Grave Consequences

by Dana Cameron

  Jane had paused long enough before answering me to make me wonder whether she wasn’t lying to me, covering something up. “No, not at all. I found myself almost at the far edge of town by the time I woke up.”

  Could it be true? Why she hadn’t come home, or at least found Greg at the site, if she was so overwrought?

  She must have read my mind, or maybe some facial clue gave me away, because she looked at me sharply. “I have a tendency to hide myself away to lick my wounds. I’m afraid it’s not sitting very well with Greg at the moment.” She dug a handkerchief from her pocket and sighed. “He’s been acting so strangely lately. We’ve been fighting so much…”

  I almost thought she’d finished when she added, “We’ve been fighting so much that I wonder if we’re not coming to the end of things.”

  I let out a breath. “If you think so, you’d better start talking to him about it. That’s the only way to fix it or find out.”

  She shook her head with a quick, jerky movement, overwhelmed. “I just don’t know how. I just need to get through today. I’m sure you must have heard us last night, I do apologize.”

  I waved it away. “Things have been very hard lately. Don’t worry about it.”

  “But it’s so much worse than I thought—” she blurted out. And then started crying.

  I looked around desperately. I got up and brought over a box of tissues, even though Jane had her own already. Jane was not the sort to be hugged and comforted, but I couldn’t sit and do nothing. “Look,” I said, “I’ll help you get through today. Then you’ll feel a little more like handling everything else, okay?”

  She sniffed. “Thank you, Emma. You can’t know how that helps.”

  I smiled ruefully. “Well, just don’t resent me for it too much, later.”

  That took Jane aback, and she had a look of comic confusion and horror on her face at my bald statement. Then she laughed, and blew her nose.

  “Come on. I’ll buy you one of those really disgusting breakfasts down at the cafe,” I offered. “Nothing left un-fried: eggs, beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, sausage. Fried bread, yum. There won’t be a piece of fruit, a flake of oatmeal in sight.”

  “You just want the excuse for one yourself,” Jane answered back. She looked better now, a little relieved, and she sounded better too.

  “Yep, that’s my plan.”

  She got up, then paused. “Just a minute, Emma.” She went to the fridge and got out some carrot peelings and dandelion greens and put them in the tortoise’s tank and changed the water in the shallow little dish. “I think Greg forgot to feed Hildegard this morning.”

  After the promised fry-up breakfast, served by a waitress I’d never seen before and washed down with enough coffee to fuel a fighter jet, we got to the site. Greg was already there, and barely greeted Jane; every comment addressed to her was carefully neutral and directly related to the running of the project. There still was no sign of Andrew—he hadn’t been at work since Tuesday. Needless to say, nothing was being done about the area from where the modern skeleton had been removed, though Jane badly wanted to have a chance to study the stratigraphy—the changes in soil levels—particularly as it cut through the two earlier burials that were definitely medieval. It was some indication of just how depressed she was that she hardly spared a curse for the absent Andrew, and when I asked about the police report on the modern skeleton with the iron in its sternum, she only shrugged.

  “I probably won’t ever see that; he’ll write something up for me. That’s all I’m really concerned about. As long as the police are off my back for that, I don’t care what he does.”

  I found that hard to believe. “Is he always this unreliable?” I said. Or is he dragging his feet for some reason? I wondered.

  “His work is first rate and he meets his deadlines,” Jane said. “That’s all I care about.”

  “Yeah, but Jane,” I said, “aren’t you the least little bit curious about the skeleton?”

  “Of course I am, it is an odd situation, but I can hardly do anything about it until Andrew formulates his opinion, can I, Emma?” she replied reasonably. “It has no direct bearing on my work and I am in no position to push forward with the report: that is Andrew’s job. It’s entirely under control, trust me.”

