Airtight Case (32 page)

After the crew had gone to the site, she raided the kitchen for measuring utensils, a Mason jar, and a spoon. Mrs. Laurens, who was busy washing the breakfast dishes, seemed a little out of sorts.

“What you doing with all that?” she asked.

“A special project for Dr. Lewis.”

“He says a bunch of folks are coming today. Offered to pay me a whole lot extra for cooking. We can always use the money, but I’m going to have to have my daughters come help me. I told him I don’t think this kitchen is big enough to cook the kind of meals he’s asking about. I’m getting my daughter-in-law to fix some meals in her kitchen and carry them here.”

“Lewis obviously likes your cooking.”

“I just hope I can do a good job. You know, you don’t just double the ingredients if you’re cooking for twice the people. Cooking don’t work like that. Jimmy is going to have to get hisself in here and help, that’s all I can say.”

Lindsay patted her shoulder. “I’m sure you’ll do fine however you decide to organize it. Lewis thinks so, too, or he wouldn’t have asked. He’s the type of person who leaves it up to you to decide how much you can do. He’ll keep piling the work on and tell you he wants it faster, until you tell him no. And it’s all right to tell him no, or that you’ll need to hire more help.”

“He just seems so confident in me that I hate to disappoint him,” said Mrs. Laurens, wiping her wet hands on a towel.

“Yes, that’s part of his charm. He does that because it works. You’ll do fine. Don’t you worry about it.”

“Thank you, Lindsay. You’re a real nice girl.”

Lindsay took her paraphernalia down to the basement and into the passageway. She mixed the molding compound with water in the Mason jar and poured it into the indentation in the soil, including the whole area of the footprint. The instructions said it took four minutes to harden into a rubber mold. She looked at her watch and waited.

The basement was silent and dark—like a cave. She’d been trapped in a cave. She looked at the small door and told herself that she was just a few feet away from the outside, or only a room away from the first floor.

This isn’t a cave—I’m not buried.

She looked at her watch. Only forty-five seconds had passed. Maybe she should go upstairs and wait.

Don’t be silly. It’s only three more minutes. Get a grip.
Her inner voice was losing patience with her.

She thought about Claire. Why was Drew so unconcerned about her? She wondered what time the office for Sound Ecology opened.

When I’m finished with this, I’ll call and get Claire’s home phone. They might have a number to call in case of an emergency. Maybe Claire went to visit her parents. Trent—Sound Ecology will have his phone number, too.

The idea that Claire was with Trent was a relief. Why was she so worried? Claire was concerned that she had become unnecessary—she told Lindsay that herself. Lindsay realized that she was worried because Drew, supposedly Claire’s friend, was so unconcerned. Drew hadn’t wanted to give Lindsay even the name of the city where Claire lived. That was odd. Lindsay looked at her watch.

Carefully, she peeled up the hard off-white colored rubbery mold. So far, so good. She could see that she had something. She quickly gathered up her supplies and headed up the steep steps for the first floor. After dusting off her feet, she made a beeline for her room.

In the light, Lindsay examined her creation. The shoe print was faint, only an impression of a print, no distinguishing marks. Other than size, there was probably no information she could gain from it. But the square protrusion in the center had what could be a design on its surface. The uniform color of the material made it hard to make out what the pattern was—if anything at all.

Lindsay walked down the hall to the storage room. Locked. There was a desk in the living room with supplies. She hurried downstairs and searched through the desk drawers. She found pens, pencils, pads of lined yellow paper, graph paper, and site forms galore, but not . . . She found a stamp with rotating numbers for numbering forms. If there was a stamp, there was an ink pad somewhere. She continued searching. Shoved to the back of a drawer was a black ink pad. If her luck held out, it wouldn’t be dried up. She raced back upstairs with her find.

She dug her Swiss army knife out of her jeans pocket and sliced the rubber square away from the footprint. Using the mold like a rubber stamp, she pressed the patterned side on the ink pad, then on a piece of paper. Under the light of her lamp she studied the ink spot. It was something. Re-inking the stamp, she made several more impressions and examined them under the light, turning the paper around in her hand, holding it close and at a distance.

