Murder Bone by Bone (3 page)

I picked her up and tried to comfort her. She twisted her little body away from me and increased the volume. To distract her, I pulled a glossy eggplant from the basket of fruit and veggies on the counter and waved it. She cried harder. I tried a crook-neck squash and a pear with no success. Finally she accepted a banana, hiccupping out little leftover sobs while she examined it.

“Do you want me to peel it?” I broke the banana stem and started to pull off the skin. It wasn’t a good idea. Moira howled, a primitive, heartbroken sound that shook me. I handed the banana back, but she threw it on the floor. Her nose began to run. I realized her hands were dirty when she used them to wipe her eyes and left smears on her flushed cheeks.

Before I could get a washcloth, the doorbell rang. I picked up the banana with my free hand and carried the howling baby over to the door.

An attractive young woman stood on the porch, her shoulder-length, sun-streaked hair blowing in the breeze. She wore khaki slacks and a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up on slender, tanned arms. She pulled her attention away from the cardboard box that held the bones long enough to look at me and my noisy comrade.

“Are you—” she pulled a little notebook out of her leather knapsack and looked at it—"Liz Sullivan?”

“Yes,” I said. Moira reached steam-whistle decibels, then stopped abruptly to gaze at the woman.

“I’m Dinah Blakely.” She held out her hand. I reached automatically to shake it, forgetting for a moment that I held a partially-peeled, dirt-encrusted banana. Her wide, white smile faded; she dropped her hand. “Paul Drake sent me, Mrs. Sullivan. He said you’d found some interesting bones, and I see he was right.” Her gaze strayed back to the box.

I gave Moira the banana, which she clasped while still staring at Dinah Blakely. “The boys found them, actually. And I’m not a Mrs. Just Liz is fine.”

Dinah glanced from me to Moira. “Boys? You have—more children?”

“I don’t have any children.” I pulled a tissue out of my pocket and wiped Moira’s nose. She howled again, briefly. “I’m house-sitting and child-sitting. The boys are in the back. Shall I get them?”

Dinah cocked her head. The boys were audible, now that Moira had fallen silent. Their shouts, and Barker’s shrill namesake noises, wafted out of the backyard. “That’s okay.” she said hastily. “I’ll just wait here for Paul. He said he’d meet me."

“Feel free to look over the bones,” I offered. Moira struggled a little, and I put her down. She made a beeline for Dinah Blakely.

“What a darling little girl,” Dinah cooed apprehensively. Moira was very cute, with her feathery red curls and rosy cheeks. But Dinah was looking at her hands, aimed right at the perfectly creased twill trousers.

“Amazing how dirty kids get, isn’t it?” I swooped Moira up just before she touched the trousers. “Of course, I guess you know about dirt—you’re an archaeologist, right?”

“Anthropologist, actually.” Dinah crossed over to the box and squatted beside it, picking up the piece of cranium. “Yes. I’ve gotten dirty before.” Her voice sounded absent. She turned the piece of bone over in her hands. “That’s why we wear khaki, you know. It’s not just some Indiana Jones thing.”

Moira reached for the cranium, and Dinah held it away. “Mustn’t touch,” she said in the fake voice that childless people keep for children. Talking to kids is hard when you don’t have any of your own. I assumed she didn’t have any. There was no ring on her finger, either.

“How long have you been doing this?” I gestured to the bones, but it was a minute before Dinah answered. She put down the piece of cranium and picked up one of the long bones.

“Hmm? Oh, for a few years. I’ve just been at Stanford for about nine months, though. Paul and I met when someone else found bones in the creek bed. But those were from a dog.”

Her words sent a chill down my back. “And these aren’t?”

“Oh, no.” She waved the leg bone at me. “Definitely human.” Drake’s rusty Saab pulled into the driveway, and Dinah smiled. “There’s Paul.” She waved again with the leg bone, this time at Drake. He smiled and waved in return.

“So you beat me, Dinah.” He bounded up the steps, pausing to pinch Moira’s grubby cheek. “Hello, cutie.” He winked at me, and I wasn’t certain who the salutation was aimed at. Probably Moira—she’s much cuter than I. I am short and nondescript-looking, the kind of woman you see everywhere.

Dinah tossed back her blond hair and rose easily from her crouching position, earning my respect. It’s not that I’m old and creaky. I’m only thirty-five. But my knees seem to be aging ahead of the rest of me.

“Hi, Paul.” She gave Drake a big smile, and he responded in kind. “These bones are something.”

