by J A Whiting
“A bone?” Viv scrunched up her nose. “You mean like a chicken bone or something?”
“No. Like a big bone.” Lin lifted her beer glass to her lips.
“How big was it?”
When Lin described the length and heft of the bone, Viv looked horrified. “What could that be? A deer leg?” Her blue eyes flashed.
Lin didn’t say anything for a few moments, and then she looked her cousin in the eye. “I saw Emily Coffin there. Right after Nicky found the bone.”
The wine glass almost slipped from Viv’s fingers and a few drops of liquid plopped onto the countertop. “Emily? Oh, no.” She wiped her spill with a dishtowel.
On their mothers’ side, the two girls were descended from the same branch of the Witchard family, early settlers of Nantucket, but paternally, Lin was a descendant of Sebastian Coffin while Viv came from a different branch of the Coffin family.
Viv knew that her cousin could see ghosts and readily accepted it, but sometimes it frightened her when spirits showed themselves to Lin. With the help of the ghosts, Viv and Lin had recently solved two mysteries on the island. Viv told her cousin that two mysteries in a lifetime were plenty for her and she hoped never to be involved in another case.
“Why was Emily Coffin there?” Worry lines creased the corners of Viv’s eyes.
Lin sighed. “Leonard is sure the bone belongs to an animal. But when I saw Emily there, I pretty much knew it was a human bone.” She gave a slight shrug. “Why else would Emily appear?”
“Oh, no.” Viv’s voice trembled.
Lin couldn’t help the corners of her mouth turning up. “Nothing’s happened yet,” she offered, trying to calm her worried cousin. “Maybe Emily just came by to say hello.”
Viv leveled her eyes at Lin. “Right.” She picked up her wine glass and shimmied it a little to swirl the red liquid around. “If it is a bone from a person … why is it there? I suppose it could be old. Maybe there was a person a long time ago who was buried in the backyard after he or she passed away. Maybe there isn’t anything horrible about it. No murder, nothing like that.”
“Maybe.”
“But you don’t think so?”
Lin raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think people were buried in their backyards. Even years ago, there were burial grounds on the island. If someone was buried behind their house, then I’d think foul play was involved. And, honestly? I think that we might have bumped up against something today that’s going to turn out to be trouble.”
“Oh, no,” Viv said for the third time in five minutes.
“We’ll just have to wait and see.” Lin got up and removed the lasagna pan from the oven. The girls scooped out portions and placed them on plates. They added salad and dressing and carried everything out to sit at the table on the deck. Lin lit some candles that stood in glass containers in the center of the table.
“I was glad you hadn’t had dinner when I texted.” Lin sprinkled some ground Parmesan and Romano cheese on the top of her meal. “It was so late. I thought you would have eaten already.”
“The bookstore was really busy today, so I stayed later than I planned to.” Viv owned a bookstore-café in the center of Nantucket town. “When I was walking home, John called and asked if I could meet him at a house showing.” Viv’s boyfriend was an island Realtor and last month when he was showing a house to a couple, he opened the door to the first floor bathroom to discover a dead body. Ever since the gruesome discovery, John had been having problems showing unoccupied real estate and he would ask Viv or a friend or his brother to accompany him to a showing that he couldn’t get out of. Lin even went with him once when everyone else was occupied.
“Is his anxiety getting any better?” Lin swallowed a bite of her meal.
“No.” Viv shook her head. “He’s fine with houses that are occupied. The empty homes are the ones that cause the issue. They remind him too much of the house where he found the body. And he still won’t set foot on that street either.” Viv scratched the ears of her cat who had returned from the back field with Nicky. “That’s why I hadn’t eaten yet.”
Lin got up from the deck chair and went inside the house. She brought out some cookies that she’d made the day before. Even though they both had to get up early in the morning for work, the girls made tea and sat outside a while longer enjoying the warm August air, the peaceful night, and the tasty cookies.
Neither one said so, but they each had the feeling that “peaceful” wasn’t how they’d be describing the days ahead.
