Ashes and Bones (11 page)

“Yeah, you’re right. Damn.” Meg sounded like she was disappointed that she hadn’t caught that. At least, I hoped she wasn’t disappointed that the bones were not…recently acquired.

“Jeez, you know—hey, check this out!”

I was using a pen to roll the little bones around—they were short, roughly cylindrical with knobby protuberances on either end—when I saw the markings. Clear, but cryptic, black markings along the short shafts of some of the larger ones. Letters and numbers…

“I’ll be damned,” Meg whispered. “Are those…?”

“Yeah,” I said. I was actually more creeped out now than I had been when I still worried that the bones were fresh. “I think they are. Look here.” I pointed out a particularly good example.

“Will you tell me what’s going on?” Dave said. “What are those marks? Some kind of occult thing? Or is it just ‘cult’?”

“Kinda,” Meg said; I frowned, she wasn’t wrong, but it wasn’t the time for humor. Everyone needs an outlet for anxiety, I guess.

“Only if you consider accession marks on a study collection an occult practice. Imagine a room full of people dedicatedly washing each bone fragment as if it was precious, then marking each one just so, with the attention that is usually reserved for relics. These were part of a faunal collection, once, or an archaeological assemblage. The thing is,” I said, squinting at the numbers, “I’d be willing to bet that they came from Caldwell College.”

“Not one of your sites?” Meg asked quickly.

“No, I don’t think so,” I replied. “Caldwell’s collections, but not one of mine—we don’t have any human stuff from my sites. There’s a lot of stuff that was recently recatalogued, collections curated by my predecessors.” I finally looked up at Dave’s worried face. “They’re human. Finger phalanges, I think—you can see they’re a little flattened on one side. Toe bones are rounder, if I recall correctly. But these marks, the writing, indicate where these were found, and on what site. We do exactly the same thing.”

“So that means…what?” asked Meg.

“It could be a couple of things,” Stannard said. He was looking at the water again, rubbing his hand back and forth over his head, rumpling up his brown hair. Completely unconscious about it, as usual. “It could be someone from Caldwell. Obviously, whoever it was knew you’d both be here, knew enough to make it look like one of your units, had access to the collections.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Most of the department is scattered to the four corners of the world. Most of them will be coming back in a couple of weeks. I’m thinking of faculty, not students, though I’ve got an idea where most of them are. The archaeologists, at least.”

Meg and Dave looked at me skeptically. “Okay, well the graduate students. Keeping track of undergraduates is like keeping track of fruit flies. There seem to be millions of them, and they’re always in constant motion.”

“Doesn’t mean they couldn’t have come back early,” Meg said.

“I know, but there’s none of them that would do a thing like this,” I said, a little impatient. We had to narrow it down somehow. “We can ask Chuck, our administrator, if he’s seen anyone—crap!” I slapped my forehead. “The keys!”

“Right!” Meg said.

Stannard furrowed his brow, confused.

“There are only a few keys to the storage areas,” I explained, “and it gets recorded when they’re given out. I have
one, Neal—that’s Meg’s fiancé—had one, but he turned it in—”

“I remember him. Nice kid. Congratulations, you,” he said to Meg. She nodded impatiently, wanting to stay on track.

“I don’t know who else would have a key right now,” I finished, frustrated. “Since I’m the only archaeologist, I can’t think that the linguists or social anthropologists need to get at the curation facilities. So it’s got to be Professor LeBrot’s stuff—he’s our physical anthropologist. We can double-check, and ask Chuck too.”

“There’s another possibility,” Dave said, looking troubled now.

I nodded.

“It could be that someone broke into the storage. Someone pulling a stunt to play with your head, as well as cause you some kind of injury.”

“Maybe they didn’t need to break in,” I said.

Meg looked up.

“Maybe Tony’s still got a key,” I said to Dave, then explained my current theories. His frown deepened as my story worked its way up to the present.

“Even if the locks have been changed since that time, I’m sure he remembers enough of how to get in some other way. Nick another key, break in during the night, follow someone in, something like that.”

“You should make sure you speak with the administrator, and the people in your department,” Stannard said after a pause. “This is serious. Even if it isn’t Tony Markham, someone deliberately tried to hurt you two—”

“And if it is Tony,” I said, a little impatient, “you need to be careful too, Dave. I think…he’s reaching out to people I know. Some of them were related to his case, some are people who are close to me, family, friends. I think that with your involvement with the case, you should be extra alert. And your family, too.”

“You know, Emma, we’ve discussed this before,” he
started slowly. “Last time we had this conversation, after the conference in January, I was pretty sure Tony Markham was dead. I still am, truth be told.”

I shook my head. “I still say, there’s no proof that he’s dead. No body, nothing. And even if it isn’t Tony, it’s someone who knows enough of the details of my history, and therefore our association with this site and Pauline’s murder. Information that isn’t readily available—”

“Most everything is readily available, these days,” Dave said. “Do enough digging into public records, the Internet, you can find a lot of stuff. I don’t need to tell you that.”

