LC 04 - Skeleton Crew

by Beverly Connor

  Don't panic. She let out her breath slowly and stretched out her arms and legs-flaring to slow her ascent. Then she felt an arm around her waist. John was pulling her down. Harper met them with Lindsay's weight belt and helped reattach it around her. Trey watched her closely, motioning, asking if she was all right. She nodded and indicated that she wanted him to take a global positioning reading at the place where she had been.

  Lindsay's heart was still pounding and she had to concentrate on breathing normally as they swam down the channel. Out of the corner of her eye she saw John watching her, and she signaled to him that she was fine. Trey led them upward to the top of the limestone rocks. Looking back down at the trough they had been in, Lindsay wondered if it had been a riverbed. What would a riverbed look like after being submerged for several thousand years? Trey pointed to his watch. Time to head back to the place where they had descended.

  Halfway back, off to the side, Lindsay saw two other divers swimming just above the bottom, looking only at the sea floor. With the carpet of color and abundance of aquatic life, she wondered at their being so focused. They must be surveying, she thought. For what? She looked at Trey and saw that he had noticed them, too.

  "Have a good time?" asked Bobbie when they were in the boat stripping off their gear.

  "It's really beautiful down there," said Lindsay and Harper together.

  "It's a different experience every time I go," Trey said.

  Then the question that Lindsay dreaded. He asked if she was all right. She hoped the redness that she felt creeping into her cheeks didn't show.

  "I'm fine. Sorry I scared everybody."

  Trey shook his head. "Probably scared you worse than it did us. You didn't ascend that far."

  "How'd you lose your weights?" asked Harper.

  "I was, uh, grabbing for a flashlight."

  "A flashlight?" asked Harper.

  Trey looked puzzled. Even in the overhangs the visibility had been exceptionally good.

  "Lindsay was lost in a cave once," John offered. "I expect she had a flashback when the water got murky."

  Lindsay nodded. "Really, I'm fine. Sometimes I just have this absurd need to know that I have a light."

  "Well, you did right to control your ascent," said Trey.

  Ever the teacher, he explained what she would have had to do next had a partner not been there.

  Harper grinned. "You aren't used to being out of control, are you?"

  Lindsay looked at her ruefully. "No," she said.

  "What was it you found?" asked Trey.

  Lindsay fished the two-inch mineralized object out of her pocket and examined it before handing it to Trey.

  "I can't believe it," he said. "Do you know how few fossils have been found here? I haven't found any, and this is your first trip."

  "I have an eye for bones, what can I say?"

  Bobbie reached for the bone. "What is it, can you tell?"

  "It's mammal. I believe a rib fragment. The tightness of the curve makes me suspect it might be human."

  As soon as she said it, she thought of John. The phrase "bone of contention" entered her mind, and she changed the subject.

  "Did you see those other divers?"

  They all had. "Lots of people dive at Gray's Reef," Trey said, but Lindsay knew that he, like she, thought they might be Eva Jones's divers.

  Lindsay's long hair was still damp when she settled in the lab to finish analyzing the bones of HSkR1. She yawned and rubbed her ears to get the pressure back into balance. Carolyn had cleaned the bones of fabric and placed a wet cloth over them. Lindsay laid out the long bones and measured them one by one on an osteo- metric board. She gave each bone a thorough examination, first by gently running her fingers over its surface. It probably looked to others as if she were caressing them, but Lindsay believed in using her tactile senses as well as her eyes.

  Once when she was taking a human osteology course, she had been blindfolded and required to lay out a box of skeletal remains in anatomical position, then write an analysis of the individual without ever having seen the bones. She got so good at it that it became a challenge to the other archaeology students to find something that she couldn't identify. Sometimes they would try without success to fool her with animal bones. Though her skills impressed the archaeology students, Lindsay knew that any halfway good osteologist could do the same thing. Her friends swore that if she ever lost her eyesight, she could do her job just as well. She learned some valuable lessons from that experience that she now tried to pass on to her own students, and she made the blindfold test a part of the final examination in her osteology courses.

