LC 04 - Skeleton Crew

by Beverly Connor

  "I saw the light on," he said without a greeting. "You all keep the place locked up like Fort Knox; we have to get in when we have the chance." He walked to a cabinet and unlocked it. "We do have some supplies in here." He sat on his haunches and rummaged through the cabinet, pulling out what looked like graph paper.

  "It's open all day. I'm sure no one would mind if you came to get your supplies."

  Mike straightened up to face her. "Right. You haven't been here long, have you?"

  "No. But as Bobbie pointed out to Tessa, the dig won't be here forever. You'll get your island back, and things will be back to normal for you."

  "After you all build your museum and theme-whatever, this place will be destroyed."

  "Come on. Does it really make sense to you that we would build a theme park on this island?"

  "It makes as much sense as building a five-million-dollar structure out in the ocean to dig up a bunch of dead, waterlogged wood, then tear it down. There are more than thirty protected species of animals on this island. Yes, a few of them are small and not well known. I get so tired of your kind. You haven't heard of a species of fish or tree frog, so you use your ignorance as a measure of its worth."

  "Isn't that what you are doing?"

  He looked puzzled, then narrowed his eyes at her. "What do you mean?"

  "You don't know what we do or what the value is, yet you judge it to be worthless."

  "That's not the same thing."

  "I don't want to argue with you. We are here and so are you. We won't be here long, and there isn't going to be a museum or a theme park built on the island."

  "Do you know that for sure?"

  "This is a national park, for heaven's sake. And we don't build theme parks. It's stupid, and you and your colleagues should know better."

  He stared at her wide-eyed for a moment. She thought perhaps it dawned on him that they had been had. He turned on his heel and left. Lindsay watched him go out the door with his graph paper. He was staying at the ranger's station. He had dressed hurriedly and hiked all the way there down the trail to get graph paper? She doubted it. Surely, they wouldn't destroy any of the artifacts. But they were so angry.

  Lindsay walked out and made sure that Mike had locked the outside door behind him and watched the play of his flashlight through the thicket. As she passed the main office on her way back, she heard a humming of machinery running. She tried the door. It was locked, and she hadn't brought her keys with her. Probably nothing, she thought and went back to her work.

  Before going up to Harper's apartment, Lindsay gave the postcranial bones a quick glance. Something caught her eye. She donned gloves and took out the left femur and pelvis. The left acetabulum showed a marked flattening, as did the head of the femur, along with spur formation. She checked all the long bones and found similar characteristics, but with disparity in severity. She also found that the neck of the humerus was broken and showed signs of uneven surface healing.

  Lindsay put the bones back in their tub of saline solution and sat back on the stool, peeling off her gloves, turning the bones over in her mind. She hunted around the lab for a telephone book and looked up orthopedics in the Yellow Pages.

  Chapter 13

  DR. ROSEN LEANED out the door and called to his nurse. "The patient in exam room three is quite beyond my help."

  This elicited fits of laughter from his staff as Lindsay came out of the restroom.

  "Who did he come in with?" he asked.

  "Me, Dr. Rosen. Your nurse was good enough to allow me to lay him out. I'm Dr. Lindsay Chamberlain." She held out her hand.

  He greeted her with a broad smile, flashing bright white teeth set against a neatly trimmed and very dark mustache and beard.

  "Yes, you're a forensic osteologist, aren't you?" He shook her hand vigorously. Dr. Rosen was a compact, square-built man a good six inches shorter than Lindsay.

  "I just read a paper of yours not long ago ..." He put the tips of the fingers of his left hand to his forehead. "I have it. Implications of disease in the postcranial skeleton with respect to sex determination. I found it fascinating."

  "Yes, I'm flattered that you remember it. I'm also. . .

  He bounded to the table and picked up a femur. "I have an interest in forensics myself. Let's see." He paused. "The bones are wet."

  "We have to keep them that way for now."

  "Hmm. Been in the water a while, I suppose?"

  "A while."

  "And this man has been murdered?" he said almost absently, turning the bone in his hand, examining its surface.

