Todd Ellison hunched over his large desktop computer, which took up most of the tiny alcove table in his kitchen. He’d been going through the photos he’d taken of the Alberta plains and badlands, supposedly making selections for his book, but in reality he was wasting precious time on news sites and Google searches related to the body in the coulee.
After the first flurry of police activity, the forensics and excavation teams had been more subtle so as not to pique the curiosity of the media. Their equipment and vehicles were parked in the coulee out of sight of the highway, and only the most astute observer would know they’d been there all week. One day, Todd had sent a camera drone over the coulee, only to discover that a tent had been erected over the site, making it impossible to see what they were up to.
Today, the tent was gone. The vehicles had left the mouth of the coulee, and the land had been returned to nature, leaving nothing but a gaping hole and pile of debris to blend in with the landscape. Surely at this point the police would issue a statement, even if only a few sentences about the discovery of remains in the coulee and the next steps in the investigation.
The bones could be an important chapter in his book. On the basis of the story, he’d already made contact with a local publisher who’d expressed tentative enthusiasm for the project. Photography books of the badlands, especially with a hint of history, sold well with tourists. This could be his light at the end of a very dark tunnel.
He already had the photographs and the hint from the palaeontologist that the bones looked old. Knowing the police might take months to release the identity of the victim, Todd had been scouring the Internet for old stories of missing persons in the area. A few reports had surfaced, but the person had usually turned up alive and well hundreds of kilometres away or the body had been recovered. Natural causes most of the time: drownings, snowmobile crashes, or heat stroke.
But without access to police files, his reach was limited. He’d discovered the RCMP had a National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains that maintained a database to help investigators to make links. He knew there would be a flurry of investigation behind the scenes, and he chafed with frustration that he had to wait for the official police press release.
He wondered if there had been any local gossip over the years about disappearances that had never made it into the papers or police files. Although he grew up in the area, he’d been gone for nearly twenty years, and his childhood memories were mostly of fishing, playing hockey, and flirting with girls — without much success in any field.
His friend Derek had much deeper roots here, stretching back generations to the settlers, and he might be much better tuned to the gossip channel.
“Hey, man,” he said in his most cheery, casual voice when he called Derek up. “How’s it going?”
Derek muttered something about being late for a meeting and cut him short. “What’s up?”
Todd gave up on the preamble. “Have you heard any more about the body?”
“Nope.”
“Did you tell anyone?”
“We were sworn to secrecy, remember?”
“I know, but …”
“I mentioned it to my old man because he noticed my truck alongside the cop cars that first day, and he figured maybe I was in trouble. I bet half the valley’s wondering what that was about.”
“Did your father say anything? Like who it might be?”
“Not to me. You heard anything?”
“No, but I’m working on my book —”
“What the fuck’s your book got to do with it?”
“If it’s an early settler story, it would be gold for the book. I discovered it!”
“Why don’t you ask that palaeontologist? What was her name? Virginia? She was kind of cute. Science nerd, just your type, and she was into you. Ask her out.”
Todd’s cheeks flushed hot. She was attractive, but in truth, he’d found her rather scary. “I can’t just phone her up.”
“Why not? She gave you her card, didn’t she?”
“I hardly know her, and besides, she’s way out of my league.”
“Says who? You got a university degree, and you’re an artist. Chicks love that.”
Todd was silent, playing potential date scenarios over in his head.
“Dude!” Derek said. “Get on this. At your age, you gotta be bold to get the good ones. Listen, I have to go. Just do it. It’s a drink, not marriage.”
Todd turned the woman’s card over and over in his hands. When she’d handed it to him, she’d smiled and said it was in case he remembered more details about his discovery. But had it really been an invitation? Had that smile been more that just friendly?
His marriage and divorce had left his confidence and trust in tatters. For more than two years, he’d sworn off women, the root of all pain and betrayal. When he’d finally ventured back into the fray online, he’d done so expecting to fail, and he had. The women were either super messed up or they were after a guy with more than a broken-down truck and a pile of debts.
But Derek was right; this was just a drink to chat about the body and to share his plans for his book. He could even ask her if she had any tidbits on other bone discoveries he could use.
He eyed the card, faced with the next doubt. What should he call her? Dr. Satov sounded too formal. Virginia? It was a pretty name that almost seemed to soften her. How should he contact her? Texting was too abrupt. It gave no chance for preamble or context. Phoning was scary. What if he couldn’t find his tongue? What if she didn’t know how to respond? Email would give him the chance to explain and her the time to get used to the idea and consider her response. It was impersonal, but it protected them both.
He typed up a short email to her, hoping she at least remembered who he was. After a short Hello Virginia, hope you are well, blah, blah, he told her he was working on a book called Ghosts of the Ancient Dead, and he thought she might have some interesting stories. How about a drink after work sometime? His treat.
He edited and reedited until he thought it hit just the right tone. Casual, friendly, confident, and not at all desperate. Then he pressed Send. For the rest of the day he had to resist the urge to check his email every five minutes. Nothing, His confidence began to fade. Then at four o’clock, a response popped up.
