Lovely In Her Bones Page 10

  Jake had returned around eleven-thirty, when Milo came back with the deputy. Milo told him to wait at the church for the other officers, while the two of them guarded the site. Jake balanced his coffee mug on his palm and tried to think of something neutral to talk about. He knew Elizabeth wanted to know what was going on up there, but the presence of two mourners prevented them from discussing it.

  “He never got to finish his project,” Tessa murmured.

  “The discriminate function chart?” asked Elizabeth.

  “Yes. It was nearly ready, and he was so excited about it. It would have been such a contribution to the field.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “And he never got to use the riding lawn mower, either!”

  “What’s going to become of the project?” asked Elizabeth.

  “I think we ought to finish it,” said Mary Clare.

  “Yeah, me too,” mumbled Jake. “Sort of a memorial.”

  “But, how can we? I mean, do we have the expertise?” Elizabeth protested.

  Jake shrugged. “Let’s talk it over with Milo. He may have some ideas on that.” He sat up. “Was that headlights in the parking lot? I think the sheriff has arrived.”

  Pilot Barnes peered past Jake into the common room. “Is this where the homicide is?” he demanded.

  “Yes. I mean-no. The body is up at the dig site. Your deputies are up there with one of our people, and they told me to show you the way.”

  Dr. Putnam cocked his head and looked appraisingly at Jake. “You’re not a Cullowhee, are you, boy?”

  Jake blinked. “No, sir.”

  “What’s your last name?”

  “Adair.”

  The doctor nodded, satisfied. “Ah! So that’s it!” He turned and followed the procession up the trail to the cemetery.

  Pilot Barnes spent most of the walk barking questions at Jake, beginning with: “Ain’t you the people whose computer got smashed?”

  Jake said that they were, and Pilot digested this information for several minutes, trying to connect it with the homicide. “But you didn’t have a computer up there at the cemetery, did you?”

  “No.”

  “Did you have any trouble with the Cullowhees? That’s their kin you’re digging up, you know.”

  “They asked us to come,” said Jake. He explained the purpose of the dig.

  Pilot Barnes frowned. This wasn’t going to be like their usual brand of homicide, which took all of about twenty minutes to solve. This one felt like a needle in a tub of molasses. He wondered how Duncan Johnson managed to be away when it happened: second sight or undeserved good luck? Pilot decided that he would do the essential site investigation tonight-he could hardly do otherwise-but that to continue the case without notifying his superior would be overstepping his authority. Beach or no beach, Duncan Johnson was getting a phone call in the morning.

  They threaded their way past empty graves to the tent. In the lantern light, Pilot could see Bevel Harkness and Dummyweed talking to the young man who had come in to report the computer damage.

  “It’s just that Indian curse I was a-telling you ’bout,” Harkness was saying in sepulchral tones. “They went and got him for sacrilege.”

  “Harkness, that’s not how we expect officers to talk while investigating a homicide,” growled Pilot Barnes. He did not like Harkness at the best of times, and his opinion had scarcely altered with what he had just heard. He turned to the other of his least favorite people. “Coltsfoot, that note you left me wasn’t exactly a wealth of information.”

  He took the criticism philosophically. “It was hard to know what to say. I was pretty reamed out myself by the news, you know?”

  “Just remember to tell where as well as what.” Pilot turned to Hamp McKenna. “I think you can put that generator on the edge of the clearing so the light shines this way. Is the body in there?”

  Milo, to whom the question was addressed, opened the tent flap and ushered the deputy in. Pilot Barnes took in the scene with considerably less emotion than that displayed by Coltsfoot. He stared at the body for several minutes without speaking.

  “What are you going to do now?” asked Milo softly.

  “Usual procedure,” said Pilot, still staring at the body. “Photographs, site investigation. Dr. Putnam out there is the coroner, and he’ll do an examination in situ. We’ll secure the area until sunup; ought to be able to tell more then.”

  Milo hesitated. “Well, that’s what I wanted to ask about, really. Who are you planning to leave guarding the scene?”

