The Last Dig Read online

  “Yes, I understand. I’ve got to instruct my team what to do,” Caroline pleaded.

  “Make it quick,” Rand retorted gruffly.

  “You guys continue on the dig until I’m able to return. Remember to cover the bones when you leave, so if there’s a storm, they won’t get broken, or animals won’t come to carry them off. The key to the car is in my pocket.”

  Jody reached into Caroline’s pocket and got out the keys.

  “Jody, will you also do me a favor? When you get back to the motel, call and leave a message for Patty Durham telling her I’ve been arrested.”

  “Okay, I’ll do that,” Jody reassured Caroline.

  Caroline turned and walked with Traci, Carlson, and Rand to the sheriff’s cruiser and got in, Caroline in back with Traci and the guys in front. They rode in silence all the way back to the station.

  Caroline’s mind was racing. What in the world could they be thinking or have on their mind that she would ever murder anyone. She felt angry and betrayed by Rand. He must have known all along that he was going to have her arrested. For crying out loud, she didn’t even know the dead man, and wasn’t really one hundred percent sure that the guy she talked to at the bar was the same guy that ended up dead.

  I’m going to have to get a lawyer to help me, and what about the bond? She had a little bit of money saved, but it wouldn’t be enough to cover the bond, that was for sure. What will my parents think? They’ll be worried sick about me.

  Caroline’s mind overloaded with all these thoughts and she felt overwhelmed. She never thought in a million years that Rand would suspect her of murder. How could he think that? How could he kiss her last night, knowing he was going to arrest her today? She remembered him saying he had something he had to do over the next couple of days that he wasn’t too happy about it.

  * * * *

  Yes! They did it! They arrested her. This was better than reading a novel or watching a television series. He had come back to the same location where he was watching when she discovered the body. Now he watched this new event take place. He would love to be a fly on the wall listening to the interrogations and accusations. Let’s see her try to wiggle out of this one. He knew he should jump into the car and hightail it out of Montana, but part of him wanted to see how it ended. He wanted to see the judge sentence her to life in prison. He had to see it through.

  * * * *

  While all the commotion was going on with Caroline Eddie wandered over to the cooler to get a cold bottle of water . It was hot, and he was dying of thirst.

  He was concerned about what would happen to the dig site and all their hard work now with Caroline being arrested. Would the dig site continue on? He didn’t believe for one minute that Caroline had anything to do with that man’s murder. He would bet his life on it.

  He looked out to the north and thought he saw something move. Unsure of what he thought he was seeing, he squinted his eyes to see if he could make out what it was. He swore he saw what looked like a man, possibly with high-powered binoculars, looking this way.

  Was that what he really saw? He couldn’t be sure. What would a man be doing way out there by himself? Eddie continued to watch a few minutes more and noticed movement again.

  After the sheriff left with Caroline, the man disappeared. Eddie turned and walked back to the group.

  Chapter 14

  They arrived at the station an hour later. Traci took Caroline down to the jail area to fingerprint her and take her picture. After that, Traci brought her up to the interrogation room to meet with Rand and Carlson. The room was about the same size as Rand’s office except it didn’t have a window in it. Instead, it had a mirror that Caroline suspected they used so that the sheriff could view her, or any suspect, from the other side but she couldn’t see him from her standpoint. In the room was a table with four chairs around it. The light overhead shone brightly down on Caroline and she felt a headache coming on as a result of it.

  She and Traci sat there for a few minutes. Traci tried to engage Caroline into a conversation with her, but Caroline remained tight-lipped.

  Carlson and Rand entered the room and sat across from her. Rand brought in a box that he set down on the floor beside him. His eyes pierced like steel when he looked directly into Caroline’s eyes. She felt a cold shiver ripple through her body.

  “Caroline, we need to ask you some questions. The microphone above is on to record everything in this room. You need to understand that it is in your best interest to answer our questions honestly. If you don’t, it could be more difficult for you later on. Do you understand this?” Rand asked with his eyebrows raised.

  “Yes.”

  “The first thing I’m going to ask you is to identify yourself for the record,” Rand said, staring straight into Caroline’s eyes.

  “My name is Caroline Priest,” she answered tersely.

  “Where do you live?” Rand asked next.

  “2695 Park Way Street, Glendive, Montana.”

  “What are you doing here in Jordan?”

  “I’m working a dig site at Hell Creek State Park.”

  “Where are you staying in Jordan?”

  “At the Jordan Motel.”

  Rand hesitated a second, and then asked her, “What is your occupation?”

  “Rand, you already—” Caroline started, but Rand cut her off.

  “For the record, Caroline,” he said abruptly.

  She sat there for a few minutes, looking at Rand, then Carlson, and then to Traci, who sat next to her, then back to Rand. “I’m a paleontologist.”

  “What is the name of the company or business that you work for?” Rand continued asking question after question.

  “I work for the North America Museum of Natural History in Glendive, Montana.”

  “What are you digging for at Hell Creek State Park?” he asked, looking at the file in front of him.

  “I’m digging up a Tyrannosaurus rex.” She gave short and to-the-point answers. Caroline was starting to get angry and it was showing.

