by Cassie Page
Olivia pressured him. “But what about Scott? He arranged this meeting.”
“Can’t help you Olivia. He sent me a text and said to cover things today. He wouldn’t be in.”
“Didn’t you ask him why?”
“He’s the boss. I don’t ask him to account for himself. Since things are shut down, there isn’t much for him to do, anyway. Maybe paperwork. Maybe he’s doing it at home.”
Olivia said, “Have you heard from Russ Bowers? He’s supposed to join us.”
“Figures. You all show up at the same meetings. He’s not here yet. As soon as he arrives, I’ll text Dr. Lauren and you all can take it from there.”
Olivia and the two detectives stood around making small talk until Russ and his ever-present blond assistant showed up. Olivia explained Scott’s absence and said they would proceed without him. The foreman texted Dr. Lauren and minutes later a group of two men and two women emerged from the far end of the trees. They came towards them skirting the markers and taped areas. Olivia guessed that the woman waving to them in a turtleneck and down vest was Dr. Francesca Lauren, the supervisor.
After more introductions, Dr. Lauren asked Olivia about Scott’s absence.
The woman reminded Olivia of a field guide she had met on a cruise to Alaska, well versed in her subject matter, with an obvious passion for the natural world, and not a jot of interest in her appearance. She wore no makeup, had a short bob that did nothing for her bone structure and made no attempt to cover up the premature gray. She was petite and lean, clearly her job kept her in shape, hiking all over the sites she and her team were responsible for assessing. She made it clear she was not happy.
“Do you think we should go ahead without him? We’ve had several conversations and our findings may affect the ability of the project to go forward.”
Olivia shrugged to indicate she didn’t know. This was embarrassing, but she made her response casual.
“I’m sure something important came up.” she said, furious with the contractor for leaving them all high and dry. Her down jacket and rain boots were no match for the damp, chilly day and she began to shiver. “We are all principals on the project and we’ll report to him later on. Why don’t we begin? Who knows, he may show up after all.”
Clearly, Dr. Lauren didn’t like this explanation. “If you say so. It’s very unusual for us to be wandering around a construction project without the ability to consult with the contractor. We’ve come all the way from Sacramento, you know.”
Olivia mumbled another apology and Dr. Lauren uttered, “Let’s get started then,” making no effort to hide her annoyance.
She pointed to an area in the distance she wanted them to see. “I’m sure you know the record of indigenous people who’ve lived here.”
Charles caught up with her and said, “I’m a newcomer. Why don’t you fill me in?”
He hung on her every word as the others had said they were familiar with local history. Francesca began describing the area and the history of the various tribes who had lived under the shadow of Mt. Tamalpais.
“For centuries, Miwok tribes have lived all over northern California, including on and around this mountain. Mt. Tamalpais. Mt. Tam to the locals. Tamal means coast or west, and pais for hill. If you study the mountain when you come into Marin from San Francisco, you can see why it also got the name, Sleeping Princess. If you look at her figure outlined against the sky, with her head, of course, at the top of the mountain. . . .”
Dr. Lauren interrupted herself and took Charles’ arm to steer him away from a puddle. “Watch it, Chuck. That’s deeper than it looks.”
Olivia did a double take. Chuck? Then she remembered that the two had met at the meeting Scott neglected to tell her about. Dr. Lauren seemed to be all business, not smiling very much during the introductions. But maybe she and Charles, er Chuck, had warmed to each other when they first met. Or, the environmentalist was simply rude and skipped the formalities with him. She let go of Charles’ arm and picked up her story.
“As I was saying, her head is the peak of the mountain. And if you haven’t already done it, you should hike up to the top. Otherwise, you’re missing one of the great views of the western world. You can practically see Oregon from up there. Anyway, back to the Sleeping Maiden or Princess. Anyhoo, the mountain is in the shape of a woman reclining with her head at the peak, a small rise indicating her bosom and then the long stretch of her torso and legs down to sea level.”
The party looked up to see where the doctor was pointing but the canopy of trees hid all but the surrounding oaks and redwoods from view. Olivia knew the story, but couldn’t put together the stern demeanor of the scientist with her countrified diction. Did she really say anyhoo?
Dr. Lauren became increasingly chatty, turning to include the rest of the group in her story. “There’s a legend to go with the mountain.” She gave a flirty toss of her head. “There always is, isn’t there?”
Johnson gave her a polite chuckle and she continued with her lecture.
“Anyhoo, short version, a tribal princess is supposed to be trapped in the mountain. From the top you can see across to the East Bay hills and the highest peak in this region. Mt. Diablo. The story goes that her prince sleeps there while he awaits their reunion.”
Russ said, “Very interesting,” without much enthusiasm.
Dr. Lauren took it as a cue to continue with her history lesson. “As you know, this area of coastal Northern California has been and still is home to many indigenous people. What we describe as Marin County was originally Miwok country and then further inland . . . .”
The team knew all of this, of course. Not only was it outlined in the Environmental Impact Report the museum had filed with the State, the EIR, but anyone who had grown up in Northern California had done grade school projects duplicating Miwok dwellings and artwork in papier mache and plastic beads.
