Airtight Case

by Beverly Connor

  “I like what you guys found,” she told Kelsey. “We’ve got a job description and initials for TPB2. That gives us a good chance at identifying him.” She turned her head toward McBride. “Think Elaine’s up for going back through the historical documents at the library?”

  McBride nodded vigorously. “She’d love it.”

  “Here.” Lewis handed Lindsay a coin.

  It was a shiny new State of Georgia quarter, the one with the peach. Personally, she preferred Delaware’s with the horse, but Georgia was known for its peaches. She flipped it to the photographer.

  “Let’s get some good shots of these artifacts.”

  As they were setting up the first shot, Luke Youngdeer walked into the tent.

  Chapter 35

  Argon Is Good

  LINDSAY STARED AT Luke a moment, trying to read his face. She excused herself and pulled him out of the tent and away from ears that might overhear them.

  “Did she identify him?”

  Luke’s keen dark eyes bore into hers compassionately. “No. I’m sorry.”

  “No?” Lindsay was utterly surprised. “She said it wasn’t him?”

  “She said she didn’t recognize him.”

  Luke was fading away in a blur as tears formed in her eyes. “Did you ask around?”

  “Yes. I talked to several of the nurses, the receptionist, the people in the business office who did remember that the guy who came to fetch you wrote them a bogus check.”

  Lindsay stood still for a moment. She was so sure they were the same person. She squeezed her eyes tight, trying to remember her time in the hospital. There was nothing there, just empty space. She felt the tears running down her cheeks. “I’m sorry I wasted your time on such a wild-goose chase.”

  “I don’t feel I wasted my time. For what it’s worth, Mary Carp didn’t want to talk to me. I don’t know if she was afraid you were going to sue the hospital, if she’d already received a lot of flak about the incident, if she didn’t like talking to an Indian, or if she was lying.”

  Lindsay opened her eyes and looked at him. “You think maybe she lied?”

  Luke shrugged. “She may have. I know you were counting on this. I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too. There were two men who came to take me. One didn’t go into the hospital. He waited on the sidewalk. Maybe Gentry is the second one—except he fits the description I gave John for the other one. I shouldn’t have counted on this so much.”

  “You have police detectives working on it. Tell them your suspicions, and let them talk to this guy.”

  “That’s what I’ll have to do. I was just hoping to wrap it up myself. Go get yourself something to eat. I know you must be hungry.”

  “I will when I know you’re all right.”

  “I’m fine.” One side of her lips turned up in a lopsided smile. “We’re finding lots of interesting things associated with the guy under the coffin.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “They’re being photographed right now. Come in and take a look.”

  On her way in, Lindsay met Lewis coming out, and she couldn’t avoid telling him the disappointing news. Of course, it wasn’t as great a disappointment to him. He hadn’t hung his future on the outcome.

  “This should be a relief then,” he said.

  “It’s not.”

  “It was a long shot.”

  “I didn’t think it was.” Lindsay pushed past him and went into the tent, wondering what could be her next move. She had to solve this. The idea of going through life not knowing who had tried to kill her, and never knowing if they might try again, was unbearable. If she could solve murders that happened almost five hundred years ago, for heaven’s sake, she could solve this.

  The photographer was setting up the shot of the knife. That was his favorite, she could tell by the way he handled it and the delighted expression on his face. Lindsay was content to let the others take care of the photos. She walked over to look at the shattered bones in the boxes. Erin, in a halter top and dirty ragged cutoffs that her mother would hate, was organizing the boxes according to the grid numbers.

  “You found some interesting items,” Lindsay told her.

  “We did, didn’t we? I’m glad Dr. Lewis put us on that burial. We had a good time. The best time I’ve had here. I feel like this is what archaeology is like, not what Claire showed me.”

  “Like anything else, you have good and bad times.”

  “We haven’t sifted the soil yet. There’s probably some other great stuff just waiting for us to find. Who do you think he was?”

