LC 04 - Skeleton Crew

by Beverly Connor

  "Hi. Gets hot in here."

  "I can imagine. Did Ramirez come talk to you?"

  "Yeah. Jeeze. I felt like a suspect."

  "I'm afraid all of us are suspects, simply because we're here. But they'll rule us out quickly."

  Isaac sat down on his stool and stretched his long legs. "I know, but he was killed here-in my sink. Creepy." He shivered.

  "Isaac, why were there water and flotation debris in the sink that night?"

  He hung his head a moment. "The one time I don't clean everything up, I get caught. I always finish whatever bag I'm working on before I shut down and clean up. Always. Except last Tuesday. I was working late. Some of the guys asked me if I wanted to go to Florida to have dinner and mess around. I wanted to go, but I had to hurry and shower to get ready. I didn't think it would matter if I left this just once."

  "That's the way it always happens," said Lindsay. "Did you notice anything different when you returned?"

  "That's what that FBI agent wanted to know. You know, my parents wanted me to be a lawyer or some kind of corporate something or other. They didn't like archaeology at all. Now I'm a sus pect in a murder investigation because I shirked my duties. That's going to be a double whammy for my dad."

  Lindsay decided she was going to have to let Isaac get this off his chest before she could get any information from him. She listened to his anxieties and sympathized.

  "What does your dad do?"

  "He's a U.S. marshal."

  "Really? That's interesting."

  "I thought it was great when I was a kid. While all the other kids played Star Wars characters, I was always a cowboy-a little retro-kid. But you can see my problem. He's a very straight kind of guy. The thought that I'm mixed up in this, well-"

  "You aren't really mixed up in it. Ramirez talked to everybody. Me, Lewis, John, Trey-I don't think any of us had anything to do with his death. Anyway, did you notice anything different?"

  "Not really. Some water splashed on the floor, but we use a lot of water in this place. I didn't think anything of it."

  "No overturned chairs or anything?"

  "No. Nothing like that."

  "Did you find anything on the floor, in the sink, or with the carbon fraction?"

  Isaac shook his head. "No."

  "Do you know the security guard here?"

  "Dale Delosier. He's a retired cop."

  "What's he like?"

  Isaac shrugged. "All right, I guess. I don't know him very well. He comes on duty after I leave. I've just met him in passing when I've been working late."

  "Anything out of the ordinary about him?"

  "No. Just that he shows no interest in what we do here. That's kind of strange to me. Everyone else who visits here is really interested in the excavation-ship's timbers, everything. But that's hardly anything against him. This just isn't his thing."

  "Does he stay on the island?"

  "No. He comes on the six o'clock ferry."

  "Do you know if there are any docks on the island other than the ones we use or the ferry uses?"

  "No. But you'd better ask the bio people."

  "If I can get them to speak to me."

  "They aren't so bad. It's mainly Mike and Tessa. The others are pretty nice and like to know what's going on with the dig. Besides, you really can't blame them. We did kind of push them out."

  "That's true. Thanks for talking with me. If you think of anything, let me know."

  "Sure-you and Agent Ramirez."

  Lindsay walked to the lab. Carolyn and Korey were bent over their work. Carolyn was working on a ceramic jar the size of a fist. Korey was busy with an encrusted piece of iron.

  "Hi, you guys look absorbed," said Lindsay.

  "Cisco is going to have to get some more people in here if he wants all these artifacts processed," said Carolyn. "Right now, all we can do is stabilize them as they come in."

  "Two of you don't seem to be enough," agreed Lindsay.

  "The problem is, he doesn't want to bring any more people to stay on the island. We're maxed out right now. And he doesn't want to send the artifacts off."

  "What about ferrying some more workers in?" asked Lindsay.

  "I'm going to have to ask him to do that if he keeps pushing like he's been doing."

  Lindsay sat down at her station and worked on her bone analysis reports. After the bones were through the desalinization process and dried, she would make another, more thorough, examination. But right now, preliminary reports to the funding agencies were coming due.

