Dust to Dust

the other stuffed chair, settled in comfortably, and started telling about the mask Marcella had been piecing together.
    “When I saw her in the hospital, she told me to look at the inside of the pieces. I did and saw they had been molded over a human face.”
    “You mean like a death mask?” he said.
    “Could have been, but we didn’t know that. It could have been a life mask. But Marcella also told me to look at the sherds,” Diane said.
    “You keep using that word, sherds . You talking about broken pieces of pottery?” he asked.
    “Yes, exactly,” said Diane.
    “Okay,” he said. “Just making sure I understand. Go ahead.”
    Diane started to speak when he interrupted again. “Should he be here?” Hanks pointed to Mike. “No offense, buddy, but you’re a civilian.”
    “Mike does consulting with the crime lab because of his knowledge of rocks and soils,” said Diane. “He helped rescue Hector from the well. And the experiment we are working on involves soil samples.”
    Mike didn’t even blink. Diane didn’t tell Hanks that she hadn’t actually talked to Mike about the experiment. But she didn’t want to send Mike to wait outside. And it was true, after all, he did know about soils.
    “Okay, go on,” said Hanks.
    “Marcella told me to look at sherds she had assembled from the back part of the mask. I did, and found what looks like a cast of a sharp-force-trauma head wound,” she said.
    “Now that’s interesting,” said Hanks. “So, the artist, or whoever, put the clay on over a head wound?”
    “It looks that way. Some of the etching suggests the head was also shaved before making the mask,” said Diane.
    “This is getting weird,” he said.
    “We haven’t even gotten to weird yet,” said Diane. “Marcella, Dr. Payden, is an expert in pottery. She’s creating a reference collection of pottery sherds and thin sections for the museum. A thin section is a very thin slice of, in this case, a pottery sherd, mounted on a microscope slide to be examined under polarized light so that its various constituents can be identified. Before she came here, her work involved prehistoric pottery from Texas that was tempered with animal bones. She was surprised to find that the pottery she found buried here in her yard also had been tempered with bone.”
    “I don’t get it. Are we talking about this being an archaeology—what do they call it—site, an archaeology site? A dig? Why are you telling me this?” he asked without rancor, but with a lot of curiosity.
    “No. There is no bone-tempered pottery in the prehistory of Georgia,” said Diane.
    She explained about what tempering is, how it gives a distinctive look and characteristics to pottery, and that in Georgia, common prehistoric tempers were fiber, shells, and grit.
    “But this is not prehistoric. We are talking about modern pottery here. Are you with me?” she said.
    “Not yet, but keep going,” said Hanks. “This is like watching the Discovery Channel. And I’m anxious to hear how your guy Hector got in the well. This is where all this is leading, right?”
    Diane smiled. The others had been silent throughout her narration. It was the first time they had heard all of it. Mike hadn’t heard any of it.
    “Marcella used a lab in Arizona to analyze her Texas pottery sherds to identify the species of animal bone used for the tempering. It’s a thing archaeologists like to know,” Diane said. “She sent samples of the pottery she found in her yard here to the lab to find out what species of animal was used in it. The lab called me at the museum when they couldn’t get in touch with Marcella. She was in the hospital. They were quite disturbed to discover that the species was human. I believe they faxed you a copy of their report.”
    “Well, yeah, but I couldn’t make heads or tails of the damn thing.” Hanks leaned forward, openmouthed. “Are you telling me those pots she found were made out of human bone? Now, that is spooky.”
    Out of the corner of her eye, Diane could see the surprise on Mike’s face. Neva smiled at him and patted his thigh.
    “The clay used to make them had human bone mixed with it for temper. Yes,” said Diane.
    Hanks put his hands on his face and rubbed his eyes. “You people know how to do weird. I’ll give you that,” he said.
    “After discovering those two things—the sharp-force trauma and the human-bone tempering—it was incumbent on us to search for human remains on the property. I