Carbon Dating

by Jerusha Jones

  “I’ll get it,” Bettina grumbled, sliding off the stool. She aimed a finger at me on her way across the living room. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  She was right, as usual. Somehow the bomb—and Willow’s and my presence at the farm when it’d been discovered—had become the topic du jour. The women were bursting with questions as they streamed inside.

  “Good heavens,” Gloria shouted as she enveloped me in a bosom-mashing (hers, not mine) hug. “I heard you nearly died!”

  I held the spatula out to the side so I wouldn’t smear smoked salmon pâté all over her swirly, floral-print caftan. “Not even close,” I croaked.

  But then she caught sight of Willow dotting capers on the mixed olive and marinated mozzarella plate and squealed, at full blast, in my ear. “Is that fresh rosemary too?” She jostled me aside with another half-hug, half-shove as she wedged up against the peninsula counter. “I just love mezze!”

  From her appearance and girth, I’d judge that Gloria loves just about everything edible. But happy eaters make me happy. “It’s all small dishes tonight,” I explained for the other guests’ benefit. “So you can sample whatever you like, as much as you like.”

  My announcement created a temporary respite from the barrage of questions while plates were filled and fingers were licked and sparkling water was decanted over lime slices. Willow and I would be serving the food in courses simply because a fair number of the selections hadn’t yet been prepared for presentation. So much for timing. We scrambled in an awkward two-step dance around each other in the galley kitchen to reload and circulate new dishes into the fare which was spread out, buffet-style, on the counter.

  “So this is what you’ve been teaching Willow?” Petula’s hand hovered between the sun-dried tomato and herbed shrimp skewers and the balsamic caramelized onion tarts with chestnut polenta crusts. “My dear, you should start a cooking school.” She ended up compromising by placing one of each on her plate. “I’d enroll my grandchildren. Then they could feed me properly in my old age.”

  “It just so happens that one student keeps me plenty busy.” I aimed a wink at Willow. Besides, Petula was also known to refer to her grandchildren—most affectionately, of course—as little beasts and a plague of locusts. I thought it was best, if I ever did meet them, to have that happen in a controlled environment.

  “Enough nattering,” Gloria bellowed. “Tell us how you escaped with your lives.” She plunked down on my sofa and balanced her plate on her knees.

  One of the terrific things about my little house, which is made from conjoined, repurposed cargo containers, is that all the social spaces are within comfortable talking distance of one another (i.e. crammed really close together). So I was able to give the ladies a brief recap of the tense situation at the farm while I sliced a pistachio honey nougat terrine in the kitchen.

  Since Willow had hitched a ride home with Tim after the employees had completed their duty of getting all the maze visitors to safety, she listened, as wide-eyed as the others, as she sat cross-legged on a floor cushion for a well-earned repast, to my report about the activities of the various bomb technician teams and the final explosion. I conveniently left off the not-so-happy ending about the explosion’s aftermath and what else had been exposed in the farm’s dirt.

  Roxy had parked herself in a chair near the open window at the front of the living room. Her active cigarette was balanced on a saucer on the window ledge. She cleared her throat and dabbed at her lips with her napkin, then reached down and patted her granddaughter’s knee. It was the first time I’d ever seen an act of physical affection from her. No question she cared about Willow. She just wasn’t a naturally demonstrative woman.

  “It makes sense, you know,” Marcy said softly into the hushed lull.

  I barely knew Marcy. She was youngish—younger than I am at any rate, maybe mid-thirties—and pretty and solemn and well-muscled in a triathlete sort of way. Bettina had told me she was a geologist, and she was gone on scientific expeditions much of the time. But I’d noticed that the poor girl had been quietly and single-handedly demolishing the tray of smoked salmon pâté with lightly pickled radish slices on rye toast points. Apparently her training regimen—or her demanding career—required significant caloric replenishment. It must be lovely to have a metabolism like hers.

