Preservation

by Charles Lemoine

  Mariska drew a line in the air, following the direction of the camera angle. It hadn’t been put in to view the tombs, but the coming and going of the employees who worked in the underground laboratory. Dr. Snyder had been pushing for security cameras for years, but it hadn’t been in the budget. This latest incident clearly pushed his agenda through the budget committee.

  Theresa popped her head out the door. “Anything fun going on out here? The sample I’m sifting is sucking the life out of me.” She took a full step out of the lab and let the door close behind her.

  Mariska thought back to the previous evening, recalling how David had mentioned the Gala was protested by the Native American community. “Do you recall the protests from last night?”

  Theresa nodded. “Yeah, what about them?”

  It wasn’t unusual as the local tribes had petitioned the museum to return the remains of the La Brea Woman for the past three decades. The museum’s position had always been they were conducting research on the remains. If and when evidence came to light indicating the Chumash tribe were her rightful heirs, she’d be turned over to them.

  “Dr. Beaumont mentioned they were protesting and I couldn’t help but wonder if they were behind her disappearance.”

  “From what I’ve always heard, the museum was going to return her when the research was complete,” Theresa said.

  The problem was Mariska knew no one had ever performed any research on her, as the museum never wanted to risk giving up ownership. That was one of the reasons she’d been so anxious to get her hands on her. There was an unknown amount of treasured information Mariska could glean from the remains. Unfortunately, the museum had gone as far as taking body off display and had stashed the remains into storage. Out of sight out of mind? The museum hoped so, anyway. Recently, there’d been a huge shakeup in the board of directors, and the great Ingrid Ashton had taken a more prominent role. Mariska smiled when she thought about all the amazing things this woman had accomplished, even when it wasn’t widely accepted for a female to do—like scientific research.

  “Dr. Stevenson?” Theresa’s voice was sheepish.

  Mariska looked up. “Yeah?”

  “I know the glass case she’d been held in was left behind, but do you wonder how the intruder could have managed to remove the entire body so quickly? Without anyone seeing it? I mean, she was a full-sized human.”

  The speed at which the body had been removed hadn’t yet piqued her interest, but it sure did now. “I hadn’t thought about that. I was unconscious…so, I guess I just assumed they had time.”

  “Seems like Dr. Beaumont emerged from the elevator only a few minutes before you did.”

  “What exactly did you see?”

  “Dr. Beaumont exited the elevator, and I remember he had a smile on his face like he’d just thought about something funny. He went and got two flutes of champagne and went straight back to the elevator.”

  “I had left him for a second to run back into the lab to retrieve my purse. He probably thought I was scatterbrained…or tipsy.” Mariska chuckled. “I can assure you; I was neither of those things.”

  Theresa smiled. “He was definitely bringing you another glass of bubbly to celebrate your success. He’s such a good guy.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “He pushed the button for the elevator return, and when the doors popped open, you were lying on the floor. People started screaming…at least your mom did, anyway. The other stuffy bastards mostly looked annoyed.” Theresa rolled her eyes. “I can’t understand why they think you’re involved.”

  “I feel like they suspect I had an accomplice and staged my assault and injury.” Mariska shook her head in annoyance.

  That entire ordeal couldn’t have taken much time. Maybe five minutes for whoever had attacked her to remove the body and get out without setting off any alarms. Mariska looked into the coffee cup, swirled it around a few times and took a couple more sips of the lukewarm swill.

  “We might as well get back to work. The dirt and tar won’t sift themselves.” Mariska opened the door for Theresa. Her stomach felt tight, and a nagging nausea wouldn’t leave her, she had no idea if the IRB would still give her the grant, or take that money and use it for something else—like continued security upgrades. In the meantime, she would need to stay focused on her other duties as the lead paleontologist.

