Arizona Homecoming

She stepped over the cordon tape and bent down next to the remains. “Too soon to tell.”

“But don’t we need a medical examiner to—”

Sam interrupted, “We’re too small to have our own medical examiner. If this turns out to be a crime scene or not a Native jurisdiction,” he nodded toward Emily, “we’ll call the Maricopa County medical examiner’s office.”

“What have you done so far?” Emily asked Sam.

“Photos and call you.”

“What’s next?” Donovan’s voice implied he didn’t want to know.

“Finish digging up the body, take more photos, probably call in an entomologist, sieve the grave, search a grid for belongings.”

“Entomologist?” Donovan queried.

“I’m not skilled enough nor do I have the tools to determine the true postmortem interval. We’ll want to know the time of death.”

“How long will that take?”

Emily smiled. “Oh, you’re going to be stuck with me for a long time.”

* * *

Gloating, that’s what Emily Hubrecht was doing. Turning to Sam, Donovan again asked, “You sure she’s the one you had to call?”

Sam nodded as they watched Emily head back to a Lost Dutchman Ranch truck that rivaled Donovan’s in size. One foot on the back bumper, she hopped twice on the other foot in order to swing her body over the tailgate. Emily might claim to be five foot four, but Donovan knew better. He’d put in enough cabinets to gauge who could reach the top shelf and who couldn’t. Emily was a footstool short, making her a hair over five foot three.

She opened the tool chest that stretched across the bed of her truck, pulled out a large black canvas bag and tossed it to the ground before jumping down to retrieve it. She handled it with ease and was already standing beside the skull before Donovan thought to offer to carry it for her.

“She worked up in South Dakota restoring an Indian burial ground that grave robbers had desecrated,” Sam said. “She has a degree in cultural anthropology and knows more about bones than anyone else in town.”

“How do you know all that?”

“Small town?

“And why—”

Sam interrupted, “It also makes her qualified to help work a crime scene. If we have one.”

“Might not be a crime scene,” Emily said. “Could be somebody who just lay down and died of old age.”

Donovan looked at the area that had already been cordoned off. “Why here? It’s the middle of nowhere.”

She gave him a look only a female knew how to form. “This wasn’t always the middle of nowhere.”

Of course she’d bring up her supposed village and how the home he was building encroached upon the remnants. Those had been her words.

“She’s especially good with old bones,” Sam said. “The department keeps her on retainer.”

Oh, how Donovan wished he’d found a dog.

They watched her for a moment as she took photos and drew a few pictures in a small notebook. There was something intimate, respectful in her movements. But just the thought of working so closely with a skull, let alone the makings of a whole skeleton, gave Donovan the heebie-jeebies.

He cleared his throat—no way did he want Sam to think him a wimp—and quietly asked, “So, Navajos avoid the dead?” He wasn’t really thinking about Smokey; he was thinking about Emily. She was Native American but must not be Navajo because she wasn’t leaving. It didn’t surprise him that she was the one who Sam had called.

“Something about the good leaving with the soul and the evil remaining with the body.”

She spoke matter-of-factly, clearly honoring what Smokey and a few of the other construction workers believed. He wondered if it was what she believed, and if so, why she’d chosen such a career path.

Come to think of it, he wasn’t quite certain what her career path was. At first, when she’d been all over him with petitions and threats of cease and desist, he’d thought she was some sort of activist. But, when she had finally handed him a business card, it stated that she was a “storyteller.” Whatever that was. Then, he’d found out she was also the curator at the Lost Dutchman Museum. Two weeks ago he’d gone to the Lost Dutchman Ranch for dinner, and she was waiting tables. If not for her, he’d have made it his favorite stop. The locale was perfect, the food great, and he liked Jacob, the owner and Emily’s father. But, quite frankly, he didn’t trust her not to put really hot sauce in his food.

“Who are you today?” he asked.

She blinked up at him. “What do you mean?”

“Curator? Waitress? Storyteller? Pseudo medical examiner?”

“Civilian forensic consultant to the Apache Creek PD.”

He almost chuckled, almost asked her if she was old enough. Wisely, he didn’t. He was already on her bad side, and annoying her wouldn’t get him back to work any quicker.

Donovan knew exactly what Emily hoped to find. He just couldn’t remember the name of the tribe she was so enamored with. He thought a moment. It wasn’t one of the common tribes. He’d never heard it until she’d started poking around, getting in his way, insisting that Baer was building on a historic gold mine.

At least that’s how she’d put it after she accused him of encroaching on her remnants.

Sam’s phone sounded, and Donovan heard just enough to know that the police officer had obtained some sort of search warrant for excavating the body.

This was going to turn into a major hassle, Donovan just knew it. He headed back to his company truck and snagged a bottled water from his cooler before leaning against the door to study Emily. To think, just an hour ago he’d been happy because everything was on schedule. Now, he was down to a... Donovan tried to stop thinking the term skeleton crew.

He couldn’t.

Smokey, acting as if he was late for an important meeting, had left the premises not two minutes after the bones surfaced. He’d called his two cousins, coworkers, and they weren’t coming back any time soon. Only one of Donovan’s team showed up. John Westerfield had arrived ten minutes before Emily. He’d spent most of the time sitting in his truck, talking on the phone and no doubt trying to convince his wife that it wasn’t his fault he wouldn’t be working today. This wasn’t the type of job that paid if hours weren’t put in. He’d not been a happy man when he drove away.

Donovan would have to ask Emily how to get his crew back and working.

“So,” Sam Miller said, hanging up his phone and going to one knee by Emily, careful not to disturb anything, “you find any personal effects yet?”

“Not yet, but I’ve just begun.”

“You find bodies often?” Donovan asked. George Baer had extolled the lack of crime in Apache Creek. It was one of the reasons he and his wife were retiring here.

“Enough,” Sam said. “We’re what you’d call a high-intensity drug trafficking area.”

“Marijuana?”

Sam shrugged. “Along with whatever else will sell.”

“So,” Donovan said, “I might not be looking at a burial ground but instead a drug deal gone wrong?”