CHAPTER 7

FRIDAY, JUNE 28

Marti came awake all at once. Dirt, she thought, dirt. Then, wide awake, she saw that she was not in the root cellar. Beside her, Ben stirred. Without waking him, she snuggled closer, fitting her body against the contours of his. He murmured her name and stroked her thigh. She pictured the fieldstone walls again, the dirt ceiling overhead, saw the roof collapse, felt her nose and mouth fill with dirt. She opened her eyes. The roof. Was it just made of dirt? Didn’t it need beams of some kind? Caleb mentioned dirt, nothing else. Maybe nothing else was needed. The coroner’s inquest would begin at 10 A.M. Whether or not they ruled Larissa Linski’s death accidental, she would have to find out about the roof.

*   *   *

Marti didn’t tell Vik about her dream. She did mention the roof, or the lack of it.

“Look, MacAlister. Do not ask McIntosh about that. The man already thinks he’s on the case. The less we have to do with him the better. He’s a pathologist now. Leave it at that.”

“We don’t know enough about any of this archaeological stuff, Vik.” She was logging two to three hours a night on the Internet but lacked the expertise to be selective. Last night one search turned up 578 listings. Some were obviously not what she was interested in. Other entries were less specific. “What if we miss something?”

“That’s why we have experts.”

“They can only give us information. They can’t interpret it for us.”

Marti had gotten used to autopsies. She didn’t think she would ever feel that way about inquests. Family members saw the photographs, heard the evidence, learned details that no loved one should ever have to know, especially when the deceased died violently. It was always worse than testifying at a trial. At least then there was a suspect, perhaps even a reason, however incomprehensible, for the death. At an inquest, there was only how the person died and what had happened. When she testified, Marti could never bring herself to look at the victim’s family and friends. When it was a homicide and she didn’t have a suspect, she felt as if she had not done her job.

The coroner’s jury brought back an undetermined-death/gunshot-wound verdict on the skeletal remains. Their decision on the Linski case was to keep it open. Afterward, Mrs. Linski asked to talk with Marti and Vik. They met in a small office in the coroner’s facility. Marti thought of her dream. She remembered Larissa’s dirt-streaked face and fluid-filled eyes as she looked at Larissa’s mother. Petite and blond, Mrs. Linski was an older version of her daughter.

“They don’t think it was an accident,” Mrs. Linski said. Her voice was flat, her face haggard. There were dark circles under her eyes, as if she hadn’t slept in days.

“We don’t know anything for certain, ma’am,” Marti said. “Not yet.”

Vik pulled a chair out for her, made sure she was seated close to Marti. “Coffee, ma’am?” he asked.

“No. No, thank you.” The woman sat with her hands clasped in her lap. She looked at the ceiling, then over Marti’s left shoulder, then at the floor. “I … I … where is she now?”

“At the funeral home.”

“Then they … she isn’t … she doesn’t look like those pictures anymore, does she?”

“No, ma’am.”

“She would have been … upset … to have me see her that way.” She wiped at her eyes. “It didn’t. I mean it was … quick … she didn’t…”

“No, ma’am.” Marti gave her some Kleenex. “No. It happened very quickly.”

Mrs. Linski had heard the evidence. She knew that was a lie but she nodded, needing to hear it.

“Will you … find him? Will you ever know who it was?” She sounded detached now,

Her loss was new. Marti knew that soon the anger would come.

“Oh, we’ll find him,” she said.

Mrs. Linski looked at her for a long minute. “Yes,” she said. “I believe you. At least I know you’ll try. I need to know who it was. I need to know why.”

Marti nodded. “So do we.”

“Sometimes you know too much,” Mrs. Linski said. “Sometimes you see things you can’t forget. Her eyes … why…?” She shook her head. “I want to see her again, see her the way she was before … maybe I’ll never…” She began crying again.

“Mrs. Linski, you might be able to help us.”

“How?”

“What can you tell us about Larissa?”

