M.J. Rodgers - Father By Choice

Mayor O’Shea and the city council members were the first to reach the sides of the exposed pit and look within. Emily waited in anticipation on the adjacent platform with the other members of the Historical Society.

For a long moment, no one moved or said anything. And then one of the city council members muttered an oath. Another one straightened and stepped back.

Mayor O’Shea calmly turned to face the camera lens. “Ladies and gentlemen, there seems to be a skeleton in our time capsule’s closet.”

CHIEF OF POLICE MAX ZIRINSKY stood over the pit, instructing the Historical Society’s photographer on what angles he wanted him to shoot to get the best pictures of the skeleton that was lying beside the time capsule.

Ed beckoned Brad through the milling crowd—being held back by a line of plainclothes officers—to stand beside them. After introducing Brad to the police chief, Ed got to the reason he’d summoned his friend.

“We need your expertise. If we’re at the scene of a murder, no time capsule gets opened today. All of these very important people are going to be asked to leave so a crime team can get in here.”

“You want me to take a look at this skeleton and hopefully tell you that death was by natural causes,” Brad guessed.

“Can you?”

“I’m not a forensic anthropologist.”

“But you studied to be one,” Ed persisted.

“Even so, I have to warn you the kind of evaluation you’re asking for might not be possible. And even if it is, getting an answer could take a lot of time.”

“If we had a lot of time, we’d get a real forensic anthropologist,” Max said bluntly.

“How much time do you have?”

“Fifteen minutes, tops,” Max answered. “These are not people who are used to being kept waiting.”

No, Brad supposed they weren’t. Nothing he could do but his best. “I’m going to have to get down in the pit to get a closer look. If this is a crime scene—”

“Don’t worry,” Ed said, interrupting. “We’ll take your clothes and process them along with any dirt or whatever else you may pick up if this turns out to be a murder. Here, take these gloves and put them on. I’ll hold your sport coat.”

Brad nodded as he slipped out of his jacket and snapped on the thin evidence gloves Ed had handed him. There was only a three-foot drop to the top of the time capsule. Brad carefully slid down on the side opposite both it and the skeleton.

Bright lights followed his progress, as did a TV camera. Since Max was directing the camera, Brad assumed he’d commandeered the crew for the purposes of chronicling the scene and Brad’s initial examination of it.

His first glance at the fully articulated skeleton from above had already told him something. Decomposition followed a predictable course. The body had to have been placed here soon after death to leave an anatomically correct and intact skeleton like this.

It was also obvious that the bones had been thoroughly cleaned by insects over time and a couple stained a yellowish brown—most likely by some mineral leached from the soil on which they lay.

Brad went down on a knee and bent his head to get a ventral view of the pelvis, noting the relative narrowness of its opening and that of the sciatic notch on the edge of each hip bone. That gave him a pretty good idea about the skeleton’s sex. A cursory look at the leg and arm bones revealed a coarsening, no doubt the result of temperature changes occurring over an extensive period of time.

Then a shift in the overhead light picked up a glint of something near the right pelvic bone. He gently dipped his fingers into the earth, and, to his surprise, pulled out a gold coin.

It proved to be a twenty-dollar Liberty piece bearing the date of 1900. After rooting around in the dirt some more, he came up with something even more unexpected—a mud-encrusted dagger.

Brad’s eyes traveled up the skeleton’s rib cage and vertebral column. The bright light from above revealed no obvious knife marks on the bones. When he got to the skull, there were none there, either. But there was a round hole over one of the brow ridges. He was leaning forward to study it when he saw a dark lump inside the skull. He reached in and pulled out a spent bullet.

As Brad stood, he found Ed bending toward him, holding out an evidence bag. After slipping the dagger, coin and slug inside it, Brad climbed out of the pit.

“I take it we have a homicide,” Ed said as he stared at the dagger, his expression as ill-humored as a man suffering from a toothache.

Brad nodded as he dusted off the knees of his slacks. “Judging by the angle of the entry wound, I doubt that the guy shot himself.”

“Shot? He’s got a bullet wound?”

“My degree isn’t on the forensic side. But I’ve treated enough live shooting victims to recognize one when I see it.”

Brad paused to point at the evidence bag. “Plus which I found that slug inside his skull. The hole in the bone didn’t show any signs of healing, which also leads me to the logical conclusion that the wound was inflicted at the time of death.”

“Bullet must have lodged in his brain,” Max Zirinsky said as he came to stand next to them, looking about as thrilled as Ed did at the discoveries. “Didn’t have sufficient velocity to exit the skull. I’ve seen this kind of thing before.”

Brad noticed that the Chief of Police had made sure that even the TV crew was now behind the line of plainclothes police and that his conversation with Brad and Ed was being conducted out of the earshot of everyone else.

“What can you tell us about the victim?” Max asked.

Brad tugged off the evidence gloves. “The cranial sutures are completely closed. It has prominent browridges and robust mastoid processes. The fully erupted teeth are crooked with a fierce overbite. The pelvic opening is narrow.”

“And in English that translates to?” Max prodded.

“Adult male. Twenty-five to fifty age range. Someone will have to look a lot closer at the bones to tell you more.”

“Clothing?”

“Something in the soil near the feet that could be rotted leather boots. Nothing else visible, but I wasn’t really looking. Chances are most cloth materials disintegrated over time. Roots are impinging on the sides of the pit. Insect activity has no doubt been steady over the decades. Anything not enclosed within the time capsule was either consumed as their food or broken down by soil minerals.”

“Dr. Winslow, are you telling me that this guy was buried here at the same time as the time capsule?”

Brad nodded as he gestured toward the evidence bag. “I found that 1900 gold coin beneath the body. Can’t imagine anyone today carrying it around as if it were change in his pocket. When you add that fact to the absence of orthodontic work and the mineralization of the bones, I’d say it’s a safe bet your skeleton is at least a hundred years old.”

Relief washed over Max’s face. He grabbed Brad’s hand and gave it a hearty pump. “Thank you, Dr. Winslow.”

“You’re welcome,” Brad said, surprised. “But I thought that you were hoping it wasn’t a homicide.”

“Brad, if this guy was killed a hundred years ago, his murderer’s dead, too,” Ed explained. “That closes it for us. No crime scene, no need to delay pulling up the time capsule and getting back to the celebration.”

“Let’s keep the fact that he was murdered off the news,” Max said. “No need to distract from the ceremony. I’ll let the mayor know we can proceed.”

As soon as he was gone, Ed held out Brad’s sport coat. “Buddy, you just made me look good in front of the chief. Come on. I want to be the one to break the news to Emily. If you’re still bent on talking to her, I suggest you do it after I sing your praises.”