Lovely In Her Bones

CHAPTER EIGHT

DANIEL HUNTER COLTSFOOT studied the wanted posters on the sheriff’s bulletin board, trying to decide which of them to cover up with his craft fair announcement. Surely some victimless, drug-related offense could be obscured for a few days for such a worthy notice as the Nunwati Nature-Friends Herb and Craft Day. Daniel enjoyed telling people that Nunwati was the Cherokee word for medicine, and that even though none of their members was actually a Native American, they liked to think that they were Indian in spirit, keeping the old traditions alive with pottery works and leathercraft shops.

Coltsfoot and his girlfriend, Patricia Elf, ran a health food store in Laurel Cove, doing a thriving business among tourists who mistook them for Indians, an error which they did not discourage. Actually, Coltsfoot and Patricia were not even picturesque locals: he was from Baltimore, and she was a New Yorker, but they managed to obscure this with homespun outfits and colonial hairstyles. Daniel had even added Coltsfoot to the end of his name in an effort to sound more “ethno-regional,” happily unaware that the coltsfoot plant went by another name in the eastern Appalachians. Behind his back the bemused locals referred to the plant and to Daniel himself as “Dummyweed.” In their health food store they spoke reverently of Amelanchier Stecoah, and they liked to be thought colleagues of hers, but in fact she had taken no notice of them. Once Daniel had gone to see her about purchasing some ginseng, but she had declined to do business with them. That had been two years ago, when the Nunwati Nature-Friends were new to the area. Daniel thought that he might try again sometime, now that the group was more widely known. Their Nunwati Newsletter was selling well at the commercial campgrounds and from the lobby of the Cherokee Wigwam Motel. Futhermore, Daniel had attained a certain measure of respectability by becoming a deputy sheriff. He had not intended to join forces with the county law enforcement officials, but he was rather pleased at having had the honor thrust upon him. It had happened the previous fall when seven maximum-security prisoners overpowered a guard and escaped from a work detail across the mountains in East Tennessee. News of cars stolen and hostages taken had filled even the pages of the biweekly county newspaper, and the local radio station urged its listeners to take care, predicting that the convicts would soon be at their very doors.

Patricia Elf became so frightened at the thought of these marauders at large that she refused to work in the health food shop alone. After several days of confinement in the shop, Daniel decided that there must be a better way to pacify Patricia, a way that would enable him to sleep past eight in the morning without eliciting reproachful lectures on his disregard for her safety. Daniel decided to buy a gun. Marty at the Wampum Store (“Gold and Silver Bought and Sold”) offered him a Saturday night special that somebody had traded in for an I.D. bracelet, so Daniel bought the gun and went over to the sheriff’s office to apply for a permit. It was a first for Sheriff Duncan Johnson. Most of his constituents owned rifles and shotguns, which did not require permits, and he had never before been required to issue one.

After a futile search for pistol permit forms, Duncan Johnson mulled over the situation and hit upon a solution that seemed to him both simple and practical: he appointed Coltsfoot deputy sheriff. Deputies were entitled to have sidearms without benefit of permit, so Johnson swore him in and sent him about his business. Of course, Daniel did not have a uniform, nor did he participate in any legal functions; it was understood that his appointment was merely a formality designed to foil the bureaucrats in charge of permits. Duncan Johnson would not have dreamed of allowing Dummyweed to patrol the county. The fact that Coltsfoot personified the law on the night of Alex Lerche’s murder was pure coincidence-or, as Milo considered it, the malevolence of fate.

Duncan Johnson had gone to the annual North Carolina Sheriffs’ Convention, which was being held in Wrightsville Beach. The prospect of ocean fishing had been the main factor in the sheriff’s decision to go, but he also hoped to get elected vice-president or perhaps treasurer of the organization. Running for office was a habit with Duncan Johnson. He left the county, peaceful after the early tourist invasion, in the hands of Deputy Pilot Barnes, who had the sense to do what had to be done and leave the rest alone until the boss returned.

Pilot Barnes was doing well in his second day of substitute sheriffing, until 8:00 p.m., when a call came in about a wreck on Whistle Creek, and Pilot had no one to dispatch but himself. He hated to disturb Hamp McKenna, who was his eleven-o’clock replacement. He was debating between calling Hamp and closing the office, when Daniel Hunter Coltsfoot wandered in, asking if he could post a craft fair notice among the wanted posters. Pilot decided that Dummyweed was the least of three evils (by a small margin) and left him in charge of the office, while he went to see about the wreck. After all, he reasoned, Dummyweed was a deputy, and how much trouble could he get into in one hour on a slow night?