  But with that short statement, she had our full attention. “I mean it’s happened before,” she added shyly. “Bombs and wreckage on farms and in the foothills of the coastal mountain range. Lots of unexploded ordnance down at the old Camp Adair, near Corvallis, too. Often found by logging outfits when they’re clear-cutting. It’s not my field or anything, but I hear about those incidents sometimes,” she added quickly, apologetically. “I’m interested in local history. It’s a geeky thing my friends and I do. Like the way spelunking and rock climbing are hobbies for other people, but since we do that for our job, we have to find something else. It gets kind of competitive…” She flushed a deep pink as her words trailed off.

  A quick glance around the room revealed that all my other guests were as stunned as I was. We had a treasure trove of information sitting right in our midst, and none of us had known. I had to make Marcy feel comfortable enough to spill even more of her guts, pronto.

  “Wow,” I breathed. “So you know about other military plane wrecks? The Navy guys were throwing around acronyms, so I didn’t fully understand, but they recognized the plane—a Curtiss SB-something.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Marcy brightened. “Those things were notorious for being difficult to handle. The general recommendation was for the pilot not to descend too quickly. Kind of hard when the plane was supposed to function as a dive-bomber. Around here, they were armed with either a torpedo for hunting Japanese submarines in the Pacific, or they could carry several standard 500 pound bombs.” She set her plate on the coffee table and pulled up her knees, wrapping her arms around them while resting her chin on top in a thoughtful pose, the canapés forgotten.

  “Good thing there was only one, then,” I murmured, my stomach churning at the idea of Nash turning over multiple explosive devices with the plow. But the Navy had confirmed the solo-ness of the bomb, and they struck me as the sort of people who knew how to do their jobs properly.

  “Could be it got stuck. The pilot may have been doing target practice or was on a legitimate bombing run and thought that all his bombs had released. Then, as now, the sensor technology wasn’t always fail-safe.” Marcy chewed her lip for a moment, then added quietly, “Or maybe he knew, and ditched his plane into an unpopulated hillside to prevent further loss of life because he didn’t think he could land safely on a runway. Were there signs of a parachute?”

  I could only shake my head mutely. But I was certain the JPAC—as Chief Monk had called them—research crew would figure out how awful the pilot’s and rear gunner’s last moments had been. I didn’t envy the officers who would be tasked with informing the remaining relatives.

  I shuddered. There had been altogether too many bones in the past twenty-four hours. I was also limb-draggingly exhausted. Those same twenty-four hours of scant sleep were catching up with me.

  “Another round?” I called with feigned cheerfulness to lighten the mood, “before I bring out the desserts?”

  Food is a marvelous fixer. Within seconds, my group of ladies had returned to chatting vigorously, and with a new depth and enthusiasm that promised inevitable bonding.

  Therefore, it was a wonder that I heard my phone ringing. I checked the caller ID, then handed off the tray of toffee truffles to Willow and ducked around the corner into the one and only bedroom—where I don’t sleep. Too bad, because I could’ve really used a bed to flop on and a pillow to press over my head at that moment. I didn’t bother to flick on the overhead light.

  “How are you?” I answered softly, staring out through the French doors at the distant lights dotting the opposite shore of the river.

  “Hey, I’m asking the questions here,” Vaughn
replied. But I could hear the smile in his voice. “Is my mother behaving herself?”

  “Do you think I would tell you if she wasn’t?”

  He chuckled. “Right.”

  “Are you still at the farm?” I asked, effectively issuing a phooey on Vaughn’s weird and arbitrary phone call protocol. What is it with police detectives and their questions? I was pretty sure he’d been joking anyway.

  “Just leaving. Chief Monk’ll be giving me a ride in a minute.”

  “Are you mad at me?”

  “What?” His tone indicated I’d taken him by surprise.

