Grave Danger Read online

  The skeleton was completely exposed now. The yellow-tan bones lay in sharp relief against the dark soil. Interwoven between phalanges and carpal bones was an artifact, a large pale-green lanceolate blade. Libby looked at the ME. “May I look closer?”

  “Pick it up if you want. She’s not a murder vic, so I don’t care,” Dr. Leavenworth said.

  Libby climbed into the pit and studied the tool. The size and shape seemed to be the most perfect example of Clovis she’d ever seen. But that just wasn’t possible. A Clovis point would make this the oldest skeleton ever found in the Americas, and no human remains had ever been found in association with a Clovis point. Clovis artifacts were the oldest universally accepted evidence of the existence of humans in the New World.

  “If she’s not Indian, how do you explain the arrowhead?” asked Officer Roth, the young cop who’d been cold to her the day before.

  “Give me a second,” she murmured. “This can’t be right.” Baffled, she leaned closer. The sunlight caught an edge of the stone, making the glossy surface shine. The pale-green stone wasn’t a cryptocrystalline silicate, as she’d first thought. The projectile point was made out of obsidian. It took her a moment to recognize the material, but when she did, the tension knot in her belly unraveled and she laughed. What a beautiful fake.

  “What’s so funny?” Officer Roth asked.

  “Sorry,” she said. “It’s just that I nearly fell for it.”

  “Fell for what?” Officer Eversall asked.

  “It’s a perfect fake.”

  “You know that from a ten-second look?” The younger officer sounded incredulous.

  “Yes. To start with, this is supposed to be a Clovis point—a spearhead for hunting big game. Clovis is the oldest of the Paleolithic blades, and pre-dates this site by eight to ten thousand years.”

  “That doesn’t make the arrowhead a fake,” Officer Roth said.

  “Spearhead,” Libby corrected automatically. “The implied age alone isn’t what makes this spearhead a fake, but I can say that no Clovis tool could be associated with these bones. There is no way a ten- to fourteen-thousand-year-old skeleton would be as well-preserved as this one is. Bones would be broken, missing.

  “You’ve probably heard of Kennewick Man. He’s young compared to Clovis. Only about nine thousand years old. Scientists are eager to study him because he’s the oldest, most complete skeleton ever found in the Americas. He was nearly complete but his bones were in pieces and fragments missing.” Libby looked at the ME. “That’s not the case here, is it?”

  “No,” she said. “This skeleton appears to be complete.”

  “But that doesn’t mean this isn’t a one-thousand-year-old skeleton buried with a twelve-thousand-year-old point,” Roth persisted.

  “You are correct. Archaeologists always have to consider such a possibility. Later cultures could have easily found and reused spearheads from earlier time periods and even buried them with their dead. But not in this case, because that spearhead is younger than you are, Officer Roth.”

  “What?” Mark said.

  “How do you know that?” Officer Eversall asked.

  Libby directed her answer to Mark, the person she most wanted to believe her. “The obsidian rock it’s made of was manufactured after 1980.”

  “The rock was manufactured?” Mark asked.

  “Yes. I’ve seen that type of obsidian many times. My master’s degree is in lithic analysis. I studied stone tools and the way they were made. I worked with a professor who flint knaps—”

  “Flint knaps? What is that?” Eversall asked.

  “Flint knapping is part of experimental archaeology—a branch of archaeological research where we try to duplicate the tools made by prehistoric cultures.”

  “Why would you do that?” Roth asked.

  “To help us better understand the culture and their technology. Anyway, I had a professor in graduate school who is known for his skill at flint knapping. He’s known among archaeologists as the Lithic Master. I can say with one hundred percent certainty he made that point.”

  “I didn’t see a signature on the rock,” the ME said.

  “His signature is the rock. Obsidian that shade of pale-green isn’t natural. Not in the Pacific Northwest. That color obsidian is manufactured. It’s been dubbed Helenite, because it’s made from rock dust from Mount St. Helens. The professor I worked with uses Helenite to replicate stone tools. He uses it because of the distinctive color. It’s his way of maintaining the integrity of the archaeological record. Every archaeologist in the Pacific Northwest knows that if you find a Helenite point, it’s not an artifact. The Lithic Master made it.”

