Dressed to Die: A Lindsay Chamberlain Novel (3 page)

"Yes," said Patterson.

"By all means," added Tom Foster. "I don't want Will
saying we didn't do a proper search. Then I want this over."

"Dammit, Tom, Shirl was your wife, for God's sake!"
Chris surprised everyone with his outburst. He said more
quietly, "Don't you understand what this has done to our
family, to Dad ... Mom-and me? Nothing's the same,
nothing-" He turned and walked into the woods.

Everyone stood quietly for a moment staring at the
ground or out into the woods where Chris was leaning
against a tree. Lindsay wanted to be anyplace else. During
their quarreling her gaze had rested on a small, young, dead
hardwood tree several yards away. It showed no signs of
disease or attack from insects. She wasn't sure why she
noticed it at all, but she walked over to it. Beside the dead
tree was a long, almost imperceptible, shallow depression.
Beside the depression was a small mound with three
young trees growing in a row, straight, tall, budding with
green leaves.

"Let's try here," said Lindsay, and she and Sally had
cleared away the forest litter before the others noticed that
they were digging.

"You've found something?" asked Patterson, coming
over, followed by the others.

"I don't see anything," said Tom Foster. "I thought you
said there would be a depression."

"There is," said Lindsay, outlining what she thought
was the edge with the blade of her shovel. Taking her
trowel, she knelt and dug down into soft earth in the center
of the depression.

She and Sally then took shallow shovelfuls of dirt, just
skimming the surface. Lindsay dug outward until the earth
hardened. "This is definitely an edge separating soft fill
from compact undisturbed soil. Stay away from the edge,"
she told Sally. "We can excavate that with a trowel later
and it may give an indication of the type of tool used to dig
the hole." Sally nodded. It was not unlike excavation techniques she had used at archaeological sites.

"Is it her grave?" asked Chris in a low voice.

"It's a pit that's been dug and filled in. That's all I know
now," said Lindsay. They dug down a foot and the ground
was still soft. They continued, alternately using their flatnosed shovels to take shallow scoops of dirt and their trowels to dig deeper, carefully looking for bone. They found
nothing. It was a slow process.

"It's an empty hole," said Tom Foster. "I told you she's
not dead. You know that, Will Patterson. You know where
she is. This is some plan the two of you cooked up together."

"I have something," said Sally.

They all stopped and looked into the hole.

"Probably a dog or cow," said the sheriff.

Lindsay's head throbbed as she leaned over the pit and
dug away the dirt with a wooden tongue depressor, revealing a dome-shaped object.

"A human skull," said Lindsay.

"Oh, God," said Chris, dropping to his knees, peering
into the grave.

"Shirl," whispered Will. "Is it her?"

"I don't know," said Lindsay. "I just know it's human."

Sally started to dig around the bone. Lindsay put a hand
on her arm. "We have to stop now. The sheriff has to notify
the coroner."

"Call the coroner," Sheriff Varnadore told one of the
deputies. She turned to the other one. "Go ahead and dig
her up." The deputy took his shovel and positioned it above
the grave, ready to dig.

"It would be better if you allow us to excavate the
remains," said Lindsay. "You may lose a lot of evidence
digging like that."

"I reckon I know how to do my job. Enough time has
been wasted. We need to get this done. We can't wait
around here while you dig with that Popsicle stick."

"If that's Shirl, you'll not be digging her up like a dead
cow. I won't have it." Tom Foster, ashen faced, spoke for
the first time since Lindsay announced the bones were
human. Sheriff Varnadore looked as if she had been
slapped in the face. Tom Foster turned to Lindsay. "Go
ahead. Do it right."

"I have to wait for permission from the coroner." Lindsay's voice was gentle, and for the first time that morning,
she felt sorry for Tom Foster.

"SHOULDN'T WE WEAR a mask, you know, for the
smell?" Liza, a hazel-eyed, dark-haired graduate student,
was dressed in khaki shorts, T-shirt, and sun visor. She stood
with her nose wrinkled at an odor that was not yet manifest.

"You can. I have some in the truck, but if you're interested in forensic work, it's better to get used to the smell.
This won't be as bad as a body that's partially fleshed out,"
Lindsay told her and smiled.

"That's a comfort," said Brandon, another of her students, dressed similarly to Liza but without the visor.

