A Harvest of Bones

by Yasmine Galenorn

  Mur shook her head. “This is all very strange, Em. If we can prove that the remains are hers—and I’m not promising anything because it’s harder to identify old bones—then what the hell happened? Why was she stuffed in a tree, for God’s sake?”

  “Murder?” I said, thinking for a moment, although I didn’t like the direction my thoughts were going. “Irena stopped the sale on the lot. She said her brother, who supposedly owns joint custody of the family land, refused to sell. She also told Joe that her brother lives in Europe. Harlow found out that Brent does not live overseas. In fact, Brent isn’t even really living in this world—he’s been in an asylum outside of Bellingham since he was twenty. Which means, chances are he wasn’t consulted about the land sale. Which means…”

  “Irena didn’t want to sell the land for some reason,” Murray finished.

  “Right. We were ordered to stop work on the lot. But now, thanks to Brigit’s ghost cat, I find a skeleton stuffed into a yew tree. I think the question of the day is: Does Irena already know the skeleton is there? If so, is that why she doesn’t want to sell the land?” Everything fit together in a very weird way.

  Murray looked at me closely. “And if Irena does know about the skeleton, that begs the question: Did she help put it there? Is she responsible, or partially responsible, for this person’s death?”

  Troubling questions all. A knock on the door interrupted our thoughts and I opened it to find Deacon, search warrant in hand. He slapped it on the table. “We’re good to go. Judge says since the property has no house, isn’t being used, and hasn’t been used for years, this is all we need. Want me to go inform Irena?”

  Murray gave him a wide smile. “You’re a mind reader, Deacon. Okay, I’m calling for the M.E. and a few more of the boys. Come back afterward. And tell her that if she wants to scream, she can scream at me.”

  As Deacon took off, Murray phoned Nerissa Johansen, Chiqetaw’s new medical examiner. Nerissa had been hired to replace Bob Stryker, who had been found guilty of any number of infractions. Once they surfaced and Chief Bonner had gotten wind of what was going on, Stryker was out on his ass and had moved out of town.

  After talking to Nerissa, Murray put in a call to Greg Douglas and Sandy Whitmeyer, two of the other officers who had her back, then glanced at me.

  “I’m headed over. You stay here. There won’t be much to see. We need to mark off the area, which will take a little while, and then we have to wait for first light so we can have a good view of what’s out there. The last thing we want is to lose valuable evidence because we can’t see it. I want to know just who this was, and why he or she was buried inside a tree trunk.”

  As much as I wanted to go with her, I knew she was right. At this point, there wouldn’t be anything to see and I’d only hamper efforts. “I hope the Will o’ the Wisps stay away,” I said.

  “I think with the activity out there, and without you there to act as a blue-light special over on the astral aisle, they’ll keep quiet. After all, they didn’t show up when you found the skeleton.”

  “I know, and frankly, I can’t help but wonder where they are. Maybe with me finding the skeleton, their job is done? Or maybe not. I don’t know and I’m almost scared to find out.”

  “Well, get a couple hours more sleep, and I’ll talk to you in a bit.”

  As she headed out, I closed the door behind her. What was it like to carry a gun and badge, to constantly be on the lookout for crooks and con artists, murderers and rapists and every bad guy in the world that might be passing through town? Mur was a good cop and I felt safer with her around, but it wasn’t the life for me. And for my children’s sake, I was supremely glad of that.

  BY 6:00 A.M., I had dozed on the sofa for thirty minutes, and read the entire contents of Brigit’s diary. I was a lot more depressed than I’d been—the girl’s life had sounded so unhappy, though I couldn’t figure out exactly what had been wrong. I got the impression, however, that Brigit had been a servant of some sort in the Brunswick household.

  The lot swarmed with activity. Kip and Miranda woke early, clamoring to know what was going on, but I told them I couldn’t say a word until Murray gave me the go-ahead, and they quieted down. As they ate their breakfast, the phone rang. It was Joe, wanting to know what was happening. He’d gotten wind of the activity via the police scanners. I filled him in on what had gone down and reassured him that I was fine, when Mur knocked at the back door and slipped into the kitchen.