  That question again. Lindsay had to laugh. “I believe Kelsey’s right. He was a surveyor or some sort of engineer. I don’t have a clue as to how he got where he was.”

  Lindsay spotted the curve of an innominate and picked up its box and several others with pelvic bones and set them aside.

  “Lewis, you want to help me with the sand?” asked Lindsay as she squeezed past him to grab the glue from the box of supplies.

  “Sure.” He and Luke opened the sack of sand and poured it in the newly made box, courtesy of Mr. Laurens.

  “You going to glue the whole pelvis together?” asked Erin.

  “No. Only as many pieces as it takes to determine sex. Like Kelsey said, it’s probably male, but we need to confirm it with the bones.”

  All the pelvic bones were completely shattered and mixed with fragments of other bones. Lindsay first picked out the bones that belonged to the pelvis and sorted out the fragments with obvious diagnostic characteristics—a piece with a curve, part of the acetabulum, part of the auricular surface, part of a tubercle, or a piece with a fossa. She glanced at the other boxes, looking for more pelvic bones, and found several more fragments from a distant grid.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Erin asked.

  “Shoot,” said Lindsay.

  “Aren’t you mixing them up?”

  “Yes, and in most situations you don’t want to do that. But we know we severely disturbed the fragments when we lifted the coffin. Having the bones taken up in a grid will help me quickly locate the bones that go together.”

  “It’s like working a jigsaw puzzle.” Luke bent over her shoulder, watching her work.

  “Exactly.” Lindsay put two pieces together, separated them, then glued them together. She found three more pieces that fit.

  “Hey, Chamberlain.” Alex Jarman stuck his head inside the tent. “Want to see inside the coffin? We’re ready.”

  Lindsay, McBride, Jarman, Lewis, Peter, and Posnansky crowded around the small screen watching the trek through the inside of the coffin as the technician snaked the fiber optics borescope through the hole.

  “We have some hair.” Lindsay pointed to the screen.

  “I’m losing mine at twenty-six, and this guy’s over two hundred and dead and still has his hair. It’s not fair.” Peter Willis had loosened up considerably now that the pressure was off and he had his sample.

  “When will you know if you have uncontaminated air?” asked Lindsay.

  “Not for several months. But I’m very optimistic. I’ve examined some trapped gases in ice cores. But this will be the oldest air sample I or anybody’s managed to capture—if we have it. Like I said, I feel really good about it. What’s that dark stuff on the bones? A fungus or something?”

  “Desiccated skin,” said Lindsay. “What’s that?” She tapped the screen at a distant fuzzy image. “Can you get closer?”

  They watched the view as the borescope moved farther into the coffin and maneuvered to an object.

  “It looks like glasses,” said Jarman. “Did they have glasses back then?”

  “You ever see a portrait of Ben Franklin in glasses?” Lindsay asked.

  “Oh, yeah. How about that. Looks like they might have been stuck in a pocket or something the way they’re situated.”

  “We can get an idea about his vision,” said Lindsay. “Nice.”

  “Okay.” Posnansky straightened up from his
bent position and rubbed his lower back. “We’re going to pump argon gas into the coffin while your guys finish the excavation. If all goes well with Juliana’s tests, we’ll lift it out of the ground late this afternoon.”

  “All this is pretty amazing,” said Lindsay.

  “We’ve enjoyed the opportunity to play with our toys,” said Posnansky. “Looks like we got something to write home about. Alex here’s ordering us a tub of beer tonight, and we’re going to have a good time.”

  Lindsay tried to smile, but it froze on her face. She ducked out of the tent while Posnansky was giving the technician instructions and headed back to her bones. Their work was over. It had caught her off guard. They would be leaving. Her examination trailer would stay, she was sure. But the servicemen were here to guard the expensive equipment, not her. And they would go with the equipment.

  “Lindsay.” Lewis caught up with her and put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Are you all right? You left looking kind of pale.”

  “I just realized they will be leaving soon.”