"Sally and I will do the excavating. Brandon, you and
Liza do the sifting."

Brandon quickly set up the screen used to sift and separate objects from the fill dirt. Earlier, before the students
had arrived, Lindsay had set out stakes and string, making a
grid of the crime scene. She and Sally walked down the
narrow path to the grave. Lindsay had already inspected a
swath of ground for evidence and designated it as a safe
path. She and Sally sat down on the ground by the grave
and laid out their trowels, wooden tongue depressors,
spoons, brushes, and dental picks. Beginning at the bone
they could see, they began the careful task of removing the
soil to expose the bone they couldn't see.

When the coroner arrived, he sent Tom Foster, Chris
Pryor, and Will Patterson home. Lindsay had met him at a local symposium and liked him. He was a good-natured
elderly man with fine white hair and, though creased with
age, the pink skin of a baby. The change of atmosphere
from the bickering of that morning was welcome. Sheriff
Varnadore, deprived of people to argue with, hung back
and watched until a couple more deputies showed up, one
with a metal detector. The sheriff and her four deputies
began a ground search of the area extending about two hundred feet from the grave site. Her search pattern was less
methodical than Lindsay would have done and Varnadore
did not lay out a grid to guide the search, but Lindsay knew
better than to try to tell her how to do her job.

Lindsay and her crew excavated the skull first, gradually
shaving the dirt away with the flat wooden tongue depressors. She preferred wood to metal spoons or grapefruit
knives for the delicate work-when the dirt was soft
enough-for it lessened the chance of damaging the bone.

"How did you find the grave?" asked Sally. "I didn't see
anything that looked like a disturbance."

Lindsay shrugged. "I don't know. I just wondered what
killed that tree. It didn't show signs of insects or disease.
Root damage seemed the most probable. That's when I
noticed the slight mound with the row of saplings-they
looked strong and healthy. Then I saw the depression
alongside the mound."

"Well, I'm impressed," Sally said.

"It's not an uncommon arrangement. I've seen it before.
The digger damages the roots of a tree too young to
recover. The dirt he takes out of the hole won't all fit back
in, so he leaves a small mound beside the grave. Seedlings
grow in the mound and are noticeably healthy because they
are fed by the decaying body. Simple as that."

"Yeah, but it's a big forest," Sally said, "and everything
looked alike to me."

Lindsay brushed the loose dirt from the skull. It stood out a mottled cream color against the dark forest soil,
stripped of all remnants of skin and hair.

Sally touched the smooth dome of the forehead. "It
looks female."

Lindsay nodded in agreement. "What else?"

"Looks like a healed fracture," said Sally, pointing to a
line on the face. Brandon and Liza had made their way down
the path and looked into the grave over Sally's shoulder.

"What kind?" Lindsay asked, watching Sally wrinkle
her brow at the skull.

"Let's see. Is it a LeFort?"

"What type?"

Sally traced the fracture line across the orbits and
down the cheeks. "The whole face was broken. Is that a
type three?"

"Yes. Anything else?"

"I don't see-wait, the nose is broken, too." Sally
looked up at Lindsay and grinned. "It's a combinationtypes two and three."

"That's right."

"Showoff," said Brandon, grinning. He filled another
bucket of dirt and took it to the screen.

"She took a hard blow," the coroner said, motioning for
the sheriff to come over. The sheriff disregarded Lindsay's
path, walking over unexamined ground, and stepped over
the string to the edge of the burial. "Irene, was Shirl in the
hospital for any extended period?"

Sheriff Varnadore sat on her haunches beside the grave,
knocking clumps of dirt from the edge into the hole, and
squinted at the skull. "Let's see ... yes ... she had a wreck
in that little car of hers about six years ago. Had her jaws
wired shut. Is it her, then? Is it Shirl?"

"Maybe," said the coroner. "Won't know until Lindsay
does a thorough analysis."

The sheriff stood, still looking down into the grave. Lindsay watched her as she turned and walked back to continue the search with the metal detector.

"Irene is a good officer," he said. Lindsay looked from
the sheriff back to the coroner's liquid blue eyes. "Some
people just aren't their best when they're around certain
other people," he continued in a low voice.

"You mean Tom Foster," said Lindsay, carefully removing dirt from the first cervical vertebra.

