“Isn’t this method also called a strip search?” said one of the guys, to a round of laughter.
“In a manner of speaking,” said Diane, trying not to smile too much. “It’s called the line or strip method. OK. Look for signs of bone and mark them with a flag-red if you suspect it’s human, green if animal. Yellow if it’s some other object.” She’d feared that some might have a don’t-tell-me-what-I-already-know-how-to-do attitude, but their expressions were attentive and interested.
“Like a ground survey,” said a woman.
“Exactly. I’ve been told that a light layer of dirt was used to cover each load of animals that were dumped-or at least, most of the time. So if we can, I’d like to use those dirt layers to mark different strata. Notice that I’ve tagged some of the trees growing in the pit. Excavate around them. I need to know where the roots go. And we may be cross-sectioning the trees when we’re finished.” Diane paused and looked at the pit. “The human remains here may be linked to a recent homicide. The more time that elapses after that crime, the harder it is to solve. It’s important that you work as quickly as you can and still do a thorough job.”
“We’ll do a good job,” said Jonas.
“Thanks. And I appreciate the willingness of all of you to do this.”
Marking the search lanes didn’t take long. The pit, as Diane called it, was a plugged-up erosion ditch about seven by ten feet. Whit said the runoff had been diverted at a place several feet up from the ditch, and as far as he remembered, this area hadn’t seen much washing out. Diane was glad for that. Digging in a soggy pit that had been filled with animal carcasses didn’t bear thinking about.
When they finished marking the search lanes, the search area was about sixty feet by sixty feet, with the pit in the center. The north section was down a slope through thick underbrush terminating in another erosion gully, which took most of the runoff that used to go into the dump pit.
Starting at one end, they walked slowly down the strips with Diane setting the pace, scrutinizing the ground, using long sticks to gently move away leaves and other detritus to uncover bare ground. Diane wanted to finish this search before they stopped for lunch. She didn’t expect to find any clues dropped by the perpetrator, but did expect to identify bones scavenged and dragged out by animals.
The temperature climbed quickly. It was forecast to reach a hundred today. It felt like it had already topped out. Diane’s tee shirt was wet and her skin hot. She took a drink of water from a boda bag she had slung across her shoulder. She came upon the end of a long bone. It wasn’t human. She sunk a green flag in the ground beside it.
A searcher let out a short laugh. “I found an arrowhead.” His colleagues laughed with him. Under the circumstances, the archaeologists thought such a find to be ironic.
When they reached the end of the marked lines, they had completed half the search area. Switching to the remaining search lines, they began the slow search process again, looking and setting flags into the ground.
“I found a patella,” said one of the guys.
“Human?” asked another.
“Do animals have them?” he asked.
“Damn straight,” said a third guy. “My dog’s kept jumping out of place and he’d be all stiff-legged. He had to have surgery to tack it down. Cost me a fortune, but he’s fine now.”
“Go ahead and put a red flag beside it,” said Diane. “I’ll check it out later.”
There was more conversation during the last half of the search. But as Diane glanced at them, they never took their eyes off the ground. When the last leg of the initial survey was finished, there were small patches of flags around the pit from five to twenty-six feet-marking places where, in all probability, animals had dragged carrion from the pit. There were very few yellow flags. Diane wondered in passing if the guy had marked the arrowhead or simply picked it up.
“Let’s break for lunch,” she said, rubbing her sore back. “I know it’s sort of a late lunch. And I thank you for the good job you’re doing.”
They had all brought packed lunches and now looked for comfortable shade to sit down in and eat. The only shade was in the surrounding woods several yards from their search area. Diane found a rock beside Jonas Briggs and sat down with her peanut butter sandwich, apple and bottled water. She was more tired than she thought she should be. Must be old age creeping up on me, she thought, but there was Jonas, looking as refreshed as when he started. She took a long drink of water.
When she was in the jungle digging, on those occasions when she was close enough to get back to the compound in a reasonable amount of time, she’d sometimes drive a couple of hours or more and arrive so hot and tired she’d collapse on the cot in one of the two rooms she rented from the mission school. Ariel would come with a bottle of water, pat her arm and snuggle up to her. As hot as Diane was, Ariel’s warm little body was always a comfort. She’d tell Diane everything that had happened at the mission that day or what she’d learned in school. Diane would tell her a story, and before long she wasn’t tired anymore. Sometimes the worst of her feelings was regret-that terrible wishing that more than anything she had taken Ariel out of the country. The wish sucked at her heart, hurting all the way to her throat, filling her eyes with tears.
“The Abercrombies are letting the crew bed down on the floor of their den,” said Jonas, jolting Diane from her thoughts. “Mrs. Abercrombie’s a very gracious woman. She’s fixing us all supper this evening.”
“That certainly is nice of her.”
“It seems as though she likes to entertain, but her husband doesn’t. This is her chance. Lucky for us.”
