college, made detective two years ago, started at Central GTA. I just got transferred to Homicide last February.”

“Congratulations.”

Reed frowned. “Picked up two cases since then. Besides this one, I mean. One closed in a week but anyone could’ve done it, total no-brainer. The second one’s an icy-cold missing person I’m not sure will ever be solved.”

“Pacific sends MP cases to Homicide?”

“Not generally,” said Reed. “Rich connections, the kind you definitely want to make happy, but…”

“Cases have their own rhythm,” said Milo. “Takes time to get your footing.”

I’d seen him lose sleep, gain weight, and experience soaring blood pressure over unsolveds.

Reed studied the soft brown dirt of the marsh. A brown pelican soared, aimed its massive beak downward, changed its mind and flew back toward the Pacific.

Milo said, “Let’s talk about Selena Bass.”

Reed pulled out his pad. “Female Caucasian, twenty-six years old, five five, one ten, brown and brown. One registered vehicle, a 2003 Nissan Sentra, it was at her apartment, didn’t look disturbed, so we’re not talking a jacking. No signs of obvious forced entry. Maybe she went off with someone she knew and things got nasty.”

“Where in Venice?”

Reed read off an address on Indiana, south of Rose, west of Lincoln.

Milo said, “Gang stuff going on there, right?”

“Some. Banger snatches her, it wouldn’t be much of a drive from there to here. So sure, we could be talking about a convenient dump site. But those other bodies…”

“They could also be vics from Bass’s neighborhood.”

“A gang-hit thing?”

“Or,” said Milo, “a creepo thing. He watches them, stalks them, grabs them.”

Reed frowned. “Stranger-on-stranger.”

A bellowed “Hey!” made the three of us turn.

A scrawny, bowlegged, bearded man in a white T-shirt, high green cargo shorts, and flip-flops strode toward us, pumping his arms.

Same fellow who’d snarled the surly remark about humans three months ago.

“Hey,” he repeated.

No one answered.

“What’s going on?”

Moe Reed said, “You are…”

“Silford Duboff, Save the Marsh. This is my place. I’m here to keep an eye on all proceedings.”

“Your place,” said Reed.

“No one else cares.”

Reed extended a hand. Duboff took it reluctantly, as if fearing contamination. “What’s going on?”

“What’s going on, sir, is early this morning we removed the body of a young woman who was murdered and left on the banks of the marsh. While processing the scene, we found at least three other bodies.”

Silford Duboff blanched. “Processing? You’re digging?”

“Nothing extensive-”

“Out of the question.” Duboff noticed the flag marking Selena Bass’s dump site. “What’s that doing here?”