Mesozoic Murder Read Free

the back of her field book. “The driving directions are on these.” She handed a flier to each student. “Now let’s go fossil hunting.”
    Lydia and Shane wandered off in different directions, but Tim remained. “Miss Phoenix, I was wondering if I could talk to you sometime about the Montana State University. I know you went there. I just got my Master’s in zoology, and I want to go there for my doctorate.”
    â€œThat’s wonderful, Tim. Sure, I’d be glad to discuss the university with you. We could meet at my art studio. I’m free Monday afternoon.”
    â€œGreat. What time?”
    â€œHow about two o’clock?”
    â€œPerfect.”
    â€œGive me your flier, and I’ll write my address.”
    Tim passed the paper, and Ansel scribbled across it. “I’ll see you then. You’d better get hunting or those two will find something first,” she said with a grin.
    Tim nodded and walked off. Ansel took a moment to write site information in her battered field notebook. Thoughts of her missing Iniskim invaded her mind. She’d have to go back to Pitt’s homestead and search the ground.
    Moments later Ansel closed the notebook and looked around. Lydia was staring into a gully. Shane probed the edge of an interesting rock outcropping, kicking at shale chips littering the prairie. Tim halted on the open grassland and snapped pictures of the terrain and of his fellow searchers.
    Ansel loved fieldwork despite its demands as an exacting science, and she really wanted to convey the same sense of excitement and adventure to her students. It appeared that Shane and Tim didn’t quite grasp the concept of making fascinating paleontological discoveries. Only Lydia was enjoying this excursion. The geology student had hopped into the gully and was examining the ground with fierce concentration.
    As she walked toward Lydia, Ansel slid the journal into her pocket and pulled out a fossil hammer hanging from the tool belt around her waist. She reached the gully’s edge and looked down. “Find anything interesting?”
    Lydia brushed a curly lock of brown hair away from her perspiring brow. “I see something in this hole. I think it’s a piece of gold, Ms. Phoenix.”
    â€œLet me take a look.”
    Ansel jumped into the three-foot-wide wash, then kneeled beside the opening. Natural erosion had loosened the dirt beneath a six-inch-long shale overhang. She could see the flash of gold metal a foot away. An unpleasantly sweet odor wafted outward.
    â€œI see it, Lydia. Stand back.” Ansel got to her feet.
    â€œWhat are you going to do?”
    â€œI’m going to open up the hole with my pick. This is wild prairie. I know people who’ve been bitten by poisonous snakes, badgers, and even black widow spiders because they weren’t careful.”
    Ansel excavated the cavity, loose dirt falling easily away. She took several strikes at the rock overhang. Working the pick deeper into the gully wall, she finally exposed the mysterious object.
    Lydia grimaced. “Shoot. It’s just a pair of dirty, old glasses.”
    Ansel picked them up. The plastic lenses were scratched and dirt-smeared. The left lens had a spiderweb crack radiating from its center. Shane and Tim appeared above them.
    â€œWhat’s going on?” Shane demanded.
    Ansel glanced up. “Nothing much. We’ve uncovered some eyeglasses.”
    Shane’s face twisted into a smirk. “Great going, Lydia. Which dinosaur wore those?”
    â€œLet’s get back to fossil hunting,” Ansel said, trying to avoid any conflict.
    Tim started to walk away and then stopped. “Geesh. What’s that smell?”
    â€œPigs,” Shane shot back. “What do you think?”
    The rancid odor Ansel smelled earlier had returned full bore. She noticed Lydia’s straining effort to walk up the gully side. Her feet kept sinking deep into the loose