Diane tucked away her sad thoughts and asked the crew members what each of them did. Two were looking for positions at universities, three were professional archaeology field-crew members, and two were working on their doctorates. During lunch she got a summary of their interests, which ran from taphonomy to pottery types and debitage, which was explained to her as the waste flakes from projectile-point production. Another of the doctoral students was about to explain behavioral-chain analysis when Frank and Whit arrived with the sheriff. Diane got up to greet them, feeling guilty at her relief for not having to listen to the explanation.
“How are things going?” asked Frank, looking out over the terrain of flags and string.
“Got a good start. After we eat, we’ll begin excavating.”
“I appointed a couple of deputies to stay at the site,” said the sheriff. “Maybe some of the guys would like to help them with guard duty. A couple of them said they always stay with their archaeology digs to warn off pot hunters. I didn’t know there were people out in the woods actually looking for the stuff. Seems to me you wouldn’t want to come upon somebody’s patch.”
“I think they mean people who steal artifacts,” said Diane.
“Oh, well, that makes more sense. Got a call from your-all’s chief of detectives yesterday.” The sheriff laughed. “He’s not real pleased with this project here. Thinks we’re interfering. I asked him how locating the rest of a body to go along with that foot bone you found in my jurisdiction is an interference in anything he’s doing in his city.”
“And?” asked Frank.
“Came down to he didn’t want me mentioning it to the newspapers that some of us think it might be connected to the Boone murders. God forbid facts might get in the way of his theory on the case.”
“What’s the deal with them?” asked Diane. “Why aren’t they anxious for leads? Even if they don’t lead anywhere, you don’t know until you investigate.”
“As far as they’re concerned, they’ve got the killers in jail and the case is solved. This is the first big test of the mayor and his new chief of police’s ideas for better police work. It’s the mayor’s chance to show the city council and the rest of Georgia that he’s a man who gets things done in a big-city way. I’m sure he’s making his campaign signs for governor right now.”
“So,” said Whit. “You have a collarbone
and a foot bone. That’s at least one, maybe two people.” He suddenly laughed uneasily. “Two people buried here would look bad for us, wouldn’t it?”
Frank and the sheriff looked askance at him. “Yeah,” said the sheriff. “It sure would. One could be passed off as an accident. Two would be downright carelessness.”
“Lady,” Whit addressed Diane. “I really hope you don’t find more than one person here.”
“Right now we have a minimum number of one,” said Diane, almost smiling at his sudden discomfort.
“Oh,” said Frank, taking a large envelope from under his arm and handing it to her. “Here. I called your office, and Andie asked me to come by and bring this to you.”
Andie had written on the envelope: Fax from Ranjan Patel.
“That was quick. It’s the results from the stable isotope analysis.”
Chapter 25
The phrase stable isotope analysis must have leaped out of their conversation and over to the crew, for suddenly they stopped talking and came over to Diane, carrying their sandwiches and drinking water.
“You had an SIA done on some material?” asked one of the doctoral students.
“On the original bone that started all this.” Diane looked at the fax transmitted by her friend, Ran. It wasn’t a particularly good copy, but she assumed he sent her an original in the mail. The first page had a list of numbers in a table. The other pages were Ranjan’s conclusions, written in his typical pedantic manner.
You’re in luck. Your fellow was a vegetarian-note the values in the table. However, I don’t think your person was a vegan, nor did he, I think, consume an abundance of legumes. Interesting. The delta numbers and the levels of the trace element strontium suggest that he ate fish and shellfish. I am most excited about this. Another interesting possibility to think about: You said the fellow was young, perhaps an older teenager. This would mean he had these eating habits from childhood. Is vegetarianism in children common? You must identify the fellow so we can test what the values seem to indicate. Also, I would say death took place five years ago.
Ranjan’s report went on to explain the numbers in detail and listed all the caveats associated with them. Bottom line, however, was that this analysis could be a clue in identification. His last paragraph explained the oxygen-hydrogen stable isotope ratios.
“Your person grew up in a climate that is cold and humid,” he wrote. “See table.”
“Cool,” “great stuff,” and “let’s find the guy” were the sentiments of the excavation crew.
“Ain’t that something?” said the sheriff.
“Damn. You did it,” said Frank. “You not only told me what the guy had for his last meal, but where he had it.”
“Ranjan’s warnings weren’t just cover-your-ass warnings. The conclusions aren’t written in stone,” warned Diane. “There are many variables.”
“Sure,” said Frank. “But it’s several damn good leads. We have a young man, perhaps in his late teens, perhaps a vegetarian, may have disappeared five years ago and may have grown up somewhere in the North. That’s enough to start looking at the missing person database.”
“Would the database have their eating habits?” asked one of the crew.
“Sometimes,” said Frank. “Particularly if there’s some kind of medical condition or distinguishing trait. The family usually tries to give as much information as they can.”
“Do you think he lived on the coast-maybe Maine or somewhere on the East Coast?”
The crew was getting into the spirit of the hunt. They liked the idea that their science might solve the mystery.
“Maybe,” said Diane. “He could just as well be from Michigan, North Dakota, Washington State or Canada, for that matter. If you guys are finished with lunch, we’d better start digging. Ranjan’s going to be calling me every day to see if I’ve found him-or her.”
