Airtight Case (29 page)

Lindsay shifted her gaze back to Lewis. “Did he?”

He put a hand on her shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She shrugged. “Probably unrelated pranks.”
I hope
.

“They found the McBrides’ truck.”

“They did? Where?”

“Abandoned on a dirt road. Hadn’t been stripped or damaged.”

“Did they dust for prints?”

“He didn’t say. Lindsay, there will be military personnel here tomorrow. I’ll have them keep an eye out for anything unusual. They will anyway, but I’ll explain our special circumstance.”

Our special circumstance,
thought Lindsay. Odd choice of pronoun—but comforting in a way. She felt less alone. “I appreciate your support. I really do.”

“Good. Make it easier when I need to ask for another favor sometime.”

Mrs. Laurens had made a breakfast of blueberry pancakes, ham, scrambled eggs, and fried apples. Everyone was chowing down by the time Lindsay and Lewis got to the table.

“I think it was that reporter guy,” said Dillon. “Definitely hostile to our position.”

“What about Trent?” asked Kelsey.

“Oh, yeah, Trent. I forgot about him.” Dillon handed the platter of pancakes to Lewis. “Better get some before we have seconds.” He turned back to Kelsey. “Trent’s a possibility, but why would he hang around here?”

“For Claire?” asked Kelsey.

Lindsay looked around for Claire and noticed that she wasn’t there. “Where is Claire?”

“Haven’t seen her,” said Adam. “I think it was probably someone local who thinks we’re grave robbers.”

Lindsay turned to Mrs. Laurens, who had just come in with an extra platter of fresh scrambled eggs. “Did Claire have an early breakfast?”

“Not unless she was up before I got here.”

“She was gone when I got up,” said Drew. “Probably at the processing tent.”

“She left in her car early this morning. About three o’clock, wasn’t it, Powell?”

Powell nodded. “About that.”

“And what were you two doing up at that time?” asked Marina, grinning, eliciting laughs from around the table.

“Guarding the fort,” said Powell. “Like we were supposed to.”

Lewis changed the subject to the tasks to be done before the scientists arrived. It was as if he had turned on a switch sending a spark of electricity to their seats. They stopped talking about the adventure last evening and gave him their full attention.

“There are some things we have to get done today. Ground preparation around the units to be excavated, and locating spots for the other tents and trailers that will be coming in. Lindsay, haven’t you been trying to find out who lived on the farmstead prior to the Gallows family?” Lindsay, who had just taken a bite of blueberry pancake, nodded. “Good. You spend the day continuing that search. We’ll have a special tent or trailer for you to use to examine the bones once the coffins are opened. Didn’t you say a local doctor will be assisting you?”

Lindsay swallowed. Lewis, as usual, was thinking about several things at once, and she had to concentrate to follow. “Yes. He and his wife own the cabin that used to be here on the site.”

“Great. That will make a good story.”

“Good story?” asked Sharon. “With all due respect, isn’t this getting a little bit like a circus?”

Lewis smiled, showing rows of gleaming white teeth. “Circuses are a troupe of strangers who come to the community and present the local citizens with strange and sometimes bizarre things they probably haven’t seen before. So do we.” There was laughter. “Circuses also depend on the goodwill of the community . . . and so do we. They use publicity to inform the community about what they have to offer. And so do we. What we have to do is manage the circus and see that it doesn’t get out of our control.”

The phone in the living room rang, and Lindsay jumped up to answer it.

“This is Elaine McBride. May I please speak with Lindsay Chamberlain?”

“Elaine, this is Lindsay. How are you?”

“I’m just great. You’ll never guess . . . I’m so excited.”

“What?”

“Hope Foute did have other diaries, and I’ve found them.”

“You did! How did you find them? Where are they?”

“Actually, I’ve found the person who has them. Another descendant. She lives in Virginia.”

“Will she allow us to copy or borrow them?”

“I don’t know. I got the impression she would like to sell them.”

“Oh.”

“I’m making arrangements to meet her.”

“That’s a long way.”

“By plane it’s a couple of hours.”

“This is really above and beyond . . .”

“No it isn’t. I’m having a good time. It’s like finding a whole new chapter in the story of my home.”