  “I thought you might like to come watch,” she said as I replaced the receiver. “It’s light enough to start excavating the site now. We’re going to be putting in some time there today. We have to cut some of the roots so we don’t disturb the skeleton when we remove it from the cavity.” She helped herself to a Danish and a slice of bacon.

  “What did Irena say? Is she giving you a hard time?” I brewed a couple of shots of espresso for her and poured them into a pint-sized carton of chocolate milk since she didn’t have time to sit down with a proper demitasse cup. She laughed when I handed it to her, but didn’t hesitate to chug it right down.

  “Thanks, I needed that. I’m exhausted.” She wiped her mouth and sighed. “Actually, Irena’s not being a pain like I expected.”

  I scarfed down the last of my biscuit with egg and cheese and bacon, sent my protesting son and daughter off to school after enjoining them to keep quiet about matters until Murray gave us the thumbs up. Then, grabbing on my jacket, I slipped my keys in the pocket and headed out the door with her.

  “Jeez, it’s cold this morning,” she said.

  As we headed across my yard, I jammed my hands in my pockets. The temperature had plummeted in the past hour or two and I could swear I smelled snow on the horizon, but it was far too early for that.

  “So Irena’s okay with this?”

  “Well, she’s not giving us any trouble. I was rather surprised. Deacon says she appeared properly shocked when he told her that we’d found a skeleton on the property and insisted that yes, of course we need to investigate. She ‘can’t for the life of me figure out where it came from.’ ”

  I could see my breath. Winter was going to be nice and cold, which was fine with me since it was my favorite season. I was hoping for a white Christmas and—if it was anything like the year before—expected to see one.

  “Think she’s telling the truth?”

  Murray shook her head. “Nope. She knows something about the body, I’ll bet my next promotion on it. Deacon says she paused a second too long before launching into her “oh my” routine. Long enough to tell him that she wasn’t all that surprised by his news. She conveniently has a day trip to Bellingham planned and regretfully declined our offer to let her watch.”

  “That’s weird. If somebody found a skeleton on my property, I’d want to be there to find out what the hell was going on. What about the foundation? She was going to fill it in.”

  Murrary shook her head. “Ain’t gonna happen. I thought about that and called the judge. He added a restraining order to prevent her from doing so.” She shivered as a blast of wind caught us from the north. The rain had stopped, but the clouds were hanging heavy overhead. “I swear, we’re due for an ice storm or snow. The temperature’s hovering about thirty-five right now. It’s cold for this time of year—way too cold.”

  I stepped back to let her go first as we crossed onto the lot. “Thirty-three. I checked the thermometer on our way out.”

  Sandy, Greg, and Nerissa were near the tree, along with several techs assisting the M.E. Sandy was taking photographs while Greg prepared evidence bags. Nerissa looked bent out of shape, and I heard her yell at one of the techs that the equipment hadn’t been stored properly, and if it happened again, he’d be out of a job. Watching her, I had none of the squeamish feelings I’d had when I met Stryker. Ms. Johansen seemed more than capable.

  As Murray joined them, they cautiously began scooping all the mulch they could find around the area into large ba
gs.

  I wandered over to the basement and peered down the stairs. No sign of the Will o’ the Wisps yet. With luck, they’d stay out of the way until everyone was gone. The tree looked bare and naked after the area had been cleared of debris.

  Nerissa probed the cavity with a flashlight and then withdrew, shaking her head. “Detective, you might want to take a look. Then we’ll start photographing and remove the body… skeleton.”

  Murray knelt down and then called me over to her side. “Emerald, look at this.” I peeked over her shoulder. There, wrapped in what looked like a sheet of some sort and cradled by the roots of the yew, rested the skeleton. Against its chest, snuggled in ivory arms, rested yet a smaller skeleton. Even I knew that the second set of bones were those of a cat.

  “Oh my God,” I whispered. “That is so bizarre.” Murray said nothing, but nodded. She stood up and wiped the mud off her hands with a towel that Deacon offered her.

