Lovely In Her Bones

by Sharyn McCrumb

  The troops sneered. “You used most of it anyway!”

  He ambled out of the clearing to catcalls and demands that he hurry back.

  The woods were somewhat cooler, but that was the limit of Victor’s aesthetic appreciation of nature. Everything green looked like poison ivy, and everything flowering was an allergy suspect. To Victor, a simple woodland walk took on the proportions of a minefield crossing. Victor patted his pockets. Maybe he should take an antihistamine when he got back to the church. Where were they? He must have left them back in his toilet articles kit with his green pills, sunscreen, asthma medicine, and the other antidotes to the immediate world. He sneezed, and glared suspiciously at a small yellow flower blooming beside the path. He advanced toward it, intending to grind it into the dirt, but then he remembered the pollen that would be sent into the air from shaking it and turned aside.

  Someone was watching him.

  “Hello,” stammered Victor to the vaguely human outline concealed in shrubbery. “Are you walking toward the church? I’m going back to get water.” He held up the water jug. “It’s empty. Oh, you have one too,” he said upon seeing his companion more clearly. “Oh? It isn’t water? What’s in there? Nothing alcoholic, I trust. Oh. Cider. I’ve heard that cider is good for allergies. Oh, no, really I couldn’t. It’s very kind of you to offer, but… well, if you’re sure. Perhaps just a taste. It’s an oven out there in the clearing.”

  He took the stoneware jug, hooking his thumb through the circular handle, and held it up to drink from, in what he imagined to be mountaineer fashion. The uncorked jug sent a great wave of cider down Victor’s throat, so that he felt something feathery hit his throat, but not in time to spit it out. He was just opening his mouth to ask what it was when he felt his throat being stabbed from within, and cold ripples of numbness began to encircle the ache.

  “It’s a bee,” he rasped. “I’m allergic.” He opened his eyes and found himself alone on the path. The trees around him began a slow horizontal rotation, as if they, too, were walking away.

  Victor’s heart thudded against his ribs. His sweat was cold. “… Have to take a shot,” he mumbled to himself. “Bee kit…” Was this the way to the church? He couldn’t tell because the path was spinning. Nothing was clear except the pinging little pain in his throat. He listened to the pain for a while.

  A new sensation, seeming to come from far away, penetrated his consciousness. He could not swallow. Victor gasped for breath, tugging at the neck of his T-shirt. Dimly he realized that the bee sting in his throat was causing the tissue to swell and closing the air passage to his lungs. It felt a bit like an asthma attack. You strained and strained but nothing reached your lungs. Victor tried to think of a way to breathe without using his throat. He was still puzzling over this riddle in physiology when the spinning path became a blur, and he fell facedown into the weeds, clutching at them to keep from being swept away. He shut his eyes until the darkness filled his brain, and then he was still.

  “Where is Victor?” asked Elizabeth, looking around. “He’s certainly taking his time with that water.”

  “He’ll come strolling in about lunchtime with some story about a headache,” grumbled Jake. “I should have known better than to let him go for water.”

  “I wonder what possessed him to study archaeology?”

  “It sounds a lot more romantic than it is,” said Jake. “He probably has visions of strolling through a well-landscaped jungle and coming upon an abandoned Mayan temple just waiting to be discovered.”

  One of the day crew shook his head. “Nah. He figures that when he’s the head man, he’ll get somebody else to do the spade work.”

  The work continued for another hour, as the sun rose higher in the sky. It cleared the tops of the surrounding trees and blazed at them with white heat. Elizabeth dabbed at her forehead with a tissue. “Gosh, it’s hot out here,” she remarked to Jake. “I’m getting nearly as brown as you are.”

  Jake had taken off his shirt and was troweling in the trench next to her. He had wrapped his red bandanna around his head for a sweatband, but a few trickles slipped past it and slid down the sides of his face. He held his arm up against Elizabeth’s to compare tans. “I’ve got a considerable head start, Blue-Eyes,” he grinned.

  Elizabeth giggled. “With that thing around your head, you look like an Apache.”

  He grunted. “You mean I look like Jeff Chandler, I suppose?”