  This sorry state of affairs continued through all of Thursday and into Friday morning. The tension at the house was almost unbearable, and worse since it was so obvious that Jane and Greg were struggling to act normally in front of me. At least at the site, I was able to bury my own unease as I worked, but the crew was unusually quiet, as if they sensed the friction between their directors. We were all relieved when a local school group stopped by for a tour of the site Friday morning. A horde of ten-year-olds in dark blue pullovers and gray trousers and skirts were barely kept in check by the half dozen or so teachers who tried, with limited success, to keep everyone’s attention on the talk Jane was giving. Head down over my work, I smiled to myself as I heard the kids’ comments: “Sir, are they going to dig up an ancient toilet?” “Sir, Stuart said he’s going to steal one of the skellies!” “Sir, will this be on the exams?”

  But Jane soon got their attention by telling them what could be learned from studying whole groups of burials—about age indicators and the sexual differences that can be seen in the skeletons, as well as information about diet and disease, which fascinated them—and asking them what future archaeologists might say about their skeletons. The hands shot up and a chorus of “ooh, miss, please!” followed as each student tried to get Jane to pick her. The teachers settled back in a clump to smoke long-awaited cigarettes, a fog of smoke around them. After about an hour, Jane finished and the group left, caroling good-byes and thanks, and a sort of tranquility reigned again.

  Jane, faintly flushed, and pleased with her success, came over to see how my work was progressing on burial nineteen.

  “Got a few converts there,” I said.

  “Could be,” she said. “I’m past due for looking in on my students, though, and—oh, blast!” She looked around her, searching for someone. Her shoulders slumped again when she had no luck. “I suppose Avery’s already gone on his supply run? I’m assuming that he’s finished developing the pics he took of the ringer skellie already. They’re probably in the darkroom—”

  Just then, Bonnie, the singularly untalented student, approached. “Pardon me, Dr. Compton? You told me to come get you when I thought I was getting near the surface of the burial, and I think I’ve got there.”

  Jane raised an eyebrow skeptically. “You’ve got a soil change?”

  The student nodded. “Yes, though that was a bit ago. And this is a bone, right?”

  Bonnie held up what was—or, at least, should have been—to all eyes, a very nicely preserved human metatarsal or foot bone, ripped untimely from its place in situ. My grandfather Oscar used to call such a find, taken out of the ground before it could be properly measured or photographed and waved around for all to see, “aerial archaeology.” It was a very bad thing. I was just glad that she hadn’t done this in front of the school group and that Andrew wasn’t also there to see this. Seeing how Bonnie was mishandling the skeletal remains, he might have gone in for a spot of GBH.

  I looked anxiously at Jane, who had closed her eyes, apparently in silent prayer for strength. She opened her eyes but nothing came when she tried to speak. Before words she might later regret did come out of her mouth, I spoke up quickly.

  “Why don’t you go over and help Bonnie and I’ll run to the darkroom and get the photos you need? Just tell me what and where.”

  When Jane could bring herself to speak, her words were careful and measured. “Thank you, Emma. The darkroom is back at the house, a little addition right off the kitchen’s garden door. Here’s the key to it. If you would bring back anything that has been dried and pertaining to the modern burial you worked on the first day, I would be eternally grateful. It should be on the right hand side. I hope Avery hasn’t moved things around t
oo much; I haven’t been in the darkroom since we hired him.” She pulled out a key chain and unhooked one and gave it to me. Then Jane turned back to Bonnie and crooked a finger, her face grim.

  “Come, miss. Let us have a look at this ‘possible grave’ you’ve uncovered.”

  I scurried off, lest I be caught as collateral damage when Jane saw just what kind of havoc Bonnie had wrought. The sky was clouding over and the threat of rain also hurried me along the streets back to the house.

  It was odd to be in the house by myself. The quiet seemed to warn me against making too much noise, and I found myself treading as silently as I could, avoiding the last squeaky step. The kitchen was as clean as it had been earlier, but the room seemed almost to hum with the high emotions that had been generated here last night, barely contained by the mere material things. I passed through to the back of the room quickly. Just as Jane had said, ahead of me there was a door; this led to a small mudroom with two doors. One led out to the garden, Greg would have called it—a yard, he had explained patiently to me, was a nasty place where garbage was kept and animals stalled—and another, newer one that led into a small shed addition on the left. I knocked, then, feeling silly, noticed the brand-new padlock on the door. There would be no one working in there with that on. I used the key and let myself in.

