Lovely in Her Bones (10 page)

The side door to the church opened, and he saw a figure in jeans standing on the porch. By the time he noticed the blond hair, which identified the person as Mary Clare, she had seen the van and was running toward it. Alex, who had planned to rehearse everything in his mind, had no idea what he was going to say.

Mary Clare rested her elbows on the van’s open window and peered in happily at Alex. “I’m real glad
you’re back,” she beamed. “I’ve been looking out for you since five or so. How was your trip?”

“Fine. Is everything all right here?”

“Yep. Milo spent most of yesterday and today either at the sheriff’s office or guarding that motel room with Comfrey Stecoah, though what they meant to accomplish by that, I’m sure I don’t know.”

“Probably a symbolic gesture,” said Alex.

“Well, the work is coming along fine. Do you want to go up to the site and take a look?”

He nodded. “After supper.” He wasn’t hungry, but eating the tasteless food in the common room would postpone his having to be alone with Mary Clare. He followed her up the hill to the church, still wondering what to say.

    Inside the Sunday school room, Victor Bassington was holding forth to a captive audience of diggers, who were bolting their food as quickly as possible in order to escape.

“Archaeology! The mysteries of the ages! That’s why I’m studying it. Why was Machu Picchu abandoned? Why did the Neanderthals die out?”

“You’ll never know,” muttered Jake between mouthfuls of bread.

“Ah! Can we be sure? Science opens new doors every day. Take this Cullowhee mystery. Who are they? I think they came from the Orient—”

“I thought
all
Indians originally came from the Orient,” Elizabeth put in.

“Ah, but
these
Indians seem more Oriental than most,” said Victor without missing a beat. “Those skulls you’re working with remind me very much of the skull of the Peking man I saw in England. Something about the shape—”

“That’s very interesting,” said Elizabeth politely. She hoped that her comment had distracted Victor from the sound of Jake’s snickering.

“Yes, very interesting indeed,” said Alex, who had
been standing in the doorway listening. “I should like to hear more.”

Victor turned slowly, a blush creeping upward toward his ears. “Why, welcome back, Dr. Lerche. I was just talking about how interesting all this is.”

“Yes, I heard you,” said Alex evenly. “You mentioned seeing the skull of the Peking man. That must have been quite an experience for you. When was this?”

“While I was in England,” Victor said in a much more subdued voice. “Two or three years ago.”

“I see,” said Lerche. “Was this in a museum, perhaps?”

Victor hesitated. “The … ah … British Museum. But I don’t think they’re there all the time. I believe it was a traveling exhibit. I guess I was just lucky to be visiting at the right time.”

“Lucky,” Lerche repeated sarcastically. “Oh, you were phenomenally lucky, Mr. Bassington. You saw the actual bones, not a plaster copy?”

“The actual bones,” Victor agreed cautiously. “In a glass case, of course.”

“Here it comes,” whispered Jake to Elizabeth.

“I find it very interesting that you saw the skull fragments of
Sinanthropus pekinensis
two or three years ago in the British Museum. Do you know why I find that so interesting, Mr. Bassington?”

“Uh … did you see them then too?” asked Victor hopefully.

“No—and neither did you. The remains of Peking man were found in China in 1929 and
they disappeared in China in 1939!
When the Japanese invaded Manchuria, the museum people entrusted them to soldiers who were supposed to get them to a safe place. The soldiers were captured and the bones were never found.”

“Oh,” said Victor in a small voice.

“I don’t know why you have a compulsion to be an expert on things you know nothing about, but you’re
wasting your time, because no one will ever believe a word you say.” He turned to the rest of the group. “All of you could stand to do a lot more studying and a lot less posturing. You’re not scientists yet!” He left the Sunday school room, slamming the door behind him.

Mary Clare hurried to keep up with him. “He’s had that coming,” she said softly. “But it’s not like you to do it in public thataway.”

Alex grunted. “Where’s Milo?”

“Well, he figured you’d be sending the new monitor up by bus, so he found out when the bus gets in and went down to wait for it. He’ll be back soon. Are you going to the site? Because if you are, Elizabeth MacPherson has a whole boxful of skulls already measured. She’d like you to check her work.”

“All right.”

