Charlie slid to the ground.
THREE
Present Time
Monday
V.J. Toland scratched his head. “Gee, I don’t know. We’re lookin’ at Knobby Tires next Saturday, and then after that there’s---”
It was the third time since Packard had greeted the Deputy that he’d said ‘gee, I don’t know.’ Packard snapped at him, “Wait a minute. Knobby tires?”
“That’s your Knobby Tire Festival,” Fran Jeeter jumped in. She was probably at most in her mid-forties, wiry, tough, agile, but with her leathery face and whisky-voice she might be ten years older.
Packard had liked her intensity back when she’d first interviewed him at the start of the dig. He rubbed the back of his neck, reminding himself that the Deputy wasn’t the reason for his irritability. Actually, Toland seemed like a nice enough young man, his lack of decisiveness notwithstanding.
“That’s right, Professor. The seventh annual---”
Fran stopped snapping photographs and felt the pockets of her faded overalls. “Eighth, V.J. Eighth. Dirt bikes and ATV’s. Hill climbs, races, that sorta thing. Hundreds of ‘em, from all over they come. One of Moab’s biggest events.” She found her spiral-bound notepad, then resumed searching, this time for a pen or pencil. “Anyway, Dr. Packard, I’d like to get a statement. About---”
“Fran, couldja just keep it zipped for a minute?” V.J. had a lot on his mind. He turned to Packard. “Anyway, after that there’s the ATV Safari, and... Well, what with this bein’ one of the few legal trails in the area, I shut ‘er down, I’m gonna be up to my earlobes in bikers with their drawers in a bunch. Not to mention all the merchants that’re gonna want my hide.”
Packard wanted this to be done with so he could get the samples to the campus bone lab. So he could get that number out of his head. 99,000 years. Even with an error of give-or-take 20 percent, he didn’t want to think about the possibility. For several reasons. He’d tried telling himself there was no way in hell these remains could be that old, any more than last week’s readings from the minute quantities of charcoal and bone he’d unearthed further up the trail could have been accurate. But Rudy Sanchez insisted that thermoluminescence and electron spin resonance measurements didn’t lie.
And then there were the distinctive teardrop-shaped bifacial hand axes. Although like everything else in the study of archaeology, they too were arguable. And Felix Goldman had argued. Forcibly. Insisting what Packard was positing – that the tools were Acheulian, heretofore found only in Europe and Western Asia – was an impossibility; Packard was misreading them. Packard tried another tack, offering that perhaps the tools were those of – say – a random, misplaced tribe of European hominids. “Preposterous,” was Goldman’s reply. At best, he conceded, they were simply an accidental replication of another group’s ancient tool tradition. When Leslie took Packard’s side, Felix’s obstinacy ratcheted up to unveiled animosity.
And now, a whole group of skeletal remains that appeared – to Packard anyway – to be far older than the conventional wisdom allowed for. In the field of archaeology, reputations can easily be demolished by climbing too far out on the shaky branches of early man’s family tree.
Packard refocused. “I can understand why you feel uncomfortable about that, Sheriff, but---”
“‘Scuse me, that’s ‘Acting Sheriff.’
Fran added, “And if you think V.J.’s uncomfortable, you oughta see his boss. Poor man’s laid up with---”
“Fran, do you mind?”
“...With hemorrhoids. I mean world class. Had to cancel our last two chess-games.”
Packard and Meg Brady glanced at each other and tried not to laugh. She was sitting cross-legged on the tarped floor beneath the tent-canopy, cataloguing pieces of bone.
Packard turned to V.J. “In any case, I’m afraid you don’t have a choice. We have County permits for the dig. And clearances from the Tribal Councils down in Monticello and Mexican Hat. They’re in the motor-home somewhere.
“I saw ‘em, Dr. Packard. They’re for up here along the ridge. Not down the middle of the trail.”
“Oh Christ. Bottom line, it’s still an archaeological site.”
Coroner George Quinn looked up from the radius-bone he was examining. “Besides which, V.J., it’s a possible crime-scene.” He resumed his inspection, taking measurements, noting them on a clipboard. Packard was grateful for the assist.
