The sheriff opened the gate and hollered, “Luther, you got company.”
A man much younger than Diane had imagined came out of the taxidermy shop wearing a leather apron and wiping his hands on a towel. He pushed his straight black hair from his eyes and smiled. His teeth were white against his neatly trimmed, short black beard.
“Frank Duncan, what you need with a sheriff’s escort?”
“Hey, Whit. How you doing? This is Diane Fallon. She’s the new director of the RiverTrail Museum.”
“Come for more business, I hope.” He grinned.
“We want to take a look at where your father dumps his carcasses,” said the sheriff.
“Now, sheriff, you know he disposes of his waste legally—since he had to pay that fine a couple of years ago.”
“This would be an old dump,” said Frank. “We think there may be a body in it. It could be why your father had a trespasser the other night.”
Whit gave a long whistle. “This is serious. I guess you need me there too.”
Diane raised her eyebrows and looked at Frank.
“Whit’s the county coroner,” said Frank.
“Well, that makes everything convenient,” said Diane.
“Can I ask why you are interested?” he asked Diane.
“I’m a forensic anthropologist.”
“I see.” He looked at the sheriff. “Do you know where you want to look?”
“A site that was being used from about five to ten years ago,” answered Diane.
“Let’s see. I covered most of them up for Dad.”
“Do you have one that could have been visited by George Boone or his son, Jay?” asked Diane.
“Dad mentioned George was out here with his son a couple weeks ago for target practice. That’s just awful what happened to that family. Is this about them?”
“Maybe,” said Frank. He explained about the bone.
“There’s one place I had a hard time getting to. I just lightly covered it, so it might have eroded out. Let’s go take a look.” He hung his apron and hand towel on a post, and led them back out the fence. He looked at the sign as he was closing the gate and shook his head. “Some folks think that’s clever, but I told Dad it looks like an invitation to me. Let’s go in my Jeep.”
It was a bumpy ride down an infrequently used dirt road. The sheriff rode in front beside Whit. Diane and Frank rode in back, which made the ride for her even more like a buckboard. The rough ride through the woods was too much like the ride through the jungle. Diane gripped the seat until her fingers cramped. When they stopped with a lurch, Diane thought she would throw up her scant breakfast.
“You OK?” whispered Frank.
Diane nodded, but accepted his help in getting out of the vehicle.
“We have to walk from here,” said Whit. He sprayed himself with bug spray and tossed the can to Diane. “Lot of deer ticks in the woods, not to mention mosquitoes.”
After the four of them sprayed themselves, they set out through the woods. The North Georgia woods are quite different from the jungles of the Amazon and Diane found herself missing it. The rain forest is far more dense and so green, lush and full of oxygen it made Diane happy just to be breathing. The trees are tall, with leaves big enough to curl up in. The thick rain forest canopy doesn’t let much wind down to the understory, so the stillness there is palpable.
Here a breeze fluttered the leaves and ruffled Diane’s short hair. The smell of insect repellent traveled with them and masked the natural scents of the forest. As the trail became more overgrown, the woods threatened to become as thick as the jungle, and Diane was glad she had dressed for it. Shortly, they came to another dirt road intersecting the path they were on.
“We keep going on this overgrown path,” said Whit, to Diane’s dismay.
She stopped in the middle of the road. “Where does this road go?”
“From the main road to the upper pasture. We use it to bring in hay.”
“How long has it been here?” asked Diane.
“Couple of years for the part leading to the pasture. That’s when Dad bought the new land. It used to turn here and go back to the house.”
“So at one time it went to your house but not the pasture?”
“That’s right.”
“They got lost,” said Diane, looking up and down the road.
“Who?” asked the sheriff and Whit together.
“The intruders. They were looking for the way to the dump site, but the terrain has changed since they were last here, and in the dark they couldn’t see this overgrown path. They didn’t know the new road leads to the pasture. That’s why they disturbed the cows.”
“You pretty sure there’s going to be a body up ahead?” asked Whit.