Mary Clare hoped that if she could get Alex to talk, he would slow down and stop crashing through the woods like a wounded razorback. “Did you get the disks?” she called.

Alex turned to look at her. “My wife is bringing them,” he said.

She looked at him saucer-eyed, then began to smile. “I guess you haven’t told her yet, have you? But I don’t think there’ll be any problem if you just tell her what you’re planning to do from now on.”

“And what is that?” asked Alex quietly.

Mary Clare blushed. “Oh, I didn’t mean about us. Though I reckon it might be kinder to tell her straight out. I meant what you were talking about the other night: about quitting the university and going off to be an independent archaeologist. Living in camps under the stars, doing whatever job takes your fancy …” She smiled, thinking how wonderful it was going to be.

“You want me to be a shovel bum?” Alex demanded. He sat down on a fallen log and began to laugh.

Mary Clare, who wasn’t sure what the joke was—or on whom—watched him nervously.

“I can’t believe it.
A shovel bum.”

“What’s that, Alex?” she asked timidly.

“That, my dear, is a contract archaeologist who digs up any site for a price. Antiquities bounty hunters. Most of them lack advanced degrees, and they aren’t backed by those universities you scorn so much. Who do you think pays for projects? Universities, that’s who! And without their backing, you have no professional standing in the field, and no one will pay very much attention to your findings.”

“But … Schliemann found Troy on his own.”

“We’re not talking about a hundred years ago, Mary Clare. I’m telling you that
today
the shovel bums dig up a site with no research concept and probably destroy evidence that a real scholar could use. They simply take the money and run to the next job. University backing is the only symbol of integrity we’ve got. And you want me to throw it away!” He shook his head. “You are just as bad as Victor. You make childish plans based on something you know nothing about.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Alex sighed. “I’m sorry, too. I’m afraid I haven’t been very realistic these past few weeks either, and you misunderstood me. I didn’t want to be a shovel bum, Mary Clare. I wanted to be twenty-three again.” He tried not to look at her. “Do you understand?” he asked gently.

She nodded. “I guess so.”

“Well, I have an interesting assignment for you. It has to do with this project, and I think it would be best for all of us if you took it.”

“What is it?”

“You remember that research check I put in at the library before we left? They’ve come up with something. It seems that MacDowell College has a diary and some letters written by a woman from this area.
There may be something on the Cullowhees in her writings. It dates back a hundred years or so.”

“And you want me to read through it? When will it get here?”

“It won’t. It’s in MacDowell’s rare-manuscript collection, and they won’t lend it out. You’ll have to go to their library to examine the documents.”

“You mean I have to leave?” wailed Mary Clare.

“It could be very important to the project,” said Alex gently. “And I think it might be the best thing for all of us.”

Mary Clare glared at him through tears. “I wish you were dead!” she screamed.

    “Where is Milo?” muttered Elizabeth for the third time in as many minutes.

Jake sighed. “Do you think it would help any if he were here?”

“I feel as if I’ve wandered onto the set of a soap opera,” she grumbled. “Victor just sits there glowering, and God knows what’s wrong with Mary Clare. She keeps slamming things into a suitcase, and she’s trying to pretend she’s not crying.”

“And we’re trying to pretend we don’t notice,” Jake agreed.

“I wonder if she’d think I was being nosy if I went over there?” Elizabeth wondered.

“I think we ought to leave her alone,” Jake replied. “We don’t know her very well.”

Victor glared at them from his worktable. “Will you two stop whispering? It is very distracting—and ill-mannered as well.”

“We weren’t talking about you, Victor,” said Jake wearily.

“I didn’t say you were, but I
am
trying to work. It’s hard enough as it is, without your twittering in the background. That ugly scene tonight has given me a paralyzing migraine.”

“It wasn’t an ugly scene. Lerche caught you out,
that’s all. Just admit you had it coming and forget about it.”

“It was quite juvenile of him to pounce on me like that!” Victor insisted. “Cruel, in fact. It should have been obvious to him that I had made a slip of the tongue. Of course what I saw on exhibit was
Homo habilis.
That is what I
thought
I had said until he made such a scene about it.”

“I expect he was upset over something else,” said Elizabeth soothingly.

“No doubt. But he had no right to speak to me like that. None!” He stood up and shook his fist at a blank wall. “I think I shall go out for a while. Perhaps the fresh air will ease the pain in my head. Or perhaps I shall be bitten by a rattlesnake!”

