Carbon Dating

by Jerusha Jones

  CHAPTER 4

  I don’t think anyone in the room moved for several seconds. And then it was a mad scramble. The remaining dirty dishes could certainly wait.

  I rode in the middle, squashed between Vaughn and Chief Monk in Vaughn’s pickup while the Frasers led the way in their old beater farm truck. We kicked up a long trail of dust, marking our path along the farm’s zigzagging vehicle tracks.

  The Navy crew was packing up their gear, grim looks on their faces. None of them seemed to want to make eye contact with us.

  Except Hollis. He rushed over and planted his elbows on the rim of Vaughn’s open window. “Detective? You got a big problem on your hands. The JPAC people are gonna want to have a look, but I think this is out of their jurisdiction as well. I haven’t seen this since…” he shook his head and squinted off into the settling haze, “well, since that one time in Serbia, but even then…” His head was still shaking, his ebullience drained.

  Vaughn unlatched his door, and Hollis backed out of the way. Vaughn grabbed a duffel bag out of the toolbox in the bed of the truck, then he set off with Hollis and Chief Monk to survey the site.

  I huddled with Nash and Denby near the front bumper of their truck. Denby looked as though she was going to be sick to her stomach.

  I wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “We’ll figure this out. Any chance there was a slaughterhouse here at the edge of the field?”

  It was Nash who answered. “No foundations or remains of any kind of shelter in this sector. We’ve examined all the old records, property deeds, building permits, water rights documents, everything we could lay our hands on. But there wasn’t much.”

  “I’ve read my great-grandmother’s diaries—the ones that were found,” Denby whispered. “There are some gaps in her early teen years, so some of the diaries are missing or were destroyed. But I do know that her parents raised cattle and pigs on the farm when she was a girl. But the meat was just for the family, nothing commercial. They wouldn’t let her name the animals, but she secretly did anyway, and would intentionally go berry picking down at the creek on slaughtering day.”

  “Maybe it’s a Native burial ground,” I murmured, “from before your family settled here.”

  Denby nodded mutely and offered a faint, unconvincing smile.

  Hollis had broken off from the conference and arm-sweeping gestures he’d been engaged in with Chief Monk and Vaughn and was headed toward his Jeep, the last of the Navy vehicles still parked at the edge of the field. The two police officers turned and walked toward us over the uneven ground, choosing their steps carefully with their gazes locked on the dirt at their feet.

  “Denby, Nash.” Chief Monk’s face had settled into its usual long, somber lines. The man didn’t get excited about much. I had a feeling he knew, from long experience, what was worth an adrenalized response and what wasn’t. “I’m sorry, but we have to cordon off the field for an investigation. Hollis is going to alert the JPAC team and they’ll get first dibs at it, as he said. But I would have to agree with him. This is most likely not a military scene, with the exception of the plane and its wreckage up on the hill and the possible remains of the aviators.” He clapped his big hand on Vaughn’s shoulder. “You’ll be in good hands. Vaughn’ll keep you informed.”

  “We’re not—are we—uh, have we—I mean, do you suspect—?” Denby stammered.

  “No, sweetheart.” Chief Monk actually chuckled. “The bones are probably older than you are.”

  She visibly relaxed against Nash’s side, but there was still a slight tremor to her hands and her breathing.

  “But they’re definitely human,” Chief Monk continued. “At least some of them are.” He turned to Vaughn. “I’ll call the archaeological service for a site survey. Unfortunately, Zales, as director, will probably assign this one to himself. He always takes the jobs with potential controversy.” He heaved a sigh and nodded to us with a look of commiseration. Then he turned and began ambling up the dirt track, his hands stuffed in his pockets, his head bent as though in deep thought.

  Vaughn tugged me around the side of his pickup and pressed his keys into my hand again. This time I accepted them.

  “Go home, darling,” he murmured. “Get some sleep. I’m going to be out here for a long time. There’s not much you could do for the Frasers at this point. Not until we have more information. Will you grant me a rain check on dinner at the bistro?”