  “What?”

  “Jeff Chandler played Cochise in the movie Broken Arrow. When most people say Apache, that’s what they mean.”

  Elizabeth thought about it. “Was Jimmy Stewart in it?”

  “Yep. He was the Indian agent.”

  “I guess you’re right then. It’s too hot to think. Where is Victor?”

  “Where’s the water? you mean.”

  She sighed. “Well, he is a pig to leave us without any. Especially since he drank most of it to begin with.”

  “That’s Victor. What are our problems compared to millions of his?”

  Elizabeth threw down her trowel. “I give up! I’ll go after the water myself!”

  “Victor took the jug,” one of the diggers pointed out.

  “Well, I’ll find him and bring it back. Or I’ll get a milk jug from the church. I am going to get some water up here. And when I find Victor, I’m going to tell him exactly what I think of him.” She scrambled up the clay bank and dusted off the legs of her jeans.

  “Elizabeth! Wait!” Jake looked worried. “Remember what we said about not getting separated.”

  “Oh, stop it! Victor is goofing off. I won’t give him the satisfaction of getting worried about him! If I’m not back in twenty minutes, you can send the cavalry after me.”

  “Wait! Wait!” he called as she stalked off. “Don’t you want to take… er…” He pointed to the shrubbery. “Him with you?”

  Elizabeth gave him a look of complete exasperation. “Twenty minutes, okay?” And she was gone.

  Elizabeth was careful where she walked, trying to make as little noise as possible. She was not trying to sneak past some monster lurking in the woods; her thoughts were on the deer they had glimpsed that morning on the way to the site. “There are lots of animals in the woods,” Jake told her, “but unless you’re quiet, you won’t see them.” She had followed his instructions and watched the underbrush carefully, delighted when a log turned out to be a fat groundhog having his breakfast. Now she tried to concentrate on sighting a rabbit or a fawn in order to keep her mind off lower forms of life, such as insects, snakes, and Victor.

  He really was impossible, she thought. He had no more sense of responsibility than a groundhog. Was that a groundhog? She bent down to inspect a clump of bushes; no, it really was a log this time. She heard a skittering a few feet from the path and decided that it was a rabbit running for cover. At least the plants didn’t hide. She spent the next hundred yards trying to identify the plants along the path, and mentally rehearsing the tongue-lashing she was going to give Victor.

  “… Selfish, infantile, neurotic…” Elizabeth stopped short.

  In the weeds ahead she saw a patch of bright blue. Victor’s trousers? What a funny place to sleep, Elizabeth thought, as the truth registered farther back in her mind. “Oh, no,” she whispered.

  Victor lay facedown in the weeds, still clutching at a stalk of broom sedge. His legs were spread at a convulsive angle, but he was quite still. Elizabeth was glad that she could not see his face.

  “Victor,” she said softly, edging closer to the body. She wondered what had happened; there didn’t seem to be any blood. A stroke? Tentatively, she stretched out her hand. He might still be alive. His cheek felt cool, though. Elizabeth knelt and peered into Victor’s swollen face, and then she was sure.

  To Elizabeth, shocked into slow motion by the sight of the body, it seemed that she stood for hours in the clearing contemplating the stubble on Victor’s chin, the water jug resting in a clump of knotweed, and the sound of bi
rds far above her. Actually, only a few minutes passed before fear snapped her out of her reverie and sent her running back toward the site.

  Jake looked up as she came crashing through a patch of thistles. “Will you be quiet? Do you want Mr. Stecoah to mistake you for a buffalo?” He saw her face and his smile faded. “What’s wrong?”

  “Victor’s dead,” gasped Elizabeth, sinking down on the log.

  “How? Same as Alex?”

  She shook her head. “I couldn’t tell. There’s no sign of a wound.”

  Jake turned away. “Okay. That’s it,” he muttered. He turned to the diggers staring up at him from the trenches. “Listen up!” he said, unnecessarily, for he had their full attention. “There has been an accident, and I’m stopping the dig. Everybody go back to the church, but don’t leave. The police may need to talk to you.”