  So I had to stumble along with my ill-formed thoughts. “It occurred to me that, when you told me to leave the farm yesterday for my own safety, you meant it as a police order, not as a boyfriend order.” I cringed. I hate the word boyfriend. We hadn’t discussed specific terminology for whatever it was we’d been doing relationally. I hoped Vaughn didn’t take offense. Particularly since I had more potentially offensive things to say. “I probably should’ve listened to you. Except I didn’t.” Not exactly a newsflash, but the public relations professional who sometimes lived inside my skin thought it best to honestly admit my failings—out loud. I couldn’t make any promises about whether or not they’d reappear on a regular basis, however.

  I held my breath.

  “Baby, no,” he finally blurted. “Well, yes, but no,” he amended, sounding as awkward as I felt. “I really didn’t want to talk about this on the phone,” he muttered. “But no, I’m not mad at you. I just—uh—I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. That’s the only reason I get dictatorial…I think.”

  I sighed into the phone and pressed my forehead against the French door’s glass pane. “Thanks. I just wanted to let you know that I didn’t mean to be flippant about it. And I didn’t know when I’d see you again, hence we’re having this horribly clumsy conversation over the phone.”

  “Do you know that you’re crazily refreshing?” Vaughn asked.

  I didn’t think it was a compliment. I also couldn’t tell if it was a rhetorical question or not, so I kept my mouth shut.

  “Would you like to see me in the morning?” he continued.

  “Um, okay?” I said slowly. Because the true answer was, glaringly and emphatically, YES! But that part I wasn’t ready to say out loud. There are a few things I don’t trust myself about, and one of them is men. For lots of reasons that aren’t really worth explaining.

  “Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but I’ll go with it,” Vaughn said. “You’ll be getting a two-for-one deal, anyway. It’s not just me. The Frasers need you to write and deliver a press release about the research the archaeologist will be conducting on their farm at the behest of the Fidelity Police Department. And if you can keep me from being out in front of the cameras, I’d really appreciate it. The media is going to figure out pretty quickly that there are two investigations going on, and we’ll need a preemptive strike to hold them at bay on the police matter—at least until we determine whether or not anything criminal occurred.”

  Ah, a working meeting. I could handle that, and nodded into the phone until I remembered Vaughn couldn’t see me. “Name the time,” I replied.

  He gave me the particulars, then said, “We want to get through this without mentioning the bones—for now.”

  Putting positive spin on bones. I was going to need a thesaurus, and a lot of creative euphemism. Which is why I get paid the big bucks—or not. And also why I drink a lot of coffee. Which prompted another idea.

  “Candied walnut or almond marzipan?” I asked. We had already determined, quite early in our acquaintance, that Vaughn is not allergic to tree nuts. In fact, the man occasionally doubles as a human vacuum cleaner where food is concerned, probably due to the odd hours and irregular mealtimes necessitated by his job.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ll be bringing you a peace offering.” Provided the ladies in the living room weren’t still completely ravenous and managed to leave a few tidbits on the dessert trays for propriety’s sake. Also, bribe is not a word you use around a police officer.

  The grin was back in full force in Vaughn’s voice. “Both, darling. Always both. And whatever else you have in mind.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Sometime in the night or predawn morning, Vaughn had retrieved his truck from the marina parking lot. He must have a spare set of keys. So I loaded my mobile office—i.e. my massive tote bag stuffed with all its usual accoutrements—into my new-to-me Jeep and turned back for another trudge through the gray downpour to the Tin Can, which is the clever moniker my tiny floating house earned for itself by being constructed from metal cargo containers.

  Roxy hailed me from the bench just outside the door to the marina office. She and her beehive hairdo were staying dry, but just barely, under the overhanging eave while she indulged in what was probably not her first cigarette of the day.

  “You got a raincoat, girl?” she called.

  I scooted to join her in the dry-ish gap and shook my head, effectively sluicing even more rainwater from my soggy hair down inside my jacket collar.

  “You sure you don’t have some previous Pacific Northwest pluviophile in your ancestry?” She squinted up at me, her lips curled into a salty grin. “Because you’ve sure adapted well. If I do say so myself.”

  “Let’s chalk it up to unpreparedness,” I said, trying to suppress a smile of my own at her vocabulary. Roxy has a word-a-day calendar that seems to embed itself in her brain. I had a hunch pluviophile has something to do with waterloggedness.

