A Rumor of Bones: A Lindsay Chamberlain Mystery (13 page)

"Derrick will lead," Lindsay coaxed. "Just follow
him. It will be easier than you think."

Derrick gave her a few dips and spins, and she
looked thrilled.

"I take it you don't like to dance," Lindsay said to
the sheriff.

"Not much. I've got two left feet. Dee likes it.
She's having a great time."

A few guys came up to Lindsay and asked her to
dance. She declined, and they left.

"Do you only dance with Derrick?" the sheriff
asked.

"I only dance with people I know."

A young man came up and held out a large hand to
Lindsay and asked her to dance. When she refused, he
complained, "Come on. I saw you dance. You can
dance with me"

"No," said Lindsay.

"That's not friendly. I don't dance as good as that
fellow, but I got some of the moves."

"She said no, Patrick," the sheriff said, leaning forward from the shadows. "How is your grandmother?"

"Oh, Sheriff. Hi. I didn't see you. Grandmother is
fine." He bent his knees in a slight bow and backed
away.

"Who is he?" asked Lindsay.

"Patrick Tyler. Isabel Tyler's grandson. They live
up at Tylerwynd. I imagine you've heard of it. He's
harmless, just socially clumsy."

Derrick brought Dee back, out of breath. "I don't
see how you dance so many dances," she said. "What
a workout!"

When Derrick asked Marsha to dance, Frank asked
Lindsay. He was a good dancer, though he did nothing
fancy. It was a slow dance, and he pulled her close.

"You're full of surprises, Lindsay," he whispered in
her ear.

"I thought everyone knew about our dancing."

"I knew you danced, but, well, I guess I didn't know
you were so good."

"Thanks."

Frank pulled her a little closer. "I never realized
dancing was so intimate."

"It can be."

"It's almost like sex"

"Derrick wrote a paper about that once. I think it
was published in The Journal of Ritual Anthropology"

"I guess I'd better read it."

"It's a good article." She smiled up at him.

Frank looked as if he wanted to ask her something.
Lindsay saw indecision in his hazel eyes and wondered what it meant. She wondered why she couldn't
talk as freely with Frank as with Derrick. He was starting to speak when Ned tapped him on the shoulder.

"May I cut in?"

Frank hesitated a moment. "Sure" He left the
dance floor, and Ned put an arm hesitantly around
Lindsay's waist and took her hand.

"I don't do this very well," he said.

"Sometimes it is nice just to move with the music.
The kind of dancing Derrick and I do is very tiring."

"I can see. You two are very good." They danced for
a few moments, mainly swaying to the music. "I wanted
to apologize for what I said about your helping the sheriff. I shouldn't have gotten so bent out of shape"

"That's all right. We are there to dig the site."

"I know, but you were right. They need our help.
It's just that..."

"What?" asked Lindsay when he stopped.

"Nothing. We shouldn't talk about business tonight."
They danced in silence for the remainder of the music.
When it ended, they walked back to the table.

It was three in the morning when they left. Lindsay
and Derrick's last dance was to "Jailhouse Rock." It was
spectacular. The manager invited them back and, after
acknowledging the applause, they left with the others.

"You okay to drive?" she asked Derrick as they
walked to the car. "Not too tired?"

"Sure. I'm fine"

Lindsay saw Frank put Marsha in the passenger
side of the car and go around to the driver's side. It
was clear to Lindsay that Marsha was falling in love
with him. Lindsay wondered if Frank realized it.
After a moment of watching them drive off, she got in
the car and buckled her belt. Derrick slid behind the
steering wheel but didn't start the car.

"There's Ned," Derrick said.

Lindsay looked out the window at Ned walking
alone to his car and felt a stab of pity. "I wonder why
he didn't bring anyone?" she asked.

Derrick shrugged. "He's always in such bad temper. Who would go with him?"

"I feel sorry for him."

"Me, too. But all he needs to do is control his
temper."

Derrick started the car and pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road. "This was fun. Let's do it
again," he said.

Lindsay nodded and smiled. "Yes. I had forgotten
how well we dance together."

