“King is a forensic detection dog.”

“And what is he trained to detect?”

“Human remains.”

“He’s a cadaver dog?”

“We prefer the term forensic detection dog, or sometimes historical remains dog.”

“The FBI says that this graveyard may date back to colonial times. Is a dog actually capable of finding human remains that are two hundred years old?”

“Definitely.”

“That’s remarkable. When the FBI arrived here a few days ago only four graves had been discovered, and now there are almost thirty. Were you responsible for this?”

She hesitated. “The credit really belongs to the dog.”

“Tell me, Ms. Forsyth, as an expert in finding bodies, do you expect the FBI to find more of these double graves?”

“I really can’t say.”

“Let me put it another way: Is it easier for a dog to find recent remains than very old ones?”

“Of course.”

“I’m told that all these graves were found in a single night—that seems like fast work. Doesn’t the speed of these discoveries suggest to you that at least some of the graves might contain more-recent remains?”

She considered this. “That seems reasonable, yes.”

The reporter stepped to his left until he was alone in the frame with the busy excavation site visible in the background. As he began his wrap-up, the camera slowly zoomed over his shoulder and gradually came to rest on a man with large glasses sifting dirt through a wire screen and studying the unseen bits and pieces that were left behind.

“Though the FBI refuses to speculate on how and why these bodies were buried here, the unavoidable conclusion seems to be murder. The FBI also refuses to speculate on how many more of these bodies they might find—but experts like Marjory Claire Anderson-Forsyth believe there could be many more.

“The FBI’s investigation here is being spearheaded by Special Agent Nathan Donovan—a name familiar to many due to his involvement in the infamous Plague Maker case in New York City a few years ago, in which hundreds of thousands of lives were spared due to his efforts. Buy why is an agent of Donovan’s caliber and experience required here? What does the FBI expect to find?

“The missing piece of this mystery might just be John Henry Braden himself. Why were these bodies buried on his ancestral land? Did someone in his family know about it? Does the senator himself know? Until the graves are excavated and the bodies examined, these secrets will lie buried—just as they have for many years. This is Paul Decker, reporting from the Patriot Center near Endor, Virginia.”

The screen went black.

“He practically called me a serial killer,” Braden said. “That’s inexcusable.”

“It’s a nonstory story,” Brad said. “He’s got nothing to work with, so he made a story out of what he doesn’t know.”