“Looks like they’re right, V.J., you don’t. Have a choice.” Fran finally located a ballpoint in the pocket of her wool plaid shirt, tried making a mark with it, shook it, then tried again. This time it worked.
V.J. did not look thrilled.
Meg and Jeff and Scott had driven back from Borrego Junction, arriving at the site just after dawn, expecting to roust Packard from his bunk in the motor-home. Instead, piles of bone fragments and skeletal parts greeted them – and, hauling yet another load of specimens up the trail, an exhausted-but-vindicated Packard.
“Omygod. Omygod.” Meg jumped around, unable to contain herself. As Packard reached the head of the trail she threw her arms about him, nearly knocking him down. “Omygod. I can’t stand it.”
Scott selected a brownish ulna, eyeballed it as if it was a piece of prized sculpture. “Wow. Look at this shit. It’s – damn, it is old.”
In their excitement, only Jeff had had the presence of mind to relieve their drained leader of his burden.
After they’d pumped Packard about the find and his motorbike adventure Jeff again interceded, sending him into the RV for a much-needed couple of hours’ rest. The trio quickly – and as quietly as possible – re-pitched the canopy, and Meg began organizing the bones while the boys went down-trail to continue excavating the burial chamber.
Their excited, nonstop whispering a few yards away was not what had kept Packard drowsily awake. It was the odd skeleton. Try as he might he could think of nothing else. Why was it there in that stone shaft, in the company of all those bones that had presumably not been disturbed for untold centuries? Who had he been, and how and when had he died in this desolate, beautiful spot? And why were there no artifacts or clothing or other materials that might help identify him? What was his story? And most curious of all – who placed him in the shaft? Was he murdered, his body dumped inside, and then the killer or killers moved that boulder – which probably weighed a couple of tons – so that it covered the opening.
Killers, plural?
Not necessarily. After all, Packard had seen no obvious indication of trauma. There were probably any number of alternate, far less dramatic explanations. And hell, losing sleep guessing at them was hardly constructive.
Yet the more he thought about it, the more irritated – and wired – he became. There he was, having made what might well be a major archaeological discovery, but despite the elation and crushing fatigue, his head was filled with all these mundane questions. Further, he realized, he was beating up on himself for letting Jeff phone the Sheriff that early – before he’d had a chance to assess it with a fresher mind. That’s when Packard finally gave himself permission to go to sleep.
In what seemed like ten minutes, V.J. Toland showed up with the Coroner, local physician Dr. George Quinn. Their arrival had been preceded a short time earlier by Fran Jeeter, who’d heard V.J. on the scanner in her kitchen. She considerately, if impatiently, waited for V.J.’s arrival before awakening Packard.
Several feet from Meg Brady, Quinn was soberly examining the more-or-less intact recent-vintage skeleton, which was laid out before him on a folding table. The smell of breakfast bacon and coffee was still being expelled into the damp morning air from the motor-home galley exhaust fan.
Packard was unshaven, running almost entirely on caffeine – and rush. The digging had been fairly easy, mostly loose dust rather than the usual hard, layered sediment compacted by centuries of rain and weight. Numerous skull-parts – jaws, cranial sections that had long since become separated as the connective material deteri
orated and the minerals in the sandstone did their work. And now there appeared to be more, brought to the surface by Jeff and Scott while he slept. Packard glanced at his watch. Good. Still too early to phone Dr. Goldman.
Packard knew that wasn’t his only reason for putting it off.
Below, on the trail near the entrance to the shaft, Jeff and Scott emerged with another collection of bone-fragments. They had erected a temporary barrier of yellow plastic tape, and while a recently-arrived Tribal Representative peered into the paper bags, the boys shouted at a couple of bikers and the driver of a three-wheeler at the bottom, telling them the trail was closed.
Deputy Toland looked down at them, troubled, thoughtful.
Fran referred to her notes. “Okay. We’re still Professor of American Archaeological Studies, University of Southwestern Colorado, right?”
“Fran, please?”
“V.J., the damn paper closes in three hours. You wanta wait till next week to see your name mentioned?”
Toland sighed resignedly, pulled his phone out of its belt-holster. “All right. I just hope it won’t hafta be for too long.” As he dialed, he turned toward the tent. “Anything, doc?”
