Well, they shared a history; there was that. A traumatic history. And from a formative, vulnerable time in their lives. Maybe that was it. He had thought about her a lot over the years, wondering how she was doing, how her life was working out. He knew from Corinne that Laura had gone west to find her fortune and that she'd done well ... but still he wondered.
And now here she was, right back in Chepaquit. And single. And apparently attracted to him. He broke into a private, irrepressible grin. Laura Shore had had such a profound effect on him that he was happy just to be hearing her telling her audience how to do something or other with paper towels.
So it was all the more exasperating when he heard Gabe's big hound just a few feet away, wrecking the show: Baskerville had a bark straight out of hell, and the name to back it up.
Ken let out an irritated sigh. He wasn't able to hear Laura over the dog's din, and presumably neither could anyone in her class. He went around to the other side of the greenhouse to quiet the animal, who was alternately barking and growling as he pawed and dug at the edge of what was left of the compost pile that Snack was in the process of relocating. The dog was downright gleeful with the thrill of some discovery.
"Hey! Bass! C'mere, boy ... c'mon," Ken said, modulating his voice as he approached the dog. "What d'ya got there, boy, huh? C'mere. Give it here."
Yeah, right; as if. Baskerville had found himself a bone. It was still stuck in the ground, but it wouldn't be there for long. The dog now had it solidly in his jaw as he worried it back and forth, all the while keeping one eye on Ken as he approached, and warning him off with an occasional growl.
At least he wasn't barking anymore. Ken crouched down at a respectful distance for a better look. Damned big bone, he thought. From what? A horse? A cow? It wouldn't be surprising; the land had been farmed long before it became a nursery. He watched, interested, as the dog worked at freeing his half-buried treasure, pawing the ground around it. The compost was rich and crumbly and easily worked. In short order, Baskerville had what he was after.
Gripping the bone—which looked like a fragment, at that—the big shaggy dog went loping off, no doubt to bury it someplace else.
Curious now, Ken walked over to the edge of the small mound of earth to check it out. He had a pal in Hyannis, of all places, who was a cowboy wannabe and had outfitted his den with Western paraphernalia. Pete would get a kick out of having a cattle skull perched on his humongous new TV.
Ken toed around in Baskerville's spot and soon came up with the rest of the bones, brown and wormy with age. His mood began morphing from curious to chilled, even before he found the shreds of cloth. And when he found the skull, that's when he knew: it wasn't a cow or a horse or a sheep from a New England farm that had been buried here.
It was somebody's deadly secret.
****
Ken had shown up at last! And none too soon.
Glancing out from the greenhouse, Laura was relieved to see him calm Gabe's barking dog.
Friendly or not, the animal had been making a shambles of her class. But it was quiet now. Life could proceed.
"Before we begin to arrange the dried flowers that I've provided for the workshop," she said, "does anyone have any questions?"
A hand shot up. Rosie Nedworth, who used to run Chepaquit Dry Cleaners and who used to be (and probably still was) the town's biggest gossip, said, "What if we're not ready to use the flowers for a while after we press them in the paper towels? I belong to a Christmas crafts club. We don't start our projects until after everyone's kids and grandkids are back in school."
"No problem," Laura answered. "After they've dried, a good way to store pressed flowers until you're ready to use them is to leave them between the paper towels and then slide the whole shebang—very carefully!—into a plastic sheet protector. You can get them at any office supply store."
"I suppose that would work," Rosie said grudgingly. "But you said we could do these projects practically for free. I don't want to be running to any office supply stores."
"Well, another way would be to use waxed paper instead of the—"
The rest of Laura's sentence was cut short by the eruption of a furious dogfight just outside the greenhouse. Laura ran out ahead of the others in time to see Gabe's big mutt going at it with another, smaller dog that she hadn't seen before. She was shocked; Corinne had told her that Gabe's dog was the most gentle, easygoing animal she knew.