“Dinah.” He shook her hand briskly, the hand that wasn’t holding a bone, and gestured at me. “They’re Liz’s bones, really.”

“Bridget’s.” I spoke firmly, not wanting to claim the bones in any way.

“So what do we have?” Drake bent over the box with Dinah beside him.

“Human. Probably male, though I can’t say for certain at this point. But the length of the leg bones and this piece of pelvis here indicate a man. Probably in his twenties, early thirties.” She pointed to the end of the leg bone. “See, the growth plates are completely fused, but there are no signs of age-related wear.” She looked more closely. “Actually, he might have had a bum knee. See?” She pointed to some minuscule bump on the end of the bone, and Drake nodded wisely.

“Boy, you can tell a lot just from the bones, huh?” I came closer. Moira was eating the banana now, smearing that into the existing matrix of her face. I should have taken her in for a bath, or at least a face wash, but couldn’t pull myself away.

Dinah smiled. "Oh, yes. The bones can speak, if you can hear them. If I had a bit of jawbone, now—” She rummaged for a minute in the box and came up empty-handed. “That’s the way to make a firm identification. Dental records, you know, although—see?” She picked up a flat, dished piece of bone and examined it. “These have been in the ground for a while. You’ve got some rodent chew here. Probably gopher or something like that. If you’re involved, Paul, maybe it’s not rodent chew but sharp-force trauma.” She cast a flirtatious smile at Drake.

He smiled back, but I couldn’t tell if he was aware of Dinah’s skittish little invitation. At any rate, she turned back to the bones.

“This piece of pelvis is good for telling us stuff. You can see the broad articulation here where it connects to the spine. And no lipping—that indicates a person probably in their early-or mid-twenties.” She brought the fragment to her nose and sniffed thoroughly. “And the smell. That candle-wax smell is faint. I’d guess ten, twelve or more years in the ground.” She frowned. "That could make an ID harder, even if we find the jawbone. Dentists don’t always keep their records that long.”

Drake was fascinated. I was, too, reluctantly. Despite Dinah’s wholesome appearance, I didn’t like the way she looked at Drake. She would give him strong, healthy children who would only be dirty at the proper times. She would help him in his work. She would be better for him than I would, mass of insecurities that I was. If I were a good person, I would quietly fade back into the house and mind my own business while they got on with it.

Not being particularly good, I hung around while Moira scraped the inside of the banana skin with her pearly little teeth. We followed Drake and Dinah down to the sidewalk, listening to their discussion of the best way to deal with the mess the boys had made. Dinah wanted to bring over an archaeology lab class and let them gain experience. Drake wanted to bring in the crime scene team and haul everything away for exhaustive analysis.

Their argument was spirited, between colleagues. I got the banana peel away from Moira and buried it around the dripline of the ratty-looking rosebush, having read in a gardening book that banana peels are good for roses. I made Moira a hollyhock doll to take its place.

“Now, Paul,” Dinah said, putting one hand on his arm. “This is an ideal situation. And you don’t know it’s a crime scene, after all.”

“Unless those bones are really old,” he said, shaking his head, “unless they’re Ohlone or something, they don’t belong under a sidewalk. Only foul play would have put them there.”

Dinah chewed her lip. “They’re not Costanoan,” she said at last, reluctantly. “I could tell by the shape of the skull fragment. Native American skulls have a ridge—” She drew an imaginary line that bisected her own head, as if she were going to put that shiny hair into pigtails.

“And if you had to pin it down, would you say between ten and twenty years, or less?” Drake was intent, leaning toward her.

She sighed. “I’d be inclined to say more than ten, less than twenty, although it’s hard to be so precise with bone that’s been in the ground for a while.” She put her hand on his arm again, leaning forward persuasively. “It’s such a great opportunity for our students. We’ll dig up everything according to correct excavation technique. We’ll find every last piece of anything that’s in there—buttons, cloth fragments, you name it. And we’ll be able to tell you exactly where in the area under study the fragments came from.”

Drake shrugged. “After the Montrose boys stirred everything up, that doesn’t matter so much.”

Dinah pressed his arm. “So if it’s already disturbed, what difference would it make for us to go at it?”

“I’ll think about it,” Drake said, smiling at her, but disengaging his arm. I could have told her that was as good as saying no, but I didn’t.

He came over to me. "This is dull for you, Liz.”

“No, I’m riveted.”

“Moira’s not.” Moira was twisting a bit in my grip, but I wouldn’t set her down so close to the street. “Listen, I’m getting a crew out here. We’re going to tarp the area and put caution tape around it. I’ve let Public Works know that the sidewalk crews will have to give this one a miss for the time being. So you don’t have to worry about it anymore.” He squeezed my shoulder. “You look beat. Why don’t you go have a cup of tea or something?”

