Burials

by Mary Anna Evans

  Faye felt sad for Carson. He was so clearly trying to make the list of suspects longer, so that his father wouldn’t be one of only three people on it.

  “I know Phil, and I’m not surprised to hear that he dropped the ball on this job,” Cloud said. “He’s marginally competent—which is better than the incompetent fool he was when he managed this job—but just being competent is more than most people can do and it’s usually enough to get a job done. He can tell me if anybody else who knew Dr. Townsend is still around. And maybe he can dig up a file with a list of everybody that worked for her. Nothing says it was just these three, you know.”

  He looked at Carson as if a thought had just occurred to him. “You don’t have a list, do you?”

  Carson shook his head again. “She doesn’t call them by their names in her field notebooks, and those are the only documents I have from the original dig. Kenny, Mickey, and Emily are from Sylacauga, so I know them personally. That’s how I knew they worked here in 1987. I don’t have any way to know anything about Dr. Townsend’s other employees, though I’m pretty sure there were more. I guess we could do the obvious thing and ask the three of them.”

  He handed Gerard back his phone, then started to speak again, but the medical examiner interrupted him. “Wait. I’ve got another picture to show you two archaeologists. That woman, Emily, the one who you said was doing the digging when the body got uncovered? Well, she sure wasn’t careful about it. She left that pearl laying in a pile of dirt by the body, and she uncovered part of something else while she was at it.”

  Faye thought she could see Carson’s blood pressure go up when Emily’s unprofessional behavior was mentioned. A puff of air escaped his pursed lips, then he said simply, “That’s why she doesn’t work for me any more.”

  Gerard thumbed the screen of his phone to scroll to the next photo, then held it out for Faye and Carson to see. After one glance, they said in unison, “We’ve got to get down there,” jumped out of the truck, and started running. The police chief and medical examiner, both fifty-ish, had to work hard to keep up with the younger archaeologists. Faye didn’t look back, but she knew they were behind her.

  Carson’s security guards, who were still patrolling in case the morning’s random shooter came back, turned quickly when they heard the pounding steps of four people. When they saw that the four people were the tribal archaeologist, his consultant, the medical examiner, and the police chief and that they seemed to be on a mission, they went back to their silent patrolling.

  Officer Kira Denton, who also heard them coming before she saw them, could see that they intended to jump her crime scene tape. She was having none of it. Proving that she took her job seriously enough to stay in top physical condition, she outran all four of them. She turned to face them with one palm signaling for them to stop.

  “Halt!” Her voice was surprisingly strong for a woman of average size.

  “They’re with me, Kira,” Cloud said. “You know I’m not going to let them mess up the crime scene.”

  “It’s my job to make sure ingress and egress is orderly, and I plan to do it.”

  “You always do. But do you really need to make a big deal of this when you can see that you’re dealing with me and not a homicidal maniac?”

  “Maybe you are a homicidal maniac. I’ve never been real sure, Chief.”

  Keeping herself between the four of them and the crime scene tape, Denton reached for a pad of paper sitting on a chair beside the top of the ladder. “Nobody enters the crime scene without stating their business and signing themselves in. And being admitted by me.”

  Cloud started to speak, but she shut him down quickly. “Nobody gets in without my say-so. Not even you, Chief Cloud. Especially not you.”

  Maybe Denton was joking or maybe she really did insult her boss all the time. Faye couldn’t tell. The four signed the paper quickly, but Denton took her time getting out of their way. As he stood at the edge of the pit, Cloud muttered, “The way people talk about Sophia Townsend reminds me of you, Kira. So sweet and charming.”

  Carson was the last to approach Denton’s checkpoint. As he made a move to join the others, Cloud made a motion with his hand that said, “Not yet.” Kira Denton walked to stand beside him as silent backup.

  He took the phone out of Gerard’s hand, pointed it at the two archaeologists, and said, “Tell me exactly what you see in this photo. Tell me why you broke out running just now like two startled deer when you saw it. And I mean for you to tell me right now.”

