A Rumor of Bones: A Lindsay Chamberlain Mystery

by Beverly Connor

"Most women think so."

  "Do you know him well?"

  "We've been friends for a long time. We went to graduate school together," Lindsay replied, wondering what Marsha was fishing for.

  "I understand you've known Frank a long time, too."

  Ah, thought Lindsay, of course. My relationship with Frank. "Yes. We have worked other sites together." Lindsay left it at that, and silence settled uncomfortably between them.

  They passed an ornate entranceway with liontopped pillars and heavy wrought iron gates emblazoned with a large flowery T. Marsha nodded her head toward the gates.

  "That's Tylerwynd. Isabel Tyler is what passes for the town matriarch. She thinks she still lives in the past when her family owned the town and everyone worked for them. Sarah Pruitt, the mother of the missing girl, is Isabel's husband's niece. He's dead now, and Isabel has disinherited Sarah. I suppose Isabel doesn't want her own children to share the family inheritance with any of her husband's family."

  "Sounds like a disagreeable woman"

  "She is. She's certainly a strange woman"

  They arrived at the sheriff's department, and Marsha led Lindsay through the reception area. A young-looking couple sat huddled together, holding each other's hands. They looked up expectantly at Lindsay and Marsha. Another man, about the same age as the couple, stood behind them with his hands on both their shoulders.

  The sheriff stood and held out his hand to Lindsay.

  "I'm Sheriff Greg Duggan. Marsha tells me you're a forensics expert" He looked skeptical. "Somehow I pictured you as a much older person"

  Lindsay took his hand. She had met him before when he came out to visit the site, but apparently he didn't remember her, probably because she had been covered with mud.

  The sheriff was a large man with wavy graying blond hair and even, white teeth. He looked good humored, but Lindsay had overheard some of the locals in a diner say that he could be a son-of-a-bitch.

  "Yes, sir, I am. My name is Lindsay Chamberlain."

  "This is Sarah and Mike Pruitt and Sarah's cousin, Mickey Lawson" The sheriff performed the introductions.

  They did not offer their hands but nodded their heads, as if any unnecessary movement was beyond them. Sarah had a large envelope in her lap and timidly handed it to Lindsay. Tears brimmed in her blue eyes, which held the familiar painful expression of hope and dread. Lindsay took the envelope and steeled herself as she opened it. She took out photographs of a smiling, dimpled, blonde, curly-headed little girl.

  "When were these taken?" asked Lindsay.

  "About a month before she ... before she got lost," answered Mike Pruitt.

  "How long will it take?" Sarah Pruitt asked.

  "I don't know," said Lindsay kindly. "Possibly not long. Has she ever had dental work?"

  Sarah shook her head, sobbing softly. "She didn't have any cavities. We were so proud of how she took care of her teeth"

  "Did she ever have any broken bones, or x-rays taken for any reason?"

  Sarah Pruitt shook her head. "No."

  "Okay, thank you, Mrs. Pruitt." Lindsay directed her attention to Mickey Lawson. "I understand you are a photographer."

  He nodded his head solemnly. "Yes, ma'am, I took those pictures you're holding there."

  "Do you keep records of camera distance, negative size, focal length, and such?"

  "Yes, so if a shot is particularly good, I'll know how to reproduce it."

  Lindsay smiled. "Good. Can you get me that information for this picture?" She showed him a full-face portrait of Peggy.

  "Yes, this is a standard shot. I'll have to look in my files to make sure, but I think I can give you the information you want. I'll go back to my studio now and get it."

  "Thank you." Lindsay looked up at the sheriff, and he took her cue.

  "This way," he said, escorting her through a doorway. Marsha stayed with the Pruitts.

  The sheriff showed Lindsay to a back room lined with locked gun cabinets. A couple of worn couches, a dilapidated coffee table, and an old television created a lounge in one corner. In another corner stood two long tables, chairs, and a chalkboard. On one of the tables sat a white plastic tub. Lindsay could see the shadow of bones through its thin sides. No one was in the room except a stout deputy, standing erect by the table as if guarding the bones. He smiled broadly as they approached.

