Southern Harm

by Caroline Fardig

  Southern Harm is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  An Alibi Ebook Original

  Copyright © 2019 by Caroline Fardig

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Alibi, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  ALIBI is a registered trademark and the ALIBI colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Ebook ISBN 9781984800299

  Cover design: Victoria Allen

  Cover illustration: Art Parts

  randomhousebooks.com

  v5.4

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  By Caroline Fardig

  About the Author

  Recipes

  Chapter 1

  “Whew! If I’d known it was going to be this hot today, I might have fibbed and told you I had other plans.”

  I took out my dearly departed Grandmama Hattie’s lace handkerchief, a handy keepsake I always carried with me, to mop the beads of perspiration trickling down my brow. Today was unseasonably warm for mid-December in Savannah. The high had already reached seventy-five degrees, and it was barely past noon. Born and raised in the sultry Lowcountry, I spent most of my springs, summers, and falls battling the heat. I’d given up hope of a white Christmas long ago, but shouldn’t the joy of the holiday season inspire Mother Nature to offer us a reprieve from our near-constant sweating?

  My boyfriend, Tucker Heyward, stopped digging in the yard and squinted at me with a smile. “Hold on a minute, there. The Quinn Bellandini I know doesn’t fib. It would be impolite.” After giving me a playful wink, he rammed the business end of his shovel into the ground and bent over to pluck a tiny object out of the dirt. “Did you drop this?” He held out his hand and placed the item into mine.

  Between the heat and my outdoor exertion, my glasses were fogging up something awful. I pushed them up on top of my head and peered at the object in my hand. It was a gold heart-shaped locket necklace caked with dirt.

  “Nope, it’s not mine. Looks like it’s been here awhile. Your aunt’s, maybe?”

  He took my hand in his to take a closer look at the necklace. “I’ll ask her. While I’m inside, I’ll grab us some water.” Giving me a squeeze, he slipped the locket from my hand and headed toward the house.

  I watched Tucker disappear through the back door of his aunt’s home, thankful he couldn’t see the blush tingeing my cheeks. Tucker never passed up an opportunity to hold my hand, not that I minded. Our relationship was still quite new—we’d only been dating for two months. We were still getting to know each other.

  The reason I was out here all hot and bothered was that I’d offered to help him construct his Christmas gift to his aunt Lela. She enjoyed reading and stargazing in her picturesque backyard in the evenings. But during the winter (that was, when we weren’t having a hot spell), it got too chilly for her. Tucker, who was a contractor by trade, dreamed up the perfect solution to her problem—an in-ground fire pit.

  Glancing across the yard, I surveyed our progress. We hadn’t gotten very far, having spent a great deal of our time talking and flirting. We were both pretty talkative, so we tended to get sidetracked if we tried to accomplish a task and have a conversation at the same time. In the time we’d actually spent working today, we’d managed to stake out the section we wanted to dig up for the future fire pit and surrounding flagstone patio, and we’d removed most of the sod from the ground. The deeper digging for the pit itself would be next.

  I picked up Tucker’s shovel and began heaving mounds of dirt out of the earth. On my third dig, the shovel stopped short. I’d hit something hard. Buried treasure, perhaps? I chuckled to myself at the thought of it. Back in the day, Savannah was a hotbed for honest-to-goodness pirates. They shanghaied able-bodied men right off the streets and spirited them away to become their unwilling crew. Or so the stories go. Tourists to our area seem to love the idea of underground tunnels and swashbucklers, and they’re especially excited by the chance of catching a glimpse of one of the legion of ghosts said to haunt our fair city. Being part of the tourist trade myself (my sister and I managed our family’s bed-and-breakfast hotel), I admittedly perpetuated the intriguing, though not always terribly factually accurate, local folklore. Savannah’s storied history is just as appealing as her unmistakable Southern charm.

  I tapped the hard object with the shovel blade and scraped it to remove the remaining layer of dirt. It was white and roundish—yet another rock we’d have to unearth and cart away. Boring! I’d been hoping for pirate booty.

  I skimmed around the sides of the rock with the tip of the shovel blade. The more I uncovered, the less it looked like a rock and more like…

  “Tucker!” I cried, dropping the shovel like it was hot and stumbling backward away from the hole. “Tucker!”

  Tucker came bounding out of the house, concern etched on his face. “Are you hurt? What happened?”

  I pointed a shaking finger at the hole I’d dug. I kept my eyes trained on Tucker, unwilling to look in the direction I was gesturing. “There’s something…Some—” I choked out a sob. “Someone.”

