Bones Of Contention: The McKinnon Legends - The American Men Book 3 (3 page)

Staking out the spot from the highway’s edge on the east and back to the cotton field on the west, Josh ran the yellow crime scene tape to prevent unauthorized entry into the area.

Methodically combing the square from the outside edge to the body, he found absolutely nothing.

“Guess I need to make the call,” he said flipping out his cell phone and waiting for the Dawson County sheriff to pick up. Straddling the county line blurred the line of jurisdiction, so ownership of the case was not clear-cut. He wondered if that was intentional on the part of the murderer or just coincidence.

“Miller here.”

Josh heard the deep and familiar voice. Sheriff Miller was the man responsible for him even thinking about running for office. He was a man Josh looked up to and respected greatly.

“Sheriff Miller, this is Josh.”

“Hey, how are you? I’ve not see you in a month of Sundays, young man.”

Josh could hear the commotion going on in the background. He had caught the sheriff at a bad time it would appear by all accounts.

“I’m good, Sir, thank you. However, this is not a social call, so I won’t keep you long. I have a body straddling the county line. She technically belongs to both of us. You want in on this, or do you want to ignore the technicalities and sign over jurisdiction?”

“Technically, Son, I have an ex-wife, and I choose to ignore her as well. So this one is all yours as far as I’m concerned. I’m ass-deep in alligators with the theft of fifteen thousand gallons of fuel.”

“The D.A. won’t be a problem?” Josh already knew the answer, but he wanted confirmation of what he suspected to be true.

The seasoned law enforcer was quick with his return answer to Josh’s question. “No, I really don’t think so. However, let me check with him to see if he has any heartburn turning loose of it. I have to be honest though, I really see no issues. He thinks he is overworked and underpaid as it is. I keep havin’ to remind that son-of-a-bitch he ran for office and to just quit the belly achin’.”

“I understand,” Josh acknowledged nodding his head. He had also voluntarily run for sheriff so there was no draft involved. He knew what the position paid and the hours it would involve when he took the oath of office. The district attorney did as well. He was a man Josh shared no respect for on either a personal or professional level, so he could understand the Sheriff Miller's point of view.

“Just fax over the forms, and I’ll sign them tomorrow once I get back to the office.”

Josh closed his phone, but not before promising a round of golf the following Saturday. Sissy was still waiting for him to call her back and he knew it was time to call in the coroner. Midland was closer, but Lubbock had better facilities. He began to snap photos while he waited for the other deputies, highway patrol, and coroner to show.

Stepping closer to the body, Josh noticed for the first time how the victim’s clothes hung slack on her body.

Something did not fit in his mind. Tossing aside the pair of latex gloves he had used to secure the area, he pulled on a fresh pair since he did not want to contaminate the body any further if possible. Laying out a sterilized plastic tarp, he knelt down to turn the body over.

“Jesus Christ!” he exclaimed as he touched her for the first time.

His victim was nothing except bleached bones. The clothes had been cleverly used to hide all traces of the skeleton, and a wig covered the skull and skeletal face.

He recovered from his shock and took a deep breath. Some jackass was playing a sick pre-Halloween trick on him placing a skeletal model just like the one he remembered seeing in his college biology class. He looked around thinking the perpetrator of the hoax might still be close at hand. All he saw was the first highway patrol car pulling to a halt.

“Evenin’, Sheriff.” The patrol officer sauntered over touching the brim of his uniform hat in salute.

“Evenin’.” Josh returned the salute knowing he was just about to become fodder for the water cooler down at the local Department of Public Safety. “I hope you weren’t busy tonight. I may have called you out on a false alarm.”

“Nope, not busy. You know as well as I do this godforsaken stretch of highway is where they put those of us who have pissed off the wrong person for one reason or another,” he said with a resigned shrug.

“What’s your story?” Josh tossed out, not one bit offended at the young officer’s bashing his birthright. The young man was unhappy with his assignment. It did not take a rocket scientist to figure that one out.