"Yes. I delivered all of them-Tom, Irene, Will, and
Shirt, too. I used to be the GP here. They all went to school
together, went on to college at UGA, except Shirl; she went
to Princeton. At one time they were all friends. Tom and
Will played football together. Then ... well ... life comes
along." He sighed and shook his head. A sudden breeze
lifted his thin hair. Lindsay moved a stray strand of her own
hair from her face and continued her work.

Lindsay and her crew excavated until late in the afternoon. She and Sally had the entire upper skeleton uncovered. A musky smell of decay rose from the grave. Sally put
her hand over her nose for a moment, then let it drop to her
side. Liza and Brandon hung back while leaning forward,
craning to see the remains. "Look at this," Lindsay said.
The coroner and the sheriff came over and looked into the
grave at the bones of the rib cage that Lindsay indicated.

"It looks like the thorax has been burned," he said.

"Tried to burn the body to get rid of it," the sheriff said,
coming up behind him and removing her gloves. "Wouldn't
be the first time someone found out how hard it is to burn a
body." Sheriff Irene Varnadore stared at the skeleton for
several moments. "I guess it must be Shirl. I didn't really
think she was dead." She looked over at Lindsay and asked,
"Did you know her?"

"No. Why do you ask?" Lindsay said.

"I just thought since you both worked at UGA-"
replied the sheriff.

"I didn't know she worked there. What did she do?"

"She taught art. Textile design. Supposed to be pretty
good-"

Liza gasped. "That's Dr. Shirley Foster? I know her. I
mean, my brother was her graduate assistant. My parents
had her over for dinner once." She started sinking to the
ground and Brandon caught her by the arm. Lindsay jumped
up and helped her walk over to a rock and sit down. The
coroner came over and told her to bend over and keep her
head down. "I'm sorry, Dr. Chamberlain," she sobbed. "I
didn't know her that well. It's just that I'd met her."

"I understand," said Lindsay. "It's all right. Why don't
you let Brandon take you home? You can help us finish up
in the morning."

Liza rose with Brandon's help. "What time do you want
us here tomorrow, Dr. Chamberlain?" he asked.

"Early ... as soon as it's light."

Light came too early for Lindsay. She had stayed at the
crime scene working late, only going home to her renovated cabin in the woods for a short sleep. Adding to her
discomfort, she'd only been able to take a Spartan sponge
bath when she got home. When she turned on the shower, it
had sputtered and dripped and stopped. She went outside
with a flashlight to inspect the well. She pushed the tin
roofing atop the low wall of cement blocks around the well,
expecting to find that she needed a new water pump.
Instead, she discovered she needed a new well. This one
was dry. She went back into the cabin, melted some ice in
the microwave, gave herself a bath, and went to sleep.

As the sun was just showing itself though the trees,
Lindsay was uncovering the grave and beginning work on
the bones. The deputies who had guarded the crime scene
through the night seemed grateful to have someone to talk
to. They were especially grateful to Lindsay for stopping at Dunkin' Donuts on the way out of Athens and bringing
them a box of fresh doughnuts and a couple of Styrofoam
cups of hot coffee. Sitting up with the dead was not a
pleasant task. Sally arrived, followed shortly by Brandon
and Liza.

"I'm really sorry, Dr. Chamberlain," Liza said.

"It's all right. I know it was a shock to think this may
have been someone you knew."

"In class it all seems so-so mysterious and, I guess,
fun. You kind of forget it's a person."

"I know."

Lindsay and Sally had excavated the entire skeleton by
midday. The others joined her as Lindsay stood looking
down at their work, fascinated by the remains of death and
repulsed by the odor it brought. In this particular case the
odor rose from the putrid remains in the pelvic girdle. The
full skeleton lay extended in the grave. The tops of the ribs
were blackened. The finger bones were mottled a yellowgray color and had a network of tiny cracks. The tips of the
fingers were burned gray or were missing.

"Strange," Lindsay said, shaking her head. "The bone
indicates the fire was hot where she is burned on the tips of
her fingers, but the bone on the face and legs is hardly
burned at all. But what I find just as strange is the careful
way she's buried. She was a tall woman, and whoever
buried her dug a hole long enough for her to fit. In disposing of a body after a murder, the perpetrator usually does
not dig a big enough hole and ends up bending the legs, or
quickly digging a place for them to fit, so the hole looks
like a keyhole or something odd."