A Rumor of Bones: A Lindsay Chamberlain Mystery

by Beverly Connor

  "Great," she told the skull. "I'm going to be dead on my feet at the site, and it's your fault. Maybe I can sneak a nap during lunch."

  She took the plaster skull to her tent and put it in a box under the table. Tomorrow she would call a friend at the university and ask him to send her the kit she would need to reconstruct the face.

  Lindsay didn't nap during lunch. Instead, she picked up some of Derrick's duties. Careful not to make any serious mistake with the measurements, she double checked as she recorded the numbers she saw on the rod through the scope. It was her bad luck that Frank had assigned her to a task that required concentration.

  "What's this I hear about Burial 23?"

  Lindsay turned to face Ned, who was glowering at her. His Burnside-style mustache and sideburns had been neatly trimmed, giving him the appearance of a Civil War general in jeans and T-shirt.

  "You been for a shave and hair cut?" she asked.

  "Don't change the subject"

  "What have you heard?" she asked.

  "Frank told me that you found someone in the ground who wasn't supposed to be there"

  Lindsay almost laughed. "That's right, and I told her so, too."

  Ned did not smile. "You know what I mean."

  "I'm in the process of analyzing the bones"

  "Why didn't you just cover it back up?"

  "That would've been illegal. Ned, why are you in such a hurry?"

  "I just want the site dug"

  "Everything seems to be going fine. I really don't understand-"

  Frank walked up next to them. "Ned, the scouts will be here in a couple of days. Do you want to take half of them and open up another section?"

  "Yes, but I need some professional crew as well."

  "We are almost finished up here, then-"

  "Tell Lindsay to cover up any more bodies she finds." He marched away.

  Lindsay shook her head as she and Frank watched him recruit some of the field school students to help him mark off Section 4 to prepare for digging. They could hear the students protest being pulled off the structure they were working on.

  "How about dinner?" Frank asked Lindsay.

  "I'm exhausted" Lindsay rubbed her eyelids with her finger tips.

  "What? From this little mapping?" asked Frank.

  "I stayed up all night last night."

  "Doing what?"

  "Just working with the bones"

  Frank frowned. "Pack up the transit. You've done enough work for one day. If I had known you had been up all night, I wouldn't have piled all that extra work on you."

  "I was on my own time. I was working on Burial 23"

  "All night`? Doing what?"

  "Making a cast of the skull. I'm going to reconstruct her face."

  Frank eyed her for a moment. "Why?" he asked.

  "Someone shot her and dumped her in the middle of nowhere and left her there for 60 years. I want to at least know what she looked like."

  "She was shot?" said Frank

  "Yes. I found a bullet in the cranium."

  She thought he might remind her not to take time away from the site on a task that was not really their responsibility. But what he said was, "I'd like you to spend some of your free time with me" He pushed a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. "I'll go get us a pizza. You might find you're hungry after all."

  Frank walked to his car. Lindsay stood for a long time watching him drive out of sight.

  "Damn!" Michelle came hurrying up to Lindsay. "He got away before I could catch him. Do you know Ned came and commandeered some of my crew? He didn't even ask. At least he could have taken that damn Jeremy."

  "Jeremy? Isn't he that smart-mouthed kid?" asked Lindsay as she motioned for the student holding the survey rod to pack it in. "What's he up to now?"

  "Just his usual royal pain-in-the-ass routine. Always sarcastic. I have to watch him all the time, or he'll mess up something in the structure."

  "Have you mentioned him to Frank"

  "Yeah, but Frank thinks Jeremy's just being a normal student. You know, immature and irresponsible. Frank says he will straighten up when he understands what he is supposed to do. At the house he keeps trying to sneak upstairs to the girls' section. I've asked Ned to make him stay downstairs, but Ned won't even talk to him. I don't know why Frank let Ned supervise the male students in the house. He is hardly ever there"

  "You want me to talk to Frank?"

  "I'd like you to take Jeremy off my hands. Next time you open up burials, let him sift the fill. He can't screw up much there"

  "Sure"

  Lindsay packed and stored the transit, then went to her tent. She stretched out on her bed and was asleep when Frank returned with the pizza. He quietly called her name and entered the darkened tent. She raised her head, confused for a moment.

