Digging Up Bones (Birdwell, Texas Mysteries Book 1)

by Aimee Gilchrist

  Aodhagan came back inside, the screen door slamming behind him. "Are you ready?" He didn't look like he was in a very good mood, but his voice sounded neutral. There were dark smudges under his eyes, and his hair looked almost as bad as mine.

  I grabbed my purse and phone. "Let's hit it."

  I was on the defensive and didn't even want to talk to Aodhagan. This morning my mantra was distance. I liked him too much. Last night I'd enjoyed the idea of a friend. Today I knew distance was the only sane thing. I answered his abrupt questions with monosyllabic answers, and the miles passed by mostly in silence.

  We drove highway 84 until we hooked on to 60 in Clovis, New Mexico, an armpit of a city right over the border. Then we drove straight for the rest of eternity. At least, that's what it seemed like. It was endless miles of skinny cows and dying crops. Occasionally, we would spend about thirty seconds driving through some little town that contained a handful of houses, the customary post office, and an inevitable smattering of old stone buildings that looked like they'd been flattened via natural disaster.

  Finally, after literally hours, we drove through some craphole town and slipped onto 285. "Are we almost there?"

  He looked up, startled. "Not really. Are you feeling okay? You look a little pale."

  "I'm just tired. I didn't sleep very well last night. It must have been…" I searched for a reasonable excuse, "the anticipation of the interview today."

  I had two choices. I could either opt for the sanity that came from distancing myself from Aodhagan or the sanity that came from not driving three hundred miles in silence through scenery that looked like we were riding on a stationary bike. I opted for the latter.

  "Have you driven this way before?"

  "A few times. It's the way to Albuquerque." He told me some of the history of the area, and the miles finally started passing faster.

  By the time that we finally rolled into Santa Fe, five hours and thirty-seven minutes after leaving Birdwell, I was so done with driving. Was he sorry we hadn't flown? We'd still have to go back in an hour or two.

  We didn't have to go far into town as Kitty lived just a few blocks off the highway. We turned right at the intersection of Rodeo and Villa Antigua. Aodhagan's phone gave us directions in the voice of a pleasant British woman, and it didn't take us long to find it. Aodhagan made a sharp left turn, pulling us into a gravel driveway shielded by trees and angled straight down.

  Kitty Audbergen's house was built at the bottom of a steep incline. It was a spacious, two-story, mission-style house, done up in pale Spanish pink. Skirted by a wrought-iron fence with an elaborate gate, the house shared matching bars on the windows that told me Kitty didn't want visitors. Especially visitors she didn't expect.

  The front door was huge, made out of what looked like a slab of untreated dark wood. The ornate hinges and door handle were made of the same wrought-iron design as the windows and gate, and the house number was displayed on white and blue Spanish tiles fixed into the plaster. I fully expected to ring the doorbell and walk into a den of blue wooden wolves in paisley scarves howling at some unseen moon.

  Ari Larsen answered the door in gray pleated slacks and a white polo shirt with sharply pressed shirt points. We exchanged the typical greetings, and he stepped aside to let us in.

  The inside was actually nothing like what I had expected. The tremendous amount of natural light had been accentuated by choosing furniture and decorations that were delicate but not feminine and neutral without being bland. Kitty came out of the kitchen, her long hair tied back with a blue scarf, wearing another long flowy outfit composed entirely of natural fibers. The long turquoise necklace resting against her chest matched several large turquoise rings.

  "So, how was your drive up?" Ari asked us, ignoring, for a moment, the elephant in the room, Penny's brutal murder.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  "Would you like something to drink?" Kitty inquired, pouring herself a glass of iced tea and adding enough sugar to send any mere mortal into insulin shock.

  We both declined, and the entourage moved its way back to the living room. Aodhagan and I sat on one couch, and they sat on the other. We awkwardly faced each other like opponents at a sporting event. "Thank you for coming," Kitty said formally.

  "Why are we here?" I cut right to the chase.

  "I couldn't talk about it in Texas, but I wanted to tell you what I know about Norma Jean. And to give you this." She reached into her pocket and handed me a small silver bracelet.

