LC 04 - Skeleton Crew (33 page)

"I've been thinking about what you said during debriefing. You
know Valerian's servant, Jen, was a pearl diver. Could that account
for his condition?"

"I thought about that, too, and I don't know. It's one of the
things I'm going to have to research. So far, everything I've learned
suggests that kind of bone necrosis to be a problem only for very
deep divers. There's a depth limit to free diving."

"You're right. This site deserves to be the main show. I'd like to
strangle whoever it was who killed those two-so to speak." He
grinned.

Lindsay went back to her desk and keyed in the measurements
to the computer program. She looked at the map and was shocked.
She did the whole procedure over, hoping for another outcome. It
was the same.

"Oh, no," she said, loud enough for Steven to hear.

"What?" he asked.

"HSkR4-Gina and Juliana's skeleton-his skull measurements
suggest he is from North Africa, particularly Morocco."

Steven came over to her desk and looked at the numbers, wrinkling his brow. "Morocco, you mean-not Valerian? Wasn't he
Portuguese and Moroccan? Like Gina, I'd kind of hoped he survived. Maybe it was one of the crew."

"Maybe, but I'm not sure a Spanish ship would have had a crew
member from a Muslim country," Lindsay said. "Spain was a place
where blasphemy against Christianity was a worse offense than
stealing. The Spaniards had just driven the Moors from their country. Philip II was persecuting the Moriscos in Spain."

"Who were they?" Steven asked, scrutinizing the skull, as if
looking for Valerian in the bony features.

"Converts-Christian Muslims."

"But the Muslims occupied Spain for centuries. There was
bound to be intermarriage. How accurate is the program?"

"Mixed offspring is the weak point in the attempt to apply ethnic origin to skeletal remains. The program doesn't write its conclusions in stone. But it is suggestive."

"I hope it's not Valerian. Are there other ways you might be
able to tell?"

"I'll read the diary again, and maybe the untranslated parts we
don't have yet will have clues. Lewis all but ordered me to match
the remains. I think I've caught his desire to match the bones with people in the diary, and I'm jumping to conclusions every time I
look at a skeleton. There were over two hundred people on the
ship, after all."

"I know what you mean about Lewis. You should be talking to
him about the ship. I expect any day now he'll come to me with the
idea of reconstructing it so it'll sail again." He laid a hand on
Lindsay's shoulder. "It's easy to get caught up in his enthusiasmor his orders." Steven went back to his maps.

Steven was right. What business did she have questioning the
crew? The murders were bad enough without having one of their
colleagues pulling them aside and giving them the third degree.
She wasn't going to do it anymore. Ramirez was more than competent. She was an archaeologist, not a detective. She'd talk to Nate
and Sarah, and that'd be it. She wasn't making any progress anyway. Everyone said the same things.

Lindsay went up to Harper's apartment and knocked.

"Hey, come in. I thought you were Trey." Harper was dressed
in a yellow sundress and leather sandals.

"I was wondering if I could borrow your couch tonight?"

"Sure, that'd be great. We aren't going to be out long. Trey's got
to get back to the dam." Harper reached in her purse and handed
Lindsay a key. "Want us to bring you something?"

"John's bringing me a pizza."

"I'll take the evening off. I need it. Lewis acts like this translation is easy. I'd rather have some good girl talk this evening. I
swear, if there's another murder on this island, it'll be Lewis and
I'll be the perpetrator."

"I think you'll have to take a number."

When Lindsay returned, she had the lab to herself. She hesitated to do too much to the new set of bones. Fabric adhered to
them in places, and she preferred to let Carolyn take care of it. In
fact, she imagined that Carolyn wouldn't like it much if Lindsay
decided to clean the bones herself. She did take up again the
humerus that she was examining when John had interrupted her.
She thought she had noticed a break. She was right. It had been
broken near the distal end, set, and healed well. She made note of
it. The measurement of the humerus indicated that he was
between five-three and five-six. The measurements of the other
long bones would give a more accurate estimation. She put the
arm bone back in its solution and looked at some of the other bones. Many of them had bits and pieces of fabric, so she left them
alone. It wasn't good methodology to pick and choose bones to
examine. It needed to be done systematically.