  When she grew tired of the reports, she called up the Web and searched for the history of diving. She was surprised at how far back diving for wrecks and the use of compressed air went. A drawing of a bellows adorned the tomb wall of the governor of Thebes. Jeremiah 6:29 mentions the use of bellows. Aristotle, in the fourth century B.C., wrote about "instruments for drawing air from above the water and thus [men] were able to remain a long time under the sea." Bobbie was right-Alexander the Great, a student of Aristotle, descended into the sea in a contraption called a Colimpha. In the first century A.D., Hero wrote a manuscript called Pneumatica about the use of air pressure and vacuum. In 1240, Roger Bacon invented a machine for breathing underwater. The bends was actually recognized as far back as the seventeenth century when it was called "a bubble in the viper's eye."

  Lindsay searched for the term "dysbaric osteonecrosis" and found more hits than she could look at. Ultimately, she'd have to go to the library and search the medical journals, but for now she scanned a few of the entries. One source said the condition was rarely seen in recreational divers, and most often in saturation divers-whatever they were.

  "Do either of you guys know what a saturation diver is?"

  Korey and Carolyn both looked up and shrugged..

  "That's a diver who has to stay at a great depth a long time."

  Lindsay looked up at John coming toward her desk. "Hi," she greeted.

  He pulled up a chair and sat down beside her. "You become saturated when your tissues absorb as much nitrogen as they can hold at your depth." He leaned against her and looked at her computer.

  "You planning on doing some deep diving?"

  "No, I'm certainly not. Why would anyone stay down that long?"

  "You got to do a job, it takes a while. After you're saturated, decompression time doesn't increase the longer you stay. So you get the job done, decompress at the end."

  "How do you use the bathroom?" asked Carolyn.

  John looked over at her and laughed. "You usually work out of some kind of pressurized underwater habitat or diving bell."

  "How do you know so much about it?" asked Lindsay.

  "I've done some of it in the navy and working on oil rigs."

  Lindsay took a long look at John. "Did you suffer any damage from it?"

  "No. You mix the gases right and decompress according to the tables, and it's safe. Relatively speaking." He tapped the computer screen. "You worried I might get this?"

  "The whole thing seems very dangerous to me."

  "Dangerous, yes. But like I said. You do it right. Besides, who are you to worry about dangerous?"

  She grinned at him. He looked good-tan skin and white T-shirt. Instead of having his hair tied back, he wore it long and parted in the middle. Every feature of his face was well defined. Even the slight crow's-feet around his eyes looked good on him. The two of them held their eyes locked in an intimate stare for several moments.

  "I try to stay out of danger," she said at last.

  "You don't try very hard." He took her hand. "How about it? It's Saturday night. Want to go someplace?"

  Lindsay glanced at her watch. It was only three o'clock. The security guard wouldn't get here for another three hours. At least on Saturdays they didn't debrief.

  "Let me talk to the security guard first. He doesn't get here until six."

  "Sure."

  Lindsay closed out her computer and cleared off her desk. "You going back to the dam?"


  "Not for a while," he said.

  "Want to walk on the beach?" she asked.

  "Sure."

  The breeze was refreshing after the stuffiness of the lab. Lindsay took her shoes off and walked on the wet sand in her bare feet. John put his arm around her waist.

  "Have you met with Trey?" Lindsay asked him.

  He nodded. "I met with him and Lewis on my barge this morning early. I have to say I was surprised. A sunken treasure ship is the biggest motive for a lot of things that I've seen. I'm amazed we haven't had more trouble."

  "You know, I had forgotten about Nate's attack. I thought that probably had something to do with drugs. Nate said it was pirates. I'll bet they were surveying, searching for signs of the ship."

  "It seems likely."

  "John."

  "Lindsay, I don't like the way you said that."

  "It's your name."

  "I know it is, and you are about to ask me something that I'm not going to want to do."

