The Stolen Bones Read online

  “I’m glad you came with me,” Tom said. “At first I thought I’d cover more ground on my own. But you definitely did more than your fair share. Thanks for all your help!”

  “After finding this, will you be leading the next dig?” I asked.

  Tom grinned. “Could be. First I’ll probably come out with one of my professors to take a closer look. If the site looks promising, we may do a real dig.”

  “Maybe you’ll find one of those important fossils, like the one that was damaged,” I hinted. “That would get you started on the road to fame, right?”

  He shrugged. “That fossil is important if you’re a paleontologist. Most people have never heard of a Coelophysis, so it’s not really big news.”

  “But I thought it was valuable.”

  “Oh, sure. It would fetch thousands from a museum, maybe even more from the right collector. But it’s no Tyrannosaurus rex to excite the public. Anyway, it’s not my specialty. I’m more interested in those marks you found.”

  “You mean your specialty is footprints? I thought paleontologists were all pretty much the same.”

  He laughed at my surprise. “You’d be amazed at how specialized we get. People become experts on specific dinosaurs, certain types of prehistoric plants, or even on coprolite—fossil dung. Even that gets preserved and studied!”

  Tom was fading from my suspect list. His motive didn’t seem so good after all. And despite his skill with snakes, and the accident at the cliff, he seemed like a nice enough guy. My instincts told me he was all right—which meant I was on the wrong track.

  It took only fifteen minutes to retrace our steps. Bess and George were still at work. Tom paused to talk to Kyle. I crossed the clearing and put the rock hammer back with the other tools.

  I turned to study the clearing. Everybody was still there, and seemed caught up in their work. How could I make the best use of my time?

  I called George and Bess to join me for a water break. We gathered out of earshot of the others.

  “So, how was your hike with Tom?” Bess asked.

  I told them about the rock fall and the claw drag marks. “I’m starting to believe Tom is all right, though I can’t be one hundred percent sure.”

  “The jury is out on this whole bunch,” George said. “They’re all suspects, as far as I can see.”

  I took off my hat and ran my fingers through my hair. “So, what are we going to do next?”

  “Drink more water, for one thing,” George said. She peered into Bess’s face. “Are you all right?”

  Bess’s skin glistened with sweat. She looked droopy—and Bess never looks droopy.

  “I have a headache,” Bess said. “It’s just the heat. I’ve been drinking, really I have. But it’s so hot out here.”

  “Maybe you should rest for a while,” I said.

  George nodded. “You don’t want to get heatstroke. Keep cool, and keep drinking, but just a little at a time. We should have brought out a sports drink, for the salt and electrolytes.”

  “Why don’t you go back to camp?” I said. “Have a cold drink, and sit in the shade.”

  “One of us should walk back with you, in case you feel faint,” George said.

  Bess smiled. “How about I ask Kyle to take me back? I can pump him for information on the way.”

  George and I laughed. “I guess you’re not feeling too bad,” I said. “All right, see if you can get your handsome escort.”

  When Kyle saw how Bess looked, he quickly agreed to walk back with her. “It’s time to stop, anyway,” he said. “Hey, everyone! Let’s start cleaning up. I’m sure Felix will be waiting for us.”

  Kyle and Bess started back for camp, while the rest of us put away tools and made sure everything was secure for the night. I took a long look at the valuable fossil. It couldn’t be moved yet, because the plaster was still damp. But now that it was out of the ground and completely covered, it was more a target for thieves than ever.

  I turned to George. “I have a hunch this is going to be an interesting night.”

  9

  Laws and Outlaws

  Nobody talked much on the way back. I tried to strike up a conversation with Steffi, hoping I could lead it around to Jimmy, but she gave only one-word answers. Everyone looked hot and tired.

  A surprise awaited us at camp. Erlinda was there, talking to Kyle. George and I grabbed sodas from the cooler, then joined Bess in the shade.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “It’s like watching a play,” Bess said. “Erlinda was talking to Felix when we got here. She’s being really friendly now. She even started asking Kyle all these questions about fossils. How valuable they are, where you find them, things like that. And Kyle is trying hard not to tell her anything useful!”