  “Stopping the dig?” someone said. “What’s Milo going to say?”

  “I don’t much care,” said Jake. “As long as there is someone left for him to say it to.”

  Elizabeth looked around. “Where is Comfrey Stecoah?”

  “I haven’t seen him since before you left. Let’s find out.”

  They searched down the hill, away from the path, in the direction they had last seen Comfrey Stecoah. “We’d better yell for him,” said Elizabeth. “I want to make sure he knows it’s us.”

  After a few intervals of hoarse shouting, Comfrey Stecoah appeared, carrying his rifle in the crook of his arm and fastening his belt.

  “Where were you?” Jake demanded.

  “Call of nature. Didn’t want to go so close to the burying ground. What are you’uns making such a racket about?”

  “Something has happened to one of our diggers,” said Elizabeth.

  “That fat boy that went for water?” They nodded. “Ambush?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Elizabeth. “I didn’t see any blood or anything. He’s just… dead.”

  “We’re all going back to the church now,” said Jake firmly. “Would you come with us, please?”

  “Have you reported it?”

  They both looked at Elizabeth. “Not yet,” she said. “I came back as soon as I found him. Shouldn’t someone stay with the body?”

  “I will,” said Jake.

  “Not by yourself, you won’t!” said Elizabeth indignantly. “Look, why don’t I go back with the day crew, and you and Mr. Stecoah guard the body. There are so many of us that I’m sure we’ll be safe. I can get Randall to drive me to a phone so that I can report this.”

  Jake hesitated.

  “You don’t know that it was murder,” Elizabeth reminded him. “Victor wasn’t all that healthy.”

  “Okay, okay. Get out of here before I come to my senses. We’ll stay with the body. Go on.”

  Elizabeth looked back. “Jake, should I call Milo?”

  “Ask Mr. Barnes to stop by and tell him. I don’t want us split up for any longer than we have to be. I think you’ll be safe in the church with the diggers. Anyway, we can all walk back together as far as…”

  As far as the body, Elizabeth thought. “I wish there were another way back.”

  They filed past the body in silence, most of the diggers averting their eyes, respecting the privacy of the dead. Elizabeth looked again at Victor and tried to think of something kind, something that she would miss. When this proved futile, she fell back upon the hope that he had not suffered.

  When they were out of sight of the death scene, they began to talk in low voices about what they would do when they got back to the church, and about Milo’s plans for the excavation. Finally the speculation trailed off into a despondent silence. As they emerged from the woods into the churchyard, one of the diggers gasped and pointed to a man walking toward them.

  “It’s all right,” said Elizabeth after a moment’s scrutiny. “He’s a deputy.”

  What a solemn bunch these archaeologists are, thought Daniel Hunter Coltsfoot as he studied their grim faces. Mentally he prescribed an herb tonic for the lot of them. “Hi!” he said with professional friendliness. “I was hoping I’d catch you on lunch break.”

  “Who called you?” asked Elizabeth, looking around for the squad car.

  “Nobody,” said Dummyweed. “I just dropped in on the off chance of catching you here, and-” The implication of her question struck him. “Why?” he asked hoarsely.

  “There’s been another death.”

  The erstwhile deputy took a step back. “Now look, I just came up to invite you guys to our craft fair. I’m not… I mean-”

  Elizabeth wasn’t listening. “Randall will show you where the body is while the rest of us go to a phone to report it. I’ll tell Mr. Barnes you’re here.”

  “But I don’t like bodies!” Dummyweed was protesting as Randall led him away.

  “All right, which car are we taking?” asked Elizabeth briskly. “I think three of us should stay here in the church. One of you can go with me to telephone. Where’s Robin?”

  “She went inside the church-oh, there she is.”

  A slender girl in olive khaki slacks appeared on the porch. “I found this on the table,” she told Elizabeth, handing her a piece of notebook paper.

  Elizabeth unfolded the note and read it aloud: “Sorry I missed you. I came back for my guitar. I’d stay to lunch, but I want to get back to MacDowell because Special Collections closes at five. And anyway, I’ve tasted y’all’s cooking. Best, Mary Clare.” Elizabeth lowered the note. “So she was here today too.”

