by J A Whiting
“Jeff’s sister is right. Quinn’s parents died years ago. So he isn’t taking trips to the mainland to help out his elderly parents. Quinn’s wife, Brin, her parents are dead, too, so he isn’t going to the mainland to help his in-laws either.”
Lin looked at Leonard with a smile. “Quinn and Brin?”
“I know, huh?” Leonard rolled his eyes. “They’re like characters in a kid’s story.”
“What could Quinn be doing with Chloe Waring?”
Leonard shrugged. “Affair?”
“I wonder what he handed her in that envelope tonight.” Lin put her chin in her hand. “Could they be working together? Stealing the bones together? Selling them? Maybe the envelope had her cut of the money in it.”
“Quinn works at the cemetery.” Leonard thought things over. “That would make it easier to steal bones. But why is the girl involved? They’re having an affair and they hatched a plan to steal and sell bones? Seems pretty weird.”
“I’ve been trying to come up with a motive. All I can think of is money. Human bones and full skeletons bring in a hefty sum. I looked it up. Money seems like the only reason to do such a horrible thing.”
Leonard shrugged. “Money is a powerful motivator.”
“Could Quinn be in some financial trouble? Maybe he needs money and happened to read about grave robberies and decided that was the answer to his worries.”
“I’ve lived on Nantucket for almost forty years. I know a lot of people, but I don’t know their personal issues. Well, some I do, but I haven’t heard anything about Quinn.”
Lin sighed. “And then there’s Jonas. Olive Sawyer thinks he’s trouble. He used to drive that old dark sedan. Maybe he still does. Maybe Chloe was just borrowing his car when Viv and I saw her driving it.”
“And then there’s Lloyd.” Leonard took a can of seltzer from the fridge and popped it open. “What did you say he was an expert in? Some kind of bone thing?”
“Forensics. Osteology. The study of bones.” Lin rubbed her temple. “I’m getting a headache from all this. How will the bone thief ever be caught?” Her voice carried a tone of despair.
“Maybe the person will make a mistake.” Leonard sipped from his can.
The sound of shattering glass and a loud crash in the front room shook the house causing Lin to let out a shriek and the dog to start howling. Leonard was on his feet in a flash and dashed for the living room. Lin and Nicky were right behind him.
They all stopped short at the threshold to the living room when they saw what had rolled across the floor after being thrown through the window. Lin gasped and turned away while Leonard stepped closer. Nicky approached and sniffed.
A skull rested on the floor, its eye holes gaping up at them.
Leonard knelt down. “It’s not real. It’s heavy plastic. A brick came through the window first then this must have been lobbed in after it.” He picked it up.
Lin breathed a sigh of relief that the skull wasn’t real, then almost immediately her relief was replaced with rage and she started to rant. “Who would do this? What a terrible thing to do.”
Leonard ignored the rant. “There’s a note inside.” He removed the pale blue rectangular piece of paper and unfolded it.
Stay out of it
“You want to call the police or should I?” Leonard asked.
“You know how you said maybe the bone thief will make a mistake?” Lin turned her eyes away from the paper to look at Leonard. “I think they just did.”
21
Lin had seen the blue pad of paper on Chloe’s desk when she was there for her appointment with Jonas. “So the note that came through my window last night with the brick could have been written by Chloe.” She fiddled with her horseshoe necklace as she finished telling Viv about the events of the last evening. The café was buzzing with early morning customers’ conversations. People stood in line to order, sat at the tables and on the comfy sofas, and stood talking in small clusters holding coffee and tea cups and nibbling on bakery treats.
Viv’s lips pressed into a tight thin line and she wiped her hand on her blue apron. “Chloe might have seen you tailing her or maybe she saw us at the parking lot the other day when she drove away in the dark car.”
“If she’s working with Quinn then she knows my suspicions about the mausoleum and the lock and that someone is up to something at the cemetery. Quinn would have told her.”