“No. Maybe just a wild goose,” said Diane.
Whit grinned and led the way through the thick brush. The trail was interrupted by a large gully about fifteen feet deep with a stream flowing in the bottom.
“There used to be a earth bridge and culvert here,” said Whit, “but it got washed away last spring.”
“How do we get across?” asked the sheriff.
“There’s an easier way down the bank down yonder.”
As they were discussing the easiest way to descend to the bottom, Diane scrutinized the walls of the ravine. It was solid rock face with jagged cracks caused by roots and weather. She positioned her pack on her back, stooped down and eased herself over the side and climbed down using the cracks in the rock face for hand-and footholds. She was crossing the narrow creek when they noticed her. Frank and Whit looked at Diane then at each other with that “now we have to do what she did or look like a wimp” look.
“Which way did you say is easier?” asked the sheriff.
“Down the bank about a hundred yards. There’s a kind of path down to the bottom,” said Whit before he and Frank began climbing down the side.
As they were descending, Diane started up the other side. This side wasn’t a rock face like the other, but there were large boulders and rocks weathering out of the surface. She climbed, testing each rock before she put her full weight on it, pulling herself up. On top she waited for Whit and Frank. When they reached the top she held out a hand to help each of them up on the bank.
“You do that real well,” said Whit.
“Thanks.” It was an easy climb, but from their panting, she decided not to mention it.
“She explores caves and does some rock climbing,” said Frank, dusting off his hands.
“A woman of adventure. You dating anyone?”
“Yes, she is,” said Frank.
Whit laughed. “I may give you some competition. By the way, why do you think there’s a body here?”
Diane explained to him about the clavicle Frank got from George and her analysis of it.
“And that led you here? Amazing.”
“That and the item in the paper about your trespasser,” said Diane.
“Adventurous and clever too. You’re definitely going to have some competition, Frank.” He slapped him on the shoulder.
The sheriff made his way around to them, wheezing and breathing hard. “I sure hope we find a body. I’d hate to come all this way for nothing.”
“It’s just a short ways now,” said Whit. He led them through more undergrowth to a depression that was once a small gully. It was now covered with leaves and detritus. Protruding from the ground here and there were the unmistakable shapes of bones.
“Here it is,” said Whit. “Dad used to dump his carcasses here. He plugged up that narrow end with stumps and branches from where he’d cleared a pasture so the carcasses wouldn’t wash into the big creek. He was a little sloppy about covering them up, but hell, it’s out of the way.”
“I can see where someone might have thought it would be a good place to hide a body,” said the sheriff. “But weren’t they taking a risk that your father would see a body when he threw more carcasses in?”
“Sometimes Dad would throw a little dirt over them, especially in the summer. Maybe that’s what they did—if there’s a body here.”
Diane stepped carefully around the depression, inspecting the ground as the men discussed the relative merits of hiding a body one place or another. Another mass grave. She’d vowed never to dig another one. The side of a deer skull showed partially through the dirt and leaves. Not human. This was not a mass grave for humans. Though she had a hard time understanding how anyone could shoot a beautiful, healthy animal. . . . On the other hand, she did enjoy fishing. Her brain was hopping from one thing to another—trying to deal with the prospect of excavating a mass grave.
“What’s your opinion, Doc?” said the sheriff.
Diane stood and looked over at them, surprised at how she had completely tuned out their conversation. “I’m sorry, what are you asking?”
“Where do you think is the best place to get rid of a body? Whit thinks this place, Frank votes for the foundation of a building, I say a wood chipper.”
“In a pigpen,” she said. “Pigs eat everything, including the bones.”
Chapter 23
Diane stooped down and took a small crime-scene evidence flag from her pack and stuck it into the ground.
The three men stood staring at the flag for a moment.
“Mr. Abercrombie, I believe we need your permission to excavate,” said Diane.
“You found something?” said the sheriff, surprise in his voice.
