The Haunted Bones (A Lin Coffin Mystery Book 3)

by J A Whiting

  “The person would have to know that those two houses were unoccupied.” John looked at everyone.

  “A Realtor?” Lin’s eyebrows shot up. “A Realtor is hiding the bones?” Her mind raced with the possibility.

  “It doesn’t have to be a Realtor,” Jeff said. “But it has to be someone with access to that kind of information.”

  Viv leaned forward. “Someone who works for a lawn service would know that a house was empty.”

  “Someone who works at the post office would know, too.” Lin added to the list.

  “Or someone might hear about empty houses if he knows a Realtor or a service provider.” Jeff leaned back in his chair. “The fact that a house is empty could come up in conversation. Someone hears about it and then uses the place to stash the bones.”

  John curled his lip. “I guess my idea isn’t so great after all. There are a lot of people who have access to the information.”

  “It is a good idea.” Lin nodded at John. “We can apply the idea to possible suspects. We’ll need to consider how the suspect might know about unoccupied homes.”

  “Who are viable suspects so far?” Jeff asked.

  “Jonas Bradley could be one,” Viv suggested. “Olive thinks he’s weird, Lin thinks he’s weird. He had access to the farmhouse backyard.”

  “But did he know about the empty house on North Ave?” Lin wondered.

  “He might have a friend with access to that information.” Jeff opened a bottle of beer,

  “Jonas doesn’t strike me as someone who would have any friends.” Lin made a face thinking about her interaction with the man.

  “What about Lloyd?” Viv asked. “He seems odd from what Lin says and he was skulking around in the backyard. Why would he be over there? It’s rude to be in someone else’s yard, especially at night.”

  “And Jonas seems to suspect Lloyd of something,” John noted.

  Lin said, “The car we saw. At the cemetery. We should try to see what these men drive. Viv and I thought the car at the cemetery looked big, like an old Lincoln or something like that.”

  “It looked dark, too.” Viv narrowed her eyes. “We need to spy on these guys and see what kind of car they’re driving around in.”

  John thought of something. “What does Lloyd do for a living?”

  Lin looked at John with a blank expression. “Why haven’t I asked that question?”

  “Let’s see if we can find out.” Viv got her phone out of her bag and tapped at the screen. “We’ll look him up.” After a minute, she said, “Here it is. He’s a retired professor, writes books, lectures all over the world.” Viv moved her face closer to the screen. “I bet he looks a lot better in this photo than he does in real life.”

  Lin leaned close to Viv to look over her shoulder. “He does. Maybe that’s an old photo taken when he was younger.” She squinted to try to read the words on Viv’s phone screen. “What does it say? What’s he a professor of?”

  Viv read aloud. “He’s actually a medical doctor who also has a Ph.D. His area is forensic pathology.”

  “What does that mean exactly?” John asked.

  Lin said, “It’s figuring out the cause of death by examination of a corpse.”

  “Like a medical examiner,” Jeff said. “Interesting.”

  Lin nodded. “Does his profile say anything else?”

  “Oh.” Viv’s head snapped up. Her eyes were like saucers. “He’s an expert in osteology.”

  Lin’s jaw dropped.

  “Osteology?” John looked puzzled.

  Lin looked at him. “It’s the study of bones.”

  17

  Lin carried several boxes of flowers to the side of the entrance of Mid-Island Cemetery. It was the first day she’d been back to work there since she’d talked to Quinn about seeing the person in the mausoleum and the broken lock on its door. She hoped Quinn was busy in his office and wouldn’t come out to talk to her.

  Nicky sniffed around the trees as Lin knelt and dug in the soil making small holes for each plant. The sound of a motor caused her to turn and see Quinn coming along the skinny road through the cemetery driving in an electric golf cart. He used the cart to get around the grounds more easily. Quinn waved to her and she groaned as he headed the cart in her direction.

  “Morning.” He stepped out and walked over to Lin

  Lin stood and brushed the dirt from her hands. “Hi.”

