One Grave Less

it.”
    Lynn looked over at him and stood up. Izzy moved back in his chair as if he thought she was going to hit him. Lynn pulled out her chair and turned it over on its side. David and Izzy looked at each other, then stood to see what she was doing.
    “Would you say the back of this chair is about the height of the chain?” she asked.
    “Pretty much. It’s low enough for her to step over, even with high heels,” said Izzy.
    Neva and Diane smiled at him. Diane saw what was coming.
    “I’m about Madge’s height,” said Lynn.
    She started to step over the chair. She was stopped by the tight straight skirt on her dress. Her foot wouldn’t go over.
    “If I wanted to go traipsing over the chain and down the embankment, I’d have to hike up my skirt over my thighs. Madge’s skirt was straight. It did have a pleat in the back.” Lynn turned to point out the pleat in the back hem of her dress. “It aids in walking, but not in climbing. Madge Stewart may have done that, but I just have a hard time seeing a woman like her hiking up her skirt. However . . . ,” she said to Izzy, “she may have had a reason. This is not proof of anything. Diane asked me about the ‘but’ in my analysis. This is it. The shoes and the skirt bother me.” Lynn remained standing and didn’t pick up the chair.
    “You think she saw something?” asked Neva to anyone at the table who might have an answer.
    “Baby swans, maybe,” said Izzy. “Lots of people are crazy about those swans. I think they are damn mean. Have you ever been bitten by one of those things?”
    “Perhaps she was interested in them,” said Lynn. “But she wouldn’t have risked ruining her shoes over them.”
    “But she was at the edge of the lake in her shoes,” said Izzy. “We may never know the reason.”
    “Perhaps not,” said Lynn. “There is nothing I can point to that would require Garnett to keep the case open. Nothing. Good shoes and a tight skirt aren’t enough.”
    Lynn looked as if she were considering something. “Did Madge use a lot of makeup?” she asked.
    Diane didn’t know. She thought back to the board meetings. Certainly she wore makeup, but she didn’t think it was a great amount.
    “Normal amount,” said Diane.
    “She had on what would be normal for evening wear,” said Lynn. “She also had on false eyelashes, nicely done.”
    “What are you saying?” asked Diane.
    “David, come here for a moment, please,” said Lynn. Her words came out like honey.
    David came around the table to Lynn and she moved closer to the chair.
    “If we were together at the trail and we wanted to cross the chain, how would you handle it?”
    David stepped over the back of the chair, then reached over and picked up Lynn like a bride across a threshold, and set her down on the other side. He took her hand as if to guide her down a slope.
    Lynn grinned at him and slowly reclaimed her hand. “I was just thinking that she may have been with someone. A man. There are many women who would ruin a good pair of shoes for the right man. I’m not one of them, but a lot would, especially if they didn’t date much and found the attentions of a man flattering. Did she date a lot or have a special friend?”
    “Not that I’m aware,” said Diane. “I don’t think she was ever married.”
    “It’s just a thought,” said Lynn, righting the chair and pushing it under the table. “I’m meeting someone at the restaurant. Can I leave by the museum side?”
    “Yes,” said Diane. “Take the elevator on the Dinosaur Overlook. Thanks, Lynn.”
    “I’m just real sorry about this. I know she was a friend and board member. It’s a tragedy.”
    She started for the door and turned.
    “Oh, Madge had a pregnancy at least once in her lifetime,” she said.

Chapter 34
    Maria stared at Ric Johnson’s back as he disappeared into the shadows of the next hut. She searched her mind to recall the story she had read in the Chronicle of Higher Education . The details tumbled out of her brain in bits and pieces. It was about an anthropology student. Kyle Manning, she thought—not Ric Johnson—from the University of Chicago. Married with children. Two of them, she thought. He was on a field trip with other students when he disappeared. The boat they were riding in capsized on the Amazon River. That was five years ago. His body was never found. Until now.
    What was he doing here? Not anthropology. Where did he expect to publish his work? Under Ric Johnson? Did