A Rumor of Bones: A Lindsay Chamberlain Mystery

by Beverly Connor

  "I know that now."

  "Did you know he was going to plant pot at the site?"

  Ned sighed. "He asked me to do it." He looked up at Lindsay, his eyes puffy and bloodshot. "I refused. I did. That's why he hired that other guy."

  "What if they had found the pot in Derrick and Brian's tent?" she asked.

  "1 would've said something," Ned mumbled.

  Lindsay wondered if he would have.

  "Plackert using you that way gives you motive to murder him."

  Ned stood up and faced her. "I didn't, Lindsay. I'm not a killer, for heaven's sake. I'm not a killer."

  "Do you know who killed him?"

  "I have no idea, and I've racked my brain. I knew how it would look for me if this came out."

  "Thanks for telling me"

  "You believe me?"

  "Yes, I do" Lindsay put a hand on his shoulder. "Take care. I'll see what I can do."

  Lindsay called for the sheriff to let her out. The keys clanked loudly against the cell door as he opened the lock. Every noise seems loud down here, she thought. As they walked back to his office, Lindsay told the sheriff why Isabel Tyler gave Ned the alibi.

  "Don't you think he heard what happened at the picnic and just made up the story?"

  "His story sounds true to me "

  "Well-crafted lies usually do"

  Lindsay didn't tell him about Ned's association with Plackert.

  "Thank you for letting me see him."

  "It doesn't make me happy doing this," he said.

  Lindsay stopped and looked at him. "I didn't think it did," she said. "We all want this solved with the true solution. It just doesn't feel right to me about Ned"

  "I don't imagine he put child killing on his resume," the sheriff said darkly.

  "You believe it's him, don't you?"

  The sheriff let out a long breath. "The little girl identified him, and he lied about his alibi."

  "He was scared, and ... and I don't know about the identification."

  The sheriff put an arm around her shoulder. "I understand how you feel." He squeezed her shoulder, then dropped his arm to his side. "How do you think I feel locking up Mickey? I've known him a long time. I've got half the town wanting to lynch him, and the other half telling me I'm a damn fool."

  "I know. It's bad any way you look at it."

  "Yes, it is. Go back to the site and dig up artifacts and try to forget this. It's not that I don't appreciate the help that you ... and Derrick ... have given me, but now I think you are too close."

  Lindsay said nothing as she walked with the sheriff to his office. She wasn't sure she was objective anymore either. When she was talking to Ned, he seemed truthful and she believed him. Away, talking with others, she had doubts.

  Frank took Lindsay to the diner to eat before they went back to the site. She told him everything Ned had told her.

  "I wasn't aware until all this came up how much it meant to him to be in charge of this particular site," said Frank.

  "Everything he said sounded so true," Lindsay said.

  Frank shrugged. "I can't imagine him killing the children. But Plackert, that's a different story. As much as the site meant to Ned, to discover that Plackert was using him and may have cost him all association with the site ... well ..."

  " 1 know," Lindsay agreed. "I think I might hang up this detective business and become an archaeologist. What do you think? Do you think archaeologists run into this much murder and mayhem?"

  Frank laughed and bit into his sandwich.

  On the way back to the site, Lindsay and Frank passed the entrance to Tylerwynd. "The answers are there," she said. "Everything has led to the Tylers, one way or another."

  "Why don't you forget about it'?" Frank asked.

  "I've tried that."

  "Funny, when we began this site, I thought we were becoming close. Now it seems we have grown apart," he said.

  "Not so much grown apart," said Lindsay. "You've become involved with Marsha."

  "And you have become close to Derrick."

  "Derrick and I have always been close."

  "This is different."

  Yes, thought Lindsay, it feels different. She was going dancing with him over the weekend. They had gone on dancing trips before-to Paris and Londonwhen they were competing. But she had never felt about him the way she did now. She found it strangely unsettling. Lindsay closed her eyes and rubbed them. Perhaps, she thought, because so much has gone on at the site, so much mystery and no closure.

  "Why are you bringing this up?" she asked.

