Anne Marie Duquette Read online

  Well, well! It appeared he had a sense of humor, after all. Still, she was determined to curb her characteristic flippant remarks—at least until he knew her better.

  Much better…

  She had a tender heart, even if she had a tough hide, and she was willing to back down for a full smile from Wyatt Earp Bodine.

  “I’m sorry about my earlier remark,” she replied sincerely. “I think it’s because I was in vacation mode, not work mode. And I’m used to police showing up in squad cars.”

  “Horses are a fine police tradition.” His friendly expression faded a bit and challenged her to disagree. Caro did just the opposite.

  She nodded. “I had the honor of riding a police horse in New York’s Central Park a few years ago.” She noted his surprise. “I was there for a summer internship, and I helped them capture a serial murderer who preyed on joggers.”

  “But why were you on horseback?”

  “The killer was a pattern killer. He only chose certain paths in the park. None of us could figure out the pattern on foot or by map, but traveling from crime scene to crime scene on horseback broke the case. There were certain types of shrubbery at each location. The man was a Sunday gardener and preferred to kill next to his favorite botanical specimens. I identified certain pollens on the victims to help predict the next location. The police sent in a decoy jogger, and we nailed him.”

  “Nice work.”

  Some of the crowd had pressed closer to hear their conversation and added oohs and aahs of praise.

  Caro smiled at the compliments. “Not to be blowing my own horn, however.”

  Yeah, right, Caro. Like you’ve ever been modest when it comes to your career. Still, she’d worked hard on that case and was proud of her work. She’d been able at least to provide a jail sentence to comfort the families of the victims.

  “I was happy to see the culprit behind bars, but hated giving up that horse. A beautiful animal—like yours.”

  She boldly approached his Arabian and gave the velvety nose a gentle rub.

  “As for drumming up business…” She threw the skeleton a pointed glance. “That I rarely do, but since I stumbled on this poor soul, I’m more than happy to extend my services. Professional courtesy and all that.”

  “Thank you for the offer.” Disappointed, Caro noticed that the sheriff didn’t commit himself either way. “For now, if you’ll step aside, please,” he said in professional voice, “I need a closer look.”

  Caro immediately did; he was the primary officer on the crime scene, and she had no permission to touch the body until he gave it.

  Caro watched as Bodine tied up his horse, removed the walkie-talkie from his saddlebags and went to work. In a short time he’d called his assistant, an attractive redhead named Kimberly Ellis, to help him secure the area. He took statements from everyone present. Then he cleared the cemetery, except for Caro, his assistant and himself. He ordered the manager to close the cemetery until further notice, then—finally—directed his attention toward Caro.

  The three of them were gathered around the dusty bones as the sun rose higher in the sky. By now it was almost midafternoon. Another deputy had dropped off some sandwiches and cold drinks earlier, to Caro’s relief, and she was ready to begin work. If the sheriff permitted…

  “Well, what can I do to help?” she asked.

  “There’s no reason for you to stay,” Bodine said. “I’m sure I can set this right in a few days. It’s obvious this is some juvenile prank.”

  Caro couldn’t believe her ears. “It’s not obvious to me at all!”

  Bodine’s eyes narrowed. “I know this isn’t Phoenix, Doctor, but trust me, there’s no need to interrupt your vacation. Your skill isn’t needed to tell me that this skeleton is ancient. I’ll run a query through the computer, get the original burial log and make arrangements to have him or her reinterred.”

  “If someone’s missing a body. What if no one reports a grave desecration?” Caro demanded. Her attraction to Bodine instantly took a back seat to her work.

  “This is a small town, ma’am. They will. And that’ll be the end of it.”

  “You don’t know that! Come on, Sheriff! You really don’t want my help?” Caro said incredulously.

  “That’s what he said,” Kimberly purred. The woman gave Caro a warm smile and gently laid her hand on Bodine’s arm in a proprietary gesture. “Wyatt knows his stuff.”