Gentle or not, it was a scary fight. Laura went running for the nearest hose to turn on them, but luckily the owner of the new dog wasn't far from the scene. He came racing up to the brawl screaming, "Dutch, Dutch, cut it out!"
At the same time, Laura saw Gabe appear out of nowhere and fearlessly nab his much larger dog by the collar.
Baskerville, that was its name; she remembered it now.
"You dope!" he admonished the animal. "Wassamatter with you?"
Someone else, a boy of about ten, piped up with the answer. "They were fighting over that bone. I saw it. The big dog had it first," he said, like some witness to a fender bender.
"You don't get enough bones at home?" Gabe said in a scolding and yet tolerant, dogs-will-be-dogs tone. Gingerly, he picked up the big, dirt-covered bone and began heading for a nearby trash barrel.
"Gabe, don't pitch that!" Ken yelled from behind Laura.
Later, Laura was able to pinpoint the exact moment that her newly fixed-up world began falling back apart again.
It was when a confused Gabe yelled back to Ken and said, "Why not?"
And Ken had muttered behind her, "They'll need it."
****
"For what?" she said, turning to Ken.
"Evidence, possibly."
Laura followed his gaze downward and saw a human skull; it made her turn away so violently that Ken had to steady her.
"Oh, God ... it's a man," she said in a ghastly croak.
"Or a woman."
A woman? Could her Uncle Norbert have killed two of them? That was Laura's instinctive, appalling thought—that if he could kill a wife, he could kill a lover.
It will start all over again.
She hardly had time to speculate any further than that, because Gabe had reached them with Baskerville's bone.
"What's up?" he asked, and then, after he looked down: "Jesus."
Ken said, "Keep it quiet. I'll call Chief Mellon." He got out his cell phone and punched in a number.
In the meantime, Baskerville was barking and tugging furiously at his collar despite Gabe's commands. Gabe dropped the bone with the others and then kicked some dirt over the skull to hide it.
"I've gotta get this guy home," he told them, and he began hauling Baskerville away from the scene.
Snack had been outside entertaining a group of kids and had seen the ruckus. He came over, took one look at the bones, and let out a single, ghastly, sick sound. Then, without a word to either of them, he turned and headed for the house.
Maybe he wanted to change out of his clown clothes—because, God knew, they suddenly looked out of place. Or maybe he was just going somewhere to be sick: even with his theatrical makeup, Laura could see that he was getting nauseous.
She looked around for Corinne and saw her pulling a loaded wagon for an elderly customer. Corinne would have to be told, obviously—but, in the meantime, there was the seminar.
Falling in behind Rosie Nedworth like chicks behind a hen, the attendees were all headed out of the greenhouse toward Laura and Ken. All except Miss Widdich, who was nowhere to be seen.
Laura intercepted them before they could draw too near.
"What's going on?" demanded Rosie Nedworth. "Why is Kenny Barclay standing guard over a pile of dirt?"
"There's been a ... complication," Laura managed to say. "I'm sorry, but the class has been canceled. You're free to keep the materials, and we'll either refund your entry fee, or give you a gift certificate for the equivalent amount."
"Why? What's in the dirt?" Rosie wanted to know. She brushed past
Laura on her way to Ken, with several of the class in her wake.
"Rosie," Ken warned, "no closer, please. I'm serious."
He was no doubt her banker—maybe everyone's banker—and presumably enjoyed a certain amount of authority in town. Even so, it took a stern, cold look from him to keep them all at bay. Rosie grumbled, the others muttered ... but they did back down and begin drifting away.
A scene from It's a Wonderful Life, it was not.
Laura went up to Ken again. "I have to tell Corinne. She can't not know."
"Go ahead. I'll stay here," Ken told her.
"Thanks." She began heading for the shop, then stopped and turned around. "But I wish you wouldn't treat this like a crime scene," she said, aware that her wish was a plea.
"We don't have much choice," Ken said grimly.
She turned and left him, then, and caught up with her sister.