  “Yes, but a few will stay until you finish. It’s their equipment you’re using. I’m staying a while and so is Luke. I’m sorry things didn’t turn out the way you wanted. But maybe you were counting too much on it.”

  “The whole idea of it being over was just so . . . so peaceful. I’ll be fine. Just need another plan.” Lindsay walked with Lewis toward the mess tent.

  “Good. That’s the spirit. Let’s go eat lunch. You’re looking a little thin, too.”

  “Lewis . . . never mind. Where is Drew? I haven’t seen her lately.”

  “She had to go somewhere with her husband. There she is at the mess tent. I guess I’ll go fill her in. Not that it’ll make a difference.”

  Lindsay watched Drew and her husband going into the huge tent. “What’s with her, can you tell?”

  “I don’t know. I’m beginning to think you’re right about her. Since her husband showed up, it’s hard to keep her attention on task.”

  “Has she said anything about Claire?”

  Lewis shook his head. His gaze stayed on the tent opening Drew had just entered. “Just apologized for the way Claire treated you.”

  “She was the cause . . . It’s true that Claire was hard to get along with, left to her own devices, but Drew really played on that.”

  “You believe what this Trent fellow told you?”

  “Yes. On this I do. And I’m very worried about Claire. The sheriff hasn’t found a trace of her.”

  “How hard is he looking?”

  “I’m sure he’s not treating her like a missing person. But he did contact her parents just like I did, and he’s had his deputies keep an eye out for her car.”

  “She wouldn’t leave the site and hang around Kelley’s Chase, would she? That wouldn’t make any sense.”

  No, Lindsay admitted to herself, but if she is somehow involved in all this, she might. It would be easy to rent a cabin somewhere in the Smokies. Oddly, that thought was a relief. Lindsay preferred to think of Claire as a criminal, rather than dead. Dead. She hadn’t thought the word so blatantly, but had kept the idea at a safer distance in her mind. But she was very much afraid that Claire had gone out in the dead of night and met a fatal end. Lindsay shivered.

  Lewis went off to see Drew. McBride was with Jarman, Posnansky, and Peter. The three of them were coming out of the cemetery tent heading for the mess tent and deep in conversation. Luke was with Adam, Byron, and Dillon, laughing and joking with some of the reservists. She wished she felt as happy as they all looked. She entered the tent and paused just in the doorway. It was noisy as usual for this time of day, filled with the sounds of a myriad of conversations going on at once. She surveyed the food line and looked over the crowd for Mike Gentry. He wasn’t there. She ducked out of the tent and headed for the house.

  Mrs. Laurens was relaxing in the kitchen, drinking a glass of iced tea and talking with one of her daughters who was washing dishes.

  “Hello, Lindsay. Aren’t you eating with the others?”

  Lindsay pulled out a chair and sat down. “I was kind of taking a break from the others.”

  “I know what you mean. You have to take your respites when you can. I was just telling Darlene we’re getting a break for supper. Dr. Lewis is getting shrimp. Going to serve it on a big tub of ice. He wants us to boil some corn on the cob and make some key lime pies.”

  “Those are Lewis’s favorites.”

  “It sounds like you all are having a party.” When Darlene turned her head a certain way, she looked exactly like a younger version of her mother.

  “Most of the work the scientists came for is finished. This is a celebration. I suppose they’ll be packing up and leaving tomorrow.”

  Trickles of condensation ran down Mrs. Laurens’ iced tea glass. The caramel-colored liquid over ice looked cool, an invitation too good to pass up. Lindsay got up and poured herself a glass. She’d been thinking about how to ask about Mike Gentry without arousing any suspicion. She wanted to say something like: “Doesn’t Drew know Mike Gentry, the guy who works for you?” But she didn’t want it getting back to Drew. She wanted to keep Drew and her husband in the dark.

  “Are you a little short-handed? It seems like I didn’t see as many people serving.” Lindsay sat down and sipped her tea.

  Darlene was putting a large pan in the dish drainer. “That Mike Gentry didn’t come to work today. He’s the only one, and if you ask me, we can do without him.”

