Digging Up Bones (Birdwell, Texas Mysteries Book 1)

by Aimee Gilchrist

  "Actually this is not about a lawsuit. Jamie Johnson of the firm is the executor for the estate of Penelope Cadgell. Do you remember her?"

  He raised his eyebrows again. "Sure, I remember Penny."

  "Well, I'm sorry to tell you that she's passed away. However, she did leave you something in her will."

  Frowning at Aodhagan, Dennis squirmed in his chair, apparently getting punched in the face by the reality of getting older. "I didn't think any of us would go so soon."

  "She had emphysema from a life of chain-smoking and hard drinking. It can make a person old before their time." He didn't actually say that's what she died from, but he certainly made it sound that way.

  Dennis was disapproving. "Now, I know that Penny was not that kind of girl."

  Sorrowfully, Aodhagan nodded. "She wasn't before she lost her best friend in high school, Norma Jean Fredrick."

  Catching the flow of the conversation, I interjected, "She was brokenhearted for all these years. It was the death of her." Ironically, that part was actually the truth.

  "Who are you?" Turning his hard eyes on me, his voice was nothing less than a demand.

  "Helen Harding," Aodhagan repeated. "She's Penny's niece. Helen is a true crime writer, and Penny invited her up to ask her a special favor."

  Impressed by his improvisational skills, I nodded. "That's right. She said her spirit could never rest unless I wrote a book to memorialize Norma Jean Fredrick and her tragic death. I never really got to talk to her about Norma Jean though, because she passed away before I could get here." Strinton was staring daggers into me. "I've decided to devote my life to it, until it's done."

  He stood up from his seat with a force that made me back away. "You ain't got no right diggin' up the past." His accent and demeanor of refinement went right out the window, to be replaced with the buried country boy he actually was. "Ain't any of your business, anyway! What right do you have to memorialize Norma Jean? You didn't know her. You don't know what kind of trash she was. Otherwise, you wouldn't think her death was a tragedy."

  Stunned by his hard words, I faltered but recovered quickly. "It's my business because Penny made it my business." I was firm. "Now she never got a chance to tell me much, so I just want to ask you about what you remember about Norma Jean. You know, how she lived and how she died. Do you remember that night?"

  "Of course I remember that night." Strinton was so enraged he was spitting when he talked. "How could I forget the night that manipulating little whore got what she deserved. I was waiting for the day she would get her scrawny little neck broken." Aodhagan coughed hard, probably from shock. "I want you both to get out of my office, and you best forget about Norma Jean, or you just might end up like she did."

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Taking Dennis Strinton's sage advice, we fled the office and the building.

  "Well," I mumbled once we were safely back in the car. I said it again just for good measure.

  After sitting for a minute, recovering and gathering our thoughts, which had been scattered all over the sidewalk by Dennis Strinton, Aodhagan cleared his throat. "Well, I guess we can't cross him off the suspect list."

  "Cross him off!" I snorted. "I think that you should move him straight to the top."

  "Just because the guy's a jerk doesn't mean he's a murderer."

  True. But still. "I guess I better call Lloyd Granger's secretary back."

  I was in a town now and blissfully able to use my own precious phone. Who knew I was so addicted. After she'd picked up, the secretary told me that he had just walked in the door, and they hadn't had time to talk about last-minute appointments yet. She suggested I call back in half an hour. It was after nine. Where had he been all of this time?

  "I couldn't get an appointment, but he is in."

  "Good," Aodhagan returned, grimly. "I want to get this over with."

  We drove almost the entire distance to Granger Bible College in silence. Right before we reached the intersection, he glanced at me quickly, barely taking his eyes off the road. "There it is." He pointed to an enormous complex of buildings surrounding a fifty- or sixty-foot, gold-plated Bible rotating on a black metal rod the size of a Volkswagen.

  "Wow. That's a really, really big gold Bible." I was in a kind of awe.

  "Yes, it is." Aodhagan smiled slightly. "I believe it's one of the most phenomenally outrageous things in all of West Texas."