  I closed my eyes and tipped my forehead against his shoulder. “Your mother calls me that,” I objected softly. I was suddenly, overwhelmingly exhausted.

  “Really?” Vaughn’s voice had turned into a low rumble. “I guess I could call you hot babe instead.”

  I rolled my eyes. Had he not seen me and my blotchy face and epic case of bed-head hair that came from trying to snooze on a quaintly worn and musty Victorian fainting couch overnight and not succeeding? “Darling is fine.”

  “Don’t you have a party to get ready for?” Vaughn added.

  My head popped up. “I forgot,” I groaned.

  “I haven’t. It’s all my mother’s been talking about for the past week. She’d never forgive me if I prevented you from hosting it.” Vaughn opened the truck door and handed me in. “You girls have fun.”

  It was one of those comments that tends to raise my hackles. As though boys don’t have fun too. Just maybe the genders do it differently—nothing wrong with that. Besides, I’d argue that the girls’ typical method—food, laughter, storytelling (more honestly known as gossiping), and sympathizing; did I mention food?—was far superior. My hand shot out of its own accord and landed a feeble retaliatory pinch on his side.

  Vaughn barely flinched, but he trapped the offending hand and pinned it underneath his own against his chest with a raspy chuckle. “Mmmm,” he growled. “I’ll take a rain check on the friskiness too.”

  He was still grinning like a schoolboy as I drove off. He had to be as fatigued as I was, and yet he had a monumental task in front of him.

  The Frasers waved good-bye, although perfunctorily. They appeared to have been struck numb from the series of unpleasant surprises that had surfaced over the course of the past twenty-four hours.

  I rolled up beside the plodding police chief. His jeans were coated in dull brown dust from the knees down. “Headed my way?” I called out the open window.

  “Eva.” His face split into a wide, slow grin. “So Vaughn convinced you to leave, huh?” He unlatched the door and heaved himself into the passenger seat with a pained grunt. Weariness weighed upon him—I could see it in the curve of his broad shoulders, the droop of the pouches below his eyes, as though excessive responsibility had aged him beyond his sixty-some years. I wondered if Vaughn would carry himself with the same air of pervasive, bone-deep fatigue in another couple decades. “Appreciate it. My ride’s still up in the parking lot.” He eased against the backrest gingerly, as though his lower back was tender, and released a sigh.

  I might have been leaving the farm physically, but my mind was still percolating—on the Frasers’ troubles, on the scene in the field, on the whys and hows of an extensive gravesite, and on how a small farm could survive what was bound to be a rash of unprecedented publicity, not all of it necessarily positive.

  How does one explain that the soil nutrients that grow such lovely vegetables might have come from human remains? Of course, we all know that organic matter turnover is key to fertilization and crop health. It’s just one of those things people prefer not to ponder—in specific detail—when drizzling balsamic vinaigrette on their mixed spring greens topped with toasted walnuts and fresh pears.

  And maybe Roquefort crumbles. And a little fresh cracked pepper. But I was digressing.

  “You’re good for him, you know.” Chief Monk broke the silence that had filled the cab—and my intense contemplation.

  I darted a sidelong glance at his somber profile.

  “Vaughn,” he clarified, still gazing through the windshield. “I was beginning to despair that
he’d stay married to his job. Maybe you’ll change that—for the better. Just make sure you give him a hard time now and then. Nothing piques Vaughn’s interest like a challenge.”

  I was pretty sure I’d already figured that out. So I decided to change the subject. “Tell me about this JPAC team.” The letters of the agency name Hollis had been throwing around meant nothing to me.

  “Ah, now there’s a bureaucratic snafu.” Chief Monk shook his head. “But they serve a really important function. JPAC is an old acronym that seems to have stuck. Officially, they’re now called the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, or DPAA, and their people—a mix of military and civilians—research and recover missing service members and, more recently, defense department contractors. Similar to what coroners do on a civilian county government level—identify remains and notify family members, mostly.”

  “And they’ll arrive this afternoon?” I asked.

