Airtight Case (33 page)

“Dr. Francisco Lewis, I presume?” A thirtyish man with wire-frame glasses and an impressive head of red hair held out his hand. “I’m Alex Jarman, Atmospheric Sciences and head of the team here. I appreciate your giving us the call.”

“Our pleasure,” Lewis told him.

“This is Peter Willis. He’s hoping to get his dissertation out of this project.”

Peter shook Lewis’s hand up and down. He was of slight build with thinning brown hair and very excited. “I can’t tell you what this means. The timing is perfect.”

Jarman introduced the rest of the team—experts in geology, physics, structural engineering—and a host of graduate technicians in various fields. After the technicians, Dr. Jarman introduced Sergeant Stagmeyer of the army reserve unit assigned to erect the tents and protect the area. All in all, a rather spiffy group, compared to the rather ragged archaeologists.

“I told you we should have pressed our cutoffs,” Lindsay heard Byron whisper to someone.

Lewis introduced the crew. While all the shaking of hands was going on, Lindsay noticed that the handful of people whom she assumed to be protesters were hanging back. Odd behavior for protesters, but they were an odd mix of people.

Luke Youngdeer, cousin to and employee of John West, grinned and waved. He wore an
X-Files
T-shirt and jeans and looked completely comfortable with the odd group.

Elder Timon Moore was among them, and Lindsay recognized Maxine Roxbury. Maxine had protested before, against the Archaeology Department’s possession of ancient artifacts, and against the vet school’s use of animals for teaching. Her latest protest at UGA was about the installation of level-four biocontainment facilities at the vet school. Maxine was typically low-key for a protester, preferring letter writing, court injunctions, and the like, to in-your-face confrontational tactics. Lindsay hoped she didn’t have an injunction with her now. Probably not, or she would have served it.

Lindsay didn’t recognize the other three. One older man seemed to be with Timon Moore. He and Moore appeared uncomfortable with the rest of the protesters, like the others might be making a deal with the devil, but they weren’t sure. A much younger man was with Maxine. Ah, the younger man was the reporter Lindsay had accosted. She noticed that he was keeping his distance. If five were all they could come up with, that would be a good sign.

As Lewis and Drew showed Dr. Jarman and Sergeant Stagmeyer the locations of the coffins, the archaeology crew spoke with the other members of the government team, asking questions, giving information about the site. Lindsay watched the protesters. They all looked solemn, except for Luke.

“The first coffin is buried over by Helget Pond,” she heard Adam tell one of the technicians. There was something about the way he said it that gave her pause. Her eyes followed Moore walking toward Lewis and the team leaders. There was something about him, too.

Lindsay wrinkled her brow, trying to coax whatever memory or thought was on the edge of her mind. She walked over to Lewis. Some of the others followed. Lewis faced Moore and held out his hand.

“It’s good to see you again, Mr. Moore.”

Lewis looked quizzically at Luke, who grinned and winked at Lindsay.
What is he doing here?
she wondered—supporting Maxine, who had often supported Native American claims? Moore shook Lewis’s hand and introduced the man from his church, who nodded.

“Maxine,” said Lewis, “haven’t seen you in a while.”

Moore started to speak, when Maxine inadvertently interrupted him. He frowned.

“We want you to know that we think what you’re doing is wrong,” she said. “You’re upsetting the community’s sensibilities, and you should let the dead rest in peace.”

Lindsay heard several of the newcomers groan.

“You know that we hope to obtain valuable environmental information,” Lewis said.

“It’s wrong to disturb a burial,” Maxine repeated. “You’re offending the people who live here.”

Buried well, by the gate to hell
. It came into Lindsay’s mind like a flash of light.

“This isn’t a proper burial,” said Lindsay, and everyone turned to look at her.

“What are you talking about? You are digging up coffins, aren’t you?” Maxine had her hands on her hips in a classic stand of defiance.

“No culture buries its dead with the trash. This is a trash pit. If you look at the profile, you can see that it was a trash pit when the hole was dug for the coffin.”

Lindsay hoped she could get them to focus their attention on Feature 2 and forget about Feature 3, which probably was a private cemetery.