She turned on her computer to record the information. After
Windows came up, a pop-up window opened.

"What in the-"

A morgue photograph appeared. Lindsay stared in shock. It
was a picture of the Black Dahlia, a famous Hollywood murder
victim of the '40s who was cut in half and left in a field. Except that
it was Lindsay's face on the corpse, and large, flashing red letters
sent her a warning. "Is the snooping worth it? She was a bitch. You
are, too."

Lindsay's hands shook as she reached for the computer keys.
She pulled them back before they touched the keyboard. She had
to show someone. Who? Not the guard, Dale Delosier. One of the
meteorologists. She stood up. The message changed-"Time Out,
Goodbye"-and it was gone. Lindsay took a deep breath.
Fingerprints. She turned it off and gently closed the lid. She put
her hands over her mouth. It was so quiet down here.

She placed the computer in its case, snatched up the photographs of the skulls, drawing pencils, paper, and her overnight
case, and hurried out of the lab for the safety of Harper's apartment. Terry Lyons was on duty in the weather room. Lindsay
stopped in, more out of the need for company than anything else.

"Hi. How are things?" she said, trying not to sound terrified.

"We have some storms far to the south of here. But so far we're
fine."

"Do you know when we're going to get the new security
guards?" Lindsay asked.

"Tomorrow, I think. William and I will be relieved. You staying
here tonight?"

Lindsay nodded. "See you later."

She hurried up the stairs and into Harper's room, sat down on
the couch, and put her head in her hands. If the person meant to
scare her, it worked. She was scared. But she was also alerted to the
fact that the culprit was someone here, and he had panicked. She
searched her purse for Ramirez's card and dialed his number from
the phone on Harper's desk. Voice mail. She started to call his
home, but stopped. No use ruining everyone's day. She left him a
message. She wished John would get here with the pizza.

Lindsay leaned back on the sofa and concentrated on breathing
evenly. Stay in control. Don't let them see they got to you. She
wished she had taken up transcendental meditation.

Why were they panicked, she asked herself. She hadn't discovered anything-had she? She put the tips of her fingers to her eyes
and rubbed. Think. It has to be a person who knows computers.
Not just software packages, but someone who can create programs
and make them come up on her computer. It has to be someone
who has access to the lab where her computer is kept. It probably
isn't Lewis. He has the power to simply tell her to stop. Unless he's
a maniac, he wouldn't ask her to find out what happened and then
secretly threaten her to stop. The thought gave her comfort. Lewis
seemed so obsessed with finding the ship. She realized she had
actually been worried that he might be getting rid of the competition. But Keith wasn't much competition. Jones, and by extension
Denton, are the competition. Unless Keith had accidently stumbled upon the site of the wreck, he didn't have the resources for a
real search. But he had found the cross. No, he had in his possession a cross of unknown provenance. The cross could have been a
trinket he found in a yard sale. But he wouldn't have gone to the
trouble of freezing it into the ice of his freezer if that's all it was. He
could have stolen the cross from Denton and Jones and they killed
him, and now Jones has her men looking for it. That made sense.
But who killed Denton?

Lindsay stood up and began pacing the room. It didn't have to
be related to the ship. What if it was related to the island? What if
it was Mike Altman? What if he caught Keith stealing plants again
and killed him and Denton saw him and he had to kill Denton,
too? She sat back down on the sofa. They were killed weeks apart.
Maybe Denton decided to blackmail Mike. That was why he was
on the island, and Mike killed him. Mike's wife is a computer
expert. Lindsay really wanted it to be Mike. The door burst open.
Lindsay jumped up and picked up a lamp, ready to hurl it.

"I'M GOING To have to get a new key. That one keeps stickingwhoa, Lindsay?" Harper, Trey, and John stood in the doorway staring at Lindsay.

She put the lamp back on the table. "Sorry, I was afraid it was
someone else."

"Who?" asked Harper.

John set the pizza down on the small table next to the door,
came over and sat Lindsay down on the sofa. "What's happened?"

