A Rumor of Bones: A Lindsay Chamberlain Mystery (29 page)

Derrick came in and pulled up a chair beside Lindsay. "You guys want to go eat?"

"Sure. Let us ID this box of mammal bones," Lindsay responded. "It won't take long."

The bones were straightforward, mostly odocoileus virginianus (white-tailed deer) and sciurus
carolinensis (gray squirrel). There were also some
ursus americanus (black bear), ondatra zibethicus
(muskrat), procyon lotor (raccoon), and, of course,
didelphius marsupialis (opossum).

Lindsay thoroughly enjoyed herself with the bones.

"Slow down," Sally said. "I've got to write these
things down."

"You can put the first letter of the genus along with
the species name," Lindsay said.

"Now you tell me"

Lindsay picked up another bone. It had a double
row of incisors. "Sylvilagus floridanus. Sylvilagus
floridanus," she said again slowly.

"You don't have to go that slow. I got it. S. floridanus," said Sally.

Lindsay looked at Sally so suddenly Sally jumped.

"That's what it is, isn't it?" Sally said.

"What did you say a while ago about a magician?"

Sally wrinkled her brow. "About once you learned
their tricks-"

"Derrick, that may be it. I assumed that the rabbit
found at the crime scene was sylvilagus, but what if it
was an oryctolagus?"

"Did I miss something?" Sally asked.

Derrick looked thoughtful. "What are you talking
about'? You think the rabbit at the crime scene is European? How did you get there from here?"

"We have whole theories about how artifacts are
lost, saved, and distributed about their site. Those theories are a big part of our analysis, and we failed to
apply any of them to the crime scene."

"What do you mean?" Derrick asked.

"Why aren't skeletons of dead animals found all
over the woods`? The woods are full of thousands of
animals."

"That's a good question," Sally agreed. "I've been
all over these woods and haven't found any."

"Because they get scattered and carried off by
other animals," Derrick explained. "It's part of the
process of forest ecology."

"Then why did you find a whole rabbit skeleton at
the crime scene?" Lindsay asked.

Derrick's eyes widened. "Because it was buried,
and that is how artifacts get saved intact. It wasn't a
svlvilagus, a wild rabbit that just died there. Its bones
would have been scattered. It was an orvctolagus, a
pet rabbit, that someone buried there."

"Yes," Lindsay added. "the kind a magician might
pull out of a hat."

"I'm afraid you're going to have to spell it out for
me," Sally said.

"That's what the killer might have used to lure the
children. A pet rabbit. The children would know and
would not be afraid of a magician who works at
school fairs and Fourth-of-July picnics. It fits "

"He wears that big false mustache and has a round
face. He could be mistaken for Ned by a small child,"
Derrick said.

"I guess we'd better see the sheriff," Lindsay said.

"What? A magician?" the sheriff exclaimed to Lindsay, who sat on the other side of his desk.

"Jacob Tyler," said Lindsay. "Think about it. The
mustache Jenna Venable saw. It was a better disguise
than he had hoped. She thought it was Ned because
Ned's mustache looks particularly large the way it
wraps around his face and connects with his sideburns"

"At the same time," Derrick prodded, "most of the
kids would recognize the magician they had seen at
their school. Parents usually tell their kids not to talk
to strangers. He had the same access to the children
and the tripod that Mickey had"

"Can't you give me anything more than that?"

"No"

"Then all you have is a guess that because Jenna
described a man in mustache and Jacob Tyler sometimes wears a large mustache and sometimes entertains children, that he is the killer. I'm sorry, Lindsay,
but that is nothing. Look, people are sleeping more
easily now. Many think we have the right man. I don't
want to go saying it may be another man without
more proof."

"Can we look at the crime scene evidence again?"
Lindsay smiled sweetly at the sheriff.

"Why? What have you discovered?"

Derrick grinned at him. "Can we take a look?"

In the evidence room Lindsay spread the rabbit
bones from the crime scene out on the table next to
the wild rabbit bones she brought from the Indian site.
The sheriff and Derrick looked over her shoulder.

"Look how much larger they are," she said. "These
are not the bones of an American wild rabbit."

"You mean this could be the rabbit in the picture
of Jacob Tyler in his magician's getup?" the sheriff
asked.

"Maybe, but I doubt it. I'm sure he has used lots of
rabbits."

"I'll admit this is a good clue. But it might be like
the dog. The killer grabbed a little girl with her pet
rabbit."

"I hadn't thought of that," Lindsay said, a little dismayed. "But the girls' mothers can tell you if any one
of them had a pet rabbit. Don't you have enough
reason to talk to Jacob Tyler now?"

"I can talk to him, and I will. But he doesn't even
need a lawyer to know that what we have is nothing."

"But maybe if he knows he is being watched, he
will stop," Lindsay suggested.

"Maybe for a while," the sheriff responded. "What
we need are the pictures the killer took at the crime
scene. They weren't in Micky Lawson's files or at his
house. They've got to be somewhere if they haven't
been destroyed. I'm afraid any first-year law student
could get either Ned or Mickey off. And both of them
are sticking to their innocence."

"The Tyler mansion. That's where the tripod was
found. That's where the pictures are," Derrick said.
"Can you get a warrant for it?"

"I don't know."

"Then you think this is credible," said Lindsay.

