Bring Up the Bones

By S. E. Chase

Forensic anthropologist Kait Jenret retrieves three unwanted skeletons from a museum collection in Upstate New York.

Who are they and what happened to them?

The specter of murder pulls in detectives Einar Hannesson and Robert Layton and opens the door to a mystery of ominous proportions. More skeletons, more questions.

All of them missing left hands. But why?

Einar enlists the reluctant help of former partner Michael Lewis, Jenret's fiancé, in trying to unravel the growing mystery. Lewis has substantial issues of his own, including the nasty fact that he's undead and doesn't really understand what it means for him.

And deep in the northern Adirondacks, trapper Thomas Skinner, imbued with his own abiding sense of religion, holds the bloody key that will draw them all into his territory.

Secrets may lay buried for decades, but they rise to the surface when you bring up the bones.

• Language: English
• Publisher: S. E. Chase
• Release date: Jul 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311469533

S. E. Chase

S. E. Chase has spent a career as a curator, interpretive specialist and exhibition planner in history and technology museums. As is common in the 'many hats' world of nonprofits, she has written more than her share of grant applications, exhibition scripts, budget statements and management reports. From scrounging through basement cisterns for artifacts to exploring the history of electrical technology, she's absorbed a wealth of materials to use as creative raw material for fiction writing. She also happens to be the author of several nonfiction history publications about places and people in New York State and Delaware under the name Stephanie Przybylek.After growing up in Northwestern PA, and spending more than a decade in the snowy winters of the Finger Lakes and Upstate New York, she decamped to the temperate Mid-Atlantic and Chesapeake Bay region to experience actual springtime and enjoy the taste of steamed crabs and beer.S. E. loves traveling (yes, she has been to Iceland and wants to return), beer brewing, horse racing, photography and exploring nature. She's a musician, artist, writer and lover of animals, currently answering to two cats and a Shiba Inu.This is her first novel.

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Bring Up the Bones

S. E. Chase

Published by S. E. Chase at Smashwords

Copyright 2015 S. E. Chase

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

About S. E. Chase

CHAPTER 1

April 16, 2014

She drove east on the thruway from Utica, three boxed skeletons on her Mazda’s back seat.

Don’t slam on the brakes. Bones will fly, Kait Jenret said aloud—despite being the only living passenger.

A guy in a rusted beater passed on the left, turned his head and snarled an insult

She stared back but didn't respond. She loved gunning the engine and usually would have blown his doors off. Now she eased her foot off the gas when the speedometer hit seventy—how would she explain her cargo to the cops?

The skulls sat upright on bones in cardboard cartons, surrounded by darkness. Did they know what was happening, sense the motion? Worry about being lost again?

If only her dark mood would pass.

At least the sun was shining, rare for Upstate New York in mud season. The first signs of spring—pink-tinged buds on trees and snowdrops peaking through the ground—brightened yards and hills along the Mohawk River. She rolled down the window to half and took a deep breath, wind hitting her face and blowing her dark hair in waves. Bracing but needed. Summer was coming at last. A few snow patches lay on the ground, but they’d soon be gone—and good riddance to everything they signified. It’d been a terrible winter. That she’d remained in New York State and hadn’t returned to Texas seemed surreal.

She pondered her passengers’ strange fate. Who tosses human skeletons? After thirty years in a small upstate museum, they’d been thrown away but saved by an intern appalled they’d been discarded. He snuck them to a larger institution in Utica where they were relegated to storage. They sat unstudied until a new curator found them in March and requested they leave the building immediately.

The small museum refused to take them back. Utica staff discovered they'd had been unearthed in Seward City and contacted Seward City Police, who referred them to the Medical Examiner’s Office, where Kait, on leave from Baylor University’s Forensic Anthropology Department, was consulting. It was a lot of bureaucratic shuffling for boxes of bones. But they deserved better than abandonment.

She pulled through the security kiosk, relieved her drive with the dead was over, and parked near a squat modernist building she and colleagues derided as ‘the brick tank,’ an urban renewal relic displaying the character of dull cinder blocks. Even a rare sunny day couldn’t improve its blot on the municipal landscape

Marta Lantanna, Seward City Medical Examiner and Robbie RJ Junkowski, a white-coated forensic tech, met her in the entry bay.

Kait stepped from the car and threw her sunglasses on the seat.

Door-to-door service. RJ said. Think your passengers appreciate it?

Kait laughed. Not likely.

Marta smiled and shook her head. Even the live ones often don't.

RJ gave her a quizzical look.

You're young. Marta opened the back door. You'll learn. Courtesy and gratitude aren't common responses to our presence.

