by D Krauss
*
"Detective Sanger?"
"Yep." Mark hurriedly swallowed the last of the Blimpie and hoped he didn't get mayonnaise on the phone.
"Lynne Hadastu, State Lab. I'm calling about your murder case? The arrow?"
"Oh, right, right," Mark sat up and brushed the napkins and crumbs away, reaching for his notepad. "Wow, less than a month. Thanks for calling so quick."
"Oh, no problem. Murders have priority, especially something as unusual as this. I'm going to send you a written report but I wanted to call you first."
"Well, I appreciate that. You guys are the best, you know." Never hurt to butter up a labbie.
"Well, thank you. Can you get us a raise?"
Mark laughed. "I wish. I wish I could get one. So, what you got?"
She hesitated and Mark inwardly groaned. Can't be good news. "I wish I could tell you something definitive but, well, this is just plain weird."
"Tell me about it," Mark sighed.
"Yeah, don't envy you. But, this arrow, it's funny."
"That seems to be everyone's opinion."
"But I mean, it's funny, it's just… funny. Strange."
The back of Mark's head prickled. "How so?"
"Let's start with the shaft. It's made of dogwood."
"Dogwood? Isn't that the Easter tree? Seems a bit sacrilegious."
She laughed. "Well, not to pagans. But dogwood is also known as arrow wood."
"Let me guess," Mark said, "because it was used for arrows?"
"You got it. The tree of choice for Native American fletchers."
"So, whoever made this arrow is sticking with tradition."
"Oh, you bet he is." She paused. "The shaft has heat marks and shows signs of an arrow wrench."
"A what?"
"An arrow wrench. That's a block of wood with a hole in it slightly bigger than the shaft. You heat the shaft and then bend it in the wrench to straighten it."
"And that was done to this arrow." Mark stated it, didn't ask. "So, a purist."
"Definitely, since he used bear grease and real deer sinew, too."
"Huh?"
"Yeah." She couldn't help sounding pleased. Labbies loved it when they surprised the investigator. "The grease used to heat the shaft is genuine, honest-to-God bear. The maker also used honest to God real deer sinew to tie on the feathers, which are hawk, by the way, and to support the head, which is real flint."
"But," Mark was perplexed, "where in the world do you get stuff like that?"
"Specialty stores, mostly in the Northwest. But these samples didn't come from a store. No preservatives."
Mark drummed his fingers, thinking furiously. "So, what, is this guy Jeremiah Johnson? Running through the woods of Northern Virginia killing deer and bears and making arrows out of them?"
"Well, no, we don't think so." She paused.
"Well, what? Do you have something else?"
"Sort of."
He let out a breath. "Fingerprints. You found fingerprints and it's Cochise, right?"
She laughed. "No, not Cochise. We did find lots of fingerprints but they're not matched."
"Okay. So?"
"We tested the DNA of the deer parts." She paused for dramatic effect. "They're from a species that hasn't existed in 300 years."
"What?"
"Could be four."
"I don't get it."
She sighed in sympathy. "Frankly, we don't either. When we identified the sinew, we got the bright idea we could check the DNA and narrow down what part of Virginia it came from. So we sent it to UVA for typing and they asked us if we were joking with them, that the DNA evolved out 300 years ago."
"I still don't get it."
"That species of deer hasn't existed since about 1600. They evolved into modern deer, you know, the kind you hit with your car?"
"That's nuts," Mark observed. "They must have screwed up the tests. Eggheads."
Lynn chuckled. "We thought so, too, so we had Tech do it as a backup. Same result."
Mark blinked. "But, how's that possible?"
"Don't know."
"I mean," Mark struggled with his objections, "how, I mean… can there be some old timey deer somewhere? On a farm? Zoo?"
"Not that anybody who should know seems to know about."
Mark continued the finger drumming. "All right, so, what? Someone's got a stash of mummified deer somewhere?"
"Well, maybe not mummified, but some old specimens, definitely."
"Is that even possible? Does deer sinew even keep that long?"
He could almost see her shrug. "Under the right conditions, we suppose."
"And what would those be?"
"Preserved somewhere. Like a museum storage room."
"A museum." Mark drew those words out, using the time to think. "Do you all know of any museums with that kind of collection?"
"No, we checked. We even called the Smithsonian but they weren't aware of anything like that, either."
Of course. That would be too easy. "How 'bout those dioramas, those displays at the Smithsonian? You know, the stuffed creatures in the glass cases, painted to look like the wild?"
"The Smith says none of the displays have specimens that old. Neither does New York, Chicago, any of the big museums."
"But that would be your best guess, right? That the deer parts came out of a museum somewhere?"
"It's about our only guess. Anything else is just, well…" she hesitated. "Weird," she said, finally.
Definitely. Something dawned on Mark. "Could it be an original?"
"An original Indian arrow?"
"Yeah, made when those deer and beer were running around."
"You mean, a four-hundred year old arrow?"
"Yeah." He already felt stupid saying it.
At least she gave it a few seconds' consideration before she laughed. "No, no way. It's too new. The wood would never have survived that long, much less the sinew and feathers."
"What if it was petrified?"
"It's not." She paused. "If you want, we can do a carbon test on it." Her tone conveyed what a waste of time that would be.
"Hmm," Mark pretended he was considering it. "Nah, no, you're right, that's silly. So, you're sending it back, then?"
"Yep. Should be there tomorrow, along with the report. If you need anything else, call us." She paused. "Good luck."
"Yeah. Thanks," and he hung up. Mark stared down at his desk for a long moment before calling out, "Greg!"
"Yo!" came from way down at the coffee pot, Greg's favorite hang out.
"Let's go back to the crime scene," he yelled as he stood and grabbed his pistol and coat and the file. Always go back and look. You never know what you'll find.