After staring for several moments, she decided the image contained what looked like part of a cat. One ear was distinct. The other, if it was an ear, had made only a partial imprint in the dirt. She saw what might have been a paw, but it was in the wrong place. She stared at the stamped images, trying to make sense of the design . . . and suddenly, it jumped out at her. It was Chessie—the sleeping cat logo for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. She grinned with pleasure that her method had worked. She didn’t know what it meant, or if it was relevant to anything she was doing, but it had worked.

* * *

The secretary for Sound Ecology must have just walked in the door. She answered the phone on the fifth ring and sounded out of breath. Lindsay explained who she was and what she wanted. Fortunately, the secretary was all bubbly about the antique air project and asked few questions about why Lindsay wanted information on Claire and Trent.

“Keith called from China, and I told him all about the coffins and NASA, and everything,” she said. “He was
very
pleased. We are all excited up here. It sounds like such fun. Okay, here’s the information . . .”

It turned out that, rather than give up her apartment, Claire had subleased it. When Lindsay called the apartment, the female voice on the other end sounded as if she had been awakened from a dead sleep.

“Yeah? Hello?”

“Is Claire Burke there?” Lindsay asked.

“Claire Burke? No. She’s working at some archaeological dig somewhere in the boonies.”

“Has she called you in the last few days?”

“No. Why would she?”

“I’m one of her coworkers at the site. She had to be away for a few days, and we need to get in touch with her.”

“She’s not here. I hope she doesn’t come here. This is a one-bedroom apartment, and I’ve paid the rent to stay here.”

“If she calls, would you ask her to get in touch with Lindsay Chamberlain or Francisco Lewis at the site in Tennessee?” Lindsay gave her the number.

“Well, okay.” She hung up the phone.

“Thanks,” Lindsay said into a dead phone.

Probably too early to call Claire’s parents or her brother. Lindsay dialed Trent’s number. Trent was just as vague answering the phone, but probably for different reasons.

“Trent, hi. Is Claire there?” Lindsay thought it best not to tell Trent her name right off, lest he hang up.

“Claire? No. Who is this?”

Lindsay’s heart sank. She hadn’t realized how much she was counting on Claire being with Trent.

“This is Lindsay Chamberlain. I’m trying to find Claire.”

“What do you mean you’re trying to find Claire? She’s at the site. Where are you? Or don’t you know?”

“I’m at the site. Claire seems to have left without telling anyone.”

There was a long pause. “Well, what do you want me to do?”

“Claire’s your friend. She tried to stop you from being fired. I thought you might care.”

“Hey, I care, but it’s not like she really helped me, or anything.”

“She did her best for you.”

“I don’t understand what you mean here. Claire is missing? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

“Yes, she’s missing.”

“Since when?”

“Powell and Kelsey saw her driving away in her car at about three in the morning after the party the other night.”

“Powell and Dillon—stupid clones. You’d think nobody ever smoked a little pot at a dig before.”

“Drew said you came looking for Claire that evening.”

“That bitch’s not trying to blame me for something, is she?”

“No. She just thought Claire might be with you.”

“That superbitch Drew firing me, that was so unfair.”

“Claire thought so. She was on your side.”

“Yeah, Claire’s all right. Hey, you don’t think she came looking for me and something happened—like a carjacking or something? Like what happened to you maybe happened to her? That’d make me feel real bad.”

Lindsay paused. Her heart, which lately had seemed to habitually beat like a jackhammer, now felt like it had stopped.

“You didn’t see her that evening?”

“No. I waited beside the house in the dark until I thought everyone was out front. Drew caught me coming in the back way. Told me to leave, or she’d call the police. I didn’t need that kind of trouble. If Claire wanted to talk to me, she could call me later.”

“She wanted to talk to you? Do you know about what?”

“Not exactly. I thought it had something to do with the other thing.”

“What other thing?”

“You know how Claire was kind of down on you when you came?”

That’s putting it mildly
, thought Lindsay. “Yes.”

“Drew told her you were this professor at UGA who had some kind of nervous breakdown. You weren’t too swift to begin with, but now they had to find something for you to do, and Keith owed that Lewis fellow a favor.”

“Drew told Claire this?”