  I couldn’t see a thing and paused: a heavy curtain brushed my outstretched hand and barred my way. Reasoning that I wouldn’t be able to find anything without turning a light on, and that nothing should have been left unfinished in the developing baths, I reached out my left hand, located the edge of the curtain, and instinctively felt for a switch. The cool dryness of the wall reassured me—I had automatically suspected cobwebs, but there were none—and hit the switch. Around the curtain I could see a dim light flicker on; and I pushed the curtain aside and stepped into the room.

  The room was small and very tidy—on the counter surfaces. The floor, however, was littered with all sorts of odds and ends: bits of paper, clips, empty coffee cups, and empty chemical bottles. A small sink was on the wall shared with the kitchen—the easier for plumbing, I assumed—and an enlarger on a table on the wall off that one. A large metal table was in the center of the room, and a string for drying prints ran over that. On the last wall was a tall cabinet for drying negatives of 35mm film, which were hanging like wilted party streamers, a rack of chemicals, and a lightbox. The room smelled like ashtray and astringent chemicals. I found a tray marked “finished prints” and recognized the number of the burial I’d been working on with Andrew. I didn’t dare rely on looks alone: one set of bones could easily look like another. I scooped out the photos and put them into an envelope after scrutinizing them: I still couldn’t identify what was bothering me about the stratigraphy. I turned to leave and slipped on a candy wrapper.

  If I hadn’t slipped, I would never have seen the photos tacked to the far side of the cabinet. Pictures of women. Not just the usual Dean Avery–the-site-pervert bum pictures, but quite beautiful shots, taken candidly on the site. Then I realized that the photos were of just one woman. There were nearly two dozen of them.

  And they were all of Jane.

  I was so shocked by this realization that it took me a minute to realize that they weren’t of Jane at all. Picking a close-up shot, I pulled it and the adhesive gum that held it to the cabinet away to stare at it under the center light. This was a much younger woman, but the superficial resemblance was quite striking in the dim light of the shadowed side of the cabinet. She was dark haired, with a pointed nose and unsmiling demeanor that defied you to call her pretty. I had never seen this young woman before. It was her intensity, the set of her face, that reminded me of my friend.

  I hurriedly replaced it and was glad I did; I could hear steps outside the darkroom, followed by a pause and then a brief curse. I came around from the cabinet to the out-box just as Dean Avery pushed past the curtain, carrying a box full of papers and chemicals. For a fat man, he moved very smoothly indeed.

  “Are you looking for me?” he said suggestively. His voice was higher pitched than I expected, and the squeaky cartoon animal sound made his attitude all the more loathsome. Avery put the box down on the table and stepped toward me. His unwashed hair reflected the low light readily.

  “No, Jane couldn’t find you. She needed some photos,” I said.

  “Look at us here, all on our lonesome. We could get acquainted, you and me. I don’t like people messing about in here, this is my place. But so long as you’re here…” He took another step forward.

  I backed up again, swearing to myself. This was exactly what this jerk wanted. “Maybe another time. I’ve got to get back.”

  “What’s your hurry?”

  “Jane wanted these right away and you weren’t there, and she’s got a lot on her plate—”

  By now I’d backed up all the way around the table until I felt the coarse fabric of the curtain over the door. Avery had followed, slowly, inevitably.

  “Jane doesn’t get away with bossing everyone around, you know,” he said.

  I stopped abruptly, which disconcerted the photographer. “She’s not bossing me, and no one else is, either. I do exactly what I like, so maybe we can chat later, okay? I’m going to get back now.”

  “Whatever you like.”

  I turned, swept my way past the curtain, hoping that my heart couldn’t be heard to beat as loudly as I thought it did. The air in the hallway outside the darkroom was wonderfully cool, and I sucked in a lungful gratefully. I kept moving through to the kitchen and out the door. Half my instinct told me to make sure that the creep didn’t loiter around Jane and Greg’s house—my house, too, for the time being—the other half didn’t want me to wait around for him to finish. A walk back to the site with him? No, thank you.

