Carbon Dating

by Jerusha Jones

  But she wrenched her arm from Chloe’s grasp. “I have to go,” she blurted and tottered unsteadily toward her Mercedes.

  As we all had wished she’d done earlier, but it was different now. “Should she be driving?” I whispered.

  “Can’t stop her,” Vaughn murmured back. “Especially since I just ordered her off the property. That call must have been from a nurse at the hospital, notifying her—as his emergency contact—of Zales’ death. Standard procedure.”

  Chloe emitted a little squeak at his words. She, too, appeared shocked and fragmented. It was rough news, no matter the method of delivery. I wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and she turned into me, tears already leaking from the corners of her eyes.

  “I never really liked him,” she whispered with a reluctant ferocity, “but—this way? I never thought…he did mentor me, in a fashion. And I owe a lot to him professionally, but…” Her thoughts drowned in soft sobbing.

  “Come on inside,” I said, gently turning her toward the farmhouse. “Denby will know what to do.”

  The Frasers stood agog in their kitchen at the news. Then Nash scrambled forward with a chair for Chloe to sink onto, and Denby started a kettle to boil on the stove.

  In the end, it was Cricket who got Chloe’s coherent words flowing again. The cat curled up on her lap, purred insistently until she developed a squeaky, wheezing rattle along with the rumble, and presented her belly like the therapeutic cushion it was.

  Chloe stroked her fingers through the long, silky fur, and a slight smile finally pushed at her wan cheeks. Without rain gear shrouding her petite form, she looked extremely young and vulnerable. But she spoke with quiet authority. “I don’t like to question the master.” She raised her fingers in airborne quotation marks around the term. “Especially now that he’s gone. But we were rushing yesterday, even before his medical emergency. Just digging up bones and slopping them around in our hurry. I wanted to take one more look in daylight to make sure we didn’t miss anything.”

  “Fair enough.” Vaughn nodded. “I was worried about that myself.”

  Chloe took a sip of chamomile tea and shook her head ruefully. “The investigation will be mine now. Unless you object, Detective?” Her shoulders dipped as if she physically felt the weight of the responsibility. A death above you in the pecking order isn’t a terrific way to get a promotion.

  “Not at all,” Vaughn rumbled, but a shadow of concern passed behind his eyes. “Will Heath be available to help you? Time is of the essence, especially now.”

  “Um, not Heath. He has other, uh, commitments. But we have clerical staff at the institute, and it seems like now—after I double-check the gravesite—our focus will be on archive research to see if we can find any documents relating to events that might have occurred here at the farm in the early 1900s.”

  Chloe’s implied time line matched Dr. Zales’, which meant she agreed with his assessment of the skeletons’ ages. I flashed a quick glance at Denby and found that she’d retrieved the diaries and was holding them clutched to her chest in a stance I was familiar with.

  But she stepped forward. “We—Eva and I—found these yesterday. I stayed up almost all night reading them and nothing jumped out at me. But maybe you’ll have better success.” She extended her arms, offering the diaries to Chloe.

  Chloe accepted them as if they were priceless—which they were—and my estimation of her went up exponentially. Dr. Zales never would have treated Denby or the diaries so tenderly.

  “Do you have the others?” she asked softly. “For context? I promise we’ll take very good care of them. With your permission, we’d like to photocopy every page, even from the years that likely aren’t relevant, so we can fully develop the background against which we might be able to draw conclusions and so we handle the originals as little as possible. They’re definitely a family heirloom.”

  Denby nodded silently and left the room.

  In her absence, we all returned to our own private thoughts. Nash was staring absently out the kitchen window, probably calculating this delay in his plowing and planting schedule. Without a few dry days in a row, he might not be able to finish that far field until spring.

  Chloe nursed her tea and continued her ministrations to the blissful Cricket.

  Vaughn was studying me, his gaze intense and somber, his amber-flecked brown eyes so warm that I started having thoughts that had nothing to do with diaries or skeletons or mud or even pushy, manipulative ex-wives. But the playful tilt to the corners of his lips—the little amused smile that drives me crazy and which I also love so much—wasn’t there, and I was wondering if he’d gotten any sleep the previous night when Denby reappeared.

