The work of recovering remains is not necessarily slow, but it is painstaking. They let the press in on the second day. The pit is covered by a roof of netting, a kind of tent to protect the people who descend into the brutal heat—it’s stifling outside, but inside the pit, say the anthropologists, it’s hell. Wearing white jumpsuits, they go ten meters down on a platform elevator. If it breaks, there are ladders against the walls. They pull out the bones with their hands. The bodies, they say, are all mixed together. As if they’d been dumped in from a garbage truck. And maybe that’s really what happened. People in the village don’t know what kind of vehicle was used: the area was cut off by a military checkpoint. They do remember, though, that the Casita’s lights were on all night long, and that trucks would arrive from the highway, coming from both directions.

Señor Segundo tells how on the night of the attack, his obsession (that’s what he says: obsession) was to find the baby. “They lived right here in town, Liliana and Eduardo. Liliana was sophisticated, but she was homely, bless her heart. I thought what they wanted to do was admirable, educate the people and all that. Folks around here are illiterate. When I found out they were armed, now that vexed me. Still, I wanted to save the baby, I ran straight to their house. They were already shooting. I couldn’t get to her.”

Most of the bones are grouped by type. Femurs with femurs, hips with hips, vertebrae with vertebrae. Only in some cases can bones belonging to the same body be grouped together: the position gives it away. With others, it’s impossible to tell. I ask one of the anthropologists why they’re like that, fleshless, when some had only been buried for around ten years. He explains that it’s because of the humidity. He is not authorized to tell us much more. They’ll answer technical questions, which are the least important, though they can inspire morbid fascination. There is a pit full of bones just meters away from a clandestine detention center. There are no arrests and there never will be any, because this country’s laws command amnesty for the armed forces. The victims will be identified, but they will never have justice.

The prosecutor on the case, Dr. Germán Ríos, holds a press conference just meters away from the mass grave. It’s a disturbing location, another white tent, more appropriate for a cocktail party than for a meeting to report on the discovery and identification of human remains. Ríos confirms thirty-two bodies, all adults. The anthropological team is working on identification, but, unlike with the databases in Buenos Aires, in the north of the country people have not come in to give genetic information for DNA studies and they aren’t even clear on the process, which, moreover, is not publicized. Human rights organizations have launched their own campaign, and they hope to get results. In general, their campaigns are successful.