  "1 don't know. Wistful, perhaps, for what might have been, what might be" Lindsay looked over at him. It's caring about two men at the same time that is so disconcerting, she thought.

  Everyone had questions when she and Frank arrived back at the site. Lindsay left Frank to answer them and went to her tent. She sat down on her bed, then stood up. The unsettling feeling that the case was not solved, when everyone else thought it was, wouldn't let her rest. If the sheriff were wrong about Ned ... if she were wrong about Mickey ... then there was someone else out there ready to prey upon another little blonde girl. Perhaps he had already. Lindsay couldn't get the image of the damaged little bones out of her head. She hurried out of her tent, walked across the grass, and started into Derrick's tent.

  "So, you'll take me then, and teach me to dance-" It was Michelle. She had her arms around Derrick's neck. They both looked at Lindsay standing in the doorway of the tent.

  There was a sudden lurch in Lindsay's stomach. "I'm sorry, Derrick, I didn't realize you had company," she said. Lindsay was stunned, confused, and on the verge of tears. She didn't know if she wanted to cry, to shout at Derrick, or to knock Michelle into the middle of next week. She wanted to do all those things. She turned and started to walk back to her tent but instead walked into the woods toward the beach. She hadn't gotten far when she felt a hand grip her arm. She realized then that her heart was pounding. She turned around, and Derrick gripped her shoulders.

  "Lindsay," he said, "Michelle wanted me to teach her how to dance. I agreed, and she was grateful." Derrick's voice was steady and firm, with no trace of contrition.

  "It's none of my business-" she said.

  "Whether it is or not, it has nothing to do with the two of us. Why did you leave so abruptly?"

  "Well, you were obviously busy." Lindsay felt like a jealous school girl. She stepped back to free herself, but Derrick didn't let go.

  "Look-" she began.

  "No, you look." Derrick put an arm around her waist and his other hand on the back of her head and kissed her. Lindsay started to put her arms around him when he let her go and started to say something. Suddenly, he looked past her and took off running deeper into the woods.

  Lindsay was puzzled for a second, then ran after him. Ahead, she heard a thrashing in the woods. Derrick had knocked someone down.

  "You're not supposed to come around here, you little creep!"

  Oh, God, thought Lindsay, not him. He is supposed to be gone. Anxiety churned her stomach. Patrick lay sprawled on the ground rubbing his jaw. A camera had fallen and rolled to the base of a tree. Derrick started for Patrick again, but Lindsay put a hand on his arm.

  "Patrick, the sheriff told you not to come around here," she said.

  "It's a free country," he mumbled.

  "Not everywhere," Derrick said, "and not for you if you don't leave Lindsay alone. Now leave while you still have both your arms."

  Patrick scrambled to his feet and started for his camera. Derrick picked it up and threw it hard. It soared through the air and into the river.

  "That's my camera. Who do you think you are?" Patrick seemed close to tears.

  "Go home, Patrick," Derrick said. Patrick looked defiant for a moment, glanced at Derrick, then ran off toward the river.

  "What was he doing in the woods?" Lindsay asked.

  "Lurking, I imagine. Trying to get pictures of you" Derrick put an arm around her shoulders. "I've
made arrangements for us to go to Atlanta this weekend," he said.

  "With all that is happening, Ned in jail and everything, don't you think we should wait-" Lindsay said.

  "No. There are things I want to say to you, and I don't want to say them here."

  They walked back to the site together, silent, deep in their own thoughts. It would be another hour before it was time to quit the site. Lindsay went to check on the caches of animal bones she had assigned to Sally and Thomas.

  It has been a long day, Lindsay thought. She had promised to meet Sally in the laboratory tent to go over the bones with her. She was tired and wanted to shower and go to bed. She checked the edges of the plastic covering the features she had been excavating to make sure they were sufficiently anchored. As she started toward the laboratory, her path was blocked by Michelle, her hands on her hips, her face red. She clearly was angry.

  "Do you enjoy this, or is it so automatic that you don't even know what you are doing?"

  "Michelle, what are you talking about?"

  "Please, Lindsay, get that sweet and innocent concerned-but-bewildered look off your face."