I waved one hand. “Okay, say it is someone else, just for the sake of argument. It could well be someone from around here who might have been on the scene four years ago. And if that’s the case, there’s still a good chance that you and your family may…be at risk.”

Maybe my argument was convincing enough, maybe it was the strain in my voice, or the look in my eyes that said, yes, I am going to keep arguing until you at least pretend to agree with me, but the sheriff finally nodded.

“Okay. I’ll talk to my people, have them do some nosing around. I’ll talk to my wife, tell her keep an eye out. You write me up an account of what happened today—you too, Meg—and then, Emma, you write me another summary of what’s been going on. At least that way, if I find something on this end, I’ll be able to see where it fits in.”

I nodded so eagerly I’m sure I looked like one of those little dogs that people have in the rear windows of their cars. I didn’t care. Even if Dave didn’t entirely believe me, he’d do what he said, and that’s all I cared about. It was one of the many things I liked about him. More than that, he was taking my fears at least a little seriously.

Though it would have been nice to think he did believe me. I liked and respected Dave and didn’t want him to think I was a basket case.

“Good,” he said, relieved. “We’ll stay in touch then. So, how’s your husband?”

I told him, asked after his wife and his two daughters, the oldest of whom was now nearing junior high school age. He turned to Meg.

“So, when’s the big day?”

“Weekend after Labor Day,” she said. Meg had on her game face, the one she reserved for public speaking and other tasks that made her uncomfortable. “That way, everyone will be home from the field, everyone will be back at school.”

“Wow, just a couple of weeks. Less. Got everything all set?”

A thought hit me then, and I think it occurred to Dave, too.

Meg was too preoccupied to pick up on it, though. “I’ve got a bunch of stuff left, but all little things. You’re right, it’s not long.” She looked panicked, then got control of herself, straightened her shoulders, gritted her teeth. “But I can do it.”

“Of course you can,” Dave said. I thought there was just a trace too much forced heartiness in his voice. “Well, I must get back to the office. You all take it easy.”

We all shook hands, and Meg and I finished loading up the truck.

“Wild day, huh?” Meg said, as we found the highway that would lead us back to campus.

“Yeah.” I wanted to chat with her, wanted to pretend that everything was fine, but I couldn’t.

All I could think about was the wedding. And how close it was. And how perfect a target it would be if someone truly wanted to do us harm.

I
WAS PROBABLY TOO DEEP IN THOUGHT ON MY WAY
home later that evening, or else I might have noticed the dark-colored sedan behind me a bit sooner. It was just as I was pulling out of Lawton’s center and finding my way down the road that would lead me to my road and the Funny Farm.

It was dark outside—Meg and I’d been delayed by the surprise at the bottom of the pit and Dave’s questions—and I was running late. The streets outside Lawton center are very quiet, apart from rush hour, when some folks cut across country rather than follow the more congested arteries through town. After six or seven o’clock, the only cars I generally see are those of my few and distant neighbors and their visitors.

It will turn at the next intersection, I thought. They’re just late coming home from work. It’s really unlikely they’ll follow me down Harrison Farm Road, down there it’s just us and…

The car did follow me down Harrison Farm Road. I glanced back at the driver, but could hardly see anything
behind the tinted windshield. Just a flashing blue light swirling on the dashboard.

I frowned, and began to pull over, simply out of habit, but then something checked me. I continued to move, albeit a bit more slowly, along the side of the road, waiting for him to pass me, if he wanted to. No such luck: He kept on my tail. And yet, something kept me from pulling over and stopping completely.

I didn’t have time to figure out what it was that was bothering me. Suddenly, I found myself jolted violently forward. The other car had bashed into the back of mine.

Omigod, was he trying to kill us both? And yet, he kept right on my tail, dangerously close…why didn’t he back off?

That’s it, I thought. Cops will give you a moment, use the loudspeaker, something, to get you to the side of the road. Without another thought, I shifted into high gear and floored it.

The road was largely unlit—it was too far off the beaten path to warrant many streetlamps—and I knew the area as well as anyone local. I knew what I was going to do. I just needed to keep my head and I needed to keep at least a foot ahead of the other car. If he hit me, and I rolled off the road into the fields that surrounded my house, I would be in big trouble. I couldn’t take my eyes off the road long enough to get any of the plate. Besides, he was too close behind me now.

I tore down the road, past my own house, not even pausing. If this guy wasn’t a cop, then no way was I going to lead him home. I passed the neighbor’s house. He was out by his mailbox and I saw the startled look on his face as he recognized me and realized that I was being pursued at high speed by what looked like an unmarked police car. I hoped that I’d have the chance to explain it all to him later.

The intersection with the other tertiary road came up sooner than I expected—I wasn’t used to traveling this fast on this road. I hit the left directional, and then yanked the steering wheel hard to the right. I didn’t think for a second
that he would buy it, but trusting the idea that most people signal as a reflex, I saw that he had to swerve hard around to keep on my tail. Good.