  "What is this?" I held it up as if to give it back to her.

  "I don't know. Penny gave it to me two weeks ago. She asked me to hold it until someone came for it. I guess that must be you."

  I was puzzled by the bracelet and was still staring at it when Aodhagan spoke. Apparently, he hadn't gotten past her initial comment. "You want to tell us what you know?"

  "It's about time that I told someone. It might as well be you."

  "Might as well be," I returned with casualness that I didn't feel.

  "I guess I better start at the beginning."

  And, sadly, she meant it.

  Penny, Kitty, Lloyd, Dennis, Norma Jean, and Frank were practically hatched together, and the stories from nursery school weren't really doing much for me.

  Kitty talked about how even though they had grown apart when they entered adolescence, they stayed friends because they were "the right kind of people." Their parents were all insistent that the girls be debutantes, the boys be escorts, and the money be old.

  Those were roughly the requirements put forth by my parents for my adolescent friends as well. Which, in fact, were relatively simple as far as censorship goes. I guess that those good old mercenary ways are still the simplest.

  She talked, finally, about the year that Norma Jean was murdered. Lloyd was dating Norma Jean on and off but didn't seem to be seriously engaged. Kitty thought that Dennis had been in love with Norma Jean, and sometimes she gave him a little scrap. That's the word she used. Scrap. Which probably meant a little sex.

  Kitty and Frank were engaged to be married. They'd been married a little over six months when he was drafted and a little over a year when the DOD came to break the news that he'd died in combat.

  "Penny didn't like the others. I could tell she wanted to break out. Be someone different. I was the only one she really wanted to be around. She didn't like Dennis or Lloyd, was indifferent about Frank, and was wary of Norma Jean. But she stayed with us anyway."

  She took another sip of her sugar. "I always thought she knew more about Norma Jean's murder than she pretended. But she never said. She didn't like to get involved. Not with anything. But especially not in other people's troubles."

  "So, why did she want to get involved now?" I asked.

  Kitty took her last sip of iced tea and put the empty glass on the coffee table. Standing to fill it, Ari came back with that and a platter of chips and salsa.

  "I don't know. I can tell you one thing though, the view looks a lot different going out than it does coming in. Something that seemed minor or at the very least none of your business at sixteen can seem much more important at sixty."

  I hedged back to the point of our visit. "What about you? Do you know anything about Norma Jean's murder?"

  She swirled a chip in salsa but made no attempt to eat it. "Not really. Only my suspicions. Penny told me that Norma Jean was pregnant, and that's a possible motive, I guess." She suddenly dropped the chip as though it burned. "When Frank didn't come back, Lloyd and Dennis showed up at my house with a note. They said that it was from Frank."

  She stopped talking altogether, and we waited in vain for her to continue for at least two awkward minutes of heavy silence.

  "Did the note say anything that we should know?" Aodhagan spoke in the gentle voice of someone familiar with comforting the grieving. That was maybe the twentieth time I'd heard him speak like that to someone in pain or someone who needed help. Maybe he'd owned a funeral home in Baltimore.

 
; "It said that Frank had killed Norma Jean. The note was a written confession. It said that he'd accidentally gotten Norma Jean pregnant and then accidentally killed her while trying to convince her to have an abortion."

  "Was it really Frank's writing?" I asked.

  She shrugged, picking up her glass and cupping it like a precious object. "It looked like his handwriting, but I know that it wasn't."

  "How?" Another gentle question from Aodhagan.

  "Frank would never have killed anyone. It wasn't in his nature, and he was violently opposed to abortion. The kind of person who went with his parents every weekend to protest the possibility of legalizing abortion."

  "Where did they say they had gotten the letter?" I asked curiously.

  "Dennis said Frank had given it to him, sent it in the mail, a few days before he left for Vietnam. The letter also said he was wracked with guilt and had to tell someone, but he didn't want me to know. It said he wanted to have a clean conscience before he died, if that's what the war led to."

  "So, why'd they give it to you?"