  "That's the other one. I haven't ..."

  "The other one? You have more than one?"

  "Yes. The reason I brought him here is this." Lindsay showed him the remodeled parts of the bones.

  "Well, yes. The flattening of the head of the femur and the acetabulum. Notice the uneven healing around the broken humerus. I see fractures in the femur with attempted healing." He pointed to the anomalies in the bone. "I suspect if you take a thinsection you'll see microscopic indications, as well. I did a hip replacement on a man last year who looked about like this. You don't see it often-most divers pay attention to their tables."

  "Then, you think ..."

  "Dysbaric osteonecrosis. Yes, the man's a scuba diver, in all probability. That should aid in the identification."

  "That's what it looked like to me, but I've seen the condition only in photographs and x-rays. However-"

  He looked up from the bone. "However?"

  "The age of the bones is a problem."

  "How old are they?"

  "Around four hundred and forty years old."

  He stared at her a moment. "I've clearly missed something."

  Lindsay grinned. "I'm also an archaeologist, working off the coast of St. Magdalena at the cofferdam site."

  "Ah ... Yes. I've wanted to take one of the weekend tours out there. Fascinating. Then, I'd say it must be disease that caused the bone necrosis, however much it looks otherwise."

  "Wouldn't most of the diseases that produce this effect have killed him before it got to this stage in the bones?"

  "Yes, many would." He puzzled over the bone.

  "What causes dysbaric osteonecrosis?" asked Lindsay.

  "Good question. Short answer, nitrogen embolization of the blood vessels. The exact process isn't truly understood."

  "And that is from... ?"

  "Breathing compressed air. Also, there's a relationship with diving at extreme depths." He grinned. "You have an interesting problem."

  "I do indeed."

  "This fellow-it is a fellow, isn't it?"

  Lindsay nodded. "I haven't completed my examination, but I'd say he's Asian and between the ages of twenty-five and forty."

  "He's from that ship you all are excavating, then?"

  "Yes. He's the second skeleton we've found. Lucky for us. Had they not become buried quickly and deeply, the sea water would have disintegrated the bones by this time."

  "And you say the other one was murdered? On board ship?"

  "Apparently. I think in the next couple of days there will be a write-up in the newspaper about it."

  "I'll keep a lookout." Dr. Rosen took a pad of paper from his pocket and began scribbling. "Here's a list of diseases that result in avascular and aseptic necrosis. Like you say, in that era many of the diseases would have killed him before they were manifested in the bones. I'll leave those off. The fellow could have been an alcoholic or he could have had serious problems with gout." He smiled. "There are many alternatives, but look at the bones that are not involved. Dysbaric osteonecrosis doesn't usually involve the wrists, ankles, or elbows." He threw up his hands. "It can't be dysbaric, I don't know why I'm even considering it." Then he grinned. "But it's fascinating."

  She tucked the list in her notebook. "Thank you for your consultation. If you decide to visit the site, I'll give you a guided tour."

  On her way out, Lindsay told the receptionist where to send the bill. Bobb
ie Lacayo sat reading a magazine in the waiting room.

  "The grocery store was close by and I picked up the stuff I needed. Want to have lunch on River Street before we head back?"

  Lindsay and Bobbie sat in a cafe eating hamburgers and looking out at the distant big ships.

  "This has been a nice break," Bobbie said. "I was starting to feel like an extra in Waterworld. So tell me, how are you and John getting along?"

  "Actually, we are getting along, which is surprising. We are such opposites. Tell me, what do you know about the history of compressed air?"

  "Nothing. How did we get there from here?"

  Lindsay told her about the dubious condition of the skeleton. "How about the history of scuba diving?"

  "I used to know a little about that. I've dived all my life and I've done a lot of school papers on the topic. But that was in high school." She frowned in concentration, trying to remember. "Alexander the Great had a diving bell named Columbine, or maybe that was Harlequin's girlfriend. Something like that anyway. That's all I remember."

  "But where would they get compressed air?"

