Dressed to Die: A Lindsay Chamberlain Novel

by Beverly Connor

  "Harold. I'm fine. And you?"

  "That's not what I hear. I just got off the phone with Frank Carter."

  Then why are you calling me? she thought.

  "I'm very upset about the disappearance of the artifacts," he continued.

  "We all are," she said.

  "I don't understand how it could have happened."

  "The police are trying to ascertain that right now." Lindsay emptied the contents of the envelope onto the desk.

  "In fact, I don't understand what your grandfather was doing with them."

  "If you talked to Frank, then you know that this whole situation is mysterious." Lindsay picked up the pictures one by one and looked at them.

  "I was hoping you could shed some light on the matter," he said.

  Stop dancing around and come to the point, Lindsay thought as she looked at a picture of a Manion Phase clay pot. "If I had any light to shed, I would have certainly shed it to Frank and the police. I fear I'm in the dark about the whole thing."

  "It would help if you adopted a more cooperative attitude," he said.

  "Attitude will not get the artifacts back. I'm taking all the steps I know to try and recover them." It's behavior, not attitude, you should be looking at, Lindsay thought. And that's just what's wrong with your papers-not enough emphasis on the behavioral meaning of your data. "Exactly why have you called me?" she asked.

  "I'm not pleased with the way any of this has been handled." His voice showed a little more hostility, and Lindsay wondered if she should have been more contrite. "You should have notified me immediately after you discovered the artifacts. Your behavior has not been professional in this matter."

  "Harold, the collection of artifacts caught me completely by surprise. The labeling on one of the crates indicated that they were from Georgia. I identified them as being from Kentucky by what I thought were Fort Ancient pottery and assemblages. As you know, pottery is not my forte."

  "Do you have any idea what they were doing among your grandfather's possessions?"

  "Not a clue." Strange he didn't mention the skeletal remains, thought Lindsay. Frank must not have told him about that. "Frank and I will make a list of the items. I'll fax you the information as soon as we finish."

  "I would appreciate it. Good talking to you, Lindsay."

  "And you, Harold." They hung up and Lindsay frowned at the door. He only called to needle her about the artifacts, she knew, but was he right about how she had handled them? Was she more concerned with protecting the image of her grandfather than doing what was right with the artifacts? What was right? Where did they belong? She began looking at the pictures and making a list. She would let Frank deal with the appraisal.

  She heard a tentative knock on the door and looked up to see Bethany, her long red hair tied up in a ponytail, standing in the doorway.

  "I have come to do some sorting, Dr. Chamberlain. Could I have the key to the storage room?"

  "You can't go in there until the police finish."

  Bethany's eyes widened. "There hasn't been another body discovered, has there?"

  Lindsay smiled. "No, but some artifacts are missing."

  "Somebody stole bags of dirt?"

  "No. The day before yesterday I stored some other artifacts in the storage room and they're missing. You haven't seen anybody hanging around have you?"

  Bethany shook her head. "Do you have anything for me to do? I kind of need to get some hours in."

  "I don't have anything. I think Dr. Kerwin needs some copying done."

  "Not Dr. Kerwin," Bethany groaned. "He wants all his staples at exactly a forty-five-degree angle. I can never do them to suit him."

  "I don't suppose you'd like to help Greg with the faunal specimens?" Lindsay suggested. Bethany wrinkled her nose.

  "Ask Dr. Bienvenido if she needs anything."

  Sally arrived just as Bethany left. "Have you found the artifacts?"

  "No. I've looked everywhere."

  Sally sat down. "Who do you think did it?"

  Lindsay shook her head. "I have no idea. The police are going to dust for fingerprints, but I have a feeling they won't find anything."

  "This is very strange. Who do the artifacts belong to? You?"

  Lindsay shook her head. "Not to me. I suppose my father could lay claim to them, if he were inclined, but he wouldn't. Right now, I imagine the Office of State Archae ology in Kentucky-if the artifacts are from Kentucky. We don't know that for sure."

  "Maybe the police will come up with something."

  Lindsay patted her on the shoulder. "You're an optimist, Sally. I hope you're right."