  Chief Monk shifted uncomfortably on the seat after a particularly jarring pothole. “Hollis said they’re already on their way. Normally, they have an explosives tech on the team to handle incidents like this, but Hollis demanded and got approval to blow this bomb early since it was found on a working farm. Didn’t want to endanger anyone any longer than necessary. He’ll face some flak for pushing that decision, but it was the right call.”

  I’d pulled up beside the chief’s dusty, unmarked blue sedan, but he didn’t seem to be in a hurry. “Hollis is a good fellow,” he continued and pointed toward the cluster of reporters gathered around the officer’s Jeep which was idling at the edge of the county road. “No doubt the media vultures heard the explosion. He said he’d give them all pats on the head and send them back to their studios. Saving you some work, sweetheart.”

  “So he’s not talking about what else was found?” I blurted. My stomach was suddenly a hard knot. I wasn’t exactly prepared to put a positive spin on that kind of public statement just yet.

  “Nope. We’ll put off that announcement as long as possible. Hopefully we can postpone it until we have an answer to present at the same time. Not likely, but we can dream.” The chief sighed heavily and creaked open the truck door. “Sound like a plan, Miss PR?” he leaned back into the open window to ask.

  I nodded gratefully.

  We both waited in our respective vehicles until Hollis gunned his Jeep down the county road and was followed in short order by the caravan of satellite trucks returning to Portland and beyond. Our departure from the farm was unwitnessed, which was just the way I’d have choreographed things if it had been up to me. Kind of nice to have both the local police department and the Navy on your team.

  oOo

  My party plans had originally been devised as a small, cozy soiree for close friends, but the event seemed to have turned into a lonely hearts club or some such pitiful arrangement. The problem was, I’d asked Bettina Godinou (Vaughn’s mother) to be in charge of invitations, and I was pretty sure every single—or at least functionally single on this particular weekend—female who lived at the marina had RSVP’d in the affirmative.

  I think some of the women had temporarily kicked their husbands out of their nests just so they could attend. Petula Dibble had sent Boris off to an orthodontia conference, even though he’d retired three years prior, under the suggestion that perhaps he could devote some of his free time to becoming a consultant for new graduates who were just beginning their practices. Gloria McBride had decided that her counterpart, the slight and amenable man known as Luque, should fly to Phoenix to check on the wellbeing of his entirely healthy mother. Although it was true, that as year-round boat dwellers, they had to intentionally plan visits to landlocked family members.

  Doc Perlmutter’s fragile heart still hadn’t recovered from the Janice Lynch-slash-CIA analyst poseur debacle, which was a relief on several levels. The longer that man went without a ditzy girlfriend clinging to his arm, the safer for womankind. Besides, chances were good that any floozy he’d select would not appear on my top-ten list of women I’d enjoy being friends with. Built-in conflict of interest right there.

  But it did mean that I had a crowd—at least as compared to the square footage of my small floating house—arriving in just under an hour. The silver lining, if it could be considered such a thing, of the incident at the farm was that Willow didn’t have a job to go to that afternoon since the corn mazes were still closed to visitors, and she was available to help me instead.

  I put her to work. Plating and garnishing, mostly. I’d been stockpiling goodies in my freezer and pantry for the better part of a week, so the preparation was mostly of the last-minute variety.

  There was a hop in Willow’s step as she moved efficiently around my tiny galley kitchen. I grinned over my Kitchen Aid stand mixer as the beaters whipped a sweetened cream cheese concoction to fluff, but kept my thoughts to myself. I knew Willow’s bounciness stemmed from sheer delight that her grandmother, Roxy Sperry, had agreed to come to the party.

  Roxy managed the marina and lived with Willow in a tiny apartment affixed to the office on dry land between the two gangplanks that served as access points to the floating walkways. There was a gap in their multi-generational living situation because Willow’s mother was serving a ten-year prison sentence for methamphetamine manufacture and distribution. Roxy had a cigarette habit that made her something of a social hermit, merely because she was incapable of abiding by Oregon’s strict anti-smoking bans in public places. But my house wasn’t a public place, and Roxy was venturing out in a way that made me proud of her. I’d already flung open all the windows to let in the cool autumn evening air. She could tap her ashes where she needed to. The first truly blustery soaker of the season was in the forecast, but we’d deal with it.