Yeah. Grim Reaper's clean up crew. Kait circled to Martha and took a box from her. People cringe when they see us coming.

RJ smiled. Hey, we get a reaction.

Marta shook her head.

They carried the boxes to the forensic laboratory and set them on stainless steel examination tables. Kait and Marta slipped on blue nitrile gloves and opened the first box, unwrapping bones, inventorying them and placing them in rough position on the table, the disconnected semblance of a person.

OCD alert, coming through. . . RJ zipped around them. He held a small finger bone in a gloved hand, rotated so a catalogue number was visible. Each is numbered. Black ink, neat penmanship. He set it down, reached for his digital camera and photographed it twice, once next to a ruler and once without, then repeated the process for each bone. He worked with precision and soon completed the first skeleton.

Marta looked perplexed. Wrapped and numbered but no paperwork?

Kait sighed. No. Just a brief statement about unearthing them in Seward City in the 1960s. She moved the empty box to the counter. Intern grabbed the bones. Didn’t take the records. That’s the story from Utica. She fired up her laptop and typed information about size, condition, wear marks and number system into a database.

RJ furrowed his brow. Catalogue numbers—done by manic neat freak, I gotta add—suggest someone unearthed them at an archaeological dig.

I agree. But the situation’s weird. Site isn’t identified or documented? Doesn’t make sense. Marta finished unpacking the second skeleton then discarded her gloves and hung her lab coat on a hook. She smoothed her dress jacket, straightened her skirt and slipped a lanyard with identification badge around her neck. I'd love to stay and help. This puzzle’s more intriguing than budget meetings. But administrative duties beckon. She headed for the door but paused. No information at all?

No, Kait said. None in Utica—I asked, believe me. Intern was long gone. Staff had no idea how to find him. After he hoisted the skeletons to the top shelf, no one touched them. Not once. She shook her head. They’ve shuttled through museums gathering dust since 1966.

Cold. RJ pantomimed a shiver. Your mortal remains forgotten in a cardboard box.

Someone threw catalogued human skeletons away. Marta shook her head. A first for me.

Kait nodded. Me too. Thought I’d had my share of strange. When she worked in museums—before the unpleasant kidnapping pushed her back to forensic anthropology—she’d joke about her weird radar, tuned to the same frequency as a wide assortment of crazies who gravitated to her with odd requests. On the return from Utica, she decided her radar was still sending signals.

Early 1990s, director at the small museum discarded them. She glanced at Marta. Apparently the founding director authorized a dig in ’66. She reviewed her notes. Otisco Museum, that’s the name, in Auburn. The later director dumped them by a rear door where the intern found them. I’ll go talk to staff, track down information.

Shit. RJ said. Dude should be prosecuted. Ditching the dead. Nasty.

Lots of things are nasty. Kait paused, fingers over the laptop keyboard. ‘The world is nasty."

There are a few bright spots, countered Martha.

RJ laughed. That’s the truth. But lots of bad air in the world, man.

New York State has laws against disposal of human remains, Marta halted in the doorway. But historic skeletons in museum collections wouldn’t fall under those guidelines. She shook her head. I don’t understand—Auburn isn’t near Seward City. Why come here? Why transport them three hours west? Sounds unethical.

Kait nodded. Something’s off. She looked across the tables and brushed a gloved hand along the counter edge. Their nonidentity was disconcerting, especially for the way in which they’d been discovered and hauled away. The bones looked clean. But they’d been in museum storage. No erosion, staining, or wear. Hadn’t been gnawed by rodents or disarticulated and broken apart. Had to belong to someone, perhaps native cultures, long-lost settlers or relics of a more ominous past? She wanted to soothe their anonymous souls. Recent experience had made her more tuned to the dead. If only they could talk.

RJ snorted. Yeah, they’d be screaming.

Hmm . . . something to be said for the silence of the deceased—but I suspect there’s more to the story. Marta sighed. Good luck. Let me know what you find out. She turned to leave, then stopped. Any outside tests needed to identify them, consider approvals given. The least we can do. She smiled and with a wave of her hand headed to her senior administration meeting.

They aren’t prehistoric. Kait stepped back from the table with the smallest skeleton.

Historic? Colonial soldiers, immigrant settlers, or wandering minstrels? RJ set the skull from the second box on the table and snapped a digital image.

Kait smiled. None of the above. More contemporary—they don’t appear to have been in the ground long before they were unearthed. We’ll test to verify, but I estimate they’re twentieth century. She set a jawbone by a skull that still held a few teeth. Stroke of luck. They might yield DNA in remaining pulp or provide dental records. She and RJ stepped back, glancing at the two whole skeletons and almost completed third—forlorn on shining tables, alien in the florescent antiseptic glare.

