Airtight Case by Beverly Connor Page B

of this section?”
    “I don’t know. I haven’t seen any of the pictures.”
    Erin lowered her voice to a whisper. “What’s Claire going to do with the truck?”
    “She’ll probably park it out of sight down the road and walk back to the house. Isn’t that guy . . . Trent working on this feature? Where is he?”
    “He’s sick today.”
    Stoned , thought Lindsay. “How about the crew members working on it with him? Where are they?”
    “Claire found another structure in the woods. She put them on that, I think.” Erin nodded in the direction of the tree line. She shook her head. “I really thought archaeology would be different from this. I mean, I really wanted to be an archaeologist.”
    “I’ve never worked on a site with as much hostility as this one,” said Lindsay. “Most digs aren’t like this.”
    “Is it because it’s a private company?”
    “No, it’s not that. I’ve consulted with several private archaeology companies. None have been like this one.”
    Claire was part of the problem, thought Lindsay, her controlling, abusive personality. But there was something else about this site that Lindsay couldn’t put her finger on, and it troubled her. It was as if some evil hung in the air. Something that made the wind rush hard through the trees, whipping the crowns back and forth. Something that brought the darkness with it. Lindsay heard the blood rushing in her ears with each beat of her heart. She turned and looked at the forest. There was no wind in the trees, and it surprised her. Was the storm she felt in her mind, hovering on the edge of her sanity? Don’t think about it , she said to herself. Ignore it and it will go away. Don’t build it and they won’t come.
    “Don’t judge archaeology by this experience.”
    “I’ll keep reminding myself.” Erin tapped one of the rocks with her fingers.”What is this, do you think?”
    Lindsay stood and stepped back, looking at the area. Only a portion of the feature was excavated. The several wooden stumps, frequently used as lunch tables by the crew, were from trees that had been cut down only a few years before. Here and there bunches of long, slender daffodil leaves stood above the grass and weeds. She noticed a thorny, long-stemmed shrub low on the ground, and picked out several more scattered about. Lindsay stepped back again.
    “I believe it’s a cemetery.”
    “A cemetery? The documents we have say the family is buried at Wild Grape Hollow Cemetery at the Primitive Baptist Church.”
    “Look at the berm around the feature.” Lindsay indicated a gently raised strip of ground.
    “I see it. Kind of like the mounded earth around the barn,” said Erin.
    Lindsay nodded. “The kind of berm made by years of dirt washing against a fence. I think this feature was fenced in. It also has daffodils and antique roses.”
    “But flowers wouldn’t be here from that long ago, would they? The records date back over a hundred years, and they make no mention of a graveyard. It would have been abandoned more than a hundred years ago,” objected Erin.
    “That doesn’t matter. Antique roses and daffodils are hardy plants. They sustain themselves indefinitely. There’s another indication, too. There’s been a copse of trees on this spot for a long time. It’s not uncommon that local people know of the presence of a graveyard, even when who’s buried in it is long forgotten. When the surrounding timber is cut, the trees in a graveyard are always left standing. You can drive through the countryside and see little stands of tall trees alone on hilltops when the rest of the countryside has been clear-cut. Those are old cemetery sites that the loggers won’t cut. I think this was one of those sites.”
    “But who would be buried here?”
    Lindsay shrugged. “Some members of the family who didn’t get themselves buried in Wild Grape Cemetery. Were the Gallowses slaveholders?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “When it’s excavated, we may find