One Grave Too Many

towel. He pushed his straight black hair from his eyes and smiled. His teeth were white against his neatly trimmed, short black beard.
    “Frank Duncan, what you need with a sheriff’s escort?”
    “Hey, Whit. How you doing? This is Diane Fallon. She’s the new director of the RiverTrail Museum.”
    “Come for more business, I hope.” He grinned.
    “We want to take a look at where your father dumps his carcasses,” said the sheriff.
    “Now, sheriff, you know he disposes of his waste legally—since he had to pay that fine a couple of years ago.”
    “This would be an old dump,” said Frank. “We think there may be a body in it. It could be why your father had a trespasser the other night.”
    Whit gave a long whistle. “This is serious. I guess you need me there too.”
    Diane raised her eyebrows and looked at Frank.
    “Whit’s the county coroner,” said Frank.
    “Well, that makes everything convenient,” said Diane.
    “Can I ask why you are interested?” he asked Diane.
    “I’m a forensic anthropologist.”
    “I see.” He looked at the sheriff. “Do you know where you want to look?”
    “A site that was being used from about five to ten years ago,” answered Diane.
    “Let’s see. I covered most of them up for Dad.”
    “Do you have one that could have been visited by George Boone or his son, Jay?” asked Diane.
    “Dad mentioned George was out here with his son a couple weeks ago for target practice. That’s just awful what happened to that family. Is this about them?”
    “Maybe,” said Frank. He explained about the bone.
    “There’s one place I had a hard time getting to. I just lightly covered it, so it might have eroded out. Let’s go take a look.” He hung his apron and hand towel on a post, and led them back out the fence. He looked at the sign as he was closing the gate and shook his head. “Some folks think that’s clever, but I told Dad it looks like an invitation to me. Let’s go in my Jeep.”
    It was a bumpy ride down an infrequently used dirt road. The sheriff rode in front beside Whit. Diane and Frank rode in back, which made the ride for her even more like a buckboard. The rough ride through the woods was too much like the ride through the jungle. Diane gripped the seat until her fingers cramped. When they stopped with a lurch, Diane thought she would throw up her scant breakfast.
    “You OK?” whispered Frank.
    Diane nodded, but accepted his help in getting out of the vehicle.
    “We have to walk from here,” said Whit. He sprayed himself with bug spray and tossed the can to Diane. “Lot of deer ticks in the woods, not to mention mosquitoes.”
    After the four of them sprayed themselves, they set out through the woods. The North Georgia woods are quite different from the jungles of the Amazon and Diane found herself missing it. The rain forest is far more dense and so green, lush and full of oxygen it made Diane happy just to be breathing. The trees are tall, with leaves big enough to curl up in. The thick rain forest canopy doesn’t let much wind down to the understory, so the stillness there is palpable.
    Here a breeze fluttered the leaves and ruffled Diane’s short hair. The smell of insect repellent traveled with them and masked the natural scents of the forest. As the trail became more overgrown, the woods threatened to become as thick as the jungle, and Diane was glad she had dressed for it. Shortly, they came to another dirt road intersecting the path they were on.
    “We keep going on this overgrown path,” said Whit, to Diane’s dismay.
    She stopped in the middle of the road. “Where does this road go?”
    “From the main road to the upper pasture. We use it to bring in hay.”
    “How long has it been here?” asked Diane.
    “Couple of years for the part leading to the pasture. That’s when Dad bought the new land. It used to turn here and go back to the house.”
    “So at one time it went to your house but not the pasture?”
    “That’s right.”
    “They got lost,” said Diane, looking up and down the road.
    “Who?” asked the sheriff and Whit together.
    “The intruders. They were looking for the way to the dump site, but the terrain has changed since they were last here, and in the dark they couldn’t see this overgrown path. They didn’t know the new road leads to the pasture. That’s why they disturbed the cows.”
    “You pretty sure there’s going to be a body up ahead?” asked Whit.
    “No. Maybe just a wild goose,”