  That was saying a lot to me, considering how many wildly outrageous things I'd seen in West Texas thus far. "It's something," I agreed. I just didn't say what I thought that something was.

  We found a parking spot as close to the main offices as we could, considering it was nearly ten and classes were in full swing. Unlike Dennis Strinton, getting to Lloyd's office was like following a map with a big X to mark the spot. We found it in a matter of seconds. His secretary greeted us with the huge white-toothed smile of a pageant queen. She was wearing a very lacy puffy sort of dress with more flowers on it than the culmination of every flowered article of clothing that I had ever worn.

  "How can I help you?"

  "Hi, my name is Helen Harding. Mr. Granger and my aunt were friends for many years, since they were children. Now she's passed away, and it was very important to her and to our family that he officiate her funeral."

  "Reverend Granger is a very busy man, so please don't be disappointed if he can't do it." She flipped her book open and perused it with care. "He has a few minutes, so if you'd like to sit down, I'll call back and see if he can see you now."

  "What was your aunt's name?" Pageant Queen requested.

  "Penny Cadgell."

  She pressed the intercom button delicately, cautious with her acrylic nail, painted bubble-gum pink. "Reverend, the family of Penny Cadgell is here to make a request about her funeral. Do you have time to see them now?"

  There was a long static silence on the other end. I hoped that he even remembered who Penny Cadgell was, or I sensed we'd have to do some pretty fast-talking to get past Miss America. Finally, the charismatic baritone from the television came over the line. "I'm sorry. I wasn't aware that Penny was dead." He sounded shaken. "Please send them in, Mandy."

  "Right away, Reverend." She seemed surprised, like she had expected to discover that we were deranged fans straining for any way to get in and steal his ashtrays or something to sell on eBay. "Go right through that door."

  "Thanks."

  We pushed through the ornately carved double doors into a beautiful, spacious office overlooking Lubbock. All the walls, except for the entryway, were made entirely of glass. It gave me the strange sensation of floating in space. All his furnishings matched, black metal and glass. The whole room was all sharp angles and geometric shapes, and though it was clearly very expensive, I wasn't sure it was necessarily in good taste for a man of God.

  "Have a seat." He gestured to his chairs. Making a note of Granger's charcoal-gray Armani suit and silk tie, I made a quick judgment of their cost as well. Apparently, God was still selling pretty well these days, even if nothing else was.

  I offered him my hand. "Hi. I'm Helen Harding, Penny's niece, and this is Aodhagan MacFarley."

  He shook my hand, then Aodhagan's. "I've seen you before."

  Aodhagan gave him an intense look. "I don't believe I've had that pleasure."

  "Oh, I never saw you in person. I saw your picture at the Chamber of Commerce in Tallatahola, when you were Man of the Year two years straight."

  "Oh, that." Aodhagan shifted uncomfortably.

  "We just wanted to talk about my aunt. She passed away on Friday, and we were at a loss as to who should perform the services. Then I was told that she referred to you in her will, and I knew that she was still thinking of you. That makes you the perfect choice. She would have been very happy." I spoke as sweetly as I could, but with an appropriate touch of sorrow. Something told me Lloyd Granger responded best to those who would defer to his importance.

  "Did you come up here to handle the arrangements?"


  "I am, but that's not why I came."

  "Helen came to write a book," Aodhagan confided.

  "I see." The change in Lloyd Granger's benevolent demeanor was slight, but I noticed it anyway. "What sort of book?"

  "Well, actually, Penny asked me to write a book about Norma Jean Fredrick."

  "She writes true crime," Aodhagan tacked on. "Maybe you've heard of her?"

  "No, I don't read fiction." I didn't bother to say true crime was not fiction. Thus the word true in the title. "Why Norma Jean?"

  "Well, Penny asked me to. She'd been very ill, you know, and she'd been troubled almost her entire life by Norma Jean's murder. It was very important to her."

  "You're trying to solve the murder?"