  “I was going to call you this morning, but realized you’d be working here today so I waited to talk to you.”

  Feeling nervous and uncomfortable, Lin worried that Quinn might be about to fire her. She waited for him to continue talking.

  “The police came by.”

  She sighed. “I had to report what my cousin and I saw. It wouldn’t be right not to.”

  “I know, that’s fine.” Quinn gave a shrug. “It had to be done.”

  “What did the police say?” Lin wondered if the police did an inspection. “Did they check out the mausoleum?”

  “Yeah. But I wanted to tell you that after you left the other day I talked to Tim, the head caretaker. He said he’d noticed that the lock on the Sparrow mausoleum was broken. It was discovered during a regular check of the monuments and vaults. When he went to replace it a few days later, the lock was fixed. He assumes that one of his crew changed it.”

  Lin stared at Quinn. She had been so sure that whoever drove up in that dark car the other night and went into the mausoleum had changed the lock, but it was a cemetery crew worker who’d done it. “So someone working here changed the lock?”

  Quinn nodded. “Yeah. Who knows how long it was broken. There are regular checks on things, but you yourself said the problem with it was hard to notice.”

  “That doesn’t change the fact that my cousin and I saw a man go into that mausoleum the other night.”

  “Tim checked the vaults. There didn’t seem to be any issues.”

  Lin cocked her head. “What about the keyhole on the vault? It looked like something had been at work scraping the hole, like it had been picked.”

  “That kind of thing can come with time. Some of the marble can look scratched. It isn’t indicative of anything wrong. It can be the natural aging of the stone.”

  “Did the police look inside the mausoleum?” Lin couldn’t figure out what was picking at her about this development.

  “I took them over there. Tim came with us. We went inside after we showed them the new lock. I told Tim what you’d seen. He was concerned so he opened the vaults to check the caskets. Everything was in order.”

  Lin narrowed her eyes. “Did he open the caskets?”

  “Oh, no. We’d need permission to do that. Tim checked the caskets for tampering though. Everything was fine.”

  Lin looked across the cemetery to the hill on the far side near the mausoleums.

  “The police think that maybe that guy you saw was using the mausoleum to store something. Drugs probably. They suspect the guy is a dealer and came to get his stash.”

  “That was convenient, wasn’t it?” Lin had a hand on her hip. “The guy cleaned out the mausoleum of the drugs on the very night we happened to see him.”

  “Maybe he noticed you and your cousin and decided to remove everything. Or it was coincidence.” Quinn shrugged again. “The police suggested that we check the locks each morning for a while in case the guy comes back and wants to use the place for storage again.”

  Drugs. It was possible, Lin thought, but the whole thing seemed too neat. If someone was storing drugs in the mausoleum, it was a mighty big coincidence that he just happened to remove everything the very night Lin was present. She didn’t buy it. “Well, I guess that’s wrapped up then.” Lin didn’t want to share her misgivings with Quinn.

  “I wanted to let you know.” Quinn smiled. “You don’t have to worry about grave robbers or anything like that.”

  Lin forced the corners of her mouth to go up. “Thanks. I better get these flowers in.” She pointed. “I need
to get to the next client.”

  “How’s your truck running? Did you find out what was wrong with it?”

  “I haven’t had time to get it looked at. It took me five tries to get it going today.” Lin picked up an eight-pack of white impatiens and started to plant them. “I’m going to have to replace it, I guess.”

  “I have a truck I want to sell, if you’re interested. It’s used. Older, but it runs great. Let me know.”

  Lin thanked him and said she’d think about it. Quinn got back into the golf cart and headed away down the cemetery road.

  As she planted and dug more small holes, Lin went over everything that Quinn had told her. She guessed the scenario he’d presented was possible. Tim, the caretaker said everything looked okay. He wouldn’t have any reason to lie unless he was involved with removing the bones.

