“THE BODY, MUCH as you expect,” Dr. Vuong told Dean, recalling the state of Sergeant Tolong’s body when he’d been exhumed. “Bones. Much decay. You can see by the photos.”
Dean nodded but didn’t bother reopening the file on his lap. The sergeant had been reduced to cloth and bones by the time he was dug up.
Dr. Vuong spoke decent English, far better than Dean had expected. Roughly sixty, the doctor was ethnic Chinese and had lived in the north during the war. He was short and energetic, and the whole room seemed to move as he spoke.
“So, the commission take control of the body. I examine. We do the paperwork. Many forms to complete.” The doctor’s tone sounded almost triumphant. “The commission stay several days, then return.”
The doctor did not remember whether bullets had been recovered with the body, but there were chips and breaks on the rib cage—multiple gunshots, he thought, the sign of death from an automatic weapon. The locals had lacked the facilities for a complete autopsy under the circumstances, and in any event were more concerned with “preserving dignity of corpse,” as Dr. Vuong put it.
“How difficult was it to locate the body?” Dean asked.
“I am not sure. I do not believe hard. The commission had directions. Many details. He was near a road.”
“Near a road?” asked Dean. “How would I say that in Vietnamese? Let me think.”
The translator in the Art Room gave him the words. Vuong said again, Tolong’s body had been found very close to the road.
“Why wasn’t he found soon after he died?” asked Dean. “During the war?”
The doctor shrugged.
“There were landmarks,” suggested Dean.
“Memory is the problem. It was said a friend bury,” noted Dr. Vuong. “Descriptions, jungle, war.” He finished his thought in Vietnamese.
“The war shook many memories,” said the translator, explaining. “It took some away, and it changed others. Some things I cannot explain. He was near the road, you have a point, but . . .”
“Anything is possible, huh?” suggested Dean.
Dr. Vuong nodded.
“I know this is an odd question,” said Dean, “but was any money found with the body?”
“Money?”
“American dollars?”
The doctor shook his head. Dean repeated the question in Vietnamese to make sure he understood.
“You have a good vocabulary,” said the doctor. “With more practice, you could speak very well.”
“Thank you,” said Dean. “Could you locate the spot where he was found on a map for me? I’d like to take a look.”
He ignored Rockman when the runner told him it wasn’t necessary.
DEAN STUDIED THE map as Qui drove, comparing the terrain and twists in the road to the paper as they made their way to the spot where Tolong’s body had been dug up. Dean had an extra advantage—the exact spot where the dead Marine had been recovered was recorded by a GPS reading, and the Art Room told him when he was getting close.
“Pull over there,” said Dean as they came over a rise in the road. “It was to our right.”
Fallow fields lay on both sides of the road. Dean got out of the car and began walking in the direction of the grave site.
“A little more to your left,” counseled Rockman. “You got it.”
Dean wouldn’t have needed Rockman’s guidance. Though the vegetation had reclaimed the land, the ground was indented where the recovery team had dug two years before. Dean turned around. It was only ten yards from the road, if that.
“I didn’t think you were a fortune hunter, Mr. Dean,” said Qui.
“How’s that?”
“You came to Vietnam for lost treasure?”
“No.” He smiled faintly, then began walking around the edge of the area where the body had been found. There were several other excavations, all farther from the road.
The body should have been easy to find.
Dean glanced back toward the car and saw that Qui wasn’t there. He found her a short distance down the hill, standing next to fallen tree limbs.
“There was a village here during the war,” said Qui. “It’s gone. It must have been Catholic.”
“How do you know?”
She pointed to some rocks a short distance away. They were the foundation of a small building. Beyond it, Dean found several stones laid flat—gravestones. There were other signs—an overgrown path that went to the road, scattered pieces of wood and branches, worked stones that would never have appeared here randomly.
“When the VC took over, some loyal villages were razed,” said Qui. “I would imagine this was one.”
“That’s a shame.”
“The whole war was a shame,” said Qui. “To the victors, the spoils. To the losers, death.”
“We fought very hard,” said Dean, suddenly feeling that he had let her down by not saving her country.
“I’m sure you did. But someone always loses.”