Airtight Case Read online

  AIRTIGHT

  CASE

  A Lindsay Chamberlain Novel

  by

  Beverly Connor

  SPECIAL GOLD EDITION

  Copyright

  AIRTIGHT CASE: SPECIAL GOLD EDITION

  Copyright © 2013 Beverly Connor

  All rights reserved

  ISBN:978-1-939874-08-5

  This Special Gold Edition has been edited and revised by the author from the original edition. Materials have been added, including a bibliography and links to web resources recommended by the author that are related to the subject matter and research behind Airtight Case.

  Cover design by Charles Connor. Images licensed from Shutterstock.com

  PREVIOUS EDITIONS OF AIRTIGHT CASE

  Original hardback print edition Copyright © 2000 by Beverly Connor. ISBN 1-58182-123-9; Paperback edition Copyright © 2002 by Beverly Connor. ISBN 1-58182-295-2.

  All rights reserved. Written permission must be secured from the copyright owner of this book to use or reproduce any part of this work, except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of this book.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. The Gallows Farmstead site and the towns of Kelley’s Chase and Mac’s Crossing are fictional. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Connor, Beverly, 1948–

  Airtight case : A Lindsay Chamberlain Novel / Beverly Connor.

  1. Chamberlain, Lindsay (Fictitious character)—Fiction.

  2. Great Smoky Mountains National Park (N.C. and Tenn.)—Fiction.

  3. Women forensic anthropologists Fiction.

  4. Excavations (Archaeology)—Fiction.

  5. Women archaeologists—Fiction.

  6. Tennessee—Fiction. I. Title.

  PUBLISHED BY

  Quick Brown Fox

  Book Reviews

  “A wonderful, fresh and exciting mystery tale.” —The Midwest Book Review

  “A terrific job with historical clues that sound like jump-rope rhymes.” —New Orleans Times-Picayune

  ‘‘Connor combines smart people, fun people, and dangerous people in a novel hard to put down. The excitement she generates from a pile of old bones and rags is amazingly compelling.’’ —Laurie Trimble, The Dallas Morning News

  “Ingenious plot, intriguing characters, and a mystery as well hidden as rubies on a beach.” —Booklist

  “A terrific mystery combining the professional experience of the author plus her knowledge of Southern culture which permeates the pages like kudzu.” —Troy Broadcasting Corporation

  ‘‘In Connor’s latest multifaceted tale, the plot is serpentine, the solution ingenious . . . chock-full of engrossing anthropological and archeological detail.’’ —Publishers Weekly

  ‘‘Calls to mind the forensic mysteries of Aaron Elkins and Patricia Cornwell. However, Connor’s sleuth infuses the mix with her own brand of spice as a pert and brainy scholar in the forensic analysis of bones. . . . Chases, murder attempts, and harrowing rescues add to this fast-paced adventure.’’ —Chicago Sun-Times

  ‘‘Crisp dialogue, interesting characters, fascinating tidbits of bone lore, and a murderer that eluded me. When I started reading, I couldn’t stop. What more could you ask for? Enjoy.’’ —Virginia Lanier, author of the Bloodhound series

  ‘‘Beverly Connor has taken the dry bones of scientific inquiry and resurrected them into living, breathing characters. I couldn’t put [it] down until I was finished, even though I wanted to savor the story.’’ —David Hunter, author of The Dancing Savior

  ‘‘Connor’s breathtaking ability to dish out fascinating forensic details while maintaining a taut aura of suspense is a real gift.’’ —Romantic Times, Top Pick

  “[Lindsay] is one of the most fascinating characters to appear in a whodunit in several years.” —Harriet Klausner

  “If you're in the mood for a deliciously twisty tale, look no further. Connor delivers in spades! This taut thriller pits two highly intelligent women against each other in an exceedingly dangerous chess match. When it comes to forensic thrillers, no one beats Connor.” —Jill M. Smith, for RT Book Reviews