“Have fun, Victor!” said Jake, stifling a grin.

Elizabeth watched him march to the door. “This dig is more of an adventure than I bargained for,” she remarked. “Computer pirates, lovers’ quarrels, violent arguments. Exhuming bodies is getting to be the dullest part of the project.”

“I hope that changes,” said Jake gloomily. “I’m a peace-loving man, myself.”

“At least you’re behaving normally, Jake. Milo is really edgy.” Elizabeth saw the door open. “Shhh! I think he’s coming in now.”

A moment later she saw that it was not Milo, but Dr. Lerche who had come in. He stood at the door looking uncomfortable for a few moments. Mary Clare looked up from her packing, saw him, and walked out, nose in the air. He moved away from the door to let her pass, and walked over to Jake and Elizabeth.

“Where is Milo?”

“At the bus station. He said he’d be back at eight,” Elizabeth offered.

Alex consulted his watch. “It’s five after,” he announced.

“Well, he isn’t here,” said Elizabeth. “Shall I send him up to the site when he arrives?”

“Yes, please do.” Lerche seemed to be thinking of something else. He was looking at the old photographs on the walls. “I examined those skulls you did. I’m going back to the site. Send Milo as soon as he comes.”

Before Elizabeth could ask him anything else about her work, he had hurried out again. “I wonder what that was about,” she remarked.

“There’s no telling,” answered Jake. “It could be anything from untagged soil layers to a misplaced trowel. Don’t worry. If you had done anything wrong, he would have told you.”

“I guess so,” said Elizabeth doubtfully. She thought it much more likely that Lerche would delegate problems of that sort to Milo, since she was his protégée on the dig. There seemed to be no point in worrying, though. She was a beginner, and she had done her best.

Since there seemed to be a lull in the theatrics of the Sunday school room, Jake returned to his book on Cherokee archaeology, and Elizabeth wrote up an account of her meeting with Amelanchier so that she would not forget what she had been told.

It was nearly nine o’clock when Mary Clare eased open the door to the Sunday school room. Her face was flushed and her hair disheveled, but she was no longer crying.

“I saw headlights on the road,” she told Elizabeth. “I reckon that’ll be Milo headed back.”

“Oh, good!” cried Elizabeth, hurrying to the window.

“I’m glad you think so,” snorted Mary Clare. “But you’d better watch out for those anthropologists. All they know how to work with is dead people, and dead people don’t have feelings.” She lifted her chin as if to prepare herself for cries of protest, but none were forthcoming. Jake had retreated into his book, and
Elizabeth, still peering out the window, wasn’t listening.

In a calmer voice, Mary Clare said, “Y’all may as well know I’m leaving to do some literary research on this project. I guess Alex will site-manage himself.”

“Here’s the car!” cried Elizabeth.

“You didn’t see Victor outside, did you?” Jake asked. “He went off a while ago announcing his intention of getting snakebit.”

Mary Clare was relieved that they had not questioned her about her sudden plans for departure. She managed a grim smile. “No. I was out walking around. Victor can’t have gone as far as I did; that would be
exercise.”

“Excuse me. I’m looking for my husband.”

Tessa Lerche stood in the doorway smiling politely. She wore beige canvas pants, an open-throated khaki shirt, and a red silk neckerchief—her concept of expedition chic. Her newly shingled hair would be easy to care for without the aid of the beauty parlor.

Mary Clare, who was wearing faded jeans and a blue T-shirt, looked appraisingly at Tessa and remarked, “You forgot your pith helmet.”

“Dr. Lerche is up at the site,” Jake put in quickly. “Would you like me to take you there? It isn’t far.”

“Sorry we can’t call you a cab.” Mary Clare smirked.

How very un-Southern! Elizabeth thought wildly. We’re usually more polite to our enemies than we are to our friends.

Tessa, too, seemed taken aback by Mary Clare’s hostile remarks. She eyed her carefully, as if waiting for an indication that this was all in fun. The other two occupants of the room, obviously students, looked embarrassed, she noted with satisfaction, but Mary Clare continued to stare. Tessa smiled, as winners can afford to, and said gently, “I understand you are leaving us, Mary Clare.”