  Sensing that there might be a logical reason for the question, Pilot replied: “Bevel Harkness, I reckon. We’re shorthanded.”

  “Uh… I don’t mean to tell you your job, but I don’t think that’s a very good idea, since this is a murder.”

  “Oh? And why not?”

  In a low voice, Milo told him about Harkness’s appearance at the Cullowhees’ meeting, and about his warnings of “Indian curses” should the project continue. “I don’t think he’d be the most objective of investigators, Mr. Barnes,” Milo concluded.

  Pilot Barnes nodded. He wouldn’t have to wait for Duncan’s okay on this one; they were of the same mind about Harkness. “I take your meaning,” he said to Milo. He went back outside, motioning for Dr. Putnam to take over.

  “McKenna, how’s your work coming?”

  The deputy looked up from his camera. “As well as could be expected,” he said. “We’ll know more in the morning.”

  “All right. McKenna, I want you to finish up here, and get these pictures developed, and relieve Harvey Jeffers at the office. He’s sitting in for us right now. Coltsfoot, you’re going to start earning your keep as a deputy of this county. I’m putting you on guard duty here to secure the area-only because we’re shorthanded. We’ll be back in the morning to relieve you.”

  “What about me?” Harkness demanded.

  “I hear you have some opinions about this strip-mining business.”

  “Damn right I do. I don’t want this land to be roped off by the federal government like some kind of a people zoo, so-”

  “Well, be that as it may, in a murder investigation it’s a conflict of interest, and I’m taking you off the case. You can continue your regular patrols in the valley until further notice, but you are to have nothing to do with this homicide investigation. You got that?”

  “I got it, all right,” muttered Harkness, turning to go.

  “You want me to stay here all night?” gasped Coltsfoot. “Is he still gonna be here?” He gestured toward the tent.

  “No. After McKenna takes his photos, we’ll take him on back to town for the autopsy,” said Pilot.

  “Well, what about all those skulls in there?”

  “They stay here,” said Milo promptly. “They have no bearing on the case, and we need them to continue the project.”

  “Oh, you’re going on with it, are you?” asked Pilot Barnes.

  “Oh, yes,” said Milo softly. “I’m going on with it.”

  “Well, are any of those people planning to leave the area? I need to get statements from everybody, but it can be left till the morning if they’ll all be around.”

  “Well… there’s two of them I’m not sure about. Dr. Lerche’s wife… widow.”

  “Oh, Lord! The widow is here?”

  “Arrived tonight. I expect she will go back to the university to make arrangements for the funeral and so forth. She may want to speak to you now, so that she can leave in the morning.”

  “Who’s the other one?”

  Milo hesitated. “Dr. Lerche’s graduate assistant, Mary Clare Gitlin. She was supposed to go off and do research, I think. I haven’t had much time to talk to the group tonight.”

  “Come on, I’ll walk back to the church with you,” Barnes offered. “You look like you’re on your last legs. Just let me tell the doc to meet us there when he’s through.”

  Milo wished he had brought a jacket. Mountain nights were chilly, even in late summer. He was gl
ad of the cold, though, because it kept him awake despite his tiredness. He hoped that the numbness of fatigue, which was hitting his legs and his shoulders, would seep into his brain sooner or later and allow him to sleep. He didn’t want to face what was left of the night staring into the darkness seeing Alex facedown among the Indian skulls.

  “I reckon I ought to get preliminary statements from everybody tonight,” Pilot Barnes remarked. “While it’s still fresh in their minds.”

  Milo shrugged. “Why not? I doubt if they’ll be asleep yet.”

  “Why don’t we start with you, to pass the time while we’re walking? You found the body, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. I had just come back from Laurel Cove, from setting up the new monitor in the motel room. Mrs. Lerche had just arrived, and she asked me to take her up to the site, where Alex was working. Apparently he wanted to see me about something, too.”

  “Oh? What about?” Pilot’s voice had lost its casual tone.