"I hadn't," he said.

They were quiet for several minutes as Derrick
drove down the highway toward Merry Claymoore.
There were a few cars on the road. Lindsay wondered
where people were going so late at night. A gentle
rain began to fall, making the road a shiny black in
front of them. Derrick turned on the wipers.

"You okay?" he asked

"Sure, why?"

"You seem a little low about Frank and Marsha"

"No, I'm not really. I was just realizing that I
wasn't looking forward to going back to the site. And
I used to love this dig. I still do, mostly." She shook
her head. "I don't know. I'm just tired, I suppose"

"Move to the middle and put your head on my
shoulder."

Lindsay unbuckled her belt and scooted over.
Buckling the center one around her, she put her head
on Derrick's shoulder. She stayed there as he drove
back to the site.

Lindsay awakened abruptly, terrified. Then she remembered the nightmare. Someone was strangling
little girls with a tape measure. An idea struck her
with absolute clarity. She shoved off the sheet and
jumped out of bed. It was only a few feet to Derrick's
tent. She didn't even stop to put on any shoes, and
the grass between their tents was wet and cold on her
bare feet. She stepped into his tent. Although the
moonlight filtered through his screened window, she
could only make out his dark form on the bed. Like
hers, his bed was a twin-sized mattress lying on a
thick plywood board held off the ground by bricks.
She kneeled down and gently shook him.

"Derrick." He moaned in his sleep. She shook him
harder. "Derrick"

He opened his eyes halfway. "What?" he mumbled. "Is that you, Lindsay?"

"Yes. Wake up, I need to talk to you."

Derrick pushed himself to a sitting position and
rubbed his eyes. "Is this business or pleasure?"

"Business" She sat down on his bed.

"Give me a second to wake up"

"I had a nightmare."

"You okay? If you want to stay here, I won't bother
you ... unless you ask."

"I'm fine. It just made me realize who the murderer
might be"

Lindsay watched Derrick's face become alert, and
she smiled. The sight of him pushed away some of the
frightening feelings left over from the nightmare. He
was in his shorts, and she could feel the warmth from
his mostly bare body. It would be comforting to slide
over to him and snuggle up to that warmth, but Lindsay knew she would lose herself there. Instead, she
told him about her dream.

"Mrs. Greenwood's boyfriend, Bobby Whitaker,
was a slob, from what the sheriff said. I couldn't
imagine someone like him neatly folding the clothes
and burying them exactly four feet from the grave. I
think my brain was putting the evidence together in
my sleep, and I woke up remembering the neatly
marked measurements on the floor of Mickey
Lawson's studio and his reputation for compulsive
detail and neatness."

"Let me see" Derrick rubbed his eyes with the heel
of his hand. "You think the killer is Mickey Lawson because he has the same personality characteristics
we've given to the murderer. Is that what you're
saying?"

"Not just that... those photographs of the children.
He is in an occupation that brings him in contact with
children on a regular basis. I'd like to find out who
made Amy Hastings' portraits and who took the
school pictures of Marylou Ridley. We know he took
the picture of Peggy Pruitt."

"Okay, I can accept your reasoning, but it is very
circumstantial, even if he was the photographer of all
the girls."

"It's a place to start. Right now the sheriff has only
Bobby Whitaker, and I don't think he's the one."

"Are you going to the sheriff with this?"

"Not now. The Tylers are a pretty prominent
family. I think I'll do a little investigating on my own
first. Anyway, I just needed to talk to someone."

"Come talk to me anytime." He reached out and
grabbed her arm. "And Lindsay, let me know before
you do any investigating on your own. It is a murderer
you're looking for, remember?"

"I will.

She half expected Derrick to pull her to him or say
something seductive, but he merely released her. It
seemed colder on the way back to her tent. She
crawled back into her bed and went to sleep wondering not about the murders, but what it would feel like
to be warmed by Derrick.

