LC 04 - Skeleton Crew (15 page)

"It's all right, Gina," said Nate. "Valerian's probably having a
drink with Elvis as we speak."

"And here back on earth we found another cannon today,"
Steven Nemo continued, pointing to a series of small drawings. "If
you notice, all of them are on a line, more or less. It's the pattern
we would expect if they were throwing the cannons overboard to
lighten the ship as part of their efforts to prevent it from sinking.
When we finish the excavation, I think we'll be able to tell all the
steps they went through to try to save the ship. Unfortunately, of
course, they were ultimately not successful. That's why we have a
ship to excavate."

"Lindsay has finished analysis of the first skeleton," said Trey.
"Would you like to tell us about it, Lindsay?"

Lindsay stood and matter-of-factly gave her findings, including
the head wounds and her suspicions about the murder weapon.
For a moment they were silent.

"So," said Nate, "we need to keep on the lookout for a guy
about five-five and left-handed. Do you know hair color, or any
distinguishing marks we can look for?"

Lindsay grinned at him.

"You expect us to believe that?" Jeff stood, glowering at
Lindsay. "The guy probably got his head bashed in by a yardarm. It happened all the time on those ships. Or he fell from the mast.
Come on. You're trying to tell us it was a murder? It was probably
the guy described in the diary who fell and hit the deck."

"Well, Korey and I saw the mallet fit into the wounds," Carolyn
responded. "Besides, I think they would have buried the guy who
fell to the deck fairly quickly. He died pretty early on. They didn't
keep ripe bodies around very long."

"Well, I don't believe it," said Jeff.

"It's not a matter of belief," said Lindsay. "It's a matter of
empirical evidence. That's what happened." She felt like 'adding,
And it's not my fault.

"Well, I think it's cool," Juliana said.

"So do I," said Lewis. At that, Jeff sat down. "Lindsay, would
you mind making a sketch of what the guy looked like in life by
tomorrow morning?"

"Sure." I don't need to sleep, she thought.

Lindsay and John ate pizza on the screened-in back porch of the
lab, looking out over the jungle of flora.

"Good pizza," Lindsay said. "And thanks for saving my life
today."

John laughed out loud. "I didn't save your life. You would have
done all right if I hadn't been there."

"You know that I believe the bone fragment I found today is
human."

"But you don't know for sure?"

"No. It's small, weathered, and heavily mineralized. But I think
it's a piece of rib."

"I pick my battles. I don't want to argue with you over such a
small piece of bone that may belong to a deer. Is that your concern?"

"I suppose."

John looked out over the wild landscape for several moments
before he spoke. "Besides, you have a state of grace for a while."

"And why's that?"

"Because of the kindness you showed my father last year. He's
grateful for the gift you sent him-the scale of the Uktena."

"I'm pleased that he liked it, but it was only a quartz crystal."

John smiled. "A crystal used by our ancestors, something we knew about from legend. He tells me it's very powerful."

"What power does he say it has?"

John shook his head. "I don't know. My father and I are very
different. He's more"-John shrugged-"Indian, I suppose. I've
compromised."

Lindsay found John to be very Indian, but she didn't say so.
"How does he feel about you?"

"I suppose he sees the two of us as different folds in the same
garment."

"Did he actually say that?"

"No. That Kung Fu guy said it on TV the other night."

Lindsay laughed, and John joined her after a moment.

"You staying on the island tonight?" he asked.

Lindsay nodded. "I'm staying with Harper. Lewis wants a
drawing of the murdered sailor by morning."

"Can't the artist, what's his name, Korey, do it?"

Lindsay shook her head. "He hasn't had experience creating
likeness from a skull. You have to draw the image with the skull
behind it. I usually use a light table. You also have to have a knowledge of the facial features of the ethnic group you're drawing."

"What's Lewis going to do with it?"

"I think he's going to put an article in the newspapers. Maybe
send a press release to the TV stations, too."

"What does that do for the site?"

"Public awareness and support often translate into money."

"Then I suppose, since he still owes my company money for
construction of the dam, that's agood thing."

Lindsay saw the shadow of a large dark bird fly over and perch
atop a tall tree. She leaned forward and squinted her eyes. "Is that
an eagle?"

"Yes. I've seen several here."

"You're kidding. This is the first one I've ever seen in the wild."

"He's young. His head is still black. Maybe we can go walking
over the island sometime," said John. "There are lots of things to
see."

"Yes, I'd like that. Wow, I've never seen an eagle like that before."

The eagle flew away, and Lindsay watched him soar out of
sight. She rose and John stood with her.

"Rabbit?"

"Yes?"

"I enjoy being with you."

"Me, too."

"I'm glad I was here with you when you saw the eagle."

It was eleven o'clock when Lindsay finished the sketch and put it
away in her desk drawer. Before locking up and climbing the stairs
to Harper's apartment, she went to take a peek at the new set of
bones, HSkR2. She wanted to scold Lewis for getting them out of
the ground so fast.