"What you said makes sense. That pet rabbit got
itself buried at the crime scene somehow."

-Theodore Roethke

The Marrow

LINDSAY AWOKE EARLY, as usual. The sounds
and smells of night were still in the air. After today's
digging, Derrick and she would be going to Atlanta,
and she was surprised at how much she was looking
forward to it. She stretched, then jumped out of bed.
It was a cool morning, so she put on jeans and a longsleeved, white cotton shirt. She could change later
when the site started to heat up. No one else seemed
to be stirring, so Lindsay decided to take a walk by
the river in the cool morning air before the site crew
arrived.

The sun was just below the horizon, and the sky was
a faint orange. The deer trail she followed through the
woods was barely visible. As the silvery glitter of the
river came into view, Lindsay caught the smell of
something out of place, but vaguely familiar. Suddenly,
someone grabbed her and put a rag across her face. It
was chloroform, someone was- She tried to scream and almost choked. She couldn't breathe, couldn't
move her arms. She tried to kick, but her effort had no
effect. The grip tightened around her, and she grew
weaker as she struggled to get a breath. She couldn't
fight. She couldn't think. Everything went black.

Lindsay awoke sick to her stomach. Her head was
pounding, and the taste and smell of chloroform was
in her mouth. She was in a moving vehicle, bouncing
mercilessly on its ridged floorboard. Her mouth was
taped shut, and she tried to move, but her hands were
tied behind her back and her feet bound with duct
tape. She attempted to raise her aching head but only
succeeded in banging it against the hard floor. She
managed to roll onto her back and could see the tops
of trees rushing by the windows. She was in a Jeep
being driven deep into the woods. Each bounce of the
Jeep seemed to add tenfold to her misery, and she
strained to turn her head to see who was driving. It
was Patrick Tyler.

How dare he? she thought. Anger surged through
her, partially reviving her, and she struggled at the
bindings that held her. Patrick looked back, as if sensing her consciousness, and she saw madness in his
eyes and hatred in the twist of his mouth.

"You're awake. I want you to be awake," he snarled
before turning around again.

Lindsay continued trying to loosen her bindings,
but the tape was too strong and tight. She looked
around for something that might cut them. One of the
site shovels lay a couple of feet from her. She saw the
large black letters of the site number written on the
wooden handle. Derrick kept all the site shovels razor-sharp. She tried to scoot toward it, but the ride
was too rough.

As the Jeep drove deeper into the woods, Lindsay
wondered if anyone had seen what had happened to
her. How would anyone possibly know where to look
for her? Her aching head and sluggish thoughts prevented her from forming any reasonable escape plan.
Suddenly the Jeep stopped, banging her against the
front seat.

Patrick came around back, opened the tailgate, and
pulled her out. He had a gun tucked in his pants and a
knife hanging in a scabbard on his belt.

"How did you like that ride, bitch?" he yelled,
pushing her to the ground and kicking her in the side.
"Do you know what she did to me because of you?
She screamed at me, called me a stupid moron in
front of everybody. And she beat me with that cane of
hers. Even after what I did for her. They all stood
around, watching and grinning. Even Mother stood
there with that stupid grin of hers, afraid to do anything to help me."

Lindsay tried to talk, to answer him through the
tape covering her mouth. Her nose was running, and
she was sick to her stomach. It was hard to breathe.
Patrick laughed at her distress.

"Not such a prima donna now, are we, bitch!" He
reached his big hand to her face and ripped off the tape.

Lindsay gasped at the pain, and she choked on the
fresh air as she inhaled. "What are you talking
about?" she protested, coughing and trying to breathe
slowly so she would not throw up.

"Don't pretend you don't know. I know you went
to the sheriff and gave him the gifts I left for you, showed him the panties. Why did you do that? Those
were intimate things between a man and a woman.
You had no right to show them to the sheriff."

"You had no right to steal my underwear. What was
I supposed to think about you?"

"I just wanted something of yours. I loved you. I
would've been nice to you. Now I'm going to treat
you like what you are, just another bitch. I'm not
going to be nice to you. I'm going to take what I
want, then bury you out here in the woods where no
one will ever find your body. Then I'm going back
and shoot that boyfriend of yours in the head. He
shouldn't have done that to me. No, he shouldn't
have. Maybe before I kill him, I'll tell him what I did
to you. Yeah, I'll do that" Patrick nodded his head up
and down, grinning.

Lindsay's fear, along with the lingering effects of
the chloroform, were making her sicker. God, she
thought, he wants to kill Derrick, too. She had to stop
him. Lindsay tried to move, but her side hurt and
waves of nausea surged through her continuously.
Think, she thought, think. You have to get out of this.

"You have nothing to say, bitch? I'll bet you wish
you had been nice to me now. It was me that followed
you in the car that night. You almost wrecked turning
onto the dirt road." He grinned wickedly. "I came out
to the site with the mayor and sheriff when you all
first got here, but you didn't notice me, did you,
bitch? But I noticed you. Even all covered with mud,
I could see you were for me" He scowled. "Say
something, bitch!"

"Do you have any water?" she asked.

"Sure." He grinned. "Anything you need. You're going to need all your strength to dig your grave." He
knelt and shoved a canteen at her, and she took a
couple of small sips before he pulled it back, but that
was all she wanted. Any more than a sip or two
would further agitate her queasy stomach.