  Caro gave Kimberly an assessing gaze. Physically the woman was a knockout. With her tousled auburn hair, lush curves shown off by tight jeans, and exotic gray eyes set in a carefully made up face, she seemed… aggressively feminine. Her appearance was a direct contrast to Caro’s, whose build was taller, stronger, leaner, whose long, straight hair was pulled into a no-nonsense ponytail. And unlike Caro, Kimberly wore her emotions—and her heart—on her khaki work-shirt sleeve.

  At least I know enough to keep my love life—what there is of it—private, Caro thought disdainfully. Clinging women gave all women a bad name as far as she was concerned, and made her answer Kimberly a bit more sharply than she’d intended. “I’m sure he does, Sheriff Ellis. But so do I.”

  “I’m not a sheriff,” Kimberly corrected. “I’m the town’s police dispatcher and office manager. And you can call me Kimberly. We’re very informal here.”

  “I see—Kimberly. So tell me. Does this informal little town have a trained forensic expert? Or a medical examiner?”

  “No, but Wyatt can get one from Tucson.”

  “I’d suggest you call one, then, if you don’t want my services. Because this man was murdered.”

  “Murdered!” Kimberly tilted her head in a charming motion, her hand still tucked in Wyatt’s arm. “Please, Miss Hartlan. I don’t see any bullet holes in this poor thing.”

  Caro found Kimberly particularly patronizing, and Wyatt’s acceptance of her on-the-job caresses irritating. “That’s Ms. Hartlan or Dr. Hartlan, please. And this ‘poor thing’ is also a victim.”

  “So you apparently informed the crowd,” Bodine said with a raised eyebrow. “Want to explain exactly what you mean?”

  “I don’t have my tools with me, and of course I haven’t touched the crime scene yet, but I can give you an off-the-cuff analysis.”

  “You have my permission to do so.”

  Caro glanced at him sharply. The sheriff had gone from friendly to coolly official as soon as she questioned his authority. Well, he shouldn’t have questioned her knowledge! She didn’t have one of the highest conviction rates on her cases for nothing.

  “Wyatt, really, you shouldn’t humor her…” Kim said in a soft voice, but Bodine abruptly straightened, shaking off her arm.

  About time! Caro thought. Whether the relationship was a personal or professional one, she preferred a man’s full attention.

  “All right, Doctor. I’m listening.”

  Caro knelt down in the dust again. She picked up a stick to use as a pointer and began.

  “Number one. This is definitely a male. The pelvis is steep and narrow compared to a female’s. Number two. He’s Caucasian. The nose ridge is narrow in relation to the height. In African and Asian skulls, the ridge is wider. The size of the eye sockets is also consistent with Caucasian heritage.”

  “This sure beats filing papers back at the office.” Kimberly’s eyes were suddenly bright with interest. She left Wyatt’s side to get closer to the remains. Her departure didn’t seem to bother Wyatt a bit, but it was certainly a relief to Caro. Maybe Kimberly wasn’t the traditional clinging vine, after all.

  And maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on young lovers. Just because I don’t have one of my own is no reason to drag out the sour grapes and—

  “Go on,” Bodine urged, interrupting Caro’s thoughts. “We’re waiting.”

  Caro pulled herself together. “Number three. This Caucasian male was a cowboy or suffered from rickets. Look at the bowed legs. The femur, the tibia and the fibula are all unnaturally curved. Since this is Tombstone, I’d go
with the cowboy hypothesis, though rickets could also be possible, depending on the age of this man.”

  “How can you tell?” Kimberly asked.

  “Well, for the age of the person at time of death, I’d need my microscope to do a calcification analysis.”

  “Incomplete calcification would mean a young adult, as full bone maturity hasn’t occurred. Bone degeneration would tell us full maturity has been reached and for how long,” Bodine explained to Kimberly.

  Caro looked up at the sheriff, impressed. He might be country, but he wasn’t out of touch with modern forensics. “That’s true. But these bones are obviously not those of a child, so we can rule that out.”

  “Can’t you tell how long the skeleton’s been lying around?” Kimberly asked.

  “No.” Bodine answered again. He’d unbent enough to hunker down next to Caro. Kimberly quickly joined them.

  “He’s right. I can’t. At least not yet,” Caro conceded. “Skeletons rarely yield clues about how long they’ve existed in actual calendar time.”

