Mitch said, “There were some old stone walls here. Foundation of a house. We moved all the stones over there, figured someone could use the rocks for something else.” He pointed to a pile of boulders near the edge of the lot. “Old walls, that’s really nothing unusual. You go walking in the woods, you find a lot of old foundations like this one. Used to be sheep farms all up and down the coast. Gone, now.”
“So this could be an old grave,” said Ballard.
“But that bone’s right up where one of the old walls was standing,” said Mitch. “I don’t think you’d want to bury dear old Ma so close to the house. Bad luck, I’d think.”
“Some people believed it was good luck,” said Maura.
“What?”
“In ancient times, an infant buried alive under the cornerstone was supposed to protect the house.”
Mitch stared at her. A look of
“I’m just saying that burial practices change over the centuries,” said Maura. “This could very well be an old grave.”
From overhead came a noisy flapping. The crows simultaneously rose from the tree, feathers beating the sky. Maura watched them, unnerved by the sight of so many black wings lifting at once, as though by command.
“Weird,” said Gresham.
Maura rose to her feet and looked at the trees. Remembered the noise of the bulldozer that morning, and how close it had seemed. “Which direction is the house from here? The one I stayed in last night?” she asked.
Gresham looked up at the sun to orient himself, then pointed. “That way. Where you’re facing now.”
“How far is it?”
“It’s right through those trees. You could walk it.”
The Maine state medical examiner arrived from Augusta an hour and a half later. As he stepped out of his car, carrying his kit, Maura immediately recognized the man with the white turban and neatly trimmed beard. Maura had first met Dr. Daljeet Singh at a pathology conference the year before, and they had dined together in February, when he’d attended a regional forensics meeting in Boston. Though not a tall man, his dignified bearing and traditional Sikh headdress made him seem more formidable than he really was. Maura had always been impressed by his air of quiet competence. And by his eyes; Daljeet had liquid brown eyes and the longest lashes she’d ever seen on a man.
They shook hands, a warm greeting between two colleagues who genuinely liked each other. “So what are you doing here, Maura? Not enough work for you in Boston? You have to come poach my cases?”
“My weekend’s turned into a busman’s holiday.”
“You’ve seen the remains?”
She nodded, her smile fading. “There’s a left iliac crest, partially buried. We haven’t touched it yet. I knew you’d want to see it in situ first.”
“No other bones?”
“Not so far.”
“Well, then.” He looked at the cleared field, as though steeling himself for the tramp through the dirt. She noticed that he’d come prepared with the right footwear: L.L. Bean boots that looked as if they were brand-new and about to get their first test on muddy terrain. “Let’s see what the bulldozer turned up.”
By now it was early afternoon, the heat so thick with humidity that Daljeet’s face was quickly glazed with sweat. As they started across the clearing, insects swarmed in, taking bloody advantage of fresh meat. Detectives Corso and Yates from the Maine State Police had arrived twenty minutes earlier, and were pacing the field along with Ballard and Gresham.
Corso waved and called out: “Not the way to spend a beautiful Sunday, hey, Dr. Singh?”
Daljeet waved back, then squatted down to look at the ilium.
“This was an old homesite,” said Maura. “There was a stone foundation here, according to the crew.”
“But no coffin remains?”
“We didn’t see any.”
He looked across the landscape of muddy stones and uprooted weeds and tree stumps. “That bulldozer could have scattered bones everywhere.”
There was a shout from Detective Yates: “I found something else!”
“Way over there?” said Daljeet, as he and Maura crossed the field to join Yates.
“I was walking by here, got my foot caught in that knot of blackberry roots,” said Yates. “I tripped over it, and this kind of popped up from the dirt.” As Maura crouched beside him, Yates gingerly eased apart a thorny tangle of uprooted canes. A cloud of mosquitoes rose from the damp soil, lighting on Maura’s face as she stared at what was partially buried there. It was a skull. One hollow orbit stared up at her, pierced by tendrils of blackberry roots that had forced their way through openings that had once held eyes.
She looked at Daljeet. “You have a pruner?”
He opened his kit. Out came gloves, a rose pruner, and a garden trowel. Together they knelt in the dirt, working to free the skull. Maura clipped roots as Daljeet gently scooped away earth. The sun beat down, and the soil itself seemed to radiate heat. Maura had to pause several times to wipe away sweat. The insect repellant she had applied an hour ago was long gone, and blackflies were once again swarming around her face.
She and Daljeet set aside their tools and began to dig with their gloved hands, kneeling so close together that their heads bumped. Her fingers tunneled deeper into cooler soil, loosening its hold. More and more cranium emerged and she paused, staring down at the temporal bone. At the massive fracture now revealed.
She and Daljeet glanced at each other, both registering the same thought:
“I think it’s loose now,” said Daljeet. “Let’s lift it out.”
He laid out a plastic sheet, then reached deep into the hole. His hands emerged cradling the skull, the mandible partly anchored to it by helpful spirals of blackberry roots. He laid his treasure on the sheet.
For a moment, no one said anything. They were all staring at the shattered temporal bone.
Detective Yates pointed to the metallic glint of one of the molars. “Isn’t that a filling?” he said. “In that tooth?”
“Yes. But dentists were using amalgam fillings a hundred years ago,” said Daljeet.
“So it could still be an old burial.”
“But where are the coffin fragments? If this was a formal burial, there should be a coffin. And there’s this little detail.” Daljeet pointed to the crush fracture. He looked up at the two detectives bending over his shoulder. “Whatever the age of these remains, I think you have a crime scene here.”
The other men had crowded in around them, and suddenly the air felt as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of it. The buzz of mosquitoes seemed to grow to a pulsing roar. It’s so warm, she thought. She rose to her feet and walked on unsteady legs toward the edge of the woods, where the canopy of oak and maple cast a welcome shade. Sinking onto a rock, she dropped her head in her hands, thinking: This is what I get for not eating breakfast.
“Maura?” called Ballard. “Are you okay?”
“It’s just this heat. I need to cool down for a moment.”
“Would you like some water? I have some in my truck, if you don’t mind drinking from the same bottle.”
“Thank you. I could use some.”
She watched as he headed toward his vehicle, the back of his shirt stained with wings of sweat. He didn’t bother to pick his way delicately across the uneven field, but just forged ahead, boots tramping across broken soil. Purposeful. That’s the way Ballard walked, like a man who knew what needed to be done, and simply got on with it.
The bottle he brought back to her was warm from sitting in the truck. She took a greedy gulp, water trickling down her chin. Lowering the bottle, she found Ballard watching her. For a moment she didn’t notice the hum of insects, the murmur of men’s voices as they worked yards away. Here, in the green shadows beneath the trees, she could focus only on him. On the way his hand brushed hers as he took the bottle back. On the soft light dappling his hair, and the web of laugh lines around his eyes. She heard Daljeet call her name, but she didn’t answer, didn’t turn away; neither did Ballard, who seemed just as trapped in the moment. She thought: One of us has got to break the spell. One of us has got to snap back out of it. But I can’t seem to manage it.
“Maura?” Daljeet was suddenly standing right beside her; she hadn’t even heard his approach. “We have an