  "This is Deputy Andy Littleton," the sheriff said.

  "Howdy do, ma'am." He inclined his head.

  "Hello. These are the bones then?"

  "Yes, ma'am. I gathered them up myself. I was real careful with them."

  Lindsay smiled at him as she slipped on a pair of latex gloves and pulled the tub toward her. She began placing the bones on the table in their anatomical positions. Most were still articulated with thin leathery strips of ligament. A waxy odor rose to her nostrils. Even this was information to her. Lindsay expected the odor to be stronger from bones only a year and a half old.

  "Did she have her dog with her when she disappeared?"

  The deputy looked puzzled.

  "Not that I know of," answered the sheriff.

  "This is the front leg bone of a dog," said Lindsay, holding up the bone. The deputy looked a little embarrassed, as if he had done something wrong, but she smiled at him. "Bones can get mixed up in the ground-erosion, animal activity, all kinds of reasons"

  She set the bone aside, took out the skull, and examined it. Then she looked at the photograph.

  "These are not the bones of the Pruitt girl."

  The sheriff, who until now had appeared to be gaining confidence in Lindsay's expert handling of the bones, looked surprised.

  "How can you tell from just looking at the photograph?"

  Lindsay pointed to the picture. "Peggy has a pronounced dimple in her chin, almost a cleft, which means she would probably have a dimple in the underlying bone. Notice that the chin on the skull is smooth and pointed, not like Peggy's at all. Her chin is a little squared. Also, look at the teeth. You can see both the upper and lower teeth in her smile. Notice how they fit together. Now look at the teeth in the skull." Lindsay held the skull and lower mandible so they could see the bite articulated. "This child had an overbite. Also, the lower incisors are slightly crooked and are beginning to overlap. Peggy's are straight. This child will have a small heart shaped face with a small pointed chin and a slight overbite."

  "Okay, you've convinced me," said the sheriff.

  "These bones have been in the ground a lot longer than 18 months. In that short period of time, I would expect more skin and sinew to still be attached. Of course, that depends on how oxygenated the soil is..." Lindsay hesitated a moment, not sure if she wanted to proceed or just go and leave this to someone else. Finally, she said, "I would still like to make all the measurements on the bones."

  "Sure," the sheriff agreed, touching the little skull with his fingertips. "We still have to find out who this was."

  Lindsay told the Pruitts, and they grasped each other's hands and thanked her through teary smiles, as if they had been given a miracle. The sheriff saw them out, and Lindsay went back to the bones.

  When she completed examining the bones, she took a deep breath, wondering if she should have left after telling the Pruitts this was not their daughter. The coroner would return eventually, and he could deal with these little bones. Her eyes stung with tears that threatened, but did not spill over.

  The back room of the sheriff's department was quiet. Earlier, some of the deputies and secretaries had come in and watched her work with the bones. Occasionally, they asked questions, but soon grew bored watching the tedious measurements on each bone, and left. She took the stack of papers that comprised the report with its accompanying data and evened the edges by gently bouncing the pages on the table, just as the sheriff came through the door carrying two cups of coffee.

  "I should have brought you something sooner," he said. His broad smile was a welcome relief.

  "That's all right," she answered, taking the
cup from his hand and smiling at him. "I've finished the report."

  He looked at her for a moment. Lindsay realized he had noticed her teary eyes, and it embarrassed her. He said nothing, however, and merely pulled up a chair as he picked up the pages, sipping his coffee as he read the report. "Says here, sex is undetermined."

  "You can't really sex the skeletal remains of children."

  "Undetermined cause of death," he read.

  "I didn't find anything that would suggest a cause." She paused. "But there is something I need to show you." She set her coffee down, rose from her chair, and beckoned to him. The sheriff walked over and stood beside her.

  "The bones of children are more elastic," she began, "because they are still growing. In many ways they are harder to break. However, they are also delicate. Look at this." She picked up the pelvic bones. "This region is the pubis bone. It is the front part of the pelvic girdle. The two halves of the pubis bone have been pulled apart. You can see the damage mostly in the stretched tendons." Lindsay pointed to the left femur. "This is the upper leg bone. This rounded area joins the pelvis in this cup-shaped area. Look at the damage to the iliofemoral ligaments that attach the two. I believe they have been stretched and torn, as if the leg has been pulled away from the socket. And no clothes were found on the body. All traces of clothing would not have disappeared this soon."