  Today, those duties included a bucket full of debris that needed to be painstakingly sorted. Her tools consisted of tweezers, a tiny brush, and a fistful of aspirin. Each bit of debris could hold the key to a new discovery. Every piece was important. The tar preserved all kinds of things, bone, bugs, and even some plant life. The sticky substance bubbled up to the surface entrapping thousands of creatures over time, ultimately killing them, but also preserving them. The process was slow but efficient and successful.

  Another hour of work, she’d catalogued four pill bug insects and eight Giant Sequoia seeds. “Having much success?” Mariska asked her student.

  “Just a few seeds is all.” Theresa sounded as disappointed as Mariska felt.

  When Mariska first started working at the museum, the tiniest of discoveries didn’t impact the way they did now. She’d wanted to find a new species of mammal or bird. Something on a large scale that put her name in lights or at least on the cover of a science magazine. But the longer she worked there, the more she came to realize the importance of the small discoveries. The Giant Sequoia seeds, for example, represented trees that thrived in southern California during the Pleistocene Epoch. These same trees were now confined to more northern areas, indicating a significant climate change. The sheer pleasure she garnered from discovery and increased knowledge that could be shared with the future generation way outweighed any magazine cover or perceived notoriety she’d sought in the past.

  “Devil is in the details,” Mariska said.

  During her tenure at the museum, they’d discovered a type of algae that had very specific requirements to survive, including temperature and humidity. The moisture levels of both the atmosphere and soil had to be very specific. These required levels were no longer possible in Southern California. Again, indicating a shift in climate that changed the entire ecosystem of North America. These other, physically smaller discoveries, painted the true picture of what life was like during that time.

  Every visitor to the museum asked: What happened to the Mammoth? Why did the giant ground sloth disappear? Whatever happened to the Saber-Toothed Cat? Mariska hoped one of these discoveries would one day reveal the answers.

  Mariska’s cell phone buzzed with an incoming call. She picked it up and saw that Dr. Snyder was calling.

  “Hello?” Mariska said, with as much pleasantness as she could manage. The man was nearing retirement and could barely contain his disdain for the younger and up-and-coming generation.

  “Dr. Stevenson, I’ve met with the IRB. We have our final decision.” His voice was clipped, hurried. “I’m on my way to the museum—can you meet me there tonight?”

  “Yes, I’m here already. Theresa and I have been sorting and cataloguing a portion of Pit 23.” Mariska looked at Theresa and shrugged. Why would Dr. Snyder be coming to the museum at this hour?

  He cleared his throat. “I haven’t authorized any overtime.”

  “HR changed my status to salary when my promotion to lead paleontologist became official.” What the hell was his problem?

  “Right…the promotion. Meet me in my office in twenty minutes.” The phone went dead as he didn’t bother waiting for a response. Mariska shrugged. He didn’t have to wait, he was the boss, and it wasn’t like she would have told him no.

  Theresa drew Mariska’s attention away from the phone. “Dr. Stevenson, I was thinking about something…and I think it’s important.”

  Mariska barely registered her words. She had a strange feeling about her conversation with Dr. Snyder. Something was wrong. Was there more to this meeting than a discussion about the status of the grant? Was her j
ob in jeopardy?

  “…the dog is still here, right?” Theresa said, but Mariska hadn’t heard the beginning of her statement. “Might be some clues in there.”

  “Clues?” Mariska said. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t listening. Dr. Snyder is coming here tonight, and he demanded to see me in his office in twenty minutes. He sounded pissed off.”

  “That sounds, serious.” Theresa furrowed her brow and bit her bottom lip. “You don’t think you’re in trouble, do you? They can’t fire you…right?”

  “I think I’ll be fine. They can’t fire me unless it’s proven I had something to do with the theft. I mean, innocent until proven guilty and all that…right? Personally, I think he’s the only one who thinks I had anything to do with it and it’s because he doesn’t like me for some reason.”

  “That’s a relief.” Theresa made an exaggerated sweep across her forehead. “I’ve been thinking about something important, and I don’t think you’ve thought of yet.”

  Mariska looked at her intern’s face. Her expression was one of excitement and concern. She looked at the clock, eighteen minutes to go. “Okay, lay it on, me.”

