A Rumor of Bones: A Lindsay Chamberlain Mystery (35 page)

"I have some bad news," he told Lindsay when she
picked up her office phone. "Denny Ferguson is on
the loose."

"There's a call for you" Susan Gitten leaned from the
door of Lindsay's cabin, yelling to her. "Do you want
me to tell them you've gone?"

Lindsay turned from stroking her horse's neck and
glanced at her Land Rover, packed and ready to go.
"Yes ... no, I'll take it." She rested her cheek on Mandrake's velvet-soft nose, gave his neck another pat,
and walked to the cabin.

"Lindsay Chamberlain," she said.

"Dr. Chamberlain, this is Sheriff Howard, over in
Cordwain. We met last year at that cemetery flooding
thing."

"I remember. What can I do for you?"

"A farmer up here's found a skeleton in a field he's
plowing. I wonder if you'd come take a look. I got a
deputy guarding it right now" Lindsay looked at her
watch. She had planned to be on the road by now, but
then, she had also vowed to have a leisurely trip and a flexible schedule. "We don't have anybody here who
can tell us what to do with it," he added as he gave her
directions to the farm.

"I'll leave right now. It should take about forty
minutes."

"Thanks. I sure do appreciate this. It's probably an
Indian burial ground he's stumbled on, then again ..."

BEVERLY CONNOR weaves her professional experiences as an archaeologist and her knowledge of
Southern culture into interlinked stories of the past
and present in her Lindsay Chamberlain mystery
series. Originally from Oak Ridge, Tennessee,
Connor now lives in Oglethorpe County, Georgia,
with her husband, her dogs, her horse, and her cats.
A Rumor of Bones is the first volume in the Lindsay
Chamberlain archaeological murder mystery series.