  “What? Is it a dog or a cat that you found? I know my aunt and uncle buried several family pets out here.”

  I shook my head, eyes filling with tears.

  His tanned face went pale as he stared in the direction of the hole. “Quinn, are you trying to say there’s a person in the ground where we were digging?”

  “Um…You look,” I whispered, hoping the sun beating down had suddenly given me a heatstroke and I was imagining things. Maybe it was indeed an animal skull…that was the completely wrong size and shape.

  He gave my shoulder an encouraging pat as he passed me, walking slowly toward the hole. Crouching down where I’d been standing, he used his hands to dig some of the dirt aside. He st
opped and went still, his attention trained on the ground. After what seemed like an eternity, he stood and turned toward me. His handsome face was grim.

  “You’re right. This is a…This is a human skull. And I’m afraid there may be the rest of a body to go with it.”

  My stomach lurched. This couldn’t be happening. Again. I squeezed my eyes shut and willed myself to wake from this nightmare.

  Aunt Lela appeared in the back doorway. “What’s all the ruckus about?”

  I opened my eyes and stared at Tucker, a stricken expression on my face. How did you tell an old lady that there was a body buried in her backyard without giving her a heart attack? My thirty-year-old heart was pounding uncontrollably.

  Tucker said evenly, “Uh, Aunt Lela…we’ve found some…bones out here while we were digging. I’m afraid the fire pit project may have to be put on hold. Indefinitely.”

  Taking a drag from her cigarette, she said in her gravelly voice, “If it’s the remains of that smelly old hunting dog of your uncle’s, you’re welcome to dig that thing up and toss it in the garbage. Nasty mutt, that one. Bit me twice. I would have killed it myself if my idiot ex-husband hadn’t mistaken it for a turkey and shot it.” She cackled until she descended into a coughing fit.

  Then again, maybe we wouldn’t have to sugarcoat the truth for her. Aunt Lela wasn’t your typical simpering Southern belle. She was one tough old bird, and the colorful language she often used could make a scurvy pirate blush.

  Tucker shook his head. “I’m afraid these bones seem to be human.”

  She froze. “Human, you say? I’ll be right back.” She disappeared into her house.

  Tucker came over to wrap his arms around me. “Are you going to be okay?”

  I struggled not to let myself break down in the comfort of his embrace. “I think so.”

  “I can’t believe this happened to you again, Quinn. I wish it had been me.”

  As sweet as his words were, I couldn’t expend any of my energy getting gooey over what a great guy he was. It was taking everything I had to hold it together. And if this time was going to turn out anything like the last time I’d stumbled onto a dead body, I was going to need every ounce of energy I could muster.

  Aunt Lela returned, holding the dirt-caked necklace Tucker had found a few minutes earlier. Her arthritic hands fumbled to open the locket. She sucked in a gasp when the heart popped open and she zeroed in on its contents. The lit cigarette that had been dangling precariously from her lips dropped to the ground at her feet. She let out a string of curses I could never in a million years repeat.

  “What’s wrong?” Tucker asked her.

  “I think y’all may have found my missing neighbor girl.”

  He wrinkled his brow. “I don’t remember ever hearing about that. When did you have a neighbor who went missing?”

  “Thirty-some-odd years ago.”

  Chapter 2

  Tucker called the police, and the wait for them to arrive was excruciating. Old dry bones found buried in a backyard weren’t deemed an immediate emergency like a still-warm corpse. But no matter who the bones used to be, he or she was still a human being who deserved justice. So the Savannah Police Department sent out two homicide detectives to open an investigation. Two homicide detectives I knew quite well, actually.

  I watched nervously from Aunt Lela’s front porch as Detective Rufus King and Detective Steve Flynn emerged from their unmarked police vehicle. Only two short months ago, the two of them had grilled me mercilessly over finding the body of the brother of a friend of mine. But as far as I was concerned, that was all water under the bridge. It wasn’t good manners to hold grudges, and they’d both been quite kind to me once the whole mess had been put behind us and justice was served. I only hoped they remembered how much of a help they’d said I’d been to them in regard to that case. I did not want to have to endure their scrutiny again.

  Rufus, who’d been a childhood friend of mine, smiled as they approached. “Quinn, we have to quit meeting like this.”

  Detective Flynn was more to the point. “What are the odds you’d find two dead bodies inside of two months? The math is impossible. It boggles the mind.”

  Tucker wordlessly squeezed my hand.

  I cleared my throat. “Good afternoon, Detectives. Trust me, I never wished to have a repeat of our past encounter.”