  "I think you need sleep more than you need pizza." He kissed her cheek and left.

  The next day was hectic. Thomas pestered her to let him do a burial, so she put him and Sally on Burial 24. The sheriff and Derrick arrived about the time that Thomas went ballistic with excitement. Frank and Lindsay were standing in a structure, discussing a cache of animal bones when Thomas jumped up and shouted, "It's an atlatl!"

  "What now?" groaned Frank.

  Lindsay walked to the burial. "What you got?" She directed her question to Sally, who grinned up at her.

  "His ribs are covered with copper gorgets"

  Lindsay peered at the mass of green oxidized copper overlaying the bones. "See, the copper preserved the wood," said Thomas. "It is an atlatl."

  "I think it's probably the sternum," said Lindsay calmly.

  "I doubt there'd be any throwing sticks at this site," said Frank. "Atlatis were much earlier."

  "Some isolated places still used them in historic times," Ned answered. "This may be evidence supporting my hypothesis."

  "Look at the shape," insisted Thomas. "It looks just like an atlatl.

  "You can't see much of the shape. We'll see when it's excavated," said Lindsay.

  "Look at this," said Sally, pointing to a cache of fancy arrowheads. "Think we have the chief here?"

  Frank was sitting on his haunches, looking into the burial. He gave Sally an annoyed look as if to say, Don't encourage Thomas. "There is no way to know," he said. "The only thing we can say is that he did have a high status"

  "Or she," said Sally.

  "It will be a he," said Frank.

  "It looks like a she. Look at the brow ridge."

  "I think when you uncover the pelvis, you'll find it is a he," said Frank.

  Lindsay looked up to see the sheriff and Derrick peering into the burial along with everyone else. "Found something special?" he asked.

  Lindsay and Frank stood up to greet him. "Looks like we uncovered a VIP," said Frank. "At least he has quite a collection of grave goods"

  "And an atlatl," Thomas boasted. "You don't find too many of them because they are made of wood. Being next to the copper preserved it."

  Lindsay rolled her eyes upward.

  "Atlatl?" asked the sheriff.

  "Throwing stick," said Lindsay. "You use it with a spear to give extra leverage when you throw. But this is the breast bone."

  "Well, look at this!" shouted Thomas. "Tell me it's not a banner stone." He picked up a smooth stone and handed it to Frank.

  "A banner stone is used to weight an atlatl," Derrick explained for the sheriff's benefit.

  They looked up at Lindsay and grinned, as if suddenly the great Lindsay could be mistaken, humbled by the likes of Thomas. Derrick, however, winked his "I'm with you, kid" wink at her. The sheriff grinned as if he were witnessing a contest.

  Lindsay could see this was becoming a matter of face. "That's most likely the head of a club, not a banner stone"

  "Don't some people think that's what a banner stone is really for, to make it double as a war club?" asked Thomas.

  "We'll see when it gets uncovered," Frank said, smiling at Lindsay. Turning to the sheriff, he sai
d, "Is this social or business?"

  "Business, but it can wait for the outcome of the controversy here. I'd just as soon wait."

  "We can't take it up until it's photographed, and the preparation for that will take a while," said Frank. "We can go have a Coke and talk if you want."

  "Lindsay better come, too," he said. They walked over to the eating area, which was out of the sun and out of hearing distance.

  "Don't you all get so excited that you rip out all the artifacts before they're recorded," Frank shouted back at the crew.

  They sat at the table, and Derrick reached into the cooler and pulled out bottles of soda for everyone .

  "Ah, this is good," said the sheriff. "It still has ice in it." He allowed everyone to take a few sips of drink before he said anything else. Then he told them, "Derrick found more bones."

  Lindsay was silent for a moment, then realized he meant bones of another child. "Oh, no," she whispered.

  "I know," said the sheriff. "I'm keeping it quiet until we can identify them. I thought you might go back with me and take a look."