  “Poor Kyle,” I said. “He must think everyone is out to get his fossils.”

  George smirked. “Speaking of poor Kyle, how was your walk back?”

  “Fine. He’s really nice.”

  I could tell from Bess’s tone that she no longer saw him as a hunky potential date. She went on. “It’s not just this dig that is getting him down. He and Steffi are together—they’re getting married soon. But they can’t afford a down payment on a house on his salary and her graduate student stipend. He’s afraid they’ll be in a tiny apartment forever.”

  That explained why Bess was no longer interested in Kyle. She’d never try to steal another girl’s boyfriend. “That’s too bad,” I said. “Unfortunately, it also gives Kyle and Steffi a motive for stealing the fossil, if they need the money.”

  Bess shook her head. “I just can’t believe they would do something like that. I spent a lot of time with Steffi today. She works hard, and I’m sure she’s honest. Kyle is a sweetheart too. I like them both.”

  “I do too, actually,” I said. “They seem nice, and so sincere about their work.”

  “I like them,” George said. “But don’t forget that scene at Steffi’s tent last night.”

  I sighed. “That’s right. It seems like whenever I’m ready to decide someone can’t be a suspect, I remember something that says they still are. We need to investigate Jimmy, anyway. He’s our number one suspect now.”

  “So what is Erlinda doing here?” George asked. “If she and Jimmy are involved in the fossil theft, isn’t she just calling attention to herself?”

  Erlinda walked past us without glancing our way. I called out to her. “Hello, Erlinda. How’s Jimmy?”

  She turned and glared at me. “You leave him alone! I don’t need any more snooty city girls giving him bad ideas.” She stormed off, following the road back toward her house.

  “Okaaay …,” George said. “I think we can forget about getting a dinner invitation.”

  Bess’s forehead wrinkled. “Is her behavior suspicious, or is she just unfriendly?”

  “She’s up to something now,” I said, “but she’s not a good candidate for last night’s theft. That would be fast work, if she learned that fossils are valuable only yesterday evening. Could Jimmy be the thief, and his mother doesn’t know it?”

  George grinned. “Sounds like we get a field trip to the ranch tonight.”

  Felix called us to dinner—an enormous pot of chili, plus a long loaf of garlic bread. We all ate like we hadn’t been fed in days. It’s amazing how hungry you get working outside—or solving mysteries.

  I called across the fire to Kyle. “So, what did Erlinda want anyway?”

  “She wants to find a million-dollar fossil on her land. But like most Western ranchers, she only owns a small fraction of the land her cattle use. She leases the rest from the state.” He gave a wry smile. “Of course, most ranchers think of all the land they use as ‘theirs,’ even if it isn’t legally. In any case, the land she owns is higher. It’s not the same geologic era as our spot, unfortunately for her.”

  “She must be annoyed at that,” I said. “Do you think she’d try to dig here?”

  Kyle’s smile turned to a scowl. “I
don’t know. But so far, she doesn’t know enough to do any damage. She hardly knows what a fossil looks like, and I certainly wasn’t helping her.”

  “She couldn’t legally dig here, right?” I asked. “What exactly is the law?”

  “Basically, you can’t take vertebrate fossils from government land. That means dinosaurs, mammals, and anything else with a backbone. It’s considered stealing government property.”

  “But it’s legal to dig on private land, isn’t it?” George said. “Why don’t people just do that?”

  “First of all, in these Western states, the federal government owns a lot of the wild land, and obviously you can’t do much in cities or suburbs,” Kyle said. “Second, ranchers who have a lot of fossils on their land know they’re worth money. They might charge thousands of dollars to let someone dig, and take a percentage of whatever is found.”

  Steffi broke in. “Once you take a bone out of the ground, no one can tell where it came from. So why would you pay a lot of money, if you can just sneak in and take the fossils for free?”