  Chloe roused herself and went to the Suburban for her clipboard. She and Denby huddled over it as Chloe examined and fully noted each diary separately on the receipt.

  “We’ll return them to you no later than two weeks from now,” Chloe murmured, and handed the clipboard to Denby for her signature.

  In the corner by the door, Vaughn shifted impatiently, and I knew the cause. He was chomping at an invisible bit. Two weeks was way too long.

  But I knew Chloe wanted to be thorough, and the institute was short-staffed now, and had been buried in work even before they lost their most prestigious member. Two weeks…what were the Frasers going to do in the meantime? Nash’s worried glance confirmed my own concern—their fledgling business might not be able to survive that much of a setback. They needed to sell a lot more CSA memberships, and quickly.

  I squeezed his arm before I followed Chloe and Vaughn out of the kitchen. “I’m on it,” I whispered. “Just remember, if you get any calls from the press—about any subject whatsoever—pass them on to me. I also think you should raise the price on memberships a little, ten percent or so. I’ll explain later.”

  He shot me a confused look, then nodded miserably.

  oOo

  “I don’t know if I should chew you out for confronting that battle-ax alone or just stand here with my mouth open, ogling you,” Vaughn said in what was possibly a reference to my knock-’em-dead outfit. Too bad Denise hadn’t been so favorably impressed. I might have spared him the trouble of chasing her off.

  We were still standing in the Frasers’ driveway, having watched Chloe slowly navigate her heavy Suburban down the muddy track to the gravesite.

  “Only words were exchanged. When it comes to fisticuffs, that’s your department,” I conceded. “But I’m not in love with either of your options.” I glanced back toward the farmhouse. “How about a private conference?”

  “How private?” His grin was starting to turn into a hopeful smirk. He had a remarkable ability to shrug off somber news, probably well-honed over all his years on the police force. Or else he was plain old rummy from a long night with little to no sleep.

  “Your office at the station.”

  He grunted. Apparently that location had a dampening effect on his mood.

  “Come on.” I slung my arm through his. “I want to see you in action.”

  “Behind a desk,” he grumbled.

  “Well, your brain in action, at any rate. The rest will have to wait. Are you always this grouchy?” But I already knew the answer to that question.

  “Withdrawal,” Vaughn muttered. “Haven’t really seen you since—well, since you wouldn’t kiss me in the corn maze.”

  First, I wasn’t going to win this argument, not with a sleep-deprived detective and being sleep-deprived myself. Second, it was silly to start with, because I was pretty sure we actually agreed with each other on several of the pertinent points. So I improved things by poking him in the ribs. “Buy me a really good caffè breve and maybe I will kiss you.”

  His grin was wide-open and free this time. “Deal.” He pulled me close and muttered into my hair. “You’re easy.”

  Is it acceptable to slug an officer of the law? I seriously considered it while Vaughn chuckled at his small victory. But he was, unfortunately, accurate—my buttons ar
e right out there in the open for anyone to see and push, and the promise of caffeine prevailed over any attempt at comeuppance. Besides, I told myself, I was doing this for his benefit. And maybe because I was nosy.

  oOo

  Vaughn’s office is a little nicer than I’d envisioned. Not a lot, but a little. The walls were painted a pale blue, and the standard-issue, wall-mounted desk and shelves were, appropriately, gunmetal gray and exceedingly tidy. But he had a geometric, color-block rug laid over the industrial-strength, glue-down carpet, and a series of scenic, black and white photographs of the Columbia Gorge hung in a row across from his desk. The window looked out over the smooth asphalt parking lot. All very masculine and austere.

  I’d followed him from the farm in my Jeep, and he’d led me through the drive-up lane of a free-standing espresso shack. When I got to the window, the blushing young girl inside had immediately handed me an extra-large, steaming, frothy drink. “The detective says this is for you, all paid for,” she giggled. “He says you owe him big-time now. And that you would know what he means.”

  Huh.

