One Grave Too Many

were professional archaeology field-crew members, and two were working on their doctorates. During lunch she got a summary of their interests, which ran from taphonomy to pottery types and debitage, which was explained to her as the waste flakes from projectile-point production. Another of the doctoral students was about to explain behavioral-chain analysis when Frank and Whit arrived with the sheriff. Diane got up to greet them, feeling guilty at her relief for not having to listen to the explanation.
    “How are things going?” asked Frank, looking out over the terrain of flags and string.
    “Got a good start. After we eat, we’ll begin excavating.”
    “I appointed a couple of deputies to stay at the site,” said the sheriff. “Maybe some of the guys would like to help them with guard duty. A couple of them said they always stay with their archaeology digs to warn off pot hunters. I didn’t know there were people out in the woods actually looking for the stuff. Seems to me you wouldn’t want to come upon somebody’s patch.”
    “I think they mean people who steal artifacts,” said Diane.
    “Oh, well, that makes more sense. Got a call from your-all’s chief of detectives yesterday.” The sheriff laughed. “He’s not real pleased with this project here. Thinks we’re interfering. I asked him how locating the rest of a body to go along with that foot bone you found in my jurisdiction is an interference in anything he’s doing in his city.”
    “And?” asked Frank.
    “Came down to he didn’t want me mentioning it to the newspapers that some of us think it might be connected to the Boone murders. God forbid facts might get in the way of his theory on the case.”
    “What’s the deal with them?” asked Diane. “Why aren’t they anxious for leads? Even if they don’t lead anywhere, you don’t know until you investigate.”
    “As far as they’re concerned, they’ve got the killers in jail and the case is solved. This is the first big test of the mayor and his new chief of police’s ideas for better police work. It’s the mayor’s chance to show the city council and the rest of Georgia that he’s a man who gets things done in a big-city way. I’m sure he’s making his campaign signs for governor right now.”
    “So,” said Whit. “You have a collarbone and a foot bone. That’s at least one, maybe two people.” He suddenly laughed uneasily. “Two people buried here would look bad for us, wouldn’t it?”
    Frank and the sheriff looked askance at him. “Yeah,” said the sheriff. “It sure would. One could be passed off as an accident. Two would be downright carelessness.”
    “Lady,” Whit addressed Diane. “I really hope you don’t find more than one person here.”
    “Right now we have a minimum number of one,” said Diane, almost smiling at his sudden discomfort.
    “Oh,” said Frank, taking a large envelope from under his arm and handing it to her. “Here. I called your office, and Andie asked me to come by and bring this to you.”
    Andie had written on the envelope: Fax from Ranjan Patel.
    “That was quick. It’s the results from the stable isotope analysis.”

Chapter 25
    The phrase stable isotope analysis must have leaped out of their conversation and over to the crew, for suddenly they stopped talking and came over to Diane, carrying their sandwiches and drinking water.
    “You had an SIA done on some material?” asked one of the doctoral students.
    “On the original bone that started all this.” Diane looked at the fax transmitted by her friend, Ran. It wasn’t a particularly good copy, but she assumed he sent her an original in the mail. The first page had a list of numbers in a table. The other pages were Ranjan’s conclusions, written in his typical pedantic manner.
You’re in luck. Your fellow was a vegetarian—note the values in the table. However, I don’t think your person was a vegan, nor did he, I think, consume an abundance of legumes. Interesting. The delta numbers and the levels of the trace element strontium suggest that he ate fish and shellfish. I am most excited about this. Another interesting possibility to think about: You said the fellow was young, perhaps an older teenager. This would mean he had these eating habits from childhood. Is vegetarianism in children common? You must identify the fellow so we can test what the values seem to indicate. Also, I would say death took place five years ago.
    Ranjan’s report went on to