3
Lin and Jeff sat on a blanket eating their lunches in the shade of a huge Maple tree at the wooded edge of a small island cemetery. Jeff, a carpenter and handyman, was working in the area where Lin had just finished up mowing and trimming a client’s lawn when they texted each other and decided to meet up for lunch. Lin handed Nicky a carrot dipped in hummus and he eagerly chomped it.
“I didn’t know dogs liked carrots and hummus.” Jeff chuckled as he leaned against the trunk of the tree.
The day was hot and humid and they both appreciated the coolness of the shady spot. Lin handed Jeff a plastic bowl and a bottle of water from her small cooler. He poured the water into the dish and set it down for the dog. As Lin and Jeff munched on their sandwiches, she told him about visiting the new landscaping project last evening with Leonard.
“A bone? Chances are it’s an animal.” Jeff took a long swig from his water bottle. “I hope it doesn’t take them long to determine that it’s not human so you can get started on the yard. There’s a lot to do on that job.”
Lin nodded in agreement. “Even a couple of days of waiting will set us back. We really need to keep on schedule. It’s a new business and we want to be sure to make good impressions on our clients.”
Lin had not shared any information about her ability to see ghosts with her new boyfriend. Even though she wished he knew, she wasn’t yet ready to tell him, so she couldn’t reveal that she had seen the ghost of Emily Coffin while at the farmhouse. She would have liked to talk things over with him and express her worry about seeing Emily right after discovering the bone and what it might mean.
“Are you okay?” Jeff asked wondering about Lin’s more subdued demeanor.
Lin smiled. “Yeah, just thinking about how to adjust our schedule to keep all of our projects on track.” She offered Jeff one of the cookies she’d made and tried to shake off her concern about the bone. Lin rested back on the blanket and looked up at the sky between the branches of the tree. “We should meet for lunch more often.”
Jeff leaned down and kissed the pretty brunette. “I agree. It’s nice to see you in the middle of the day.”
“This is such a peaceful spot.” Lin could feel the tension draining out of her muscles. Nicky settled down on the blanket next to her. Lin had contracted with the manager of the small town cemetery to mow and trim and plant and take care of the flowers around the entrance. It was one of the very first clients she acquired when she moved back to Nantucket in June. The mid-island spot was surrounded by mature trees and had shady lanes running in a criss-cross pattern leading to nicely-tended plots. It was one of the oldest cemeteries on the island. Because of its vegetation and position on a bluff, the cemetery was often cooler than other spots in the area. There were often people from the nearby neighborhood taking walks or pushing strollers along the lanes.
“I learned to drive here.” Jeff smiled recalling his father giving him directions and sometimes gripping the dashboard when he took too close of a turn. “It was a good place to get the hang of driving, not many other cars around, a chance to practice turning, getting a feel for handling a vehicle without actually being out on a road.”
Lin chuckled. “I learned to drive in a cemetery, too.”
Jeff looked out over the grounds. “It’s probably pretty entertaining for any spirits hanging around to watch the nervous parents teaching their kids, cars jerking and lurching, some close calls running into low-hanging branches and getting t
oo close to the bushes.”
Lin shook her head and kidded, “I was never such an awful driver.”
“Is that right?” Jeff looked skeptical. “If he was still alive, I bet your grandfather would have something else to say on the subject.”
“He’d agree with me.” As Lin sat up and reached for her water, her phone hummed with an incoming call. She murmured a few “I sees” and “okays” before saying “thank you” and ending the call. Shifting on the blanket to face Jeff, she let out a sigh. “It was a police officer from last evening. He said the bone is human.”
“Oh.” Jeff’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “I didn’t expect that.”
“Leonard and I can’t start work at the farmhouse until an investigation is completed. They have to do a search for more bones.”
“That can’t take long.” Jeff tried to reassure Lin. “You shouldn’t have to wait too long before you can start the job.”
Lin rolled her eyes. “I hope.” Her heart rate had increased while she was on the call and a sense of heaviness fell over her. She had been dreading the news about the bone because she was pretty sure it would turn out to be human. “I wonder how it got there. I wonder what happened.”
