Dr. Tara Aislinn was in her midfifties, an energetic and enthusiastic woman who greeted Sean and Vanessa with real warmth. Her colleague, Ned Latham, was more subdued but apparently just as eager to be there. They had studied the chest and the victim within but hadn’t taken the body from the chest. They had come down in their van and, with permission, of course, would be moving the chest and the body to the lab in Gainesville.
Liam and David had come and gone, Sean discovered. They were late, of course, really late, but in his mind, that was fine. He hadn’t been in a serious relationship in a long time; he didn’t think he’d ever been in a relationship where he’d felt so lost and empty when it seemed that it had ended. David and Liam were capable, as were Jaden and Ted, and he knew that he’d never understand half of what the scientists could learn from the body, so everything had gone in the right direction without him.
“David is calling the media and letting them know what it was you brought out of the water,” Jaden told him.
“What exactly is he telling them?” Sean asked.
Dr. Aislinn laughed softy. “Just that we have arrived and are taking the chest and the body, and that we believe that the chest is early eighteen hundreds, and that a unique set of circumstances have preserved the body of a woman who died in the early eighteen hundreds, as well. More details will follow after we have conducted out tests.”
“And what can you really tell us?” Sean asked.
“That she’s not Dona Isabella!” Jaden burst out.
“What?” Vanessa said.
“Come, come, I’ll show you,” Dr. Aislinn said. “Dr. Latham, if you’ll assist me?”
They walked over to the chest and Latham carefully opened it and offered Dr. Aislinn a set of latex gloves from his pocket. After pulling them on, she reached in and touched the woman’s bodice. “This is cotton, and if you’ll notice—it’s difficult to see with the staining. If you’ll hold the flashlight up, Dr. Latham?—that’s home sewing. Dr. Latham, the hands if you will? I can’t draw them out—we’d break up the mummy—but you’ll note the nails. They’re chipped and broken, and not the nails of a lady. Whoever this woman was, she didn’t grow up in the lap of luxury. From what I’ve learned about this story, your Dona Isabella was supposedly killed on Haunt Island—or she went down with the ship in the storm. I don’t know who this is, but it’s not a lady of the time.”
“Can you date the corpse to a certain age?” Sean asked.
“Not without a more comprehensive examination,” Dr. Aislinn said. “But…” She shrugged. “My guess? Between twenty and thirty. I’m going to need X-rays of the teeth and skull, the hips—all those things help establish age. However, I think you’ve found a pirate’s wench, perhaps a poor girl traveling as a maid or a servant.”
“We hope to be able to give you a great deal more,” Dr. Latham said.
“I’m sure you’re disappointed that it wasn’t a chest of gold doubloons, but this is just an amazing scientific find!” Dr. Aislinn said. She looked at Vanessa. “It’s extraordinary. I heard you also discovered the pendant—the exquisite mermaid pendant—that Ted showed me earlier. You’re quite an amazing woman, Miss Loren. You might have missed your calling as a salvage diver or treasure seeker!”
To Sean’s surprise, Vanessa’s smile seemed forced and her face seemed pale.
“Oh, I rather like what I do,” she said.
“How did you find these relics?” Dr. Latham asked.
“Beginner’s luck,” she said with a shrug. “And I wasn’t looking? I don’t know.”
“Well,” Dr. Aislinn said. “You have made an absolutely amazing discovery here. The mermaid pendant, of course, is beautiful. But the body! We can’t thank you enough. We’re delighted to be doing the research!”
“Wait!” Ted said. “You didn’t tell them the most gruesome part yet.” He looked at Sean and Vanessa and shook his head. “I mean, we know that the pirates could be violent. And what with the story of Haunt Island, it shouldn’t be surprising.”
Jaden said, “Horrible, just horrible. But—of course, long over now.”
“What?” Sean demanded.
“At first,” Dr. Aislinn said, “I thought that someone must have cared for this young woman deeply. Most of the time, those who died at sea were wrapped in shrouds—if that!—and sent overboard. This young woman was sealed in a chest. I thought that we’d discover that the cause of death had been consumption or the ravages of some other disease. But look at the neck—that’s not just decayed fabric there, or a shawl or scarf or any other such object. She was strangled. That’s the fabric with which she was strangled. I’m not sure what it is yet. We’ll know when we take a sample.”
“She was murdered,” Vanessa murmured.
“As you said,” Sean noted, “violence was common, I’m afraid.”
“Yes, but it’s curious,” Dr. Latham commented.
“Pirates blew one another to bits with cannons. They slashed with swords and cutlasses, and they shot one another with their pistols. It’s unusual that they would have strangled a woman.”