At the end Mr. Stuart said, “But that is incredible. It stands against reason.”
“It’s the truth.”
“I will think on it and decide for myself.” He went to the door, still stiff, and went out without thanks.
The end was not yet. Hardly had he left than Old Doc Yak came in, grinning ferociously. He plopped himself into a chair. “Let me congratulate you on your crew, Chick,” he began. “Your man Gewald, now—”
“Hold it right there, you old quack. He’s not my man, and you know it.”
“Your man, Gewald,” Doc went on without heed, “he came to see me. We had a nice, friendly visit.”
“I can imagine.”
“Oh, yes. He questioned my professional competence. How could I be so sure Virginia Stuart was a virgin? Had I sought a concurring opinion? At the end I told him nature had made a mistake, putting his anus where his mouth should be and vice versa. I threatened to kick his teeth in. It took him a moment to transpose his parts as I had suggested, and then he knew I meant to kick his ass out.”
Charleston said, “Brave words, Doc. Brave.”
“Not so brave.” Doc gave that ferocious grin again. “I happened to have a scalpel in my hand at the time. So he departed.”
19
Gewald stood, reading my reports. They included an account of the protests without a word softened.
There were just the three of us in Charleston’s office. The time was early afternoon the next day.
Gewald laid the file aside after reading the last page. “A good investigator is bound to ruffle some feathers,” he said.
Charleston replied drily, “So it would seem.”
“You were pretty rough on me, my friend, but I understand. You have to think of your constituency.”
I expected Charleston to explode. Instead, he said, “Every vote counts.”
“So be it. I have something else on my mind. You haven’t told me about the bone-pickers.”
Charleston looked puzzled.
“Over west somewhere. Near what I believe is called Clay hill.”
“You mean the dig, the dinosaur dig?”
“Yeah. You didn’t tell me.”
“Why the interest?”
“They’re foreigners, aren’t they?”
“Just from out of state. They were here last year.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t questioned them. You can’t just take them for granted. They’re possibilities.”
“No stone unturned, huh?” Charleston was rearranging things on his desk. A man other than Gewald would have known his patience was being tried.
“That’s the idea. I’m going to make a run out there. Beard here can show me the way.”
I said, “I take my orders from Mr. Charleston.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake! Charleston?”
“All right,” Charleston answered with heavy forbearance. “Better get it over with, Jase.”
“I’ll take the state car with Beard as guide.”
Gewald drove with concentration. Had there been a pea-sized pebble on the pavement, he would have seen and dodged it. When we came to a dirt turnoff, he grasped the wheel with both hands.
On this late-June day the sun burned down with the glare of July. Opened, the car windows let in blasts of hot air.
The camp, such as it was, came into view—a rather large tent, a tepee, a couple of sleeping bags turned out to air, a car and a pickup, a case of empty beer cans, a tarpaulin held down by rocks over presumable supplies, two shovels, a pick and a wire screen.
Down the slope from it, beyond an outcrop, two men and three girls were working. Near them was a pile of mineralized bones.
Gewald got out of the car, walked partway toward them and called out, “Whoever’s the boss, would you come and talk to us?”
“Why, sure,” one of the men said. “What about?”
I climbed from the car.
“Just a few questions.”
They had all looked up. One of the men left the group and came toward us. He was a muscular man of fair complexion, and I noticed that, unlike the other man, who wore only shorts, he had on a shirt and a pair of pants. “Yes, sir,” he said. I judged him to be only a little older than I. His nose was peeling from sunburn.
“We’re officers of the law, hunting for a murderer,” Gewald told him. “Combing every bush, we are.”
The man smiled. “We’re grave robbers, not murderers. But all right. There’s a little shade at the side of the tent. Then fire away.”
Between us and the shade a white shirt hung from a tent rope. Its tails were rusty, the color of old blood. Gewald snatched it up. “What’s this?”
“I had a nosebleed. Touch of the sun maybe.”
We had halted short of the shade. “A nosebleed,” Gewald said. “Can the others verify that?”
“Only in part. What are you getting at? I was working away from the rest, a hundred yards or so. I told them about it afterwards.”
“How much later?”
“Next day, I guess. A man doesn’t make a to-do about a nosebleed. I had only my shirt to wipe my nose on.”
Gewald moved into the shade. He must have been burning up with that black suit on. “Interesting,” he said. “Why all the clothes? Your partner’s in trunks.”
“Because I can’t seem to tan. I just burn.”
The man sat down. He didn’t seem perturbed.
Gewald pressed on. “When was the nosebleed?”
“A week or more ago.”
“Say ten days?”
“That’s close enough. The shirt didn’t seem worth washing even if I could get the bloodstains out.”
“It was ten days ago that one Virginia Stuart was raped and strangled.”
The man’s face opened and closed to his words. “For God’s sake, you don’t think it was me!”
“Where were you at the time of the crime?”
“How do I know? The days run together in this work.” I could have added that the days run together in any work. “What day of the week was it?”
Gewald turned to me for the answer, and I said, “A week ago last Wednesday.”
“Then I was right here. We work six days a week, taking Monday off for shopping.”
