A Rumor of Bones: A Lindsay Chamberlain Mystery (3 page)

BOOK: A Rumor of Bones: A Lindsay Chamberlain Mystery
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Lindsay took his hand. She had met him before
when he came out to visit the site, but apparently he
didn't remember her, probably because she had been
covered with mud.

The sheriff was a large man with wavy graying
blond hair and even, white teeth. He looked good
humored, but Lindsay had overheard some of the
locals in a diner say that he could be a son-of-a-bitch.

"Yes, sir, I am. My name is Lindsay Chamberlain."

"This is Sarah and Mike Pruitt and Sarah's cousin,
Mickey Lawson" The sheriff performed the introductions.

They did not offer their hands but nodded their
heads, as if any unnecessary movement was beyond
them. Sarah had a large envelope in her lap and
timidly handed it to Lindsay. Tears brimmed in her
blue eyes, which held the familiar painful expression
of hope and dread. Lindsay took the envelope and
steeled herself as she opened it. She took out photographs of a smiling, dimpled, blonde, curly-headed
little girl.

"When were these taken?" asked Lindsay.

"About a month before she ... before she got lost,"
answered Mike Pruitt.

"How long will it take?" Sarah Pruitt asked.

"I don't know," said Lindsay kindly. "Possibly not
long. Has she ever had dental work?"

Sarah shook her head, sobbing softly. "She didn't
have any cavities. We were so proud of how she took
care of her teeth"

"Did she ever have any broken bones, or x-rays
taken for any reason?"

Sarah Pruitt shook her head. "No."

"Okay, thank you, Mrs. Pruitt." Lindsay directed
her attention to Mickey Lawson. "I understand you
are a photographer."

He nodded his head solemnly. "Yes, ma'am, I took
those pictures you're holding there."

"Do you keep records of camera distance, negative
size, focal length, and such?"

"Yes, so if a shot is particularly good, I'll know
how to reproduce it."

Lindsay smiled. "Good. Can you get me that information for this picture?" She showed him a full-face
portrait of Peggy.

"Yes, this is a standard shot. I'll have to look in my
files to make sure, but I think I can give you the information you want. I'll go back to my studio now and
get it."

"Thank you." Lindsay looked up at the sheriff, and
he took her cue.

"This way," he said, escorting her through a doorway. Marsha stayed with the Pruitts.

The sheriff showed Lindsay to a back room lined
with locked gun cabinets. A couple of worn couches,
a dilapidated coffee table, and an old television created a lounge in one corner. In another corner stood
two long tables, chairs, and a chalkboard. On one of
the tables sat a white plastic tub. Lindsay could see
the shadow of bones through its thin sides. No one
was in the room except a stout deputy, standing erect
by the table as if guarding the bones. He smiled
broadly as they approached.

"This is Deputy Andy Littleton," the sheriff said.

"Howdy do, ma'am." He inclined his head.

"Hello. These are the bones then?"

"Yes, ma'am. I gathered them up myself. I was real
careful with them."

Lindsay smiled at him as she slipped on a pair of
latex gloves and pulled the tub toward her. She began
placing the bones on the table in their anatomical
positions. Most were still articulated with thin leathery strips of ligament. A waxy odor rose to her nostrils. Even this was information to her. Lindsay
expected the odor to be stronger from bones only a
year and a half old.

"Did she have her dog with her when she disappeared?"

The deputy looked puzzled.

"Not that I know of," answered the sheriff.

"This is the front leg bone of a dog," said Lindsay,
holding up the bone. The deputy looked a little embarrassed, as if he had done something wrong, but she
smiled at him. "Bones can get mixed up in the
ground-erosion, animal activity, all kinds of reasons"

She set the bone aside, took out the skull, and
examined it. Then she looked at the photograph.

"These are not the bones of the Pruitt girl."

The sheriff, who until now had appeared to be
gaining confidence in Lindsay's expert handling of
the bones, looked surprised.

"How can you tell from just looking at the photograph?"

