Gil sat at his desk. He overheard the man calling to someone.
“This is right up your alley,” he told someone else. “His name is Gil Barnes. He’s the sheriff’s investigator over in Benton. He needs to talk to you.”
There was a pause and then a perky voice. “Hello?” a female answered.
“Yes. This is Gil Barnes—”
“He already told me that,” she interrupted. “What sort of problem do you have?”
“Skeletal remains,” he began.
“You need a forensic archaeologist for that,” she returned.
“I know what I need! Why the hell do you think I called the state crime lab for assistance?” he growled.
“Well!” she exclaimed. “If you’re going to be adversarial, this will not be a pleasant association. No, not at all. You shouldn’t speak like that to people who are just trying to help you . . .”
“You aren’t, and I didn’t,” he muttered. “Look, I need someone to process a body. Can you do it?”
“Of course I can do it,” she replied. “I’m a forensic archaeologist. There are very few of us, you know.”
He ignored the comment. “When can you come?”
There was another pause, then a joyful male voice agreeing that she could leave the office immediately. That wasn’t reassuring, either.
“You’re in, let’s see, Benton?” she murmured, as if she were looking at a map at the same time. “Yes, I can be there this afternoon about two, if that’s all right? Do you have an airport?”
“Yes,” he said with exaggerated patience, “we have an airport. Real planes land at it every day.”
“Sarcasm will not win you points with me,” she assured him.
“Hallelujah,” he said. “I’ll expect you at two. If you’ll phone the office, someone in a real sheriff’s car will come to the real airport and pick you up.”
“Now, see here . . . !”
He hung up as she was speaking.
* * *
Sheriff Jeff Ralston, standing right behind him, was almost doubled up laughing. “You poor man,” he exclaimed. “I wouldn’t be in your shoes for bank notes! I’ll bet she’s fifty and skinny as a rail and has hair that stands out on both sides.”
“And probably horns,” Gil agreed heavily. “I’m going to study forensic archaeology in case we ever find another skeletal remains in my lifetime,” he told his boss. “Just so I never have to deal with that person ever again!”
Jeff checked his watch. “While you’re waiting, you might check the database for missing persons in town or in our county. Of course, we don’t have an age or sex for the victim yet, but it wouldn’t hurt to do a preliminary search. It’s not like we have a lot of people go missing.”
“That’s true enough,” Gil said. “I’ll do that.”
And he did. But nothing turned up. It wasn’t surprising. A lot of missing persons cases never made it into the national database for one reason or another. This was one of those times.
* * *
In the meantime, Jane Denali finished the form she was typing and went to lunch while Jeff stared after her admiringly.
“Why don’t you ask her out?” Gil teased his boss.
Jeff sighed. “I don’t do anything for her,” he said wistfully. “But she sighs every time she looks at you. Why don’t you try your luck?”
“I’m off women,” Gil said quietly. “Now, about this DB that Red found. That phone call you heard was about this forensic archaeologist I’ve got coming over from Denver to take a look.” He made a face. “She’s got the personality of a snapping turtle, but maybe she’s good at her job. She’s flying in today.”
Jeff’s eyebrows arched. “That’s quick. I’d think she was much in demand, it being such a rare skill.”
“That’s what I thought. Her co-worker sure seemed anxious to get her out of his office,” he recalled. He shook his head. “After talking to her for five minutes, I understood why.”
“Well, if she’s good at her job, you can manage to get along with her for a day, right?”
“Sure,” Gil lied, and mentally crossed his fingers.
“I wonder who the remains could be?” Jeff wondered out loud. “We don’t have that many people go missing around here.” He scowled. “That water line was put in just after Mayor Handley—well, he wasn’t the mayor at the time, just a clerk at the hardware store—moved into that house with his wife.” He rolled his eyes. “She married him for what he had. Poor guy. She never wanted kids or a family life, just money, and Handley’s people were loaded.”
“If his family had money, why was he working as a clerk at the local hardware store?” Gil asked, curious.
“His dad believed in the work ethic. No easy path for his only child, no, sir. The boy worked his way up from cleaning the floors at the family business to selling stock to delivering lumber. The old man was a hard taskmaster. He cowed Dirk.”
“Shame.”
“It happens.”
“How many years ago was it when the mayor moved into that house?”
“Let me see, I was away in the military at the time, but my mother went to the wedding—she never liked Nita Handley—and it was the year the Autumn Festival was established in Benton, floats and bands and all. That was . . .” He thought about it for a minute. “Twelve years ago, roughly.”
“You’re a wonder, Jeff,” Gil said. He grabbed up his hat.
“Where are you off to?”
“The county office to look at copies of the weekly newspaper. To see if it lists any disappearances from twelve or so years ago.”
“I like the way you think,” Jeff said with a chuckle.
“Pays to have a curious nature if you’re going to investigate murders,” Gil replied with a grin.
* * *
Gil went through pages and pages of the newspaper without turning up anything.
“Any luck?” Judge Garrett, the longtime judge of probate court, asked after an hour, her short gray hair gleaming in the light from the overhead bulb.
“Nothing.” He sighed. “I wish there was a way to search these papers for key words.”
“It would be nice,” she agreed. “Maybe one day we’ll get a willing volunteer to do that for us. It would be a tremendous help.” She looked over his shoulder. “What are you looking for, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Anybody who disappeared between eleven and thirteen years ago,” he told her. He glanced up at her and smiled. “We found a body when city workers unearthed a broken water line.”
She was frowning, deep in concentration. “Marley Douglas,” she murmured, nodding. “Yes, it was Marley. He disappeared quite suddenly twelve years ago. He was on his way home from church one Sunday evening, but he never made it. I remember because it was raining cats and dogs. We had the worst flood in Benton’s history.”
He was taking notes on his phone. “How old was he?”
“Marley? Let me see, he was in his forties.”
“Married?”