Birthright

bitch. Didn’t even know him.”
    “Tell you what, you go on and sit down. I’ll see if I can find out what’s happening.”
    He nodded and, taking her literally, lowered himself to the ground right there to stare at the faint fingers of mist that rose up from Simon’s Hole.
    Callie signaled Rosie to sit with him, then walked over to Jake. “What are they saying?”
    “Not a hell of a lot. But you can piece part of it together.”
    They studied the area. The sheriff and three deputies were on the scene and had already run crime-scene tape, blocking off segments B-10 to D-15. Dolan’s body was exactly where Digger had left it, sprawled facedown on the trampled grass beside the pond. The wound had bled out. She could see the unnatural shape of the skull, the depression formed from a blow, she speculated.
    Good-sized rock, brought down from behind. Probably a two-handed blow, from over the head. She’d have a better picture if she could examine the skull up close.
    She could see the stain of blood on dirt from where he’d fallen, started to bleed out. Then the smear of it leading toward the water.
    There were footprints all over the area. Some would be her own, she thought. Some of Jake’s, the rest of the team. There were light impressions of Digger’s bare feet leadingstraight to the pond, then others—deeper, wider apart—that clearly showed his race back to the trailer.
    The cops could see that, she told herself. They could see as clearly as she did the way he’d walked to the pond, seen the body floating, dove in to pull it out. Then how he’d run back to the trailer to call nine-one-one.
    They’d see he was telling the truth.
    And they’d see why Ron Dolan had been on the site.
    There was a green Hefty bag on the ground near B-14. Animal bones spilled out of it.
    One of the deputies was snapping pictures of the body, of the bag, of the shallow ruts in the ground where, she concluded, Dolan’s feet had dug in as he’d been dragged the few feet to the water.
    She knew the medical examiner was on his way, but she didn’t need to know much about forensics to put it together.
    “He must’ve come out, figuring he’d salt the site with animal bones. Give us some grief. He was pissed off enough for that,” she said quietly. “Maybe he thought it would discredit us somehow, stop the dig. Poor sap. Then somebody bashed his head in. Who the hell would do that? If he’d brought somebody with him, it would’ve been a friend, someone he knew he could trust.”
    “I don’t know.” Jake looked back at Digger, relieved to see him sitting on the ground with Rosie, drinking coffee.
    “He’s in bad shape,” Callie stated. “Scared witless they think he did this.”
    “That won’t hold. He didn’t even know Dolan. And anybody who knows Digger will swear on a mountain of Bibles he couldn’t kill anybody. Shit, some suicidal squirrel ran under his wheels a few weeks ago, and he was wrecked for an hour.”
    “Then why do you sound worried?”
    “Murder’s enough to worry anybody. And a murder on-site’s going to do a hell of a lot more to delay or stop the dig than planted deer bones.”
    Her mouth opened and closed before she managed to speak. “Jesus, Jake, you’re thinking somebody killed Dolan to screw with us? That’s just crazy.”
    “Murder’s crazy,” he countered. “Just about every time.” Instinctively Jake put a hand on her shoulder, uniting them as Sheriff Hewitt walked toward them.
    He was a tall barrel of a man. He moved slowly, almost lumbered. His brown uniform made him look like a large, somewhat affable bear.
    “Dr. Dunbrook.” He nodded. “I’d like to ask you some questions.”
    “I don’t know what I can tell you.”
    “We can start with what you did yesterday. Just to give me a picture.”
    “I got to the site just before nine. I worked that segment most of the day.” She gestured to the area, now behind crime tape.
    “Alone?”
    “Part of the day alone, part of the day with Dr. Graystone, as we were preparing remains for transfer. Took a break, about an hour, midday. Ate lunch and worked on my notes right over there.” She pointed to a couple of camp chairs in the shade by the creek. “We worked until nearly seven, then we shut down for the night. I picked up a sub from the Italian place in town, took it back to my room because I wanted to do some paperwork.”
    “Did you go out again?”
    “No.”
    “You just stayed in your room at the