RJ whistled and ran a hand through his hair. Wow. Twentieth? Not cool. Could be my grandparents. How’d they end up in a museum?

Good question. An archaeological dig gone haywire? Fraud? Don’t have an answer. If they were my relatives, I’d be pissed.

Can you imagine? Your dead loved one reappearing years later?

Kait glanced at him, began to speak but stopped.

I don't have to imagine it.

RJ, oblivious to her hesitation, had moved on, photographing more bones.

Wait a minute . . . Kait paced, walked again past each, leaning in for a closer look. Shit.

What? RJ looked up.

They aren’t complete.

Huh?

Missing a left hand. All of them.

RJ scrambled to her side. Creepy, he said. Just not right.

Funny. She raised an eyebrow.

He broke into a sheepish grin. Know what I mean. Sinister as in bizarro land. Maybe someone believed that ‘left is evil’ thing. Grandma used to slap me when I ate with my left hand. Said I’d go to hell. We didn’t visit her much. His eyes jerked between the tables. Someone didn’t like lefties.

Great. Kait looked at RJ. I’m left-handed.

Yeah. So am I.

Hope it isn’t a bad omen. Kait moved the other empty boxes to the counter. She’d had enough of myths and omens to last a lifetime. Or several.

Isn’t it always? RJ shrugged. All bad karma sinks down here. Rats, moles and the dead.

Don’t say that too loud.

Why?

Mole gods might hear you and make it so.

He laughed.

People listen to that crap, she said. Think you’re accusing them of dismissing you, or whining about not being with the big dogs in shiny offices. You know, the upstairs downstairs thing.

RJ laughed. Yeah. I volunteer at the blood bank and hear ’em fight about it. Admin staff honchos have big glass-windowed offices over the river. Program people have a basement corner.

Some things never change. She shrugged and returned to work. Gentle hands rotated the largest skull. Shattered edges with radiating hairline fractures led to a jagged hole in the occipital bone below the lambdoid suture. A knot tightened in her stomach. They didn’t die of natural causes. She walked the aisle a third time, reexamining the other two skulls. Identical trauma. She swore. Shit. Bad omen, worse karma—they were murdered.

RJ raised an eyebrow. Murdered.

Death by sharp object to the base of the skull.

Damn. Serious bad karma.

Our day just got more complicated. Kait pulled out her cell and called the Seward City Investigative Division.

Detective First Class Einar Hannesson and Detective Second Class Robert Layton walked through the door, escorted by a young tech with curly hair and red glasses. The girl eyed them, her nonstop chatter and jerky movements betraying nervousness in their presence. Einar seemed amused but Layton was annoyed. Kait made a mental note to speak with her later—first day jitters were normal, but she had to get used to dealing with cops. Came with the territory. The tech pointed, wished the detectives good afternoon and scurried away.

We don't bite, Einar turned and yelled as she left. Honest.

RJ looked up, surprised.

Layton shook his head.

Einar caught his partner's reaction. He smiled at Kait.

Ever the people person, she said.

Tall and dressed as usual in suit and tie, he stepped forward and ducked a low hanging light fixture that’d been rotated to get closer to an exam table. He came to Kait’s side and peered at the skeletons through wire-rimmed glasses.

"Hvað er að frétta, he said in Icelandic. What’s new?"

The dead, she said.

His fingers brushed her arm.

Kait smiled. Interesting didn’t do him justice. He’d lived in the states for years but had never lost the otherness that coming from the land of glaciers, geysers and volcanoes conveyed. That, and like some Icelanders, he believed (or claimed he believed) in ghosts, elves and other unworldly beings. He lauded Bigfoot sightings and cryptozoology news. Sometimes he did it for effect as an odd force field against bureaucracy and the crap of his job. At other times . . .

Whatever his secret rationale, he didn’t hide his weird views. It drove other detectives, including his partner, crazy. He was a good cop but not an unthinking team player and his stubborn independence didn’t sit well with Seward City’s small parochial force.

Kait disagreed with them. Of course two detectives didn’t like her either, including Layton. She didn’t care.

Tell me the story, Einar said.

Three souls found their way back to Seward City.

Don't be dramatic. Layton tugged on his tie. He stood in the doorway, eyes narrowed. When finished trying to straighten it, he fiddled with his cell phone—feigning checking for messages.

It's the truth. She didn't hide the edge in her voice.

Layton snorted. Like that matters to you.

Enough, Robert. Einar shook his head. Let it go.

Right, Layton said.

He didn’t follow when Einar and Kait circled the tables, footsteps in sync, reviewing the skeletons’ condition, possible age and gender. RJ continued photographing the bones, dodging them as they walked.