  Bobbie made like she was holding something in her fists and moved her hands back and forth. "Bellows. But, surely, you don't think. . ."

  Lindsay waved her hand. "No, it's probably one of the diseases Rosen listed, or alcohol or gout or arthritis even. It's just that what I see in the bones is identical to dysbaric osteonecrosis. When Rosen first looked at the bones, he thought so, too."

  "Odd. Lewis will like it."

  "Not you, too? Why is it that Lewis's likes and dislikes form everyone's standard of measurement?"

  "He writes the checks. Big checks."

  "Good point."

  After buying a grocery sack full of homemade candy on River Street, Bobbie said she was ready to head for home, and they walked down the cobblestone street to the university's SUV. It was seventy miles to the ferry that took them to St. Magdalena. They were the only passengers on the ferry and sat in the SUV on the short ride to the island.

  "Since we have our supplies to carry, we can take the service road to the lab," said Bobbie. "If we're lucky, Tessa or one of her cronies won't be out there to tell us how we're polluting the island."

  "Is it really that bad with the biology people?"

  "Not really. It's just annoying, and I can't say that we're blameless. I mean, not counting the fact that we took over the place, we do tweak their noses at times."

  "Nate told me."

  "Yeah, he and Carolyn are the worst."

  "Why are they so hostile?"

  Bobbie shrugged. "Mike and Tessa are the main ones that are so angry. The others are okay. Mike and Tessa had to give up their suite to Harper. That was a big deal to Tessa. She had her computer equipment set up in her apartment. They all ended up moving to the ranger station. Besides that, apparently Mike had been having a problem with Boote-you know, the old man-and his son, Keith, poaching on the island, selling some of the rare plants and messing up Mike's research. Mike had just got them to stay off, and along comes our advance party, and Nate uses Keith and Boote as informants, inviting them to the island. Mike was furious. I can't blame him. The island is the only place some of the plants they're studying grow."

  "What did Nate and the others learn from Keith and his father?"

  "Nate and Trey got a look at the junk they picked up on the shore. Boote has searched the beach with a metal detector for years and has jars of coins, I understand."

  "Did they find anything from the wreck?"

  "Not much. Some metal concretions. Some driftwood that may have been part of a wooden ship that Trey said probably wasn't the Estrella. About three years ago Keith found part of a schooner that sank in 1910 near Florida. Not much left of it but a few lamps, brass fittings, and a compass, I think. There was some controversy about it. He kind of looted it without telling anybody. He had an attitude much like Eva Jones-if he found it, it was his. Since the stuff he found wasn't valuable, it all blew over. I think he found a couple of other ships, too. One was fairly modern-some sunken yacht a few miles out from Savannah. I don't know what the other one was. None had anything of real value in it, I don't think. He said he made a few bucks off the salvage."

  "And yet he got along with Nate?"

  "Trey thought that if they made friends with Keith and Boote, he could teach them why it's important to leave wrecks to be excavated professionally. Trey was in teaching mode at that time."

  "And did it work?"

  "For a while. This was all before the dam was built. Keith went diving with us a couple of times. I was here at that time doing survey work. Keith got into a fight with Steven Nemo about salvaging wrecks. You heard Steven at the party talking about Kennewick Man. He's really single-minded about archaeological sovereignty."

  "Archaeological sovereignty?"

  Bobbie screwed up her face. "That's John's phrase. I guess you know, he can get going, too." Lindsay nodded. "Keith stayed away after that, until we had a storm that wrecked some of our boats. Keith helped out. Some kind of code of the sea. Anyway, he and Nate were friends for a while. Nate's pretty easy to get along with. He was trying to stay on good terms in case Boote or Keith found anything. I think Keith and Boote both got tired of us. We work all the time and, to tell the truth, Keith is kind of a beach bum who never grew up."

  "What about you? You going to switch to marine archaeology?"

  Bobbie shook her head. "I love to scuba dive and this is a lot of fun. Easy 'A."' She grinned. "But I don't want to do it forever."

  They arrived at the lab amid a swarm of people with "FBI" written on their jackets.