For the first time, tears started to form in her eyes. She told
them what had happened with her computer.

"Oh, God," said Trey.

John pulled her over to him and cradled her head in his hands
for several seconds before she pulled away and sat up.

"You say it popped up when you booted up your computer?"
Trey asked.

"Yes."

"They put it in your startup file."

"Would it take a lot of computer sophistication to create a message like that?" she asked.

"Not a lot, really. More than most have, I suppose. Is this your
computer here?" He reached for the computer case.

"Yes, but I hoped that Ramirez might find fingerprints."

"I'll hook it up to Harper's computer. I'll be careful." Trey took
the computer out, touching as little of it as possible. He connected
it to Harper's and turned it on, using her keyboard and monitor.
Lindsay made herself watch as the photograph came up.

"Oh, my God!" Harper exclaimed, putting her hand to her
mouth. "My God."

John's face hardened. He grabbed Lindsay's hand and held tight.

"Sick," Trey said. He found the program and copied it to a disk
and deleted it from her computer. "Look, Chamberlain, you have to
stop investigating. The hell with what Lewis wants. This is sick."

"I won't let whoever this is control what I do."

"Lindsay-" Harper began.

"Do you have any idea who could have done this?" John asked.

"I was trying to go over in my head who knows about computers, but I don't know the amount of knowledge one would need. I
know Mike Altman's wife, Tessa, knows about computers."

"Yes, she does," Trey agreed. "She's an expert. Why do you suspect her and Mike?"

"Several reasons. One, I found out he heard Bobbie and Harper
scream when we found the body of Keith Teal. He was in the area
and he knew we were missing and he did nothing."

"What?" said Harper. "That son of a-he knew?"

"Are you sure?" Trey asked.

"He admitted it to me himself."

"That does it. I'll have Lewis get them off the island until we're
finished."

"Not all of the biology people are as hostile and angry as he is,"
Lindsay cautioned. "They do have legitimate research interests."

"Who else knows about computers?" John asked.

Trey shook his head. "Who has the ability to do this? Me and
Nate. The weathermen, William and Terry. Bobbie, Juliana, and
several of the divers. I'm sure some of your people, John. There're
probably more. I believe we can rule out the people we know."

"And I'll bet some of Evangeline Jones's people are good with
computers," Harper said.

"Could they get on the island without being seen?" Trey asked.

"Evidently Denton and Keith did," Lindsay said. "I put in a call
to Ramirez, but I doubt he'll call back tonight."

"Why don't you and John have the pizza before it's ice cold? I'll
get us some beer," Harper said, as she headed toward the refrigerator.

"Sure," said Lindsay. "I'll not let some maniac ruin my
appetite."

Harper had a breakfast table under a window. She and John sat
and ate pizza while Harper and Trey lounged on the couch and
sipped beer. Lindsay gave them a rundown of her thoughts on the
murders.

"You know," Trey said, when she finished, "I hadn't thought
about the murders being related to Mike and his project. "It makes
sense. It might not have anything to do with us at all."

"I'm going to stay the night here," John said. "I'll stay in the
hallway. Lewis said the new security comes tomorrow."

"You can't sleep out in the hall," said Lindsay.

"I don't intend to sleep."

"Well, you don't have to stay in the hall," Harper said.

"You've had someone try to break into your room. If someone
tries again, I'd like to see who it is."

"Why do you think they'll come tonight?" asked Lindsay.

"It's the last night before the extra security comes. I think it
would be a good idea just to keep watch."

"I agree," Trey said. "I'll stay on the island tonight, too. If John
is staying up here, I'll stay in the lab and see if anyone tries anything else."

"I was saying to Steven tonight that this site deserves our undivided attention," Lindsay said, looking out the window at the alligator pond in the moonlight. "I'd like to find out who's behind this
so we can get back to doing what we do." She looked at the three
of them in turn. "I must be close. Why else would someone do
this?"

"Close?" said John. "What have you discovered for certain?"

"Nothing much that I can see, but someone feels threatened. I
might have discovered something that hasn't dawned on me yet."