The Last Straw by Michael Niemann

Author:Michael Niemann
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Epicenter Press Inc.
Published: 2021-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Three

Monday, October 22nd, Tucson, Arizona

The next morning, a taxi dropped Vermeulen at the Anthropology building on campus, a four-story brick and concrete structure. He enjoyed the cool morning air, the memory of the last night still lingering. This was the first time in a while that he and Tessa were working together. The last time had been in Mozambique, a few years back. He loved her, that was no question. But he also liked working with her. They fed off each other’s ideas and he didn’t have those moments when he saw no way forward. And making love was the icing on the cake.

He entered the building and found the storage room in the basement. It was a large room that contained two tables and old metal shelving units along all walls. Zip-tied plastic bags filled almost all the shelves.

A young man sat at the end of one of the tables. He had an open bag next to him and was typing something on his laptop. He looked up and said, “Hey.”

Vermeulen returned the greeting and took in the space. Cramped was the only word that came to mind.

“Looks like you’re running out of space to store your things,” Vermeulen said.

“I know.”

“I’m Valentin. Did Alain tell you I’m coming?”

“I’m Freddie. He did. Basic ground rules. Please open only one bag at a time and put everything back before opening the next one. And keep them in order, please. These zip ties can be opened again, just push the little thingy on the top and you can pull them apart.”

“Which bags came from the site with the skeleton?”

Freddie got up and walked to the right wall. “The artifacts from site 1846 are on the bottom three shelves. They have green tags. We color-code each site. Knock yourself out.”

Vermeulen wondered not for the first time what the detritus of migrants could tell about their experience.

“What do you enter when you catalog an item?” Vermeulen said.

“Name, category, date, time, GPS coordinates and tier.”

“Tier?”

“Yeah, if it was on top of something else, below, in the middle, and so on.”

Why would that even matter? But anthropologists probably had good reasons for their methods.

“Have you cataloged the items from the skeleton site yet?”

“Yes, do you want to see the entries?”

Freddie was obviously happy to have someone else to talk to. He typed on his laptop and waved Vermeulen over. On his screen was a spreadsheet layout with many rows.

“How many items did you collect there?”

“Exactly seventy-three.”

“Was that all of them?”

“No, we try to collect a representative sample, emphasis being on try.”

“Is there a way to narrow it to items that were close to the skeleton?”

“I can try. We all know the skeleton’s coordinates by heart.”

He typed something on his laptop, swiveled it to show the screen to Vermeulen and showed him the new list, now considerably shorter. It contained several gallon water containers, marked as black.

“Why are these water containers black?”

“The white containers are like beacons in the sunlight. A Border Patrol agent with binoculars can see them miles away.

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