  “And how did your professor’s arrowhead end up here?” Luke asked.

  “Over the years, he’s sold hundreds to tourist shops. Anyone could have bought it. Someone tried to make this grave look prehistoric, and it’s not. Fortunately, obsidian hydration-dating will prove the stone is only about twenty years old.”

  Dr. Leavenworth held out her hand to Libby. “I’m sorry for doubting you.”

  “I understand. I was worried at first myself.”

  The woman climbed back into the pit and resumed cleaning the hand bones. Libby wished she had a vacuum like that for excavating.

  “I’d like the number of a lab that does the obsidian-dating test,” Mark said.

  “I have the number in my Rolodex.”

  “And your flint-knapping professor?”

  “I have his number, too.”

  “Of course you do.” Mark smiled. “So my suspect knew this was an archaeological site. We’re back to square one. This body had to be buried here on April ninth or tenth, 1984. In 1984, who knew this was an archaeological site?”

  “In 1984, officially, no one. But the tribe has references to this area in their oral history so any number of pothunters could have known it was here.”

  “So the suspect knows enough about archaeology to recognize a site when he or she digs through one,” Eversall said.

  “Yes,” Libby answered.

  “Why didn’t he or she just use an artifact from the site?” Roth asked.

  “They might not have found one.” Libby shrugged. “This part of the site isn’t artifact-rich. The only tool I found while excavating the burial was broken. But your suspect placed a fake with the body, so doesn’t that mean he—or she—knew this was a site and came prepared?”

  “It looks that way,” Mark said. “Keep that in mind as you interview people for your report. I want the name of anyone who had prior knowledge this was an archaeological site.”

  “Sure,” she said.

  Eversall hit Roth on the shoulder and waved a twenty-dollar bill under his nose. “You lost the bet. This goes to the chief.” She handed the money to Mark.

  “Told you we needed to wait until Libby got here before you decided the winner.” Mark winked at Libby and then handed the twenty back to the officer. “Donate it to the fallen officer’s fund, Sara.” To Libby he said, “Let’s get those phone numbers.”

  Inside the RV, Libby copied the numbers for the lab and her former professor. “I don’t know what your bet was about, but if you knew I’d be able to explain the Clovis point, why were you so distant when I first got here?”

  “I’m walking a fine line here. I called you in as an expert. I needed your professional opinion and our personal relationship couldn’t influence your evaluation of the spearhead.”

  He called the tool a spearhead instead of using the terms artifact or arrowhead, both of which would have come more naturally to him. She liked his way of letting her know he was paying attention. “If I hadn’t been able to explain away the spearhead, what would you have done?”

  “Work here would have stopped pending the Strontium-90 test results.”

  “You still would have done the test.” Warmth rushed through her. He respected her professional judgment enough that in the face of contradictory evidence, he still would have believed her.

&nbs
p; “I’d have done the test because I would want to be sure one way or the other.”

  The warm rush left her in a flash. She’d read too much into his statement. She stepped away and turned her back to him. She began shuffling papers, anything to distract her from the sharp edge of disappointment.

  A moment passed, and then his hands slid around her waist, and he turned her to face him. “If it were up to Rita, she’d have packed up and left right after she uncovered the artifact. I called you because I hoped you would have a reasonable explanation. You hit it out of the park.” His lips touched hers in a brief kiss. “And I’m deeply impressed.”

  “And my sister said specializing in lithic analysis was a waste of time.”

  He laughed and brushed her hair off her cheek. “You sure you’re not free tonight?”

  The air thickened between them as warmth spread from her belly outward. “I wish.” She chuckled at the longing in her voice and then sighed and stepped away. “I’d like to take pictures of the pit. To document the damage to the site.”

  “You got it.”