Mrs. Linski dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose. “Her nails,” she said. “They were caked with dirt. Every night she came home and did her nails. Funny, that. She wasn’t fussy about anything else.”

“Did Larissa call you while she was here?”

“Yes. She called me every night.”

“What did she talk about?”

“She was … happy … excited … but … she had mixed feelings about coming here. This was the first time she was being paid for working a dig. That bothered her. Made it seem too commercial.”

“How much was she being paid?”

“Four thousand dollars a week.”

That seemed like a lot of money to Marti, especially for a student, an amateur, but when you had as much money as the Smiths, maybe it wasn’t.

“That seems like a lot of money,” she said. “Especially for a student.”

“I thought so too. But Larissa spent most of last summer on a dig in Australia. She said that was why they were paying her so much.”

“Had she been on many digs?”

“Oh, yes. Every summer since high school. The summer before last she worked at a dig out west where they found most of a dinosaur. She had a lot of experience.”

And Marti thought, they told her that they hired Larissa because they didn’t need an expert.

“Larissa wanted to do a good job,” her mother said. “She wanted everything to be perfect. Wanted…” Tears came to her eyes.

Marti handed her more Kleenex.

“Her dad always wanted to be an archaeologist. He became a high school science teacher instead. Family responsibilities. He died a few years ago. Larissa was living his dream. And now…” She dabbed at her eyes, then blew her nose.

“Did she mention finding anything?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. She said she had something to show me. She wouldn’t say what it was. It could have been anything. Wherever she went, Larissa found something—a stone, a feather, something to keep as a memento. She would label them so she wouldn’t forget where they came from.”

“And if she found something at the dig site?”

“It would be in her notes.”

Her notes, Marti thought. But it wasn’t.

“If you think of anything else, anything she told you about being here … Anything. Even if it seems unimportant, call us.” Marti wrote her cell-phone number on the back of her card. “I saw Ms. Channon and two other ladies sitting with you at the inquest.”

“My sister. And my oldest daughter. Larissa is … was … my youngest. She was much younger than my other two girls.” She seemed calm, but Marti thought exhausted might be closer to the truth. “Will they let me take her home now?”

Marti nodded.

As soon as they returned to the precinct, Marti called the evidence tech. “Count the number of pages in the Linski notebook. Let me know if any are missing. And see if you can detect impressions of writing on any of the blank pages. If you do, I want to know what it says.”

Next, she called Caleb and asked him if there should have been a roof.

“He says it could have been a dirt roof supported with wooden beams, but that the wood would have deteriorated a long time ago and that might be why the ceiling collapsed.”

Vik shook his head. “Let’s go over this again.”

They reconstructed what had happened at the dig site based on current information and listed what they could not explain.

“Why was the root cellar so far from the house?” Marti wondered. “Or was there a house nearby when they built it?”

“Is it a typical root cellar?” Vik asked. “Is there anything about it that’s different?”

“What did they use it for? Damn, Vik.” For a moment, what they didn’t know seemed overwhelming.

The evidence tech returned her call within an hour.

“The notebook is intact,” she told Vik. “No pages missing. If Larissa did find something, why wouldn’t she write it down? If there was something there, and that’s why she died, then she must have told someone. Josiah hired her but that doesn’t mean he’s the one she reported to.”

“Paul came to the site,” Vik said. “And someone watched from beneath a tree while smoking.”

“We didn’t see anything when we were inside the house to indicate that anyone in the family smoked, Vik.”

“Nowadays most smokers have to go outside and light up.”

“If Larissa did find something,” Marti said, “it was relatively small.”

“Relatively.”

“What could survive in that soil for at least a hundred and fifty to a hundred and seventy-five years, maybe longer? Shells, beads, pottery…”

“Metal, bones…” Vik said.

“What about leather?”

“Hell if I know.”

“There’s still too much we don’t know.” She had asked the boys to get some books on archaeology from the library.

“We agree that this is a probable homicide. We know how she died. It’s safe to assume that whoever did it has got themselves an alibi. But motive. What will you kill for?”