  “Same goes for us,” Rufus replied. “Let’s the two of us take a walk around back.”

  Tucker gave my hand another encouraging squeeze as I rose from my seat on the porch and followed Rufus around the corner of the house. Flynn stayed behind, and I heard him introduce himself to Tucker. I wasn’t surprised they were separating us for questioning.

  As we were walking, Rufus said, “How’ve you been? How’s life at the B&B?”

  I knew what he was doing, trying to redirect my apprehension and put me at ease. It wasn’t working.

  “I’ve been okay, I guess. The B&B is doing well. The holiday season is always busy.”

  He chuckled. “I certainly don’t want to add stress to anyone’s holidays. They’re difficult enough with the extra activities we all seem to heap onto our already crazy schedules. I promise not to take up much of your time so you can get back to your life.”

  I nodded absently, my mind concentrating on having to be near those bones again. I led the way down the side of the house and out toward the hole we’d dug. I stopped a few yards away and pointed. “That’s where the bones are.”

  Rufus stepped carefully toward the hole, I assumed intent on not disturbing any more of the area than had already been. He peered at the ground and surrounding area for a few minutes, but touched nothing.

  He turned to me. “I’m no expert on decomposition, but I’d wager whoever this is has been here for a while. Rest assured, our discussion this time will be a mere formality. And no matter what Flynn tries to tell you, you’re not going to be considered a person of interest.”

  Not that I truly believed I’d be blamed in any way, but there was a decent amount of stigma inevitably attached to the poor schmuck who had the bad luck of finding the body. And as bodies went, besides the creepy aspect of bare bones, this one at least wasn’t gory or stomach turning.

  “Quinn?”

  I must have zoned out for a moment. “Yes?”

  “I asked if you’d like to sit down on the back stoop while we talk.”

  “Oh, yes. That would be nice. Thank you, Rufus.”

  He led me over to the steps and had me sit. Then the fun started.

  “What were you and Mr. Heyward doing out here today?”

  I stifled a sigh. “Tucker is constructing a fire pit for his aunt as a Christmas gift. I offered to help him. We staked out the area we wanted to dig up and started in. Once we got the grass removed for the patio area, we began digging down for the fire pit itself. About three shovelfuls in, I hit something.” I shuddered. “I think it was the skull. Anyway, at first I thought it was a rock, but…” I shook my head. “It wasn’t. I called Tucker outside to verify that I wasn’t seeing things. Then we called you.”

  “So you were alone when you found the bones?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why was Tucker in the house at that time?”

  “Oh, I almost forgot. Just before I found the…bones, Tucker had found a necklace in the dirt. He took it inside to show his aunt, to find out if it was hers.”

  “How close to the bones did he find the necklace?”

  “Pretty much on top of them.”

  “And did his aunt verify that the necklace was hers?”

  “No…”

  I took a breath and thought back to the events that had occurred only minutes ago. Admittedly, I wasn’t thinking straight at the time. I’d been so wrapped up in my own emotional turmoil, I hadn’t bothered to ask Aunt Lela anything about the missing
neighbor she’d mentioned when she had looked inside the locket.

  I continued, “She opened the locket and looked at it. Then she cursed a bit. Then she said we might have found her missing neighbor girl from thirty years ago.”

  Rufus’s eyebrows shot up. “So Ms. Heyward thinks the body could be that of a former neighbor?”

  “I reckon. That’s really all I know. I was a little upset, so I didn’t ask a lot of questions.”

  He smiled. “I’m sure you were. And I’d rather get information straight from the source anyway. Is Ms. Heyward in the house?”

  “Yes, she went to lie down for a spell. She was quite taken aback by the fact that there was a skeleton in her backyard.”

  “I can imagine so. May I go inside to speak with her?”

  I nodded. Rather than traipsing through Aunt Lela’s home in my dirty shoes, I led Rufus back around to the front of the house. Detective Flynn and Tucker were in deep discussion, and Tucker’s demeanor seemed uneasy. Flynn was always the bad cop. I hoped he wasn’t using his usual tactics on Tucker.

  As we trotted up the steps, Flynn and Tucker halted their discussion.

  Rufus said to Flynn, “I’m finished speaking with Miss Bellandini, and now I’m going in to speak with Ms. Heyward.”

  Flynn merely nodded, his attention still on Tucker.

  I knocked on the door and stuck my head inside. “Aunt Lela? There’s a detective here to see you.”

  She was lying on the couch in the front room, a haze of smoke circling her head. A near chain smoker anyway, she’d been sucking down cigarettes one after another since we’d stumbled upon those bones.