  “Um, maybe because you’re honest?” George said.

  Steffi smiled. “Sometimes people don’t even know they’re committing a crime. You wouldn’t believe the people who get caught doing illegal digs! Graduate students, school groups, scouting troops, youth groups. Hey, it’s fun and educational!” She shook her head. “I guess they just don’t think.”

  Kyle nodded. “Anyone might pick up a bone or two while they’re out on a hike. It’s still illegal, and it can cause trouble if we want to excavate that site. Maybe you would have had a whole skeleton, but now you have only part of it. It does damage.”

  He turned and glared in the direction of the dig. “But the professional thieves are the real problem. One study found that about a third of all fossil sites in Western grasslands showed signs of poaching.”

  After one day on a dig, stealing fossils seemed like a lot of work. “And people can really make enough money to make it worthwhile?”

  Grayson broke in. “A few years back, thieves dug up a site in Badlands National Park. They got eighteen skulls worth five thousand dollars each. Some kind of rhinoceros, right?”

  Kyle nodded. “They were titanothere skulls. A mammal sort of like a rhinoceros. Thirty million years old.”

  “A museum at the University of Michigan also lost some rhino fossils,” Grayson added. “The thieves actually took apart the exhibit, took a skull and a leg bone, and then put the case back together.”

  Abby shook her head and made a tsking sound. “Such foolish human vanity. The pure of spirit know that fortune is merely a distraction in the search for truth.”

  Russell snorted. “Is that why you’re here? You think you’ll find some kind of truth?”

  “What does truth look like, Abby?” Grayson asked. “Will you point it out to me when you find it? Maybe I can take some home. I can always use a little more truth.”

  I could tell they were teasing her, but she took it seriously. “One must put aside the self, and open oneself to the divine guidance of spiritual beings. We have lessons to learn in this life.”

  Russell rolled his eyes. “What lessons do you get from a dinosaur dig?”

  “Positive creative activity is part of our work to heal ourselves, each other, and mother earth.”

  George leaned over to me and whispered, “So long as the activity doesn’t involve any heavy lifting.”

  Felix served brownies for dessert, then we helped clean. I was tying up a garbage bag when George waved Bess and me away from the others. “Someone is hiding behind that truck,” George said. “I saw movement, but he ducked back. It’s not someone from camp. I counted everyone.”

  “Great work,” I said. “Let’s spread out and see if we can get another look. He was behind that blue SUV?”

  “Right,” George said. “That’s Russell’s, but he’s building up the campfire.”

  We split up and walked casually around the clearing. I didn’t look at the SUV directly but kept it in the edge of my vision.

  A head bobbed up. I kept walking slowly, not directly toward him. He lifted a hand for a second, then ducked back down.

  I changed direction and joined George. “It’s Jimmy. His mother comes here openly, but he sneaks around. Interesting. I don’t think he knows I saw him.”

  “So now what?” George said as Bess came over. “Wait—there he goes. Do we follow?”

  “Of course!”

  We wanted to give him a head start, so he wouldn’t know we were following. That’s when we saw someone else start down the road.

  “What’s Steffi doing?” I murmured.

  “It looks like she’s following Jimmy,” George said.

  “It could be a coincidence,” Bess said. “Her tent’s over there.”

  Steffi paused and looked toward camp. We could see her through the SUV windows, but I doubt she could tell we were watching. She gave the campsite a long look, then hurried after Jimmy.

  George, Bess, and I exchanged curious glances, then followed. Jimmy was already out of sight. If Steffi just went to her tent, we could hurry ahead and try to pick up his trail.

  We darted between low trees and bushes. Steffi hurried straight for her tent, without glancing back.

  “See?” Bess whispered. “She’s probably just getting her jacket or something.”

  “Wait!” I hissed. “Not such a coincidence after all.”

  Jimmy stood up from behind the tent. Steffi greeted him without surprise. She unzipped her tent and the two ducked inside.