Matt threw Olivia an impatient scowl before interrupting the history lecture. “Very interesting, Dr. Lauren. But what can you tell us about this site?”
Apparently the doctor was just as happy talking about recent history as she was ancient. She nodded to her colleagues, who trailed behind the design team. “Shall I?”
She didn’t wait for confirmation. “Now as you know, we signed off on this property believing it to be free of encroachment on known tribal land or areas of archeological significance. Hence, we were quite stunned to learn of the discoveries made by your logger. I’ve been briefed on the tragedy that occurred here as well as the discovery of artifacts. Detective Richards made the deceased’s findings and his detailed journal available to us.”
Olivia turned to stare at Matt. This was the first she had heard of a journal.
“From the detailed notes Mr. Fisher kept, I’d say he was an amateur archeologist or at least a student of indigenous people. The most interesting finding, of course, is what appears to be a petrified bone, most likely a metacarpal, that is, a finger. It’s undergoing testing now, but we expect that carbon dating will show we are dealing with an age described in millennia, rather than the mere hundreds of years you’d expect to find in Miwok country.”
Matt had prepared Olivia for this news, but Charles and Russ dropped their jaws in unison.
Charles kept shaking his head is if he had a bee buzzing around in it. “Franny, you mean it’s thousands of years old?”
This morning was full of surprises. Franny?
Dr. Lauren didn’t skip a beat at the familiarity. She answered, “Zackly.”
Then she slipped back into her professional mode. No more chatty asides to Chuck as she explained, “We’re in the process of doing the testing. First you have to find an appropriately equipped lab with an available time slot, then it takes a few days to prep the sample and, well, I don’t need to bore you with the minutia of carbon dating. After all that, the actual test only takes an hour, give or take. We are fortunate to have the University of California at Berkeley just across the bay. They have a lab worki
ng on a new method and they have agreed to test our sample as part of their research. We’ll know the results tomorrow.
Olivia whistled. “Tomorrow? I thought it took months to do carbon dating.”
Franny grinned at Charles instead of Olivia. “That was the old days. Can’t stop progress. This new method is accurate within plus or minus a thousand years, not what some tests promise but good enough for our purposes. If this is a newer bone, it won’t help much, but it will give us something. If it’s older, well that would be exciting. We’ve found the remains of settlements that we estimate to be five thousand years old in Northern California. Anything older than that would stand the anthropologists on their heads. I’ve been told off the record that we are talking over ten thousand years with this finger.”
The group fell silent. Francesca paused to let that number sink in.
“Now as you can imagine, if this early date is confirmed, it would cause a great deal of excitement in the scientific community. This finger might have been attached to a human when ice still covered much of North America.”
Russ started swearing, then stopped himself when he caught a disapproving look from Dr. Lauren. He said more calmly, “We might as well close up shop right now. No way we will get permission to continue with this job in the near future with something from the ice age onsite. This is going to get us tangled up in NAGPRA.”
Charles looked confused.
Russ said, “Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. It’sthe federal statute that protects burial grounds.Short answer, we’re screwed.”
Francesca stepped in. “Slow down, Mr. Bowers. First of all, I’m not talking about the ice age. That’s hundreds of thousands of years ago. But we had a glacial period when ice came down as far as the Canadian border and where there were pockets of severe cold everywhere. It was probably warming up when our guy was roaming around, but this,” she gestured to the woods around her and hills above, “was a very different landscape.”
Olivia tried to imagine a barren, frozen Bay Area, without large tracts of homes, without picturesque towns like Darling. Without traffic jams.
Dr. Lauren interrupted her reverie. “Sir, you are assuming that because the digit was found on this property that this is it’s home. We have been exploring the surrounding area and discovered an underground spring that is not on any of our maps. So we started following it to its source and it led us up into the high country above the trees.”
She described an area of pasture and uninhabited rolling hills nestled on the side of Mt. Tam. The Pacific Ocean bordered Marin County on the west. Then a range of coastal mountains quickly rose with rolling hills and forest covering the miles to San Francisco Bay to the east. As the crow flies, the area was a colorful patchwork dotted with steams and a few small lakes, one of which lay on the edge of Darling Valley.
Charles became animated. “You mean the rains washed this stuff down onto our property?”
Dr. Lauren took in the surprised, happy faces of Charles, Olivia and Russ.
“That’s exactly what I mean. Now these observations are preliminary. Don’t get your hopes up yet. However, on our first look around yesterday, my team and I,” she pointed to the three members of the environmental team who had remained silent up to now, and whom Olivia had forgotten were even present, “we followed the stream, way up there. We found a deep seam in the earth that had opened up, probably during the recent storms. No one has tried to build on that hillside in recent memory or they would have found what we did, the origin of your artifacts.”
Charles said, “That’s the first piece of good news we’ve had all week.”
Russ asked, “When can we get back to work?”
Francesca answered, “Not so fast. This is all preliminary, but if we continue to unearth implements and bones on the upper site and none down here, your property is fine and my crew and I? We’re done here. That’s best case. Of course, we will have to scour this area for more items that may have washed down, but they will be on the surface and that won’t take us long. If you’d like to see some of the things we’ve found, I can lead you on a path that won’t disturb the site.”