“I screwed the daughter of the top aide to the lieutenant governor right after graduation from the academy. I just happened to be the unlucky bastard who got caught with his pants down around his ankles. Hell, how was I supposed to know her daddy played golf and went to church with the assignment officer?”

“Somehow it just didn’t matter she was drunk and out for a good time?” Josh was making a huge assumption, but knew the type, praying all the while Jesse did not go down such a path.

“Nope, not a damn bit of difference. I’m out here in this hell hole all the same,” he whined, bitterly.

“Hum,” Josh’s response was neutral. He was not so sure he would have been so merciful had it been Jesse he found in such a compromising position with this asshole on legs.

“What’s your story?” The officer asked in return.

“I asked for the votes and the privilege of being out here in this ‘hell hole’ as you call it.” Josh was here because he really wanted to be here. The residents of the county were his family and his responsibility to keep safe.

“Sorry to hear that.”

Josh could tell this young officer thought he was a country bumpkin with no real world experience. Josh’s mom had always taught him to never judge any book by the cover and never, ever judge another mortal man, period. That, she said, was never his place. He had often wondered why she placed it in those terms, but just never bothered to ask. Now, she was in the late stages of Alzheimer’s and the opportunity was past. Her stories were so far fetched at this stage that reality was no longer feasible for her.

The young officer was speaking again bringing Josh back to the present.

“By the way, she doesn’t look like a false alarm to me.” The young officer tossed his head toward the corded off area where the body of the Jane Doe lay.

“You don’t think it looks like a hoax, like maybe some punk stole a skeleton from the high school biology lab?”

“My brother is an orthopedic surgeon. I roomed with him in college, and I’ve seen the models. That, my friend, is no model. Some sick son-of-a-bitch has strung some poor woman together. I’d bet my last paycheck on that one.” The highway patrolman was positive. Josh could tell.

“Damn it,” Josh spoke softly under his breath thinking on most days nothing ever happened in Martin County.

It was looking like this was not most days.

Josh knocked on the opaque glass door with black letters painted neatly in block script.

“Come on in.”

He heard the female voice behind the glass. He was to meet Dr. Jamison Gillman in Room 117 of the Natural Science Building located on the campus of Texas Tech University.

Jamie Gillman, renowned criminologist and forensic anthropologist, looked up from the silver examination table at the man entering the door.

The magnifying headset with an attached headlamp made her eyes look huge, and had those eyes not been the most beautiful green he had ever seen, Josh would have laughed.

“I’m here to see Dr. Jamison Gillman. I have a three o’clock appointment. I’m a little early,” he said closing the door behind him.

“Sheriff McKinnon, I presume,” she smiled while pulling off the latex gloves and tossing them into the receptacle at the end of the examination table.

“Yes, Ma’am. The uniform gives me away every time,” he smiled ducking away for a second time from the beam of light projecting off the headset.

“Oh, sorry ‘bout that, Sheriff,” she said taking the headset off and standing up from the work table. “I’m Dr. Gillman.”

She smiled indulgently at his look of surprise.

He took the hand she offered as she came around the corner of the examination table currently covered with what looked to Josh to be the remains of a human mummy.

“I was expecting a man. My bad,” he confessed before the meeting progressed too far.

“Not a problem, a common mistake. You can call me Jamie.”

It was apparent to him that years of people mistaking her gender had taught her to be resilient.

He also thought she was cute in a quirky sort of way. He guessed she would have to be a little quirky to deal successfully in her chosen profession. He lumped her in with morticians and medical examiners, both necessary, just not his idea of a dream job. He figured to each her own bliss.

“My office is down the hall. Let me secure my esteemed guest here and then we can visit,” the doctor said while pulling on another set of gloves.

Josh watched as she carefully folded the protective cloth back over the fragile remains resting on the tray.

“She looks really old, Egyptian, no doubt,” he asked as he leaned over the table to have a closer look careful not to touch the remains. This was her investigation scene, and as such, he knew better than to contaminate it unnecessarily.