Taking Corinne aside, Laura tried to bring her up to speed before the police arrived and pandemonium hit. Already, she could see curious customers drifting out of the shop and heading toward the compost pile where Ken had posted himself sentry.
"But why did Ken refer to the bone as evidence?" Corinne wanted to know. "If you call something evidence, it means you think there's been a crime."
She had a blank, faraway look on her face, as if she had retreated to another place and time. She was chewing on the roughened skin of her forefinger, staring ahead, seeing God only knew what.
"Don't you understand?" Laura said, frustrated that her sister was being so obtuse. "There's a body buried at the bottom of the compost pile. I saw the skull."
"Yes, no, I understand," said Corinne, speaking low and with her back to the customers. "I do understand. There's a body buried on the property. But ... why wouldn't there be? The land has been settled for hundreds of years. It's perfectly natural that some farmers would lay their dead here. Or even Native Americans. They were here first."
She was warming to her theory as she spoke. "There could be an entire burial ground underneath the compost, and reaching under the greenhouses too. They're all right next to the road. The land there has probably never been tilled. What could be more predictable than finding bones there? That's where old cemeteries are always located: next to the road."
"Oh, Corinne, for God's sake!"
"Shh!" said Corinne, glancing around them.
"There's still fabric with the bones," Laura said in a hiss. "If the body were there from when you say, the natural fibers from any clothes would've long since turned into dust. Indians didn't wear polyester!"
But still Corinne refused to see. She would not look at the compost pile; she wouldn't even look at Laura. She kept her gaze fixed on that place that Laura knew she retreated to whenever she felt the world around her was being overly hostile.
It was all too surreal: the discovery; the sickening timing of it. The three of them were going to have to get through this, somehow. If all they'd done was inadvertently upset some burial ground, Laura would be the first to drop to her knees in gratitude.
But then she remembered the look on Ken's face: it so clearly said otherwise.
With halfhearted reassurances, she left Corinne to deal with the customers while she backtracked to where Ken was standing guard. From somewhere he had found a couple of sawhorses and had placed them a few feet away from the edge of the compost pile, cordoning off the site.
He said, "Chief Mellon had to detour to investigate a break-in, so he'll be running a little late."
Laura wanted to talk about anything besides the bones at their feet, so she said, "Since when are there break-ins in Chepaquit?"
Ken shrugged and said, "It's the czarina again. She has a summer house on Old Beach Road and she never locks the doors, so the maids—or their boyfriends—steal her jewelry and the silver, and then she insists that the chief and only the chief investigate the burglary." He added lightly, "The season doesn't officially begin until the czarina's had a burglary."
"Is she really a czarina?"
"No ... but she acts like one." He added with a smile, "Maybe I'm just being sour grapes because she's too cheap to pay for a deposit box."
He was trying to reassure. In his own indirect way, he was succeeding. Without looking at them, Laura nodded her head toward the pile of bones waiting to be officially unearthed. "This will become a crime scene, won't it?"
He sighed. "Probably. For a while."
"The entire nursery, you think?"
"Not as much as this immediate area. But, yes, I imagine an investigation will include at least one pass over the property."
"So we can forget about our Founders Week celebration," she said dully. "I'm sorry. I know it makes me sound hideously selfish."
"No. I understand. It's easier to wrap yourself around the notion of profit margins than it is to comprehend something like this."
"Yes. Because bankruptcy is probably the very least of our troubles now."
"Don't jump ahead, Laura," he urged. "Please don't do this to yourself. Just take things one step at a time."
"Ken, how can I?" she said, exploding with emotion. Immediately, she reined herself in. There were too many people finding excuses to walk past the compost pile.
She said in a low murmur, "Were you able to tell what kind of clothing it was?"
If she was expecting him to say something along the lines of, say, "a jewel-neck knit top with a Talbot's label," she was disappointed.
He shook his head. "Brown shreds, that's all. Maybe a pattern ... but that's for forensics to determine, I guess."