Lindsay pointed to the picture. "Peggy has a pronounced dimple in her chin, almost a cleft, which
means she would probably have a dimple in the underlying bone. Notice that the chin on the skull is
smooth and pointed, not like Peggy's at all. Her chin
is a little squared. Also, look at the teeth. You can see
both the upper and lower teeth in her smile. Notice
how they fit together. Now look at the teeth in the
skull." Lindsay held the skull and lower mandible so
they could see the bite articulated. "This child had an
overbite. Also, the lower incisors are slightly crooked
and are beginning to overlap. Peggy's are straight.
This child will have a small heart shaped face with a
small pointed chin and a slight overbite."

"Okay, you've convinced me," said the sheriff.

"These bones have been in the ground a lot longer
than 18 months. In that short period of time, I would
expect more skin and sinew to still be attached. Of
course, that depends on how oxygenated the soil
is..." Lindsay hesitated a moment, not sure if she
wanted to proceed or just go and leave this to someone else. Finally, she said, "I would still like to make
all the measurements on the bones."

"Sure," the sheriff agreed, touching the little skull
with his fingertips. "We still have to find out who this
was."

Lindsay told the Pruitts, and they grasped each
other's hands and thanked her through teary smiles, as
if they had been given a miracle. The sheriff saw them
out, and Lindsay went back to the bones.

When she completed examining the bones, she
took a deep breath, wondering if she should have left
after telling the Pruitts this was not their daughter.
The coroner would return eventually, and he could
deal with these little bones. Her eyes stung with tears
that threatened, but did not spill over.

The back room of the sheriff's department was
quiet. Earlier, some of the deputies and secretaries
had come in and watched her work with the bones.
Occasionally, they asked questions, but soon grew
bored watching the tedious measurements on each
bone, and left. She took the stack of papers that comprised the report with its accompanying data and
evened the edges by gently bouncing the pages on the
table, just as the sheriff came through the door carrying two cups of coffee.

"I should have brought you something sooner," he
said. His broad smile was a welcome relief.

"That's all right," she answered, taking the cup
from his hand and smiling at him. "I've finished the
report."

He looked at her for a moment. Lindsay realized he
had noticed her teary eyes, and it embarrassed her. He
said nothing, however, and merely pulled up a chair
as he picked up the pages, sipping his coffee as he
read the report. "Says here, sex is undetermined."

"You can't really sex the skeletal remains of children."

"Undetermined cause of death," he read.

"I didn't find anything that would suggest a cause."
She paused. "But there is something I need to show
you." She set her coffee down, rose from her chair,
and beckoned to him. The sheriff walked over and
stood beside her.

"The bones of children are more elastic," she began,
"because they are still growing. In many ways they are
harder to break. However, they are also delicate. Look
at this." She picked up the pelvic bones. "This region
is the pubis bone. It is the front part of the pelvic girdle. The two halves of the pubis bone have been
pulled apart. You can see the damage mostly in the
stretched tendons." Lindsay pointed to the left femur.
"This is the upper leg bone. This rounded area joins
the pelvis in this cup-shaped area. Look at the damage
to the iliofemoral ligaments that attach the two. I
believe they have been stretched and torn, as if the leg
has been pulled away from the socket. And no clothes
were found on the body. All traces of clothing would
not have disappeared this soon."

"Oh, God," exclaimed the sheriff.

"I'm showing you this specifically because it suggests some of the things that happened, and if you
find the skeleton of Peggy Pruitt, it may show the
same pattern of damage. Both children are roughly
the same age. Two children of the same age missing
-it may be a pattern."

"Don't mention this to anyone," he said.

"I won't."

The sheriff sat back down in the chair and rubbed
his eyes with his fingers. "This is bad business." He
picked up the report again and thumbed through it.
"You signed it, Lindsay R. Chamberlain, Ph.D."

"Yes"

"You have some kind of doctor's degree in this?"

"Yes. I've also appeared as an expert witness in
court before"

The sheriff looked satisfied with that.

Lindsay and the sheriff were leaving when a short,
plump-faced fiftyish man dressed in a white suit came
in and walked toward them holding out his hand to
Lindsay. He had a full head of dark hair that she
observed was a toupee.

"This is Seymour Plackert," said the sheriff. "He's
an attorney in town."

