Summary
The internal field _tombstone is referenced in two places in the codebase but is not used by any feature or logic:
src/Controllers/DatabaseController.js — listed in specialMasterQueryKeys
src/Adapters/Storage/Mongo/MongoTransform.js — handled in a case statement
No code in Parse Server reads, writes, or queries this field. It appears to be a leftover from a planned or removed soft-delete feature that was never fully implemented.
Proposal
Remove _tombstone from both locations to reduce dead code.