It was a wonder he hadn’t wrecked the car, Milo thought. His hands were cold with sweat. Despite the shock, though, he thought he had things under control. He was in charge now, and he couldn’t worry about the personal side of what had happened. Later, maybe. He was glad he had driven the Sarvice Valley Road so many times. His hands moved the steering wheel at the curves without his conscious thought, and he anticipated the winding of the road, taking it as fast as he dared. He ought to be back in an hour, if they didn’t waste too much time at the sheriff’s office. He would tell Comfrey Stecoah when they got back, he decided; right now, he wanted to bring in the law.

Milo had left Jake alone at the dig site with the body, and Elizabeth in the church comforting Tessa Lerche and Mary Clare. Or perhaps guarding them. Milo wasn’t ready yet to separate mourners from suspects. Victor had turned up in the middle of it all-naturally-and proceeded to dramatize himself by having an asthma attack. Poor Elizabeth. If she could cope with this, she could handle anything.

Milo drove into Laurel Cove, wondering for the first time if he should have come at all. Perhaps he should have telephoned from Sarvice Valley. Surely someone there had a phone; he hadn’t thought to ask. They might even tell him that he should have reported this to Bevel Harkness, the Sarvice Valley deputy. Milo frowned. He was damned if he would. Bevel Harkness ranked high on Milo’s list of possible murderers, and he intended to tell them that, too. He swung the car into his usual parking place in front of the sheriff’s office. He had been in so much wrangling over the computer damage, that he was beginning to feel quite at home there. He wondered if Sheriff Johnson was back from the beach yet, and whether the county’s other emergency had come down from the tree of its own accord. The man behind the desk was not Pilot Barnes; after a long look at his outfit, Milo decided that it couldn’t possibly be Sheriff Johnson, either. The person on duty was a well-built young man in his mid-twenties, wearing a full-sleeved colonial shirt, burlap trousers, and black moccasins fastened with silver conchos. Milo wondered if this person was a guide who gave tours of “A Backwoods Jail.” He glanced about in search of more reliable assistance.

“May I help you?” asked Dummyweed pleasantly.

Milo hesitated. “Are you a deputy?”

“Sure am. Deputy Coltsfoot,” he declared, warming to his role. “What’s up?”

“I’m here to report a murder.”

“Oh, wow!” breathed Coltsfood. “No shit? Who?”

Milo told him.

“Oh, wow!” said Coltsfoot again. “With a tomahawk? That’s unreal! Well, I’ll tell you what to do. Do you drink coffee?”

Milo relaxed a little. “I guess I could use a cup now,” he admitted.

“No, man, that’s just the point. You’ve got to cut down on stimulants for the next couple of days-coffee’s out of the question. And you ought to increase your intake of vitamins, too. That’s to combat stress. Murders are really stressful, man, so you need to watch your metabolism. Got that?”

“Look,” said Milo with an edge to his voice, “a man is dead in Sarvice Valley, and I’ve left him being guarded by a college kid, with a bunch of hysterical possible suspects in the common room of the church. Now where the hell is somebody who knows what to do?”

Coltsfoot sighed. “Pilot said he’d be back pretty soon; I guess he’d know what to do.”

“Fine. Can you call him?”

“In the patrol car, you mean? I guess so. Do you know how to use the radio there?”

“No,” said Milo wearily. “I don’t know how to use the radio. Isn’t there somebody else we could call?”

Coltsfoot stood up, beaming happily with a new idea. “I tell you what. I’ll go along with you to the scene of the crime, so you’ll have somebody official there, and I’ll leave a note for Pilot on the desk here, and he’ll be along when he gets back. Okay?”

Milo nodded. It seemed to be the only thing to do if he wanted to get back anytime soon. He did wonder, though, if Coltsfoot was better than nothing.

Twenty minutes later Pilot Barnes returned to an empty office. He checked the bathroom, and looked into the holding cells in case Dummyweed had decided to grab a nap while he waited, but there was no sign of him. Pilot had just concluded that Dummyweed had got bored and gone home when he saw the note propped on his coffee cup at the front desk. He read the message three times. “Indian Attack in Sarvice Valley,” it read. “Man fatally tomahawked. Bring help. (Signed) Deputy D. H. Coltsfoot.” Pilot Barnes’ first reaction was one of distrust. Indian attack, indeed! “Bring help.” The Seventh Cavalry, maybe? He continued to stare at the note, trying to decide that it was a prank so that he could throw it away, but the more he studied it, the more he tended to believe that it was a garbled version of the truth. Pilot could well believe that there had been trouble in Sarvice Valley; the Cullowhees were an ornery bunch of folks, and trouble would be no stranger to that hollow of theirs. It seemed feasible that they had bashed somebody’s head in for any number of reasons: poker game, drunk fight, that strip-mining business. He wished Duncan Johnson were back, because he hated to get the coroner out at night on little more than a rumor. He would, though; better safe than sorry.