  "What in the world?" said Bobbie.

  "Something has happened," said Lindsay.

  They left the groceries in the vehicle and hurried through the lab. Lindsay caught sight of Trey standing with Harper just inside the front door. Harper had her arms folded, looking at the floor. Trey stared out the door where several FBI men were gathered. Francisco Lewis was with them. He looked grim.

  "Trey?"

  "Chamberlain, I'm glad you're back."

  "What's going on?"

  "They've found a body in the alligator pool."

  Chapter 14

  "A BODY? WHOSE?" Lindsay looked through the glass doors to see if she could get a glimpse of something, but all she saw was people standing in the way.

  "We don't know yet," answered Trey. "This being hot weather, and it being in the alligator pond, and alligators being carrion eaters-well."

  Bobbie groaned.

  "So, Chamberlain. I got your note." Trey seemed eager to change the subject. "You went to see a Dr. Rosen in Savannah this morning?"

  "Yes. He's an orthopedist. I had a question about the new skeleton."

  "Well, this must be a first." Trey attempted a smile.

  "The skeleton shows signs of bone necrosis-some of his bones looked like they had been dying."

  "So, he had some disease, I suppose?" Trey looked out the windows at the authorities. Lewis caught his eye and came walking up the wooden walkway toward them.

  "I'll have to thin-section the bone-"

  Lewis entered, and they all waited for an answer to the question that was on their minds. But he only shook his head.

  "I don't know what they're doing. Lindsay, I'm glad you're back. Perhaps you could find out. Maybe you know some of those agents. I don't understand why the rangers called the FBI."

  "That's because this is a national park. The FBI has jurisdiction."

  For all Lewis's political knowledge, she was surprised he didn't know that. His face brightened.

  "Oh. Is that it? I thought it was, well, something serious." He paused. "Not that this isn't, but more serious, if you know what I mean."

  Lindsay hadn't seen him flustered before. She doubted many people had.

  "Lindsay, I want you to look into this."

  "What? I have no authority. The FBI knows what they're doing."

  "I want us to have some control-" he
began. Nate, Steven, Carolyn and some of the others began drifting over to them, and he stopped talking.

  "Who found the body?" Lindsay asked.

  "Tessa," said Trey. "She and Mike were coming up the walkway, and she looked over the side and saw what she thought was a boot caught in the fork of a log."

  "Do you know who it is?"

  "No. The park rangers and FBI were already here when we got here," Trey replied. "Naturally, Tessa and Mike won't say anything. They probably think we did it to irritate them."

  "They can ease their minds about that. If we were the culprits, one of them would be the victim," said Carolyn. They all laughed uneasily.

  A Hispanic man in an FBI jacket opened the door and leaned in, asking for Lewis and Trey to come out. Lewis grabbed Lindsay's arm as he passed and pulled her along. The others followed, but stopped just outside the doorway.

  "They had a fight." Everyone's head turned toward Mike.

  "Who?" asked the FBI agent.

  "Nate and Keith," Mike said with a sneer. "Then nobody ever saw Keith again after that."

  "Now, wait just a minute!" Nate started for Mike, but one of the rangers stepped in front of him.

  "Let's just calm down and let the FBI sort things out."

  "You bloody bastard," Nate swore through his teeth. "Who was it that got him and his father thrown off the island for messing up your experiments?"

  So it's Keith, thought Lindsay as she followed Lewis through the parting crowd of onlookers. How curious, she thought. Bobbie and she had just been talking about him. The smell of death drifted up from the covered body. Lewis and Trey put a hand to their noses.

  "We need an identification," said the man, introducing himself as Agent A. C. Ramirez. "I understand, Dr. Marcus, that you have been here from the beginning. Maybe you know him?"

  Lindsay saw Trey and Lewis tense as Agent Ramirez reached down for the black plastic that covered the body, girding themselves for the image they were about to see. He lifted the sheet. It wasn't Keith. Lindsay had been here only a few days, but she could identify the body herself, and he looked as troublesome in death as he had been in life.