The brown-yellow bones were in a tub of water. The skull was
upside down in its own tank. Even upside down, Lindsay easily
noticed the classic Asian features. Indian? Indians had been taken
to Europe-and returned. Distinguishing between American
Indian and non-Indian Asian was not always easy. She took the
skull, made several mid-facial measurements, and plugged the
data into the computer. "I'm going to get too used to this program," she whispered to herself as the map appeared on the screen
and placed the skull on the coast near the East China Sea. Lindsay
had more trust in calculations she did herself than those computed
by a machine. But she couldn't complain about the speed. She
studied the map, still distrusting something that fast and easy, so
she did the calculations by hand. The skull was probably not
Native American.

"Of course," she said aloud. "Valerian's servant." She grinned
to herself. She wanted to call Trey, wake up Harper. A human connection. She loved it.

The sound of a door opening at the far end of the lab brought
her head up. She expected to see one of the archaeology crew and
was surprised to see Mike Altman, one of the biologists and
Tessa's husband. His blond hair was disheveled, and she couldn't
help noticing that his T-shirt was on inside out.

"I saw the light on," he said without a greeting. "You all keep
the place locked up like Fort Knox; we have to get in when we have
the chance." He walked to a cabinet and unlocked it. "We do have
some supplies in here." He sat on his haunches and rummaged
through the cabinet, pulling out what looked like graph paper.

"It's open all day. I'm sure no one would mind if you came to
get your supplies."

Mike straightened up to face her. "Right. You haven't been here
long, have you?"

"No. But as Bobbie pointed out to Tessa, the dig won't be here
forever. You'll get your island back, and things will be back to normal for you."

"After you all build your museum and theme-whatever, this
place will be destroyed."

"Come on. Does it really make sense to you that we would
build a theme park on this island?"

"It makes as much sense as building a five-million-dollar structure out in the ocean to dig up a bunch of dead, waterlogged
wood, then tear it down. There are more than thirty protected
species of animals on this island. Yes, a few of them are small and
not well known. I get so tired of your kind. You haven't heard of a
species of fish or tree frog, so you use your ignorance as a measure
of its worth."

"Isn't that what you are doing?"

He looked puzzled, then narrowed his eyes at her. "What do
you mean?"

"You don't know what we do or what the value is, yet you
judge it to be worthless."

"That's not the same thing."

"I don't want to argue with you. We are here and so are you. We
won't be here long, and there isn't going to be a museum or a
theme park built on the island."

"Do you know that for sure?"

"This is a national park, for heaven's sake. And we don't build
theme parks. It's stupid, and you and your colleagues should
know better."

He stared at her wide-eyed for a moment. She thought perhaps
it dawned on him that they had been had. He turned on his heel
and left. Lindsay watched him go out the door with his graph
paper. He was staying at the ranger's station. He had dressed hurriedly and hiked all the way there down the trail to get graph
paper? She doubted it. Surely, they wouldn't destroy any of the
artifacts. But they were so angry.

Lindsay walked out and made sure that Mike had locked the
outside door behind him and watched the play of his flashlight
through the thicket. As she passed the main office on her way back,
she heard a humming of machinery running. She tried the door. It was locked, and she hadn't brought her keys with her. Probably
nothing, she thought and went back to her work.

Before going up to Harper's apartment, Lindsay gave the postcranial bones a quick glance. Something caught her eye. She
donned gloves and took out the left femur and pelvis. The left
acetabulum showed a marked flattening, as did the head of the
femur, along with spur formation. She checked all the long bones
and found similar characteristics, but with disparity in severity.
She also found that the neck of the humerus was broken and
showed signs of uneven surface healing.

Lindsay put the bones back in their tub of saline solution and
sat back on the stool, peeling off her gloves, turning the bones over
in her mind. She hunted around the lab for a telephone book and
looked up orthopedics in the Yellow Pages.

DR. ROSEN LEANED out the door and called to his nurse. "The
patient in exam room three is quite beyond my help."

This elicited fits of laughter from his staff as Lindsay came out
of the restroom.

"Who did he come in with?" he asked.

"Me, Dr. Rosen. Your nurse was good enough to allow me to lay
him out. I'm Dr. Lindsay Chamberlain." She held out her hand.

He greeted her with a broad smile, flashing bright white teeth
set against a neatly trimmed and very dark mustache and beard.

"Yes, you're a forensic osteologist, aren't you?" He shook her
hand vigorously. Dr. Rosen was a compact, square-built man a
good six inches shorter than Lindsay.

"I just read a paper of yours not long ago ..." He put the tips
of the fingers of his left hand to his forehead. "I have it.
Implications of disease in the postcranial skeleton with respect to
sex determination. I found it fascinating."

"Yes, I'm flattered that you remember it. I'm also. . .

He bounded to the table and picked up a femur. "I have an
interest in forensics myself. Let's see." He paused. "The bones are
wet."

"We have to keep them that way for now."

"Hmm. Been in the water a while, I suppose?"

"A while."

"And this man has been murdered?" he said almost absently,
turning the bone in his hand, examining its surface.

"That's the other one. I haven't ..."

"The other one? You have more than one?"

"Yes. The reason I brought him here is this." Lindsay showed
him the remodeled parts of the bones.

"Well, yes. The flattening of the head of the femur and the
acetabulum. Notice the uneven healing around the broken
humerus. I see fractures in the femur with attempted healing." He
pointed to the anomalies in the bone. "I suspect if you take a thinsection you'll see microscopic indications, as well. I did a hip
replacement on a man last year who looked about like this. You
don't see it often-most divers pay attention to their tables."