Just got in from the field. How about the Last Chance Saloon in Wayne? Five o’clock?
Todd froze. That was way too fast. He needed time to prepare his pitch. Time to psych himself up. Holy fuck, he needed a shower! It was at least a half hour drive to Wayne, which was deep in the coal mining hills near Drumheller.
He loved the Last Chance Saloon, an iconic, old-fashioned bar that had almost single-handedly rescued the former mining village of Wayne from certain death by combining excellent food with live music and a Western saloon atmosphere. There was even a bullet embedded in one of its walls to tell the tale of rougher times when bar brawls were common. It said a lot about her character that she’d chosen it instead of a safe, boring wine bar in Drumheller or a chain restaurant on the outskirts. The choice showed imagination, daring, and a love of things beyond the ordinary.
His fingers hovered over the keyboard as he waffled. Finally, he tried to hit the same tone as hers. How about 5:30? And maybe add in dinner. Can’t pass up their shovelhead burger.
He hopped in the shower, pleased with himself. He had a few moments of panic as he hunted through his closet for something vaguely clean before finally settling on the Western uniform of jeans, jean jacket, and leather cowboy boots. His height was his best feature, and the outfit showed it off well. He stared at his unruly hair in dismay. No time for a haircut. He tried a man bun but felt ridiculous, so he decided to let it fall where it wanted.
The drive to Wayne was itself a step back in time, past the ugly, modern big-box stores in outer Drumheller, down the Red Deer River valley, and then along a narrow, snaking road into the barren, coal-striped hills. He crossed over the winding Rosebud River nine times on single-lane bridges. The Last Chance Saloon and its adjacent Rosedeer Hotel had a line of cars and pickups out front where once there would have been horses and wagons. The weathered yellow buildings were the only signs of life in the town. Inside, the smells of beer, beef, and grease enveloped him as if they were steeped into the very walls. A skinny old-timer tinkered away at the piano, and a handful of people were clustered around old-fashioned wooden tables.
To Todd’s delight, Virginia Satov was already perched on a stool by the window, studying the menu and sipping a beer from a Mason jar. She greeted him with a big smile, and he felt his doubts fade away. She was making this easy.
He ordered a beer, and they exchanged chat about the weather, the picturesque drive, and their last visit to the saloon. Then an awkward silence fell. She twirled her mug.
“I don’t usually do this,” she began, her eyes on her mug. “I mean, on such short notice. It’s just I’m going to Calgary tomorrow, and I figured …”
He spotted his opening. “Oh? Anything to do with the remains?”
“Oh, no.” She whipped her head back and forth. “That’s in the hands of the forensic anthropologist and the medical examiner now. They took the whole skeleton to the lab in Calgary, so it will take time. We excavated it still encased in sediment, and it will be up to them to separate out the bones, clean, and examine them. The lab has X-ray machines and all the specialized equipment for chemical analysis like radiocarbon dating.”
He was disappointed. “So it’s all still in one big chunk? They can’t tell anything about it like its age, sex, or how long it’s been there?”
“We have some preliminary estimates. You did excavate some of the bones, and based on that I recommended they should move it intact to the morgue.”
“Why?” When she frowned, he backtracked. “I mean, I’m curious about the process. Would you always dig it up that way?”
“If you want to see exactly how the remains lay in the soil, what position the body was in, I mean, then yes. It helps you determine how it got there and how the various injuries might have been sustained.”
“There were injuries? You could see that?”
She hesitated. “The skull had a hairline fracture above the left ear that could have been caused by a fall or post mortem by debris falling, or …”
He sipped his beer to feign a casual air. “Or it could have been caused by someone hitting him on the head.”
She sat back with a nervous laugh. “Possibly. But they’re not going to tell me that.”
“Because that would mean murder.”
She smiled. “We’re a long way from that. We use this kind of positional and trace injury evidence all the time to figure out how a dinosaur might have died, but it’s still just a theory that we fit with existing knowledge. In this case, obviously, we have to leave it to the experts.”
“But can you tell how the skeleton ended up buried? Because if it was deliberately buried and not washed over by sand …”
She nodded. “That’s another reason for removing it intact. If it fell or lay on the surface, the bones would have fallen to the same horizontal plane once the soft tissues dissolved. Furthermore, it’s likely some of the remains would have been scattered by water flow and scavengers like coyotes, foxes, even crows. At the lab they will look for signs of tooth marks and eye sockets pecked.”
Todd squirmed. The poor man. Or woman. He pictured the scene he and Derek had uncovered. The bones had not been on a horizontal plane. The femur had been sticking up, and the skull and some of the ribs were way above the others.
“But when you saw it, you thought it was deliberately buried, didn’t you?”
She looked alarmed but not surprised.
“Is that why you told them to take it out intact?”
“I’m not allowed to comment, Todd. I’ve already said more than I should. The RCMP want to keep a lid tighter than an oil drum on this whole thing because of all the missing and murdered Indigenous women. They want to manage the information. All they’re saying is the investigation is in its early stages.”
“So you’re saying it’s a woman?”
She stared at him. Blinked. “I didn’t say that. Please. You’re getting way ahead of things.”