During the several phone calls that Pilot Barnes made before going out to investigate, he decided to assume an official reticence rather than to admit how little he knew. “Trouble out your way,” he told Bevel Harkness. “We’re not sure just where. Expect you to find it and report back.” He called the chief of the volunteer fire department to borrow the portable generator, in case there was a death scene requiring night lights.

It was more difficult to be evasive with Dr. Putnam, a tiny septuagenarian. “What do you mean, ‘trouble in Sarvice Valley,’ Pilot Barnes? If you want to get me away from my television, you’ll have to do a lot better than that.”

“I got a note here that there has been a homicide in Sarvice Valley, and I’d like you to come with me and check it out.”

“Can’t it wait till morning?” Dr. Putnam insisted. “Some liquored-up Cullowhee probably shot his cousin, and he’ll be weeping and wailing over the body by the time you get there. Just bring the body back to town, and I’ll do the autopsy first thing in the morning.”

“It doesn’t sound like that kind of a case,” the deputy told him. “My information is that a man was killed with a tomahawk.”

“What’s that? Did you say tomahawk?”

“According to the information I have,” said Pilot Barnes carefully.

“Well, pick me up, boy! I’ll even pass up my Star Trek rerun for this!”

Half an hour later, one of the volunteer firemen had come in to man the office, and Pilot Barnes was driving out to Sarvice Valley with Deputy Hamp McKenna and Dr. Putnam.

“Wait till Duncan Johnson hears about this!” the old man chuckled. “As soon as he leaves the county, there’s an Indian uprising.”

“Reckon we ought to notify anybody?” asked Hamp McKenna.

“How about General Custer?” asked Dr. Putnam.

Pilot Barnes, keeping his eyes on the narrow road, was not amused.

On the dark path to the excavation site, Deputy Coltsfoot was feeling considerably less like Gary Cooper in High Noon. It had just occurred to him that there was still a murderer at large in the area, and he had not thought to bring a gun with him. He wasn’t even sure that he could have found the key to the gun case.

“You don’t know who did it, do you?” he asked Milo nervously.

“No. He was dead when I found him. Do you want to take a statement now?”

It was so dark on the path that Coltsfoot couldn’t see his own feet, and in any case, he had forgotten to bring a notepad. “I think that can wait awhile,” he replied. “You didn’t see anybody around, did you?”

“No. Is this your first murder investigation?”

“I guess you could say that,” admitted Coltsfoot, neglecting to mention that it was also his first investigation of any kind.

“Well, Dr. Lerche and I work with the coroner’s office sometimes back at the university, so I can give you a few pointers if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Sure. Fire away.”

“Well, I think you ought to just stand guard until somebody else gets here,” Milo told him. “Don’t go looking for footprints, and don’t touch anything. The people with the crime kits will want the scene as undisturbed as possible. Your best bet is to secure the area until they get here.”

“Secure the area,” repeated Coltsfoot, liking the sound of it. “Right.” Another thought struck him. “You mean, by myself?”

“What kind of an idiot would forget to tell you where the death scene was?” mused Hamp McKenna.

“Dummyweed,” grunted Pilot Barnes. “And I was the idiot that left him in charge.”

“Drive up to the church,” said Dr. Putnam from the back seat. “It’s nearly midnight and the lights are on.”

When they saw Bevel Harkness’ patrol car in the dirt parking lot, they knew they had come to the right place. “Get the camera and the crime kit, Hamp,” Pilot ordered, “and follow us up to the church. Those people can tell us where Harkness is.”

Dr. Putnam chuckled. “Hope he hasn’t gone to join the sheriff’s nephew.” He meant the one who had disappeared on patrol duty in 1972. “You know, if the Cullowhees have killed an outsider, the wonder of it is that there’s a body around to be discovered.”

Pilot Barnes sighed. “Bring the rifle too, Hamp.”

Inside the church, all was quiet. Victor, whose asthma medicine had finally taken effect, was snoring peacefully in a corner, while the others sipped coffee and talked quietly. To Jake’s profound relief, the shock of Lerche’s death had stunned Tessa and Mary Clare into numb civility. They sat quietly, speaking in monosyllables, and sipped their coffee as if it were medicine.

Elizabeth was too confused over Dr. Lerche’s personal life to feel sympathy for anyone except Milo. Her private opinion of the change in Tessa and Mary Clare was that they both realized the futility of fighting over a dead man. She knew that one of them was going to lose him anyway, and she wondered if that one was secretly pleased that her rival had lost him too. Elizabeth kept these thoughts to herself, dispensing coffee and sympathy as unobtrusively as possible. She wondered when Milo was coming back.

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 glad 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.

Pilot 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.”

“And where were you tonight?”