"And you are Lindsay Chambers, one of the archaeologists," he informed them. He barely looked at Lindsay as he took her hand, gave it a brief shake, and let go.

"Lindsay Chamberlain," she said.

"Yes, well..." He turned to the sheriff. "Mrs. Tyler
asked me to drop by. This," he gestured briefly at the
tub of bones, "might have been her grand-niece. She
thought I should come by and talk to you."

"It's not Peggy."

"Yes, but we want to be sure, you understand."

"We are," the sheriff answered.

"Well, it was mighty nice of the archaeologists to
send someone out to help, but you understand her
identification needs to be verified by an expert"

Lindsay opened her mouth to say something, but
closed it again after seeing the hard set of the sheriff's
face.

"Dr. Chamberlain is a court recognized expert. I
have read her report, and she has explained how she
ruled out the bones as Peggy's. I'm satisfied. Now if
there is nothing else I can do for you, I need to finish
with Dr. Chamberlain."

"No, nothing else. I'll tell Mrs. Tyler your position."

He nodded curtly at Lindsay and left the room.

The sheriff watched Plackert leave, then turned to
Lindsay. "I don't like lawyers. Never did." He smiled.
"I'll take you back to the site."

For most of the way back, they didn't speak. The
sheriff seemed irritated and preoccupied, and Lindsay
didn't want to get involved in any town politics.
Finally, before he turned off onto the dirt road that led to the site, she broke the silence. "This may sound
unusual, but since the crime scene is old, it's a good
idea."

"What?" he asked, looking over at her briefly.

"Let me have part of the site crew excavate the
place where the bones were found" She saw skepticism in his face, "Look, we can find trade beads a
millimeter in size. We can find fish bones so tiny they
look like hairs. The crew can do a thorough excavation in the immediate area around the child's gravesift and float all the dirt, the whole works, and do a
surface survey of a larger area. We have the methodology for the kind of thoroughness needed for the
task, and we have a good eye for finding anomalies. It
is what we do"

The sheriff said nothing until he pulled into the
makeshift parking lot at the site. "I suppose it is really
the same thing, isn't it? Archaeology and crime investigation?"

"Yes. All we're doing here at the site is looking for
clues."

"Have you had any more problems with masked
vandals?" he asked.

"No"

"I'll have the deputies put this place on their night
route"

"Thanks. We appreciate that"

"Thank you for the analysis. I'll be in touch."

He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone.

-Charles Churchill

The Rosciad

 
Chapter 2

LINDSAY HOPPED OUT of the sheriff's car and walked
straight to her tent, one among six that formed two
opposite sides of a square where the professional site
crew was housed. The third side was a long tent that
functioned as a laboratory and storage area for artifacts. The fourth side was another storage tent and
another crew member's tent. Lindsay dropped her
backpack inside the doorway of her tent and went to
find Jane, whom she had left in charge of the burials.

It was three o'clock, and the blistering sun was
reflecting off the ground in waves of heat. The digging had stopped for the day, and only a few supervisors milled around discussing what was to be done
the next day. Jane was nowhere to be seen, and the
site was covered with different-sized squares of protective black plastic anchored with stones. Derrick
came out of a group of trees bordering the site, wiping
his face with a damp T-shirt. His long brown hair
hung dark and limp on his bare shoulders.

It had been a hot day at the dig. Derrick had a sly
smile on his face, and his soft brown eyes appeared to
twinkle. He was known for his elaborate practical
jokes, and Lindsay wondered what he was up to.

"Who's going to get it this time?" she asked as he
approached.

Derrick feigned a look of innocence and asked her
what she meant. "Never mind. I suppose I'll find out
soon enough. Have you seen Jane?"

"We heard you were taken by the local gendarmes.
We thought they might keep you overnight, so Jane is
off raising bail."

"Really. Where is she?... Sorry, I didn't mean to be
short"

"Were you short?" Derrick said kindly. "I didn't
notice. Jane is in town. She said to tell you all the
open burials have been photographed and packed and
are in the lab."

"Thanks."

BOOK: A Rumor of Bones: A Lindsay Chamberlain Mystery
8.19Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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