  Lin had seen Tim around and had exchanged pleasantries with him. He was an older man who was the foreman of the place, assigning jobs to the younger guys that worked at the cemetery. Tim was definitely not the one she and Viv had seen with the duffle bag the other night. Tim had a crooked back and walked with a slight limp. The person they’d seen was easy and quick on his feet. It wasn’t Tim.

  It was certainly a coincidence that one of Tim’s crew had changed the lock the morning after Lin discovered it was broken. She pushed off her knees and sat back on her heels, thinking for a minute. The piece of metal that I found. The piece of the shank from the top of the lock. If that was part of the broken lock, why was it near the top of the hill by the fire road? If a guy from Tim’s crew removed the broken lock, he wouldn’t have carried it up the hill to the fire road.

  Nicky came up beside his owner and licked her cheek.

  Lin rubbed the wet spot and chuckled. “Nick, your kisses are awful sloppy.” She hugged the little mutt and scratched him under his chin. Thinking about the piece of metal shank she’d found, she realized that it could easily be part of something else and nothing to do with the broken lock on the Sparrow Mausoleum. Lin shook her head. If she was going to figure out who was involved with these bones, she had to be more careful not to jump to conclusions. She sighed and went back to working on the planting.

  Lin pondered how to make some progress on the case. She wanted to talk to Olive again to ask if she recalled the name of the company that had managed the lawn when the farmhouse was being rented. She also hoped to get Olive talking again about seeing her husband and Jonas in the backyard, and if possible, she wanted to talk to Lloyd. Lin and Viv needed to try to figure out if any of their suspects drove a large, maybe older, dark car.

  Lin glanced over her shoulder. She hadn’t seen Emily Coffin lately. She could sure use the ghost’s help, but knew that the spirits only showed themselves when they wanted to.

  She placed the last flower in the ground and pushed the soil around its roots. She watered all of the new flowers, and while winding up the hose, her phone dinged with an incoming text from Viv.

  Can you get away? You need to see this. Meet me around the corner from Jonas Bradley’s office.

  Lin sprinted to the truck with Nicky at her heels, praying that her vehicle would start.

  18

  Miraculously, Lin found a parking space in town and she and the dog hurried along the streets dodging the tourists to Jonas Bradley’s office building. She followed the side road that was the size of an alley that ran next to the building and led to a small parking lot tucked behind the offices. As Lin rushed down the road, she heard Viv call to her.

  Her cousin stood across the street in an entryway to the back of a restaurant. Viv waved Lin over.

  “What’s going on?” Lin asked.

  Nicky gave Viv a lick on her ankle.

  “I had to make a stop at my dessert supplier.” She gestured to the street Lin had turned off from. “I noticed Jonas Bradley’s office sign when I left the supplier and I had to go to the bank so I took a short cut down this way. The parking lot is over there.” Viv nodded towards the space. “I peeked at the cars as I went by.” She paused for effect. “There’s a large, dark sedan in there. It’s in a space reserved for Bradley Accounting and Financial.”

  Lin’s eyes widened and she turned to look at the lot.

  Viv said, “We have to go over there to see it. I’ve been lurking on this side of the street in case Jonas came out. I only saw his picture on the internet and he’s never seen me, but I still wanted to hide over here. I don’t want him to see me.”

  “Let’s go check it out.” Lin and Viv and Nicky crossed the street and entered the lot which appeared to be only for owner or employee parking for the three-story building. The space was small, providing just ten parking spaces.

  Viv pointed at the dark sedan, its front end facing the brick building. The car was an old, black Buick, but in very good condition. Lin bent to look at the tires.

  “What are you doing?” Viv watched the door to the building. “Why are you looking at the tires?”

  Lin stood up and fished her phone out of her back pocket. She slid her index finger across the screen and held it up to show Viv.

  Viv squinted and lean close. “What’s this?”

  “It’s a picture of tire marks in the dirt at the end of the fire road near the cemetery. I took the picture in case we could use it to match the tires on an actual car.” Lin looked at the tire tread on the Buick and at the photograph. She sighed. “I don’t know. It’s hard to tell if it’s similar.”

