Wild Justice by Phillip Margolin

detective into the woods. The men marched silently along a narrow trail. The sound of their footsteps was dulled by the thick dark soil. A loamy scent mixed with the smell of pine. A sign announced that the men were entering national forest; a quarter of a mile later, the trail bent right and they were suddenly in a clearing. A shovel was sticking out of a pile of dirt in the middle of the field. It looked like the earth had been turned recently, the deputy explained, so I got a shovel and came back out here. He stepped aside so that the other men could see his discovery. Vasquez walked over to the narrow hole that the deputy had dug. At the bottom was a human arm. Dr. Sally Grace, an assistant medical examiner, arrived shortly before the last of nine bodies was exhumed from the damp ground. All of the corpses were naked. Two were headless females. Of the remaining corpses, four were female, three were male and all but one appeared to be young. After a cursory examination, Grace informed the law enforcement officials gathered around her that, with the exception of the middle-aged male, all of the victims showed evidence of torture. Furthermore, Grace told them, one of the headless females had been ripped open from the breastbone to the abdomen and was missing her heart, and one of the males and another female had midline cuts from the area beneath the sternum to the pubic bone and were missing kidneys. While Dr. Grace talked, Vasquez studied the corpses. All of the victims seemed pathetically frail and defenseless. Their rib cages showed. Their shoulder blades looked sharp and visible under their translucent skin, more like wire hangers than bones. Vasquez wanted to do something to comfort the dead, like brushing off the clumps of dirt that clung to their pale skin or laying a blanket over them to keep them warm, but none of that would help now. When Dr. Grace finished her briefing, McCarthy wandered up and down the row of corpses. Vasquez watched him work. McCarthy gave eight of the bodies a cursory examination, but he squatted next to the seemingly untouched middle-aged male and withdrew another Polaroid from his jacket pocket. McCarthy glanced back and forth between the photograph and the corpse, then spent a few moments in deep thought. When he stood up he summoned the medical examiner. Vasquez could not hear what the detective said, but he watched Dr. Grace squat next to the corpse and examine the back of its neck. She beckoned McCarthy and he squatted next to her, nodding as she pointed to an area of the neck and gestured with her hands. Thank you, Dr. Grace, McCarthy said to the medical examiner. He stood up. Want to fill us in, Detective? Scofield asked, making it clear that he did not appreciate mysterious behavior in a fellow investigator. McCarthy started back toward the cabin. About a month ago, a detective from Montreal contacted me with information about an ailing Canadian millionaire who was negotiating with Martin Breach to secure a heart on the black market. Do you know who Breach is? Scofield and Vasquez nodded. We ve long suspected that Breach has a small but lucrative sideline: the sale of human organs on the black market to wealthy individuals who are unwilling to wait for a donor. We also suspected that the organs are frequently obtained from unwilling donors. The investigation in Canada included wiretaps. Dr. Clifford Grant was mentioned several times. He was a surgeon at St. Francis Medical Center. McCarthy showed them the photograph he had examined earlier, then nodded back toward the bodies. He s the middle-aged victim who bore no marks of torture. Scofield and Vasquez examined the picture, and they walked in silence for a while. When Scofield returned the photo the homicide detective continued. We put Grant under twenty-four-hour surveillance as soon as we learned he was going to be involved in harvesting the heart. A few evenings after we received the tip, Grant was observed picking up a cooler from