  They drank their drinks in silence. Lindsay sipped slowly so she would not finish too soon. After a while Sally shouted and waved for them to come over.

  Thomas and Sally had cleaned the dirt from the chest area of the burial. A series of green copper plates covered most of the front of the rib cage. A long bone or wooden looking object lay in the center of the chest, surrounded and half covered by the copper. Sally said, "I think you can see something now, Lindsay."

  Lindsay reached down with a tongue depressor and gently tried to lift a plate. The copper was fused to the underlying bone. "I'm afraid the answer may have to wait until the burial is finished and photographed," she said. She tried the uppermost plate. It came loose, and she could see the shape of the object in question and how it had been articulated to the now-vanished costal cartilage. "The sternum," she said.

  "Are you sure?" said Thomas with great disappointment but no chagrin in his voice.

  Lindsay thought that Ned looked even more disappointed than Thomas.

  "Yes. Take a look."

  "Looks like a sternum to me," said Derrick.

  "Well, your reputation is still intact." Frank was smiling at her.

  "Was it ever in question?" Lindsay feigned surprise. "I had no idea. Amazing how you can build it up over the years and almost lose it in a moment." She rose, wiped off her hands on Frank's shirt front, and left with the sheriff and Derrick for another grim task in town.

  "As a kid I had an interest in medieval weapons, bows and such," said the sheriff as he drove them to his office. "I thought I knew almost all the different kinds of weapons, but I never heard of an atlatl."

  "It was quite an ingenious device," said Derrick, leaning forward from his seat in the back. "The throwing stick, in effect, lengthens the thrower's arm. The leverage increases the power of the spear by several times. If you tie a banner stone onto it, the stone increases the mass and you can get even more power in the throw."

  "Interesting," said the sheriff. "I guess these Indians were more inventive than I thought." He turned his head to Lindsay. "Pretty touch-and-go for a moment back there for you"

  "Not really," Derrick answered for her. "Lindsay knows her bones. At a party in graduate school, some of us took Sebastian-he was one of our skeletons in the osteology lab-took him apart and added a few animal bones to the mix. We blindfolded Lindsay, and she identified every bone, even which side it belonged, by only the feel. But the most fantastic thing was the skull. We substituted Fred, a kind of twin to Sebastian. The department had ordered a male and a female, but got two males. We had to scrounge around for a female. I won't tell you where. But anyway, Fred looked just like Sebastian to all of us, but Lindsay knew the difference as soon as she got her fingers on the skull. We called her the Great Lindsay after that."

  The sheriff, grinning, turned to Lindsay. "Is that true?"

  "Yes. But it wasn't that big of a deal. All the diagnostic characteristics of bones can be felt. Still, I wouldn't have been able to live it down if Thomas, of all people, had been right."

  "Why him?" asked the sheriff.

  "This is Thomas's first course in archaeology," she said. "Since I have a Ph.D. I'm expected to know more." She grinned. "The other day he thought he had a long house. That's kind of like an Indian government building-but it was only a couple of rows of trees"

  "A few weeks ago he thought he had found a canoe," said Derrick.

  "A canoe?" said Lindsay. "I didn't hear about that"

  "That was before you arrived. You should have heard him. He was almost delirious."

  "What was it?" asked the sheriff.

  "A cache of fallen trees not quite decomposed. It was fairly shallow in the overburden. I expect it was where the paper company who used to own the land piled them up and covered them over a few years ago"

  "Thomas is an excitable fellow, I take it."

  "Yes," affirmed Lindsay. "But the truth is, we all enjoy the fantastic finds"

  "What's the most interesting thing you've found?" the sheriff asked.

  "I enjoy the point caches in some of the burials," said Derrick. "You can get some remarkably intricate designs, beautiful ceremonial blades, elegantly flaked points."

  "Derrick is a great flint knapper," said Lindsay. "He's made some beautiful blades himself. I found a Spanish sword once. That was thrilling. This burial with the copper should have loads of interesting things in it."

  "Come out to the site sometime," said Derrick, and I'll show you how an atlatl works"

  "You have one?"