  She grabbed her digital camera and they both left the RV. Mark’s phone rang and he stepped away to take the call. She snapped photos and chatted with the ME—Rita—about her methods for cleaning and analyzing bones.

  “Why is there so much shell in the soil?” Rita asked.

  “The shell deposits are from thousands of years’ worth of shellfish harvesting. Shell neutralizes the soil’s acid content, which preserves some wood and most bone. It’s great for archaeological sites because it means we find plenty of charcoal for carbon-14 dating, animal bones to determine the type of game they hunted, and we sometimes find structural remains of dwellings.”

  “I’d heard that shell could deacidify soil, but haven’t ever worked a body buried in shell until today.” Rita went on to share with Libby details of some of the more bizarre cases she’d worked. While she talked, she worked her way up the spinal column for a final cleaning of the bones.

  Rita stopped suddenly and turned off her vacuum. “Do you know bones?” she asked.

  Libby nodded.

  “Look at this.” Rita pointed to a clavicle.

  “That doesn’t look right.” Libby studied both of the exposed clavicles. After a moment, she understood. “They’re reversed. And upside down.”

  “Exactly,” Rita said. “Hey, Mark. You need to see this.”

  Mark pocketed his notebook and walked to the pit. “What is it?”

  “She was buried here after the soft tissue decomposed,” Rita said. “Whoever laid her out switched the collarbones. They’re on the wrong sides, flipped backward, and upside down. Clavicles are tricky because they have an S-shaped curve that can look the same when flipped.”

  “If she was a skeleton by the time she was buried here, then we might be able to get some fingerprints from the bones.” He paused. “Someone worked very hard to make this look like an old Indian grave.”

  “They nearly succeeded,” Rita added.

  “Libby, I have to ask this,” Mark said.

  That was how he started every question she didn’t like. She braced herself but made a mental promise not to take offense this time.

  “Is it possible this is a prehistoric burial that was uncovered when they graded the site, but they didn’t want the hassle of dealing with the tribe, so they reburied her?”

  “In 1984, they would just turn the remains over to the Kalahwamish or an anthropologist. Remember her teeth? No shovel-shaped incisors, no wear patterns, surgically removed wisdom teeth. And you have the fake Clovis point thrown into the mix—which no one would add if they were trying to hide this was an Indian burial. She’s not prehistoric. But to prove it, you need to do a Strontium-90 test.”

  Mark looked at Rita. “Could a body decompose down to just skeletal remains in less than five years?”

  “In the right conditions, decomposition can happen in less than six months,” Rita said.

  Libby had been thinking the same thing. If Angela Caruthers died at the time of her disappearance in 1979, she could have decomposed elsewhere, and then in 1984 she could have been hidden here.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ON WEDNESDAY MORNING, LIBBY returned to the Shelby house. She needed to go through Angela’s boxes. With the dig shut down, Simone offered to come with her but Libby declined. She didn’t want to be babysat. She promised Simone she’d keep her Taser and cell phone with her at all times. First she checked all the windows in the house. Each one was securely locked.

  She believed focusing on work would keep her from getting spooked, so she went straight to her office and opened one of the boxes stacked next to the door. Angela and Jack must have saved every piece of paper that crossed their path. Angela’s work was intermixed with old phone bills and receipts for everything from ice cream cones to automobiles. She had trouble finding transcripts of interviews with tribal members in the mishmash of papers, because none of the boxes was conveniently labeled “Dissertation.”

  Thrust into the role of voyeur, it was immediately apparent she was about to learn far more about her client and his missing wife than she wanted. She’d done a fair amount of archival research in the past, but this was the first time she’d ever searched a relatively recent collection of papers. The first time she personally knew the people involved.

  Their phone bill consistently ran in the three to four hundred dollar range, with frequent calls to Japan. In the days before credit cards had become ubiquitous, Angela carried three in her name. They were probably the first on their block to have cable TV in 1977, and they chose Betamax over VHS.