  “Caroline, would you like some coffee, pop, or something to eat before we move further into the discussion?” Carlson asked.

  “No,” Caroline said, still smarting from the situation.

  “Okay, Caroline, go back to the two weeks prior to the day you and your team found the dead body, the day you met this man at the River Basin bar. Give me a rundown of what you did that day with as much detailed information as possible.”

  “Where do you want me to start?” she asked sarcastically.

  “When you got up that morning.”

  Caroline hesitated for a few minutes as she tried to gather her thoughts and recall anything specific to that day. “I got up at five-thirty in the morning. I got dressed, made a cup of coffee, and checked my email on my laptop. At six-thirty, I met my team at the SUV, we loaded our gear, got in, and I drove to the dig site. When we got there, I split the team up in pairs, and each team went to work on specific areas at the site. We worked for about five hours, then we took a lunch break in the shade of the boulders. It was very hot outside. We went back to work at the site again, where I found the humerus, which is part of shoulder and arm of a T-rex. I slowly excavated it, then measured it, took pictures of it, and wrapped it in foam for protection. We continued to dig until about six-thirty that night, and then the team and I went back to our motel rooms.” Caroline stopped there for a few minutes.

  Rand’s eyes were riveted to hers.

  “I think I then took a shower and put on some clean clothes. I gathered my laundry and drove to the laundromat to do my wash. I stayed there almost two hours. It was about ten in the evening when I decided to stop by the River Basin bar for a bite to eat and something to drink. After I ate, I sat at the bar nursing my drink. I was about ready to leave when this man came up and sat down on the stool next to me.” Caroline hunched her shoulders inward to fight off a chill. “He introduced himself, but I don’t remember the name he gave me. He asked if he could buy me a dri
nk and I said no, I was on my way out. I left the bar, came back to my motel room, and put my clothes away. I watch a little television before finally going to bed.” Caroline completed her story and looked down at the table.

  “Now I want you to tell me what you did the day before you and your team found the body,” Rand said.

  “It was a Sunday, and I gave the team the morning off and a couple of us went to McDonald’s for breakfast. After breakfast we came back to our rooms and I boxed some bone fragments we found and prepared them to be shipped out. Then I went on-line to do some research, emailed my boss, and logged into a couple of forums to see what was happening in other areas. Then it was time to go to the dig site. We went to the dig site, and I gave instructions to everyone, and we dug until early evening. We left there about seven PM.” Caroline stopped and looked at Rand and then continued. “When we got in town we went to Pizza Hut to get some dinner. After we ate, I took everyone back to the motel and we went our own ways. I stayed in my room the rest of the night, researching on my laptop, and went to bed about eleven-thirty that evening.”

  “What did you do the next day—that date of June twelfth?” Rand asked.

  “I got up at five-thirty, got dressed, then walked out to the SUV and waited for the team to get in. On the way to the dig site, I gave the assignments to the team. When we got there, Eddie went to dig site one. He came back immediately and told me to call the sheriff because he found a body there. I went over to look at the body and then came back and called 911.”

  Rand looked over at Carlson. He wrote everything down in his notebook. “I’m going to assume for now, that your team can verify your whereabouts from the time you got into your SUV until you returned that evening. We were able to confirm that you and the victim were at the River Basin bar two weeks prior to the victim’s death as you indicated. Do you have anyone who can verify you were at the laundromat?”

  “Um, I don’t know. The clerk there may be able to if she remembers me.”

  “Make a note to verify that, Carlson. This man who came up to you when you were having a drink at River Basin bar, had you ever seen him before?”

  “No,” Caroline said.

  “Did you recognize his body at the dig site?” Rand asked.

  “I think so, but I’m not really one hundred percent positive. The man at the bar sat next to me so I didn’t really get a full frontal view of his face.”

  “Does the name Marc Baker sound familiar to you?” Rand asked pointedly.

  Caroline thought for a few minutes. “No.”

  “How about the name Michael Seprino, does that sound familiar to you?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, Caroline...” Rand hesitated for a few minutes. He let out a deep sigh and pinched his nose between his eyes before proceeding. “Here’s what we have.”

  He reached down and into the box and brought up a plastic bag with her business card in it and laid it in front of her. Caroline recognized it immediately and she went cold.

  “We identified the victim as Marc Baker. He is also known as Michael Seprino. He lived at Big Sky Apartments. In his apartment, we found your business card with only your prints and his prints on it. We also found this pick in his apartment,” Rand said as he reached down and pulled out another plastic bag with a pick in it. “And this has only your fingerprints on it. In addition to that, we found these fossils that also have only your fingerprints on them.” He pulled out a bag containing the fossils he’d mentioned. “All of this was at the victim’s apartment.”

  Caroline was shocked. So that was where her stuff went that she couldn’t find, but how did it get there?