I didn’t feel that beat, but probably next to Dinah’s dewy youthfulness I did look bad. I took myself off, since that was what he wanted, but I didn’t clean Moira up right away. Instead I stood just behind the lace curtain over the front door window and watched while Drake and Dinah conferred. Finally they both drove away in their separate cars, and I went to find a washcloth.

Chapter 4

The washcloth made Moira mad. That’s why I didn’t hear Claudia Kaplan knocking at the door. She was in the living room when I came back.

“Hi, Liz. Hi, sweetie.” She came and took Moira out of my arms, and, contrary creature that she was, the baby beamed at her. Of course, Claudia was very comfortable-looking. Her gray hair was pulled back into a rather untidy braid, and her tall, queenly body was encased in one of her many brilliant muumuus. “I saw Drake drive away,” she continued, after suitably greeting Moira. “And some woman—young woman.” She said the word “young” with a slight emphasis, and looked a question at me. “What’s with those butcher’s rejects on the front porch? They for Barker?”

I gestured her into the kitchen. “Come in here and have some tea while I check on the boys. It’s a long story.”

Claudia loved the story; I knew she would. She wrote well-researched biographies of women she considered important: though scholarly enough to gain her the respect of her colleagues, they were also popular enough to provide her with a living, something the rest of us writers envied. I thought of my notes for the article I was writing for
Organic Gardening
. A week hadn’t seemed so long to wait before starting it; in fact, I had kind of thought I could just whip it out on Bridget’s computer in my spare time. Now I got a glimmering of how difficult that would be with four children around my neck. I wondered how Bridget had ever managed to produce anything, let alone her first novel, which would be published in two months.

“You get all the luck,” Claudia said with envy. “Now you’ll be able to hear everything about the investigation. I bet this time Drake keeps you filled in.”

“It’s not my idea of a good time.” I poured some more iced tea into Claudia’s glass and hit myself again, too. Stimulation would definitely be needed if I were to survive the week. “It’s hard enough to ride herd on all these kids without having to deal with the police and all.”

“And that young woman. What’s her role here?”

“She’s the anthropologist.”

“Oh.” Claudia drank thoughtfully. “She and Drake seemed very . . . friendly.”

“They met on a previous investigation. Dog bones, as it turns out.”

“And these are truly human?”

"That’s right.” I watched Moira play with the many strands of Claudia’s necklace. Why couldn’t she cuddle up to me like that? Admittedly I didn’t have Claudia’s advantage in the lap department, but it still didn’t seem fair.

“Well, how long have they been buried? That seems to me to be the question.” Claudia frowned. “You know, I’ve lived in my same house for nearly thirty years, and I don’t remember anything like this happening. Of course—” she waved an inclusive arm— "it would be more likely to happen around here than in my neighborhood. It’s more respectable now, but all this used to be rental housing. Students, mostly. In fact, this place was a student rental until Emery and Bridget bought it ten or twelve years ago.” She fell silent, her lips moving a bit. “Twelve years,” she decided.

“Dinah Blakely, the anthropologist, guessed between ten and twenty years for the bones. But she doesn’t really know how long, I think.”

Claudia suddenly looked very fierce. “Drake doesn’t believe this has anything to do with Bridget or Emery, does he?”

“At times like this, I know very little of what Drake is thinking.” I grinned at her. “But I doubt he suspects Bridget of knocking someone off and sticking them under the pavement. How is it that you remember so much about this neighborhood before Bridget and Emery? Your house is in Professorville.”

Moira paused in her necklace play and assumed an expression of great concentration. Claudia patted her absently.

“One of Alfred’s graduate students lived here for a while,” she said. “Let’s see, Jack was in elementary school—I think Carlie was, too. During the summer, before all the summer kids’ programs were available. This graduate student used to baby-sit for us, until we found out she was taking the children over to her place—” Claudia looked around— "here, and smoking dope with her friends while the kids watched TV.” She shook her head. “Real mangy group lived here then. Hippies, drug dealers, you name it. A lot of houses in this area were rented out to groups. Wild parties, loud music. Really, it was everywhere, even down the street from us. Alfred didn’t like it. He wanted to move to Crescent Park before Carlie started school, but the prices had gone up, and he decided we couldn’t afford to move. And I felt it gave the neighborhood vitality, even if you didn’t trust any of those young people as baby-sitters.