Burial Ground Read online

  “Moundmasters,” I said.

  “Christ, when are you going to change that goofy name?” a male voice whined. It wasn’t Bertha.

  “Hello, Freddie,” I said. “How did I luck out? First a call from Bombast and now the president of Pyramid Consultants.”

  “Bombast?” he snorted. “What did you do, fuck up your last delivery order? I told them they should’ve given us that contract. You can’t run a business with part-timers and students.”

  “Is that what you told them when you protested the award?”

  “None of your business what we put in our protest. But I didn’t call to argue with you. I called because we’ve got a mutual interest. We need to work together.”

  “You and me?” My laughter brought Marilyn to poke her head in the doorway. “Freddie, we do fieldwork around here. You know, that stuff with shovels and trowels, that gets dirt on you.” I had an image of him, across town in his carpeted office, relaxing in his padded executive chair. The last fieldwork he’d been personally involved in was the expansion of the golf course at a country club in Mississippi, and rumor had it he’d supervised his crew from the bar.

  “I’ll overlook the insult, Al. I know how it is when you get hungry. I’m just trying to make sure neither one of us starves.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “That means there are three contract firms in this parish. Us, you, and CEI. Naturally, we get most of the work, but there’ve been some crumbs for you and CEI despite your prices. But the fact is we’re at about saturation point.”

  “What do you propose, Don Corleone? We carve up the territory?”

  “Very funny, Al. You’ll be laughing out of the other side of your mouth if she gets a foothold.”

  “She who?”

  “This woman, for God’s sake! The one who’s come down from Yankee land who’s setting up a new firm here.”

  My belly did a little jump. He was right: Competition wasn’t welcome in a market that was already on the ropes.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “I see I’ve got your attention. I didn’t hear a ‘Thank you, Dr. St. Ambrose,’ but never mind. I understand.”

  “Stop babbling, Freddie, and tell me what this is all about.”

  “I’m trying to, Al.” His voice rose an octave. “There’s a new player in town. She calls herself—now get this—P. E. Courtney. She’s from Massachusetts, of all places. Got her doctorate from Harvard. Now you tell me what a Harvard Ph.D. is doing down here scraping up jobs in contract archaeology? I’m telling you, Al, something smells.”

  “It is unusual,” I agreed.

  “Her dissertation was some kind of study of contact sites in the Yazoo Basin. Christ, why doesn’t she take a job at some little pissant college in Mississippi?”

  “Jobs are hard to get.”

  “Well, she’s going to find that contract archaeology in Louisiana’s a hell of a lot tougher. If we stand together on this the jokers at CEI will have to go along …”

  “Stand together? What do you mean?”

  “Freeze her ass out. She came by here to introduce herself and I already told her she wasn’t welcome. I assume I spoke for you, too.”

  “Wait a minute …”

  “Listen, Al.” His voice had that low, earnest tone that meant somebody was about to get screwed. “If we make it hot enough for her, she’ll go away. I know what women are like. I’ve been married three times. We can freeze her ass out with low bids, just you and me. CEI can’t touch us—their overhead’s too high. But I’ll let a couple of people go if I have to, take a temporary loss. If you’ll do the same …”

  “I think that’s illegal,” I said.

  “It’s business, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Not my kind.”

  “Al, you’re a born sucker.”

  “And you were born to be hanged.” I slammed the receiver down, which was par for the course after talking with Freddie St. Ambrose for more than two minutes. Still, this wasn’t good news. We existed on the thin line between survival and bankruptcy as it was. Another player could tip any of us right over.

  P. E. Courtney.

  I ate a bag lunch at the sorting table with Marilyn and Gator, our gap-toothed field boss, so named for his tendency to abandon survey to wrestle alligators when he saw one basking. A good man, and so far indestructible. I was wadding up my lunch papers when David Goldman returned from the library. An ex-rabbinical student from New Orleans, David had surprised his family by dropping his theological studies to take up anthropology. He’d come to Louisiana State for a master’s and had joined me the year before his graduation, first as a part-timer and then as a full-time archaeologist. His specialty was lithics, and he’d written several papers on the sources of the stone used in some of the tools found at the great Poverty Point site in the northeastern part of the state. I told him about my meeting with T-Joe and he shrugged.