  "I'm sorry I interrupted you today. Is that what you are angry about?" Lindsay started to go around her, but Michelle moved to block her path.

  I don't think you are a bit sorry. But you are so good at what you do, it even took me a while to catch on" Michelle dropped her hands to her sides. Her eyes narrowed.

  "What do you mean?" Lindsay's head hurt from the heat, and she was running out of patience with Michelle.

  "The way you stay poised between Frank and Derrick. You stand between them, so elegantly undecided." Michelle mimicked graceful arm movements and pitched her voice several notes higher. "Is it Derrick or Frank? Frank or Derrick? Oh, how can I decide?" She stopped for a moment, then spoke in her normal voice. "You make me so sick."

  "Michelle, I don't know what you are talking about," Lindsay said. It was the hottest part of the day, and the heat was reflecting off the light, smooth surface of the site. Michelle was already wet from working all afternoon in the heat, and Lindsay could feel the trickle of perspiration down her own face and under her arms. She was having trouble keeping her thoughts straight.

  "How do you think Marsha feels?" Michelle asked.

  "Marsha?"

  "Yes, Marsha," said Michelle. "She deserves more than what she is getting right now, and I think she is being a very good sport about it. Just as soon as she makes some headway with Frank, you come along again with that maybe-it's-you-after-all look, and he goes panting after you again."

  "Has she said something to you?" Lindsay asked.

  "No, but I can see it on her face."

  "Why doesn't she say something?"

  "Say what? How can she compete with you? She's a small town girl, and you're the great Lindsaywell-educated, beautiful, self-assured. Hell, you've even got the sheriff panting after you."

  Lindsay raised skeptical eyebrows. "Michelle-"

  "It's true."

  Lindsay's face was hot, although from the sun or from her rising anger she didn't know. "What about you?" she said. "You are well-educated, beautiful, and self-assured. What's your beef?"

  "Derrick. It's the same with him. If I try to pursue him, you are always there to turn his head, and you aren't even serious. Like awhile ago. You no sooner turned on your heels in a pout, than he was after you, explaining and apologizing."

  "There was no apology. Derrick never apologizes for anything he is not guilty of. If you knew him better, you would know that. Exactly what do you want, Michelle'?"

  "Choose. Let one of them go."

  "I see, and if I should choose Derrick'?"

  "At least I'll know. I won't be thinking you've gone on to other pastures only to have you come back. And if you do choose Derrick, I'm giving you fair warning that I like him and intend to fight for him, too."

  "Michelle, I suppose it's useless to tell you that you have characterized this all wrong. Whatever Frank and I do, Derrick will always be a good friend. And I will not stand here and play little girl games with you. Sally is waiting for me in the laboratory."

  Lindsay brushed past Michelle and hurried to the lab. At first she was angry, but by the time she got to the lab, she was wondering if there wasn't some truth in Michelle's accusation. Come on, she said to herself, Frank and Derrick are adults. They can choose for themselves.

  The laboratory was lined with cabinets and boxes for storing artifacts. In the middle were long tables where the crew could sit and sort bags of artifacts separated out during flotation. On rainy days and sometimes after the site shut down at three o'clock, the crew would work in the lab to get a start on cataloging the artifacts before they were taken to the university.

  Sally was already working with some animal bones when Lindsay sat down next to her.

  "I got Feature 15 out and have divided the bones the way you were telling us today," Sally said. "At least I think I have. I want to learn how to determine minimum number of individuals, and estimate their meat yield, too."

  "We'll do that at the university. That requires a lot of weighing and measuring that we are not equipped for here. Let's see what you have." Lindsay looked through the bones. "Not bad. There are several in the category of `unidentified bones' that can be identified." Lindsay began picking out the bones. "For instance, this is the left maxilla of a fox"

  "How can you tell? It's only part of a bone and no teeth!"

  Lindsay grinned. "But the sockets where the teeth were are still there."

  "Great! Don't all sockets look alike?"

