“He found when he got here that the man whose family my people had saved had repaid their kindness by turning them over to the soldiers and volunteering to help enforce their march to the west. The quarrelsome white hunter in the mountains hid and protected the other brother and his family and gave them food.
“When I was a kid and my father told me this story, I never understood how a man whose family you saved would not return the deed. I could only assume they didn’t like dried pumpkin.” John stroked Lindsay on the cheek with the back of his fingers. “These mountains hid my family. Yes, I feel connected.”
Lindsay hugged him to her. “I’m glad you came.”
They started back, arms threaded through each other’s.
“I wish I could stay here with you.”
“I need to get through this myself.” She hesitated before adding. “I’ve apparently hallucinated a couple of times.”
John stopped, gripped her shoulders, and turned her toward him. “Hallucinated? How? Have you called your doctor?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I’m not crazy.”
“I didn’t say that. But this is something your doctor needs to hear about.”
“Your father said it may be a good thing. Or at least, not a bad thing.”
“My father? You talked to him?”
“He called.”
“My father called?” He said it as if that were another hallucination.
Lindsay explained the incident in the mirror, her running out to sleep in the Explorer, and his father calling in the morning on her car phone.
“Is that what he said—he thought he was calling Emily?”
“Yes. Obviously, read the wrong number.”
“Dad’s full of surprises. But I think you need to mention it to . . .”
“Well, I’m not going to.”
“Okay. I give up—for now. Where’s a good place for lunch?”
“How about freshwater trout?”
“Sounds great. I could go for that. You can tell me about your lead coffins over lunch.”
* * *
Lunch with John was a welcome change from the zoo at the house and was over too soon. But it left her feeling safe as she drove to the local library to meet Elaine McBride. The library was one of the newer buildings in Kelley’s Chase. The one-story yellow-brick building was in the middle of town, just off the main road near a real estate office and the post office.
Besides the main room with rows of metal shelves filled with books, and a couple of offices, the library had an auditorium, a computer room with two computers, and a room dedicated to the historical society. Elaine was waiting by the front desk when she arrived, talking to a young woman with thick brown curly hair and eyes the color of a Hershey’s bar.
“Hi, Lindsay. This is Afton Phillips—one of the librarians.”
Afton looked barely out of high school. She held out her hand and grinned, showing a deep set of dimples on a face that appeared to be in perpetually genuine good humor. “Hi. Mrs. McBride tells me you are new at the site.”
“I’ve only been here about a week and a half or so.”
“Must be fun digging in the dirt all day.”
“It is. You’ll have to come out some time and have a look at the excavation.”
“Thanks. I’d love that.”
Elaine led the way to the historical society’s room, her heels clicking on the shiny green-and-white-tile floor. Lindsay’s jeans and Archaeology Club T-shirt with the skeleton of a rat and the name Rattus rattus on the front were a stark contrast to Elaine’s silk beige pantsuit and a gold chain neckless. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a small ponytail.
“You said you want to look first at the Hope Foute diary?” As she spoke, Elaine retrieved a spiral-bound notebook from the shelf. “This is a copy. Will that be all right? We have the original, but . . .”
“A copy is fine.” Lindsay sat down with the document. “The records show that the Gallowses bought the land from Clarence Foute. So, something in his wife’s diary may hold a clue to the writing on the floor. However, we have to realize that the writing could have occurred anytime between when the cabin was built and the present. Someone who owned the cabin before the Gallowses or someone in the Gallows household could have written it. Or someone could have come in the abandoned cabin and written graffiti on the floor.”
“Oh, I hadn’t really thought that it might have been done so recently.” Elaine looked disappointed.
“If we’re lucky, we’ll come across something that will give us a clue. Do you know if this is the only volume of her diary? This is limited to the 1830s. Might she have kept a diary before that?”
“I don’t know, really. It’s the only one we have, but her descendants may have more.”
“Where did the historical society come by the diary?”
“Hope Foute’s granddaughter bequeathed it to the town. It was kept in a vault at the courthouse and forgotten for a long time. Then someone remembered seeing it and gave it to the society.”
“Is there any way to contact other descendants?”
“I’ll look into it.” Elaine took out a notebook and began writing. “This is fun. It’s like solving a mystery.”
“Exactly.” Lindsay started on the first page scanning the diary. For the most part, it contained information she had already learned in the survey reports. Hope Foute wrote about her husband’s patients, her neighbors, her four children and sixteen grandchildren, and her older spinster sister, Faith Redmond, whom she cared for until she died. It was interesting and full of good information about the time and manners of the cove folk, but completely unenlightening about the mysterious floor carvings or any previous occupants of the Gallows cabin.
Elaine put on a pair of white gloves and began looking through old letters of the era.
“If you don’t mind,” Lindsay asked, “look for anything that has the word Beau or Turkeyville. Maybe we’ll get really lucky and solve Tidwell’s mystery as well.”
“You think maybe Miss Tidwell did give her documents to the historical society?”
“Do you think that’s possible?”
“Yes, I suppose it’s possible, but she wasn’t a person to give away something she could sell. Did Mr. Tidwell have any idea what the documents were about?” asked Elaine.