“I’m so glad that Leonard was with you last night.” Viv greeted a regular customer with a smile and a nod and then gave her cousin a worried look. “I’m glad you weren’t alone in the house.” She shuddered. “God. A brick through your window.”
“Don’t forget about the fake skull that came along with it.” Lin glowered. “Where do you even get such a thing?” Finishing the last of her latte, she handed the empty cup to Viv. “You know, that’s the second time Leonard has shown up when I’ve been in trouble.” Lin narrowed her eyes and leaned against the serving counter. “He must have really good intuition or he has some powers that he doesn’t seem to be aware of. He’s uncomfortable about it, brushes it off as silly nonsense.”
John swooped around the corner wearing a tan summer-weight suit and a starched white shirt and approached the counter for his usual black coffee to go. “I’ve got some gossip.” His eyes twinkled as both girls moved closer to him.
“My friend at the police station told me that some officers asked to be let into the mausoleum that had the broken lock. They wanted all the crypts inside opened to check that none of the bones had been stolen.”
“And?” Lin was eager to hear what they’d found.
“All the bones were present and accounted for.” John picked up the take-out cup.
“Huh.” Lin looked across the room. “Why was that person we saw wearing the hoodie inside the mausoleum then?”
“Maybe he heard or saw us and got frightened away.” Viv wiped the counter with a cloth. “We spoiled his plans, I bet.”
Lin asked John, “Did the police order any of the other mausoleum crypts to be checked?”
“My friend only heard about the one you’d complained about.” John leaned over the counter and gave Viv a quick kiss and then was off.
“John seems a lot less nervous about showing unoccupied houses.” Lin watched the young Realtor hurry away to see a client.
“I’d been nagging him to talk to a therapist about finding the murdered body in that house. At first, he was very against it, but right after you found the skeleton at the house he was showing, he decided it might be a good idea to make an appointment with someone to talk about his anxieties. He’s seen the therapist three times and already he seems less worried. I think it’s been good for him.”
Lin put some money on the counter to pay for her drink. “I’m proud of him. It can be hard to ask for help.”
“That is a foreign concept to me.” Viv chuckled. “I have no problem asking for help of any kind.”
“Speaking of needing help….” Lin eyed her cousin.
Viv’s face lost its smile and she took a step back. “I said I have no trouble asking for help. Giving it is another story.”
Lin ignored the statement. “We need to find evidence that Quinn and Chloe are stealing the bones.”
Viv crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m listening,” she said warily.
Lin lowered her voice to a whisper. “We need to look in the cemetery office. See what’s in there. Files. Records. We need to look around and see if there’s anything that can link the bones to Quinn.”
“The office.” Viv’s blue eyes flashed. “At night, I assume.”
Lin nodded.
“How will we get in there?”
One of Lin’s shoulders shrugged.
Viv’s eyes went wide. “Break in?”
“Shh.” Lin held her finger to her lips. “Not exactly break-in.”
“I am not doing anything illegal.” Viv had her hand on her hip.
“We won’t. Well, you won’t.
If we get caught, we’ll just say we knocked on the door and it happened to open. Someone mustn’t have pulled it tight when they left.” Lin raised her hand in a helpless gesture. “It happens.”
“How would we really get in? You don’t know how to pick a lock.”
A broad smile spread over Lin’s face. “Yet.”
* * *
“Jiggle it a little.” Leonard mimicked how to move the thick piece of wire.
Lin knelt on the porch in front of the door to her house. She’d already mastered opening the lock on her back door and the ones at Leonard’s house. This one was proving difficult.
Leonard held his hand in the air and mimed how to move the pick. Lin watched and gave it another try. Click. The door opened. Lin beamed at the man standing next to her and let out a whoop at her success. “I knew you’d be able to help me with this.”
Leonard looked serious. “Of course, I don’t condone this sort of behavior. I’m just teaching you a new skill. In case you get locked out of your house someday.”
“Thank you.” Lin smiled and put the pick in her back pocket. “I’m sure it will come in handy.” She winked. “How’d you learn to do it?”