  “What about carbon dating?”

  “That process has too big a time margin for error to use on these bones,” Wyatt told Kimberly, who was watching him with rapt attention.

  “Right again, Sheriff. I see you know a bit about forensics yourself.”

  “A bit.” He shrugged.

  Caro suspected it was more than just a bit. “Only prehistoric artifacts are viable candidates for carbon dating,” she said. “Even then it’s not an exact science.”

  “Then how can you tell?” Kimberly asked, obviously not pleased by the exchange between Caro and the sheriff.

  “Oh, I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

  “Tricks?” Kimberly echoed.

  “Methods,” Caro corrected. “I tend to have a somewhat flippant tongue at times. I’ll try to be a little more precise.”

  Caro bent low over the skeleton, carefully examining the bone surfaces. “Judging by clothing decomposition rates— this skeleton has no visible traces at all—and the insect and rodent marks on the bone, I’d say we’re talking at least one generation older than us here. Possibly even two.”

  Kimberly wasn’t convinced. “You can tell that from just a few marks?”

  “And other things, as well. I see no modern dental work on this man. No modern fillings, no old-style gold fillings, no bridgework—nothing but bad teeth and…” Caro gently touched a socket in the jaw. “Look at the clamp marks on the bone here. I’d hypothesize that this tooth was yanked out with a pair of old tongs—like those used by farriers to shoe horses.”

  “That’s Old West dentistry, all right,” Bodine agreed. “But it still doesn’t explain why this man didn’t die a natural death.”

  “Look at these breaks. The trauma to the skull and the legs couldn’t have been self-inflicted.” Caro gestured with her finger to several areas.

  “But you said these bones are old,” Kimberly protested. “They seem awfully fragile.”

  “They could have broken during transit,” Wyatt added.

  “No. The two tibias and one femur both show serious splintering, which is how fresh bone breaks—like a twig off a living tree. Old, brittle bones break much cleaner, like dry wood. Same with the back of the skull. I noticed it earlier. These injuries most likely occurred at the time of death.”

  Caro reached for the skull, hesitated, then checked with Bodine. “Do I have your permission to disturb the murder victim?”

  “We don’t know if there’s even been a murder.” There was a hint of impatience in Kimberly’s voice. “And if this… man was murdered, the culprit’s probably already been sentenced and tried.”

  “Kimberly,” Bodine said, “please let me answer the questions.”

  Kimberly flushed, the red creeping up her untanned skin. But she refused to be silenced. “So far, I can only conclude trespassing and illegal disposal of a body. This is probably just some macabre, juvenile prank, right?”

  “I doubt it,” Caro replied. “Most juveniles aren’t willing to work so hard for a prank. Digging up a grave is hard work. So is moving all these pieces of bone.”

  Wyatt rubbed his chin. “That’s true. Kids would rather spray-paint walls.”

  “So far we have no proof this is a murder victim,” Kimberly insisted again.

  “Wrong. We do. This man did not die a natural death,” Caro said firmly. She pointed toward the legs again. “These breaks are compression breaks. I’ve seen this same kind of thing in sky-diving and bungee-jumping deaths. Either this man fell a very great distance…”

  “Or?” Bodine prompted.

  “He was pushed. I only hope his killer—”

  “If there was one,” Kimberly interrupted.

  “—was brought to justice. And as I’m sure you both know, there’s no statute of limitations on murder.”

  There was silence in the cemetery. Caro was suddenly aware of the old tombstones surrounding her with their grim messages. The black letters were stark on painted white crosses and slabs.

  Death by hanging…Murdered, poisoned, shot…Death by leprosy, death by smallpox, death by diphtheria… Shot, hanged, hanged by mistake… Death by Apaches, death by drowning, death by falling off a horse… Stabbed, shot, stillborn, suicide…

  And that wasn’t counting all the graves marked Unknown.

  Caro wasn’t superstitious but that didn’t stop the fine hairs on the back of her neck from rising. Her scientific observations told her this death was no accident. Her gut instinct told her the victim’s killer hadn’t been caught. Why else would an old corpse—one never buried in this cemetery—show up here? It appeared that Tombstone’s history of greed and violence had risen again.