  Viv held the phone and took a turn trying to compare the tires with the ones in the photo. “Ugh. How are we supposed to figure this out?”

  Lin moved close to the side of the car and peered in through the windows to see if anything was on the seats.

  “Don’t lean against it,” Viv warned. “There might be an alarm. That’s all we’d need.”

  “There isn’t anything on the seats.” Lin straightened. “It’s a coincidence, isn’t it, that Jonas drives a car that looks like the one that was at the cemetery the other night?” She glanced up at the second floor windows. “I would love to question him with a lie detector test about where he was the other evening.”

  “He’d probably pass the test despite lying about everything. Come on, Lin, let’s get out of here.” Viv started away.

  “Let me write down the license plate number, first.” Lin reached into her small bag looking for a pencil and scrap of paper.

  “Already done.” Viv winked and smiled. She held up a piece of small note paper with the license number written on it.

  The girls crossed the street and when they got to the other side, they heard the whomp of the brick building’s back door slamming shut. They turned discreetly towards the lot to see if Jonas had come out.

  Lin looked down at the sidewalk and let her hair fall around her face. “That’s Chloe Waring. Remember I told you about her? The receptionist. She works for Jonas. I don’t want her to recognize me.”

  Chloe, with her straight blonde hair cascading down her back, held a key in her hand and moved briskly through the lot. She had on a tight red skirt, fitted white blouse, and black heels. A pair of dark sunglasses completed her outfit and made her look like a celebrity hurrying away from paparazzi.

  Viv watched the young woman out of the corner of her eye. “Hey. She’s getting into the Buick.”

  “She is?” Lin desperately wanted to look, but stopped herself.

  “She’s backing out.” Viv flicked her eyes to the lot while she and Lin continued to walk slowly up the road. “She’s turning in the other direction. There she goes.”

  “Is it her car?” Lin looked at her cousin with wide eyes.

  Viv gave a shoulder shrug. “Or maybe she’s doing an errand for Jonas and is borrowing his car.”

  “How can we find out if the car belongs to her?”

  Viv said, “We could hide over here tomorrow morning and see who drives it into the lot.”

  Lin glanced back from where they’d come. “There isn’t any place to hide though.”
<
br />   “We could park on the road and scrunch down. We might be able to see who drives up without them seeing us.” Viv looked wary like she didn’t want to actually do it.

  Lin’s face brightened. “Maybe we can find out where Jonas and Chloe live. We could maybe drive by their houses and see if that car is in one of their driveways.”

  “Figuring out where they live will be the trick though. We can check online later.” Viv checked her watch. “I need to get back to the store.”

  “And I need to get to the farmhouse.” Lin smiled. “Good thing Leonard is my partner, otherwise he might fire me.” As they turned the corner, she took a quick look down the street. “We should have followed her.”

  “How?” Viv chuckled. “Run after her? She never would have noticed us chasing after her car.”

  * * *

  Lin received a text from Leonard saying he was running late and wouldn’t be at the farmhouse until later in the afternoon. She breathed a sigh of relief that her business partner wasn’t already at the job tapping his foot waiting for her. Lin, Leonard, and the husband-wife landscaping team had completed a ton of work on the backyard project and Lin could easily handle the tasks of the day on her own. She replied to Leonard’s text telling him she’d take care of the work at the farmhouse if he wanted to stay at the other client’s property to get that work done. They agreed to meet bright and early the next day at the farmhouse to tackle the final parts of the project together.

  Lin used the wheelbarrow to add loam to all of the planned landscaped beds. She hauled some of the plants to the beds and before putting them into the ground, she arranged them in their pots according to the plan. Stepping back, she checked the positions and the way everything looked together. Satisfied, Lin walked to the pile of tools that they kept near the house and picked up one of the shovels, but she changed her mind and placed it back on the grass.

  She stretched and opened her cooler removing a cold bottle of water. The day was hot and Lin’s tank top was drenched with sweat. Eyeing the patch of shade under the tree, she and Nicky walked over and sank down to cool off.