  Angela frequently wrote checks to the Warrens, the largest family on the Kalahwamish reservation. Libby wondered if the checks were payments for interviews and, not being her specialty, whether that was a breach of ethnographer ethics. Paying for interviews would have gotten expensive if word got around.

  The Caruthers spent money extravagantly, with lots of cash moving in and out of their various bank accounts. No account ever held a large balance for long. Libby found stacks of collection and past-due notices, which were presumably offset by Jack making a big sale in his real estate business.

  Jack and Angela had lived a wealthy lifestyle on sporadic income. Libby assumed that Jack’s net worth took a permanent turn for the better during the late eighties and early nineties, because now Jack was a very wealthy man.

  Jason had been a good student and his teachers included comments like “student is a pleasure to have in class” on his report cards. Curiosity drove her to look up his birth date on a report card to compare with a bicycle receipt. The BMX dirt bike was purchased two days before Jason’s birthday in 1979. A copy of a police report was packed in the box as well—Angela had disappeared five days after Jason’s birthday. The dirt bike was the last gift his mother had ever given him.

  By the end of the workday, Libby had gone through and sorted eight of the twelve boxes. Papers were organized in piles within and around each box, with Angela’s dissertation research on top, ready to be photocopied. She glanced at the clock. No time to make copies today. Simone would pick her up soon to take her to the library for the lecture. After that, the moment she’d been anticipating all day would finally happen: she and Mark would go out to dinner. She had just enough time to shower and dress.

  LIBBY STOOD WITH SIMONE to the side of the Coho library lecture hall, watching as locals filed in and grabbed the last remaining seats. More than sixty people had gathered in the small room. A dozen would have been a good turnout. Already the room felt hot, overloaded. “Apparently, all you have to do to generate interest in local history is find a murder victim,” she muttered to Simone under her breath.

  “I’m sure they’re all here for The Archaeology of Coho, Washington and Neighboring Environs from Prehistory to Present. It’s such a sexy title,” Simone said.

  “You would prefer Temple of Doom?”

  “Now there’s a name.”

  “I’m mor
e of the Lara Croft-type.”

  Simone snorted.

  Libby’s entire crew was seated in the front row. She almost didn’t recognize them. She rarely saw her employees without a coating of dirt.

  Jack Caruthers was in a corner, conversing with a group of Cultural Center investors, who stood in a pack, all wearing the requisite dark suits and tasteful ties. Jack’s distinguished graying head nodded in time to the enthralling conversation of the suits. A consummate professional, Jack knew how to work a room and make each individual feel as though they were the most important person there. He caught Libby’s eye and winked at her. She wondered if he could read minds, too.

  Most of the investors had strong ties to the community. Libby had interviewed a few of them for the project, including the mayor, Chuck Nalley, and James Montgomery, both of whom stood with Jack now.

  Jason entered the room, looking like a cover shot from a men’s fashion magazine, right down to the slightly mussed hair and evening stubble. Simone came to attention. Libby knew Simone better than anyone, and for the first time realized her best friend was infatuated with Jason Caruthers. Somehow she’d missed this completely. Even more odd, Simone wasn’t the type to sit back and wait for a guy to notice her. So why hadn’t she been her usual brazen self and gone after Jason?

  The answer came to Libby in a rush. Her friend had worried about Libby’s reluctance to date after Aaron, and so Simone had urged her to pursue the one man she wanted for herself.

  Jason approached them, his gaze on Libby, ignoring Simone. This was a first. Blonde, buxom, and built, Simone had a loud voice, a louder laugh, and no shyness that Libby had ever been able to discern. Simone was usually at the center of any gathering. Some readily dismissed her as a bimbo, but she had an IQ in the genius range and a PhD to prove she was willing to use it.

  When greeted by Jason, Simone coolly shook his hand and remained uncharacteristically quiet. With a polite nod, Jason joined his father and the Cultural Center investors. While Libby had been focused on Jason and Simone, Mark had arrived. He stood in the back next to Officer Roth. She caught his eye and smiled. His answering grin triggered a shiver of anticipation.