Quinn didn’t look up. “Not much so far. Male, Caucasian, five-ten, ten-and-a-half. Brown-black hair. 35 to 45 years of age. Weighed 160, 165. Fractured his right radius sometime back. Nasty break. Lost some bone. And he had sorta limited mobility in his left ankle. Compression fracture of the talus. Like something struck it. That’s old, too.”
“That’s not much?” Fran was rapidly scribbling notes.
Packard grinned. George Quinn seemed to know his business.
“H-hold on, Martha...” V.J. cupped the phone. “But no idea how the guy died?”
“Not so far.” Quinn was carefully turning the skeleton over.
“Okay, Martha, we’re shutting down the Muleshoe Canyon Trail effective now... That’s an indefinite... Tell me... I know I know. Do it anyway.” He disconnected, re-holstered the phone. “You watch. About ten minutes this thing’s gonna start ringin’ off the hook.”
“So turn it off. That’s the beauty of those things.” Fran bored in. “Now, Dr. Packard – these older bones – you care to estimate how old?
V.J. lifted his hat, wiped his brow with his sleeve. “This turns out to be a homicide it’ll be our first in I don’t know how long.”
Fran got past her annoyance at being interrupted. “Your memory’s conveniently short, V.J. It’s less than six weeks ago Clyde Dalzell went postal with his AR-fourteen. Down by the Burger King. And the week before that---”
“All right, okay?”
“You’ll hafta forgive him, Dr. Packard – although I’d rather you didn’t. The gun-humps---”
“Fran, I said that’s enough---”
Fran ignored him. “...the gun-humps around here – they’re kinda prickly these days, since I started a series of pieces about the N.R.A. and other forms of insanity.” Fran had already explained to Packard that she’d spent most of her working life as a reporter, as had her father before her, for The Moab Mirror Gazette.
Quinn was squinting through his bifocals at the skull’s dental work. “I’d guess this fella could go some further back. Hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty years or so. Judging from how he’s still knit together pretty good, wouldn’t you say, Dr. Packard?”
“No more than a hundred would be my guess. Given the hair and the amount of cartilage still in place – and the really minimal onset of mineralization.”
“I recall that’s about how long dentists have been using silver fillings. Pretty good work it is, too. Probably big city.”
Packard was becoming more impressed with Quinn by the minute. “Our lab equipment at the university isn’t much good on anything more recent than 500 years, but if you’ll let me borrow a couple of bone samples we might turn up something – even if we have to farm it out.”
“No problem.”
V.J. leaned in, forehead deeply furrowed, eyeballed the skull. “And no other signs of violence.”
Quinn didn’t answer. He was stooped intently over the skeleton, gouging at a flattish bone with his pocketknife.
After a beat, V.J. shrugged. “Oookay.”
Earlier, George Quinn had discovered a few shreds of what appeared to be cotton caught in the more recent skeleton’s knee-joint. He opined that it was probably from the man’s underwear shorts.
V.J. liked things to make sense, even if he had to reach for it. “Gee, I don’t know. Guy dies way out here – with no clothes on except maybe his skivvies? And they’re down around his knees? You s’pose he could’ve been youknow pooping?”
Fran grinned. “Or – how about – he died having sex.”
V.J.’s eyes rolled upward. “Sure – and the woman just shoves him in a hole and then pushes a rock that weighs maybe a couple thousand pounds?”
Fran winked at Packard. “How do we know it was a woman?”
It was a moment before V.J. got it. “Just give it a rest, okay? I’m the one has to write a goddam report on this.”
Now he opted for a run at Jeff and Scott, who had joined them, were passing their paper sacks to Meg. “So. You fellas find anything else? Fabric or – or leather – or identification?”
Packard glanced inquiringly at Jeff, who shook his head. “Zip. And we just hit the bottom of the shaft. Pretty much cleaned it out, except for crumbs.”
V.J. sighed. “Okay, Professor, now you said he fell on top of the other skeletons? How d’you know that?”
“The other bones, the ones underneath him, appeared to have shattered in a pattern – a footprint, if you will – that indicates something fairly dense fell on them. Like a fresh body. I took some photos of the break-pattern, but the film’s still in my camera. Meg, can I see a couple of those rib fragments?”