On Monday Lindsay called Guy Hastings and told
him that to complete her report she needed to know
where his daughter's portraits were made. He asked his wife, who said the last one was a special at a
department store in Cullins. Before that, it was at
school, but she hadn't had a school picture taken in a
year. Hastings gave her the approximate date and the
name of the store. She called the store and talked to
three people before she found someone who would
look up the photographer for her. When the curt
voice said Mickey Lawson, a chill went up Lindsay's
spine.

Next she called the school Marylou Ridley had
attended. Lindsay doubted that Marylou's mother had
a professional portrait made of her child. She told the
school secretary essentially the same story she told
the Hastings. "I just need to know the photographer,"
she said. "Since I used her picture in the identification, I've to get official information on it from the
photographer."

The woman had worked at the school for years and
was quite friendly. "That'd be 12 years ago, you say?
We used Adam Bancroft until about four years ago,
then we changed to Mickey Lawson. I guess the photographer was Adam Bancroft. If it wasn't, he might
know who it was. We just don't keep that detail of
information."

Lindsay thanked her for being so helpful. She
called Mickey Lawson's studio and made an appointment to have her portrait taken.

"It occurred to me while I was in your studio," she said
as he was setting up the shot, "that a portrait would
make a good Christmas gift for my parents. They are
always after me to give them one. I was going to get
Derrick to do it. He's the site photographer. But I thought I'd go ahead and have a professional one
made"

"I'm glad you decided to have it done here. Photographs make good presents. I do some of my best
business before Christmas."

"I wouldn't think there are enough people in Merry
Claymoore to keep you in business making portraits."

"If it were only portraits and only in Merry Claymoore, it wouldn't. But I do clubs, civic functions,
schools, department stores. I cover a pretty wide area."

"Did you go to school to learn photography`?"

"No. I got interested in photography in high
school, then got a job working with a photographer
when I graduated. In about three or four years, I struck
out on my own and have been doing pretty good ever
since."

He snapped several poses of Lindsay, carefully
recording the measurements after each shot.

"I imagine you were pretty lucky to get a job with
a photographer right out of high school."

"Yeah, I was. Adam taught me a lot, but we sure
had different styles of photography"

"Adam?"

"Adam Bancroft. He has a studio between Flint
Rock and Cullins. He likes to experiment a lot, and
I'll tell you, it's cost him business. Around here,
people don't want anything unusual. They just want a
good picture of themselves."

"It sounds like your business is better than his."

"It is. I suppose he thinks I stole his customers, but
you've got to give people what they want. We should
get some good pictures from these. I'll have the
proofs in a couple of days"

"Thank you"

Lindsay left the studio and found Derrick waiting
outside for her. "I had Thomas drop me off. Thought
you might need some muscle if you were going to do
much detective work"

Lindsay laughed at his feigned Bronx accent. "I'm
not doing anything dangerous, Derrick, but you're
welcome to come with me"

Derrick climbed into the passenger side of the jeep
Lindsay was driving. "I'll ride shotgun," he said.

"Look in the glove compartment for a map. We
need to head in the direction of Flint Rock and
Cullins."

"No problem. The quarry I believe is the source for
the black flint the Indians used in making points is in
Flint Rock, so I've been out there"

"We need to find a phone book anyway, because I
need to look up an address"

"Stop at the store up the road, and I'll get us a
couple of cold drinks while you look up the address."

Adam Bancroft's studio was a refurbished barn a
mile off the main road. No one was at the reception
desk when Lindsay and Derrick entered. They
waited, looking at the pictures lining the walls. These
photographs were quite different from Mickey
Lawson's. Some were landscapes, some were candid
wedding portraits, others were of people at the bus
station. All possessed a startling presence, as if each
had a story to tell. Lindsay and Derrick were struck
by a photograph of a girl in a wedding dress. The
apprehension on her face was a powerful testament
to her misgivings.

"I didn't even show her that proof," a man behind
them said. "I always wondered if she ever got
divorced.

Lindsay and Derrick turned to see a tall, slender
man with shoulder-length black hair streaked with
gray. He wore jeans and a T-shirt with Georgia
O' Keefe's painting of a horse skull and a white flower
on the front.