“None. Do you have provenance on all the documents here in the archives?”
“You mean, like where they came from?”
“Yes.”
“I think we do. The librarian probably knows where they came from. I’ll go ask if Miss Tidwell donated anything.” Elaine was gone for about fifteen minutes. “Sorry I took so long. I had to call the head librarian. She’s at home today. She said she didn’t think Miss Tidwell donated or sold anything to the library or the historical society.”
“Not quite an answer, is it?”
Elaine handed Lindsay an envelope. “This was left for you at the desk. They didn’t see who left it. It was just lying in the chair when Afton came back from the bathroom.”
The envelope wasn’t sealed. Instead, the flap was tucked inside. Lindsay opened it and took out a page torn from a book. She stared a moment, then dropped it.
Elaine watched it flutter to the floor as Lindsay doubled over, holding her mouth to muffle a scream.
Chapter 19
A Little Poe
“LINDSAY, ARE YOU all right?”
Elaine bent over to pick up the paper, but Lindsay put a hand on her arm. “No. Please. I need to find out if there are any prints on it.”
“Prints?”
Lindsay straightened up. Her hands shook as she picked up the paper by a small corner and dropped it on the table.
“Fingerprints,” she whispered.
Elaine looked at the paper that had been ripped out of a book—the title page to Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Premature Burial.”
“What does that mean?” Elaine’s puzzled expression was mixed with con
cern.
“Please, will you call the sheriff for me?”
“Yes, of course.”
Elaine hurried out to use the phone behind the main desk of the library. When she returned, Lindsay gave her the brief version of what had happened to her.
“Oh, my God,” exclaimed Elaine. “Oh, my God. Is it one of those stalkers?”
“I don’t know.”
As they waited, Elaine fetched Lindsay a glass of cool water and sat with her. Neither of them said much until the sheriff arrived. When he strode through the door, Elaine seemed as relieved as Lindsay.
Lindsay reminded him of their previous conversation, and this time he wrote down the names of the investigators in Georgia and Tennessee who were working on her case.
“Have you had anything else happen?” asked the sheriff.
“Just the episode with the truck.”
“Our truck?” asked Elaine. “This maniac stole our truck?”
“Could be,” said the sheriff.
“Well, you have to catch him.”
Afton stuck her head in the door. “Sheriff, the page was torn out of one of our books.” Her throaty voice was vibrant with indignation. “You want that I should bag it or something?”
“I’ll come take care of it, Afton. Thanks. Don’t let anybody touch it. I need to know everyone who’s been in the library today. How about you make me a list of the names of everyone you can remember . . . anyone who might have checked a book in or out, or anything else you can think of.”
“Miss Chamberlain,” said the sheriff, “could anyone at the site have done this as a joke?”
Lindsay almost laughed with relief. The notion was like a life preserver. “Yes, that’s possible. That’s probably what it is.”
“You seem sure.” He looked skeptical as he stuck his pen and notebook in his shirt pocket.
“It’s not uncommon for the crew to play practical jokes on one another. Sheriff, if it’s all right with you, I’ll talk to them about it.”
No good having the sheriff find out about Trent and what he’d been up to. Like Dillon said the evening before, that’s the last kind of attention they needed. In fact, thought Lindsay, Trent was a likely suspect for this, the way he had eyed her at the last crew meeting, the way he seemed out of control. The fight with Dillon probably exacerbated whatever state he was in. She wouldn’t put it past Claire, either. Lindsay willed this culprit to be different from the ones who had buried her. More than anything, she wanted that episode in her life to be over.
“I’m agreeable to that, for the time being,” the sheriff said. “I’ll let you know if we come up with prints, or anything else that might be helpful.” He put the torn page and the envelope it came in into an evidence bag and went out to talk with Afton.
“We can meet tomorrow and continue with the documents,” suggested Elaine.
“That would probably be better. How about after lunch tomorrow?”
“Great. In the meantime, I’ll ask about other descendants of Hope Foute who might be in possession of more of her diary.”
Lindsay drove back to the house, constantly checking in the rearview mirror. It was just a tasteless joke, she told herself. Probably Trent. Possibly Claire.
When she arrived in the house, everyone was already eating and all abuzz with news about the coffins. In one week, Dr. Alex Jarman, an atmospheric specialist from NASA, Dr. Guy Posnansky from the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute, who was handling the gamma ray technology, and Dr. Juliana Skyler, a specialist in nondestructive evaluation, would arrive with their teams—bringing with them an army reserve unit. It didn’t surprise Lindsay that Francisco Lewis would be arriving also. It would be like him to come and wring out every ounce of publicity he could. Actually, she welcomed his coming. She welcomed a yard full of military people milling around. She could stop worrying. The sick fear would finally go away. She would be safe.
“Dare I ask where . . . what’s his name . . . Trent is?” she whispered to Marina.
“Out the door, thank God.”
“How’s Claire taking it?”
“Not bad. When Dr. Lewis called Drew, we all got happy again. Aren’t we easy to please? It only takes a visit from NASA.”