Fran had been groping for an angle since she arrived. “Excuse me, Dr. Packard, would you happen to have a theory about why all of ‘em seem to be male?”
“Ohchrist. Now you’re tryin’ to make out they’re some kinda stone-age woman-bashers?”
Meg almost cracked up, handed Packard two brown bone-pieces which he displayed to V.J. and Fran, holding them break-to-break. “These’re from directly below our mystery man. Y’see – as if something pushed from above?”
“What about a rock?” V.J. asked.
“I think these were fractured by something softer. More of a crush-effect.” Packard explained how the cracking would have differed had the bone been struck by something hard. “And then, as our guy decomposed, the various acids and fats that were released increased the moisture. Which is – um...” Weariness caused Packard to lose the thought. He pinched the bridge of his nose, then: “...Which is...basically...why these bones that were in his immediate area are more fossilized than the ones further down in the shaft.”
“Fossilized...that’s what, again---?”
Fran, writing furiously, snapped at the Deputy. “For chrissakes, V.J., this isn’t a course in archaeology. Can’tcha see the man’s beat?”
“Now this is sorta interesting...” Everyone turned. With the knife, George Quinn finished prying a small piece of metal out of the skeleton’s shoulder-blade. “And it tends to confirm what Dr. Packard’s tellin’ you...” He held the object up between thumb and forefinger of his latex-gloved hand, eyeballing it from various angles. “Embedded in the fella’s left scapula.”
Packard was closest to him, suddenly alert. “A – bullet?”
“Looks like. Thirty caliber. Steel jacket.”
FOUR
1963
Monday, November 18th
“This the one you meant?” Phyllis indicated the blue pin-striped shirt draped over her ironing board.
“Yeah.” Charlie’s jaw hurt like hell, along with his ribs and lower back. When he finally got out of bed a few minutes ago he’d pissed blood. He scanned the sports pages. Boring. Mostly football and basketball. Well, Spring Training was only a few months away.
> “We were going to catch that picture. Ticklish Affair? At the drive-in? You love Shirley Jones. And tomorrow – we were supposed to go to the Kovaks’ cookout?”
“Jesus Phyl, it’s business.”
She ironed. Her silence admonitory.
“It’s a skip-job, hon. They already got a three-four day head start.”
A moment, then, her voice noticeably tighter: “Eddie Nordstrom called from the bank and---”
“I’m gettin’ a thousand up front.”
More ironing, then: “Lynnie. Charlie, I---”
“Phyl, she’ll be okay. I made her promise to call when she gets there. Just don’t yell at her.”
“What time did you get in last night?” She hung his shirt on a wire hanger, hooked it on the doorknob with the others and removed her apron, which she folded and placed in a drawer.
“Three-ish. I don’t know.” Her orderliness made Charlie want to get back in bed.
“Four-seventeen it was.” She unplugged the iron, coiled the cord, put it in the cabinet.
“Okay – four-seventeen.” Charlie brought the coffee cup to his lips. The pain caused him to suck air through his teeth. Phyllis shook her head. He bit into his toast, taking care not to open his mouth too wide.
At 39 Phyllis was still a good-looking woman. A little haggard in the face, but a good body. Every so often Charlie felt a little disloyal, but the truth was it had never been great. The sex, her fastidiousness. Phyllis was an ash-tray-emptier. And would only make love in the dark.
As far as Charlie was concerned, Phyllis had bought into what most American women were conditioned to believe, that they were hopelessly inadequate without eight layers of makeup, false eyelashes, padded bras and hair you could stand a drink on without leaving a ring. The perfect person to be running a beauty parlor. And fuck up their daughter. Lynnie was on her way to being gorgeous. It made him sad to think she might have inherited her mother’s hang-ups.
Charlie, out of the Army two weeks, was riding a bus into Chicago’s Loop to report for his new security job at Marshall Field’s. And there she was, across the aisle. Turned out like one of those magazine ads. Groomed. Perfect. Hair, everything. The Breck Shampoo girl. Down to the circle pin and the little white gloves. She was reading John Hersey’s A Bell for Adano. Charlie made some sort of literate-sounding comment about having lived the story, and two nights later they were in bed together.
The Sixteenth Man Page 3