The Bone Lady: Life As a Forensic Anthropologist

13. Capitol

CAPITOL I HE forensic scientist from the State Police Crime Laboratory stood waiting for me in the cool shade of the small grove of trees that covered the southeastern edge of the State Capitol grounds in Baton Rouge. I recognized George Schiro's tanned, rugged face as I rounded the corner of the old arsenal museum, actually a nineteenth-century powder magazine. I moved across the lawn dusting the dirt from the excavation unit, or pit, from my pants. "Aha! You found me," I said. "Yeah, your department secretary said you would be here," he replied, his youthful grin belying the seriousness of his visit. "What are you doing, looking for Huey Long's 'deduct box'?" he asked, chuckling at his own joke. Every book ever written about Louisiana's most notorious governor alleges the existence of a mysterious box that contains lots of money and perhaps documents that, if found by the 13 T CAPITOL 71 Area east of the Old Arsenal Museum in Baton Rouge, circa 1930, showing major soil removal; children's identities unknown. Courtesy George Maker, Jr. right people, could have made things quite uncomfortable for Huey Long and his cronies. "Nothing so exciting," I answered. "We're just trying to figure out if Huey left anything intact on this end of the grounds when he pushed that square block of dirt from here up to the Capitol building to surround the first floor back in the early 19305." "Found anything yet?" 72 THE BONE LADY "Not much. Just a lone burial back over there on that little knoll," I said, gesturing toward the northeast corner of the grounds. "Oh, really?" he responded, his interest picking up. "Don't get excited; it's not forensic. It's probably nineteenth century." "How do you know?" "Square nails in the coffin." "What's he doing here?" "Well," I began, for perhaps the twentieth time since we had found the burial a couple of days before, "you are standing on what was once hallowed ground. Before the city moved most of the burials in the 18705, this was a huge cemetery, civilian and military." I noticed only a slight shift in George's stance. I continued, "These old grounds had hundreds, probably thousands, of historic burials dating as far back as the 17005 and iSoos, when the French, the Spanish, the English, and the Americans were here. Indians, too. Yousee that Indian mound at the northwest corner of the old arsenal?" K-I7- I » Yeah. "Historical accounts suggest that Indians were buried there, and American soldiers. In fact, the soldiers stuck some of their burials in aboveground tombs right on top of the mound." "You're kidding." "Nope. I'll go one better than that. During the Civil War, the Union troops had cannons right up there on top of the mound, in among the tombs." "Why didn't Huey just level that mound for his dirt?" George asked. "I don't know. Maybe he had a vision that it would bring bad luck." George smiled broadly at my attempt at humor in the blazing sun. The heat made me aware that the history session was over and that George had forensics business on his mind. "Whatcha got, George?" CAPITOL 73 "I've got some dental records for you to look at on the new case— you know, the little teenager." I knew all right, too well. The image of her remains had been with me for most of the day, the Capitol grounds project providing only a temporary reprieve from its grisly detail. "I'll compare these X rays to the ones I made when I get back to the lab this evening," I said, taking the small brown envelope from his hand. The envelope held the one ever-so-slight chance for a family who probably knew their daughter had been found that she might not be the person whose remains were in my laboratory. Our business ended, George and I walked together across the grounds. We lingered for a moment at an excavation unit where a student was removing a ceramic fragment with a bit of pale purple transfer print design on it, confirming its nineteenth-century origin. "You want to dig?" I said. "Maybe when you schedule a project in a cooler month," he replied, beating a hasty retreat toward his car. "When is that in Louisiana, January 14?" I hollered back and...