  "Yeah, I made one"

  "I'll do that. I enjoy odd weapons"

  At the sheriff's department, Derrick transferred to his jeep and drove back to the crime scene. Inside, the sheriff and Lindsay found Sarah and Mike Pruitt waiting in his office. Sheriff Duggan was visibly annoyed.

  "We heard you found another skeleton," Sarah said.

  "Where did you hear that?" the sheriff asked.

  "I ... I'd rather not say," she said softly.

  "I think it would be better if you went home and let us call you," said the sheriff.

  "Now, look here-" began Mike Pruitt.

  "Please, Mr. Pruitt, you will be more comfortable at home," interrupted the sheriff. "This could take a while."

  "It didn't take that long last time," protested Sarah.

  Lindsay answered, "That was because the teeth were clearly different from your daughter's teeth in the photograph. If these teeth occlude properly, like many children's do, I will have to rely on other more timeconsuming methods. Please listen to the sheriff and wait at home. You will be much more comfortable, and this could take several hours."

  They reluctantly agreed, and the sheriff escorted them to their car. When he returned, Deputy Andy Littleton took the first brunt of his anger.

  "Who told them?"

  "I don't know, sir. I didn't. You said not to."

  "Find out who did." He turned to Lindsay. "Thanks for the help with the Pruitts. The bones are in the back. I guess you know the way by now."

  Lindsay found her way to the back room. Derrick had laid the bones out in a long box. The odor was strong and unpleasant. Most of the connecting cartilage had not yet decomposed, and most of the bones were still articulated. Portions of the scalp-with wisps of blonde hair attached-still adhered to the skull. She looked at the face of the skull, mentally fleshing it out. There was a slight indentation in the chin; the teeth did occlude evenly; the orbits were a little far apart. In her heart, Lindsay knew this was little Peggy Pruitt, but she took out her measuring instruments and the photograph of Peggy and began her work.

  The camera measurements she had requested from Mickey Lawson were clipped to the photograph. Lindsay unclipped them and lay aside the figures. She began measuring the photo: nasion to gnathion, orbital height and breadth, nasal height and breadth, bizygo- matic breadth, bigonial breadth, symphysis height, and many, many more. On a s
eparate paper she made the calculations that would tell her the actual size of Peggy's head. After the calculations, she made the same measurements on the skull. The measurements on the photograph, adjusted for the actual size of the face, were all consistent with the measurements of the skull. Later, for the report, she would photograph a superimposition of the portrait of Peggy with an x-ray of the skull. Lindsay took a hand lens and carefully examined the teeth in the photograph. After a while, she rose and walked to the sheriff's office.

  The door was closed, but the sheriff's voice from inside was clear and angry. "If it turns out not to be Peggy, the Pruitts have had several hours of agony for nothing. If it is Peggy, nothing was to be gained by them knowing ahead of time."

  " I just thought-" began a voice that Lindsay recognized as that of the receptionist.

  "You just thought your judgment was better than mine. And I won't have that in this office"

  "No, I--

  "In this office confidentiality is absolutely essential. Do I make myself clear."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Good, then this won't ever happen again."

  "No, sir."

  The door burst open and Winifred hurried out, brushing past Lindsay, red-faced and embarrassed. Lindsay knocked on the open door. The sheriff jerked his head up, then smiled slightly. "Come in. Lindsay. Close the door."

  "I need another measurement from the photographer, if he has it. I was wondering if I could use your phone."

  "Sure. How is it looking?"

  "I believe it's Peggy."

  "I kind of figured so." he said. "Truthfully, I was dreading a third missing child."

  "I'm not ready to make a definite identification just yet." Lindsay dialed the number written on the back of the photograph. She reached Mickey Lawson and asked him if he kept a record of the lighting distance and angle for Peggy Pruitt's portrait. He left the phone for several minutes. When he returned, he gave her some numbers. Lindsay thanked him and hung up the phone.

  "I am going to need an official copy of these numbers from his files, or rather you are," said Lindsay. "Perhaps you could send a deputy over to his studio sometime to take his records and make photocopies of them"