  “Probably nothing to it,” he said. “He could’ve gotten the damn things anywhere. I’ve seen them being sold in curio stores in the French Quarter, in New Orleans.”

  I nodded reluctantly. “I don’t think he’s the kind that would fall for a hoax,” I said. “And he seemed honest himself.”

  “Maybe,” David said and headed for his own office, a remodeled bedroom next to my own lair. I started to mention my conversation with Freddie, but it seemed unnecessary.

  I read through the printout of the Commerce and Business Daily, looking for bid solicitations on newly announced government projects. I found nothing but a request for a cultural resources survey in Hawaii, and turned to the draft of a report we’d done for a construction company on a pipeline right-of-way. I was midway through the boilerplate chapter on prehistory when I heard voices in the lab. A few seconds later a frowning Marilyn appeared in my doorway.

  “Alan, there’s somebody to see you.”

  “Oh?” I wondered for a minute if Freddie had decided to come in person to press his point, but decided it was unlikely: It took a lot to budge Freddie St. Ambrose from his padded chair. Probably a student looking for a part-time job for the rest of the summer.

  “Show him in,” I said.

  “Her,” Marilyn said primly. “Your him’s a her.”

  “Oh. And does her have a name?” I asked.

  Marilyn, ever jealous of her position as factotum, nodded.

  “She says her name is P. E. Courtney.”

  TWO

  I rose slowly, but before I could get around my desk she was inside.

  “You’re Alan Graham,” she said.

  I nodded, not yet sure what to say. The woman in front of me wore a Liz Claiborne suit and carried a slim, executive attaché case. Her blond hair was clipped short, and designer glasses magnified frank brown eyes. There was a woman under there someplace, I decided, an attractive woman, but I wasn’t sure she knew it after all the power statements.

  “And you’re …”

  “P. E. Courtney. Here’s my card.”

  She thrust out a square of cardboard and I read what it said:

  COURTNEY & ASSOCIATES

  Cultural Resource Consultants

  6006 Perkins Road, Suite 107

  Baton Rouge, LA 70808

  (504) 555-ARCH

  P. E. Courtney, Ph.D.

  President

  I wondered who the “associates” were, but, then, everybody had associates, even if they were the night cleaning crew.

  “What can I do for you?” I asked, shaking her hand. Her grip was firm, and I noticed she had the thin fingers of a pianist. No rings. On either hand.

  “May I sit down?”

  I went to pull over a chair but she already had it.

  “Thanks.” She sat and I dropped back into my own chair, wondering if I’d misjudged Freddie.

  “You’re probably asking yourself why I’m here. The reason’s simple: I wanted to introduce myself before rumors started to circulate. So I’m making the rounds of the local contract
firms.” She dug into her attaché case and came up with a brochure.

  “This is a prospectus for our company. I’d like you to have it.”

  It was printed on slick paper, in six colors. It said Courtney & Associates could do just about anything. Some of the associates were listed. They were big names in the Eastern archaeology establishment, but I’d never known any to stoop from their academic chairs long enough to get involved in contract work.

  “Impressive,” I said. “But I think I’d ask myself how much the economy will support down here.”

  “Just so it supports one more,” she said, showing me her teeth. “You see, Alan—may I call you Alan?—”

  I nodded.

  “Good. And I’m P. E.” She looped an arm over the back of her chair. “I’m here because I want to be. I got my degree from Harvard last year, and all my professors thought I was going to shoot for a university position. But I inherited some money from an aunt and I wanted to work in Louisiana. I like it here.” Another barracuda smile. “I’m here to stay.”