“That and a whole lot more. Drew made out like you were coming to take Claire’s job. Claire was real insecure because she didn’t have a master’s. Drew told her you were going to make some big deal out of that Tidwell complaint and get her in trouble. And Claire said Drew was really afraid of what you would do to her career. Like that woman has ever been afraid of anything.”

“I wish I’d known.”

“When you made Claire that offer to write articles with her, she checked out your vita and found out Drew had told her a bunch of lies about you. Drew told her the only way you could get published was if you co-authored with somebody else, but Claire knew that wasn’t true when she saw all the stuff you got published, and that you were the only author on a bunch of it. Then added to that, you juried for some pretty big journals. Claire called me about it. She didn’t know what to think. I told her that Drew was just jealous of you and to forget it. I told her to do the articles with you.”

“That explains a lot. You don’t know what this latest thing was she wanted to talk to you about?”

“I kind of think it was more of the same, but she said she found something that really disturbed her and she needed advice. I could tell she was upset, and I said I would come meet her.”

Lindsay felt depressed and scared. This time, not so much for herself as for Claire. Drew was deep into something. No one tells that many big lies without being up to no good.

“I have her parents’ and brother’s phone numbers. Do you think she went there?”

“No, she wouldn’t go to her father. Probably not her brother. Her father’s an alcoholic, and she hates her stepmother. Her real mother died when she was twelve.”

“Does Claire have a friend she would go visit?”

“I don’t know of any. Claire’s not very good at making friends. That’s why Drew’s been so important to her. Drew really played her.”

“Trent, would you call me if you hear from her?”

“Sure. If you see her, tell her to give me a call.”

Lindsay dialed Claire’s father’s number anyway. A woman answered.

“Is Claire Burke there? This is Lindsay Chamberlain.”

“Claire? No, Claire’s not here. I don’t know where she is.”

“May I speak with her father?”

“No. He’s asleep.”

“Would you call if . . .” The woman had hung up the phone.”

Lindsay went ahead and called Claire’s brother. He was more civil than her stepmother, but he hadn’t heard from Claire in several months. Lindsay hung up the phone and sat there in the cane-back chair with her head in her hands for several moments. She picked up the phone and called the sheriff’s office and explained everything to him.

The sheriff whistled. “That’s quite a story. Doesn’t make this Van Horne woman look very good, does it?”

“No, it doesn’t. I’m beginning to wonder about a lot of things. But would you be on the lookout for Claire’s car?” Lindsay gave him a description. “I don’t know the license number.”

“I can get it. I’ll tell my deputies to watch for it. I understand you all are going to have company out there today.”

“That’s the plan.”

“I think you may have a few protesters. Just thought I’d warn you.”

“Thanks. We’ve had protesters before. We’ll be on the lookout.”

“I guess when your occupation is digging up graves, you’re bound to upset a few people.”

“Yep. Thank you, Sheriff.”

Lindsay had hoped that calling the sheriff and reporting Claire missing would make her feel better. It hadn’t. The morning’s conversations had left her deeply worried—and wondering what she was going to say to Drew.

* * *

Watching the trucks from NASA and the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute was like watching the circus come to town. The train of vehicles was impressive, three tractor-trailer trucks and a convoy of four military vehicles and two SUVs. Behind them, three cars, one of which Lindsay recognized.

“Wow,” said Joel. He stood with the rest of the crew watching the parade.

“I wonder how much this costs,” said Marina.

“You don’t want to know.” Lewis bent down and whispered in her ear.

“I don’t think the last three belong to the convoy,” said Adam.

“Those must be the protesters Lindsay said were coming,” said Drew.

Between the time Lindsay left the house and arrived at the site, she had decided not to tip her hand to Drew. She had to force herself to look at Drew and not challenge her, even when Drew gave her a mild rebuke cloaked in a joke about her not being at the site all morning.

The caravan drove down the dirt road and stopped opposite the site. Several men dressed casually in slacks and short-sleeved shirts hopped out of the SUVs and hurried across the grass toward the crew. Lewis stepped forward to greet them. Behind the men, members of the army reserve dressed in camouflage uniforms piled out of their dark olive vehicles.