Disturbing the Dark by Wendy Hornsby

Author:Wendy Hornsby
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Normandy, France, World War II, Nazis, archaeology, war memorabilia, cheese making, investigative filmmaking, farming, mystery, fiction, murder
ISBN: 978-1-56474-801-0
Publisher: SCB Distributors
Published: 2016-04-06T16:00:00+00:00

13

We parked Grand-mère’s car under the carport at the side of the house and headed for my little studio in back where we could safely lock up Solange’s things. On the way, we ran into Olivia outside the potting shed where she and her students had been storing their equipment. She was cleaning tools under a garden hose.

“Glad you’re here,” I said, holding out the bucket of tools we found in Solange’s tent. “I believe these belong to your project.”

Looking a bit fierce, she turned off the hose, took the bucket from me, and demanded, “Why did you take these?”

“I didn’t,” I said. “We found them among Solange’s things in her tent.”

“She knew better than to keep them,” she scolded, maybe as a bluff to hide her feelings. Clearly, the death of her student had affected her deeply. Her hands shook as she looked through the bucket as if checking the contents against a list. Tears filled her eyes and her voice quavered when she said, “There is a mattock missing.”

“A mattock?” I asked.

“It’s a double-headed tool on a wooden handle about so long,” she said, holding her hands about three feet apart. “A pick on one side of the head, an adze on the other.”

I looked at Jean-Paul. He shook his head. I said, “We saw nothing like that in her tent.”

Jean-Paul held out the stack of library books. “Perhaps you know what should be done with these.”

Olivia took the books from him, read the spines, saw the bound monograph she had written on the top. Hugging the stack against her chest, tears welling in her eyes, she said, “Thank you. I’ll take care of them.”

I said, “I am sorry, Olivia. You and Solange seemed to be quite close.”

She seemed surprised by that. “Not at all. Before she enrolled in my summer course, I only knew Solange by reputation, as the faculty generally know about all the students doing graduate work in their field. No, we were not close. I was warned that, though she was brilliant, I needed to keep a close eye on her, so maybe I spent more time with her than with the others.”

“Why did she need watching?” I asked as a prompt to explain.

“Ah.” She raised her palms as she thought for a moment about an answer. “I think that in America you would call her a maverick. Archeology, you know, is a destructive discipline. Many times, in the process of studying a civilization, we dismantle its fragile remains. If we are not exacting in our work, we can obliterate that which we set out to study, not only for ourselves but for those who come after us. Think of the carelessness of the Carter expeditions in Egypt and the destruction of the tombs of the pharaohs. My God, Carter’s team used mummies for fire wood.”

“Was Solange careless?” I asked, shuddering at the image that flashed behind my eyes.

“She could be rash. You saw, I believe, how quickly she was ready to abandon the

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