  "You know me so well."

  "In so short a time. What is it?" He released her waist and walked backward in front of her. "I'm so grateful you aren't prowling bars in Savannah, I might agree."

  "I want to visit Evangeline Jones on her ship."

  "I obviously don't know you well enough, or I wouldn't have made a rash agreement like that."

  "I don't think she's dangerous. We'll tell Lewis and Trey where we're going."

  John stopped and put his hands on her shoulders.

  "Lindsay, someone, maybe several someones, killed Hardy Denton and Keith Teal. You keep going to visit people, you are eventually going to hit the ones who committed the murder."

  "That's the idea. However, I don't think she'll do anything. I just want to talk with her."

  "All right. Let's get an okay from Lewis and Trey first. Will you do that?"

  Lindsay nodded. "How about dinner and a movie tonight?"

  "Sounds good."

  "And tomorrow we visit Jones."

  "If Trey and Lewis okay it."

  They walked about a mile up the narrow beach. The smooth sand and lapping waves felt good on Lindsay's bare feet. She especially liked the feel of the sand rushing from under her feet with each retreating wave.

  "You know," she said as they turned around and headed back, "I would have enjoyed being marooned out here with you."

  "I can arrange that."

  "We'd have to get rid of the bugs."

  "Now, that might be a problem."

  Lindsay wondered if their romance could live only here on this island in the absence of everyday anxieties, with no Native Americans for her to excavate and John to protest against, no arguments about the sacrilege she committed against his people, no choices or compromises to make about either of their beliefs in order to make their relationship work. The island was sort of an anaerobic environment for the heart, preserving fragile feelings that would otherwise erode over time. She felt like Luke Youngdeer. She wanted this job to last forever.

  John held her hand tightly as they walked and watched the waves come up around their feet. Lindsay wondered if he was thinking the same thing she was. She brought his hand up to her lips.

  "What are you thinking about, watching those waves?" she asked.

  "From Here to Eternity," answered John.

  Lindsay started laughing, let go of his hand, and backed away. He ran after her and grabbed her around the waist.

  "No. Deborah Kerr had on a bathing suit, and I've got to meet with the security guard."

  "I've seen you archaeologists when you're working-you're covered in sand. He'll just think you've been working." He picked her up. "You know, for a slim woman, you sure are heavy. I'm going to have to start working out."

  She cuffed his shoulder. "I'll have you know, I'm all muscle and I'm tall. If I'm so heavy, you can put me down."

  "You want me to put you down, I will." His eyes twinkled as he grinned at her.

  "No."

  "Are you sure? If you want me to put you down in the sand, I will."

  "Don't you dare."

  She kissed him, and he gently let his arm slip from the back of her knees so she stood on the ground.

  "This doesn't have to end," he said.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean, when we leave here, we can find a way to work things out."

  So he was sharing her thoughts. She liked that-liked that he wanted something beyond this island.

  "I hope so."

  As they walked silently up the beach, Lindsay watched the ground, as was her habit. Having gone on so many surveys with her grandfather and worked on so many sites, it was her nature to scrutinize the ground for interesting things wherever she went. Just ahead, she saw three objects brought up by the surf. She dropped John's hand and ran over to pick them up.

  "What is it?" asked John.

  Lindsay held the irregular rounded objects in her palm. She rubbed her fingers over them.

  "What?" asked John again.

  "Gold coins. Spanish gold coins."

  "You're joking."

  She held them out to him.

  "They're shiny," he said.

  "Gold doesn't tarnish."

  John took the coins and rubbed them with his fingers. "Which ship?" he asked.

  "I don't know. I assume the officers on our ship could have their own personal money, so it could be from the Estrella."

  "But it could be from the other one, the one Trey called the silver galleon."

  "Yes, I assume so. But ..."

  "But what?"