  “Was he a problem?”

  “Not a problem, as such,” said Mrs. Laurens. “He was one of those people who look for every opportunity to get out of work. Ellie at the diner recommended him. She said he was a good worker.”

  “Mama, that’s because he’d stayed there a couple of months. It’s so hard to get good people to work in the restaurant business, they’re grateful for anyone who sticks around for more than a couple of weeks.”

  So he was gone. Had he gotten wind of what Lindsay was up to? How? Did he get suspicious of the picture after all? Did he know she went through his pockets? Lindsay would like to be glad he was gone—if she really thought he was. He was too good a suspect to let go of.

  “Mrs. Laurens. Didn’t you say you made a rubbing of that treasure coin Miss Tidwell brought to your class?”

  “I was in third grade. We all had to do a project. She let me make a rubbing because she knew I was careful and knew to use the side of my pencil and not bear down hard. You couldn’t trust boys with something like that, leastwise, not nine-year-old boys.”

  “Do you still have it? I’d like to see it.”

  “Lord sakes, Lindsay. That was almost fifty years ago.”

  “You know, Mama, that trunk in the attic has some of your old report cards in it and that scrapbook of leaves you collected when you was in sixth grade. You might still have it.”

  “I don’t want you to go to any trouble, but I really would like to see it.”

  “This have something to do with Miss Tidwell and what Erin’s people asked you to do?”

  “Yes, but I wish you wouldn’t mention it.”

  Lindsay left and went back to the site, leaving Mrs. Laurens and her daughter puzzled, she was sure. People were streaming out of the mess tent and back to their posts. She went straight to her trailer and continued reconstructing the pelvis. She stopped when she determined it to be a male pelvis, though she wanted to go on. There was something restful about fitting bones together. She stood the glued pieces in the sandbox and looked for boxes containing skull fragments.

  “Did you eat lunch?”

  “Lewis—I didn’t hear you come in. I had some business to take care of, and I wasn’t hungry. I’m having fun, so leave me alone.” She took two pieces of the right ascending ramus, glued them together, and stood them up in the sand to dry.

  “I see you have a big piece of the pelvis finished. Is it male?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is there anything else you can te
ll about him?”

  “He was mashed flat.”

  “Is that how he died?”

  “Lewis, I almost hate telling you this, but there are limits to what I can find out from bones. I don’t know who he is, I don’t know the cause or manner of his death, and I don’t know what he was doing under the lead coffin. In fact, I don’t know any more than Kelsey has already discovered.”

  “When you do find out all those things, let me know.”

  “Did I hear my name?” Kelsey came in.

  “I was just about to tell Lewis what a nice job you and your crew did on the excavation.”

  Kelsey grinned. “We had a great time. So, can you put Humpty Dumpty back together?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  Kelsey turned to Lewis. “Some of the guys tell me you and Jarman are throwing a party here tonight.”

  “We thought a little celebration was in order.”

  “Great, I’m ready.” Kelsey danced her way out of the tent, her arms over her head, snapping her fingers to a tune in her head.

  Lindsay thought it would be nice if John could come. She found the several pieces of the occipital, the back of the head, and glued them together.

  “If you’re doing okay here, I’m going to see how the coffin is coming.”

  Lindsay barely heard him leave as she sorted through the bones looking for a piece that fit with the fragment of temporal she had in her hand. She located it and several other pieces in another box and glued them together.

  “So,” she said to the pile of fragmented bones, “now I have your cause and possibly the manner of death.”

  Chapter 36

  Shot Him Dead

  “OKAY, WHAT AM I looking at?”

  Lewis sat perched on the stool at Lindsay’s left. Phil McBride sat on the other side. The trash pit coffin’s skull sat on a donut ring in front of them.

  “The left parietal bone of the skull.” Lindsay touched the side of Lewis’s head with her fingertips. “Right now I’m touching your right parietal.” She pointed out the same bone on the coffin skull.