  I slid a tray of individual cream puffs which I’d already sliced in half out of the freezer. Willow hovered at my elbow as I spooned the cream cheese mixture—basically uncooked cheesecake filling without the raw eggs—into the hollow shells. She found them all suitable hats from the other halves. Then we got down to the serious business of drizzling dulce de leche over the profiteroles.

  “Oh man,” Willow groaned when I let her lick out the dregs in the jar. “Oh man, oh man, oh man.” Her eyes rolled back in her head of their own accord. It was a genuine response and not one of her many expressions of facial sarcasm which she had perfected to an art form. Oh, the joys of teenagerhood.

  I laughed because I had to agree with her. Chocolate is good, but any caramel-like substance, especially if it’s homemade, trumps chocolate every day of the week in my book.

  But I’d made sure to have plenty of chocolate dessert options on the menu in case any of the ladies had gastronomic priorities that differed from my own.

  There was a knock on the door. I’m not above greeting guests—especially when they’re unfashionably early—with my apron on, so I that’s what I did, also with a bowl of roasted red pepper hummus tucked on my hip.

  “You girls need help?” Bettina queried as she pushed past me, her dangly jewelry clanging like wind chimes in the self-created breeze. “Uh-oh, I see that, young lady. Manners, manners,” she clucked as she reached the kitchen. But she angled a beringed finger into the dulce de leche jar Willow offered to her, conveniently ignoring her own dictum. “Hmmm, while that’s seriously distracting, I came early to get the scoop.” She hiked her bottom onto a bar stool. “Bombs?” And planted her elbows on the peninsula counter, her inquisitive brown gaze fixed firmly on me.

  I groaned and darted a stern query of my own at Willow. But the teen just snorted and ducked her blue head and returned to arranging the profiteroles on my favorite ceramic platter. But I wasn’t fooled. She might not have been the source of the (true) rumor, but she was certainly going to be all ears for my explanation, just like Bettina.

  “Singular,” I admitted, wanting to put a cap on the rampancy of the scuttlebutt. “Just one, very old bomb which was handled in a perfectly professional manner.” I tucked crudités around the hummus in a
colorful concentric pattern.

  “Paltry,” Bettina objected. “What a diddly-squat hill of sparse beans. What’s wrong with you?” She shook her head, causing her orange bobbed hair to swing with derision.

  Behind me, Willow let out another strangled snort. The kind that could easily result in airborne particles.

  “Germs,” I hissed at her, waving a carrot in the general direction of where she should and should not spray her juicy expressions—namely, not in my kitchen.

  But Bettina was unfazed and undeterred in her information-gathering quest. “Just because I was manning my booth at Portland Saturday Market—on a Sunday—doesn’t mean I didn’t have my ear to the ground. One of my regular customers was entertaining her sister for the day while their husbands took the kids through the corn mazes. Thought they’d have some girl time—mani-pedis, lunch, a little shopping, the works. Instead she gets a frantic call from her husband while she’s trying on an amethyst and turquoise choker I worked up with brushed silver fittings—it was just perfect for her. She’s sort of short and squatty with not much of a neck, and that choker accented a part of her anatomy most people would never think to look at, in a good way, I mean. Anyway, the husband was saying they got booted out of the maze and the kids were crying and an emergency trip to Baskin-Robbins wasn’t working. The women had to go rescue them. And I lost the sale.” She harrumphed. “So I deserve a full explanation.”

  I grimaced. For being a thriving metropolis, Portland still embodies some aspects of small-town life. Particularly in the circles in which Bettina moved. The busybody circles.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she groused. “I’m doing you a favor by asking before everyone else gets here.”

  CHAPTER 5

  But it was too late, because another forceful knock sounded on the door, followed by the cheerful voices of excited women.

  “Yoo-hoo,” Gloria McBride called from the other side of the thick wood slab while rattling the handle. A material has not yet been invented that can thwart that woman’s stentorian tendencies.