skull.”
“You touch anything?”
“Just the shovel. Once I’d uncovered enough to realize what I had, I called the police.”
Sam Miller added, “Jamal Begay was here.”
It took Emily a few seconds before she responded, “Jamal was here?”
“He got here a few moments before I found the skull,” Donovan stated.
“Bad timing.” Emily knew Smokey. He was a good man, with a family, and superstitious as all get-out.
Both Sam and Donovan nodded.
It was a very clean site. The dirt was packed hard, no footprints. Then, too, this skeleton had been around awhile, so even if there were any disturbances in the area, chances were they’d be recent. She took out gloves and removed two baggies from her jean pockets. Sam came to stand beside her. “What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing at the moment.”
“Aren’t you going to wait for the medical examiner?” Donovan asked.
“Why?” Emily looked up at him. He couldn’t be more different than Sam. He was taller than she was, but then, who wasn’t? She put him at five-ten, all muscle and what her father would call a scrapper. His honey-brown hair was cut short, and he had an impish smile.
Usually. He looked a little pale right now. Finding human bones tended to have that effect.
“You think I can’t handle this?” She rather liked the displaced look on his face.
“I told you Emily is who we call,” Sam said.
“In case the remains prove to be Native American,” Donovan agreed. “Tell me they’re not.”
She stepped over the cordon tape and bent down next to the remains. “Too soon to tell.”
“But don’t we need a medical examiner to—”
Sam interrupted, “We’re too small to have our own medical examiner. If this turns out to be a crime scene or not a Native jurisdiction,” he nodded toward Emily, “we’ll call the Maricopa County medical examiner’s office.”
“What have you done so far?” Emily asked Sam.
“Photos and call you.”
“What’s next?” Donovan’s voice implied he didn’t want to know.
“Finish digging up the body, take more photos, probably call in an entomologist, sieve the grave, search a grid for belongings.”
“Entomologist?” Donovan queried.
“I’m not skilled enough nor do I have the tools to determine the true postmortem interval. We’ll want to know the time of death.”
“How long will that take?”
Emily smiled. “Oh, you’re going to be stuck with me for a long time.”
* * *
Gloating, that’s what Emily Hubrecht was doing. Turning to Sam, Donovan again asked, “You sure she’s the one you had to call?”
Sam nodded as they watched Emily head back to a Lost Dutchman Ranch truck that rivaled Donovan’s in size. One foot on the back bumper, she hopped twice on the other foot in order to swing her body over the tailgate. Emily might claim to be five foot four, but Donovan knew better. He’d put in enough cabinets to gauge who could reach the top shelf and who couldn’t. Emily was a footstool short, making her a hair over five foot three.
She opened the tool chest that stretched across the bed of her truck, pulled out a large black canvas bag and tossed it to the ground before jumping down to retrieve it. She handled it with ease and was already standing beside the skull before Donovan thought to offer to carry it for her.
“She worked up in South Dakota restoring an Indian burial ground that grave robbers had desecrated,” Sam said. “She has a degree in cultural anthropology and knows more about bones than anyone else in town.”
“How do you know all that?”
“Small town?
“And why—”
Sam interrupted, “It also makes her qualified to help work a crime scene. If we have one.”
“Might not be a crime scene,” Emily said. “Could be somebody who just lay down and died of old age.”
Donovan looked at the area that had already been cordoned off. “Why here? It’s the middle of nowhere.”
She gave him a look only a female knew how to form. “This wasn’t always the middle of nowhere.”
Of course she’d bring up her supposed village and how the home he was building encroached upon the remnants. Those had been her words.
“She’s especially good with old bones,” Sam said. “The department keeps her on retainer.”
Oh, how Donovan wished he’d found a dog.
They watched her for a moment as she took photos and drew a few pictures in a small notebook. There was something intimate, respectful in her movements. But just the thought of working so closely with a skull, let alone the makings of a whole skeleton, gave Donovan the heebie-jeebies.
He cleared his throat—no way did he want Sam to think him a wimp—and quietly asked, “So, Navajos avoid the dead?” He wasn’t really thinking about Smokey; he was thinking about Emily. She was Native American but must not be Navajo because she wasn’t leaving. It didn’t surprise him that she was the one who Sam had called.
“Something about the good leaving with the soul and the evil remaining with the body.”
She spoke matter-of-factly, clearly honoring what Smokey and a few of the other construction workers believed. He wondered if it was what she believed, and if so, why she’d chosen such a career path.
Come to think of it, he wasn’t quite certain what her career path was. At first, when she’d been all over him with petitions and threats of cease and desist, he’d thought she was some sort of activist. But, when she had finally handed him a business card, it stated that she was a “storyteller.” Whatever that was. Then, he’d found out she was also the curator at the Lost Dutchman Museum. Two weeks ago he’d gone to the Lost Dutchman Ranch for dinner, and she was waiting tables. If not for her, he’d have made it his favorite stop. The locale was perfect, the food great, and he liked Jacob, the owner and Emily’s father. But, quite frankly, he didn’t trust her not to put really hot sauce in his food.
“Who are you today?” he asked.
She blinked up at him. “What do you mean?”
“Curator? Waitress? Storyteller? Pseudo medical examiner?”
“Civilian forensic consultant to the Apache Creek PD.”
He
