A Rumor of Bones: A Lindsay Chamberlain Mystery (28 page)

Frank laughed and bit into his sandwich.

On the way back to the site, Lindsay and Frank
passed the entrance to Tylerwynd. "The answers are
there," she said. "Everything has led to the Tylers, one
way or another."

"Why don't you forget about it'?" Frank asked.

"I've tried that."

"Funny, when we began this site, I thought we
were becoming close. Now it seems we have grown
apart," he said.

"Not so much grown apart," said Lindsay. "You've
become involved with Marsha."

"And you have become close to Derrick."

"Derrick and I have always been close."

"This is different."

Yes, thought Lindsay, it feels different. She was
going dancing with him over the weekend. They had
gone on dancing trips before-to Paris and Londonwhen they were competing. But she had never felt
about him the way she did now. She found it strangely
unsettling. Lindsay closed her eyes and rubbed them.
Perhaps, she thought, because so much has gone on at
the site, so much mystery and no closure.

"Why are you bringing this up?" she asked.

"1 don't know. Wistful, perhaps, for what might
have been, what might be" Lindsay looked over at
him. It's caring about two men at the same time that is
so disconcerting, she thought.

Everyone had questions when she and Frank
arrived back at the site. Lindsay left Frank to answer
them and went to her tent. She sat down on her bed,
then stood up. The unsettling feeling that the case
was not solved, when everyone else thought it was,
wouldn't let her rest. If the sheriff were wrong about
Ned ... if she were wrong about Mickey ... then
there was someone else out there ready to prey upon
another little blonde girl. Perhaps he had already.
Lindsay couldn't get the image of the damaged little
bones out of her head. She hurried out of her tent,
walked across the grass, and started into Derrick's
tent.

"So, you'll take me then, and teach me to dance-"
It was Michelle. She had her arms around Derrick's
neck. They both looked at Lindsay standing in the
doorway of the tent.

There was a sudden lurch in Lindsay's stomach.
"I'm sorry, Derrick, I didn't realize you had company," she said. Lindsay was stunned, confused, and on the verge of tears. She didn't know if she wanted
to cry, to shout at Derrick, or to knock Michelle into
the middle of next week. She wanted to do all those
things. She turned and started to walk back to her
tent but instead walked into the woods toward the
beach. She hadn't gotten far when she felt a hand
grip her arm. She realized then that her heart was
pounding. She turned around, and Derrick gripped
her shoulders.

"Lindsay," he said, "Michelle wanted me to teach
her how to dance. I agreed, and she was grateful."
Derrick's voice was steady and firm, with no trace of
contrition.

"It's none of my business-" she said.

"Whether it is or not, it has nothing to do with the
two of us. Why did you leave so abruptly?"

"Well, you were obviously busy." Lindsay felt like
a jealous school girl. She stepped back to free herself,
but Derrick didn't let go.

"Look-" she began.

"No, you look." Derrick put an arm around her
waist and his other hand on the back of her head and
kissed her. Lindsay started to put her arms around him
when he let her go and started to say something. Suddenly, he looked past her and took off running deeper
into the woods.

Lindsay was puzzled for a second, then ran after
him. Ahead, she heard a thrashing in the woods. Derrick had knocked someone down.

"You're not supposed to come around here, you
little creep!"

Oh, God, thought Lindsay, not him. He is supposed
to be gone. Anxiety churned her stomach. Patrick lay sprawled on the ground rubbing his jaw. A camera
had fallen and rolled to the base of a tree. Derrick
started for Patrick again, but Lindsay put a hand on
his arm.

"Patrick, the sheriff told you not to come around
here," she said.

"It's a free country," he mumbled.

"Not everywhere," Derrick said, "and not for you if
you don't leave Lindsay alone. Now leave while you
still have both your arms."

Patrick scrambled to his feet and started for his
camera. Derrick picked it up and threw it hard. It
soared through the air and into the river.

"That's my camera. Who do you think you are?"
Patrick seemed close to tears.

"Go home, Patrick," Derrick said. Patrick looked
defiant for a moment, glanced at Derrick, then ran off
toward the river.

"What was he doing in the woods?" Lindsay asked.

"Lurking, I imagine. Trying to get pictures of
you" Derrick put an arm around her shoulders. "I've
made arrangements for us to go to Atlanta this weekend," he said.

"With all that is happening, Ned in jail and everything, don't you think we should wait-" Lindsay
said.

"No. There are things I want to say to you, and I
don't want to say them here."

They walked back to the site together, silent, deep
in their own thoughts. It would be another hour before
it was time to quit the site. Lindsay went to check on
the caches of animal bones she had assigned to Sally
and Thomas.

It has been a long day, Lindsay thought. She had
promised to meet Sally in the laboratory tent to go
over the bones with her. She was tired and wanted to
shower and go to bed. She checked the edges of the
plastic covering the features she had been excavating
to make sure they were sufficiently anchored. As she
started toward the laboratory, her path was blocked by
Michelle, her hands on her hips, her face red. She
clearly was angry.

"Do you enjoy this, or is it so automatic that you
don't even know what you are doing?"

"Michelle, what are you talking about?"

"Please, Lindsay, get that sweet and innocent concerned-but-bewildered look off your face."

"I'm sorry I interrupted you today. Is that what you
are angry about?" Lindsay started to go around her,
but Michelle moved to block her path.

I don't think you are a bit sorry. But you are so
good at what you do, it even took me a while to catch
on" Michelle dropped her hands to her sides. Her
eyes narrowed.

"What do you mean?" Lindsay's head hurt from
the heat, and she was running out of patience with
Michelle.