“From supper on, I was in the church, trying to read a book.”

“So you didn’t go out in the woods?”

“No. Not until Milo found the body and sent me up there to guard it. I didn’t see or hear anyone around then.”

“I bet you saw and heard a lot at the church, though,” said Pilot slyly. “About the time Mrs. Lerche arrived and met the girlfriend.”

Jake shrugged. “There wasn’t much to it.”

“Don’t you find it odd that the site manager is being sent off to do research someplace else?”

“Not if that’s what needed doing,” Jake replied calmly. “Milo could site-manage. I could do it myself.”

“Do you have any opinions on who would go after your boss with a tomahawk?”

“Oh, sure. Some local in favor of the strip-mining deal who wanted to make the Cullowhees look bad. I see racial overtones, don’t you?”

Pilot Barnes shook his head. “I see a long case,” he sighed, “with the sheriff gone, and me supposed to put up hay tomorrow. Why me, Lord?”

“Are you sure he was murdered?” asked Elizabeth, wide-eyed.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Pilot patiently. “People don’t generally sneak up and hit themselves on the back of the head with a tomahawk.”

“I guess not.” She nodded. “By the way, do you know Wesley Rountree?”

This was a name none of the others had mentioned. A new lead, thought Pilot. “Is he one of the people connected with this project?” he asked.

“Oh, no. He’s the sheriff of Chandler Grove, Georgia, where my cousins live. I just thought you might know him, since you’re in law enforcement too.”

“No, ma’am,” said the deputy, forgoing the desire to tell her that he was not acquainted with Wyatt Earp or Buford Pusser either. “Now could you give me a statement about what happened tonight?”

Elizabeth told him about her evening, describing the encounter between Mary Clare and Tessa Lerche as tactfully as she could. She had not left the church since supper, she said, and she had no information relevant to the incident.

“Actually, I’m not an anthropologist,” she admitted. “I came on this dig because I thought it sounded interesting.”

“Who invited you?”

“Um… Milo Gordon. He’s my brother’s roommate, and…”

“I see,” said Pilot Barnes. And he did.

The next morning at nine, Dr. Putnam found Pilot Barnes going through a pile of papers on Duncan Johnson’s desk. He halted his search periodically to take gulps of coffee from a mug on the top of the filing cabinet.

“What did you lose?” asked Dr. Putnam. “Not evidence, I hope.”

“Nope. I’m hunting the address of that sheriff’s convention at the beach.”

“I thought you’d be wanting to wash your hands of this case, Pilot.”

The deputy shrugged. A certain kind of person always made that joke sooner or later. He said, “I just think he ought to be told. If he still wants me to handle it, that’s fine.”

“Well, I figured you’d want to get in touch with him, so I hurried through your autopsy first thing. Can’t sleep of a morning anyway anymore.”

“What did you find?”

“Oh, it was just what it looked like. Somebody bashed his head in with that ridiculous tomahawk, and that’s exactly what killed him. I’ll give you a typed-up version in two-dollar words this afternoon. This one doesn’t need to go to the state lab, though, so you go right on ahead with the investigation. Did the tomahawk tell you anything?”

“The handle was rough bark, which doesn’t take fingerprints. There was a paper seal on the bottom saying Made in Taiwan. They sell them at Cherokee for four bucks.”

Dr. Putnam shook his head. “All I can say is, when it comes my time to go, I hope I don’t die in a silly way.” He snorted. “Dyed chicken feathers and plastic string!”

Pilot Barnes, who had found the number of the sheriff’s hotel and was busy dialing it, did not reply. Dr. Putnam had nothing further to report on the Lerche case, but he wouldn’t have missed the forthcoming conversation for the world. He settled down in the straight chair and began to leaf through Duncan Johnson’s current copy of Field and Stream.

“Official police call for Sheriff Duncan Johnson,” said Pilot Barnes in his most matter-of-fact tone. He drummed his fingers on the desk while he waited for the harassed receptionist to sort through one hundred sheriffs’ messages for the whereabouts of Sheriff Johnson. “Yeah. I’m still here. He-what? Okay. When do you think that’ll be? Well, ask him to call his office.” He hung up the phone with more force than necessary.

Dr. Putnam, who was helping himself to coffee, raised his eyebrows expectantly.

The deputy scowled. “He went deep-sea fishing with the guys from Buncombe County. They’re staying overnight on the boat.”

The doctor’s eyes twinkled. “Call out the Coast Guard! Boy, wouldn’t I love to see Duncan Johnson’s face when the floating feds hauled him off that fishing boat.”

Pilot Barnes, who had been thinking of doing just that, did not smile. “I guess it’s up to me, then,” he said, but he wrote the phone number of Duncan Johnson’s hotel on the front of the phone book.