  “Gosh, you do have really pretty hair,” she’d said, then giggled again and slid the window shut.

  He must have given her a monstrous tip to make her turn so gushingly silly. But he’d also asked for cinnamon sprinkles on top of the foam, so he’d earned back a few points. I was past keeping score, anyway.

  But by the time we settled in his office, he was all business. His analytical side asserted itself with his very first comment. “You know, don’t you?”

  I nodded slowly, sipping some of the creamy coffee from underneath the foam. “I suspect. Willow let it slip.”

  His brows shot up. “What did she see?”

  I grinned at his repeat of the question I’d asked her during our drive home the previous night. I summarized her observations for him. “But there’s more, isn’t there? Why are you having the body sent straight to autopsy?”

  Vaughn drummed his fingers on the desktop and gazed out the window. “Because he didn’t die of hyperglycemia. He died of hypoglycemia, caused by a massive insulin overdose.”

  “I thought that could be treated,” I murmured.

  Vaughn rubbed his jaw. “Under normal circumstances, yes, and usually successfully. But Zales’ insulin level was through the roof, and that was when it was measured after he arrived at the hospital, a good half hour to forty-five minutes after he first started exhibiting symptoms that worried us, that were beyond his normal irascibility. At the gravesite, he convulsed once and became unconscious almost immediately afterward.”

  “It didn’t help that it was such a gray and rainy day. Probably hard to notice his skin tone changes,” I said, worried that Vaughn was blaming himself for not realizing the magnitude of Dr. Zales’ predicament sooner. “And in his mental confusion, he may have injected himself with a second or third dose, exacerbating the problem,” I added.

  “Which will come out in the autopsy,” Vaughn confirmed. “The doctor thinks it would be virtually impossible for Zales to have injected that much insulin by himself. The medical examiner will count and document the locations of all needle punctures, measure the liver glucose level, see if there were any underlying compounding factors.” He looked so haggard as he stared out the window. His jaw muscles rippled under his unshaved stubble, and I thought he might squeeze the take-away cup to the point of leaking coffee everywhere. Clearly, the man needed a distraction.

  I set down my own cup and went to him. I gently tugged the cup from his hands and swiveled his chair toward me for easier access. “Do you think the chair can handle this?” I asked as I plopped sideways onto his lap.

  He chuckled and wrapped his long arms around me. “We’ll take our chances.” He leaned back, pulling me with him, and the chair’s recline function lurched into action.

  I let out a muffled squeak as the chair’s seat and back ratcheted a few times, but the hydraulic pipes and gears and faux-leather cushions held—for now. Although the chair was making new sounds too—straining, whooshy-sounding groans. I giggled into Vaughn’s chest and wondered if all women started giggling when they got this close to him.

  “I need to talk to you about flirting with baristas,” I said, fingering one of the buttons on his shirt.

  “I didn’t.” He sounded miffed, and his grasp on me tightened. “I told her the extra money was for the drink for the extremely hot woman in the Jeep behind me. The one with the long brown hair and thick eyelashes and amazing legs and gorgeous smile; the one who gets all pink and feisty when I irritate her.”

  “Stop,” I croaked. “You can stop now.” I was feeling the aforementioned pink creeping up my neck.

  Apparently Vaughn was feeling it too, because he was nuzzling around in there under my hair where the pink was, prickling my skin with his stubble. His lips were really close to my earlobe. “Nope,” he mumbled.

  But then his chair screeched and the seat dropped several inches in a stomach-soaring seizure, loop-the-loop sort of way. With a yelp, I instinctively half-flung, half-levitated myself out of his arms before we both became mangled.

  Actually, before I became mangled, which left Vaughn sprawled out in a very ungainly fashion on a chair which our combined weight had collapsed into bedpan flat.

  “Help,” he rasped, then rolled off the side of the prostrate chair while snorting with debilitating laughter. He must have been excruciatingly exhausted to exhibit so much levity.