  “I don’t know; he was dead when I got there. I don’t think it had any bearing on this, though. It was probably something about the project. A measurement he wanted taken, or some data looked up.”

  Pilot shrugged. That seemed logical to him, too. “Why would somebody have wanted to kill this fellow?” he asked.

  “I don’t think it was personal,” said Milo. “I think somebody wanted the strip-mining company to get the land, and that they killed Alex because he might have proved the Indians’ claim, which would give them the land.”

  “Somebody who favored the strip miners,” mused Pilot. “Such as Bevel Harkness?”

  “He’s on the top of my list,” said Milo.

  Pilot Barnes looked around the Sunday school room at the sleeping bags and cooking utensils. His eyes came to rest on Victor, snoring peacefully against the wall.

  “Is there someplace private I can go to talk to folks?” he asked in a pained voice.

  “How about the sanctuary?” asked Jake.

  Pilot thought this over for a few moments, without being able to come up with a better idea. “Well,” he said at last, “it might encourage them to tell me the truth.”

  Pilot thought it looked like an ordinary little country church-seating capacity maybe seventy-five, too poor for stained glass, upright piano, and varnished pine pulpit in front of homemade velvet curtains, which concealed nothing but a whitewashed wall. No holy of holies here. He’d wondered if the Cullowhees were footwashers or snake handlers, but seeing the sanctuary he reckoned not.

  He ushered Mrs. Lerche gently to the front pew and pulled up the piano bench for himself. “Now, ma’am, I know it’s awful to be put through this in your time of sorrow, but you must understand that I have to do it.”

  Tessa nodded. “I won’t be much help,” she said in a voice of quiet composure. “I just got here, and I’m afraid I know very little about the project.” In the same unemotional tone, she gave him a sketch of her day, ending when Milo had come out of the tent and led her back to the church, telling her that Alex was dead. “It seems very strange that he should be dead,” she said in a puzzled voice.

  “I expect it does, ma’am,” said Pilot politely. “Do you have any idea as to who would want to kill him?”

  Tessa turned to him wide-eyed. “Why, no. Not if some local person did it. They might perhaps have misunderstood about his work.”

  The deputy sensed that he was being invited to pursue the matter. He obliged. “And if it wasn’t a local?”

  “I did think that perhaps Mary Clare…,” Tessa murmured, twisting her rings.

  “Mary Clare? The graduate assistant?”

  “Oh, I’m sure it’s nothing to interest you, Sheriff,” said Tessa with a gentle smile. “It’s just that the poor thing had sort of a schoolgirl crush on my husband, as students will often do.”

  There had to be more to it than that. Pilot waited.

  “And I think she misunderstood my husband’s… encouragement of her work. I’m afraid she became rather silly about it, and he was forced to hurt her feelings. It was all very embarrassing for him.”

  Pilot grunted. He had waded through all the flowers in Tessa’s explanation, and had concluded that the professor was fooling around with his assistant. In his book, that made two suspects with good motives: the girlfriend and the wife. “I’ll look into it,” he said noncommittally.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing,” murmured Tessa, but she sounded pleased.

  Pilot decided that at this point Duncan Johnson would interview someone besides the girlfriend. That way he could have a little hearsay to contribute to the conversation. People often said more when they had something to refute. He could have chosen any of the others to question next; the fact that he picked Victor was sheer spite. The sight of him snoring like a hog through a murder investigation made Pilot Barnes long to kick him; he settled for a rude awakening and some less-than-polite questioning.

  “I don’t know who killed him,” Victor sulked. “He wasn’t a very nice man.”

  “Wasn’t he?” asked Pilot genially.

  Victor, detecting a sympathetic listener, told his version of the Peking man incident. In revised form, Victor was now convinced that he had made a slip of the tongue in a technical matter, and that Lerche had chosen to misinterpret his mistake, and to publicly humiliate him for it.

  The deputy was puzzled. “What does it matter which pile of bones you saw in the museum?” he asked.