  As I walked slowly back to the site, I pondered the pictures I’d seen. Even in the dim light they’d made an impression, and I didn’t believe that was entirely due to Avery’s acknowledged talents as a photographer. The young woman in the shots was striking, and obviously she had captured his attention as well. I would have to scrutinize the dozen or so students once I returned to the dig; I have to admit, I had rather relegated them to the background, so preoccupied had I been with the senior staff.

  But as it happened, her identity was discovered long before my walk was over. I looked up from my reflections to see the same young woman from the photographs staring down at me—from another photograph. I was in front of the newstand down the street from Jane and Greg’s, and the morning edition of the paper was out. The headline read: “POLICE CONTINUE SEARCH FOR STUDENT’S KILLER.” Just beneath it was a picture of the young woman, who was, according to the caption, Julia Whiting.

  Holy crow.

  I pulled some change from my pocket, carefully sorted out the unfamiliar coins, and handed the news dealer the proper amount. He said something in an accent so quick and blurred that I couldn’t catch a word of it.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Oh, you’re American. Thought you might be, but your clothes…”

  He shrugged as if to say, “What can one say about them?” At home, whenever I ventured off the site on an errand, it always took me a moment to remember that I wasn’t dressed like other women. The boots and work pants would have been enough, but the dirt and clank of small tools stuffed into my pockets was quite another thing.

  “I said,” he continued, enunciating carefully and loudly so I would understand, “shame about that poor girl, isn’t it? Ending up in a…like that? Terrible thing.”

  “Yes, it is. I’m working on the site where she had been working.”

  He clucked. “Now, I say that’s too bad for her family as well. Local people, been here for years.”

  I remembered my conversation with Palmer during the drive into town, about how Julia’s parents hadn’t raised the alarm when she’d first gone missing, and mentioned it to the news dealer.

  “Oh, yes, Mr. Whiting took out an ad, as I recall. Mu
st have cost him a penny or two.”

  That didn’t seem like enough to me. “But her mother—Ellen, is it? Nothing from her?”

  The news dealer seemed to consider. “Not that I recall, but I’m sure the poor lady was distraught, wasn’t she? Terrible thing, when a young person goes and gets killed like that, with no reason.”

  “I suppose.” Her daughter was only missing at that point, I thought, the wife of a man prominent in town, you’d think she’d be using all her resources, all her connections, to find Julia.

  “—No reason at all for it, know what I mean?”

  The news dealer was unaware that I’d been focusing on my own thoughts for a moment. “Oh?”

  “Well, she was a bit of a swot, wasn’t she? Head down in the books, she was at school with my girl. So it wasn’t the drugs, was it? Smart as a whip, Julia was—and her brother too, gone off to university last year. Awful, a nice, quiet girl like that.” He reached up and scratched under his cap.

  “I hope they catch whoever it was soon,” I said.

  “Amen to that.”

  “You take care now,” I said.

  “Righto.”

  I walked around the corner, but stopped a bit shy of crossing the street. If the woman in the pictures was indeed Julia Whiting, then what did that say about Avery? What was the relationship there? There had to be some way of finding out, besides simply asking outright.

  I sat down on a bench and read the article, which was a continuation of the one that had been out yesterday that we’d missed. None of the furor had diminished, however, and it must have been doubly exciting for a town as small as Marchester, never mind that she was local and the daughter of a prominent citizen.

  Police are still investigating the disappearance and murder of a Marchester woman. Miss Julia Whiting, 22, a postgraduate student at Marchester University, was last seen on June. Her body was recovered two days ago, from a skip on the Leather Street construction site. The site is the location of a new block of luxury flats being built by G. Whiting Contractors. George Whiting, the firm’s founder and owner, is the victim’s father. He and his wife, Ellen Whiting, who reside at 375 Green Cross Road, were unavailable for comment.