  “Okay, here’s the situation,” she said. “Somebody put that body in there. We’re looking at the possibility of this taking place fifty years ago. Maybe more, maybe less. I don’t know yet. I want this entire lot canvassed. Whatever you find, bag it.” She turned to me. “Those things you took out of the room when you thought you owned the land? That’s fine, but we’re going to need them as possible evidence. If you could bring them over, I’d appreciate it.”

  She was fully in command. When she slipped into her cop mode, she intimidated even me, but I didn’t mind. This was who Murray was, down to the core. A cop. And a good one at that. I gave her a quick nod.

  “Of course. I’ll go get them now.”

  There was no real reason for me to stand around and watch, so I headed back to the house, wanting to see what else they found, but knowing that I’d hear about it later. I no sooner stepped through the door when the phone rang. I grabbed it up and was greeted by a voice that I neither needed nor wanted to hear.

  “Emerald? It’s me, Roy.”

  Great. My scumbag of an ex. Roy was like spoiled meat—rotten through and through and likely to be dangerous to your health if you got too close.

  “What do you want? Have you figured some new way to destroy our kids’ image of you? Or are you just calling to make me miserable?” I’d ceased any veneer of being civil when the kids weren’t in earshot. Roy ran roughshod over me whenever I offered an olive branch. I was done with playing nice-nice.

  I was especially furious that, after months of ignoring Kip and Randa, he’d finally ruined the one visit they’d had in a year. He agreed to meet them in August when he drove up to Bellingham for a business trip, but had spent the entire time ragging on Kip for not being more athletic and calling Randa stupid for her interest in astronomy. And then he sealed the deal when he started bragging about the new half-brother they were supposed to have, and how good it would be to have a child in the house again.

  He let out a loud sigh. “I’m always the bad guy, aren’t I? You never take any responsibility for your problems that led to the end of our marriage.”

  I’d heard this all before. “Get real, Roy. What do you want?”

  “I’m headed out of the country for a month. I’ll have my secretary pick out Christmas gifts for the kids and send them over just in case I decide to stay away longer.”

  I sighed. “Let me offer you some advice for a change.” He was always telling me what he thought about my lifestyle, my choices, and it was never very pleasant. Time to turn the tables.

  He muttered something under his breath but said, “What is it now?”

  “If you don’t want to lose our kids—and I mean lose their hearts, lose their love entirely, get your act together and start being a father to them instead of a jerk. Trust me, I’m not thrilled about offering you this advice because I want you as far out of our lives as possible. If I had it my way, we’d never see you again. I just hope you treat Tyra and your new child better than you ever treated the kids and me, because if you don’t, someday you’re going to wake up alone. People don’t hang around when they’re not appreciated.”

  After a pause, he startled the hell out of me by saying, “Yeah, so I seem to have found out.”

  I stared at the phone. “Say what?”

  Another long pause. Then, “Tyra left me a week ago. She lost the baby and she blames me. She filed divorce papers yesterday.”

  My heart leapt, but I managed to restrain myself from singing the “I told you so” song when a cold thought swept through me. “Roy, how did she lose the baby?” My ex had roughed me up a couple of times during our marriage—ending in a black eye.

  “She fell,” he mumbled, then quickly added, “I’ve got a plane to catch. Tell the kids… I love them.”

  The line went dead. I slowly replaced the receiver, wondering what the real story was. But I wasn’t curious enough to call him back, and no way was I going to hunt down Tyra to ask her side of things. As sorry as I felt for her right now, she was still the woman who’d been screwing my husband behind my back.

  I shook off the call, scooped up Brigit’s journal and photograph, and availed myself of the copy function on my printer, duplicating all fifty-three pages in the notebook, the handwritten copy of The Lady of Shalott, and the picture. As I gazed into the eyes of the woman long vanished, I knew without a doubt that we’d found her final resting place.

  Now if we could just find out what her secrets were.

  Chapter 9

  From Brigit’s Journal:

  B.’s having a bad day again and there’s nothing I can do. Why can’t Mr. Edward leave him alone? Why can’t the Missus stand up and say something? It’s as if they’re ashamed of him—ashamed of his problems, but Mother Mary, I’m certain that they’re really the cause of his troubles. Who could withstand such browbeating?