“We’ll be excavating the coffins tomorrow. Will your husband be available?”

“Oh, yes. I’ll be going to Virginia without him. He wouldn’t miss the opening of the coffins.”

“I’ll give him a call when I know more.”

“This is so exciting.”

Lindsay said good-bye and hung up the phone. She stood with her hand on the receiver, getting herself lost in Elaine’s enthusiasm. The McBrides had turned out to be good informants. She wondered why Drew hadn’t pursued them after Claire alienated them. It wouldn’t have been hard. They were very anxious to help. She turned to go, and the phone rang again, a loud, piercing ring.

“Did you forget something?” Lindsay smiled into the phone.

“Who is this?” The male voice sounded indignant, as if he had been accused of forgetting something.

“Who are you calling?” It never failed to make her bristle when someone called without identifying themselves and then asked who they were talking to.

“I was calling Drew Van Horne,” he said. “Is this the site?”

“I’ll get her. May I tell her who is calling?”

“Eric Van Horne. This is her husband.”

“Just a moment, Mr. Van Horne.”

Lindsay walked back to the dining room and tapped Drew on the shoulder. “Drew, you have a phone call. It’s your husband.”
I seem to have pissed him off
, she wanted to add.

Drew got up to answer the phone. Lindsay wished she could listen to the conversation. He was a document collector. She wondered if she should have questioned him while she had him on the phone. That really would have made him irate. She smiled at the thought, having taken an instant dislike to Drew’s husband. He was too quick to anger . . . but then, she was one to talk.

“You look like you’ve been into a bowl of cream,” said Marina.

“That was Elaine McBride. She’s located someone who owns more of Hope Foute’s diaries and is going to try to acquire them.”

“You’re kidding. How did she do that?” asked Marina.

“Elaine McBride? She and her husband own the cabin?” said Lewis.

Lindsay nodded. “She didn’t give me any details. The owner is out of state. Elaine’s flying to meet her.”

Although she tried to listen to Drew’s side of the conversation over the noise of talking around the table, she heard nothing, not even the sound of Drew re-cradling the phone before she returned to the dining room.

“My husband may be joining us later this week,” said Drew. “He’s between cases and thought it would be nice to have a look at all the fuss.”

“Would you like to have your room back?” Lewis offered. “I can room with the guys downstairs.”

Drew shook her head and smiled. “He would be more comfortable in a motel or maybe a mountain cabin. He doesn’t like roughing it, and he’d definitely hate sharing the bathroom with a crowd of people.”

Lindsay took her plate and utensils to the kitchen and washed them. Mrs. Laurens always did the dishes, but there was no automatic dishwasher, and Lindsay thought washing two loads of dishes a day was too much to ask. Afterward, she went upstairs to change out of her work clothes, since she wouldn’t be working on the site today.

Claire’s bed was made, as usual. However, Claire’s part of the room looked vacant. Her computer was nowhere in sight. But like Lindsay, she might keep her valuables in her car. Her suitcase and clothes were gone, too. Lindsay looked around the room. Drew’s things were beside her bed, Lindsay’s by hers. Claire’s were gone.

She would have said something, surely. Maybe she got up early and went to the laundry in town. That was probably it. With all the people coming, this would be the only time to get away to do personal chores. Lindsay should probably do the same.

Lewis met her at the bottom of the stairs when she came down. “Where you going today?”

“I thought I would visit the church cemetery.”

“Sounds good. Let me get the crew started and I’ll come along.”

Chapter 25

Elder Timon Moore

THEY FOUND THE church with no difficulty by following the map in the survey reports. It would have been a lot harder had they needed to rely on verbal directions. A modern sign, the kind with changeable lettering, stood at the front of the drive. It read,
Kelley’s Chase Primitive Baptist Church
, and beneath that,
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. 1 Corinthians 13:13
.

Lindsay parked her SUV, and she and Lewis got out. She stood looking at the church. It was a plain, rectangular vernacular building with white board siding and a simple steeple. A brass plaque next to the front doors said,
Founded in 1810
. The survey report said the original building burned in 1830 and a new one was built fifty feet away. Since then the church had been added onto and restored several times.