  "Oh, God," exclaimed the sheriff.

  "I'm showing you this specifically because it suggests some of the things that happened, and if you find the skeleton of Peggy Pruitt, it may show the same pattern of damage. Both children are roughly the same age. Two children of the same age missing -it may be a pattern."

  "Don't mention this to anyone," he said.

  "I won't."

  The sheriff sat back down in the chair and rubbed his eyes with his fingers. "This is bad business." He picked up the report again and thumbed through it. "You signed it, Lindsay R. Chamberlain, Ph.D."

  "Yes"

  "You have some kind of doctor's degree in this?"

  "Yes. I've also appeared as an expert witness in court before"

  The sheriff looked satisfied with that.

  Lindsay and the sheriff were leaving when a short, plump-faced fiftyish man dressed in a white suit came in and walked toward them holding out his hand to Lindsay. He had a full head of dark hair that she observed was a toupee.

  "This is Seymour Plackert," said the sheriff. "He's an attorney in town."

  "And you are Lindsay Chambers, one of the archaeologists," he informed them. He barely looked at Lindsay as he took her hand, gave it a brief shake, and let go.

  "Lindsay Chamberlain," she said.

  "Yes, well..." He turned to the sheriff. "Mrs. Tyler asked me to drop by. This," he gestured briefly at the tub of bones, "might have been her grand-niece. She thought I should come by and talk to you."

  "It's not Peggy."

  "Yes, but we want to be sure, you understand."

  "We are," the sheriff answered.

  "Well, it was mighty nice of the archaeologists to send someone out to help, but you understand her identification needs to be verified by an expert"

  Lindsay opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again after seeing the hard set of the sheriff's face.

  "Dr. Chamberlain is a court recognized expert. I have read her report, and she has explained how she ruled out the bones as Peggy's. I'm satisfied. Now if there is nothing else I can do for you, I need to finish with Dr. Chamberlain."

  "No, nothing else. I'll tell Mrs. Tyler your position."

  He nodded curtly at Lindsay and left the room.

  The sheriff watched Plackert leave, then turned to Lindsay. "I don't like lawyers. Never did." He smiled. "I'll take you back to the site."

  For most of the way back, they didn't speak. The sheriff seemed irritated and preoccupied, and Lindsay didn't want to get involved in any town politics. Finally, before he turned off onto the dirt road that led to the site, she broke the silence. "This may sound unusual, but since the crime scene is old, it's a good idea."

  "What?" he asked, looking over at her briefly.

  "Let me have part of the site crew excavate the place where the bones were found" She saw skepticism in his face, "Look, we can find trade beads a millimeter in size. We can find fish bones so tiny they look like hairs. The crew can do a thorough excavation in the immediate area around the child's gravesift and float all the dirt, the whole works, and do a surface survey of a larger area. We have the methodology for the kind of thoroughness needed for the task, and we have a good eye for finding anomalies. It is what we do"

  The sheriff said nothing until he pulled into the makeshift parking lot at the site. "I suppose it is really the same thing, isn't it? Archaeology and crime investigation?"

  "Yes. All we're doing here at the site is looking for clues."

  "Have you had any more problems with masked vandals?" he asked.

  "No"

  "I'll have the deputies put this place on their night route"

  "Thanks. We appreciate that"

  "Thank you for the analysis. I'll be in touch."

  He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone.

  -Charles Churchill

  The Rosciad

  Chapter 2

  LINDSAY HOPPED OUT of the sheriff's car and walked straight to her tent, one among six that formed two opposite sides of a square where the professional site crew was housed. The third side was a long tent that functioned as a laboratory and storage area for artifacts. The fourth side was another storage tent and another crew member's tent. Lindsay dropped her backpack inside the doorway of her tent and went to find Jane, whom she had left in charge of the burials.

