"How?"
"Well, suppose it is the same person. I'd like to think we have one murderer instead of two." Ramirez nodded in agreement. Lindsay continued. "Denton is killed in the warehouse and the killer decides to-" She stopped.
"You have another idea?" asked Ramirez.
"Denton was a strong man. Holding his head under water was a difficult way to kill him. Why didn't the killer use some other method?" Lindsay asked.
"The killer didn't want the sound of a gunshot or the blood of a knife wound. Poison was too slow, the roof was too high to hang him, and he couldn't get behind Denton to hit him on the head," Ramirez answered.
Lindsay suppressed a laugh and coughed instead. She took a drink of her cold coffee. "Torture. The killer wanted to know something, so he held Denton's head under water. Maybe he didn't even mean for him to drown."
"That's not bad. I could hang my hat on that. What was it they wanted? The cross? The location of the ship?"
"Maybe to know why Denton was lurking around the island," Lindsay suggested.
Ramirez nodded. "What was the other thing? The thing you said fit with Keith's death?"
"Oh. The murderer killed Denton. I'm assuming it was a man. It would be hard for a woman to hold a man's head under water. After Denton died, the killer had the problem many killers end up with-getting rid of the body. He hauled it to the deck on that side of the warehouse. Got a rowboat so as not to make noise. We have lots of boats of all kinds around this place. He towed him behind the boat because that was easy, and was going to leave him in the waterway or take him out to the ocean. But the killer lost Denton's body in the alligator pond," finished Lindsay.
"That's good, too. The M.O. kind of fits. I like that. This has been a good conversation. Please let me know if anything else occurs to you."
Ramirez had brought someone from his office with him to pilot the boat to the dam. The young man was waiting in the break room with several of the scuba crew in from their dives. Lindsay looked at her watch. Time had passed quickly. Ramirez shook her hand and thanked her again.
"You have been a big help. I think you have this half solved. Good luck with your excavation."
"Thanks."
Lindsay went back to Lewis's office to clean up the coffee cups. As she passed through the weather room, she noticed that they seemed busier than usual.
"How are things?" she asked.
"William looked up from a readout and smiled. "Oh, we're getting some weather. Nothing to worry about. It's far away from here."
"Good, keep it far away."
She emptied the mugs and washed them out in the small kitchen off the break room.
"Was that the FBI man?"
Lindsay looked up to see Sarah, coffee cup in hand to wash. "Hi. Yes, that was him."
"How're things going? Are they going to find the person who's doing this? I mean, some of us are kind of afraid."
"Yes, they are making progress. I don't think you need to worry. Lewis is putting on extra security."
"That's a relief."
"How's the diving going? Any more cannons?"
"As a matter of fact, yes. One of the other teams found another cannon and a cask."
"How do you retrieve the barrels and cannons? Don't they weigh a lot?"
"We call for the barge, tie several balloons to it, and raise it to the surface, to be hoisted onto the barge."
Seeing Sarah reminded Lindsay: "Are you going to be in this evening? I need to talk to you and Nate about Keith Teal."
"Lewis has you detecting, I heard." Sarah made a face. "Sure, I'll tell you what, we'll have dinner on the barge tomorrow evening. I'll bring Nate."
"Thanks. I'm sorry about doing this, but-"
"I know. We all work with Lewis. What he wants, he gets."
"Thanks." Lindsay took her coffee cup. "It's the least I can do."
Lewis was in the break room when Lindsay came out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a paper towel. He took her arm. "We took up Gina's skeleton today. Thought you might like to get on it."
Lindsay looked at Lewis and smiled. "When would you like it done? By tomorrow morning?"
Lewis smiled back. "If you can do that, I'd love it."
"No problem."
He pulled her outside the break room and into a corner. "How did it go with Ramirez?"
"Fine. He's going to keep our secret. He was a little miffed at not being told in the beginning, but I explained that it isn't something we actually know is there."
"Good, he bought that?"
"Yes, because I believed it to be true."
"Great. I knew I did right in bringing you here. You have great connections, ones that I don't have."
"I'm glad to fill in a gap in your associations."
"You have a great sense of humor, too." He squeezed her shoulder and went to meet Trey coming through the door. "The skeleton's downstairs. Carolyn put it in a tub of water before she left," he yelled back at her.
Chapter 24
LINDSAY WAS RUNNING her fingers over the right humerus of the new set of bones when John came into the lab. Carolyn and Korey had the evening off, and she worked alone at one of the artifact tables. Lindsay didn't see him until she lifted her head.
"Hello," he said and walked over. He stood for a moment. "You love bones, don't you?"
"Yes, why?"
"Oh, just watching you with them. What is it you feel?"
"From the bones? Their story. Every one is different."
"What's his story?" asked John.
"I don't know yet. It'll gradually unfold as I examine the bones."
"I was not unmoved by the story you told of my ancestors buried on Royce's land when we met."
Lindsay could see this was going to lead to a conversation she was not yet prepared to have, but she didn't quite know how to stop it.
"I know we will always differ about"-he hesitated, searching for words-"about what you do. Not even members of my own tribe agree, nor do all the members of our nation agree, but you didn't use that as an argument against me, and I appreciate that."