  Lindsay completed examination of each bone of HSkR1 with a detailed visual inspection of every centimeter of its surface, using both her naked eye and magnification. It was a time-consuming process, but its payoff was the story the bones could paint for the discerning eye.

  HSkR1 was about five feet, ten inches tall, above average for the men of his time. His muscle attachments were no bigger than average, indicating he was not of muscular build and therefore probably was not one of the sailors, whose hard work showed markedly in their bones. The right lateral attachments were slightly larger than their left counterparts, indicating right-handedness. She found no healed breaks, pits, unevenness, or swelling in the bones that would be evidence of disease. Nor did she find any malformation of the long bones. The individual appeared to have had good nutrition from the time he was a child until he died.

  She returned the long bones to Carolyn and took the scapulas. Compared with the left, the beveling on the margin of the glenoid cavity of the right shoulder blade, the cup where the head of the humerus rests, also indicated that he was right-handed.

  Lindsay took the skull, set it on the donut ring, and went to the trays of soaking artifacts, looking for one thing in particular.

  "Can I borrow this a minute?" she asked Carolyn, pointing to a wooden caulker's mallet.

  "Why?"

  "I'd like to take some measurements."

  Carolyn took the artifact and wrapped it in a damp cotton cloth, warning Lindsay that it was very fragile. She and Korey watched as Lindsay measured and examined the head of the mallet. They came closer, hovering over her shoulder as she placed the head of the hammer against the indentations of the skull and measured the angle of the mallet to the skull.

  "Is that it?" asked Korey. "Is that the murder weapon?"

  "It was something like this. I'm sure they had many of these on board."

  The crew from the cofferdam were arriving, and the noise level in the lab increased. Lewis came over carrying a carton.

  "She's found the murder weapon," whispered Carolyn.

  Lewis looked dumbfounded for a moment. "You're kidding!"

  "I've found a possibility," Lindsay mumbled as she fit the head of the mallet into the indentations at several angles.

  "What are you doing now?" asked Lewis.

  "The wound isn't even-the side of the weapon where the most force was focused left a deeper impression. By measuring the angle of the depression and the angle of the hammer in the wound, I can figure out the handedness and the height of the perp. Add this information to the hierarchy of the skull fractures, and I can determine the sequence of blows during the attack."

  The three of them stood staring at her a moment, and Lindsay realized that she was accustomed to working with people like medical examiners, or her students, who were familiar with the forensic part of her work. She suppressed a smile.

  "Well, damn," said Korey at last. "We'll be able to make an arrest by the end of the day."

  "This is great," Lewis said, his eyes glistening with ideas. "This is the kind of personal drama we need to get everyone's interest in the project." He set the box he was holding down on the table. "Here's another skeleton. When can you finish with it?"

  "Another one already? Is this the one you discovered?"

  He nodded, and Lindsay bit her tongue to keep from saying anything about the excavatio
n being done way too fast.

  Lewis apparently was a mind reader. "I put several people on it. Unfortunately, a dig like this one has to be done as quickly as possible. We can't hold back the ocean forever."

  "So?" asked Carolyn.

  "So what?" Lindsay asked her.

  "How tall was the perp and which hand wielded the weapon?"

  "Right now, I can tell you that he was shorter than HSkR1 and he was left-handed."

  "Couldn't he just have used his left hand?" Korey asked.

  "When someone is committing an act as serious and consequential as bludgeoning a person to death, they typically use the hand they have the most facility with."

  "You said something about the sequence of blows?" said Lewis.

  "Whoever it was came up from behind and struck him on the left side of the head with great force. When the victim fell forward, he hit him twice more."

  "Wow," said Carolyn. "You do this all the time?"

  "Not all the time, but I've seen wounds like these before."

  "What? With a caulker's mallet?" asked Korey.