“So?” asked Maxine, not sure what to make of what Lindsay was saying. “Are you telling us that it’s just an empty lead coffin that was buried with the trash?”

“No . . .”

Lindsay didn’t know what made it come to her, but another flash of insight electrified her brain and came out of her mouth.

“There’s a young woman in the coffin . . . by the name of Charity Redmond.”

Chapter 28

Buried With The Trash

THE NEWCOMER SCIENTISTS didn’t have much of a reaction to Lindsay’s announcement, but the archaeology crew were stunned. Drew’s mouth fell open. Lewis grinned from ear to ear.

“How could you possibly know that?” Drew demanded, almost angrily, as if Lindsay might have lapsed back into a nervous breakdown and was about to embarrass her. “There’s no Charity Redmond in any of the documentation. I’ve read it. There was no grave marker with a name on it. We didn’t even know the grave was here.”

“She knows,” said Lewis. “I’ve seen that look before.”

“The point is,” said Lindsay, “there is something abnormal about this burial, and it warrants investigating.”

Maxine was loath to give up her position. “Abnormal?"

“She didn’t receive the usual burial afforded to members of her community. She was thrown, in a manner of speaking, into the trash.”

“We didn’t come here to picket or cause trouble,” Elder Moore finally spoke up. “We came to voice our objection to your disturbing a Christian grave. If you have a notion that something is wrong with this burial, then it might be that she needs a Christian service.”

“If she’s Christian,” someone from the crowd behind Lindsay commented.

“She most likely is,” said Lindsay. “And I never disturb the dead. I tell their story. It’s only some of the living who are sometimes disturbed.”

“But you must consider the living’s feelings,” said Maxine.

“I do. But if you also present yourselves as spokesmen for the dead—which you have—then you must consider their right to be heard.”

“Right to be heard?” said Maxine. “They’re dead.”

“Precisely my point,” said Lindsay. “They’re resting in peace, whether they’re in the ground or being examined by me.”

“We are forgetting the enormous environmental problems we have,” said Jarman. “The air in these coffins may provide us with a benchmark against which to compare our current atmosphere.”

Maxine was clearly in a quandary. Her education was ecology. She understood very well the need to do something about the greenhouse effect.

Lindsay turned to Timon Moore. “These coffins may predate your church, but at a later time the relatives of these people were members of your church. When we finish gathering all the information we can, you can give them services and inter them at your cemetery with their family.”

Moore conferred with his companion. “That sounds reasonable to us.”

With the two representatives of the area in agreement, Maxine acquiesced, mumbling something about the consensus of the community being important in this case. Lindsay thought the whole thing odd. She’d crossed swords with her before, and Maxine had always been better organized and more committed.

Maxine and Moore drove away, but Luke did not leave with them. Lindsay grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away from the crowd as Jarman and Stagmeyer began giving orders, turning the site into an anthill of activity.

“Lindsay,” yelled Adam, “you’re not leaving without telling us . . .”

“In a minute.” She waved him off and led Luke off to the side.

“What was this about?”

“Good to see you, Lindsay.”

“Luke, what are you doing here? These aren’t your ancestors we’re digging up.”

“You know what they say, politics make strange bedfellows. Max has always come through for us when we need her.”

“Yes, but . . .” She narrowed her eyes at Luke. “Are you here to protest or to watch after me?”

Luke looked at the ground, half smiling, and back up at Lindsay, his obsidian eyes glittering. “John had to think about what would make you less angry, protesting your digging up a grave, or protecting you. He went for the protest.”

“That was a pitiful protest. Surely, John didn’t arrange that to camouflage his intentions.”

Luke looked over at the dust settling on the dirt road that Maxine’s and Elder Moore’s cars had stirred up when they left. “It was pretty pitiful, wasn’t it? Not many people care about you digging up your ancestors.” He shook his head. “Maxine called George to ask if anyone would come. Seems that she found out about this at the last moment. Some anonymous person called her and Moore and made it sound like you guys were railroading something through up here against everyone’s wishes.”

“An anonymous caller? That’s strange.”

“Maxine said so, too. She hesitated to come and wouldn’t have, but she was coming near here anyway. She’s from North Carolina.”