  "Dennis and Lloyd said that I deserved to know. They showed it to Penny too. They made us all agree that we would keep it a secret between the four of us and not blacken Frank's memory by telling anyone the truth."

  "Since he was conveniently dead and unable to defend himself."

  She looked at me intensely. "Exactly."

  Aodhagan frowned. "I agree that someone who was no longer with you would make a convenient scapegoat. But, just to be the devil's advocate, what if Frank did write the letter? I mean, his standards might have slipped, just that once, and led to dire consequences. Desperate men do desperate things."

  "That's true," Ari finally spoke quietly. "But if Frank killed Norma Jean, then who killed your aunt?"

  The real question. If only I had an answer.

  "Where was everyone on the night of Norma Jean's murder?" I asked.

  Kitty's eyes narrowed as she searched her memory banks for entries she'd probably forgotten on purpose. "Lloyd spent the whole night manning the coatroom for this guy, Buzzy. They were tight. Buzzy had big plans, so Lloyd stepped in."

  She fiddled with her chip. "Norma Jean came and went. I saw her half a dozen times in the first hour or two. I thought… Well, it wasn't unusual for her to make visits to the back of people's cars, if you know what I'm saying."

  I did indeed. I asked the next question gently, taking a hint from Aodhagan. "What about Frank?"

  "He hurt his ankle." Kitty's mouth curved. "He thought he could dance, but he couldn't. He spent an hour in the nurse's office."

  Or so he said.

  "After that, he was with me."

  "And where were you?" Aodhagan asked.

  She laughed. "I was the Pumpkin Queen. I couldn't leave the dance floor once, even to use the bathroom."

  Or so she said.

  "What about Dennis?" I didn't even like using his name. That guy was a lunatic.

  "He and some of his friends from the football team went out and picked up some liquor from his house. His dad was an alcoholic, so there was plenty of it there. They came back and spiked the punch. Dennis and I weren't really friends. I liked him the least. I wasn't watching for him, but I did see him around. I'm sorry I can't give a better answer."

  That left only one option. "What about Penny? What was she doing during the dance?"

  Kitty worried her lower lip for a long silent moment. "She… Her behavior was a little weird that night. But…don't assume I'm trying to say she did it. Because, she didn't. I don't think." Her voice trailed off on the final words, telling me she didn't entirely believe them.

  "Weird how?" Aodhagan asked.

  "Penny came in with all of us, left, came back again looking weird, scared, and then she left again. I wanted to ask her what was wrong, but I couldn't leave, like I said. It was Penny who told us Norma Jean was missing. I think she was the one who saw her last. You know. Before."

  Abruptly, Kitty folded her hands in her lap. "I'm done. I can't talk about this anymore. I'm so sorry. Can I see you out?"

  I wanted to ask more questions, but it was very obvious that she'd reached her limit. Kitty really was done. There'd be no profit in pushing her.

  We followed Ari and Aodhagan toward the door. "What are you two doing?"

  We crossed over to where Ari stood with a photo in a plain wooden frame in his hand. "Well, Aodhagan here asked me who these men are."

  I peeked closer. It was three men almost identically dressed in ratty jeans, white T-shirts, scuffed tennis shoes, and baseball caps. Each held a fishing rod. Two were holding up fish in the other hand that were roughly the size of something from a Saturday-morning movie on the Syfy channel. All three of them were mustached and beer-bellied. "I told him this is Joe Don, and I don't know who the others are."

  "Joe Don, the porno goat guy?" Too late, I realized that I was talking about Kitty's brother and that what I was saying came out a lot worse than it had sounded in my head.

  Luckily, Kitty had a sense of humor about it, and her rich, husky laugh washed over the entire room, making even me smile with her. "I can't believe there are still people telling that story. He'll never live it down." She tapped the middle man in the picture after she had recovered. "That's Dougie Green, and even I have no idea who that is."

  I wondered if Aodhagan really cared who they were or if he was just making conversation. I guessed it was the latter because a few minutes later Aodhagan seemed to be out of trivial pleasantries and weirdly eager to leave.

  We thanked them and said good-bye. On our way out, Aodhagan paused. "Kitty, do you still have Frank's letter?"