  I need to talk to someone about my feelings, but there’s no one I can trust. Even my friends slip and tell secrets. And I don’t dare let this secret get out… not now—especially not now. I havent’ told him yet, but I have to soon. I’m going to church on my next day off, and confess. Maybe the priest will be able to help me decide what I should do. I’ve no one else to turn to but God. Pray for me, diary, that He doesn’t turn his back on me.

  BY THE TIME I returned, the crew had excavated the skeleton. Both bones and the sheet they were loosely wrapped in rested on a tarp to prevent contamination from mud or other debris. While an examination would be necessary to determine the sex, I was pretty sure it was a woman. The skeleton was dressed in a tattered skirt and blouse. Whoever she was, she’d been twisted and contorted to fit into the tree, with the cat cuddled in her arms. They had slept there together, slowly melting back into the earth until I’d found them.

  Rather than chance losing evidence to rain or wind, Nerissa ordered that the tarp, bones, sheet and all, be lifted into a body bag. The sound of the zipper closing was fraught with stark finality. Brigit’s long night of obscurity was over; now she would be exposed to harsh lights and probing instruments that would ferret out her secrets. In a way, I almost wished I hadn’t found her and that she’d been left to her slumber. What good could we do at this point? Of course, logic argued, if she’d been murdered—and why else would her body be stuffed into a tree—perhaps we could put to rest unfinished business, and a troubled spirit.

  As the techs loaded the body bag into the ambulance, Murray motioned to Greg. “We’ve got a long day ahead of us. Take Sandy and go pick up some coffee and food. I want a quad venti mocha frappuccino. Get a quad venti mocha for Emerald, too.” She pulled out her wallet. “Add raspberry to hers, no whipped cream, and make it iced.”

  Greg jotted down her instructions. “What do you want to eat?”

  She shrugged and handed them thirty bucks. “I’m fine with a couple of sausage-egg muffins and some hash browns. Make that three muffins—it’s been a long night and my stomach’s rumbling. You guys get whatever you want. While you’re at it, check in with the chief and tell him what’s g
oing down. Make sure he knows I’ll be tied up here for a while so if anything urgent happens, he can reach me by radio. And get hold of Deacon. Tell him I said thanks for the help last night. I’ll talk to him later myself, but I want to keep him in the loop.”

  Greg and Sandy headed out in a cruiser. As they turned off Hyacinth onto Wilson Street, I handed Murray the photo and diary.

  “The Brunswicks were seriously dysfunctional, if you believe some of the entries. The father was cruel, and Irena was no saint. Harlow wasn’t kidding when she told me the mother died of booze. A lot of entries mentioning Lauren Brunswick’s drinking.”

  “Anything saying that Brigit had enemies who wanted to kill her?”

  I shook my head. “No, but she seems to have been terribly unhappy. A lot of hints about guarded secrets and innuendos in there, but nothing I could figure out on a concrete level. Today, her doctor would have her on Zoloft.”

  Regardless of exactly who it had been, the remains had once belonged to a living, breathing woman who had laughed and cried and loved. And upon her death, someone had seen fit to hide her away, to stuff her under a tree out of view. The fact that she was holding the skeleton of a cat—most likely the one in the picture—didn’t help my mood any.

  “What could have happened?” I said. “And what about her cat? Did they die at the same time?”

  Murray shrugged, her lips a grim line. “I don’t know, Em. We’ll have a better picture of what went on once Nerissa examines the remains. Sometimes this job sucks.” She paused, glancing around at the rain-sodden ground. “You know what gets me the most? The damned cat. The fact that she’s holding a cat makes me want to cry.”

  I hung my head and whispered, “Me, too.” In fact, the skeleton of the cat was a harsh reminder that Samantha was still missing. A sense of helplessness washed over me. This woman, whoever she was, and her cat were beyond help. And even though I was positive Samantha was alive, I couldn’t get the idea out of my mind that she was trapped somewhere alone, thinking we’d forsaken her.