Museum skeletons, Einar said. Interesting dilemma. Who throws them away?

Kait shrugged. People. Some of them are asses.

Amen.

She laughed. No one would mistake either of them for a people person.

Lacks archaeological romance . . . Einar turned, brows raised. Them coming from cardboard boxes.

Agreed. But many skeletons in museum corners have nebulous backgrounds.

Hmm. You might be jaded.

Think so? She peered up at him.

Figures you’d get this call. It’s weird. He tapped a finger along the table edge. Right up your alley.

I thought the same thing.

Must’ve been bored driving the speed limit. No racing with the dead?

She laughed. Didn’t need cops busting my ass with these passengers.

I can imagine that conversation. Would’ve made some bored state trooper’s day.

RJ laughed softly.

Kait smiled. Out of the corner of her eye she caught Layton glaring.

Einar rolled his eyes.

He’s in fine spirits this morning, she said.

Robert likes cases with action. You know . . . to further his reputation and career. High profile crimes lead to promotion. This doesn’t meet his requirements. Has Iceland's stench on it, museums and monsters so he told me. Bitched the whole way over. Einar slipped into an impression of his partner, voice high, agitated. Dusty skeletons, dirty bones, not worth our time.

Nor does it attract media, Kait said.

Let's hope not.

He thinks he wants it—but he’s never endured it. Doesn’t understand the cesspool it roils.

Einar nodded. He doesn’t have a fucking clue.

RJ finished photographing the third skeleton and turned to them.

May I present Mr. and Mrs. Deadman and their little one. He bowed with a flourish. Poor souls. Whoever they are. He slung the camera around his neck. From where they’re lookin’ down, they’re not happy.

Maybe they’re looking up, Einar said. From the bowels of the Earth.

RJ eyed him. Dark, man. Never thought of that.

Yeah. Arrogant to assume all ancestors watch from above. More bad people in the world than decent ones, right?

RJ nodded. Can’t argue with that.

Kait cleared her throat. Focus, please.

Einar smiled.

RJ was flustered. That’s it, Kait. Photographed everything. I’ll download the images and send them to you ASAP.

Thanks, Kait said. RJ headed out the door, moving in animated steps down the hall.

Einar watched him leave. New guy. Young.

Behave.

Impressionable.

Go easy on him. We want him to stay.

Yes, ma’ am. Einar eyed her. No troll or elf stories yet. No Bigfoot. No weird shit.

She nodded. Exactly.

He turned serious. Okay. Mentioned evidence of foul play. How’d they die?

Kait shifted a skull and pointed to the hole.

He examined it.

Sharp-force puncture wounds, she said. Pointed object, inch and a half in diameter on right side, lower. Injury with intent. All died the same way.

Shit. Einar nodded. That would’ve killed them. Estimates on ages?

Kait shook her head. Too soon for that.

Native American? Early European?

Too recent to be prehistoric or early history archaeological finds. She paused. Try twentieth century.

He whistled. Interesting. Presents a problem, doesn’t it?

You mean, why would someone dig them up?

He nodded. After they killed them. Why would someone bury and then unearth them?

At their oldest, they might date to the early twentieth. I think they’re more recent. Post World War II, at least. Marta and I’ll extract DNA tomorrow. We’ll have answers in a week or so.

Einar sighed. I'll start reviewing—

Are you done with the farce? Layton extended a wrist and stabbed at his watch. Long enough Iceland. We’ve done the musty bones jaunt. You’ve been humored. Stop wasting time. Let's go.

Einar turned and put a finger to his lips. Sshh, Robert, keep it down. You’ll wake the dead.

Layton glowered. So what. Like you said, they’re dead.

Einar exhaled and ran a hand through his short grey hair. Christ, get a sense of humor.

We’ve no reason to be here. Don’t need to get mixed up in it. Ancient history. It’s obvious.

Not obvious, Einar said. Unnatural deaths.

Dusty collections. Take them and stow them on a shelf.

Einar narrowed his eyes. Robert, you heard Kait. Puncture wounds. He banged a fist in his hand. Smack. Base of their skulls. Smack. Murder victims.

So you say. So she says.

Einar swore.

Kait sighed. Layton aimed vitriol at her as much as Einar whenever she was involved in a case. He’d refused to forgive her for impersonating a lawyer three months earlier during a witness interview. He’d been fooled. And she was unapologetic, which Einar told her more than once he found inspiring—within earshot of Layton. That made him angrier.

Let the ME deal with it. Layton glowered. Let's go.

Not your call, Einar said.