  "With a hammer, a tire iron, a baseball bat. Different wounds, but there are similarities."

  "You certainly have a nice life," said Carolyn.

  Lindsay smiled at her. "I usually don't get any bodies that are fleshed out. That makes it easier."

  That evening, Trey turned the debriefing over to Steven Nemo. Steven had created a giant cross-section schematic of the ship with each deck labeled. The hold was easy to identify with its piles of stone ballast. Above the hold were the orlop deck, main gun deck, weather deck, and the forecastle and sterncastle decks. He had mapped the location inside the ship of the artifacts discovered so far.

  HSkR1 had been found in what was described as the sailmaker's cabin because a cache of sailcloth and a leather palm thimble were found there. That made sense. HSkR1 would have been taken there to be sewn into the sailcloth. The mallet, she noted, came from the carpenter's cabin, where they had also discovered part of a saw and a cache of chisels.

  Lindsay wondered where the body had been discovered at the time of the murder. Would the journal tell what happened? Surely, something as dramatic as a murder would be worth mentioning. Lindsay bet that Lewis was pressuring Harper to hurry with the translation, just as he was pressing her to finish the skeletons.

  HSkR2, Lewis's skeleton, was in a section that Steven said was probably an officer's or an important passenger's cabin. The huge trunk with the bird crest was the first artifact uncovered there; the chess pieces and the skeleton were found next. All appeared to have been jumbled on top of one another.

  "I think HSkR2 is a passenger rather than an officer," Steven said. "An officer probably would have been somewhere else in the ship during a storm of such severity that it eventually sank the ship. If the chess set did belong to the passenger Valerian, there's a good chance this was Valerian's cabin. It would be interesting if the skeleton were Valerian, but we have no way at this time of knowing if they are his remains."

  "No," said Gina, "I don't want it to be Valerian."

  Steven looked at her a moment before setting aside the cross section and displaying a map of the sea floor.

  "It's all right, Gina," said Nate. "Valerian's probably having a drink with Elvis as we speak."

  "And here back on earth we found another cannon today," Steven Nemo continued, pointing to a series of small drawings. "If you notice, all of them are on a line, more or less. It's the pattern we would expect if they were throwing the cannons overboard to lighten the ship as part of their efforts to prevent it from sinking. When we finish the excavation, I think we'll be able to tell all the steps they went through to try to save the ship. Unfortunately, of course, they were ultimately not successful. That's why we have a ship to excavate."

  "Lindsay has finished analysis of the first skeleton," said Trey. "Would you like to tell us about it, Lindsay?"

  Lindsay stood and matter-of-factly gave her findings, including the head wounds and her suspicions about the murder weapon. For a moment they were silent.

  "So," said Nate, "we need to keep on the lookout for a guy about five-five and left-handed. Do you know hair color, or any distinguishing marks we can look for?"

  Lindsay grinned at him.

  "You expect us to believe that?" Jeff stood, glowering at Lindsay. "The guy probably got his head bashed in by a yardarm. It happened all the time on those ships. Or he fell from the mast. Come on. You're trying to tell us it was a murder? It was probably the guy described in the diary who fell and hit the deck."

  "Well, Korey and I saw the mallet fit into the wounds," Carolyn responded. "Besides, I think they would have buried the guy who fell to the deck fairly quickly. He died pretty early on. They didn't keep ripe bodies around very long."

  "Well, I don't believe it," said Jeff.

  "It's not a matter of belief," said Lindsay. "It's a matter of empirical evidence. That's what happened." She felt like 'adding, And it's not my fault.

  "Well, I think it's cool," Juliana said.

  "So do I," said Lewis. At that, Jeff sat down. "Lindsay, would you mind making a sketch of what the guy looked like in life by tomorrow morning?"

  "Sure." I don't need to sleep, she thought.

  Lindsay and John ate pizza on the screened-in back porch of the lab, looking out over the jungle of flora.

  "Good pizza," Lindsay said. "And thanks for saving my life today."

