A Rumor of Bones: A Lindsay Chamberlain Mystery (14 page)

"I'm Adam Bancroft." He stretched out his hand to
Lindsay and Derrick.

"I'm Lindsay Chamberlain, and this is Derrick
Bellamy. We're archaeologists at the Jasper Creek
site."

His jaw dropped open. "You're kidding! That's
amazing."

Lindsay was a little taken aback by his reaction. He
seemed truly surprised that they were archaeologists.

"Yes. I was asked by the sheriff to identify some
bones found in the woods. Perhaps you have read
about it in the papers."

"Yeah, those three little girls. I read about it. My
daughter wanted to come down for a visit and bring
her five-year-old. I told her to stay away until this is
solved. So you identified the hones. I'm amazed."

"Besides x-rays, I used photographs. Marylou
Ridley's photograph was an old school picture. Her
school said your studio was the one they used. For
the final report, I'd like to get some detailed information about the pictures-negative size and focal
length-and I was wondering if you have them."

"Probably not. I don't keep detailed records now.
I'm sure I wouldn't keep any around for... what... ten
years`?"

"Twelve. It's not critical. I just like to put as much
information as I can in the report."

"I probably did have that information once.
Mickey Lawson worked for me then. I usually sent
him on all the school commissions. He drove me
crazy with the detailed data he kept on each photograph. I tried to teach him that you have to feel a good
shot. Anyway, I burned all his records when he left."

"That's too bad. But, as I said, it isn't critical."
Lindsay turned to the photographs again. "Your style
is a lot different from his."

"Yeah. People seem to like his better, but it would
be hard for me to go back to doing more traditional
photography. Not that it would do me much good.
When he opened his studio, his grandmother, Isabel
Tyler, talked a lot of my customers into going with
him. But it forced me to carve out a new niche for
myself."

"I think you're an artist."

"Thanks. So do 1, actually- "Can I show you
something?" He led them into his studio. It was cluttered, unlike the neat studio of Mickey Lawson.
Adam went back to the dark room and came out with
several eight-by-tens. He laid them on a table, and
this time Lindsay's jaw dropped. They were of her
and Derrick dancing. "That's why I was so surprised
you are archaeologists. You dance so well. Not that
archaeologists can't dance, but I thought you were
both professional dancers. Obviously, I was at the
Locomotion the other night."

Lindsay picked one up. They had just done a lift
and she was doing a body slide down the front of Derrick. It was a side view, and they were looking into each other's eyes. It was a very sensual picture. She
picked up the others. The motion in each of them
could almost be seen: the whirl of Lindsay's dress, the
spins, the lifts, the touches. There was also a passion
in them that shocked Lindsay.

"I'm glad you came by. I was about to call the
sheriff and ask who you were. I would like to send
some of these off and needed to get a release."

"These are beautiful." said Derrick. "May we have
copies?"

"Sure. I'm trying some things with the developing.
I'll make you a set when I'm satisfied and bring them
to you"

"Who's this?" asked Derrick.

Lindsay and Adam looked at the photograph. It
was one showing the audience in the background. A
face stood out from the rest. It had a sinister leer that
made Lindsay shiver.

"Patrick Tyler," said Adam. "Isabel Tyler's grandson by her daughter Ruth. Creepy little beggar, isn't
he? I couldn't decide whether to crop this picture or
not. It gives the whole scene a different mood"

"He kept after me to dance with him while you
were dancing with Dee. The sheriff had to run him
off."

"You didn't tell me that." said Derrick.

"There wasn't much to tell. He wouldn't take no
for an answer, and the sheriff shooed him away. He
seemed to threaten him with his grandmother."

"That would do it," laughed Adam. "By the way,
could I come to the site and take a few pictures of the
crew working?"

"I don't see why not," said Lindsay. "We'll have to ask the principal investigator first, but I don't foresee
a problem."

Lindsay and Derrick signed the model release
forms and left Adam's studio.

"Some pictures," Derrick said on the way back to
the site.

"He's a good photographer. Too bad the people
around here can't see that. His photographs make
Mickey Lawson's seem so ordinary."

"I agree," said Derrick, "but Lawson is right. Most
people just want a flattering picture of themselves."

"Mickey Lawson photographed all three girls,"
Lindsay said abruptly.

"Probably. What are you going to do now?"

"Take the information to the sheriff and drop the
whole thing. I've reached the limit of my detecting
ability."

"Good"

Lindsay sat in the sheriff's office while he finished a
phone conversation. She looked around his office for
the first time. His desk and chairs were ordinary and
worn, the kind one might find in any sheriff's office.
Decorating his walls were illustrations of various
weapons, many medieval. On the wall behind him
was a pair of dueling pistols under a glass covering.

"Dee and I had a good time the other night," he
said when he hung up the phone.

Lindsay directed her gaze at him and smiled. "We
did, too."

"What can I do for you?" he asked.

"I don't quite know where to begin. I know I
should have come to you first, but ... well, I didn't."

"Lindsay, so far you have been a direct person. Just
tell me what you did."

"I woke up the other night with an idea I had to
follow through on. It was the way the clothes were
folded and the way they were buried exactly four feet
from two of the graves. It reminded me of my visit to
Mickey Lawson's studio. It was so neat, and he had
all the measurements and angles marked on the floor
so carefully. Several people had mentioned his fanaticism about detail. And then there were the pictures of
the girls. I realized that a photographer would have
access to children of that age."

Lindsay stopped and took a breath. The sheriff said
nothing, his face unreadable.

"I called to find out who took the pictures of Amy
Hastings and Marylou Ridley. I said it was to get the
official camera readings for my report. I was discreet,
and I didn't say anything that wasn't in the newspapers." Lindsay told him in detail of her detective
work and her visit to Adam Bancroft's studio. "I just
wanted to give you the information. I don't intend to
do any more detective work."

