washing each bone fragment as if it was precious, then marking each one just so, with the attention that is usually reserved for relics. These were part of a faunal collection, once, or an archaeological assemblage. The thing is,” I said, squinting at the numbers, “I’d be willing to bet that they came from Caldwell College.”
“Not one of your sites?” Meg asked quickly.
“No, I don’t think so,” I replied. “Caldwell’s collections, but not one of mine—we don’t have any human stuff from my sites. There’s a lot of stuff that was recently recatalogued, collections curated by my predecessors.” I finally looked up at Dave’s worried face. “They’re human. Finger phalanges, I think—you can see they’re a little flattened on one side. Toe bones are rounder, if I recall correctly. But these marks, the writing, indicate where these were found, and on what site. We do exactly the same thing.”
“So that means…what?” asked Meg.
“It could be a couple of things,” Stannard said. He was looking at the water again, rubbing his hand back and forth over his head, rumpling up his brown hair. Completely unconscious about it, as usual. “It could be someone from Caldwell. Obviously, whoever it was knew you’d both be here, knew enough to make it look like one of your units, had access to the collections.”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Most of the department is scattered to the four corners of the world. Most of them will be coming back in a couple of weeks. I’m thinking of faculty, not students, though I’ve got an idea where most of them are. The archaeologists, at least.”
Meg and Dave looked at me skeptically. “Okay, well the graduate students. Keeping track of undergraduates is like keeping track of fruit flies. There seem to be millions of them, and they’re always in constant motion.”
“Doesn’t mean they couldn’t have come back early,” Meg said.
“I know, but there’s none of them that would do a thing like this,” I said, a little impatient. We had to narrow it down somehow. “We can ask Chuck, our administrator, if he’s seen anyone—crap!” I slapped my forehead. “The keys!”
“Right!” Meg said.
Stannard furrowed his brow, confused.
“There are only a few keys to the storage areas,” I explained, “and it gets recorded when they’re given out. I have one, Neal—that’s Meg’s fiancé—had one, but he turned it in—”
“I remember him. Nice kid. Congratulations, you,” he said to Meg. She nodded impatiently, wanting to stay on track.
“I don’t know who else would have a key right now,” I finished, frustrated. “Since I’m the only archaeologist, I can’t think that the linguists or social anthropologists need to get at the curation facilities. So it’s got to be Professor LeBrot’s stuff—he’s our physical anthropologist. We can double-check, and ask Chuck too.”
“There’s another possibility,” Dave said, looking troubled now.
I nodded.
“It could be that someone broke into the storage. Someone pulling a stunt to play with your head, as well as cause you some kind of injury.”
“Maybe they didn’t need to break in,” I said.
Meg looked up.
“Maybe Tony’s still got a key,” I said to Dave, then explained my current theories. His frown deepened as my story worked its way up to the present.
“Even if the locks have been changed since that time, I’m sure he remembers enough of how to get in some other way. Nick another key, break in during the night, follow someone in, something like that.”
“You should make sure you speak with the administrator, and the people in your department,” Stannard said after a pause. “This is serious. Even if it isn’t Tony Markham, someone deliberately tried to hurt you two—”
“And if it is Tony,” I said, a little impatient, “you need to be careful too, Dave. I think…he’s reaching out to people I know. Some of them were related to his case, some are people who are close to me, family, friends. I think that with your involvement with the case, you should be extra alert. And your family, too.”
“You know, Emma, we’ve discussed this before,” he started slowly. “Last time we had this conversation, after the conference in January, I was pretty sure Tony Markham was dead. I still am, truth be told.”
I shook my head. “I still say, there’s no proof that he’s dead. No body, nothing. And even if it isn’t Tony, it’s someone who knows enough of the details of my history, and therefore our association with this site and Pauline’s murder. Information that isn’t readily available—”
“Most everything is readily available, these days,”