  “Are you okay?” I wheezed. I also was having difficulty getting air into my lungs. I was bent over, looking at my knees, making awful chuffing sounds because my abdominal muscles were otherwise engaged and unable to prop my torso upright. It was an extremely good thing the police station seemed to be deserted, or we definitely would’ve had the additional embarrassment of an audience with all the ruckus we’d made.

  Vaughn groaned from the floor and ran a hand over his face, but his shoulders were still shaking.

  I couldn’t help myself. “I like seeing you behind a desk,” I quipped when I could breathe again.

  This elicited another groan from Vaughn. “I don’t have the budget to put a new chair on my expense report.” He was studiously disentangling his limbs and sorting out the effects of gravity.

  The chair chose that moment to effect a transfiguration. It sprang up all by itself and snapped into its former shape the way a Venus flytrap clamps closed on an unsuspecting insect. A transformer chair. I shrieked at the sudden action, levitated yet again, and jumped into Vaughn’s arms just as he was propelling himself to his feet. He caught me and held me fast, his body rocking with another volley of laughter.

  I clutched his shirt and scowled at the chair. I could have sworn the contraption was smirking in response. I growled a little in my throat.

  “I have the perfect solution,” Vaughn whispered in my ear. He released me and placed his hands firmly on the chair back. He wheeled it out of his office and down the hallway, returning a minute later with an older, sturdier, less gadgety model. “Traded with the new guy. He’s out on patrol most of the time, so he isn’t at his desk much. And he certainly isn’t canoodling with his girlfriend in the chair while he’s on the clock.” He winked and shot me a rogue grin.

  I still had a hand pressed against my thumping chest. And I was starting to feel guilty for keeping Vaughn from his work. The longer it took him to get started, the longer it would take for him to finish. I was borderline punch-drunk myself from lack of sleep and general upheaval, and my stomach ached from laughing.

  “Nope, nope, nope,” he muttered, reaching for me and pulling me close. “Don’t give me that look like you’re going to skip out. We won’t get busted, and there’s nowhere I’d rather you were than right here.”

  “What do you have to do next?” I asked, my words muffled into his warm, comforting shoulder. “Are you thinking Zales had help with his insulin injections?”

  “I’m thinking I haven’t seen anything to rule out that possibility. But
it seems far-fetched. I’ll have to interview everyone who was at the gravesite yesterday afternoon, and quickly, preferably before they hear of his death and start to form their own conclusions.”

  “Too late,” I murmured, thinking of Denise Puttnam. She hadn’t struck me as the most discreet of persons. But given the penchant of the female volunteers to keep track of other people’s business, maybe Vaughn would get lucky and find one of them who’d seen something out of the ordinary while they’d been milling around. Or not. Maybe Dr. Zales had just made a tragic—and immediately insurmountable—mistake in his calculations and dosage.

  My phone rang. The caller ID showed the number of one of the junior reporters from the television station that ran the nightly news at ten o’clock. They always liked getting the jump on the eleven o’clock stations. I groaned.

  “Already?” Vaughn murmured.

  I shook my head. “Inevitable. I’ll get out of your hair.”

  He planted a quick kiss on my forehead, but he didn’t object. Time to get back to work.

  CHAPTER 13

  It was a stroke of genius, if I do say so myself. The first thing I did once I got out to my Jeep in the police station parking lot was call Chloe.

  From the squishy, sucking sounds in the background and her heavy breathing, she was still mucking around at the gravesite. Or she was still sniffling about the demise of her mentor and boss. But her voice held a deep note of gratitude when she responded to my idea. “Oh Eva, would you? We don’t have the staff—couldn’t spare the staff even if any of us were qualified to make a statement, which we’re not. We’re all shy, bookish types who sound like dry encyclopedias when we talk. So yes, please. I’ll meet you there in about an hour. I’m glad I came back to the farm this morning, found a few bone fragments and some more clothing scraps, but I’m almost finished.”

  I disagreed with her self-assessment. I thought Chloe was a sweetheart and agreeably personable. But it also wasn’t hard to imagine that she might succumb to the deer-in-headlights flash-freeze effect if faced with a bank of cameras and probing microphones and the insistent, inane questions reporters tend to spew.