  “You’re from back East,” I commented.

  “Massachusetts. But I’ve always liked the South, ever since I was young and traveled down here. I did an analysis last year and decided that, while the Louisiana economy is questionable just now, it has more potential than any other state in the region.”

  “Well, all I can say is good luck.”

  “Thanks. But I don’t think I’ll need luck. I’m good enough to succeed without it.”

  “Oh?” My jaw clenched. I was starting to feel positively sympathetic toward Freddie.

  “I’m not bragging,” she said. “It’s an objective statement. I realize self-confidence offends some people.”

  “Imagine.”

  She nodded. “I was talking to Fred St. Ambrose earlier today. I don’t think he understood.”

  I suppressed a smile. “Oh? What did he tell you?”

  “Well, first he tried to hire me. He said some oil man was trying to have some work done on his property and it might involve colonial period Tunica artifacts.”

  I flinched.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said I thought it would be interesting and I offered to subcontract the lab work.”

  “What then?”

  She shrugged. “Nothing. He started talking about how the Indians were ruining things for archaeology and he wanted to know how discreet I was, and I had a funny feeling he wanted me to help him get around the unmarked burials law.”

  “And?”

  “I turned him down. That was when he got really insulting. Said I’d never work in Louisiana, he had the contracts and the contacts. He claimed I’d, quote, sink up to your little ass in debt, unquote, which I guess I ought to take as a compliment. The bit about the little ass, I mean.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I walked. The man’s a sleaze. Are all the contract archaeologists in the state like him?”

  “You’ll have to make up your own mind about that,” I said dryly. “Freddie comes from an old New Orleans family. Trouble is it was originally Ambrosio, in the Ninth Ward. He got a degree in business and an anthropology minor, and then, back when contract archaeology started heating up in the late seventies, he took an M.A. here at LSU. Then he got some kind of life experience doctorate from an alternative university that doesn’t make you go to classes or take tests, so he could call himself doctor.”

  “They allow that here?” Her brows rose in amazement.

  “In the old days they allowed almost anything. Besides, all it takes is an M.A., and his is legitimate enough.”

  “Amazing,” she said. “But your doctorate is legitimate, isn’t it?”

  “If the University of Arizona’s still in business.”

  The penciled brows rose a fraction more. “Not a bad school. Top twenty.”

  “Something like that,” I mumbled, growing more irritated with every second. She brought her arm down and folded her hands on her lap.

  “So are you going to do the Tunica work?” she asked suddenly. “Because if you are, we’d like to do the artifact analyses.”

  I stared at her. “What makes you think I’m going to be involved?”

  “St Ambrose sounded pretty desperate for somebody to do the lab work. My guess is that without an expert he may not be able to pull it off. So if you’re going to bid, I’d like to work with you. I’ll work up a cost proposal, of course. I’m not cheap, but I do good work.”

  “And the unmarked graves law?”

  “I suspect you aren’t the kind to break any laws. If it turns out the artifacts are associated with burials, you’ll report it.”

  I nodded. “If something develops, I’ll let you know.”

  She stared me in the eyes. “You know, I could make a bid of my own, without either one of you. And I just might underbid you both.”

  “You could if you knew who it was that wanted the work done. If you could convince this person somebody from back East knows more about this sort of thing than somebody who’s been doing archaeology here for almost ten years.”

  “Jeff Brain is from back East,” she said, and could tell she’d scored. Jeffrey P. Brain was the world’s authority on the Tunica Treasure and was, until recently, at Harvard.

  “Are you going to subcontract Brain?” I asked.

  “I may.” She gave me a pussycat smile and I saw she had dimples. She must have seen me staring because her mouth straightened out suddenly.

  “Well, you’ve got to do what you think’s best,” I said.

  She got up and extended a hand.

  “It’s been great meeting you, Alan. I hope we run into each other again soon.”