Lindsay remained silent, not certain of what to say, not wanting to break the spell of the island, hoping John wouldn't. He came closer.
"It makes no sense," he said, not without some vehemence, "that I should be falling in love with an archaeologist."
Lindsay's gaze lingered on John for a moment, then searched the room as if the words she wanted could be found close by. "I want there to be a solution that doesn't require either of us to com promise what we believe. Wanting the impossible is, well-"she shrugged.
"You and Derrick were close." This was a conversation Lindsay didn't want to have, either. She took a breath.
"We were. Derrick and I were in graduate school together. He was-still is in some ways-my best friend. I loved him, and it meant something. It's hard to let go of some of it. I don't mean I yearn to have him back, I mean-the friendship, the memories ...
"I understand. I wouldn't mind your being friends with him, just don't be with him, if you understand what I mean."
"Yes, I do. Are you still close to your ex-wife? You have kids together."
"Sometimes we are close. We didn't end as amicably. But yes, there are memories. Good memories. You worry about my exwife?"
"No. I worry that one day we're going to fight over the matter of what I do for a living that puts us at opposite ends of a pole, and we won't be able to find our way back together." Lindsay put the humerus away.
"I've got to run some errands. I was going to offer to bring you something for dinner from the mainland if you're staying here."
"Yes, I think I'll ask Harper to put me up for the night. I feel like I'm behind, and this will give me a chance to catch up. How about another of those pizzas-mushrooms, sausage, and pepperoni?"
"You got it."
"Thanks for thinking about me."
"I think about you all the time," he said and waved as he left.
The lab filled up and emptied as
everyone came in and then read that there would be no debriefing this evening. Lindsay was alone in the lab as she took the skull measurements of HSkR4. Steven Nemo entered and began flipping through his charts, filling in finds on the cross section of the ship, matching a map he brought with him with the one on the chart. Lindsay put the skull back in the saline solution and walked over to him.
"Is it my turn?" he asked.
"Yes."
"What does Lewis hope to accomplish by having you do this?" Steven's black hair, neatly trimmed black beard, and the scowl on his face gave him a devilish appearance.
"Control, I think."
Steven nodded. "I can see that. From what others have told me, the crime happened between 3:00 and 4:00 A.M. Well, I was asleep on the barge between 11:30 and 5:30, so I guess I have no alibi."
"Most of us don't. I was asleep on the island during those times, and I had a confrontation with Denton only days earlier."
"Does Ramirez really suspect us? He's got Isaac scared to death. Isaac wouldn't hurt a fly."
"I don't think Isaac is a serious contender. It was his bad luck Denton was drowned in his sink. Did you ever meet Denton?"
"No. I don't think any of us did. West's men had a run-in with him once. I'm not trying to get them in trouble. It's just that his beef was about the dam."
"How about Keith Teal? Did you know him?"
"We went diving together a few times. He showed me some of the things he retrieved from a wreck he found a few years ago. He was a pothunter, but he knew the area."
"Do you have any idea what he was doing here when he was killed?"
"I don't know. We weren't using him as an informant anymore. Mike Altman, the biologist, had more of a reason to do him in. Keith apparently decided to try his hand at horticulture. He stole some of the rare plants on the island and sold them to collectors. Pissed Mike off good, and I can't say as I blame him."
"You think if Keith came around again trying to do the same thing, Mike might do something?"
"I don't want to blame anyone, not even the bio people." He sighed. "It's possible that he and Keith would get in a fight. I suppose if I were to stretch things, I could see that Mike might have killed him accidently, but he wouldn't have hidden the body."
"When was the last time you saw Keith around here?"
"Not for about a couple of months."
Lindsay couldn't think of anything else to ask. She actually felt silly interrogating the crew and turned her attention to Steven's cross section. "A site like this deserves our undivided attention."
His mouth widened into a big grin. That, and the dimples in his cheeks, made him look almost angelic. "I agree. This is just the best site I've worked on. I pore over those diary pages every night looking for descriptions of the ship, matching them with our finds. You know Lewis wants to build a museum."
"I heard."
"I went to Athens a couple of weeks ago, and we looked at some land. If everything goes well, there's this spot on the Oconee River that would be perfect. Lewis wants the museum near campus and near water. We're going to reconstruct the Estrella inside. It will be great. Can you imagine"-he gestured to the cross section, then made a wide arc with his arms-"that huge ship reconstructed? It will be magnificent. In a few months he and I are going to England to look at the Mary Rose and the museum there."
"I like the idea of a museum."
"Odd thing, however; when we talked about the space, I got the feeling he was planning for two ships. Do you know anything about that?" He gave Lindsay a hard stare and she said nothing. "Oh, God, I knew it. I've heard-"
"What have you heard?" she asked.
"Whispers about a second ship from some of the scuba divers."
"Can you tell me who?"
"Bobbie for one. Her team's searches take them out of the grid and she doesn't understand why. Nate just tells her he's running experiments with that program of his. I got the feeling that she doesn't like working on his dissertation and not on the main part of the excavation."
"What do you think of his computer program?"
"I don't know much about it. Great thing, if it works. Awful lot of variables."