“Old is relative, Sheriff. There are days I feel older than her. Nevertheless, yes, she is old. These remains are from the eighteenth Egyptian Dynasty dating between 1570 BC and 1070 BC. I cannot be too careful with her.”

“Is she property of the college?” he asked helping her to transfer the tray onto the transport dolly and locking the tray securely into place.

“Oh, no. She is on loan from the National Museum in Cairo,” she corrected his misassumption, surprised he would even ask such an absurd question. “It is now common practice to return any and all known mummies to their rightful place.”

“Are you an Egyptologist as well?” he asked while following her down the corridor to the vault room where such antiquities were housed for safekeeping.

She shook her head. “No. They want me to try to divine if the mummified remains are that of Queen Ankhesenpaatem,” she said fully expecting him to just grunt some incoherent answer.

“King Tut’s wife and sister? What would be the chances of that do you suppose?” Josh looked back at the remains wondering who this person could actually be and how she lived and died.

“I’m impressed,” she smiled. He knew his mummies, she thought. So, she mused silently, he is cute and smart, too. That was a very rare combination in her vast years of experience.

Joshed watched her closely. “So, what are you thinking? Is it your girl?”

He was genuinely interested. She could see that very plainly. Not many men cared for her work. Most found it creepy and disconcerting. He did not seem one bit phased, yet looks could be deceiving. She was not ready to let her guard down. Not just yet. She had learned over the years of living in her father’s homeland to keep her guard up as long as possible. Less issues and less chance of a surprise attack that way.

Jamie shrugged her shoulder. She was not going to commit. It could be the queen, she supposed. The placement of her left arm crossing over her chest was correct. The linen wrapping was of fine quality and the mummification was perfect. No commoner would ever be placed in state like this woman rested in what the ancients hoped was time without end. However, it was all circumstantial evidence. There was nothing concrete to say for sure she was or was not the queen of the Boy King. She was a royal, but it was a long shot this woman was the queen of Tutankhamen.

Josh studied the tray containing the mummy of some unknown ancient royal. He had studied enough to recognize the arm placement as one of royalty. Kings had both arms crossed over the chest. For a queen laid in state only the left arm was crossed. The right arm would be placed by her side just as this woman’s was, resting for eternity.

He quickly realized the value of a positive identification.

“Wow, it would be a boon for the Supreme Counsel of Antiquities in Egypt to find the lost queen and place her on display beside arguably the most famous pharaoh of Egypt, maybe the most famous ruler ever, and that was some pretty tall company to find one’s self. Alexander the Great, Julius Cesar..”

“Attila the Hun just to name a few,” she tossed in her thoughts as well and could not have agreed more. “Oh, it would most definitely be a boon for them, both from a financial and historical point of view,” she quickly agreed.

Jamie knew with certainty it was why they were pushing her. Sure, history is very important to the Counsel of Antiquities and she would never assume the motive was anything other than archeologically driven. However, if the mummy did turn out to be her girl, the Benjamins she would produce in exhibit and museum entry fees wouldn’t hurt either. Tourist season was just around the corner.

“So the quicker the better?” Josh surmised correctly.

“Hard fact I’m afraid,” she said nodding in agreement.

Josh watched her closely. Reading people was a gift for him, yet he was unable to read her, at least not beyond what any person schooled in body language would be able to read. That in itself intrigued him. It was almost like she was housed behind clear glass. He could see her, but not touch her making him wonder what secrets she was hiding behind.

“Do I sense doubt in the good doctor?” He did not need talent to see that much clearly. The doctor was just not convinced beyond reasonable doubt, much less certainty.

“Rightfully so,” she nodded in agreement. “She is a queen. That evidence is irrefutable making her a wonderful and rare find regardless.”

“Nevertheless, all the pieces don’t fit. Am I right?”

Josh was enjoying his conversation with the doctor. History had always fascinated him. It must be interesting for her as well. She was making a decent living critiquing old skeletons and other archeological finds.

“Personally, I say it is less than a one percent probability she is Tut’s queen.”