“That explains why she didn’t kick up too much of a fight. This really is odd.”

“It worried George, and he called John. Got a place for me to stay?”

“You mind bunking in the living room?”

“Living room sounds fine. You guys staying in that old house I saw through the trees?”

“Yes. Do you have sheets and blankets?”

“Sure. Got everything I need. What are all the military here for? What exactly are you guys doing? Digging up aliens?”

Lindsay and Luke watched the army reserve unit putting up the tents as she explained what was about to happen. The archaeology crew hung back until it was time to do the actual excavation. They had nothing to do but watch the transformation of the north end of the site.

Marina had taken digital photographs of the site features from several angles, marked distances on them, and E-mailed them to Jarman. He had used her information to plan the location of the various tents and trailers. The preplanning was making the erection of the tiny scientific town go smoothly. First, they set up the porta-johns, three of them beyond Structure 4, close to the woods. Next, near Big Branch Creek they erected two large off-white heavy canvas tents, one to house the personnel and one to serve as a mess tent. After that, tents would go over Features 3 and 2.

Between the shelters and the personnel tents they planned to install a trailer where Lindsay was to analyze the bones, and another one to house the x-ray and other equipment. Later, with the structures in place, they would begin setting up their special equipment. Lindsay and the others got a look at some of it already being unloaded onto the ground—generators, vacuum pumps, special x-ray machines, along with wires, tubes, and mechanisms whose purpose Lindsay couldn’t even guess.

“Wow,” said Luke, watching the tents go up like a big top. “This is getting like the cofferdam site. Archaeology’s becoming pretty high-tech these days.”

“We are, aren’t we? You see the number of people we have here? You don’t need to baby-sit me if you have other things to do.”

“I’ll stay a couple of days, just the same. It will put John’s mind at ease. He’s never been comfortable with the authorities’ inability to find out who hurt you.”

Lindsay had been undecided about what to tell Luke about the current situation. She’d been going back and forth in her mind, listing the pros and cons. If he was going to stay a while, he needed to be informed. She told him everything that had happened. He listened as he watched the soldiers work.

“You’ve told the sheriff, and he takes it seriously?” asked Luke.

“Yes. So does Lewis. I haven’t told anyone else—except the McBrides. They know.” Lindsay explained who the McBrides were. “None of the crew know.”

“Did the sheriff find any prints on the tape or the torn page?”

“No .”

“You think it was someone in the house?”

“I’m trying not to think that. Don’t tell John about all this. It will just worry him.”

“I’ll have to tell him. It’s why he sent me up here.”

“Luke . . .” Lindsay didn’t say anything else about it. She knew she couldn’t talk him out of it. “How’s Bobbie. Seen her lately?”

“Right now, she’s mad at me. It won’t last. I’m sure she misses me already.” He grinned at Lindsay.

She and Luke walked over to where the other crew were standing watching. They eyed Luke suspiciously. She introduced him.

“You remember John who came to visit me the other day? This is his cousin, Luke Youngdeer.” Lindsay allowed them to believe that Luke’s showing up with the protesters was a coincidence.

“Oh,” said Adam, shaking his hand. “This is something, isn’t it? I didn’t know this was going to be so involved.”

“We going to be able to do anything,” asked Powell, “or just stand and watch?”

“As I understand it, you guys will be excavating alongside their geology people. Lewis or Drew will tell you about it this evening. I think they’re going to excavate both coffins simultaneously, but I’m not sure. Right now, you know everything I know.”

“Okay, Lindsay,” said Joel. “Just how do you know who’s buried in the coffin?”

“Yeah,” said Marina. “Where did that come from? You are going to have to tell us.”

“Do tell us.” Lewis and Drew had walked over. Lindsay hadn’t heard them for the noise.

“It’s a tenuous connection.”

“It has to be,” said Lewis. “But you sure got everyone’s attention . . . and Maxine off our backs. Good move.”

“I’ve read all the documents,” said Drew. “I’ve never come across a Charity Redmond.”

Drew didn’t look as pleased as Lewis. In fact, Lindsay thought she looked like she was under a strain.

“But you’ve come across a Faith Redmond,” Lindsay told her.