There were no cars around, but she knocked on the church door anyway. No one answered. She tried the door, but it was locked.

“Are you sure we want to be here?” asked Lewis. “We’re really way back in the mountains.”

“We’re about five miles from the site as the crow flies.”

“Unfortunately, we aren’t crows.”

“No one here.” She stood back and looked at the building. “I have a question. If the curators of Thomas Jefferson’s ax had to replace the handle, and fifty years later other curators had to replace the head, is it still Thomas Jefferson’s ax?”

“What are you talking about?”

“This church. Is it its history that makes it the same church, or is it the building? Nary an original stick of wood or person remains.”

“Don’t get philosophical on me. It’s too early. Do you know where the graves are?”

Lindsay opened the map and pointed to a spot. “Yes. The Gallows graves are here. I’m hoping the Foute graves are nearby.”

Near the church were several rows of modern gravestones, thick, substantial, shiny granite ones with readable names, dates, and sometimes verses etched into the rock. The stones farther back toward the older church site were thin, covered with lichens, and worn so that the writing was barely legible. Even when they were new, they had been plain stones. Now, they leaned forward or backward with the pull of time. Each grave was marked with a headstone and a small weathered rock footstone.

The weeds were kept pulled. Lindsay could imagine the church members every Memorial Day, and sometimes in between, coming out and taking care of their ancestors’ resting places. The newer graves had fresh flowers. But it hadn’t taken long for the older ones to be forgotten, or for the nearest relatives to be buried beside them, leaving no one to bring flowers.

She found the graves of Rosellen and Josh Gallows side by side. She could barely make out Rosellen’s name. Beside them was a smaller grave, marked only with two rocks at the head and foot. According to the map, they had walked past Elisha Gallows’s grave, dated sometime in the 1900s. Lindsay went to the next stone and squatted down, trying to read it.

“Can I help you people?”

Both Lindsay and Lewis were startled. Neither had heard anyone approach.

A short, square-built man in jeans and a white shirt stood watching them through narrowed eyes.

“Are you the elder?” asked Lindsay.

“You’d be right about that. I’m Elder Timon Moore. Who would you be?”

“I’m Lindsay Chamberlain. This is Francisco Lewis. We’re archaeologists from the Gallows farmstead site. We’re looking at the Gallows graves.”

“Francisco? Like San Francisco?”

Lewis nodded.

“Odd name. I heard you people are going to dig up graves. You’re not thinking of digging up the Gallowses, are you? We won’t have that.”

“No,” Lewis hurried to assure him. “No. We’re just . . .” He looked to Lindsay, as if to say: “What are we here for?”

“We would like to see Hope Foute’s grave. Is she buried here?”

“She’s here. So’s her whole family.”

“Are you related to Broach Moore?” Lindsay asked. “The two of you favor each other.”

“You’d be right about that. Broach is my brother. You meet him professionally?”

“He came out to the Gallows farm where we’re working.”

“He goes to Kingswell Baptist.” Elder Moore eyed Lewis. “You from New York?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Thought so.” He turned to Lindsay again. “Where’s your people from? You sound a little like you might be from Kentucky.”

“Yes, Kentucky. Stearns. It’s near Somerset.”

“I’ve got people from Kentucky. Don’t know any Chamberlains. Is that your married name?”

“No. I’m not married.”

“I know where Somerset is. Who’s your mother’s people?”

“Ravinel,” said Lindsay.

“I know some Ravinels up in the Bluegrass region.”

“They might be related.”

“Hope Foute’s buried over here.” He led them to the other side of the cemetery, near the foot of the mountain. “Her whole family’s buried right here.” He pointed to a cluster of graves near the side. She could make out the name Clarence Foute. She assumed Hope’s grave was beside his. She brushed over the face of the stone with the tips of her fingers. She thought she saw an
H
, part of an
o
, a
te
, and one date that looked like 1778. Other stones were more legible—a daughter, Martha, who died when she was eight. Perhaps a son and his wife, both of whom died in their fifties. The most legible stone was for Faith Redmond, Hope Foute’s sister. Close up, Lindsay could read the numbers 1770–1860.