One Grave Too Many

by Beverly Connor

  Andie sat, wide-eyed, at her desk. “Diane, are you all right?”

  “I suppose you heard our conversation.”

  “I didn’t mean to, but yes. I didn’t know. . . .”

  Diane took off her locket and opened it. On one side there was a miniature of the photograph of her and her daughter. On the other was a small picture of Ariel’s dimpled pixie face. She handed it to Andie.

  “This is my daughter, Ariel. She died a little over a year ago.”

  Andie looked at the photograph with tears in her eyes. “She was a pretty little girl. Look at all that black hair.”

  “Yes, she was.” Diane took the locket and put it back around her neck. “I would have told you about her, but it’s been hard to talk about.”

  “I can understand that. I’m so sorry.” Andie took a Kleenex from her drawer and blew her nose. “I don’t understand why Grayson is so set on selling the museum. What’s that about?”

  “Money, apparently.” Diane shrugged. “I have a feeling something else is going on, but I have no idea what it is.” She started for her office, but turned back to Andie. “Do you remember me asking you at the party if you knew who asked for the ‘Hall of the Mountain King’?”

  Andie thought for a second. “Yeah, I remember. . . . It wasn’t on the playlist, you said.”

  “No, it wasn’t. Someone left a note for the quartet and signed my name. That piece of music was Ariel’s favorite. She played it all the time on a CD player I gave her.”

  Andie’s eyes widened again. “Oh, no. You think someone . . . ? That’s mean.”

  “Yes, it is. It could’ve been a coincidence.”

  “But what a coincidence. You want me to try and find out who did it?”

  “How?”

  “I can kind of ask around. See if anybody saw someone leave a note. I can be discreet.”

  “Don’t go out of your way, but if there is an opportunity . . .”

  “Sure. I’m really sorry about your daughter. That’s so sad.”

  “I was hoping to raise her here, occasionally bring her to the museum. I was thinking about asking Milo if we could put in a staff day-care center.” She forced her mind away from that lost possibility. “It’s why I quit forensic work. I couldn’t face the work anymore. But now I find that I need to use my skills to help Frank and his friend’s daughter.” She told Andie about the pit of animal bones and the human talus.

  “You’re kidding. You found where that collarbone came from—a clavicle?” She said clavicle carefully, as if she were trying to learn a new word. “What was the other bone you said. A talus?”

  “Yes. It’s a bone in the foot. The tibia—the shinbone—sits on top of it. It has a pulleylike structure where the tibia rests that allows you to move your foot back and forth. It’s also called an astragalus.”

  Andie swiveled her chair around to look at her feet and moved her foot up and down. “So, wow, you think you’ve found the guy?”

  “It seems likely. I’m going to be excavating. Jonas Briggs and Sylvia Mercer will be joining me.”

  “Didn’t I tell you he’s a nice guy?”

  “Yes, you did, and you were right. I’m going to be in and out for the next few days or weeks, depending. You’ll be able to reach me on the cell phone if you need to.”

  “OK. Maybe I could go some time and watch?”

  “The process is very slow. It could be boring watching.”

  “I’d like to see it anyway.”

  “Sure. When we get a substantial portion uncovered, you can come take a look. In the meantime, would you have a table put in . . .” Diane thought for a moment. “The room across from the docents’ offices. That’s still empty, isn’t it?”

  Andie nodded. “We may have a few things stored there, but not much. You need a place to work?”

  “Yes. Better yet, you know that corner room on the third floor, west wing? That’s completely out of the way. Set up something there. And don’t mention this to anyone. I won’t be in tomorrow morning. I’ll be at the Abercrombie farm, excavating the dump site.”

  Chapter 24

  Whit Abercrombie, with the help of the county road crew under the direction of the sheriff, had constructed a small footbridge across the creek at the point of easiest access in the gully. They’d widened the narrow path that led down one side of the gully and up the other, anchoring stepping-stones every few feet. It was serviceable enough to carry equipment from vehicles parked along the roadway that led to Luther Abercrombie’s cow pasture. Whit had also brought in his farm tractor with a brush hog and mowed a better path from the road to the creek crossing.

  It was still relatively early when Diane and her crew finished setting up a tent to serve as a field office and had inventoried the cameras, mapping equipment, digging tools and other assorted equipment. But the early-morning Georgia sun had already heated the air to over ninety degrees. It would only get hotter as the day progressed, and the section they were working in had only saplings for shade.

  To Diane’s relief, Jonas’ former students were experienced archaeological field crew, just as he’d promised. They’d brought three more people than the promised four—a total of four men and three women, dressed in cutoffs, tee shirts and sneakers. One of the women was interested in examining a model for taphonomic processes—the study of what happens to human and animal remains after death. For archaeologists, the knowledge means finding cultural clues to people’s lives; for forensic anthropologists, understanding the fate of human remains can mean uncovering clues to their death.

  In particular, the student was interested in looking at the differences in bone damage from butchering and from wild-animal scavenging. In the archaeological context, her project translated into the ability to tell human activity from natural phenomena. Diane didn’t mind allowing the archaeologists to conduct research on the animal pit. Whatever information they discovered would be useful to her field too.

  “We’ll start by making lanes in the search area. The pit will be the center of the area, but we’ll search all around it first, using a line search pattern. Are you familiar with that?” They all nodded, giving her their full attention.

  “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 thic
k 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 ab
out: 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.”