  John laughed out loud. "I didn't save your life. You would have done all right if I hadn't been there."

  "You know that I believe the bone fragment I found today is human."

  "But you don't know for sure?"

  "No. It's small, weathered, and heavily mineralized. But I think it's a piece of rib."

  "I pick my battles. I don't want to argue with you over such a small piece of bone that may belong to a deer. Is that your concern?"

  "I suppose."

  John looked out over the wild landscape for several moments before he spoke. "Besides, you have a state of grace for a while."

  "And why's that?"

  "Because of the kindness you showed my father last year. He's grateful for the gift you sent him-the scale of the Uktena."

  "I'm pleased that he liked it, but it was only a quartz crystal."

  John smiled. "A crystal used by our ancestors, something we knew about from legend. He tells me it's very powerful."

  "What power does he say it has?"

  John shook his head. "I don't know. My father and I are very different. He's more"-John shrugged-"Indian, I suppose. I've compromised."

  Lindsay found John to be very Indian, but she didn't say so. "How does he feel about you?"

  "I suppose he sees the two of us as different folds in the same garment."

  "Did he actually say that?"

  "No. That Kung Fu guy said it on TV the other night."

  Lindsay laughed, and John joined her after a moment.

  "You staying on the island tonight?" he asked.

  Lindsay nodded. "I'm staying with Harper. Lewis wants a drawing of the murdered sailor by morning."

  "Can't the artist, what's his name, Korey, do it?"

  Lindsay shook her head. "He hasn't had experience creating likeness from a skull. You have to draw the image with the skull behind it. I usually use a light table. You also have to have a knowledge of the facial features of the ethnic group you're drawing."

  "What's Lewis going to do with it?"

  "I think he's going to put an article in the newspapers. Maybe send a press release to the TV stations, too."

  "What does that do for the site?"

  "Public awareness and support often translate into money."

  "Then I suppose, since he still owes my company money for construction of the dam, that's agood thing."

  Lindsay saw the shadow of a large dark bird fly over and perch atop a tall tree. She leaned forward and squinted her eyes. "Is that an eagle?"

  "Yes. I've seen several here."<
br />
  "You're kidding. This is the first one I've ever seen in the wild."

  "He's young. His head is still black. Maybe we can go walking over the island sometime," said John. "There are lots of things to see."

  "Yes, I'd like that. Wow, I've never seen an eagle like that before."

  The eagle flew away, and Lindsay watched him soar out of sight. She rose and John stood with her.

  "Rabbit?"

  "Yes?"

  "I enjoy being with you."

  "Me, too."

  "I'm glad I was here with you when you saw the eagle."

  It was eleven o'clock when Lindsay finished the sketch and put it away in her desk drawer. Before locking up and climbing the stairs to Harper's apartment, she went to take a peek at the new set of bones, HSkR2. She wanted to scold Lewis for getting them out of the ground so fast.

  The brown-yellow bones were in a tub of water. The skull was upside down in its own tank. Even upside down, Lindsay easily noticed the classic Asian features. Indian? Indians had been taken to Europe-and returned. Distinguishing between American Indian and non-Indian Asian was not always easy. She took the skull, made several mid-facial measurements, and plugged the data into the computer. "I'm going to get too used to this program," she whispered to herself as the map appeared on the screen and placed the skull on the coast near the East China Sea. Lindsay had more trust in calculations she did herself than those computed by a machine. But she couldn't complain about the speed. She studied the map, still distrusting something that fast and easy, so she did the calculations by hand. The skull was probably not Native American.

  "Of course," she said aloud. "Valerian's servant." She grinned to herself. She wanted to call Trey, wake up Harper. A human connection. She loved it.

  The sound of a door opening at the far end of the lab brought her head up. She expected to see one of the archaeology crew and was surprised to see Mike Altman, one of the biologists and Tessa's husband. His blond hair was disheveled, and she couldn't help noticing that his T-shirt was on inside out.