She wanted to ask, "Were there teeth?" because even she, a crime dufus, knew that that was one of the easiest ways to identify a body, and she hadn't registered if there were teeth when she first saw the skull. But somehow she couldn't make herself ask, because every question was bringing her nearer the realization that this had been a living human being that Baskerville had run off with part of. A living human being who wore clothing and had teeth and a smile and a heart and a soul.
"If only it could be a suicide," she whispered, more to herself than to Ken. A suicidal person could certainly dig a hole, jump into it, and kill himself or herself.
But a suicide couldn't cover himself or herself with compost after the deed was done. That was a job for a murderer.
"Oh, God. Oh, God," she said, shivering into a near faint. She was losing it, just like her brother, just like her sister. And she was supposed to be the rational one of the three. What a joke.
Quietly, Ken put his arm around her shoulder and squeezed her gently to him. In no hurry to let go, he stroked her arm and said, "I'll keep the curious at bay. You go on with your sale."
"Oh. Of course. The sale," she said, and she let out a dull laugh. "The only thing we could sell right now is a ticket to our latest melodrama."
"Here comes Chief Mellon already," Ken said, looking over Laura's head. "I'm surprised he got here so fast."
"I'm not. A break-in versus a murder; you do the math, Ken." She slipped out of his grasp as the chief drew near.
It was déjà vu all over again: a Shore kid, waiting for the police to arrive at their house. Only this time it wasn't because of a fight her father had picked with someone in town. God. It didn't seem possible that they were going to be made to account for bones left over from another age; Laura's mind bitterly rejected the prospect.
Their grand reopening, which had promised to be so memorable, was going to fulfill that promise, after all.
But for all the wrong reasons.
Chapter 17
Police Chief Andrew Mellon, like the Shore kids, was a townie, the son of a cop and a high school teacher. He was regarded as a stern but fair man, and no one was counting on that more than Laura.
She was sitting with Corinne and Snack at the kitchen table after closing up the nursery, waiting to hear what was next on the chief's agenda.
Corinne's earlier optimism that there could be a perfectly innocent explanation for the bones in the compost
had long since faded. "Chief Mellon is going to be prejudiced against us," she fretted. "How can he not be? His father was on the force when Uncle Norbert strangled Aunt Janice."
Laura hated hearing that. "What are you saying, Corinne? That he's already made up his mind to accuse someone in our family?"
"I'm just saying that he's not likely to believe it was some drifter."
"But that's exactly who it must have been," Laura argued. It was the only theory that she found either plausible or acceptable. "One drifter must have got into a fight with another one, buried the body, and moved on. A nursery compost pile would have been an irresistible place to dump it—no heavy lifting required, shovels readily available. What would he care if the body were discovered soon afterward? He'd have been long gone by then."
"Long gone," muttered Snack, popping the lid of another Coors.
Laura was keeping track. With three beers under his belt, Snack was still capable of being perfectly civil and sincere. Once he reached four or five, though, things tended to get iffier.
"But one of the nursery dogs would've barked."
"We didn't always keep dogs. There were years when we didn't. Like right now. Same with Grams and Gramps, I'm fairly sure."
"Someone would have seen the murderer digging from the house."
"Only from the dining room. We never used the dining room except for special occasions, and that goes back to Grams again. It would've been just dumb luck, but someone could have got away with it without being seen. And if it were foggy, he'd definitely get away without being seen."
"I guess. The thing is," said Corinne, "we don't have drifters coming through Chepaquit."
"Sure we do," Laura argued. "Especially in the summer. Okay, they're not actual hobos jumping on and off trains, but you do see a bunch of kids renting a house, and they know someone who knows someone, and before you know it, you have a house filled with strangers. Ask any landlord around here."
Snack said, almost eagerly, "I've crashed in houses like that. I've spent weeks in digs where all they knew was my nickname."
Unable to resist a gentle poke, Laura said, "What? You mean you don't go by Oliver Norbert?"
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