  It was three o'clock, and the blistering sun was reflecting off the ground in waves of heat. The digging had stopped for the day, and only a few supervisors milled around discussing what was to be done the next day. Jane was nowhere to be seen, and the site was covered with different-sized squares of protective black plastic anchored with stones. Derrick came out of a group of trees bordering the site, wiping his face with a damp T-shirt. His long brown hair hung dark and limp on his bare shoulders.

  It had been a hot day at the dig. Derrick had a sly smile on his face, and his soft brown eyes appeared to twinkle. He was known for his elaborate practical jokes, and Lindsay wondered what he was up to.

  "Who's going to get it this time?" she asked as he approached.

  Derrick feigned a look of innocence and asked her what she meant. "Never mind. I suppose I'll find out soon enough. Have you seen Jane?"

  "We heard you were taken by the local gendarmes. We thought they might keep you overnight, so Jane is off raising bail."

  "Really. Where is she?... Sorry, I didn't mean to be short"

  "Were you short?" Derrick said kindly. "I didn't notice. Jane is in town. She said to tell you all the open burials have been photographed and packed and are in the lab."

  "Thanks."

  "Found three more today," he said, pointing to a patch of black plastic. They walked to an area adjacent to the open excavations. Derrick kneeled and lifted the plastic, revealing a large dark stain in the smooth soil in the shape of a lopsided heart with a rounded point. "Looks like one burial intrudes into the other," he said, "I don't know which is older. Jane gave them numbers: 22 and 23"

  "Okay. Heard the weather report?"

  "Clear. Looks like the rain may have passed us by. I guess ole Ned was right about the weather."

  Derrick supervised the digging crew, whose job was to remove the overburden from the site floor, then shave it clean, revealing patterns left by the ancient inhabi tants. He was also in charge of mapping. It was the services of Derrick and his crew that Lindsay may have committed to the sheriff. She must have had a guilty expression, because Derrick gave her a quizzical smile.

  "And just what are you up to?"

  "You said there were three new burials?" she asked, diverting his attention. She wanted to speak to Frank before she dis
cussed digging the crime scene with Derrick.

  "The other burial is near the new structure." He placed the plastic over the burials and pointed across the site.

  "Where is Frank?"

  Derrick frowned. "Arguing with Ned."

  "Doesn't Ned ever get tired of arguing?"

  "I think he probably gets more tired when nobody pays attention to him. He's going on like Chicken Little about the dam"

  "Even if they were to start on the dam today, we would still have time to finish a thorough investigation before the place is flooded, wouldn't we?"

  "Yes. But you know Ned. Just because he spent his summers surface collecting around here, he thinks he's got some psychic link with the place."

  "You'd think he would appreciate Frank's thoroughness"

  Derrick shook his head. "Ned's really just upset because Frank has top billing here."

  Lindsay frowned and gazed out over the site. She spotted a lone crew member digging just outside the main boundaries of the site. He looked down at his work, cursed, and went to another spot, where he started digging again.

  "What is Thomas doing?" she asked.

  Derrick grinned. "Thomas wanted to dig something really significant, so Frank and I gave him a piece of ground just outside the palisade to work on his own. We thought we could watch him and make sure he didn't screw up too much. He uncovered some parallel rows of stains, and he thinks they were the posts of a long house"

  "A long house? Here? You're kidding."

  "No, I'm not kidding. He's cross-sectioning the holes. I think he's finding that they were rows of trees and not post-holes. He curses every time the crosssection shows up the tree roots."

  Lindsay smiled for the first time since she got back, then sobered. "I need to talk to Frank. Point me in his direction, and maybe I can rescue him from Ned"

  "They're down at the flotation dock"

  Lindsay walked to the large covered dock extending into the river that bordered one edge of the site. As she got closer, she heard Frank's raised voice.

  "Dammit, Ned, what is wrong with you? Do you know how much we would miss if we take your approach?"

  "Why don't you listen to me?" Ned yelled back. "I'm not saying we just sample artifact clusters. I'm saying we combine sampling techniques. The way you are going about it, they will flood the place before you finish, and how much will we miss then?"