  Victor smiled bitterly. “I assure you that anthropologists are perfectly capable of pitching fits over matters even more trivial than that.”

  “Well, did he put anybody else’s back up thataway?”

  “Not that I recall,” said Victor, implying that he had a mind above such things.

  “There’s always his personal life to consider,” said Pilot carefully. “That business about his graduate student.”

  “Wasn’t it awful?” Victor nodded. “I wasn’t here when The Wife showed up, but I imagine that it was quite a scene. Elizabeth and Jake seemed most uncomfortable.”

  “Oh, you were out?”

  “Yes. After that dreadful incident with Dr. Lerche, I had the most piercing migraine. The very air seemed to oppress me. Naturally, I went outside for a while in an attempt to lessen the agony. It’s merciful I wasn’t present for that scene between Mrs. Lerche and Mary Clare, because it would have been very bad for my nerves.”

  “How do you know there was a scene between them if you weren’t around?” asked Pilot.

  “When I came back in-”

  “What time was that?”

  Victor looked pained. “One doesn’t clock-watch on a dig. Nine-thirty or so, I expect. Well past dark. Anyway, when I came in, there was a strained atmosphere, as if everyone had just been at each other’s throats.”

  “What were you doing wandering around in the dark till nine-thirty?” Pilot made the question an expression of friendly interest rather than an accusation.

  “It’s obvious that you’ve never had a migraine,” said Victor with dark satisfaction. “Light hurts one’s eyes. I was just walking about in the dark waiting for the pounding to subside. Of course, I would have been better off lying down, but they were not going to turn off the lights in the common room. No one has any concern for my feelings.”

  “Did you happen to go up to the cemetery?”

  Victor hesitated. “Well… perhaps in that direction,” he admitted. “But I didn’t see anything.”

  “How close did you get?”

  “I may have just glimpsed the tent light shining through the trees. I didn’t see any movement.”

  “Was that when you just started out or just before you came back in?”

  “Somewhere in the middle, I guess.”

  Pilot Barnes sighed. Any hope of fixing the time of death had better not be pinned on this tomfool witness. He thanked him, and sent for Mary Clare.

  Mary Clare did not wait to be questioned. “Have you made an arrest yet?” she demanded.

  Pi
lot Barnes blinked. “You have anybody in mind?”

  “There’s some idiot loose in these hills bashing people on the head, buddy, and you’d better find him.”

  “You oughtn’t to let it frighten you,” said Pilot soothingly.

  “Frighten me? I wish they’d tried to get me instead of Alex! I’d have left ’em laying on the ground!” Her voice softened. “I don’t think Alex was much of a fighter. I wish I’da walked that way tonight.”

  “Walked that way? Were you out tonight?”

  “I went for a walk. Why?”

  Pilot grimaced. “Seems like the whole world was out walking the woods tonight.”

  “Oh,” said Mary Clare, suddenly comprehending. “You’re thinking about alibis.”

  “Have to.”

  “Well, I didn’t kill Alex. Had no reason to.”

  “I understand there was a little misunderstanding between the two of you. Something about a schoolgirl crush.”

  He expected to get a rise out of her with that phrase, but she recognized the wording as Tessa’s, and only said: “I told you Alex wasn’t much of a fighter.”

  Pilot continued with a few routine questions about where Mary Clare was and when, but the emotional outburst he was hoping for didn’t come.

  “Will I be able to leave?” Mary Clare asked when he had finished.

  “Where were you planning to go?”

  “Alex asked me to go and do some research at MacDowell College, and I’d like to follow through on it. This project was important to him.”

  Pilot nodded. “That’s within the state. I don’t see why not. Just let us know where you can be reached in case we need you.”

  “I’ll be back,” said Mary Clare.

  “Adair. A-D-A-I-R,” said Jake.

  “And what is your position?”

  “I’m an undergrad, which means that I do the pick-and-shovel work in exchange for the experience.”

  “Did you get along with Dr. Lerche?”

  “Oh, sure. I didn’t have much to do with him, anyway. Mary Clare was the site manager.”