  "Thanks for dinner last night. I really enjoyed it. I'm glad your brother came."

  "He and I enjoyed it, too."

  "I don't suppose he said anything about me."

  "I think he did ask how old you are again," Lindsay answered.

  "Boy, is he hung up on age." She rose and sauntered out the door. "I guess I'll go see if Andy's finished with the sandbox. I brought my plastic bucket today."

  "Sally," Lindsay called.

  "Yes?" she said, turning and leaning into the doorway.

  "Would you take this list and these pictures to Frank for me?" Lindsay rose and handed an envelope to her. "I'm going to the medical examiner's office and see if they'll let me look at the bones of our mystery guest. But don't tell anyone unless they ask."

  "You want me to go with you?"

  "No. I'm probably not supposed to have access to them, and I certainly don't want to be accused of contributing to the delinquency of a minor."

  "Cute." Sally took the envelope.

  "Eddie, can I look at the bones?" asked Lindsay.

  "You can, but may you? That's the question." He grinned at her from behind the desk in his small office.

  "May I?"

  "I don't see why not." He rose from his desk and walked with Lindsay to the morgue. "What's the story on these? They were in your grandfather's trunk or something?"

  "Not exactly. They were in a wooden crate stored in one of my grandfather's outbuildings that's been covered with kudzu ever since anyone can remember."

  "Fascinating-all that time." He shook his head.

  "Do you know who's going to examine them?" Lindsay asked.

  "I believe we're supposed to ship them back to Kentucky. But no one said you couldn't look at them first."

  Eddie took the box of bones to the autopsy room and helped Lindsay unpack them and lay them out on the table. John Booth appeared out of nowhere and assisted them.

  "Have you looked at them?" asked Lindsay.

  "We collected some insect casings and packed the clothing separately. That's about all."

  "A guy," said Lindsay, looking at the pelvis.

  "Well, then, we don't have a cross-dresser," said Eddie.

  Lindsay smiled at him. She examined the surface of the pubic symphysis. "Wouldn't you say early twenties?" she asked, running a thumb across the ridges and furrows of the bone.

  "Works for me," said Eddie.

  Lindsay took a quick look at his teeth. "Lots of cavities, few trips to the dentist." She examined a femur and the sternal end of a couple of ribs. "We'll say between twentytwo and twenty-five."

  "I like these quick and dirty methods," said Eddie. "Saves time."

  "When you don't have to write the report, it's fast and easy," she said. "He was left-handed." Lindsay pointed out the beveling on the margin of the left glenoid cavity.

  "Look between the fifth and sixth ribs," said John, pointing to his right side. He grinned at Lindsay, showing a row of white teeth. She raised her eyebrows and picked up the ribs in question.

  "The sixth rib has a cut," said Lindsay.

  "From the front," said John.

  "Yes," she said, feeling the rough edge of the nick in back of the rib. "How did you know?"

  "Went through the shirt, stained it." John flashed his white teeth again.

  "Well, that was easy," said Eddie. "He was stabbed. With a
knife?"

  "Looks like it," Lindsay answered, examining the v-shaped nick. "Give me a small sliver of paper," she said.

  John tore an edge from a piece of paper he took out of the trash can. Lindsay put the edge in the nick. "Look at the direction it's oriented," she said.

  "Downward and toward the center of the body," Eddie commented.

  Lindsay looked over the other ribs. "Here's a nick on the anterior surface of the right tenth. It looks like the killer held the knife in his left hand and stabbed the guy in his right side. Is that what it looks like to you?"

  Eddie nodded. "Killer was taller, too, by several inches." He took a ruler and walked over to Lydell, an anatomy skeleton standing in the corner, and pulled him away from the wall. He dragged a stool next to Lydell and stepped up onto the stool. "Let's see," he said.

  Lindsay watched him as he held the ruler at the proper angle while bending his knees and moving up and down until he found a height that would have been natural for someone wielding a knife. "What would you say that is?"

  "'Bout five or six inches taller, I'd say," said John.

  "I agree," said Lindsay.