“Okay, listen up people.” Drew tapped her glass with her spoon. “We’re going to have to rearrange ourselves a little. The science teams are bringing their own accommodations. They’ll be setting up in the cornfield, near the creek. Lewis will be staying with us. Claire and I are graciously giving up our room to him. We’re moving in with you, Lindsay. You’ll be happy to know that Mr. Laurens finished you a door today.” Lindsay forced a smile. “They’re going to be fencing off the main part of the site. I’d like to get Structure 4 finished before then.”
* * *
The area just outside of Lindsay’s round room was a space more or less comparable in size to the reception hall below it. It might at one time have been a sitting room off the round room. That was where Mr. Laurens hung the door, so that the curtain separating it from the bedroom was still there. What she had now was a very large bedroom. Lindsay didn’t care. She opened and closed the door, locked it, opened it again and closed it. It was a good door, and it locked. The military were coming to the site, and she had a door. Life was good.
“Trying out the door?”
Claire was standing in her own doorway, adjacent to Lindsay’s.
“Yes. Just basking in the luxury of it.”
“I looked up your vita.”
Lindsay met Claire’s unblinking gaze. She had made it sound like an admission of something. Lindsay said nothing.
“I didn’t know you were so widely published in so many areas.”
That was definitely an admission of something.
“The thing I particularly like about archaeology,” Lindsay said carefully, “is that it encompasses so many disciplines.” Lindsay continued to examine the lock on her door, not looking at Claire, as if meeting her eyes too many times would break her sudden spell of civility.
“These are the topics I’m interested in.” Claire shoved some papers into Lindsay’s hand. She left, bouncing down the stairs before Lindsay had a chance to say anything else.
So, bribery works. Life was getting better. She looked at the folded sheets of paper and the printout of topics: comparison of farmstead excavation with historic documentation; comparisons of artifact patterns among structures; intra-site trade networks; mountain farmsteads versus hunting domiciles of the nineteenth century. Under each topic, she had made a brief outline and listed a partial bibliography. Not a bad list, none of burning appeal to Lindsay, but possibly interesting. She’d make some preliminary notes on each and share them with Claire.
Drew didn’t waste much time moving herself and Claire into Lindsay’s bedroom. Claire tried to bring the table for her laptop, but Drew wanted to leave it for Lewis. Like Lindsay, Claire put her mattress near an outlet and put her computer on the floor. Drew took Powell and Dillon to town and came back with a bed for Lewis. He would be the only one in the house whose mattress sat on a bed frame and not the floor.
“You going to order flowers, too?” asked Marina, peeking into the room while Drew was making up the bed with a new bedspread.
“You know, Mrs. Laurens has a flower bed. I could ask her to bring some.”
Marina rolled her eyes at Lindsay and poked her finger down her throat out of Drew’s range of vision. Lindsay tried not to laugh.
“Lindsay, I’m glad you’re here. Does Lewis smoke?”
Lindsay was tempted to say that he smoked a special Turkish blend and she could find out the number of his tobacconist in New York if Drew liked.
“No, he doesn’t smoke.”
“I understand people call him Cisco,” said Drew.
“Some do.” Lindsay smiled.
“And you call him Lewis?”
“Yes.”
“What should I call him?”
“Whatever you like. They call him Francisco i
n the department.”
“Francisco. I like that.”
“Drew, I’d like to ask Dr. McBride to sit in on the analysis of the remains. I think it would be good PR, and it would be nice to have a local in on it . . .”
Drew nodded absently, surveying the room. “In case some issues arise about examining the dead. That’s a good idea.”
“A bowl of mints would be nice,” Lindsay muttered.
“What?” Drew pulled her gaze away from the room and looked at Lindsay.
“Also, you have to inform the coroner. Have you done that?”
“Francisco said he would call the state archaeologist and ask him to arrange all the paperwork. What do you think of irises? They’re Tennessee’s state flower. They would look nice here in his room, don’t you think?”
Lindsay went back into her room before she broke out laughing. Claire was typing away on her laptop.
“Is this guy that big a deal?” asked Claire.
“To some he is. He’s great at getting grants. UGA loves him for that. He brings in a lot of good PR, gets UGA’s name out there on the cutting edge of a lot of projects.”
“Byron said he mostly publishes in popular magazines.”
“That’s not true. He does publish in the popular media, but he’s also well published in juried journals. He likes being well known in both spheres—the public and among his peers.”
“Why?”
Lindsay sat cross-legged on her bed. Odd, this was the first civilized conversation she had had with Claire since she arrived. Claire was being true to her word.
“Lewis likes to be a star.”
Claire lowered her voice. “It looks like Drew’s going to give him the star treatment.”
Lindsay smiled. “It does seem that way.”
“Is he hard to get along with?”
Not as hard as you, Lindsay thought so loudly she almost said it. “No. Not really. He’s very personable. He’d make a good politician. You working on a paper?”
Lindsay was surprised Claire had jumped into the task so soon. That meant she’d have to jump into it sooner than she had planned.
“I’ve been working on one about trade networks among mountain settlers.”
“Do you have anything I can read?”
Airtight Case Page 17