Vampire Dreams (Bloodscreams #1) by Robert W Walker Read Free Book Online Page A

Magaffey ought not to be working on important forensic evidence in such cases as this. Maybe he was senile as hell. Hard to say of a coroner.
    The old man retained much of his sharpness, however, reading Stroud's expression and saying, “Don't look like that, Abraham Stroud, not in my direction. Hell, boy, I've forgot more about bones than Banaker ever knew. Calls himself a bone expert over at that spanking new technological wonder of his, but the damned fool hasn't even seen this. Looky here.” The old man pushed a long femur into Stroud's face. “Hold this at the tip where it's been lobbed off--”
    “Broken off?”
    “Precision cut at the joint where the red marrow's found, you know, the spongy stuff? My guess'd be we won't find even a speck of it, not even in the microscope. Hell, Banaker could even put it under his goddamned whatchamightcall it-- ahhh, ahhh, eeee lectron scope--and he wouldn't find a damned trace! Not a trace! My eyes and a friggin' flashlight tell me as much. Don't need no  eeee lectrons telling me that.”
    Stroud stared at the femur for a moment. “Someone sliced this bone with a saw of some sort, near the joint--”
    “With long bones,” said the old doctor of forensics, “the marrow's all around the ends. Short, flat bones it runs all the way through, but these long 'uns like this and the arm bones, mostly filled with yellow marrow, not the red stuff where blood cells are produced, you see.”
    Stroud scratched behind his ear, and the old man told him that never helped anyone to think clearly. “Look, son, most of those bones in that pile?” The old man winked.
    “Yes, sir?”
    “Most of 'ems children's bones.”
    “Doctor, what are you getting at?”
    “Christ, Stroud, most every bone in a child's body is chock full of red marrow, even the long ones! Children are factories for producing healthy red blood cells so as to build bones and teeth! Hell, a  Crest  commercial'll tell you that.”
    Stroud frowned at this. Nearby, Chief Briggs was directing Dimetrios to take his hoe to the second site. Many hundreds of bones had already been uncovered. Banaker wanted every one unearthed now.
    “Let me get this straight, Doctor Magaffey,” said Stroud over the roar of the machine at work. “Are you saying that these bones've been buried not once, but twice?”
    “Be a third time after Banaker's through playing games.”
    “I've heard of  Twice Told Tales,  but twice buried bones?”
    “It's a fact.”
    “How ... how can you know that?”
    “One thing, Abe, people's bones aren't supposed to be robbed of the goddamned marrow. Maybe that occurs in Chicago at some fancy institutes when some cancer patients leave their bodies to scientific study, but around here ... people got funny ideas about their bodies going to science. They got the notion that if you're not buried with your heart and your head, you're most likely never going to find your way to the Pearly Gates.”
    “Superstition, you mean,” muttered Stroud, studying the long femur bone at the end where it would have met with the knee cap. There was a definite cut, and the usual red earth, or powder, of dried bone marrow was missing. “It might just be that a carbon 14 dating on these bones is called for. For all we know--”
    “They're old, Abe, but not ancient.”
    “It could be an Indian burial site, couldn't it?”
    “None around here according to records.”
    “But records've been known to be wrong.”
    Magaffey nodded thoughtfully.
    “If they are old bones, couldn't the marrow have just disintegrated years ago?”
    “I guess Banaker'll see it that way.”
    “But you don't?”
    “You've studied the bones of ancient cavemen, son, and they all retain microcosmic trace elements of marrow--or should.”
    “Well, what the hell explains the absence of marrow then, Doc? And what do you mean, buried twice?”
    “Son, you know we're a small place, Andover ... you know, you don't have to believe everything you hear, but