“Damned near anything these days, Jessenovik. The question is, what was in that hole that was worth killing for? According to Caleb, the dirt in the first hole was disturbed. If someone took something out of there it must have been something that was big enough for them to find without outside help. That has to be why they needed Larissa, to find something small. And since there is nothing in her notes or on her computer files, we don’t have a clue as to what that might be.” Why didn’t she put it in her notes? If there was anything.

She picked up the Linski file. “Something small,” she said aloud. She put in a call to Dr. Altenberg.

“How small?” Altenberg asked.

“Relatively,” Marti answered.

“Oh.” Altenberg was silent for a moment. Apparently “relatively” meant something to her. “Before the white man came, the Potawatomi were foragers. They went wherever the food supply was. They made all kinds of bags and pouches to carry things in, and pitchkosans, or bundles, which they filled with medicinals, ceremonial items, or whatever identified which clan they belonged to. They decorated these with marvelous beadwork. Finding something like that that had been buried for a long time would be highly questionable but very profitable. They also made things out of the parts of animals that they couldn’t eat: deer hooves, porcupine quills. They made tools from animal bones and used bones for artwork, carving them and drawing on them. Something like that would be an exciting find. After the French and English arrived, they had ornaments made of German silver. Things like that would survive under those conditions. Flint and most metal objects wouldn’t have nearly as much historic significance.”

“Would they have had gold coins?” Marti asked.

“Possibly. Not that they had much of anything by the time they were made to leave here. The French and the English encouraged a ‘Buy now, pay later’ economy.”

“Is there anything you can think of that would be valuable if found?”

“The value would be based on demand. It could be almost anything if it was something that was scarce.”

“Thanks.” When Marti hung up, she had more questions. What would have such significant value, if found, that it had to be kept secret? Having people find out that Potawatomi, or even runaway slaves, had been on the Smiths’ property wouldn’t have any negative impact. If those rumors were proved to be true, Idbash would become a hero.

The phone rang again about an hour later, but when Marti answered, nobody spoke; after a few seconds they hung up. Curious, she looked at the receiver, and then put it down.

*   *   *

Ethan Dana stared at the receiver. He couldn’t do it, not yet. He didn’t want to know what had happened to Tommy, or what Tommy had done. He never wanted to know what Tommy was up to. Usually he had no choice, Tommy told him. This time Tommy’s silence had lasted since last August, the longest Tommy had ever gone without calling or coming back. This silence was scary because it was so unlike him. The picture of Tommy, which he had put in a drawer in his office, was scary too.

Solveig came in from the kitchen. “You called, Ethan? What did they say?”

“Whoever it was didn’t answer,” he lied.

She came over and sat on the arm of the chair. “I know you do not want to know what has happened. But Tommy is family. And all of us, all of Tommy’s family needs to know.”

Tommy had left last July. He had not come back. He had not called or written since last August. He would have been back by now, or at least would have called, if he could have. If. The thought made Ethan’s stomach churn.

He put his hand on Solveig’s stomach, felt the baby move. “Maybe we’ll call him Tommy,” he said. “Johans, for your father, Tommy Dana.”

“And Topash for your grandfather,” Solveig said. “Johans Topash Tommy Dana.”

“That’s a lot of names for one little kid.”

“Yes, but he will not be little forever, and with these names, he will always know who he is.”

“I love you,” he said. Solveig was the one person who knew all of who he was and loved all of him.

*   *   *

The sun was setting when Harry Buckner drove the lawn mower through the open doors of the barn. This was his favorite time of day. He would go outside for a while, sit there until the sun set, then go up to the loft and warm up a can of soup for supper. Life was good here. At least it had been until this afternoon, when he dug that last hole. If he had someplace else to go, maybe he would, but there was no other place, no other job either. He was overweight, had a gimp leg, and he was sixty-four. This was the end of the road, and, until today, not a bad road to end up on.