“And sleep the nights through, I suppose. By the way, what’s your name?”
“Yule, Richard Yule.”
“You heard about the girl’s murder, it’s evident.”
“Naturally.”
“Did you know her?”
“Slightly. I bought her a Coke once. Winsome is the word that described her.”
“Too winsome, it seems.”
Yule got up. “Is that all?”
“I’m afraid not.” Apparently Gewald was thinking all of a sudden of the protests or remembering that I was on hand, for the answer was civil enough.
Gewald went on, still in that reasonable way, “Since you’re innocent, I hope you won’t mind going to town for a blood test.”
“To see if the shirt and I match. Is that it?”
“If you don’t mind?”
“What good would it do me if I said no? But, sure, I’ll go to town with you.”
“You ready then?”
“Let me tell the crew.” He walked down the slope, spoke to the others, came back and climbed into the car.
Gewald drove without speaking over the sun-stricken bench and down into the valley to Midbury. After that one outburst, Yule didn’t appear worried. He whistled for a bit, then lit a cigarette and, puffing, said to me in the back seat, “This is an insane business,” to which I answered, “The heat alone is enough to drive a man crazy.”
Jane Innis was alone at the board, proof enough of Blanche Burton’s training. “Mr. Charleston just came in,” she said.
Charleston was just sitting down at his desk. He looked up, taking us in.
“I want some blood tests,” Gewald said, seating himself. “This young man says he had a nosebleed about ten days ago. He says he
wiped it off with his shirt tail.”
Charleston held up a hand, palm out. “Not so fast.” His eyes went to Yule. “Be seated, please. You have given your name?”
“Yes. Richard Yule.”
“You’re a paleontologist?”
“Yes, again. Degree from Harvard. We’re working here on a grant.”
Gewald asked, “What’s a paleontologist?”
Charleston answered for Yule. “A student of fossils.” He spoke again to Yule. “I hear you’ve made some exciting finds?”
“Far beyond what we expected originally. We’ve come upon what might be called a dinosaur village, a regular colony. Nests, eggs, young dinosaurs, adults.”
“Out of my league,” Gewald put in, shaking his head.
“Most people find it fascinating, once they know,” Yule answered him. “It’s part of the history of the planet we walk on. It’s part of the evolutionary chain. I suppose you could say dinosaurs were one of nature’s mistakes since they all died off. But they were here once in numbers we can’t estimate.”
“When was that?” Gewald asked.
“Seventy million and more years ago.”
Gewald said as if it were a joke, “Before my time.” He added, “I’m interested in the here and now. I want the blood tests, yours, Yule, and the shirt’s.”
“If they match,” Charleston told him, “it won’t prove much. Many people have the same type of blood.”
“But if they don’t match?”
“They’ll match.”
“We’ll see about that. Call the county health nurse, Beard. We’ll need a sample.”
I waited for Charleston’s nod before I called. The nurse wasn’t in, but an assistant was. She came from upstairs, an older woman named Mrs. Dawson who, I knew, had found the routine of hospital work too much for her years. She was still expert, though, and had blood in a vial almost at once.
On her departure Gewald said, “I’m taking this and the shirt to the hospital. Then I’ll call on that stiff-necked Scotchman and find the type his daughter had.”
I knew from his glance what Charleston wanted so I said, “I’ll save you the trouble. Just a minute.”
I walked to the outer office and called Mr. Stuart. “This is Jason Beard, Mr. Stuart,” I said. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but there’s a chance, a very slim chance, that we’re on to something. Can you tell me your daughter’s blood type?”
“No. I cannot. It was an emergency delivery. It came on my wife all at once. There was no time to get her to a hospital, and I couldn’t rouse a doctor. I called the wife of a neighbor, who was something of a midwife, and together we delivered the baby. Everything went well.”
“And Virginia never had her blood typed?”
“She never did to my knowledge. She was always healthy. Not a day in the hospital.”
I started to thank him, but he interrupted, “What is this, Mr. Beard? What do you have?”
“I’m afraid nothing. Just a bloody shirt in all likelihood from a nosebleed.”
Back with the group I reported what I had learned.
Gewald got to his feet. “We’ll want the tests regardless. Yule, please stay here.” He went out with the vial and the shirt.
“A nosebleed?” Charleston said to Yule.
“That’s what it was.”
“They can be bad.”
“I’m learning that. A nosebleed, and here I am a suspect. What kind of man is that Gewald?”
“Gewald is Gewald, and no helping that, I’m afraid. But let it go for now. I’m interested in your discoveries. Tell me more, please.”
“If I can forget the fix I’m in.”
“I would dismiss it.”
“I’ll try to. I said we were finding fossil bones on bones. All of them so far, or nearly all of them, are the remains of Duck Bill dinosaurs, rightly called Hadrasaurs. They were plant-eaters. The nests and the presence of immature creatures along with adults suggests family care, which you don’t find among reptiles. In addition their very size argues against their being cold-blooded. After a chill how long would it take tons of cold-blooded meat to limber up? So we reach a conclusion, tentative but persuasive, that dinosaurs were warm-blooded animals.”
“That’s pretty convincing.”