  ‘‘Connor grabs the reader with her first sentence and never lets up until the book’s end. . . . The story satisfies both as a mystery and as an entrée into the fascinating world of bones. . . . Add Connor’s dark humor, and you have a multidimensional mystery that deserves comparison with the best of Patricia Cornwell.’’ —Booklist (starred review)

  ‘‘Connor’s books are a smart blend of Patricia Cornwell, Aaron Elkins, and Elizabeth Peters, with some good deep-South atmosphere to make it authentic.’’ —Oklahoma Family Magazine

  Books by Beverly Connor

  Murder In Macon

  One Grave Less

  The Night Killer

  Dust to Dust

  Scattered Graves

  Dead Hunt

  Dead Past

  Dead Secret

  Dead Guilty

  One Grave Too Many

  Airtight Case

  Skeleton Crew

  Dressed to Die

  Questionable Remains

  A Rumor of Bones

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to my dentist, Carlos Wilbanks, for his advice on teeth, to Michael Bedenbaugh for talking to me about log cabins, Diane Trap, Judy and Takis Iakovou, Marie and Richard Davis, and Larry MacDougald for their criticism and advice. A special thanks to my husband Charles Connor for everything.

  Gallows Farmstead Site

  Gallows House

  (Crew’s Quarters)

  Dedication

  In memory of my father, Charles Heth, for his belief in me. And my uncle, Arthur Heth, who told me Jack Tales and took me fishing and hunting for arrowheads in the mountains of Kentucky when I was a little girl.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Book Reviews

  Books by Beverly Connor

  Acknowledgments

  Gallows Farmstead Site

  Gallows House

  Dedication

  PART I - APRIL 2

  Chapter 1: A Stranger In The Mirror

  Chapter 2: Make A Pretty Face

  Chapter 3: Footsteps Of A Man

  Chapter 4: Moon Pies And Dr Pepper

  Chapter 5: The Black Stallion

  PART II - JULY 5

  Chapter 6: That Bitch Stole My Truck

  Chapter 7: An Air Of Unease

  Chapter 8: The Repo Man

  Chapter 9: Drew Van Horne

  Chapter 10: A Dinner Of Strained Nerves

  Chapter 11: A Ghost Of A Girl

  Chapter 12: Something In The Trench

  Chapter 13: NASA And Old Air

  Chapter 14: Lovely, Dark And Deep

  Chapter 15: At The Sheriff’s Office

  Chapter 16: Eda Mae Gone All Day

  Chapter 17: Calling Dr. Boyd

  Chapter 18: Tighty Whiteys

  Chapter 19: A Little Poe

  Chapter 20: Pig Teeth

  Chapter 21: Witches And Old Letters

  Chapter 22: Lewis’ History Lesson

  Chapter 23: You Digging Up Bodies?

  Cha
pter 24: A Fire And A Warning

  Chapter 25: Elder Timon Moore

  Chapter 26: Two Ghosts

  Chapter 27: The Cat’s Meow

  Chapter 28: Buried With The Trash

  Chapter 29: Planting Pennies

  Chapter 30: A Flat Tire

  Chapter 31: The Grave Digger

  Chapter 32: Is It Human?

  Chapter 33: Cherry Belle

  Chapter 34: The Guy Likes Gold

  Chapter 35: Argon Is Good

  Chapter 36: Shot Him Dead

  Chapter 37: Alex Wrote A Letter

  Chapter 38: Young Love

  Chapter 39: Pieces Of Eight

  Chapter 40: If Ghosts Could Talk

  Chapter 41: Can’t Argue With Logic

  Chapter 42: A Barrel Of Laughs

  About the Author

  Bibliography

  PART I

  APRIL 2

  Chapter 1

  A Stranger In The Mirror

  THE SUN SHINING through the window onto the mirror made her reflection faint and ghostly. She stepped closer, examining the face, the hair, the eyes. A stranger. She took a strand of long chestnut brown hair in her fingers, observing with detachment how the sunlight brought out deep reddish undertones. She looked back at the face, the stitches on her forehead, the bruise on her cheek—black, blue, just a hint of yellow. She reached out and touched the mirror, as if the image were not of her, but some other suffering woman standing before her, disappearing under the light. The woman in the mirror was flat and cold under her fingers. That was her. That’s how she felt. She turned at the sound of footsteps on the clay tiles of the sunroom.