The group followed Francesca into the deep woods at the edge of Charles’ property. They walked past some markers and Matt indicated the boot prints they believed belonged to Jed Fisher, and the smaller prints of his attacker. Olivia turned to study them as she followed the group. She nudged Matt.
“We need to talk.”
At the end of the meeting while Olivia and the two detectives walked to the car, Matt’s cell rang.
When he hung up he said to Johnson, “A floater. The unit is waiting for us at the lake.”
Olivia overheard and said, “A drowning?”
“We have to see. Can you get a ride home? Johnson and I need to get on this right away. Can we talk after I check this out?”
11:4
“Well, hashtag lucky you.”
Tuesday continued making black bean quesadillas with bleu cheese as Olivia filled her in on the meeting.
“You mean the artifacts came from the hills up above?”
Charles had driven Olivia home in his newly acquired MG TC. She was too distracted by Scott having gone missing to appreciate the admiring looks on Darling Boulevard as they drove by, followed a discreet distance by one of the security guards in a standard issue SUV.
She grabbed plates for their lunch, grateful Tuesday had decided to surprise her with one of their favorite Tex-Mex entrees. She’d have to wolf down hers, though, as she had to rush over to the Fredericks’ to finish the punch list with Vittorio.
Olivia got the hot sauce from her cupboard, asking, “Are you feeding our security guy?”
Tuesday slid a quesadilla on each of their plates. “I offered but he insisted on eating a sandwich out of his lunchbox in his car across the street. I guess he’s undercover, but does that sentence him to bologna on white?”
Olivia, sitting at the counter with her phone to her ear, laughed. She’d lost track of the number of messages she had left for Scott. When she got his voice mail for the umpteenth time, she gave up in frustration and tossed her phone back into her bag.
“I don’t understand it,” she said, helping herself to some chips Tuesday had set out next to a bowl of guacamole. “Where could he be? I’ve left a message on his home phone and no answer there either. I don’t know his wife’s cell number or I’d try her. Maybe I’ll drive out to their home after I finish with Vittorio at the pool house.”
She grinned salaciously at the guacamole. “Tues, you’ve been holding out on me. I didn’t know you could cook.”
Her friend made a show of buffing her nails, then confessed. “Actually, I can’t. I ran over to Paymoor’s while you were gone. It’s their guac and my one simple recipe for quesadillas. Your museum project is sounding like a jigsaw puzzle that’s been knocked off the table.”
“You’ve got that right. And I’m afraid I’ve lost a few pieces.”
Tuesday returned the skillet to the stove, moving quickly before her lunch got cold. “Let me see if I can follow the treasure map. A guy gets killed and his widow and baby go missing.”
Olivia said, “Check.”
“Two of the members of your committee almost get whacked.”
“Check again.”
Tuesday drizzled salsa and sour cream over the quesadillas. “This isn’t in any particular order, but Native American artifacts, including a finger, and isn’t that just too gross for words, show up on the site right where they aren’t supposed to be.”
“Checkaroo,” Olivia said, salivating over her lunch. She tucked a napkin onto her lap and dug in.
“And while all these fun and games are going on, you, my friend,” Tuesday slid onto the counter stool next to Olivia, “are getting veiled death threats.”
Olivia wiped her mouth, the paper napkin coming away with a smear of salsa and lip gloss. “Double check that. Oh these are so good. Will you move in as my personal chef?�
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Tuesday helped herself to guacamole. “Since this is the only thing I know how to cook, you’d get tired after about a day and half. Back to Jeopardy. And now your contractor is missing.”
“Check that bad boy, too.” Olivia said. “You are a woman of many talents for keeping track of all this. But don’t forget the missing widow and baby.”
Tuesday shook her head sadly. “I can’t even go there.” But she wasn’t finished with her summary of Olivia’s woes. “So, as I was saying, behind door number three, folks, we have a potential art fraud, a squirrely client and a sleazy designer who’s trying to sabotage your work.”
“Check, check and jackpot.”
Tuesday started to clear away the dishes. “So what’s at the top of your to-do list?”
“Obviously it’s the missing persons. Matt was called away to a drowning in the lake and so I couldn’t talk to him about what to do about tracking Scott down.”
“A drowning? In perfect Darling Valley?”
Olivia gathered up her things, ready to leave for Marguerite Fredericks’ house. “Yeah. You know there’s a druggy enclave near the lake.”
She hung her fingers out in air quotes. “DV’s bad side of the tracks. My guess is someone was partying too hard and fell in and his friends were too stoned to notice. I’ve heard the kids sneak over to the yacht harbor and hang out on the sailboats. The big yachts have security but not the sailfishes and the like. I’ll find out what happened from Matt when he checks in.”
Olivia was ready to leave but there was actually one more puzzle piece that she hadn’t mentioned to Tuesday, fearing her paranoia was in overdrive. But since she wouldn’t be able to talk to Matt about it for a while, she needed to unburden herself.
“By the way, Tuesday, you need to add one more item to your list.”
When she told her friend of her suspicions, they both sat down again, a little frightened.