  "Couldn't the fellow be sitting down and the killer come up behind him and stab him over the shoulder?" John asked. "'Course, I guess he'd have to hold the knife upside down to make those cuts in the top of the rib, wouldn't he?"

  "I had a case once," Eddie said, "fellow stabbed from behind, over the shoulder. Cut the bottom of the rib."

  "I don't believe the angle would be as steep," said Lindsay.

  John Booth rubbed his fingers over the nicks. "Amazing what you can tell from tiny cuts in the bone."

  "Yep, keeps Miss Lindsay here in business," Eddie said, and as John held the ribs, he measured the distance from the sixth rib to the inside of the tenth. "I'd say it had to be a knife about nine inches long."

  "Anything else from the clothes?" Eddie asked John.

  "Bloodstains. Shirt and pants," John responded. "The guy bled."

  "The crate?" Lindsay asked. "It was stained as I remember. Blood?"

  "Maybe. Body fluid certainly," said Eddie. He shrugged. "They can test it in Kentucky."

  "So, he may have been dead when he was put in the crate," Lindsay commented. "How long might it have taken him to die?"

  "Let's see. It hit the lung, the liver, probably a vessel. I imagine he bled to death. It'd be quick, probably just a few minutes."

  "The way he was bent, he had to be put in the crate either before the onset of rigor or after rigor resolved," commented Lindsay.

  "True. If they put him in the crate after rigor, they might have had to wait as long as thirty hours."

  "Anything else from the clothes?" asked Lindsay. "I don't suppose there was a driver's license?"

  "Nothing at all in his pockets," John said. "Judging from his clothes, I reckon he was about five foot four and weighed about 130 pounds."

  Lindsay took the bone board and measured the left femur. "Four hundred and forty-one millimeters," she said.

  Eddie searched around in one of the cabinets. "Here we go," he said, lifting out a thick book. "What's the race?"

  Lindsay examined the skull again. "White," she said.

  "Five feet, five inches," said Eddie. "Pretty good, John."

  "There's a healed break in the right femur," said Lindsay. "And in the right tibia."

  "It's hard to break a femur," said Eddie.

  "Right tibia didn't heal well. One leg was shorter than the other. Was he wearing corrective shoes?" Lindsay asked John.

  "No," said John, "but his shoes were scuffed pretty bad and the heel of the right shoe was wore down on the inside."

  "You should be a detective, John," said Eddie.

  John showed Lindsay the shoes inside the plastic bag. She dug in the pocket of her jeans for her hand lens and examined the sides and bottoms of the soles through the plastic.

  "Can you tell where the dirt's from?" asked Eddie.

  Lindsay gave him a sideways glance. "Sure," she said, and he grinned at her.

  "They ought to be able to do something with that up there in Kentucky," said Eddie.

  "You come from Kentucky, don't you, Dr. Chamberlain?" asked John Booth.

  "Yes, I do."

  "I thought so. Where 'bouts? I have some people up there."

  "Stearns."

  "Pennyroyal," said Booth. "Mine are up in the Bluegrass."

  "Actually, Eastern Mountains, but it's up against Pennyroyal," said Lindsay.

  "I know what Bluegrass is, but what's Pennyroyal?" Eddie asked.

  "Geographic regions," Lindsay said, "like Piedmont or Coastal Plains here in Georgia."

  "Where'd you go to school?" asked Eddie.

  "UT."

  "Tennessee, Kentucky. You're a little mountain girl, aren't you?"

  "Pretty much. Look at this," she said, turning the humerus over in her hand. "Femur's the same."

  "Those groves down the bone?" asked Eddie.

  "Yes, the poor fellow had to do some very hard, backbreaking labor in his short life." She quickly looked at the vertebrae. "He had back problems, too. His vertebrae are a little too worn for his age."

  "Poor guy," said Eddie. "What do you think?"

  Lindsay shook her head. "I don't have a clue."

  "You think they can find out who he is?" asked Booth.

  "Not without some miracle," said Lindsay. "You'd better pack him back up and ship him off. Thanks for letting me take a look."

  "Sure. You think your grandfather had something to do with this guy?"

  "He was stored behind his workshop. I just don't know, and..."