  “Miss, I have some good news.”

  The nurse, the dark-haired one with a pronounced overbite, stood with her hand grasping the elbow of a man. Both grinned at her. Silly grins, she thought with fleeting unkindness.

  “We know who you are,” continued the nurse. “You’re Lisa Christian. This is your fiancé, Mark Smith.”

  The fiancé was a few inches shorter than she with dark receding hair and sparkling dark eyes. His white-and-gray-striped shirt was open at the throat, revealing a gold chain resting among black chest hairs.

  She turned the name that was supposed to be hers over in her mind. Lisa Christian. The name was as much a stranger to her as the reflection in the mirror, as the man standing before her—as everything. She stepped back as he tried to embrace her.

  “Lisa, it’s me—Mark. I’ve been looking for you for two days. We’ve all been worried and looking for you.”

  This man, this Mark Smith, held out a hand and took hers, turning it over, examining her fingers. “You’ve lost your ring. It don’t matter. I’ve found you. That’s what matters.”

  “He’s here to take you home, Miss Christian,” said the nurse.

  “I don’t know him.”

  “Of course.” The nurse patted her arm. “Your memory’ll come back. Being at home’ll help. You’ll see.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with someone I don’t know.”

  “Well, honey . . .” The nurse smiled at her as if she had made a joke. “Right now you don’t know nobody.”

  She willed herself to stay and not run. She wanted so much to run back to someplace safe. But that would make her look foolish. And she couldn’t afford to look foolish, not if she wanted to be taken seriously. They already talked to her as if she were a child.

  Odd. There were so many things she knew, like how the Indian actors on the TV western last evening were really Italians and not Indians—that the horse in The Black Stallion, which came on afterward, was indeed Arabian, as advertised. Strange that she knew these things but didn’t have a clue about the important things—like who she was.

  She looked down at her tanned hand that this stranger calling himself Mark Smith, her fiancé, had released, and she wondered why there wasn’t a white, untanned band around her finger.

  “Here, Lisa.” He handed her a small framed photograph of himself and the stranger named Lisa she had just been observing in the mirror. In the picture she was looking at the camera, smiling, her arm threaded through his. It wasn’t a particularly good photo of the two of them. He was looking off to the side, frowning at something out of camera range.

  “Isn’t that nice, Miss Christian?” asked the nurse, looking at the photograph.

  “I brought you some clothes, Lisa.” He handed her a short lavender wisp of a dress.

  She didn’t like the way the name Lisa sounded when he said it. She didn’t like the dress. She handed it back. “One of the nurses loaned me some jeans and a shirt.”

  Mark tossed the dress into a plastic bag. “I’d like to leave soon. It’s a long drive home.”

  “I’m not going with you,” she said.

  He gave a short laugh. “Of course you are, honey. You need to be home, in your own apartment.”

  “No.”

  “You’re being discharged,” the nurse said. “You’ve got to go somewhere.”

  “If there was no one to claim me, where would you send me? Would you put me out on the street?”

  The nurse looked flustered. “Well, no. But this is a very small hospital . . .”

  “Of course she’s coming with me.” Mark Smith took her hand again, and she pulled it away again. “I just need to talk to her.”

  “He’s paying your bill,” offered the nurse.

  “The doctor said my memory will return in a few days. Surely, I can stay until then.”

  “Why don’t you get changed and we’ll talk about it.” Mark smiled as he spoke. She noticed that his molars had gold fillings.

  She walked back to her room, trailing the two of them behind her. “I’ll only be a moment,” she said, turning to stop Mark inside the doorway.

  “It’s nothing I’ve not seen before.” He grinned again.