  "I've never given that story much credibility. Mainly because I don't know what it could have been doing here. Cuba was the place where they did all their commerce. There was nothing up here but St. Augustine in 1565, Santa Elena in 1566, and a few failing missions. I don't know why a silver galleon would come to a colony."

  "So you think it belongs to the Estrella?" said John.

  "If I had to bet, that's what I would bet on. We're almost directly across from the site."

  "They're pretty, aren't they?" asked John.

  He weighed the three coins in his hand and jingled them together before dropping them back into Lindsay's palm.

  "I can see why men get treasure fever. There is something powerful about gold. It has a magic that grabs you," he said. - - -- - - - - - - - -- -

  Lindsay could imagine running her hand through a chest full of these. The coins weighed heavy in her pocket as she walked to the lab to talk with Dale Delosier. John was right. They had a power.

  She found the security guard entering the back of the laboratory building. She had expected him to be an older man, and he was, but he was also straight and lean and walked with a spring in his step. His security guard uniform was crisp and pressed, his nails manicured, and his steel gray hair neatly held in placeall taken together, the look of a man who took pride in his appearance.

  "Mr. Delosier, I'm Lindsay Chamberlain." She held out her hand to him and he shook it.

  "Dr. Lewis told me you might want to talk with me about that night."

  "Why don't we sit down at a corner table in the break room," suggested Lindsay. "I don't think anyone is using it."

  She was right. Most everyone had escaped for dinner. The small coffee shop was empty. Dale Delosier sat down, shaking his head.

  "In all the time I've been doing security work, nothing like this has ever happened. When I took this job, I thought I would be basically a night watchman. Not that I don't take it seriously, I do. But this is an island. I looked at the two buildings and decided that the majority of my watch would be spent here. Nothing in the warehouse could be moved without a crane. Here is where the people sleep, here is where the valuable equipment is stored-"

  "That sounds like a good plan to me," said Lindsay. "No one expected that you could be two places at once."

  "If you don't mind ... Lewis asked me to speak to you, but he only told me that you're one of the archaeologists. I don't understand...."

 
"I'm a forensic anthropologist also, and I've worked with law enforcement. I think Dr. Lewis believes that I might bring another point of view to the investigation."

  He nodded his head. "I see." He shifted in his chair uneasily. Lindsay couldn't tell if he was anxious to get to work and avoid another incident, or if he was guilty of something, or if he felt uncomfortable being interrogated by a woman almost young enough to be his granddaughter.

  "I won't keep you long," she said.

  "I don't actually start until eight o'clock. I'm here early because that's when the last ferry gets here."

  "What do you do between six and eight?"

  "I read." He reached in his briefcase and brought out a copy of American Locomotives: An Engineering History, 1830-1880. "I collect trains. That's why I took this job. I have a good retirement program that keeps me and my wife comfortable, but I like a little extra income to buy my trains. Here, I'll show you."

  He pulled out a magazine from his briefcase and laid it on the table in front of Lindsay. It was actually a model train catalog and was folded back to a specific page. He pointed to a locomotive that could pass for a photograph of a real train.

  "It's called a Big Boy. I'm interested in the digital system. It gives you a lot of control over speed and acceleration."

  He looked at the picture longingly. Lindsay looked at the price. It wasn't so expensive that one needed an extra job to buy it.

  "Two hundred and thirty dollars. That's not too bad," said Lindsay.

  Delosier looked pleased. "That's what I told my wife. The problem is, you don't just get the locomotive, there's all the cars."

  "They don't come with it?"

  "Oh, no. See that's part of it, constructing the whole train, choosing the cars. And, of course, they have to have a place to run. You can't have trains like this riding around in a circle. They've got to have a station, trees, houses, water towers, tunnels...." He gestured with his hands. "I've got the entire basement for my collection. You should see it."

  "I can imagine, and I guess you have to have tools and paint and all that?"

  "You understand. Millie and the girls don't. I have four grown daughters, and they think I should spend my retirement traveling to foreign countries with Millie. Why would anybody want to do that?"