One Grave Too Many

phrase by the search engine. That cut the number of hits down to 512. After almost an hour of looking at Web pages, she was about to give up and go through missing persons records, state by state. It would take a while, but the current strategy was apparently turning into a wild goose chase. Before she gave it up, however, she added vegetarian and archaeology to the search criteria. This time there were four hits. The title of the first hit was: “Will you help me find my son?”

Chapter 48
    Diane’s hands were shaking as she clicked on the link to the site. Immediately, a photograph of a young man, smiling, wearing a blue oxford shirt came up. He had dark hair and eyes, a bright smile and even, white teeth. He looked so young; maybe nineteen. His name was Aidan Kavanagh.
    Reading about him was heartbreaking. The site was put up by his parents. They described his physical appearance, his height and weight. They told about his interests, what a good hockey player he was, how he broke his shin but made a winning goal just the same. He was from Washington State, had lots of friends. There was a picture of him with his girlfriend. He was majoring in business at Harvard but flirted briefly with archaeology.
    The saddest thing was a message from his father asking that if his son was somewhere reading this to please come home because they loved him. She wondered if there were some issues between him and his parents.
    He disappeared after March 28, 1998. His girlfriend had spoken to him on the phone that evening. He had decided to stay at school during spring break and study. After that phone call he wasn’t heard from again. His SUV was in the driveway of the house he shared with three other male students. They had gone to Fort Lauderdale during spring break, leaving him alone. No one saw him leave; no one saw anyone come to the house. He just vanished without a word to anyone, without a trace.
    Until George and Jay Boone found his collarbone.
    There was a number to call if anyone had any information. The instructions on the answering machine were to leave a message and number where the caller could be reached. Diane imagined they had to put in a special phone line. She wondered how many crank calls they got each month.
    She looked at the clock. It was a little after 6:00 A.M. The hospital had been waking up for about half an hour. The hallway had grown steadily noisier as the sounds of the breakfast carts rattled down the hallway.
    She dialed the number from the computer screen. One ring, then the answering machine. A voice with the same instructions.
    Diane hesitated for a fraction of a second before she introduced herself to the machine.
    “Hello, my name is Dr. Diane Fallon. I’m a forensic anthropologist and director—”
    There was a sudden click on the other end and a mature male voice spoke. “Did you say you’re a forensic anthropologist?”
    “Yes. I got your number from your Web page.”
    “Is this about Aidan?”
    “Possibly.”
    “I’m his father, Declan Kavanagh. Have you found my son?”
    “I don’t know for sure. Can I tell you what I’ve found?”
    Diane explained only that skeletal remains were found in a remote area of a farm and that she had analyzed them. She told him that analysis of the remains suggested that the bones belonged to a young male, six foot two, who grew up in a cool climate and was basically a vegetarian, but ate fish. She wondered if perhaps he had a childhood allergy to beef. He’d had osteitis pubis, possibly from the side-to-side movement of playing hockey, and he should have had considerable groin pain from it at one time. He had olecranon bursitis that should have given him elbow pain, and a broken left tibia—shin. There was a possible archaeology connection. He disappeared probably between March and June of 1998—about the time of spring break for many schools. The sheriff of the county where the remains were located recently sent out queries across the country. She had plugged key words into an Internet search engine and came up with the Web page.
    Diane had laid out all the findings briefly and clearly, as if she were giving a report. When she finished she heard a low groan on the other end that turned into a deep wail. She understood. She had taken away all his hope. She wanted to cry with him.
    When he came back on the line, his voice was calm and emotionless. “You have described my son completely. Tell me where you are. I have X rays, dental