They sat down on the front steps. “I was in the military.”
Lin laughed. “That’s what they teach you in the military? Jeff was in the Air Force. I’ll have to ask him if this was one of the required tasks he had to learn.”
Leonard stood up. “Are you still going out to Quinn’s house to look at that truck?”
“Yeah. Tomorrow. I thought it might be helpful to go to Quinn’s place to see it. Maybe I can find something that links him to the bones. I told him I was going to be out that way anyway, so I’d swing by.” Nicky sat on the porch and rested with his side pushing against his owner. His eyelids started to close.
“Take Jeff with you,” Leonard said. “Don’t go there alone.”
“I’ll have my trusty dog with me.” Lin nodded at the little brown dog.
“You might want a little more power in your protector.” Leonard headed to his pickup. “Ask Jeff. If he can’t go, then call me.”
Lin waved to Leonard as he pulled out of the driveway and on the way inside she glanced at the piece of plywood that Jeff had hammered over the broken window. A sigh slipped from her mouth. She had to have some proof before she told the police who she suspected of stealing the bones.
Lin fed the dog, warmed some leftovers and ate her dinner while she did programming work at the desk in the spare bedroom. Halfway through her tasks, she turned away from the computer screen and looked out the window to the dark side yard. Thinking of the sound of last night’s shattering glass, Lin’s throat tightened.
Feeling like she was being watched, she went to the window and pulled down the shade to help her feel less exposed to the outside. Her body buzzed like she’d had too much caffeine. Sitting back at her computer, Lin tried to pick up her work where she’d left off, but it was no use. Unable to focus, she logged out and turned off the screen.
Walking into the kitchen for a cup of tea, Lin thought she caught a glimpse of movement on the deck. She froze while taking a mug from the cabinet. Afraid of what she might see, she stood in place facing the cabinet, but trying to see out of the corner of her eye to the deck. Lin’s posture shrank as she braced herself for an object to come flying through the glass.
A sudden wave of cold engulfed her and she sucked in a breath. She looked to the deck.
A man stood next to the deck table, unmoving, staring at Lin. His transparent body shimmered. He seemed to be in his late twenties and wore a brown three-piece suit, at least it looked brown in the feeble light of the old security lamp that shined onto the deck from the roof. The style of the suit and the cut of the man’s hair gave Lin the impression that the garment and the haircut were from the 1940s. The man’s facial expression was emotionless. Lin noticed that one of the ghost’s legs was missing below the knee.
She closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind hoping that she might receive a mental message from this new ghost. Lin breathed in and out in a slow easy pattern. Several minutes passed and Lin started to feel less cold. Her eyes flew open, afraid the ghost was about to leave.
Suddenly, the spirit’s arm rose in the air and extended, the finger on one hand pointing up to the roof over Lin’s bedroom. His eyes locked onto hers and then the atoms of his body glimmered and swirled and he was gone. Lin’s eyes followed to where the man had pointed.
Three little birds sat on the gutter at the edge of the roof. Sparrows.
Sparrow. That was the family name of the mausoleum that had the broken lock at the Mid-Island Cemetery.
22
Lin, Viv, and Nicky walked along the trail that led from the small parking spot to the cemetery. It was a clear night with the stars shining and a slip of the moon showing bright against the midnight sky.
“That’s all the ghost did?” Viv asked. “He just pointed to the sparrows and disappeared?”
Lin carried a small backpack over her shoulder. “The Sparrow mausoleum is a clue. That’s what he was telling me.” The girls walked slowly trying not to step on any sticks that might snap and give them away. Lin kept her voice soft. “The ghost was missing part of his leg.” She reached down and pointed to her calf. “I bet the leg bone that Nicky and I found belongs to last night’s ghost and I bet he’s a member of the Sparrow family and is buried in that mausoleum.”
A sharp breath escaped from Viv’s throat. “Oh.” She gripped Lin’s arm and kept looking over her shoulder.