“I’m going to go over and watch the digging for a while,” said Whit, following the crew.
The sheriff watched Whit’s retreating back and gave a half-hearted chuckle. “I think ol’ Whit’s a little nervous. Be funny if he and his family turned out to be serial killers.”
Frank laughed. “Yeah, that’d be just hilarious.”
They were joking, but as Diane watched the crew gather their tools and remembered that they were staying in the Abercrombies’ home, she said, “You don’t think?” She let the question hang.
“No, of course not,” said Frank. “Whit and I went to school together.”
“Everybody went to school with somebody,” said Diane. “You didn’t go to school with his father, did you?”
“What’s this about?” asked Frank.
“Nothing. It’s just that the crew is staying in the Abercrombie house.”
The sheriff laughed. “Boy, wouldn’t that be funny.”
“It might be Mrs. Abercrombie,” said Frank. “Maybe this vegetarian fellow was a guest, and he insulted her by not having any of her pot roast.”
“This isn’t funny at all,” said Diane.
“Yes, it is,” said Frank. “I know these people. Do you think Whit would lead us right to the dump site if it’d been him? I think you-and the sheriff,” Frank glared at him, “are letting your imaginations run away with you.”
The sheriff chuckled again, clearly enjoying letting his imagination run away with him. “I’m going back to the office. I’ll tell my deputies to keep an eye out if they see one of the Abercrombies wielding an axe. Seriously, Ms. Fallon, I’ve know’d ol’ Luther all my life. He’s a good ol’ boy and wouldn’t hurt a fly. Neither would Whit. They’re good churchgoing folk.” The sheriff took a deep breath before he started back to his car. “I do wish the perp could have picked a more convenient place to dump the body,” he was saying as they watched his stout body disappear through the trees and underbrush.
“Maybe you’re right,” said Diane. “How’s Star?”
“Angry. Angry at the guards who found her before she bled to death, angry at the police for arresting her and not looking for whoever wiped out her family, at her parents for dying, at herself for not dying with them. I think she’s afraid if she gets over the anger, the grief will be more than she can stand.”
Like all the people who couldn’t find anything to say to her, Diane couldn’t think of any comfort for Frank. She couldn’t say that Star would get over it, because that would be a lie. Or that time will heal-it hadn’t healed her. She’d learned to get by, day by day, but that was hardly a comfort.
“Maybe anger’s a good thing right now. It takes up space,” she said.
“I’m going back to see her this evening. I’ve been staying with her at the hospital as much as I can-to let her know she’s not alone. Why don’t you come with me tonight to visit? You can tell her what you’re doing.”
Diane hesitated a moment, not wanting to watch someone else’s grief when she had no comfort to offer her, but in the end relented. “Sure, if you think it will help. When do you have to get back to work?”
“The end of next week. Think we can solve this thing by then?”
Diane offered a weak smile. “I don’t see why not.”
Frank shook his head. “I can’t help but wonder”-he gestured toward the pit where the crew were laying grid lines to start excavating-“what if this is not related to what happened to George and Louise and we’ve wasted all this time and energy in the wrong direction?”
“This is someone who needs justice too. Besides, what are the chances that your friends find a human bone, then get murdered within the week? My gut feeling is that someone didn’t want this site found. Have you talked to people they might have told about the bone?”
“Some. So far, looks like they either told no one or no one is admitting it.”
After arranging with Frank to pick her up at the museum later on, she went back to digging. The crew had laid out a grid of string and stakes. One of the guys was setting up the tripod and transit for mapping. Another guy and one of the women w
ere setting up a screen to sift out the smaller objects from the dirt they removed. The remaining members of the crew were either driving stakes around the outlying bones or beginning excavation of the grids. It was going well; they didn’t seem to need her. How tempting to just leave in their hands this thing that looked too much like a mass burial.
Let’s just do it and get it over with, she told herself, squatting down beside a grid containing exposed bone. There was a row of teeth that looked like a deer’s. Not human; that was good. She took her trowel and began removing the dirt from the bone. Before long she’d uncovered a deer skull. The top skull plate had been sawed through to remove the antlers and a portion of the skull. Normal find for a taxidermist’s pit.
By the end of the day, a large portion of the first layer of the pit had been uncovered, leaving a tangle of exposed animal bones standing out in relief.
“We’ll call it a day,” said Diane, standing up, observing the completed work. “You guys are doing a good job. Fast too.” She carefully walked among the grid squares, surveying the bone. All animal that she saw. A little easier than a pit of all humans, but it was death just the same. She didn’t think she could be a hunter. As she started to step out of the grids so they could cover the area with plastic for the night, she spotted the end of a bone just about to be uncovered. Diane walked over and squatted down beside the woman who was working on that square.
“See something?” the young woman asked.
“It’s been gnawed on by one of the canine family, but it’s the distal end of a human humerus-the end that fits with the radius and ulna, the bones of the forearm,” said Diane. She had expected to find an arm and perhaps a shoulder girdle close to the surface, since the original clavicle had made its way to the surface. She liked it when her expectations were met.
“Think the rest of him is close by?” asked the woman.
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