CHAPTER 5

I shower my workout sweat away and put on my uniform. My pants button a little easier today. Eleanor's diet and my work out plan must be must be doing the trick. "Can't have the next police chief getting out of shape," she'd said in her well- meaning way. I don't care how my pants fit, but if ot makes Eleanor happy, then I'm happy.

My tool belt settles on my hips with a satisfying weight. I check my gun in its Holster, the weight of the Ruger even more satisfying. My lunch waits on the counter. I don't look inside. I'd rather be disappointed by the raw vegetables and fruits slices later.

The October sky stretches over my neighborhood in a shape of blue improbable for this late in the year. Indiana weather is unpredictable, the changing of the seasons more of a suggestion than a set rule. Yesterday it stormed, today the sun shines. The heat and the blue sky contrast with the orange, red and yellow leaves on the trees. I pause by the door to my crusier, turn my face to the morning sun.

A chorus of shouts echo around the house of my neighbourhood. Frantic voices shatter the beauty of the morning.

Putting my hand on my holster just in case, I run towards the sound from behind the houses. Our street is the last street of homes they built in this neighborhood. Beyond lays an open field of another property. This past week they started moving dirt and working the field in preparation for another housing development.

I run across the back yard towards the shouts on the other side of the tree line, my mind taking in the details as I go. A bulldozers idles, smoke coming from its stack. No driver in the seat, but the machine idles quietly. Doesn't look like an accident there. Some workers mill, around the dozer, but no one's laying on the ground, no major injuries. The workers circle around a low pile of dirt and another man tries to keep them back.

One of the men spots me running towards them and jogs over to meet me. It's a guy I picked up on a disorderly conduct charge a few months ago. Dave something.

"Officer Caillon," he says by way of greeting. It's Detective Caillon now, but I don't correct him.

"What's going on Dave?" I heard shouts."

"The dozer found something." Dave is jumpy and sweating.

"What did it find?" I ask pointedly.

"Bones." The way he says the word chills me.

A ripple of excitement tingles down my arms. Human bones buried in a field and I'm first on the scene. I can't wait to tell Eleanor.

Approaching the dirt piled up by the bull dozer I put on my best cop voice. "Okay, everyone, back up, give me some room." The workers obey and watch me from a short distance.

A large bone pokes out from where the dozer turned the ground. A few smaller pieces litter the dirt, broken by the dozer. Looks like deer bones. A little wave of disappointment washes over me, triggering guilt. I put on a glove and brush the dirt away from the largest bone. It slides out of the pile, broken. Maybe a femur? I brush some more dirt away, and reveal a few more broken pieces.

"Should we call 9-1-1?" Dave asks.

"Give me a moment to figure out what we have. It might be a deer or something."

I shuffle closer to the pile, still crouched low, ignoring the twinge of an old basketball injury in my right knee. I dig deeper and a hand emerges. The excitement tingles again. A rounded piece catches my attention. Moving faster now, I expose some more.

It looks like a skull.

I should leave it, should call in the forensic team. Instead, I tug it as gently as possible.

The skull pops loose and rolls down the dirt and bumps into my foot. Startled, I land on my rear.

The skull rolls against my outstretched leg, the sun glinting off the forehead. It smiles up to me with its unmistakable grin.

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