  Rand pulled out another plastic bag with dirt in it. “The dirt in this bag was found at the victim’s apartment, and matches the dirt that was with the body at the dig site.” Rand gave her a few minutes to take it all in. “In addition to this, we have two witnesses who said that there was an argument in the apartment and they heard a female voice saying ‘If you come to my place again, I’m going to kill you.’ The victim was killed at the apartment, in the back bedroom between the hours of ten PM and twelve midnight, and then dragged out of the apartment and brought to the dig site.” Rand pulled one more plastic bag out which contained a single strand of hair. “We found this strand of hair at the victim’s apartment. I’m pretty sure if we ran a comparison DNA analysis between your hair and this strand, it would be a match. In addition to this, we just searched your car and found the victim’s cellphone under your front seat.”

  “How do you know it’s the victim’s cellphone?” Caroline asked, her voice wavering.

  “We took the phone over to CSI and had them charge it and we confirmed that it was his cellphone. We’re also having them run it for fingerprints.”

  “Rand, I did not kill this man,” Caroline said, reeling at all the evidence they had against her.

  “Caroline, all the evidence places you there at the crime scene. Now is the time to come clean with this. How did he get your business card?”

  Caroline dropped her gaze to her lap. Finally she admitted, “Well, when the man sat down next to me at the River Basin bar, first he asked me if I was new around here and I said no, I grew up here but I didn’t live here anymore. He then asked what I was doing in Jordan, and I told him that I was a paleontologist working a dig site at Hell Creek State Park. He then proceeded to tell me that he liked digging for fossils and that he had several bones he’d found and wondered if I’d take a look at them and possibly tell him what the bones were and where they were from. He said the bones were stored in a storage unit. I gave him my business card and told him that when he got the bones out of the storage unit to give me a call and I would be glad to take a look at them. Then I got up and left.”

  Rand sat there looking at Caroline, taking in what she had just told him. “Caroline, you lied to me,” he retorted sharply. “First you told me that you didn’t have a conversation with him, now you’re telling me that you did. Your story is starting to fall apart. You need to tell me the whole truth. Was this man stalking you? Did he bother you in any way? Why did you go to his apartment and threaten him and then kill him?” Rand asked, his voice rose in anger.

  “Rand, you’ve got to believe me! I did not go to this man’s apartment!” Caroline said, her voice getting louder.

  “If the man stalked you, bothered you, or abused you in any way, we can help get your sentence reduced. It would go a long way in the courtroom if you confessed and came clean with this now,” Rand said, his voice still raised.

  “I have nothing to confess,” Caroline replied forcefully.

  “How the hell did his cellphone end up in your SUV?” Rand’s anger burst at her.

  Caroline recoiled, and had an immediate flashback of Dan’s temper and his abuse. Then she snapped at him, her voice equally angry, “I don’t know how it got there!”

  “Well, you apparently had it in your SUV all along,” Rand continued.

  “I don’t know how that cellphone got in my vehicle,” Caroline stated emphatically, slamming both hands on the table.

  “It would be in your best interest if you confess or fill in the gaps of your story. You will be going down for murder one and a very long prison sentence.” Rand jerked forward in his chair and looked into her eyes. His eyes were dark and angry.

  “I have nothing else to say, and I’d like to end this interrogation. I want a lawyer.” Caroline shuddered, almost afraid of Rand’s anger.

  Rand closed his file, grabbed the evidence, and put it back in the box. He said, “Traci, take Caroline to a phone so she can call an attorney, and then take her to a cell.”

  Rand got up with Carlson and walked out of the room without even looking back at Caroline.

  * * * *

  After Caroline’s attorney left later that afternoon, she was taken back to her cell. The bond hearing was scheduled for tomorrow at ten AM and her attorney felt reasonably sure that the judge would not view her as a flight risk and would set
a reasonable bond.

  She sat in the corner of the cell and hugged her knees to her. With no one else in the jail that evening, it felt gray and dank, and it smelled bad. She had never felt as alone as she did now.

  At first, when Rand had raised his voice at her, she’d recoiled. Memories of when Dan raised his voice and struck her flashed across her mind. As quickly as the memory returned, her fear turned to anger. No man was ever going to physically or mentally abuse her again!

  She heard the door open and looked up to see who entered. When she saw Rand, she turned her head and laid it back on her knees.

  “Caroline.” Rand called out to her when he stopped in front of her cell.

  Caroline refused to acknowledge or look up at him.

  “Caroline, look at me,” Rand said.

  “What do you want?” she asked, irritated and still not looking at him.

  “Look, I’m here as a friend. Tell me what happened.”

  “I’ve told you, Rand, nothing happened. But you won’t believe me.”

  “The evidence is telling a different story. And you lied to me. That is not a good thing. And the cellphone in your vehicle is not something I can ignore.”

  “Look, I told you I don’t know how the cellphone got in my vehicle. I don’t know how the evidence got there at that apartment. I don’t know why the man is dead. All I know is that I didn’t do it. What will it take for you to believe me?” Caroline asked as she finally sat up and looked at him.

  “I’ll believe you when you tell me the truth,” Rand asserted quietly.

  “Well, I am telling you the truth, and since you don’t believe me, just leave,” she sputtered resentfully.

  “Caroline, I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t have a choice,” Rand pleaded with Caroline.

  “Rand, we all have choices. We make choices all the time,” she retorted.

  “You would rather I forget about finding justice, and let this one slide by because I happen to know you?” he asked sadly.