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The other picture was taken with a wide-angle lens to accommodate the fact that the remains were scattered, probably by scavenging animals. Plastic markers indicated the location of individual bones or bone clusters.
Centered in the scene were a pelvis, femora, tibiae, and fibulae. Wrapping them were faded denim and what appeared to be the waistband of a pair of tighty-whities.
Moving toward the periphery, I recognized vertebrae, ribs, and arm bones, one set straggling out to the right, the other to the left. I saw no skull, hands, or feet. No shirt or other clothing.
“Who found these?” I asked.
“A fisherman out walking his dog.”
“Cause of death?”
“A gunshot wound that penetrated all the way through the chest.”
“For both?”
“Yes.”
“Like Galloway.”
“Yes.”
“Did you recover any bullet casings?”
“No.”
“You think these are Palke and Bonner?” I tapped one of the last two prints.
Musgrove shrugged. Who knows? “No cell phone, wallet, or any form of ID was found with either body.”
“Did you request dental records?”
“We did. Palke’s dentist died three years ago. The gentleman who purchased his practice destroyed or deleted all files older than five years.”
“Palke hadn’t had a check-up in that time?”
“Apparently not.”
“Great. And Bonner?”
“His dentist’s office was destroyed in a fire.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Would that I were.”
“DNA?”
“That will take eons. We lack the ability to do our own sequencing and must send specimens to a lab in Miami.”
I refocused on the photos. Then,
“You said these bones were found last Friday?”
“Yes. Ironically, when you phoned about Deniz Been I was researching how to handle their recovery. Everything I read emphasized the importance of leaving skeletonized remainsin situuntil a forensic anthropologist could process the scene.”
“Mm. Where were the bodies discovered?” The question was pointless. While I’d been to TCI, I didn’t know the islands all that well.
“That’s one of the strange things about these murders. The victims were all found in odd places. Locations that should be of no interest to a tourist.”