“And at odds with prevailing theory. I said we were finding only Duck Bills. That’s not entirely true. We have unearthed just one hollow bone, a small piece, like the bone of a bird, and we are asking ourselves if it might be Pteranodon.”
“You have me there.”
“It was a flying beast covered, we rather think, with white hair or fur.”
“I see. Anything else?”
“I wouldn’t be altogether surprised if we came on the bones of Tyrannosaurus Rex, the most terrible creature nature ever produced.”
“And they all died. What from?”
“It’s just conjecture. Some might say climate, and do, but a change of climate would not account for the concentration of bones we’re finding. They surely would be scattered. We are flirting with the idea of a great mud slide.”
The discussion ended with the return of Gewald. “You’re type O,” he said to Yule on entering.
“I could have told you that.”
“No make on the shirt. No necessary equipment. I’ve made arrangements to send it to the state lab.”
“And I’m getting hungry,” Charleston said. “Jason, do you feel like driving Mr. Yule back to camp?”
“No need to,” Yule answered. “One of the gang is coming in for supplies.” He grinned. “We ran out of beer.”
Gewald rose and left the room.
“So I’m free, am I?” Yule asked.
“I never yet held a man on a charge of nosebleed.”
20
I had come to the office early, only to find from Susan Strand that Doolittle, Amussen, and now Charleston had been summoned to circuit court as witnesses. Apparently the judge had finally reached our cases. Cole, Susan said, was out on a call, not an important one. I stuck around in case I was needed.
It wasn’t until after lunch that I was. Then the connecting door swung open. Cole stood there, trying to block it, but the Mefford woman squeezed by him, screeching, “Where’s the big man?”
She stumbled in, her face bruised and bloody, one shoulder hunched. A cracked leather purse swung from her free hand. Her clothes might have come from the town dump.
“I caught her coming in,” Cole said.
“The big man,” the woman scratched out. “I got news for him.”
“You need a doctor.”
“Hell with that. Get the man.”
“Won’t I do?”
“No, by God! He makes the deals.”
“Take a chair, then.”
I telephoned the judge’s chambers upstairs. Luckily someone answered. I said I had to speak to the sheriff, and the voice answered, “I’ll see.” When Charleston came on, I told him, “The Mefford woman’s here, all beaten up. She won’t talk to anyone but you.”
“Be there,” he answered and in about a minute entered the office. After one glance he said, “You need attention, Mrs. Mefford.”
“Don’t Mrs. Mefford me. I’m not Mefford’s woman, not anymore. I’m Gracie Jones, like I told you once.”
He sat down and used the phone. “Doc Yak’s not in,” he said, dialing again. “Miss Blakesly, can you come to the sheriff’s office at once, bringing your kit?”
Miss Blakesly was the county health nurse, with offices over ours.
The woman said through bloody lips, “He’ll be after me.”
“Take it easy.”
She put a hand to a cheek that was swollen to half again its usual size. The eye was closing. The other cheek bore a ragged cut. Her mouth was broken at one corner. She didn’t move that one arm and shoulder. She touched the shoulder with the other hand. “That’s where the bastard kicked me.”
“Wait for the nurse.”
In less than a minute Miss Blakesly, a
plump young woman, all business, entered with her nurse’s case. After a glance she said, “My goodness, were we caught in a bailing machine?” From her case she took cotton, alcohol, gauze and tape. “Hold still now. This will sting a little.”
“I’m past feelin’,” the woman said.
Charleston sat silent at his desk.
The nurse went on, “Your mouth really ought to have a stitch or two in it. This will have to do until then.” Gently she moved the woman’s arm and felt of the shoulder. “I can’t find any break. But here, I’ll fix a sling until the doctor sees you.” The sling in place and the forearm resting in it, she packed up her things, smiled and went out to our thanks.
The woman’s face, patched, bruised, colored white, red, and beginning purple, put me in mind of a child’s first attempt at finger painting.
“Now,” Charleston said, “maybe we can talk. Your name is Gracie Jones, and you live with one Mefford?”
“Lived. Did live.”
“Tell us about it. Why are you here? What do you want?”
“I want to be safe.”
“Mefford beat you up?”
“You got eyes.”
“How long have you lived together? How long have you put up with him?”
“Skip the questions. I got a proposition.”
“Answer the questions first.”
“Lived with him? This last time just three months. Off and on before then.”
“But why?”
“Mister, I got nothin’. I never had nothin’. Know what? I can spell my name, but that’s all. When you got nothin’, most anything looks good. A body gets tired of washin’ dishes in some greasy-spoon joint or swampin’ out saloons where men ain’t careful where they spit. Then along would come Mefford, bound for one place or another, and I just took off with him. I know. Damn fool me. But what else was there, me bein’ what I am?” A tear squeezed out of her closed eye.
“How long has this been going on?”
“Ten years, maybe, but just now and then. Nothin’ lastin’. In the beginning he used to lay me, as you polite folks would say, but I was younger then, just twenty-five or so and I guess not too bad to look at. Now all I do is clean up and cook and hope he keeps his temper. But by God no more of that, I swear.”
“This last beating must have been the worst?”
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