  “Do you see that figurine poking out of the ground? It could be really important.” Faye pointed to the photo displayed on Gerard’s phone. It showed the red-stained surface of a half-buried figurine.

  It was encrusted with dirt, but the shape of a woman’s eye, cheek, and jaw were clearly distinguishable, and her sloping shoulders protruded from the earth. A few inches away, her swelling hip also rose slightly out of the soil. Her waist, her legs, her belly, all the rest of her waited beneath the surface. Faye could hardly breathe for the thought of bringing her to light after all these years.

  Gerard had spent some time studying the figurine before he brought the photo to her, and he wanted to share his theory. “She’s carved out of stone, right? What a beauty.”

  “Yes, she’s a beauty,” Faye said, sorry to have to tell the man that he was wrong again, “but no, she’s not stone. Someone made her out of clay a very long time ago.”

  “At least we can presume she’s made out of clay until we check her out. She looks a lot like clay figurines that were found at Spiro Mounds,” Carson said. “This could tie the two sites together. Even better, if we can prove that the Sylacauga people were also the Spiro people, we have a chance to remedy, just a little bit, one of the worst crimes against history ever committed in America.”

  “Well, now you’ve got my attention,” Cloud said.

  Faye nodded at Carson to explain things to Cloud. Spiro and the people who once lived there were his professional turf.

  “Spiro is an important Mississippian site east of here. It was built about a thousand years ago,” he began. “One of the mounds was still more than thirty feet tall into the early twentieth century. The mounds at Spiro stood more or less intact until the Great Depression, when some men leased the property so that they could ‘mine’ them for artifacts. It’s hard to describe the destruction they left behind. Pits, shafts, even tunnels—they completely honeycombed the biggest mound. And at the heart of it? They found and destroyed a—well, let’s call it a time capsule, because that’s what it was.”

  The archaeology-loving medical examiner said, “Dear God.”

  “The Spiro people had built a chamber out of logs at the center of the biggest mound, filled it with treasures, then sealed it with clay. Nothing like it has ever been found in North America. Maybe anywhere,” Carson explained. “The looters destroyed it. They sold what they could and trampled the rest into what was left of the mound. Because of this, there are artifacts from Spiro Mounds in museums all over the world, but not nearly so many here in Oklahoma as there should be.”

  Roy Cloud’s face was very still. Faye had lived with Joe long enough to recognize the expression of a peaceful man working to quell a murderous anger.

  “The sealed chamber had created unique conditions that preserved fabric, lace, feathers, wood,” Carson said. “It was like an American King Tut’s tomb. Eventually, the looters were forced to stop, and Oklahoma passed an antiquities law to keep looting like that from ever happening again. And what did the looters do in response? Boom.” He flung his hands outward, miming an explosion.

  “What are you saying?” Cloud asked.

  “They used black powder to blow the rest of the mound to oblivion,” Faye said. “Out of sheer spite.”

  Gerard was looking at his phone. “This little statue. Are you saying that finding it means that there might be stuff he
re like the stuff that got blown up at Spiro?”

  “If we’re really lucky,” Carson said, “there could be a whole town beneath our feet that was built by the same culture. I’m here to try to find it.”

  “That would make up for losing the American King Tut’s tomb just a little bit, wouldn’t it?” Cloud said. He peered over the lip of the excavation and considered the grave at its bottom. “I don’t want this thing messed up. We work together with the feds real well. Have to. Jurisdictional issues around here are always weird. I’m sure those forensics people coming tomorrow are really, really good at what they do, but they can’t possibly have any more experience at a site like this than any of us do. That’s because there’s probably never been a site like this.”

  Faye couldn’t disagree.

  “No disrespect to them intended,” Cloud said, “but I want the Creek Nation to have its own archaeologist working alongside them and I don’t want to wait God knows how long for our purchasing people to hire somebody who’s never even been here. It’s tornado season. We can’t afford to let a twister tear everything up. That’s why we came to talk to you, Dr. Longchamp-Mantooth. The federal investigator—the name’s Fred Bigbee—has cleared you and me to go down there tonight. I had to promise I wouldn’t touch anything, but he’s allowing me to photograph the scene and you to document the bones where they lay.”