  I laughed, trillingly. The light laugh of someone without a worry. "Good heavens, no. I'm just trying to commemorate the short life and tragic death of a girl who died too young. It was my aunt's last wish." I hung my head and observed a second of silence. "In fact, as long as we're here, I might just interview you. You must have known Norma Jean. Was she as lovely as everyone says?"

  His hard look was incredibly intense, and I was intimidated by his sharp green eyes. "She was very pretty."

  "How did you feel about her death? I mean, you were there at the dance when it happened, right?"

  I could read a debate on his face while he decided whether or not to answer me. "I was there. I was manning the coatroom most of the night, for Buzzy Adams, so he could propose to his girlfriend, Annie, but of course I heard about it right away. Like everyone else, I thought that it was horribly tragic. She was young and so vibrant."

  "I also hear that she was horrible and two-faced," I surprised both men by saying.

  Lloyd Granger cleared his throat. "Well, yes. That could also be true, but that didn't stop her from being full of life and zest. She was very…spunky. She wasn't afraid to say what she meant. But, she could also be very spurious. So, often it was difficult to tell whether she was being genuine or not."

  "What are you saying? She was a liar?"

  He shrugged. It was the first time that I had noted a casual gesture in him. "She could be, if that meant the difference between getting what she wanted or going without."

  "Who do you think killed her?" I asked him the million-dollar question.

  He looked us over slowly, turning his gaze to include Aodhagan too. Finally, he said, "I don't want to be rude to the two of you, because you are the niece of one of my best childhood friends, and you are the county's permanent man of the year…but I don't think that I'm going to answer that question."

  "Why not?" I pushed.

  "Look, young lady. Penny is dead. She'll never know whether you wrote a book about Norma Jean Fredrick or not. You're asking for trouble bringing this up now. I hate to break your plate, but sticking a twig into a hornet's nest never helped anyone. Especially not the person holding the stick."

  "I'm sorry. Is that some kind of warning or just a quaint colloquialism?" I asked sweetly. Aodhagan pinched my arm behind the shield of the desk.

  Lloyd gave me a long, intense stare meant to intimidate, and I'm ashamed to say it did. "I guess that it's a warning. Somebody killed Norma Jean because she was the kind of girl that was asking for it. Around here, people who stick their noses in other people's business might be considered the kind of people who are asking for it too."

  "Well," Aodhagan stood. "We really do need to get going. Lots to do." He was cheerful, as though the palpable tension in the room didn't even exist. "We'll call later to check your schedule when the rest of the arrangements are made."

  Aodhagan didn't need to usher me out of the room. I was more than happy to say thank you and escape from any more talk about Norma Jean with angry middle-aged men.

  "Well, that went well." I tried for his false cheerfulness after we stepped into the elevator.

  He gave me a quelling look. "Is that a warning or a colloquialism? Honestly, Helen. Investigating is a lot harder when you alienate every person that we talk to."

  "How about I'll ask the questions, and you can smooth the feathers. It'll be just like good cop, bad cop."

  We made it down the elevator and into the lobby without a single threat. "I'm serious, Helen."

  "Of course you are." I stepped out the door and under the shield of the building's jutting second floor. He followed me out.

  "Why can't you just be polite to people, a little nice? Is that so hard?" I could hardly hear him over the traffic and rain.

  I turned on him. "You know what, Aodhagan? It is hard because I'm not a nice person. In fact, I'm really a fairly unkind person. But if everyone was perfect, where would that leave people like you?"

  The two girls on the sidewalk next to us stopped their conversation but were studiously pretending not to listen. "What is that supposed to mean?" He didn't sound amused.

  That's okay because I wasn't kidding. "It means you're way too perfect to be telling mere mortals like me to live up to your level."

  "I am not perfect." He'd gone stiff, completely stopped moving.

  I snorted. "Have you ever forgotten to vote? You sort your laundry into darks, lights, and colors, don't you? I'll bet that you brush and floss your teeth three times a day."

  He threw his arms up. "My parents are dentists!"

