Sand Digger's Skull by Chris McGillion

Author:Chris McGillion
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery. Six skulls are uncovered from the Comoro Riverbed in Dili. Examination shows that all resulted from violent deaths. FBI Agent Sara Carter, currently on secondment to INTERPOL, and her Timorese police translator, Estefana dos Carvalho, are assigned to investigate a possible war crime stemming from the last days of Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor. Their Timorese police colleague, Investigator Vincintino Cordero, accompanies them because one of the skulls is much more recent than the others suggesting a murder somehow linked to an earlier mass killing. The three travel to a remote village along the Comoro River near to where a likely site has been identified as the source of the skulls—parts of the riverbank washed downstream in heavy rains. But this is in a stretched of riverbank the locals insist is sacred land that no one must transgress. The officers assert their authority but the villagers are reluctant to acknowledge it, preferring instead to trust in their customary law and follow the advice of traditional elders. When one of those elders is found stabbed to death, the investigation suddenly takes a more urgent turn. Aided by an agnostic Catholic priest and an old woman many believe to be a witch, the three police officers must sift fact from superstition in the hunt for the killer or killers and for the explanation that ties all seven deaths together.
Publisher: Epicenter Press Inc.
Published: 2022-10-12T00:00:00+00:00

16

They’d reached the outskirts of the market but it offered little relief from the sun. Four elderly women dressed in drab full-length tais sat together in the half shade of a eucalypt tree, scarves covering their heads, competing to sell the few onions, tomatoes, clumps of garlic, and small fiery chillies they’d picked from their gardens. The produce was fresh and it gave a scent to the air. A few yards further on, a man in shorts and a singlet offered them clumps of mahogany and coffee-colored tobacco and, when they declined, he held out dried tobacco leaves from a canvass bag. A woman with a weathered face, her gums red from chewing betel nut, sat behind four cabbages. She paid them no mind as they passed. Racks of second-hand Indonesian-made T-shirts, dresses, jeans, and baseball caps lined the other side of the road along with men and women selling roasted and ground coffee the rich sharp smell of which overpowered everything else around them. A short man in a drooping grey moustache held up a white hen, its legs tied, and smiled toothlessly at Carter. Behind him other hens squawked at their confinement. Two stray dogs growled over scraps of food before one yelped and ran into the trees. There were only whispers among those selling and little conversation between those looking to buy.

“There aren’t many people here today,” said Father Roque. “It’s out of respect for the lia-nain.” He pointed to a crude corral off to the side of the road. “Even the cock fight has been cancelled until he’s buried.”

“When will that be?” Carter asked, declining a brown hen the man with the moustache tried to interest her in after she’d rejected the white one.

“Tomorrow, I think,” said the priest. “They won’t want to delay for too long.”

“Will you do the funeral?”

“For Sabu? Hardly. He was the lia-nain. The religious leader of the village. I’m just the imposter.” He chuckled. “He was very traditional. They’ll send him to his ancestor spirits in the underworld without any interference from me.”

As they walked through the market Father Roque had been asking people if they had seen Tomas or knew where he might be. He’d only gotten blank stares or negative answers.

“Let’s talk to those children,” he suggested indicating a group playing around trees at the far end of the market. “We might have more luck.”

Six young boys had been chasing each other around an open patch of land, laughing, falling, and tagging each other. They stopped and stared expectantly when it was clear that Father Roque was coming toward them. “Bondia, amu,” they all sang to the priest.

“Bondia oan,” he replied his hand outstretched to the nearest boy. “Bondia oan,” he said to another, referring to each as his own child. He took off his hat and waved it at them playfully. “Are you having fun at the market today?” he asked, crouching to their height.

“Sin amu,” was the chorus of agreement.

“This is my friend mana Carter,” he said gesturing toward her with his hat.

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