  Faye still wasn’t exactly sure why the police chief and the medical examiner were talking to her, instead of talking to the very qualified tribal archaeologist managing the job where the body was found. Nobody in the world knew as much about this site as Carson.

  She began, “I’m sure that Dr. Callahan and his team can help—”

  “I’m sorry but we need you.” Cloud interrupted her with the crisp efficiency of a polite man who currently had no time for the niceties. “Dr. Callahan’s team is made up of three people who could, in theory, be suspects in this case. Well, two people and Emily, who he just fired.”

  Faye began saying “But Dr. Callahan himself wasn’t here—” but she stopped herself.

  Carson had been here. He’d been an eleven-year-old kid, but he’d been on this very spot with the victim and her crew. He’d known all the suspects. He’d even known the victim. And his father was on the list of suspects. There was no way that Roy Cloud or the coming federal agents were going to let Carson Callahan muck about in this crime scene.

  This was a murder case, maybe a capital murder case. Faye could see that she was their best option for solving it without compounding the tragedy of Spiro by mishandling the archaeology of this probably significant site. There was nothing for her to say but, “I’ll help you in any way I can.”

  “Thank you,” said Cloud. “My budget isn’t anything to write home about, but I am very glad to have a consultant of your stature on the case.”

  “For this?” Faye said. “I’d do it for free.”

  Cloud laughed and said, “You’re a helluva businesswoman, Doctor Faye.” Then the laughter died. “But I’ll pay you anyway. I want my own person watching over what the FBI’s folks do with the forensic investigation. Just in case. Are you willing to do that?”

  Faye answered simply, “Yes.”

  Carson was looking at him expectantly, but Faye knew what Cloud was going to say.

  “I’m sorry, Carson. Until we clear your dad, I just can’t have you in the crime scene. That goes for Kenny, too. I know what he means to you. Until those two are cleared, you can’t be in the excavation, not even as an observer.”

  Carson made an odd sound, as if he wanted really badly to say something but he knew better.

  “Denton here,” Cloud gestured at the pugnacious officer at his side, “will admit Dr. Longchamp-Mantooth to the crime scene, but you need to stay on the other side of the tape, Carson.”

  Officer Denton glowered over Cloud’s shoulder to show that she would take any measures necessary to keep Carson where he belonged.

  “Mind you, Dr. Callahan, I’m not saying that I think your dad did it. I don’t have a clue who did it. I know how bad you want to be down there digging up another King Tut and his treasure, but it can’t be helped.”

  Officer Denton logged Cloud, the medical examiner, and Faye into her records, initialing their signatures. Then she let them pass. Locking eyes with Carson, Denton forcefully drew a line through his name.

  As Faye stepped down into the excavation, she caught Carson staring at her. In his eyes, she saw anger at fate for separating him from the defining moment of his career. She saw anger at Cloud, too, for his part in that. Perhaps she saw a son’s anger at his father just for being on the planet, a state of mind that had been around since Oedipus. And she thought maybe—probably—she saw anger at her for stepping into the role he so desperately wanted to play.

  Chapter Eight

  It was a strictly hands-off situation. Faye crouched in the dust with her magnifier, her camera, and her field notes, and she examined Sophia Townsend’s grave as closely as she could without actually touching anything.

  Cloud was taking pictures. He’d started by backing up against one wall of the excavation and taking a photo, then walking in a circle around the grave, just a few degrees at a time. If the crime scene had been a clock, Roy Cloud would have been taking pictures at twelve o’clock, one o’clock, two o’clock, and all the way back to twelve. When he finished doing that, he’d moved all the way in and circled Sophia Townsend’s body again to take close-ups.

