Site Unseen (24 page)

Early in our relationship, after observing the postapocalyptic state of my apartment, Brian, in frustration, asked how I could be successful in a profession that depended on the rigorous maintenance of order. "How can you live in such a sty and yet be such a control freak in the field? I would have thought the two concepts would be mutually exclusive," he'd asked.

I'd shrugged. "It's not the same. At home, everything is a known quantity. I know what is clean laundry and what is not; I know which pile has what sort of books. If you don't throw anything out, then you don't have to worry about not being able to find it again later. You know it's all there, and the randomness occasionally helps make connections between things you wouldn't have thought related before.

"On the other hand, everything in the field is an x-factor. You can never take anything for granted, never assume anything. It's the unknown that requires precision." My messy habits were an issue that had never been fully resolved, and still occasionally flared up between us while we were forced to share office space.

It was that sense of something inherently out of place that caused me to glance over toward the back, where a wide gray metal map file stood. The middle drawer was partially open, caught on the corners of a pile of maps sticking out.

Wretched students, I thought, with a momentary flicker of irritation. The drawer that was open was the one that held maps of New England, and so subsequently contained many
of my own personal maps. The students were allowed to use them only as long as they treated them carefully. But these had been jammed in any which way, left to tear.

I opened the drawer fully to reorganize the maps and began to sort them out. My ire grew as I realized that they were the maps of the site at Penitence Point; someone's head would roll when I found out who'd been in here last, I thought. I separated the maps, straightened them, and settled them back in, long bottom edges aligned so that the names were easily visible. My fingernail caught on the edge of a map that had been shoved deep between two large USGS sheets, and I pulled it out to set it flush with the others.

It was a photocopied map. Just like the one that Sheriff Standard had shown me in Grahame Tichnor's kitchen.

I pulled it all the way out and stared at it in confusion. It can't be mine, I thought, I would have remembered this, it's not in my map notes.

So what the bloody hell is another copy of it doing here?

I scowled at the inoffensive piece of paper and slid it into my briefcase. I didn't have time to worry about it now; I'd be late for my bus. As I was sliding the drawer shut, however, the doorknob to the storage room rattled, startling me, and I slammed my thumb in the drawer.

A rainbow arc of pain shot across my vision, and I barely managed to get my thumb out before the drawer slid back shut again. "Oh Jesus, that hurts!" I yelled, sticking my thumb into my mouth. I looked up to see who had come in, wishing no good upon whoever it was.

Tony Markham was taken aback; I had scared him too. I held up my thumb, which was hot with throbbing, to show him. "I caught myself good in the drawer," I said. At least the skin wasn't broken. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scream like that."

Collecting himself, Tony was solicitous. "Oh no,
I'm
sorry," he drawled. "I didn't mean to startle you so."

"No, not your fault," I said, a bit shakily. "I guess I'm just overtired. It's been a long week."

"Can you wiggle your thumb?"

I did, although it was painful to do so.

"You should get some ice on that," Tony suggested. "Have you got time for a drink now? One for you and one for your hand. There's a couple of things we should discuss."

I made a disappointed face. "I'm sorry, I can't, Tony. I'm running late now. Maybe a rain check?"

Tony frowned. "Well, I don't like to leave it, you really ought to know. Rick Crabtree's been acting strangely when your name's come up lately."

"Ah. How, strangely?" It had to do with Alan, I guessed, but I was wrong.

"He was the one who suggested to Kellerman that you ought to withdraw for a while. I don't know his reasons," Tony said briefly. "This really isn't the time or the place, but you need to be aware of that."

"Thanks." I mulled that over for a minute, my thumb in my mouth. "I had no idea he felt this strongly against me." I'd really have to find out what was making Rick act so irrationally.

"I'm a little worried about it myself," Tony agreed. "Actually, I'm more worried about you. You've been under a tremendous strain lately. Are you really all right?"

"Yeah, I'm doing okay, I think." I didn't want to tell him how frustrated I was in trying to discover what interest Grahame Tichnor had in Penitence Point; if I got on that riff, we might be in the storage room all day.

"What can you pare off your schedule? How about your lectures, have you got them all under control?"

"I'm in pretty good shape there--"

"Can you leave off work at the site until next spring, for example?"

"That's the one thing I can't leave, Tony. I'm doing all right, though, thanks." I was starting to get a little irked with his offers; I really did prefer to take care of things myself. Perhaps he thought I was too green to manage on my own.

"I'm sorry, I'm keeping you from whatever you were going to do in here," I apologized.

"Not at all. I heard noises," he explained. "I wanted to make sure that no one was in here before I locked up. Everyone else has left."

"That's funny," I said, picking up my briefcase. "Chuck usually makes the pretense of staying until five, or at least until we're all gone. It must be the nice weather."

"How about a lift to the bus stop?" Professor Markham asked.

Again with the looking after me, I thought. Maybe it's a Southern thing. Em, maybe the man's being nice to you and you're too fried to appreciate it, I chastised myself. "No thank you, Tony. I've got to go home first, then the bus. I need the fresh air anyway."

"Fair enough. See you Monday?"

"Sure thing."

Time was getting close, so I practically ran out of the building and trotted down the path that led to the apartment complex, steadily gaining speed as the campus blurred into the background, my briefcase thumping awkwardly against my legs as I accelerated. Even with a prepacked bag and a world-class sprint, I was just barely able to make it down to the stop as the bus pulled up.