  “You must understand, I don’t know you.”

  “Why don’t you wait out in the hallway, Mr. Smith?” the nurse said. “We’ll be out in a minute.”

  He raised his hands as if giving up, and backed out the door. “Sure, I’m a sensitive kind of guy.”

  When the door was closed, she took the donated clothes out of the metal bureau drawer and removed her robe. She slipped the jeans on under her hospital gown.

  “Mark is a real good-looking guy, Miss Christian. If you don’t want him, I’ll take him.”

  “You’ve got yourself a deal.” She pulled the T-shirt over her head and slipped on the shoes that had been loaned to her but didn’t fit just right.

  “I’m going to get you a wheelchair,” the nurse said.

  “A wheelchair?”

  “You have to leave the hospital in a wheelchair. It’s hospital regulations. I’ll be right back.”

  Lisa stared hard at the face in the mirror. Remember, remember, she silently yelled at herself.

  “You look great.” Mark had reentered her room. She hadn’t heard him.

  “You didn’t knock.” She didn’t look at him, but at the strange face in the mirror.

  “Sorry, force of habit.” His little laugh was annoying.

  “I’m not going with you.”

  Abruptly, he was by her side, gripping her arm hard. “Don’t be stupid. You’re coming with me, and that’s that.”

  “Let go of me.”

  “Come on, dammit.”

  “Let go of me. I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “All right then. I’ll be right here. Three minutes and we’re out of here.”

  He let go of her arm and she ducked into the bathroom and locked the door. Her bathroom was shared by the next room. She didn’t think he knew that. She turned on the water and flushed the toilet and opened the connecting door. The elderly woman in the adjoining room was asleep, making a wheezing sound with each breath, while a monitor sounded the regular beep of her heart rate. Lisa tiptoed across the room to the door, looked out briefly into the hallway, and sprinted across the hall to the exit door. She ran without stopping down the t
wo flights of stairs and out the door, onto the sidewalk. She stopped outside the two-story hospital to catch her breath.

  She was in the small Tennessee town of Mac’s Crossing. Two days earlier a trucker had found her bruised, covered in mud, and walking down the highway. He had been kind, lucky for her. Since then, she had spent two days in the hospital, not knowing who she was or what had happened. Two days of constant fear churning acid in her stomach.

  Running down the stairs had felt good. She wanted to run some more, but where could she go? She forced herself to walk down the sidewalk from the hospital as if she knew where she was going. She passed a man standing at the curb smoking a cigarette. He grabbed her arm.

  “Now where do you think you’re going?”

  Chapter 2

  Make A Pretty Face

  “LET GO OF me!” She tried to pull the stranger’s bony hand off her arm.

  He was as tall as she was, perhaps about her age. He was thin and sinewy, with cornflower blue squinting eyes and dirty blond thinning hair. He scowled and gave her arm a hard shake.

  “Get in the car!”

  She pulled and twisted, trying to get away, but the more she pulled against his grasp, the tighter he dug his fingers into her upper arm. He threw his burning cigarette to the ground. She saw his free hand rising toward her. She had to get loose. Reflexively, without thinking, she hit him under the point of his nose with the heel of her hand, hard enough to make blood flow down his face.

  “Damn you, bitch!” He jerked his head back, wiped his nose, and panicked at the sight of his own blood.

  “You need help, miss?” A large woman in a silver Cadillac stuck her head out of her automobile window.

  “Call the police and tell them a man is molesting people coming out of the hospital,” she shouted.

  Trying to feign innocence, the stranger relaxed his posture. She felt his grip on her arm loosen. She stomped the top of his foot nearest her, pulled away from him and ran, not stopping until she was out of sight between two buildings.

  She ducked into a door and leaned against the wall, trying to compose herself, taking deep breaths. The gray-green walls and tile floor looked like another hospital, perhaps a doctors’ building. To her left she saw a men’s room. The women’s room should be just beyond it, she reasoned, and forced herself to walk slowly down the corridor to the door marked WOMEN.