  “The La Brea Woman was found with a small canine in her arms.”

  Mariska wasn’t following her train of thought. “And?”

  “Last month, when you were submitting your proposal to the IRB, we separated the remains. We stored the canine in a separate storage container because he wasn’t part of the proposal.”

  Mariska’s heart started to pound, and her face felt flushed. However small, there might be a chance that some of the La Brea Woman’s DNA could be found with the canine’s remains. After all, they had died together, spending the last ten thousand or so years with their bones interwoven together. Mariska bolted for the exit. She pulled the door open, hard. The calendar mounted on the wall behind it, fell to the floor as she ran past, deeper into the Tombs.

  Knowing right where the canine was stored, Mariska hurried past three rows and turned right. On the second shelf, two boxes from the end, she spotted her prize. Without hesitation, she pulled the box from the shelf and onto the floor. Pulling out her cell phone, she turned on the light as she lifted off the lid. The noxious smell of asphalt penetrated Mariska’s nose but didn’t slow her down. Inside, the small canine, no larger than a Corgi, lay at the bottom of the wooden box. There were a few stones and a layer of dirt and tar at the bottom of the box. No materials were discarded until they could be sorted and sifted through under magnification.

  The bright, flat, white LED light made shadows grow and deepen behind the illuminated skeletal structures.

  “Thank god no one took you,” Mariska said. That’s when she noticed something she hadn’t before. The bright light seemed to make the bones glow against the flat dingy surfaces of tar and dirt. Between the second and third costal bones on the underside of the skeleton, something was there that didn’t belong. Or, at least didn’t belong to the canine.

  Mariska pulled a pair of latex gloves from her back pocket and reached inside and tried to wiggle the object free. It didn’t immediately come loose. It was cemented in place by thousands of years of tar and sediment buildup. Mariska reached under the canine and lifted it up off the bottom, no more than an inch. She used her other hand to grasp the boney object and tapped it with her finger. It didn’t budge. Unwilling to damage it, no matter how important she thought it might be to finding the La Brea Woman, she used the edge of her gloved fingernail to scrape away some of the sediment. Flecks of dirt and hardened asphalt crumbled away and fell to the bottom of the box. She then grasped the bone between two fingers and slid it along the costal bones of the canine until it reached a wider opening. Pulling back with a gentle nudge, she felt the bone come easily free.

  Slowly, she brought the bone into the light, her heart racing away. Turning it over and over in her hand, she couldn’t believe her eyes. It was a human phalange—a finger bone. Somehow, years ago, when the bodies had been separated, this bone had been left behind. No, doubt a result of it being partially encased in debris not to mention the majority of skeletons were incomplete when discovered in the first place. It wasn’t uncommon to find ancillary bones months, if not years later that could be reunited with the rest of the body once matched.

  A scraping noise sounded behind her, followed by a sharp huff of exacerbation.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Dr. Snyder said. He was early. From the way he was breathing, he’d speed-walked in from the parking lot and came straight to the Tombs to find her.

  Mariska’s body went stiff. She was holding in her hand the only remaining vestige of the woman she’d obsessed about for the last decade. She’d been forbidden from coming into contact with anything La Brea Woman related, and here she was, caught red-handed. How the hell am I going to get out of this one?

  “Stand up, and step away from the box.” Dr. Snyder’s voice grew into a menacing growl.

  She hesitated. This couldn’t be happening. Not now dammit. I need answers.

  “I said, step away from the box.” He used the flashlight to emphasize the direction he wanted her to go.

  Resignation and regret was all she felt. Mariska took a deep breath and stood.

  “Show me what’s in your hand.”

  She held up her palm with the La Brea Woman’s finger bone in it and let out a sigh. “I’m sorry.”

  He aimed the flashlight onto the box and then on the content of her hand.

  “I told you,” Kathy said, stepping out from behind Dr. Snyder. “She can’t be trusted.” She glared hard enough for Mariska to feel it physically.