  Eddie's cell phone rang. He searched his pockets for it, finally locating it in the front pocket of his lab coat. "Yes?" Pause. "Lindsay, it's for you. Sally."

  Lindsay took the phone. "Yes?"

  "Lindsay, you need to come back. The police took your brother to the police station."

  "Sinjin? Why?"

  "Just come back."

  Chapter 9

  SALLY WAS STANDING outside waiting when Lindsay pulled up behind Baldwin. As soon as the Rover stopped, Sally jumped in the passenger side.

  "What's this about?" asked Lindsay.

  "Some student said they saw Sinjin's black Jeep parked out back last night."

  "His Jeep, or one like it?" Lindsay drove out onto Jackson Street.

  "They said his, but every other Jeep on campus is a lot like his."

  "That can't be all," said Lindsay.

  Sally looked down at her hands clasped tightly in her lap. "They found some stuff in his Jeep."

  Lindsay was silent a moment. "What stuff?" she asked.

  "One of those tripod jars and a few points."

  "I see." Lindsay remembered his being surprised at the artifacts' value, then banished the thought from her mind.

  "He didn't do it," Sally said.

  "No, he didn't," Lindsay said, turning on Lumpkin. "How did you find out about it?"

  "He came by your office looking for you just as the police showed up. It was really bad timing. Frank was there, too."

  Neither said anything as Lindsay drove the rest of the way to the Public Safety Building. Sinjin was coming out the door when Lindsay drove up. He looked angry.

  She stopped the Rover, got out, and smiled at him, hoping it looked natural and not forced. "Hi, need a ride?"

  "Yeah."

  Sally climbed into the back seat, leaving the passenger seat for Sinjin.

  "What was that about?" asked Lindsay.

  "They think I took the artifacts."

  "That's ridiculous. If you wanted to make off with them, you could have done it anywhere between here and Kentucky."

  "Yes, if I had known their value."

  Lindsay wanted to ask him if he had any idea how the artifacts got in his Jeep, but she didn't know how to not make it sound like an accusation.

  "My Jeep is parked behind your building," he said. "If you'll take me there, I'll meet you at your house-if
you can go home."

  "Sure. You told them where you were when your Jeep was supposed to be parked outside Baldwin? Didn't they check it out?" said Lindsay.

  Sinjin was silent for a long time. "I went to see Kathy."

  "Didn't she tell them?"

  "No. She denied it."

  Sally made a surprised sound from the back seat. Lindsay pressed her lips together in a tight thin line. "Why?" she asked.

  "She didn't want Sid to know."

  "Sid?"

  "Her new-whatever," he said.

  "Did you explain the importance?" asked Sally, leaning forward to the front seat.

  "I didn't talk to her. The police did."

  "What now?" asked Lindsay.

  "They have a problem with who actually owns the artifacts. Since they have been with our family for over sixty years, they don't quite know what to do."

  "Did they tell you not to leave town?" asked Sally. Sinjin turned and looked at her. Sally scooted back in the seat. "I'm sorry," she said. "I know this is none of my business."

  Sinjin gave her a crooked smile. "Thanks for bringing the cavalry." He turned around and stared out the front window.

  Lindsay took Sally back to Baldwin. Sinjin got his Jeep and they drove back to her cabin in the woods.

  "You had any lunch?" she asked, heading for the kitchen.

  "No. I'm not very hungry." He poured himself a glass of cold water from the refrigerator and drank it down.

  "I'll make some sandwiches. You can eat one if you want."

  "I didn't take the artifacts," he said.

  "I didn't think you did," Lindsay said. She took a loaf of bread in plastic wrap from the bread box. "This is great bread. I bought myself a bread machine for my birthday."

  "You thought it," he said, pouring another glass of water.

  "No, I didn't." Lindsay opened the refrigerator and took several plastic containers and various jars out and put them on the chopping block where she began preparing lunch.

  "Then why didn't you ask how the artifacts got in my Jeep?"

  Lindsay stopped spreading mayonnaise on the bread, put down the knife, and looked at him. "Because I was afraid you would think I thought you did it, if I asked." She paused. "How did they get there?"

  "I don't know."