After sucking some air into my oxygen-starved lungs, and cursing Amtrak for eternally taunting me with the promise of regular service connecting Portland and Boston, I stashed my bags in the overhead rack and began to think furiously as the landscape tore by.

Where had that map come from? And, never mind how Tichnor came to have it, how did a copy of it show up in that file when I clearly hadn't put it there?

Although the puzzle of where that map came from in the first place was eating at me, the fact that there was some connection between Tichnor and my life apart from the dig was really starting to bother me. It didn't matter that he was
dead; it was the fact that the connections between him and my life kept piling up, first with Pauline, then with the department's phone number, and now with another copy of that map in the department itself. Why should this link exist? Apart from me and the students, there was no human connection. No one from the department had even been by to visit me at the site, except Tony.

He called the day I'd stumbled over the body, I remembered. Coming out to the site, going to the sheriff's department with me after the incident with Grahame Tichnor, sending the flowers to Pauline's memorial. And then warning me about Rick. He really was going all out, trying to take me under his wing. Except he probably didn't really know, and I'd have to be careful about telling him, that I wasn't the sort of chick to be gathered under someone else's protective wing. Just a big stubborn streak, I guess. I like doing things on my own. Probably just one more thing I'd inherited from Oscar.

I watched the fields and suburbs go by, letting my thoughts wander as they would through my tired brain.

It was funny, although Tony reminded me a little of Oscar, I couldn't imagine Oscar suggesting I leave a site as important, as fragile, as Fort Providence opened to the elements for a whole Maine winter, never in a million years. The idea was ludicrous. Even if the site wasn't so significant, no archaeologist would do it. Usually we conspired to get in as much fieldwork as possible, if necessary, to the detriment of students and home life.

I frowned. So why the
hell
had Tony suggested
that?

No one from the department had been to the site except Tony...

Oscar had always told me to pay attention to the exceptions in a situation, for they'd tell one at least as much as the rule. Tony had been there at every turn, every juncture, with me. Tony had been in the map room when I discovered the photocopied map, the one that I knew I'd never seen before. What about the telephone number at Tichnor's house?

Could that have something to do with Tony, rather than me? When I'd asked if anyone unusual had called for me, Chuck had told me that everyone who'd called had left a message. I thought about the piles of looted artifacts at Tichnor's house, the day I saw the number and the map. My jaw dropped as an even more dire connection came to mind.

The artifacts from Pauline's house. The ones found under Tichnor's bed. Dave Stannard was right; there was a chance that Tichnor would have recognized the value of some of them, but probably not the Venus figurine. The sheriff had pointed out that the number of people familiar with such things around here was bound to be small.

Tony would have recognized the Venus in a heartbeat.

For a moment I couldn't focus, couldn't believe what I was thinking. There was no logical connection, surely? Coincidences, just the same as the others . . . What could Tony Markham have to do with Tichnor, they didn't know each other...

Me. They both knew me.

Well, let's not be dramatic, I curbed myself. That doesn't mean anything, and this was starting to sound really crazy. Any couple of people in a circle of acquaintances, no matter how it was formed, were bound to have things in common. I mean, look, I said to myself, they both had interests in archaeology, though admittedly from rather different angles. There were probably lots of similarities. You could even say the same thing about the students, for heaven's sake . . .

I continued to list the possible connections anyway. They both lived in Maine, both were men, had both been to the site on occasion, both--

Had even been on the site on the same day.

A tingling wave of adrenaline raced through me as I recalled the day I had encountered Tichnor. Tony had been there later. In fact, it dawned on me, he had practically insisted on accompanying me to the sheriff's office when I made my first complaint about Tichnor. It couldn't be possible that they had
known
each other back then?

I let myself think about that for a moment, tasting the idea. It was the only thing that suggested that I wasn't the only connection that Tichnor had with the department. It might explain the telephone number, even if it still didn't tell me where that cursed map had come from. I patted my briefcase, reassuring myself that it was still there. When I got home, I was going to look at that map very carefully indeed.

But what about Tony? What interest could he have in Tichnor, if he was in fact the connection?

Tony hadn't become interested in me or my work until I'd begun out at Penitence Point.

Could he be connected to Tichnor's death in some way? That question tore at me and led me to the next logical, horrible step: If my suspicions about Tony knowing Tichnor were correct, did that also mean that Tony knew something about Pauline's murder?

Chapter 17

AS IF REFLECTING THE ABRUPT JOLT IN MY THOUGHTS, the bus jerked to a halt at Boston's South Station; for once it was on time. Wearily I gathered up my pack and briefcase and followed the ant line of passengers into the main station, trying not to get swept away by the throngs of commuters attempting to get home or away for the weekend. As I negotiated the crowds down into the subway, I forced my mind away from my as yet unfounded but profoundly disturbing speculation.

The subway station was almost as sticky as it was outside; the air-conditioning was broken. I sweated my way into the crush on the car, air-conditioned in name only, and let my mind go blank until I got off for my stop in Somerville. As I walked up the sidewalk, I could see that a little mud had dried onto our gnome, making him look as though he'd gone for a long, dusty run. I brushed off a little of the mud, and some of his paint flaked off along with it. Alas, poor gnome, I thought. Gnome just winked back at me, a new, clean, white spot on his red hat.

I had barely made it into through the door when Brian
swarmed all over me, kissing me repeatedly and sloppily. In spite of my stale, bus-sweaty state, I responded eagerly though I was scarcely able to keep balanced in the process; my husband's enthusiasm made him the better lever. He had just started nibbling my neck, and was on the verge of heading further south when a murmur of protest was heard.