“Maybe it’s old. It might have been there for decades.”
“Let’s hope so.” Lin ran her hand over her forehead. “We don’t need any more mysteries.”
Nicky stood up and whined. Jeff reached over and patted the dog’s head. “What’s the matter, boy?”
A cool breeze fluttered over Lin’s skin and she froze for a second. Slowly, she shifted and looked towards the small grassy incline across the road from where they were sitting. Emily Coffin stood staring at them. Lin coughed to mask her sudden intake of air. She took a swallow of water and turned her eyes to the spot where the ghost stood. The two made eye contact and then Emily shimmered in the sunlight and faded away.
“I’d better be getting back to work.” Jeff scrunched up his sandwich wrapper and placed it in his lunch box.
Lin stood and gathered her things. She lifted the blanket, shook it, and folded it into thirds. They started down the path through the woods to the road where they’d left their vehicles. The tree branches made a canopy over the trail and the wooded area was cool and shady. Walking along, Lin’s mind jumped from one thought to the next. Whose bone is it? How did it get in the ground behind the farmhouse? How long has it been there? Who put it there? Where are the rest of the person’s bones? Am I about to get sucked into this?
A strange sensation washed over Lin and she stopped short, her head spinning.
Jeff took three more steps and then looked around. “What’s wrong? Did you leave something under the tree?”
Lin’s ears buzzed. She blinked. “What?”
“Why did you stop?”
“I….” Lin tried to shake off the odd feeling of dizziness. “I don’t know. I felt funny for a second.”
Jeff put his hand on her arm. “It’s probably the heat. Do you want to sit down?”
Lin put her hand over his. “I’m okay.” She smiled. “I should drink more water. Maybe I got a tiny bit dehydrated.”
The two held hands as they continued down the path. Lin took a quick glance over her shoulder expecting Emily to be standing behind them, but the ghost wasn’t there. She felt the pull of something, almost like a sensation of being watched. It must just be because Emily showed herself back there.
If Jeff wasn’t with her, Lin would have turned around and walked back along the trail. She decided that after finishing up the lawn mowing at the cemetery, she might take another walk along the path.
They reached the end of the short trail where their trucks were parked off the road on a hard-packed sandy strip. Lin opened the passenger side door so the dog could jump in. She tossed the blanket and her lunch cooler in the back and then walked over to Jeff’s truck. “Can you come to Viv’s for dinner tomorrow night?”
“I wouldn’t miss it.” The handsome carpenter took the pretty brunette in his arms and they shared a sweet kiss. “Are you okay? Has the dizziness passed?’
Lin nodded. “I’m fine.”
“Remember to drink plenty of water while you’re working.” Jeff pushed a tendril of Lin’s hair behind her ear. “Call me if you feel funny.”
“I will. I’ll be okay.”
The two parted ways and Lin climbed into her truck to move it around to the cemetery entrance so she could remove her equipment and begin her work. She placed sound protecting headphones over her ears, stepped onto the lawn mower platform, started it up, and put it into gear. She waved at the manager who was walking towards his office and began to mow the stretch of lawn closest to where she and Jeff had eaten lunch. Zooming past the entrance to the trail they’d walked along to their vehicles, Lin experienced another sudden bout of near dizziness and she gripped tight to the mower’s handles. She shook her head and tried to relax her shoulder muscles.
Glancing back at the path through the woods, an overwhelming sense of dread flooded her body and she decided to skip having another look at the trail when she’d finished her work. The feeling made her think that something was wrong at the cemetery, but there was no way she wanted to investigate on her own.
She’d have to convince Viv to come back with her later.
4
“It’s human?” Viv frowned. “Oh, no.” The girls sat on Viv’s deck sipping some homemade lemonade mixed with iced tea and nibbling on tortilla chips and salsa. Nicky and Queenie lay side by side on the deck keeping watch over the back lawn in case a chipmunk or squirrel got the bold idea that they could meander through the yard. “That’s why Emily Coffin showed up behind the farmhouse. She knew it was a human bone.”