“It’s okay, Viv.” Lin chuckled at her cousin’s concern about ghosts. It wasn’t ghosts they had to be worried about. “Anyway you can’t see ghosts so you don’t have to be afraid that Mr. Sparrow will appear here.”
“You don’t see him do you?” Viv’s voice was breathless with worry.
“You’re the only one I see.” Lin smiled. “For now.”
The girls approached the cottage that housed the cemetery office. No lights could be seen inside and no cars were parked nearby. “Let’s go up and knock on the door in case someone’s in there.” Lin led the way up the steps and rapped her knuckles against the door. “Here’s a bell.” As she put her face up to the window in the door, she pressed the small button and heard the chimes ring inside. “It’s all dark. No one’s here.”
Lin put the backpack on the landing and rummaged through it. She handed Viv the flashlight and took out the wire pick she’d been practicing with yesterday. “Where’s Nicky?”
Viv gestured to the wooded area behind the cottage. “He’s back there. I can hear him rustling around in the bushes.” She flicked the flashlight on and held the beam to the doorknob. “I hope there isn’t an alarm.”
Kneeling on her left knee and raising her hand to the lock on the knob, Lin looked up at her cousin. “I hadn’t thought of that.” Turning back to work the lock, she said, “If it goes off, run.”
“You don’t need to tell me twice.” While Lin worked with the pick, Viv kept swiveling around to look behind her.
“Viv.” Lin couldn’t see because Viv had shifted the light too far to the right while she’d been searching over her shoulder.
“Sorry.” Viv adjusted the beam.
After ten minutes of fiddling with the lock, Lin let out a groan. “I can’t get it. Let’s go to the back door.” The girls moved to the rear of the cottage and Lin started in on the lock with her pick. While Lin was cursing the lock, Viv noticed the large window box of petunias that was perched next to her on the railing of the small porch. She saw a small rock in the left corner of the box. Lifting it up, Viv smiled as she removed a small object from its hiding place.
“Why don’t you try this?” Viv handed it to Lin.
“A key?” Lin rolled her eyes. “Where did you get it?”
Viv pointed and Lin shook her head, stood, and opened the back door with the key. “I guess whoever was in here those two nights we saw lights on in the back room found the key, too
.” She pushed the door open. “We shouldn’t turn on the lights. We’ll have to use the flashlights, but let’s be careful to keep the beams low.” She reached into the backpack and retrieved another flashlight. “Let’s leave the door ajar while we’re inside in case Nicky wants to come in.”
They moved to the front room and walked about the office and Quinn’s desk. Viv opened the drawers and moved some papers around. Lin walked softly to the credenza and slid the doors back to see what was stored there. “Nothing interesting. I’m going to the back room. That’s where we’ve seen lights on. Let’s check it out.”
File cabinets lined three walls of the room and there was a long table placed in the center. Lin walked to the furthest cabinet on the left. She bent down and lifted her flashlight. “They seem to be arranged by name.”
Viv inspected the files on the opposite side of the space. “These have dates on the front.”
Lin sighed. “How are they filing things? Are they cross-filing everything?” She pulled open the top drawer and checked the files. “These records are filed by date and then there are folders with names within the larger date file.”
“I’ll start going through these.” Viv removed some files and opened them. “It might take us a while to find anything useful.”
Twenty minutes passed. Lin straightened up. “Was there a date engraved anywhere on the Sparrow mausoleum?”
“There was a year on the stone.” Viv tried to picture the front of the building. “I know it was late eighteen-hundreds. Maybe eighteen-eighty something?”
Lin moved the beam of light across the fronts of the cabinets. “Here.” She pulled out a file. “Sparrow.” Her voice held a note of triumph. Placing the folder on the table, she poured over the information. “There seems to be five people buried in that building. The last one was Michael Sparrow, born 1922 and died in 1945.” She looked up at Viv. “It’s my ghost from last night. Maybe he died in the war.” Lin returned her attention to the file. “That’s all the information.”