  “Why is she here?” Mariska asked.

  “It’s none of your concern.” Dr. Snyder flicked the light up into Mariska’s eyes, and she flinched away from it.

  “Tsk tsk, Dr. Stevenson.” Kathy sauntered on high heels toward her. Each heel click against cement, a stab into her heart. “First, the remains…now, this?” She pointed to Mariska’s hand. With pouty lips and feigned sadness, she whispered out of Dr. Snyder’s earshot, “Looks like I’m going to take your place.”

  Mariska narrowed her eyes and swallowed down the venom welling up inside her. “You don’t even have a degree.”

  “Don’t, I?” Kathy shrugged her shoulders. She raised her voice, “I graduated last week.”

  “And she’ll be handling some things in your absence,” Dr. Snyder snapped.

  “But…”

  He put up a hand silencing her. “Too bad, Dr. Stevenson.” He shook his head. “I knew you were impulsive…or maybe it’s just youth. But I never took you for being this stupid.”

  What could she say? His face was a mask of disappointment and anger, and she knew he wouldn’t listen to what she had to say. She’d messed up, and she’d done it to herself. “I’m…” She looked away.

  “I know you’re sorry, but that doesn’t negate the fact you went against a direct order. You were clear on the rules. You broke them. And, now you’re done here.” He pulled a decorative handkerchief from his jacket front pocket and said, “Hand it over.”

  She did as she was told before turning away. Unable to speak, there wasn’t anything else to say.

  “You are not to set foot on museum property again until this investigation is over. If I have my way with the board of directors, your position here will be terminated.” They made eye contact, and she felt a lump rise into her throat. “You deserve this, Dr. Stevenson. I can’t afford to retire and leave this revered institution in the hands of a reckless showboat. The museum has been here for decades, and it contains artifacts from thousands of years ago that have withstood millennia of environmental changes, social and political turmoil, advancements in industry and knowledge only to be put at risk of being destroyed by the careless actions of an amateur. I won’t have it. Leave, and do not return, or I’ll have you arrested for trespassing.”

  Mariska flinched at the harshness of his words. Over his shoulder, Mariska spotted Theresa as she slunk away, back to the lab.
Suddenly, the walls began to close in on her, making it difficult to breathe. Fighting back tears, she pushed passed him on her way to the exit.

  “No one can help you now, Doctor,” he said to her retreating form. “Paleontology is a small world, and you’re done…finished.”

  She ran for the exit, barely able to hold back the sobs of frustration and sadness. What could she possibly do now?

  Chapter Seven

  Mariska hadn’t called ahead. There was still a chance to run away, but she needed to fix this. Her parents lived on a sprawling Cliffside Drive estate, having recently moved there from Holmby Heights. It’d taken her a while to get used to visiting them at their new place. Sure, it was a beautiful home with lots of land for her mom to enjoy puttering around in a garden and grove of fruit trees. Not to mention the view—the Pacific Ocean as far as the eye could see. But it still wasn’t the home she’d grown up in. The thought of her old bedroom and the attached playroom where she’d set up fake archeological digs played out the struggles of times past, and so often lay on the floor imagining the giant creatures that she read about in textbooks and choose-your-own-adventure novels, made her belly ache. She missed it. Adulthood had proved not to be all that she’d thought it would be.

  She pushed the doorbell; the chime played a tune from The Sound of Music. Her resolve to ask her parents for help, faded by the second verse. Mariska turned to leave when the front door opened behind her.

  “Mariska?” Jane the housekeeper said. The tone in her voice revealed how much more excited she was to see her than Mariska was to be there. The woman’s upswept gray hair normally hung at shoulder length and remained thick despite her age. Her short, strong body had physically worked hard most of her life. She’d no doubt outlive Mariska herself. The idea brought a smile to her face. Had it not been for Mariska’s mom, Jane would have been happy to wear the same clothes over and over as she wasn’t one to splurge on herself.