The steering wheel slipped in my hand, and I was going so fast that the Jetta almost jerked out of control. My hands were sweating as I clenched the wheel. I wiped them off, one at a time, on the leg of my jeans, and strained my eyes looking for the shortcut I knew was coming up fast. It was so hard, in the dark, when everything was so overgrown, and if I stopped to think, I’d be too petrified to continue.

Don’t think, act, Emma.

There…I left it for the last possible second, and then turned hard, right. This was a dirt road, an access road for a farmhouse that was no longer in existence, even less traveled than the one I’d just left. Even darker, if that was possible: there were no lights at all, here, just the beams of our headlights. I would have to be very careful, hoping that anyone who might come from the other direction would have their headlights on; it was just too narrow for two cars to pass each other without slowing down. And at these speeds…I pushed away the memory of the two kids who had been killed while drag racing two summers ago.

I was in luck, for the first time in days. There was just one more leg to travel, and then we might find out what was—

I felt another hard smack against the back of the car, but it wasn’t as bad as before; he was having a hard time keeping up with me. Correcting my steering, I realized that his car wasn’t handling as well as mine on the badly repaired road. All I had to do was keep it together for just a few more minutes…

The ambient glow of the lights from my destination made me almost swoon with relief. With any luck, my pursuer wouldn’t have any idea of where I was actually heading. I turned right again, and hit lighted pavement with a jostling bounce. My jaw clacked shut, jarring me, reminding me that
I was now breathing through my mouth, as though I was fighting. There were more cars here, and they weren’t pulling over—the guy behind me had no siren. I had to swerve around them, using the suicide lane and breakdown lane to pass. I hated driving so recklessly, but I didn’t want to find out what the other driver was after, either.

There, an open space, a straight shot, and still the sedan behind me didn’t slow down: He didn’t know what I was up to. I turned right, signaling, hoping that he would follow me.

I pulled into the Lawton Police Station, grating undercarriage on asphalt, and the sedan followed. For a moment I believed that I’d been evading a genuine police officer, but then the dark sedan wheeled out of the parking lot with a screech. He made a U-turn, causing several other cars to brake suddenly, and took off in the opposite direction we had been traveling.

I had just enough sense left in me to put my car in park, and then I sat there, shaking like I had a fever, my head on the steering wheel. There was a sharp rap at the window.

Cursing loudly, I jumped, my left hand smacking out against the glass. I saw that there was a uniformed officer outside the car. I lowered the window.

“Evening. You mind telling me what that was all about?”

It wasn’t a request. Dry mouthed, I told him what had happened. At another nonrequest, I handed over my license and registration.

After assuring himself that I wasn’t the real trouble maker, he asked the question that I had been asking myself since I pulled over. “How did you know it wasn’t a real officer following you?”

“I think it was the car,” I said slowly, just working it out for myself. “I thought at first that it looked like an unmarked police car, but there was something about it that wasn’t right.”

“How not right?”

“It was the way the grill and lights looked,” I said, finally able to identify the problem. “It looked like more like a Japanese-style sedan, rather than an American one. All of the police cars around here are American-made, I’m pretty sure. And the light on his dash, it whirled. Don’t you guys use strobes?”

He cocked his head. “You notice all this when someone is trying to run you off the road?”

“Trust me, the screeming meemies have just caught up with me.” I took a deep breath, swallowed, tried again. “There was also the bashing into the back of me. I’m assuming you give people a fighting chance to pull over before you start trying to ram them off the road.”

“You’re funny.” He nodded, frowning. “Okay. You did the right thing. Did you get any other details?”

“I couldn’t see anything else,” I said, apologetically. “Dark, late-model sedan.”

He nodded, then walked around to the back of my car, where he could see the evidence that I’d been hit. “Well, it sounds like you had your hands full. How about you come in, fill in a report, and then we’ll get you out of here, okay?”

I went in, and that’s when the tears started. Officer Franco found me a tissue and waited patiently while I finished, but even then, I couldn’t stop shaking. My knees were like sponges: I’d had the benefits of an adrenaline rush, and now I was deep in the aftermath of the adrenaline dumps. Still, a tiny corner of my mind was active enough to be grateful. I didn’t have time to think, I’d acted on souped-up nerves, muscle memory, and a fast inspiration. I got out of it alive.

I told him the story, as best I could, hesitating when I got to the part where I admitted that I was afraid that it might be Tony, or someone in his hire. I told Officer Franco this, and he stopped chewing his gum.

“Put it in the report and I’ll give this Sheriff—Stannard, did you say?—a call. It sounds unlikely—it could just be some random nut case—but if we get any other complaints,
we’ll want to know everything. That light on the dash is worrying. Could be a ruse to get young ladies such as yourself into…a bad situation.”

I nodded, and picked up a pen, willing my still-trembling fingers to be steady. Young ladies such as myself were already in a bad situation.