Faye Longchamp 01 - Artifacts

if Joe were cleared of wrongdoing, as well he should be, the questioning, the lawyers, the reporters, the courtroom—well, it would kill the boy. Sheriff Mike had seen what a few hours in jail had done to him. Joe Wolf Mantooth could only thrive in fresh air. He didn’t deserve to be dragged into the maw of civilization.
    Sheriff Mike reflected that this case had induced him to take an elastic view of upholding the law. Sometimes the law fell short of ensuring that justice was done. Sometimes, fate or God or something past his understanding took care of things instead. Right now, a man lay in a Tallahassee burn unit, missing a couple of fingers and most of the skin on his chest. When the doctors got through with him, the law would deal with him for carrying a concealed weapon and impersonating an officer of the law, but Sheriff Mike wagered that the punishment he had already received was more appropriate for the attempted murder of an innocent like Joe Wolf Mantooth than anything the law might be expected to hand out.
    The sheriff had come to the beach today prepared to do what needed to be done to the body of Cyril—no, Cedrick—Kirby. A pair of gardening clippers were stuck in his hip pocket. He used them to cut easily through the shaft of the spear, just behind the point, and pocketed the arrowhead. Then he rolled the body over, planted a foot between its shoulder blades, and yanked the shaft out of its neck. The coroner might wonder how a hurricane had put a hole through Senator Kirby’s throat, but Sheriff Mike wagered the coroner had never seen a man killed by hand-knapped stone. He’d rule that the death had occurred by accident.
    Now he could go home, burn the bloodied shaft, and return with witnesses to discover the body all over again—after he’d cleaned up Joe’s spearhead and respectfully placed it in a velvet-lined box alongside the relics of ancient heroes.
    Where it belonged.

    Faye took a stool at the lunch counter at Wally’s, waiting for Magda, who couldn’t wait to ride out to Joyeuse and tour what was left of the house. Liz had told her that Wally, the prince of self-preservation, had disappeared the day after the hurricane. Faye looked around the convenience store for evidence that the owner had been missing for a week, but found none. Liz was running the place as if nothing had changed.
    “I’m waiting for the taxes to go into arrears,” Liz said, “then I’m going to buy this place at auction with the money I saved from my husband’s life insurance.”
    Faye felt positively impish. “Listen close. Right before the auction, break this window and that one over there,” she said with a careless gesture. “Even if it rains, they won’t let much water in. Do you want to keep this floor?” Liz looked at the peeling linoleum and shook her head. “Then slop some hot grease on it. You know all about creative uses for hot grease, I hear. I can show you how to make the toilets leak and the doors stick. If we set our minds to it, I figure we can knock twenty percent off your purchase price. Maybe thirty.”
    “Faye,” Liz said, “you have always got a place to park your boat. Count on it.”
    “Good, because I’ll need one round-the-clock from now on. I think I’m going to be moving to town.”
    Magda was already talking when she walked through the door. “One of my colleagues is a lithics specialist. He’s chomping at the bit to hire Joe as a lab tech, so Joe can teach him everything he knows about ancient toolmaking techniques. The pay is low, but how much does Joe need? And he’ll get the use of the school’s infirmary and catastrophic health insurance.”
    “Joe’s going to have health insurance?” Faye asked, incredulous.
    “Sure, as a student, you’ll qualify for the same deal. You are coming back to school, aren’t you?”
    “I’m going to have health insurance?” Faye asked, the incredulity in her voice cranking up a notch.
    Magda had taken on Faye’s future as a personal project. On the day after the hurricane, while they waited on Joyeuse for the Coast Guard to get paramedics to Douglass and Faye, she had sat cross-legged on Faye’s wet floor, brandishing a waterproof pen. The act of initialing every page of Faye’s field notes, sheltering years of pothunting under the umbrella of her Ph.D., had made Magda chuckle. No, cackle was the right word for the sounds that had come out of her sturdy chest.
    “Now,” Magda had said, “you’ve got enough