But now that girl was dead. Young. Pretty. Dead. The only sure thing he knew was that it was not because of him. He had gone back today, looked down at the fieldstone walls. There was no way he could have dislodged two of those stones with the backhoe. He didn’t know how those rocks had come loose, but it was not because he was negligent or drunk the way the driver who killed his Zoe had been. If only Zoe were here. If only she had had time to get out of the way of that car.

Before he got off the backhoe, Harry had reached down and picked up what looked like a metal collar. It was heavy, like lead, and rusty. It had hinges and two rings that came together so it could be locked. There was a ring that a rope or a chain could be attached to. It could have been used to tether an animal, a sheep maybe, or a goat. It was too small for a cow or a horse. Whatever this was used for, it had been buried for a long time. Now that he had found something, he wondered it the girl had found something too. Old man Smith had asked him about that.

He put the collar down and wiped his hands on his jeans. Was this why he was told to dig in that place among the trees? Were they looking for things like this, and tools, maybe, things people would have used when they were coming here in covered wagons? There was a shed on that land when the map was drawn.

Harry knew the Smith family well enough to know that everything they did was for a reason, and that most of their reasons had something to do with money. The land he was digging up was to be given away, but the rest of the land would be sold. Did that sale depend on what was on the land that was free? No. He didn’t want to know that. He didn’t want to know anything about any of this. He just wanted to do his job. If only he hadn’t found anything in the first place. He would hide it. Maybe then it would be like it had never been there at all. This was nothing, nothing important. Josiah asking about that girl finding something was making him feel uneasy, that was all.

*   *   *

Marti rested her head on Ben’s shoulder and let him lead her through the slow, easy rhythms of the music. The lights were dim, the conversation little more than an intimate hum interspersed with quiet laughter. They were at a small jazz club on the far south side of Chicago listening to music played by a trio that had been discovered and then forgotten before either of them was born. The saxophone player blew riffs on “Soul Eyes” that even Coltrane would have applauded. The bass throbbed like a heartbeat.

“Ummm-humm,” Ben murmured, holding her close. “It doesn’t get much better than this.”

She inhaled the pungent scent of his cologne and agreed. The music was hot, the beer was cold, her man was ready, and it was almost time to go home. “That hot tub and those vanilla candles are going to be calling to me real soon,” she said.

“I hear them now,” Ben whispered.

They left the next time the musicians took a break and listened to Coltrane for Lovers all the way home.

*   *   *

Josiah awakened to the sound of a woman crying. He sat up but did not reach for the light on the table beside his bed. He had never heard nor seen Jessica or Eileen cry, but he was certain this wasn’t either of them. This sounded like the weeping of someone who mourned. Josiah swung his feet over the side of the bed and felt along the carpet for his slippers. Then he stood, listening. This woman was far beyond any comfort he could give, although he wasn’t inclined to comfort her. Rather, he wanted her to be silent, to go away, and to cry someplace else. Her desperation was obvious, and also annoying. The question returned. Who was she?

His room was dark. The curtains were drawn, the windows closed. There was no light, but his eyes were accustomed to the darkness. He had slept in this room for years now. He could make out the tall peaks of the mirrors attached to his dresser, the cumbersome wardrobe, the thronelike chair in the corner. Heavy, bulky furniture, all of it. Older than he was, dated, but timeless. Josiah listened, but heard no unfamiliar sound other than the woman’s sobbing. He took his robe from the foot of the bed. Even though it was warm, the long hall tended to be drafty. He went to the door and eased it open, not because he didn’t want to frighten the woman but because he didn’t want her to know he was there. The crying did not become louder, nor could he see who it was. He peered out.

She was sitting on the top step of the stairway. He couldn’t see her face, only her back and her shoulders, hunched as she wept. He did know who she was, not by name, only because he had often stood by the window at night and watched as she walked past the oak trees toward the apple orchard and disappeared. Tonight as he watched, she began to rise. Alarmed, he closed the door. As he turned both locks, his hand shook. The woman, a harmless a presence outside, seemed less benign now. Why had she come inside after all of these years? Why had she come into the house?