  She snorted. “I’m not buying that, but if you’re going out to the farm today, you’ll need more protection.” She eyed my full length of ballet flats, tights, skirt, cashmere sweater, and thin twill jacket from her spot on the bench, then heaved herself to her feet. I’d dressed assuming that I’d make another appearance before television cameras at some point during the day.

  “Wait here.” She almost handed her cigarette to me to hold for her, then thought better of it and tipped it on the edge of the half clamshell she uses as an ashtray. She disappeared into the office and returned a few minutes later with a black slicker/poncho type thing with a large, floppy hood.

  Roxy isn’t fat. Her hair just makes her look that way. Her body is reasonably proportioned, but that giant poof piled on top is like a shiny black mushroom cap, and all else about her tends to be judged by its voluminous mass.

  Even so, when she draped the slippery fabric around my shoulders and fastened it somehow up under my arms, I was surprised by how sleek it seemed. The asymmetrical points of the hem swirled around my thighs.

  “My, my,” Roxy rasped as she tugged my shoulders down toward her so she could reach. She lifted the hood up over my head and stepped back to analyze the results. “Darth Vader meets a brunette Tinker Bell.”

  Seriously? I had no words. But I supposed a thank you was in order, so I managed to mutter that, proving I hadn’t been raised by wolves, no matter Roxy’s suspicions of my heritage.

  She just nodded her head sagely. “Willow will be back out at the farm this afternoon. Denby called. This change in the weather has pretty much put a kibosh on the corn mazes, but they want her help sorting the potato crop. Said she’s a good worker.”

  “She is,” I replied, thinking about how Willow always dove into the messy aspects of food preparation and kitchen cleanup during our cooking lessons with very little complaint.

  “Thanks for looking out for her,” Roxy added quietly. “I appreciate…well, she needs…” She took a deep breath and retrieved her cigarette for a steadying inhale of nicotine. “There aren’t many who would…” She shrugged and peered intently out into the silver-streaking moisture while bluish smoke curled up around her beehive.

  I wanted to hug her, but physical contact would’ve been particularly verboten. For all her big words, emotions were still difficult for Roxy to express. Should I jump in and rescue her?

  But she beat me to it. “And last nigh
t? Well, that was…that was good.”

  I nodded acknowledgment and tapped the slicker’s sleeve. “Thanks for the wardrobe enhancement. I’ll get this back to you tomorrow.”

  “Keep it,” Roxy grunted. “Haven’t worn it in decades. Looks better on you anyway.”

  When I returned on my second trip from the house, this time with a large basket hung from the crook of my elbow and a foil-covered tray balanced on my other forearm, Roxy couldn’t resist one last comment. “You’re going to spoil that man,” she noted dryly.

  I spun around in the parking lot for my own parting shot, making the edges of the slicker flare. “Is that a problem?”

  Her knowing cackle followed me as I ducked into the driver’s seat of the Jeep and added the promised sustenance to the supplies already piled on the passenger seat.

  Our streak of fabulous weather had been broken in decisive fashion, as demonstrated by the wet, splatty clumps of mud the Jeep’s knobby tires flung up on her flanks and side mirrors as I navigated the dirt track out toward the boneyard. No one had responded to my persistent knocks on the farmhouse’s various doors, so I assumed everyone was out surveying the damage from the bomb’s detonation in what little daylight was available below the pewter bellies of the lumbering clouds.

  The Jeep slid to a wallowing stop in a miry bog at the edge of the field. But there was some satisfaction in the fact that Vaughn’s truck, which I parked behind, was also no longer its usual pristine white. He had other issues to direct his compulsive, detailed attention toward on this fine morning.

  In the next field over, plump bright-orange pumpkins dotted the landscape like misplaced traffic safety cones. Their cheerful blobs of color were in direct contrast with the rest of the scene. I stood at the edge of the field in my woefully inadequate shoes until one of the tiny figures across the acres noticed me and waved.