The sheriff sat quietly for several moments. "You
should have come to me first."

"I know. But I felt I needed a little more than speculation. Even now it is circumstantial. Not much more
than a feeling."

"What you were doing was potentially dangerous.
Someone who has murdered several times would have
no qualms about doing it again."

"That's essentially what Derrick said. That's why
he went with me "

"Derrick was more levelheaded than you were. Nevertheless, he should have stopped you, and you
should have come to me. I am not a man to shirk my
responsibilities."

"I didn't think you would. I just thought I needed
more to back up my suspicions."

Finally, after a moment, he smiled at her. "Well,
you did a competent job of it anyway. I agree it is a
good lead, and I have very few. I don't have a thing to
link Bobby Whitaker. And frankly, I can't see him
taking the time to fold the clothes."

Lindsay smiled with relief and rose to leave.

"Take care and come to me if you again feel the
need to be a detective." The sheriff rose and walked
her to her car.

Derrick and his crew were back at the site. Lindsay
was back in charge of the burials, and all was normal
again. The scout troops were still there, so removal of
the overburden was going quickly. Ned hadn't had an
outburst in several days. In fact, he and Frank went
together to the university to pick up some supplies.
The crew had exposed another large section of the site
and were shovel-shaving the ground. Derrick's sharpened flat shovels worked like razor blades, shaving a
smooth surface and exposing the underlying patterns.
Another house structure, two smaller structures that
looked like outbuildings, and five more burials were
discovered.

Everything was perfect again, except for Ronald
Moody, a scout who thought it was uproariously funny
to play "Picking Up Bones" over and over again on his
boom box. He took no threats seriously, having
decided that archaeologists are mainly pacifists.

No rain was predicted for the next five days, and
Lindsay was sitting in the middle of the site with her
clipboard, deciding how many burials to open up.
Thomas came over and asked her to look at something he had discovered. He was calm. Frank was
finally having an influence on his unbridled enthusiasm.

She walked over to the section that Frank and Derrick had given him to dig, and he showed her two
stains on the ground. One was about ten feet long and
eight feet wide. The stain beside it was smaller. Both
were oriented in the same direction, east/west.

"The smaller one looks like a burial," said Lindsay.
"I'm not sure about the larger one-maybe a trash pit,
but they wouldn't have buried someone next to where
they dumped the trash."

"It is outside the village boundary. Maybe the
person was an outcast"

"Start digging, and we'll see. This will be Burial
31, and we'll call the larger stain..." Lindsay looked
at her clipboard, "...Feature 29"

Both looked up to see Derrick marching over to
Ronald, the boom box scout.

"What do you think Derrick is going to do?" asked
Thomas wistfully.

"Kill him. It's what I'd do," Lindsay replied.

Whatever Derrick said fell on deaf ears, for he
went away with Ronald laughing behind him.

"Derrick is going to do something, isn't he?"
Thomas declared.

"I hope so"

The next morning the site crew started at the usual
time. They were removing the black plastic from the
features when a wail came from the scout camp.

"My radio! Someone stole my radio!"

The lament drifted from the field to the site. It
seemed that in the dead of night someone had spirited
away Ronald's boom box.

After a thorough search of the scouts' campsite,
helped by only one or two people, the whereabouts of
Ronald's boom box remained a mystery. He made his
way over to the site, grumbling and threatening to call
the sheriff.

"Who was it?" he demanded, standing in the
middle of the site with his hands on his hips. "I
know it was one of you"

No one confessed.

The sun was coming over the horizon, and daylight
was breaking over the site. Everyone was busy at their
assigned tasks when suddenly Brian shouted, "There
it is! Isn't that it?"

He pointed to the top of a tree. The crew gravitated
over to him and looked up. There-way out on a thin
limb-the boom box was hanging by a rope.

"Oh, no! Who did that? Whoever did it, go and get
it down, now!"

"That's a long way up," Derrick said in a matter-offact tone. "I expect you will have to climb up yourself."

Lindsay looked at him. He was dressed in his usual
cutoffs, work boots, and no shirt, but today he also
wore mirrored aviator sunglasses and a camouflage
bandanna tied around his head like a headband.

Lindsay sidled up to him and whispered, "Are we
Rambo today?"

He grinned.

Ronald stood at the base of the tall tree, looking up
at the dangling radio. "Look, somebody put it up there,
and they are going to have to climb up and get it!"

Frank and Ned arrived about that time and asked
what was going on.

"Well, sir," replied Derrick in a clipped military
tone, "we have the kid's radio-tape player hanging in
that tree. I don't recommend anyone climb up and retrieve it. Too dangerous. I suggest we shoot it down."

"Shoot it down?" exclaimed Ronald. "Shoot it
down! That will break it!"

"Why is it up in the tree?" Ned asked.

"We assume," Thomas said, "that someone did it
because he was playing the same song all day long
yesterday."

"The way I see it," Derrick continued, "we can
either have some of the crew hold a blanket to catch it
or get a few of the extra mattresses from the laboratory. I suggest the mattresses. The radio could hit
someone when it falls. However, we do have the hardhats we wear to the quarry."

"The mattresses," Frank said.

"Right," Derrick agreed.

"What! You're going to break it!" cried Ronald
again.

"Maybe not," Derrick said. "Let's see. The radio is
hanging about 75 feet from the ground. It is starting
at velocity zero and falling at a rate of 32 feet per
second squared, which means it will hit the ground
roughly in 2.2 seconds at the speed of 70 feet per
second. I can live with that. We'll use three mattresses. It will probably bounce off, but the mattresses will absorb the primary shock. The secondary shock
won't be nearly as great."