  This was no juvenile prank.

  The desert wind blew through the cacti, hot and heavy, as Caro spoke. “You’re a small town. I know you don’t have a forensics expert or a medical examiner. I’m serious about helping out.”

  “For pay?” Wyatt asked.

  “If your town can afford it. Free if you can’t.”

  “The town can afford it.”

  “Wyatt, I think you should at least check the computer before hiring her on,” Kimberly said sensibly.

  “You need me now!” Caro directed her remarks to Bodine, not Kimberly. “A skeleton was deliberately left in the middle of Tombstone’s biggest tourist attraction. Someone anonymously removed it, then reassembled it in perfect anatomical order for shock value.” Caro had the satisfaction of seeing Wyatt start. She drove her point home. “Very few people can do that. Certainly not any juvenile prankster. What’s more, the skeleton was left where they knew a trained forensic scientist would find it.”

  “Don’t you think that’s… well, a stretch?” Kimberly asked. “Surely it’s no more than coincidence.”

  “I disagree. Maybe we could use some help, after all. Even the bones in the hands are in the right place,” Wyatt mused.

  So, Mr. Small-town Sheriff, you noticed that, too….

  “Really, Wyatt,” Kim protested. “A little anatomical knowledge doesn’t mean murder. This is cattle country. Everyone who’s ever butchered meat knows bones.”

  “And everyone reads the papers, too,” Caro argued. “Sheriff, you yourself said you read the article in the Tucson paper about my workshop. It mentioned that I enjoyed researching early forensic work in the Old West. It also reported that I was heading here when my workshop was done.”

  Bodine gave Caro his full attention, the blue eyes piercing. “You think this—incident—has something to do with you, Dr. Hartlan? Something personal?”

  “Doesn’t it? I think someone took a great deal of time and risk to make sure I found this skeleton. I was even the first person on the scene.”

  “Coincidence, too,” Kimberly added.

  “No. The sign listed what time the grounds opened. But I was here a good hour early and got in.” She saw Bodine’s expression tense.

  “Unless you jumped a five-foot fence and the six-foot-h
igh cactus walls inside, you couldn’t have. The only way to the cemetery is through the information-and-gift shop.”

  “It was unlocked, Sheriff,” Caro said. “I couldn’t find anyone, not even a guide, so I just walked in. The rest of the crowd showed up later—when I’d already found Mr. Bones here.”

  “If that’s true,” he mused, “then something isn’t right.”

  “Of course it isn’t! I’m positive pranksters had nothing to do with this!”

  It was some time before Wyatt spoke again. “Are you serious about offering your services?”

  “On one condition. You can hire me, but you can’t fire me. Town budget or not, I don’t quit until there’s nothing left for me to find. Is that agreeable?”

  “It is. But I want you to understand something. I’m in charge of this investigation. Forensic scientists assist the law, not the other way around. I’ll bow to your expertise as long as you acknowledge my authority on this case.”

  “Sheriff, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  Caro held out her hand and Bodine took it. They shook once, hard, then released hands, Southwestern style. “Consider yourself hired.”

  She nodded and went back to examining the body—and listening to the two officials consult with each other in tones that weren’t low enough for her ears to miss.

  “We rarely have to spend money to get the high-tech wizards out here,” Kimberly grumbled.

  “We rarely need them,” Bodine replied quietly. “This is a peaceful little tourist town. The most trouble we usually have is with illegal parking and a few disorderly beer drinkers in the summer. Forensic skills aren’t exactly our strong point. Maybe the doctor can teach us a thing or two, Kim.”

  Kimberly’s reply wasn’t gracious. “Well, I won’t argue with that—and I’m not talking about forensics. Dr. Hartlan certainly proved us the fools here. We were both ready to write this off as a hoax.”

  “I was ready to write it off as a hoax. You don’t have that authority. You’re not a law-enforcement officer, Kimberly. I am. Remember that.”

  The formidable set to Kimberly’s chin told Caro she wasn’t happy about being criticized.