  Still not finished with preparing a baseline set of photos of the entire crime scene, he stood next to the grave and turned around in a tight circle with his back to the grave, taking a set of pictures facing outward. If Sophia Townsend had still had eyes, these pictures captured what she would have seen from her vantage point.

  Two younger officers were setting up a temporary shelter over the grave because Cloud was taking no chances. It was just a tarp hung on head-high posts, but it was better than nothing.

  “The weather center says they can’t say much about tomorrow’s chance of rain, but today’s looking good. We may get a few drops this afternoon, but no real rain to speak of. That’s good because there’s not enough daylight left for anybody to excavate those bones right tonight,” Cloud said. “This tarp will keep those drops off Dr. Townsend until tomorrow. If the meteorologists are wrong and we get one of those evening storms that come around this time of year, there’s not a thing we can do to keep that grave dry.”

  Faye looked up at the two people standing above them, watching. Denton hadn’t budged from her assigned post. Carson seemed to have assigned himself permanently to the spot right across the crime scene tape from Denton. He’d fetched his binoculars from the truck and was studying Faye’s every move.

  This was hardly necessary. Roy Cloud had finished taking about a thousand pictures and he was standing two feet behind Faye, watching her at point-blank range to make sure that she touched nothing and damaged nothing. If Faye had done anything that Carson needed to see, Roy Cloud surely had a picture of it.

  Faye was pushing her luck with the ever-watchful Cloud, by kneeling to bring her face within inches of the half-buried pearl and figurine. “If I could just figure out why they’re here and why they’re at this depth, I’d be happy. This makes no sense.”

  “If it didn’t look like a murder,” Roy said, “I’d say that somebody loved her and buried her with things she’d treasured when she was alive.”

  So Roy Cloud was a romantic. Faye wasn’t surprised.

  The fractures on Sophia Townsend’s skull spoke against Cloud’s romantic notion, so he and Faye just stared at the figurine, pearl, and bones. It was as if they thought the buried things might jump out of the ground and explain themselves.

  Under magnification, the figurine’s clay surface showed impressions of its maker’s fingers, which was pretty cool when she thought about how many years it had been since its
maker’s hands had gone to dust. She itched to sift through the backdirt that Emily had piled up while uncovering a corpse. Who knew what else she could have dug up in her frenzy to find Sophia Townsend?

  The bones looked just as they had when they first emerged from the ground, red-stained and lonely. Faye took several photographs of the network of fractures marring the skull.

  She was startled when Cloud dropped to a crouch next to her. “Tell me what you see.”

  “Well, I mostly see that Emily made a mess of uncovering this burial. See that mark on the sternum? And that one on the mandible?” she said, gesturing with her pen. “They’re fresh. Toward the end, Emily was hacking at the ground hard enough to gouge bone.”

  “No wonder she didn’t notice the pearl or the figurine. And no wonder Carson fired her.”

  “No joke. She was looking for the silver necklace that would prove to her that Sophia Townsend was the person buried here. And she found it. I don’t suppose you’ve got any doubt that this is Dr. Townsend?”

  Cloud shook his head. “Not with that necklace around her throat. Gerard’s gotta earn his pay, so he’ll do his best to prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt. It’s not likely that Sophia Townsend’s dental records can be had after all this time, but you can bet that Gerard has already started looking for them. And he’ll try to find her relatives, of course.”

  “I know of a case where a skeleton washed up on a beach after a hurricane,” Faye said. “The upper left arm had obviously been broken. Someone came forward with a picture of a woman who had been missing for forty years. She had a cast on her left arm. We were able to prove it was her. I can’t tell you how it felt to put that case to rest. And her. It was good to give Abigail Williford justice after forty years.”

  “Some cases turn personal. It sounds like this one turned personal to you.”

  “She washed up on my beach.”

  Cloud was silent. Faye, still crouching by the grave, looked back over her shoulder at him, wondering why he didn’t speak. It seemed that Roy Cloud was not a man who talked just to fill the air with words. Joe was like that but, in Faye’s experience, it was a rare quality.