Break No Bones Read Free Page A

Smiling, I tried hurrying past.
    "Thank God and al his angels and saints for air-conditioning."
    "Yes, ma'am."
    "Y'al are digging by the old tower?"
    "Not far from there." The tower had been built to spot submarines during World War II.
    "Finding anything?"
    "Yes, ma'am."
    "That's grand. We could use some new specimens in our nature center."
    Not these specimens.
    I smiled, and again tried moving on.
    "I'l be coming by one of these days." Sun sparked the blue-white curls. "Gal's gotta keep up with island events. Did I ever tel—"
    "Please excuse me, but I'm in a bit of a hurry, Miss Honey." I hated to brush her off, but I had to get to a phone.
    "'Course you are. Where are my manners?" Honey patted my arm. "Soon's you get free, we'l go fishing. My nephew's living here now and he's got a dandy of a boat."
    "Does he?"
    "He surely does, gave it to him myself. Can't take the helm like I once did, but I stil love to fish. I'l give him a holer, we'l go out."
    With that, Honey strode down the path, backbone straight as a lobloly pine.
    Taking the stairs two at a time, I bounded onto the porch and into the community center. Like the public works area, it was deserted.
    Did the locals know something I didn't? Where the hel was everyone?
    Letting myself into the office, I crossed to the desk, dialed Information, then punched a number. A voice answered on the second ring.
    "Charleston County Coroner's Office."
    "This is Temperance Brennan. I caled about a week ago. Is the coroner back?"
    "One moment, please."
    I'd phoned Emma Rousseau shortly after arriving in Charleston, but had been disappointed to learn that my friend was in Florida, taking her first vacation in five years. Poor planning on my part. I should have e-mailed before I came down. But our friendship had never worked like that. When at a distance, we communicated infrequently. When reunited, we jumped in as if we'd parted only hours before.
    "She'l be with you shortly," the operator updated me.
    On hold, I recaled my first encounter with Emma Rousseau.
    Eight years back. I was a guest lecturer at the Colege of Charleston. Emma, a nurse by training, had just been elected Charleston County coroner. A family was questioning her finding of "undetermined" as the manner of death in a skeletal case. Needing a consult, but afraid I'd refuse, and determined to have mine as an outside opinion, Emma hauled the bones to my lecture in a large plastic container. Impressed with such moxie, I'd agreed to help.
    "Emma Rousseau."
    "Got a man in a tub who's dying to meet you." Bad joke, but we used it over and over.
    "Hel's bels, Tempe. You in Charleston?" Emma's vowels weren't up to Honey's, but they came damn close.
    "You'l find a phone message somewhere in your mail stack. I'm running an archaeological field school out on Dewees. How was Florida?"

    "Hot and sticky. You should have let me know you were coming. I could have rescheduled."
    "If you actualy took time off, I'm sure you needed the break."
    Emma didn't reply to that. "Dan Jaffer stil out of the loop?"
    "He's been deployed to Iraq until sometime next month."
    "You met Miss Honey?"
    "Oh, yeah."
    "Love that old lady. Brimming with piss and vinegar."
    "She is that. Listen, Emma. I may have a problem."
    "Shoot."
    "Jaffer put me on to the site, thought it might be a Sewee burial ground. He was right. We've been getting bone since day one, but it's typical pre-Columbian stuff. Dry, bleached, lots of postmortem deterioration."
    Emma didn't interrupt with questions or comments.
    "This morning my students spotted a fresh burial about eighteen inches down. The bone looks solid, and the vertebrae are connected by soft tissue. I cleared what I felt was safe without contaminating the scene, then figured I'd better give someone a heads-up. Not sure who handles Dewees."
    "Sheriff's got jurisdiction for criminal matters. For suspicious death evaluation, the winner would be me. Got any hypotheses?"
    "None involving the ancient Sewee."
    "You think