Don’t take my word for it, Kait said. Evidence will back me up. Layton had been appalled when Marta offered her a temporary position after the monster-filled fiasco. As if being fooled wasn’t enough, he’d been humiliated during a chase with three suspects when one was decapitated—and its toothy yellow-eyed head had rolled alongside, eyes staring into his. He’d screamed like a baby, the fact of which spread through the department. Someone rubbed it in, leaving a small plastic monster with bobbling eyes on his desk every day for weeks. Layton would’ve been happy to never see her again. Instead he ran into her at crime scenes.

We don’t know why a museum excavated them, she said. They ended up in storage, but it doesn’t absolve the probability of murder. The bones don’t lie. His discomfort amused her.

Get over it. It was Einar’s idea and I was protecting Michael from your overzealous ass. Besides, he saved your life.

It means, Einar said, someone found a clever hiding place.

Or took the museum for a ride, she said. Used it as unsuspecting cover.

The perpetrator covered their tracks well.

Layton huffed. Whatever. Let someone else handle it.

Einar shook his head. That’s not how it works.

Kait suppressed a smile and held her tongue. Aggravating Layton wasn’t constructive. It made Einar’s job harder. He already dealt with too much departmental shit.

Layton glared. Right. Lessons in manners from Iceland. He swore, turned and headed out the door. I’ll be at the car. Don’t be late. Captain called a division meeting at four sharp. Despite what you think, you’re not in charge.

Einar watched him go. "Hann er að gera mig brjálaðan. He’s driving me nuts."

Kait sympathized. He holds grudges.

Guess plastic monsters didn’t help.

No, probably not.

Well . . . it diffused the monster talk.

You have a way with people.

Yeah. Allison tells me the same thing. Pissing people off is an art.

Good thing your wife loves you. She puts up with a lot.

And Al loves to remind me of the fact. He laughed, but then his demeanor changed. More important matters . . . He pulled her away from the tables. Leaned against a counter and pushed his glasses back up on the bridge of his nose. How’s Michael? Any progress? Good week or a bad week?

Kait sighed. She wanted to say Michael was his old self, but that couldn’t happen. Ever. She crossed her arms and leaned beside him, head lowered. Same. He’s trying, but struggling. Still shut down. Some days are almost good, others not. Physically, he’s healed. Emotionally, he’s less unstable. Mentally, well . . .you’ve seen him. He puts on a game front at times, but can’t hide it. He’s terrified of losing control. Won't let down his guard. He repeats the same quandary over and over. She pushed an errant strand of hair out of her eyes. He’s adrift. Keeps saying he knows who he was but not who—what—he is.

Shit. Does anyone really know? Einar looked at her. He worries too much.

You tell him that.

I have.

I know. Wish it would sink in.

Won’t be easy. It's a rotten spot. Michael’s a stubborn SOB when he puts his mind to it, maybe more than me if that’s possible. Hell, one of the reasons I like him. But, makes it difficult to break through his armor. I’ve tried throwing work his way. He puts me off. I ask him to help with research. He refuses. Einar scuffed his heel against the tile floor. Damned if I can figure how to pull him out of his funk. He’s gotta know we don’t give a shit what happened, in terms of him or his condition. Needs to get back to the world, take his mind off . . . things.

Preaching to the choir.

He can’t hide forever.

Thinks he can.

Need to convince him otherwise. He's still here.

Easier said than done. She exhaled. It’s difficult to know what to say. He’s not your average trauma victim and agonizingly aware of it.

I know. But I’m determined. Einar rested his arm on her shoulder. Between us, you’d think we’d come up with something.

She nodded, more concerned than she was willing to admit. Not that she was fooling him. Einar worried about Michael, her fiancé and his friend, as much as she did. They’d been partners, Michael a rookie detective placed with him because no one wanted to work with weird Iceland. Unlike Layton, or the laundry list of failures, nine or ten partners over Einar’s twenty-five year career, Michael had been easy to work with (most of the time), shared his dark humor and took his idiosyncrasies in stride. It amused them that other cops kept a running tally of his failed partner statistics. Then that whole bad case exploded and Michael’s life was turned upside down in unimaginable ways.

Kait touched Einar’s sleeve. Sorry he hasn’t been communicative. Some days I’m lucky to get three words out of him or a reaction other than the thousand-mile stare. But he’s read every book you’ve given him.

"Really? Even Abominable Snowmen, Legend Come to Life?"

Yes. She smiled. The books are strange but effective comfort coming from you.

Hmm, a kindred spirit.

Or sarcasm mixed with concern. Another special skill.

Is there any other way? Too many people go through life with no sense of humor.

She sighed. "Wish his sense of humor