“There has to be a reason that Emily was standing there. If it was just a bone of someone who died of natural causes and was buried in the farmhouse yard, she wouldn’t have appeared.” Lin took a gulp of her drink. “So there’s something amiss. Unfortunately.”
“Emily must want you to look into it.”
Lin lifted her eyes to her cousin as she dipped a chip to scoop up some salsa. “I was afraid of that.” She bit her chip and chewed slowly. “But what can I do? The police will start an investigation. They’re far better equipped to look into it.”
“Well, Emily must want you to do something about it.” Viv went to check on the burritos in the oven.
Lin looked out over the garden spilling with perennial and annual flowers. Her cousin definitely had a green thumb. The sun had slipped behind the tops of the tallest trees and the day’s heat began to lessen its grip. When Viv returned to the deck, Lin complimented her on how nice the garden looked. “Maybe you should give up running the bookstore and join me and Leonard in the landscaping business.”
Viv rolled her blue eyes and groaned. “That would require too much physical labor.” She shook her head. “Nope, not my cup of tea.” Placing a tray with salad and salad plates onto the deck table, she said, “I prefer to be inside in the nice, cool air conditioned space, not rolling around in the dirt in the heat of the day. Besides, I can dress cute at the bookstore and I don’t look great in shorts and a tank top.”
“I would disagree.” Lin smiled. “I bet John would disagree, too.”
“Love is blind.” Viv headed back into the house and Lin followed to help carry the dinner plates and silverware outside.
When they were settled in their chairs with hearty portions of salad and burritos, they dug in to the delicious Mexican food. After munching in silence for a few minutes, Lin leaned back in her seat. “Jeff and I met for lunch today.”
“Oohh. Where did you go? Somewhere nice by the water?”
Lin grinned. “We ate on a blanket under a tree in Mid-Island Cemetery.”
“Really?” Viv tilted her head to the side, a look of distaste on her face. “How romantic.”
“It was actually very nice and peaceful. It was the spur of the moment. I was scheduled to mow the cemetery lawn so Jeff met me th
ere.” A cloud passed over Lin’s face.
“Usually when you talk about Jeff you smile.” Viv eyed her cousin. “What happened?”
Lin shook herself. “Nothing. We had a nice time.”
“But, what?” Viv cut a piece of her burrito and gave some to Nicky and the cat.
“Well….” Lin paused.
“I knew it.” Viv crossed her arms on the table and leaned forward. “What happened?”
Lin sucked in a breath. “Jeff and I walked back to our trucks through the woods along a trail that leads to the road. We left the trucks there. We didn’t want to park inside the cemetery entrance since it’s so small. It’s a tight little lane and I didn’t want to block it. I have to park inside the gate when I work and I pull the truck way over to the side.”
Viv’s eyebrow went up. “You don’t need to go on and on about where you parked.”
“I’m telling you why we happened to be on the trail.”
Viv waved her hand to encourage Lin to go on with the story.
“So, when we were walking along the path going back to the trucks, I got a really weird sensation.”
Viv’s lips pursed and eyes went wide. “What kind of a sensation?” Her voice was cautious.
“I felt dizzy. Like the woods were spinning.” Lin put her hand on her temple and rubbed. She looked at Viv, her heart starting to pound. “I felt like someone was watching me.”
“Maybe it was Emily?”
Lin shook her head. “It wasn’t her. It wasn’t the same feeling.”
“Did you look around? Maybe someone was walking in the woods.”
Lin let out a sigh. “I did glance around. I didn’t see anyone.”
The girls sat thinking in silence. Nicky let out a loud, sudden whine and the two cousins jumped. Viv chuckled. “We’re not nervous at all, are we?” She reached down and gave the dog a pat. “Funny dog.”
When Viv straightened up, she saw Lin staring at her. “What?” Viv’s cheek twitched. “Oh, no. I know what you’re thinking.”
