Disclaimer- No, they don't belong to either of us, so we are of course broke.
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Wren pulled her hair back for the third time in an hour and wondered yet again how she'd allowed herself to be talked into consulting on this archaeological dig, for free no less.
Well at least it was a chance to work with bones that had nothing to do with an ongoing criminal investigation and truth be told, she'd always enjoyed fieldwork in college. So here she was melting in the late August heat, kneeling over the bones of some Puritan who had died long before Wren's family ever set feet in the New World.
The college student she'd been working with all morning came back from getting a drink and the two of them settled back down to finish uncovering the skeleton. Wren noticed a metallic glint at the ribcage and lifted her brush to uncover more of the artifact. She sat back on her heels.
"David, stop and move back from the body." She said.
"Did I do something wrong, Dr. Morgan?" The kid asked anxiously.
"No, but we need to call the cops and the medical examiner's office. This skeleton does not belong here." Wren pulled her cell phone out of her pocket.
"What makes you say that, Ma'am?" David looked puzzled.
"Well David, as far as I know the Puritans weren't really big on peace symbols." Wren pointed to the medallion balanced on the sternum of their find as she dialed Woody, who had just returned to full duty that week.
"Woody, it's Wren. We need cops and a ME at the dig on Walingford Green." She said when the detective answered.
"Wren, you didn't finally kill that site manager you've been complaining about, did you?" Woody teased.
"No, Cassidy is still alive unfortunately." Wren despised the obnoxious little Chihuahua of a man that oversaw the dig for the senior archaeologist. "We've got skeletal remains here way too recent for the archaeology of the site."
"How recent?" Woody asked.
"I'd say late sixties to mid seventies." Wren estimated, purely due to the medallion she'd uncovered.
"I'll call the ME and be
there in twenty." Woody hung up.
"David, would you go get Mr.
Cassidy and Dr. Williams. They need to be informed of this." The
kid started off. "And David," Wren called after him. "Only
those two need to be told anything." He nodded and took off; Wren
sat down to await the dog and pony show. So much for bones that
didn't come attached to criminal investigation.
After having informed the archaeologist and spending twenty minutes calming the site manger, Wren was relieved to see Woody and Jordan making their way across the dig site. As Cassidy scurried off to call the University comptroller, Woody waved to her.
"Hi Wren. I assume that's the guy you wanted to take a hit out on?" Woody nodded toward the man's back with a grin.
"That would be the officious little lap dog." Wren only half joked. "You aren't going to believe what I found here." She turned to face Jordan. "Hi Jordan, you're going to love this. The dig assistant and I have been all over your scene this morning, so forensics are contaminated to hell and gone. But we've got what appears to be a female approximately 62-63 inches in height. The peace symbol medallion leads me to think she's been here since the late sixties at the earliest, but could be as late as the eighties."
"It is what it is." Jordan said donning her gloves. "There's not likely to be a lot of trace evidence left anyway." She gestured to Wren's shabby shorts and sunburned nose. "That's a good look for you."
"Yeah well, the work keeps me off the streets and out of the parks picking up strange men." Wren quipped.
"You already picked up the strangest one Boston has to offer anyway." Jordan teased.
"What can I say, I love tall, strange, irresistible men." Wren answered with a grin. "You need a hand with our girl here."
"Love it, but you aren't official." Jordan pointed out.
"Gimme a dollar." Wren held out her hand. Jordan looked confused but handed over a bill. "Now I'm an out side expert on retainer." Wren grabbed gloves and a disposable coverall from Jordan's scene kit.
"Can you do that?" Woody asked.
"Sure, Wren here has a Masters in Forensic Anthropology to go with her M.D." Jordan told her fiancé.
"Not to mention the two years I made money as a crime scene tech while working on my Masters." Wren added. "I don't use the title Dr. around you guys, too many of us floating around the group." She finished suiting up and stepped back over to the bones.
"Soft tissue is gone." Jordan noted. "No big surprise there."
"Not really, but she's gonna disarticulate completely when we move her, so you'll need extra photos." Wren observed.
"No problem. I'm always prepared." Jordan said pulling an extra roll of film from her kit.
"Dated a lot of boy scouts, did you?" Wren joked.
"Still do." Jordan nodded towards Woody. "Grab that tape would you, Wren?"
"Got it." Wren laid the measuring tape out beside the remains. "Ha! Can the girl estimate or what, she's 62 and a little over a half an inch." Wren stepped back out of camera range and stood beside Woody.
"Why do you keep saying 'she'?" He asked.