  I stepped off the curb into the rain, headed for the car, and waited for Aodhagan to unlock the door, which he took his sweet time doing. After I was in, he slammed the door much harder than necessary.

  He followed, mechanically fastening his seatbelt. Very stiffly he said, "I try to do the right thing because that's the kind of person that I am. But even if I was perfect, I'm not sure that I should have to defend it to you. You act as though it's a crime to have standards."

  "Nobody has standards anymore." I kept staring out the rain-streaked glass.

  "That's not true. Everyone has standards. Everybody does what they have to do. It's how we make it through the day. It's what I have to do to live with myself. You do what you have to do to live with yourself. It's all relative.

  "I've lived long enough to know that whether I'm with someone or alone, I am the only one who has to live with myself. I'm the only one who really has to lie down with me at night, and I'm the only one who has to wake up with me in the morning. There's no escaping from yourself. And if people can't look in the mirror and look themselves in the eye and know that they really, really tried…they have nothing. No matter who they are."

  "Now you sound like the televangelist." I murmured, but my anger had diffused. Unfortunately, Aodhagan was still armed and loaded. I had a feeling he was rebutting, not just me, but the no doubt countless before me who had laid before him the same charge, perfection.

  "Do you think that I enjoy giving up things that I really want to do, in favor of doing the right thing? Do you think that I enjoy not having relationships, because after Alexa I know it's the wrong thing to lead someone on who I know I can't love?

  "Do you think I enjoyed giving up everything that I had in Baltimore, a life that I loved, and a job that really meant something to me, to come here because it was the right thing to do? If you think any of those things, you would be very wrong."

  "I think…"

  "What? Why don't you tell me what you really think of me, Helen? Why don't you tell me to stop organizing food drives and scrubbing my kitchen and lobbying Congress? It'll probably make you feel better."

  A glance in his eyes was enough to tell me what this was really about. He was reliving Penny's bitter dismissal of his character. It wasn't that he was annoyed. He was hurt. I swallowed hard. The idea of hurting Aodhagan was something that I found almost impossible to bear.

  "I wasn't going to say any of those things." My voice sounded very small in the confines of the car.

  "I have given away everything that I care about, except my character. I have nothing. It's all gone. Just this little life. But I have the right to live it so that I don't have to regret the past or be afraid
of the future. I have to hold on to that because it's the only thing that I have left."

  Aodhagan's deep unhappiness was a palpable third party, sitting between us in the steamy air.

  "I'm sorry," I said at last. "But let me explain why. Not because I spoke out of turn or without thinking, because I didn't. You make me feel like I should be on death row because I don't recycle or I smoke an occasional cigarette or because I don't suffer fools gladly. I always knew that I wasn't that great, even before I met you."

  I fiddled with my hands in my lap. "Seeing every move that you make in all its Boy Scout glory brings the point home about a thousand times a Birdwell day. I'm sorry for acting like it's a crime. People just don't like it because it makes them face up to what they really are, myself included."

  He pulled in a hard breath, nostrils flaring. His eyes never moved off the rain-streaked glass. "There's nothing wrong with you. You don't give yourself enough credit."

  We sat in silence for a long second then he put the car in reverse and pulled out. It was also almost noon, the time that we had agreed to meet Junior and Marian at the restaurant that Aodhagan had picked. Even though we would be early, we headed there right away. I think we were both hoping that we could just make it there without another incident. Thankfully, it was a short, uneventful trip between the school and the restaurant.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Clive Custer's was located among a strip of restaurants and shops near a mall. We were surrounded by professional types, busily scribbling away on their devices. We were seated, telling the waitress that we were expecting two more in our party.

  I looked around our booth. It seemed okay but no better or worse than any national chain of bar and grill restaurants. "Why this place?"

  Aodhagan perused his menu with interest. "Nostalgia, I guess. I used to come here a lot when I was a teenager."

  "How did you find it?"

  The lazy, lopsided smile was back. If only I had the resilience Aodhagan did. "My first real girlfriend, Vivian, used to bring me here because her father owned this place."