  I wasn’t sure I shared her hope, and her composure aggravated me. Did she really think she was going to walk in off the street and start taking our business? I skimmed over the brochure again and then thrust it far back into my desk drawer with last year’s bid notice from the Forest Service.

  My mood only worsened as the afternoon wore on. It reached bottom when I fielded a call from one of our clients, a man named Hayes, whose firm was one link in an involved chain of subcontractors in a retirement village development. He wanted to know when our report would be ready and he didn’t want to hear about how many artifacts we’d had to analyze and illustrate.

  When I asked him about the 50 percent payment we’d been due for two months, his tone changed to a whine. The prime contractor hadn’t paid his company and how could we expect…?

  I told him we did expect and that we’d send the report when we saw a check.

  He mumbled something about blackmail and said he’d see what he could do. I hung up the phone and watched Marilyn creep through the door with her printout.

  “No check from Diversified Consultants?” she asked.

  “He said he’d look into it”

  “We don’t have enough right now to meet payroll next Friday.” She started to put the papers in front of me but I waved them away.

  “I believe you. I’m still hoping they’ll come through. If not maybe Clarence at the bank will give me a home equity loan.”

  She nodded and faded back out. Four-thirty came none too soon.

  I drove home to my house in the Garden District, thinking of T-Joe Dupont. I didn’t know how much he had in mind for a survey, but anything would come in handy right now.

  The old house greeted me with creaks as I moved across the front porch. It was a Victorian structure of two stories with bow windows, built in the early days of the century when this was the suburbs. My parents had purchased it in the forties and it was the place I remembered as home. I’d gone away and studied archaeology and then landed a position at a good university. But on a dig in Mexico I’d met a woman, a Mexican archaeologist named Felicia, and I’d loved her too much for my own good. My work had gone to hell, my job had collapsed around me, and one day I’d come back here and started again. I still kept the old furniture and paintings, but I’d put in a dishwasher and cen
tral air. And a burglar alarm, because the city had long since moved past Park Boulevard, the main avenue of the district, leaving it perched precariously on the edge of a ghetto. I heated up a couple of frozen meat pies, fed Digger, my Shepherd mixed breed, and turned on a ball game. Before the third inning I found myself thinking of P. E. Courtney again.

  Brusque, that’s what she was. And opinionated. But, then, my father had always said that was the way Yankees were. So maybe she couldn’t help it. But P. E.? Surely the damn girl had a name. What was it? Patricia? How about Penelope? No, Prudence. I grinned to myself. Yes, that was probably it. Prudence Elvira. I liked it.

  The next day, Saturday, I jogged around the lakes and did some painting on my garage. I’d been working on it off and on all spring. At this rate, I’d be finished by winter. Maybe. I slapped on the paint in the form of a question mark and then brushed it over. All I needed was a nosy Yankee woman. And a good-looking one, at that. The prospect nagged me all through that night’s poker game, and a couple of the players commented that my usually famous jambalaya was overcooked.

  On Sunday I slept until ten, made myself bacon and eggs for brunch, took Digger for a flea dip at the vet school, and then for a drying-out run atop the levee.

  Absalom Moon. Who the hell knew where he’d gotten those artifacts? It could be like chasing a will-o’-the-wisp. Worse, it could turn into a no-win situation, and I was always careful to turn down those kinds of projects. Still, it could save our payroll, and if it worked out, we could make a major discovery, and there weren’t many of those.

  By the time I got home that afternoon I decided I’d take the job. As for the payroll, I’d go down to the bank tomorrow and talk to Clarence about a second mortgage on my house. Maybe if I threw myself on the floor and begged he’d extend us another few thousand. What good would it do his bank if we went belly-up owing them money?

  I’d just finished my shower and was drying off when the phone rang. I swore under my breath and stumbled down the hallway to the phone.

  I jerked it to my ear. “Hello?”

  “Dr. Graham?” The voice was vaguely familiar.