  "No. The teeth of different animals have different shapes. Besides, there is enough bone left to identify the animal. I know it's a fox because I know what a fox maxilla looks like. Any time you are identifying animal bones for permanent identification, you use the reference collection and compare this bone with known bones in the collection. I'll show you how when we get back to the university. However, it will save us a lot of time later if we can sort as much as we can now."

  "Okay, then it is a fox because it looks like a fox," said Sally. "I'm catching on."

  Lindsay smiled and searched around in the boxes. "Okay, here is a good example."

  "Another left fox maxilla?" Sally looked at the partial bone that, to her, looked similar to the other one.

  "No, look carefully at the shapes of the bones and the number of teeth each had. Count the sockets. Not the spaces for the roots, but the socket for the whole tooth"

  Sally took a pencil and pointed to each as she counted, then recounted, each space for a tooth in the maxilla. "The first one has 10 and the second 13, an unlucky number."

  "It is. I imagine that is why they have trouble crossing the road."

  "What?" asked Sally.

  "The second is the left maxilla of an opossum." Lindsay searched around in the box of bones until she found an opossum skull and a fox maxilla with the teeth. Sally leaned in closer to see what Lindsay was pointing out to her. "Different animals have different dental formulas," Lindsay continued. "An opossum is a marsupial. The upper teeth of marsupials have a dental formula of 5 1 3 4, which means on each side of the maxilla they have five incisors, one canine, three premolars, and four molars."

  Sally took the bone from Lindsay and ran her finger down the row of teeth.

  "The dental formula for the fox's upper teeth is 3 1 4 2," Lindsay said. "Because different teeth also have different shapes, it is fairly easy to identify what kind of tooth came out of an empty socket"

  "Clever," Sally said. "It's just like a magician. Once you learn the trick, it's not magic any more. It's easy."

  "Great," Lindsay replied. "I have completely destroyed my mystique. And you used to think I was so good."

  Sally giggled.

  "Let's go through the mammal bones. I'll identify each one by genus and species, and you write it down."

  Derrick came in and pulled up a chair beside Lindsay. "You guys want to go eat?"

  "Sure.
Let us ID this box of mammal bones," Lindsay responded. "It won't take long."

  The bones were straightforward, mostly odocoileus virginianus (white-tailed deer) and sciurus carolinensis (gray squirrel). There were also some ursus americanus (black bear), ondatra zibethicus (muskrat), procyon lotor (raccoon), and, of course, didelphius marsupialis (opossum).

  Lindsay thoroughly enjoyed herself with the bones.

  "Slow down," Sally said. "I've got to write these things down."

  "You can put the first letter of the genus along with the species name," Lindsay said.

  "Now you tell me"

  Lindsay picked up another bone. It had a double row of incisors. "Sylvilagus floridanus. Sylvilagus floridanus," she said again slowly.

  "You don't have to go that slow. I got it. S. floridanus," said Sally.

  Lindsay looked at Sally so suddenly Sally jumped.

  "That's what it is, isn't it?" Sally said.

  "What did you say a while ago about a magician?"

  Sally wrinkled her brow. "About once you learned their tricks-"

  "Derrick, that may be it. I assumed that the rabbit found at the crime scene was sylvilagus, but what if it was an oryctolagus?"

  "Did I miss something?" Sally asked.

  Derrick looked thoughtful. "What are you talking about'? You think the rabbit at the crime scene is European? How did you get there from here?"

  "We have whole theories about how artifacts are lost, saved, and distributed about their site. Those theories are a big part of our analysis, and we failed to apply any of them to the crime scene."

  "What do you mean?" Derrick asked.

  "Why aren't skeletons of dead animals found all over the woods`? The woods are full of thousands of animals."

  "That's a good question," Sally agreed. "I've been all over these woods and haven't found any."

  "Because they get scattered and carried off by other animals," Derrick explained. "It's part of the process of forest ecology."

  "Then why did you find a whole rabbit skeleton at the crime scene?" Lindsay asked.

  Derrick's eyes widened. "Because it was buried, and that is how artifacts get saved intact. It wasn't a svlvilagus, a wild rabbit that just died there. Its bones would have been scattered. It was an orvctolagus, a pet rabbit, that someone buried there."