The three of them came walking across the dump site past protruding bones and suspicious lumps beneath the ground to where Diane was crouched. There, about the size of half a golf ball and stained brown like the surrounding dirt, a small, odd-shaped squarish bone lay on the ground next to the flag.
“That’s a human bone?” asked the sheriff. He glanced around at the other bones peeking through the surface of dirt and leaves. “How can you tell it’s human among all these animal bones?”
“Every bone is distinctive. It’s a human talus—a bone of the foot.”
“You’re sure about that?” asked the sheriff.
“Yes.”
“OK, what do we need to proceed?” asked Whit.
“It must be excavated as a crime scene—not dug up by untrained hands.”
“You can do that?”
“Yes, but you don’t have to use me,” said Diane, hoping he’d say something like, “My cousin’s a forensic anthropologist—I’ll have her do it.”
“Why not?” said Whit. “You’re here.”
“All right. I have an archaeologist at the museum, and I’ll get some experienced excavators from the university’s archaeology department.”
Diane sat in one of Jonas Briggs’ stuffed chairs studying the chessboard as he called his former archaeology students. He had moved his knight to the king bishop three position—only three moves for each of them. They were still in the beginning of the game, battling for early control of the board. As he hung up the phone, she captured his pawn and stood up.
“I’ve gotten four of my best excavators. They are very enthusiastic.” He rubbed his hands together. “This is certainly an unexpected turn of events.” As he stood, he looked at the chessboard. “Will you capture your pawn, please?”
Diane took his black pawn and captured hers. “Shall I pick you up at your house early tomorrow morning?” she said.
“Yes, please. The crew will meet me there, and they can follow you.” He took his jacket hanging on his coat-rack and followed Diane out the door.
“You know, the terrain is a little rough. There is a substantial gully to traverse.”
“I have traversed many a substantial gully in my time. You do not need to worry.”
“Anyway, Whit Abercrombie said he would see about arranging for a temporary bridge across the creek. He thinks perhaps the county will do it.”
“A creek—is that all we’re talking about? A creek?”
“The creek is in a fifteen-foot-deep gully.”
“You don’t need to worry about me.”
“I’m not. But it would look bad for me if I killed one of my curators on a field expedition.”
“Then I’ll do my best to make you look good.”
They rode the elevator to the ground floor.
“Here.” Diane handed him one of the three laptops she had been given by Kenneth Meyers to field test.
“This looks nice.” He rubbed a hand over the metallic case.
“I think it is. I haven’t looked at mine yet, but I believe it’s the top of the line and good for field work. It works with a cell phone, so you can send any information to the museum. Let me know how it works.”
“If the anthropology department knew how many perks this job came with, they’d send someone else over.”
“That’s what Sylvia Mercer said. I’m going to ask her to work with you on the faunal identification. She’s the zoologist.”
“Does she get a computer too?”
“Not one of these. She gets one for her office, like your other one.”
“I get two computers. Well, this is just dandy.”
Diane laughed at him and sent him on his way. Jonas Briggs went home to prepare, and Diane went to the faunal lab and Sylvia Mercer’s office. Sylvia was in the lab rearranging the equipment.
“Dr. Mercer, I have a favor to ask.”
“Shoot, and call me Sylvia, please. I hope you don’t mind me rearranging the lab a little.”
“No, whatever works. Remember that clavicle I was looking at the other day?” Diane didn’t wait for an answer, but told her how she’d found the probable place it came from.
“The site is filled with animal bones. I was thinking that if I could match the taxidermist’s records with the animal bones above and below the human remains, it might help establish the approximate time of death. I’d like you to identify some of the animal bones.”
“Sure. If you’ve found a clavicle and astragalus, aren’t the bones probably pretty much comingled?”
“I’m sure there’s a lot of mixing, but I’m hoping enough stayed in place to give me a lead.”
“Do you need me to come to your site?”
“It would help, but I don’t want to take you away from your research.”
“I can manage a few days. This sounds rather interesting.”