  “Let’s go closer,” I said. “I want to know what they’re saying.” I pointed to the top of the rock outcropping next to the tent and we crept up the side.

  We stretched out on top and looked down at Steffi’s tent. We were only about ten feet away, but if they came out, we could duck back. Unfortunately, we could hear only snatches of conversation.

  “You don’t know my mother,” Jimmy said.

  “Forget about her,” Steffi said. “You have to do this—for you.”

  “You know I want to, more than anything.”

  Their voices dropped, and I heard only a few words. A couple of minutes later, they crawled out of the tent. Jimmy held a brown paper bag. I wished I had X-ray vision and could look inside!

  “Just keep those hidden, and it will be all right,” Steffi said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Jimmy nodded and scurried off toward his house. Steffi strode back to camp.

  “That was interesting,” I whispered. “I just wish I knew what it meant.”

  “Could it be a romance?” George asked.

  “No way,” Bess said promptly. “She wouldn’t choose Jimmy over Kyle.”

  “You wouldn’t,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean no one would.”

  Bess looked worried. “Do you think we should tell Kyle?”

  “No. Not yet, anyway. If it is a romance, it’s none of our business. If they’re involved with the fossil theft, that’s different. But we need proof.” I glanced at Steffi as she disappeared back toward camp. “Come on,” I said, “let’s take a walk. It’s time we found out more about Jimmy.”

  George looked at her watch. “We have about half an hour until sunset, and then half an hour of dusk until it’s really dark. Should we get our lights?”

  I hesitated. “I’d rather not go back to camp, and maybe attract attention. The moon will still be nearly full.”

  Walking along the road was easier than driving had been, and we made good time. I was just glad we had on long-sleeved shirts and pants. They gave us some protection against the mosquitoes that were starting to attack.

  The crickets began chirping and somewhere an owl hooted. Something darted past our heads. I watched the small dark shape flying erratically. “Just a bat, going after the mosquitoes.”

  “We need a flock of them,” George said, waving her hands around her face. “I’ll take one for each shoulder as bug guards.”

  After we’d g
one about a mile, George pointed. “There—I see lights.” As we got closer, we could see a house.

  “It’s still light out,” Bess said. “Do you think they’ll see us?”

  “If we want to see what they’re doing, we can’t wait too long,” I said. “I’ll bet ranchers go to bed early. At least the windows aren’t facing directly this way. But let’s keep that barn, or whatever it is, between us and the house as long as we can.”

  We left the road and cut across the desert. The sunset reached all around the horizon. In the west the sun was sinking below the distant mountains in a blaze of pink and gold. The few wispy clouds looked like glowing cotton candy. In the east the distant hills glowed a rosy red.

  An eerie howl pierced the air. My skin prickled. Bess jumped and said, “What was that? A coyote?”

  “Relax,” George said gruffly, though I noticed her glancing all around. “Coyotes don’t attack people, remember? Your average pet dog is probably more dangerous.”

  Bess nodded, but moved closer. She gasped when another bat flew past. I think we all felt better when we reached the barn. Even if it wasn’t actually safer, it felt more familiar and civilized.

  “We’ll have to sneak around toward the house now,” I whispered. “Keep close to the barn. We’re less likely to be spotted.”

  I led the way to the corner and peered around at the house about a hundred feet away. I studied the windows, looking for any sign of movement. Everything seemed still.

  I glanced back at Bess and George. “Get ready to run for it.” They nodded.

  I stepped around the corner of the barn. A door swung open in my face.

  I stifled a gasp and pressed myself against the wall. Jimmy stepped out of the barn and pushed the door closed behind him. I was only a few feet away; he would spot me with a glance.

  He trotted toward the house without turning his head. I held my breath and listened to my heart pound. I was afraid he would look back at any moment, but I was afraid to move, too, in case I attracted his attention. Finally he went through the door, calling out, “Ma!”

  I slumped back against the wood for a moment. “That was close,” Bess whispered.