"Width of the pelvic girdle is consistent with a female, most likely pubescent." Wren explained. "Guys don't have to push out a baby so the male pelvis is more narrow. In this case, Woodrow, size really does matter."
Jordan snorted as she finished the photos. "Don't tell him that. He'll take it to heart."
"Just remember, Woody. If you don't have the big boat, you really need the ocean." Wren laughed at his blush.
"I thought guys were supposed to be the ones with their minds in the gutter." Woody said.
"You oughta hear us girls when we start to dish. Believe me if a guy has performance issues, his significant other's girl friends know all about it." Woody looked at Jordan. "Don't worry, Jordan doesn't blab." Wren assured him and Woody looked relieved. "Much." Wren laughed as he swallowed his gum.
Jordan busied herself rummaging in her kit until she could keep a straight face. "Wren, stop teasing Woody before he has a seizure." She admonished the giggling blonde.
"Okay are we ready to
start moving her?" Wren asked.
"Ready." Jordan said. "Let's
start with the skull and Wren, no Shakespeare."
"Come on, I haven't been around Nigel and Sydney that long. They haven't rubbed off on me yet." Wren mock protested.
"Not for lack of trying on Nigel's part." Jordan said.
"Ladies, please." Poor Woody was now the color of cooked lobster.
"Alright honey, let's see what happened to you." Wren was all business as she gently lifted the skull and turned it over. "Jordan, look at this skull fracture."
"No calcification obvious on gross examination. That could be what did it. We'll know more after we x-ray." Jordan tagged and bagged the skull as Wren reached for the vertebra.
It took over an hour to tag and bag everything including the soil around the skeleton and some plant matter they found around the ribcage. When Jordan first pointed it out to Wren they both stopped to take a closer look.
"That looks like a stem from a rose." Wren said. "See the thorns along it. Do you guys have anybody really into horticulture?"
"Nigel will probably be able to tell us what it is." Jordan said noticing Wren's slight blush at the mention of her colleague. She looked over at Woody, who mimed a heart shot and grinned.
"Well let's see if he can work some magic on it." Wren said as she lifted a radial bone from her side of the remains and tagged it.
"Hello." Jordan said a few minutes later, holding up a bug carapace that had been on the pelvis. "Bug will be glad to see this little guy. If it's possible, he'll be able to tell us what time of year she died because of this fella."
"And who says a good man is hard to find." Wren quipped. "Looks like your lab is full of them."
There was not much more chatter as they finished moving the remains and clothing into bags for transport to the morgue. Wren caged a ride to the morgue with Jordan and headed off to find Garret.
Emmy pointed her toward autopsy three, but warned her that Slokum was skulking about some where in the building. In order to save Garret grief from his personal watchdog, Wren backtracked to Slokum's office and knocked putting on her best professional demeanor.
"Come in?" Slokum answered looking up as she opened the door. "Dr. Morgan, to what do we owe this visit." He asked sneeringly as he took in her clothing.
"I just dropped by as a courtesy, Dr. Slokum, to offer my services as anthropologist on the case Dr. Cavanaugh brought in." Wren hated this annoying petty little dictator more than the university's site manager.
"I'm afraid our budget wouldn't allow us to pay the consulting fee for a top expert like yourself, Doctor, but I can't tell you how flattered I am by your offer." Slokum might be a worm, but he knew better than to insult a colleague of Wren's professional reputation and standing.
"Doctor, I'm afraid you misunderstood my offer. I'm not ambulance chasing, as it were. I am very curious about the remains, since I was the one who unearthed her. I'm offering my services for only a token honorarium, say one thousand dollars? Frankly the honor of consulting with a department of the caliber of this one would be worth more to me than any amount you could pay me." Wren knew precisely how thick to trowel it on with this little worm and he sat lapping it up like it was his due.
It was all she could do not to laugh in the smug twit's face. He thought she was complementing his management, when what she meant was that it would honestly please her to work with ME's the caliber of Garret, Jordan, and the rest of the staff. Slokum could believe whatever he wanted as long as it got her inside this investigation. Aside from the desire to work with this crew, she was more curious about this young woman than she had been about any of her last five cases.
"It would be an honor, Doctor. Welcome aboard." Slokum held out his hand to shake hers.
"Thank you, Jack. I hope I'll be able to help you folks solve this one quickly. I'm sure that young lady's family has waited more than long enough." She could tell the 'Jack' got to him, but since they were professional equals he wasn't about to make a scene over it. Tweaking this arrogant ass was going to be fun.
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