  She stopped and seemed to have to think. "Dennis burned it in the fireplace, in front of all four of us. He said it had to stay between us."

  Aodhagan nodded. "Thank you, again. We really appreciate it."

  He was silent back to the car and then onto the highway. I didn't ask him what he was thinking. Though I had only known him a little over a week, I'd realized his moments of silence were usually followed by moments of brilliance. Unfortunately, I wasn't too terribly impressed with what came out.

  "I think that it's safe to say whoever killed Norma Jean also wrote that letter from Frank."

  "Lloyd or Dennis."

  "Maybe, maybe not."

  "What do you mean?" It was starting to show some promise.

  "Think without your emotions. Who was in the most logical position to implicate Frank in Norma Jean's murder?"

  I was stunned. "You can't mean you think that Kitty sent the letter?"

  "Why can't I?"

  Excellent question. Why was the idea so horrible? I had already worked past the disbelief the murderer could be a woman, so what? "I like her," I said quietly.

  "I like her too, and I really like Ari. I really hate to think that they could be behind this."

  "Well, Ari couldn't have had any part with Norma Jean. He and Kitty only met twenty-seven years ago."

  "I know that. I meant with Penny. But if Frank had really gotten Norma Jean pregnant, Kitty would have a very good reason to want her out of the way. They were engaged."

  "But Frank sent the letter before he went to the war. That was awfully presumptuous of her to assume that he'd die there."

  "Unless he didn't die there. Unless he died somewhere else. Everyone only has Kitty's word that Frank died in Vietnam." He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. "There's something else."

  "There always is."

  "Our friendly neighborhood gun man…Joe Don Audbergen."

  That shocked my sarcasm right out of me. "But how can you tell? They were all wearing hats and baggy T-shirts. I mean, they all had mustaches!"

  "Actually, that's the only way that I could tell. It's exactly what he had on the other night. If it had been a family portrait, I probably never would have noticed him at all."

  "So, you think that Kitty did it?"

  "I make no assumptions. I just felt we have a responsibility to ask ou
rselves these questions. We can't discount them just because we like them or assume it's someone like Dennis, just because he's such a jerk. I do know that it was Joe Don who was shooting at us, but whether it was at Kitty's prompting is a whole different story. Heck, for all we know, it doesn't have anything to do with the murders at all."

  "What on earth else could it have to do with? He doesn't like your wing tips, so he thought he'd take some pot shots at us?"

  "Stranger things have happened, and that's God's honest truth."

  Actually, it was, but I wasn't through playing devil's advocate. "It had to be about the murders. I don't believe in coincidences."

  "Really, I don't believe in the supernatural."

  "Excuse me?"

  There was the customary twitching of his lips that told me he was trying not to smile. "Oh, I'm sorry. Are we not having a philosophical conversation? I thought we were sharing our convictions."

  I smiled slightly and shook my head. I'd been getting really worked up before he'd so easily defused me. "You know something, Aodhagan? You're a very interesting guy."

  His brief, mysterious smile made all my extremities tingly. "And you are a very interesting girl. I guess we'll never run out of things to talk about." I was still getting over the buzz when he looked in the rearview mirror and mumbled, "Unbelievable."

  "What?"

  "Man, this guy just never gives up, does he?" He slammed on the gas, throwing me back in my seat. When I regained my equilibrium, I turned behind me to see a dark blue Ford F-250 bearing down on us at speeds that had to be off the dial.

  I tried to make out any features, but all I could see was that he was wearing a thick wool scarf, a pair of dark glasses, and a large black cowboy hat. "It's Garth! How did he find us?"

  "I'll give you two guesses," Aodhagan ground out, pulling sharply to the left to avoid a bullet that pinged into the blacktop where our left rear tire had just a moment ago been.

  "Oh, good. This time he's got a different game."

  "If he hits the tire, we're sitting ducks. You saw how dead this highway is."

  I would have preferred he use a different word at a time like this, but he was right. On the way up, we'd seen a total of maybe four other travelers in five hours. He looked behind him again.