"The way you stay poised between Frank and Derrick. You stand between them, so elegantly undecided." Michelle mimicked graceful arm movements
and pitched her voice several notes higher. "Is it Derrick or Frank? Frank or Derrick? Oh, how can I
decide?" She stopped for a moment, then spoke in her
normal voice. "You make me so sick."

"Michelle, I don't know what you are talking about," Lindsay said. It was the hottest part of the day,
and the heat was reflecting off the light, smooth surface of the site. Michelle was already wet from working all afternoon in the heat, and Lindsay could feel
the trickle of perspiration down her own face and
under her arms. She was having trouble keeping her
thoughts straight.

"How do you think Marsha feels?" Michelle asked.

"Marsha?"

"Yes, Marsha," said Michelle. "She deserves more
than what she is getting right now, and I think she is
being a very good sport about it. Just as soon as she
makes some headway with Frank, you come along
again with that maybe-it's-you-after-all look, and he
goes panting after you again."

"Has she said something to you?" Lindsay asked.

"No, but I can see it on her face."

"Why doesn't she say something?"

"Say what? How can she compete with you? She's
a small town girl, and you're the great Lindsaywell-educated, beautiful, self-assured. Hell, you've
even got the sheriff panting after you."

Lindsay raised skeptical eyebrows. "Michelle-"

"It's true."

Lindsay's face was hot, although from the sun or
from her rising anger she didn't know. "What about
you?" she said. "You are well-educated, beautiful,
and self-assured. What's your beef?"

"Derrick. It's the same with him. If I try to pursue
him, you are always there to turn his head, and you
aren't even serious. Like awhile ago. You no sooner
turned on your heels in a pout, than he was after you,
explaining and apologizing."

"There was no apology. Derrick never apologizes
for anything he is not guilty of. If you knew him
better, you would know that. Exactly what do you
want, Michelle'?"

"Choose. Let one of them go."

"I see, and if I should choose Derrick'?"

"At least I'll know. I won't be thinking you've gone
on to other pastures only to have you come back. And
if you do choose Derrick, I'm giving you fair warning
that I like him and intend to fight for him, too."

"Michelle, I suppose it's useless to tell you that
you have characterized this all wrong. Whatever
Frank and I do, Derrick will always be a good friend.
And I will not stand here and play little girl games
with you. Sally is waiting for me in the laboratory."

Lindsay brushed past Michelle and hurried to the
lab. At first she was angry, but by the time she got to
the lab, she was wondering if there wasn't some truth
in Michelle's accusation. Come on, she said to herself, Frank and Derrick are adults. They can choose
for themselves.

The laboratory was lined with cabinets and boxes
for storing artifacts. In the middle were long tables
where the crew could sit and sort bags of artifacts separated out during flotation. On rainy days and sometimes after the site shut down at three o'clock, the
crew would work in the lab to get a start on cataloging
the artifacts before they were taken to the university.

Sally was already working with some animal bones
when Lindsay sat down next to her.

"I got Feature 15 out and have divided the bones
the way you were telling us today," Sally said. "At
least I think I have. I want to learn how to determine minimum number of individuals, and estimate their
meat yield, too."

"We'll do that at the university. That requires a lot
of weighing and measuring that we are not equipped
for here. Let's see what you have." Lindsay looked
through the bones. "Not bad. There are several in the
category of `unidentified bones' that can be identified."
Lindsay began picking out the bones. "For instance,
this is the left maxilla of a fox"

"How can you tell? It's only part of a bone and no
teeth!"

Lindsay grinned. "But the sockets where the teeth
were are still there."

"Great! Don't all sockets look alike?"

"No. The teeth of different animals have different
shapes. Besides, there is enough bone left to identify
the animal. I know it's a fox because I know what a fox
maxilla looks like. Any time you are identifying animal
bones for permanent identification, you use the reference collection and compare this bone with known
bones in the collection. I'll show you how when we get
back to the university. However, it will save us a lot of
time later if we can sort as much as we can now."

"Okay, then it is a fox because it looks like a fox,"
said Sally. "I'm catching on."

Lindsay smiled and searched around in the boxes.
"Okay, here is a good example."

"Another left fox maxilla?" Sally looked at the partial bone that, to her, looked similar to the other one.

"No, look carefully at the shapes of the bones and
the number of teeth each had. Count the sockets. Not
the spaces for the roots, but the socket for the whole
tooth"

Sally took a pencil and pointed to each as she
counted, then recounted, each space for a tooth in the
maxilla. "The first one has 10 and the second 13, an
unlucky number."

"It is. I imagine that is why they have trouble
crossing the road."

"What?" asked Sally.

"The second is the left maxilla of an opossum."
Lindsay searched around in the box of bones until
she found an opossum skull and a fox maxilla with
the teeth. Sally leaned in closer to see what Lindsay
was pointing out to her. "Different animals have different dental formulas," Lindsay continued. "An
opossum is a marsupial. The upper teeth of marsupials have a dental formula of 5 1 3 4, which means
on each side of the maxilla they have five incisors,
one canine, three premolars, and four molars."

Sally took the bone from Lindsay and ran her
finger down the row of teeth.

"The dental formula for the fox's upper teeth is 3 1
4 2," Lindsay said. "Because different teeth also have
different shapes, it is fairly easy to identify what kind
of tooth came out of an empty socket"

"Clever," Sally said. "It's just like a magician.
Once you learn the trick, it's not magic any more. It's
easy."

"Great," Lindsay replied. "I have completely
destroyed my mystique. And you used to think I was
so good."

Sally giggled.

"Let's go through the mammal bones. I'll identify
each one by genus and species, and you write it
down."