  “Are you going to tell the sheriff?” asked Robin.

  Elizabeth nodded. “If Victor wasn’t murdered, it won’t matter. And if he was-I’d better!”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE MOTEL ROOM was just as he had left it. Since the vandalism episode, Milo had always unlocked the door holding his breath, expecting a scene of wreckage within. He felt guilty that he had not stayed to guard the room as Alex had suggested, but subsequent events had eclipsed the destruction of the computer. Milo felt that he was needed more at the site. As soon as he got this password business straightened out, he intended to go back and supervise the digging. He glanced at his watch. Jamie should be in by now, he decided, picking up the phone.

  After a few moments, Jamie’s voice came on the line, as calm and unhurried as always. “Milo! The news about Alex came out in the paper today. I’m really sorry to hear about it.”

  “Yeah,” said Milo awkwardly. He never knew whether to accept the sympathy as consolation or to agree about what a shame it was. “I’m finishing the project, Jamie. At least, I’m trying to.”

  “That’s right. He changed the password, didn’t he? He told me about the trouble you had up there.”

  “It’s okay now,” said Milo, in no mood to chat. “What’s the new password?”

  Jamie hesitated. “Milo, we’re not supposed to give those things out over the phone.”

  “Jamie, it’s all right. It’s me. You want to ask me a trick question? You want me to describe your office?”

  “I know it’s you, Milo,” said Jamie patiently. “But the phone might be tapped.”

  “Look, if anybody wanted the password, they could probably break into the computer and get it! Anybody except me, that is! It’s all I can do to make those things work with the password. Now, I know he used some archaeologist’s name, because he always did. Which one?”

  Jamie sighed. “Hold on.”

  Milo waited, tapping his fingers on the table and wondering who Jamie’s boss was, in case he had to go up the whole damn bureaucracy to get the password. In a few minutes, Jamie was back on the line. “I can’t say the password on an open phone line,” he said, “but I can give you a hint.”

  Milo closed his eyes. “A hint,” he groaned. “What is it?”

  “I think he once had a dog named this.”

  Milo remembered an old black Labrador retriever; his picture was still on the pine table in Alex’s den. Alex told stories about trying to housebreak the pup
in a student apartment when he was an undergrad, and so he had named him… Leakey! Milo smiled at the pun: the incontinent puppy named after the great paleoanthropologist Louis B. Leakey. “I got it, Jamie,” he said quickly. “Thanks!”

  He tapped through the well-worn formula, entered the password twice, and was relieved to see the title page of the file appear on the screen. He bypassed the introductory text and called up the chart itself, the thousand measurements of Plains Indian bones that Alex had spent his life classifying. The twenty-five Cullowhee skulls were little more than a footnote to the bulk of Alex’s research, but in statistical data, every little bit helped. Milo typed in the command to compare the two groups of skulls. Line by line they appeared in glowing green letters. Milo stared at them as if the computer had spelled out Balshazzar’s doom on the wall in Babylon. The numbers were entirely different.

  Entirely different.

  The Cullowhee numbers were not within the range established for American Indians. Milo dived for the notebook and checked the computer’s figures against the numbers written down by Elizabeth. Perhaps he had miscopied them. All of them? his mind sneered back. He ran his finger down the page, checking number against number. They were all correct. Correctly incorrect, he amended. All the numbers were completely out of range. Elizabeth had done the measurements wrong. Every single one of them.

  Milo flipped off the computer, resisting the urge to put his fist through the screen. She’s only a beginner, he told himself. You can’t expect her to be perfect. She had asked him again and again to check her work. And I was too busy, thought Milo disgustedly. Well, at least that explained what Alex had wanted to see him about the night he died. Alex had checked the skulls, and had found out that Elizabeth didn’t know what she was doing. Obviously, he had wanted Milo to give her another lesson.

  It wouldn’t cost them too much time, Milo told himself. Then he remembered that the skulls had been impounded by the sheriff’s department. Until the measurements were done correctly, the project was at a standstill. Milo swore. He would have to go and get the skulls back.