"Don't pass on any rumors that you hear," Lindsay warned.
"No. I keep pretty much to myself. Damn! Another ship."
"Don't say it out loud, either."
"What? Why? No . . . oh, shit, you're not saying . . . that's impossible."
"Just keep all your thoughts in your head."
"Oh, God, what a nightmare that would be."
"Thank you for talking to me. I know it's a nuisance."
"Not really. This murder business is the nuisance, and just so odd. Jeff says this happens to you all the time."
"Not all the time."
"Still, more than once is amazing. Was HSkR1 really murdered?"
"If the authorities brought me a modern skeleton with those same wounds, I would call it murder. He was hit from behind and sustained repeated blows. The really strange anomaly is HSkR2- the Asian skeleton."
"I've been thinking about what you said during debriefing. You know Valerian's servant, Jen, was a pearl diver. Could that account for his condition?"
"I thought about that, too, and I don't know. It's one of the things I'm going to have to research. So far, everything I've learned suggests that kind of bone necrosis to be a problem only for very deep divers. There's a depth limit to free diving."
"You're right. This site deserves to be the main show. I'd like to strangle whoever it was who killed those two-so to speak." He grinned.
Lindsay went back to her desk and keyed in the measurements to the computer program. She looked at the map and was shocked. She did the whole procedure over, hoping for another outcome. It was the same.
"Oh, no," she said, loud enough for Steven to hear.
"What?" he asked.
"HSkR4-Gina and Juliana's skeleton-his skull measurements suggest he is from North Africa, particularly Morocco."
Steven came over to her desk and looked at the numbers, wrinkling his brow. "Morocco, you mean-not Valerian? Wasn't he Portuguese and Moroccan? Like Gina, I'd kind of hoped he survived. Maybe it was one of the crew."
"Maybe, but I'm not sure a Spanish ship would have had a crew member from a Muslim country," Lindsay said. "Spain was a place where blasphemy against Christianity was a worse offense than stealing. The Spaniards had just driven the Moors from their country. Philip II was persecuting the Moriscos in Spain."
"Who were they?" Steven asked, scrutinizing the skull, as if looking for Valerian in the bony features.
"Converts-Christian Muslims."
"But the Muslims occupied Spain for centuries. There was bound to be intermarriage. How accurate is the program?"
"Mixed offspring is the weak point in the attempt to apply ethnic origin to skeletal remains. The program doesn't write its conclusions in stone. But it is suggestive."
"I hope it's not Valerian. Are there other ways you might be able to tell?"
"I'll read the diary again, and maybe the untranslated parts we don't have yet will have clues. Lewis all but ordered me to match the remains. I think I've caught his desire to match the bones with people in the diary, and I'm jumping to conclusions every time I look at a skeleton. There were over two hundred people on the ship, after all."
"I know what you mean about Lewis. You should be talking to him about the ship. I expect any day now he'll come to me with the idea of reconstructing it so it'll sail again." He laid a hand on Lindsay's shoulder. "It's easy to get caught up in his enthusiasmor his orders." Steven went back to his maps.
Steven was right. What business did she have questioning the crew? The murders were bad enough without having one of their colleagues pulling them aside and giving them the third degree. She wasn't going to do it anymore. Ramirez was more than competent. She was an archaeologist, not a detective. She'd talk to Nate and Sarah, and that'd be it. She wasn't making any progress anyway. Everyone said the same things.
"Hey, come in. I thought you were Trey." Harper was dressed in a yellow sundress and leather sandals.
"I was wondering if I could borrow your couch tonight?"
"Sure, that'd be great. We aren't going to be out long. Trey's got to get back to the dam." Harper reached in her purse and handed Lindsay a key. "Want us to bring you something?"
"John's bringing me a pizza."
"I'll take the evening off. I need it. Lewis acts like this translation is easy. I'd rather have some good girl talk this evening. I swear, if there's another murder on this island, it'll be Lewis and I'll be the perpetrator."
"I think you'll have to take a number."
When Lindsay returned, she had the lab to herself. She hesitated to do too much to the new set of bones. Fabric adhered to them in places, and she preferred to let Carolyn take care of it. In fact, she imagined that Carolyn wouldn't like it much if Lindsay decided to clean the bones herself. She did take up again the humerus that she was examining when John had interrupted her. She thought she had noticed a break. She was right. It had been broken near the distal end, set, and healed well. She made note of it. The measurement of the humerus indicated that he was between five-three and five-six. The measurements of the other long bones would give a more accurate estimation. She put the arm bone back in its solution and looked at some of the other bones. Many of them had bits and pieces of fabric, so she left them alone. It wasn't good methodology to pick and choose bones to examine. It needed to be done systematically.
She turned on her computer to record the information. After Windows came up, a pop-up window opened.
"What in the-"
A morgue photograph appeared. Lindsay stared in shock. It was a picture of the Black Dahlia, a famous Hollywood murder victim of the '40s who was cut in half and left in a field. Except that it was Lindsay's face on the corpse, and large, flashing red letters sent her a warning. "Is the snooping worth it? She was a bitch. You are, too."
LC 04 - Skeleton Crew Page 23