Old Bones Never Die

by Lesley A. Diehl

  “So are there tales to tell?” I asked.

  He drained his beer bottle and looked at me expectantly. I signaled the bartender to give him another. “On my tab.”

  “I might know some stuff. What’s it worth to ya?”

  “It might be worth your staying out of jail.”

  “What? I didn’t do nothin’.”

  “I’ll bet the cops are wise to the company already.” Wise to what? Oh well, I’d just make up stuff as I went along. “And the company will want to blame everything on you, you know.”

  “Listen, I told them not to try to bribe the county when they pulled those construction permits, but they ignored me. I’m innocent. Talk to that fancy-schmancy lawyer of theirs and the big wigs. They’re the ones who shoved money at the county officials.” He stared into the mirror behind the bar and shook his head.

  Trying to bribe county officials. Were they successful? I’d keep that information in my pocket for use at some later date. The foreman seemed to know some things that put the company in jeopardy. No wonder they’d fired him. Maybe he was lucky they chose this way to get rid of him and not something more permanent.

  “I’m still interested in that spot where they dug up the bones. There’s something fishy about that, don’t you think? I mean, the bones were stolen the next day and haven’t turned up.”

  His attention turned back to me. “I’d sure like to tell you somethin’ about that you could use against them, but I can’t.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Well, I did see a truck parked in that grove of trees every day from the time we began digging that place.”

  “Did you recognize the driver?”

  “Maybe.” He tilted his beer bottle to one side to show me it was empty. I signaled the bartender again.

  The foreman’s tongue seemed well lubricated now, and he began to tell me a story I almost couldn’t believe.

  I slept poorly the night I talked to the foreman. I suspected I was in for many sleepless night as I waited for Sammy’s return. But this night my restlessness might be due to all the caffeine from the cokes I drank while listening to the foreman. I awoke often with the image of Danny Cypress’ mother’s face suffused with pain in my mind. I saw her sad eyes gazing across the lake, a picture quickly replaced by another of her being wheeled toward the family cemetery to grieve for her dog buried there. As the night wore on, my brain was seized up with worry and bombarded by thoughts circulating with the speed of a hummingbird’s wings. And with about as much impact on my powers of rational thought. A son who left, who disappeared about the same time Sammy’s father did. What was the connection? Sammy had left for the swamp. Lionel had left for the swamp. And the oldest Cypress boy had left for the swamp. No. that wasn’t right. He was just gone. Or was he? His mother’s face crept into my mind again.

  And then the wildest thought. I leaped out of bed. Maybe I knew whose bones were in that grave. Maybe I even knew where they were now.

  I dressed quickly, tiptoed through the living room, and quietly left by the front door, trying not to wake Grandy. As I started my car and backed out of the drive, I saw the living room light come on and knew my stealth had been unsuccessful. Grandy was up. I hoped she simply believed I needed to go for a late-night drive because I missed Sammy.

  I drove west toward the Kissimmee River, passed the state park, and crossed the bridge over the river. Finally I took the turn toward the Cypress Ranch. As luck would have it, the night was well illuminated, thanks to the full moon shining over the swamps and fields. Maybe it would be light enough for me to see what I needed to see. At the turn to the ranch, I slowed the car and stopped along the road.

  This was silly. What did I expect to find? And was my foolish errand worth trespassing and getting caught? Would I be adding to the grief of a woman already weighed down by loss? And was I putting myself in danger? The bones found in the construction area didn’t just find their way there. Someone had killed whoever was buried in that grave by the lake. I could be taking on a murderer, one who had been clever enough to keep a victim hidden for over three decades.

  I pulled my car ahead until I found a small turnoff that had once led to a gate. The path appeared to be unused until recently because the tire tracks were almost invisible. I nosed my car up to the gate and turned off the ignition. This felt like another caper I had tried years before, one that almost got me killed. My hand automatically went to the amulet I wore around my neck; then I remembered I had given it to Sammy. Was I foolish to be so superstitious about its power to protect me? I felt naked without it. Silly me, but I wanted to back out of what I had planned tonight. Was I losing my love of danger and adventure, or had I finally connected with the wiser, more reasonable side of Eve Appel? If I didn’t find out what I needed to know I’d never be able to sleep. Still, this wasn’t something I should do on my own.

  I took out my cellphone.

  “Hi, Nappi. Got a shovel?”

  Chapter 21

  I waited in the car for over half an hour and was about to give up on Nappi’s joining me in my recklessness when a tap on my car window made me jump.

  “Sorry if I woke you.” Nappi grinned at me through the glass, his teeth showing almost an iridescent bluish white in the moonlight.

  “I’m not asleep.”

  “Maybe you should be.”

  “You think this is crazy, don’t you?” I asked.

  “I think it’s important we don’t get caught. If we get caught, then it’s crazy.”

  I got out of the car, and Nappi and I climbed the gate into the field fronting the Cypress property.

  “Where’s the cemetery located?” he asked.

  “It’s behind the house and the outbuildings. If there are lights on in the house, then we’ll give this up for now.”

  Nappi looked up into the night sky. Toward the west we could see clouds begin to gather.

  “I say we wait for an hour or so. By that time anyone in the house should be asleep, and I think we’ve got a storm moving in. Better cover for our work.”

  Anxious as I was to get on with it, I agreed. All that bright moonlight would be like shining a spotlight on us.

  I saw lightning shoot from the clouds to the ground and heard thunder in the distance. The wind began to pick up, and I was reminded of the night I was attacked in my house. I shivered, although the night air was hot and muggy.

  “Are you okay, Eve?” Nappi must have guessed the reason for my anxiety. “We can return another night, or better yet, come up with another plan to find out what we need to know.”

  “I’m fine.”

  Droplets of rain hit my face, and the trees along the fence line began to sway in the wind.

  “Nobody’s going to see us now,” Nappi said.

  We started our trek toward the house.

  “I think we’d be better to come up on the graveyard from the back. That way it will be between us and the house.” I led the way to circle the house and the small cemetery, entering the woods beyond them. I intended to come through the stand of palms, cypress, and strangler figs and into the rear of the graveyard. In the darkness of the woods, Nappi and I moved from tree to tree with our flashlights off. We both knew we ran the risk of disturbing some night creature slithering through the bed of leaves.

  Suddenly I stumbled over an obstacle in my path and fell headfirst onto a raised mound of dirt. The white iron fence surrounding the graveyard loomed just in front of us. Another several inches and I would have fallen onto one of the pointed metal decorations that made up the posts of the fence.

  “That was close.” Nappi reached out and pulled me to my feet.

  “What did I trip on?” I asked.

  “Looks like someone recently dug a grave here.” Nappi pointed to the mound of disturbed soil. “If we had the shovel you made me leave behind, we might be able to find out what’s in there.”

  “I rethought the shovel. I don’t want to disturb anything. I just want to look. Besides, w
e know what’s in that grave.” I pointed to a crudely fashioned wooden cross that had been placed near the mound of dirt. On the cross was the word “Brownie.”

  “The family dog,” Nappi said.

  “Uhm,” I replied.

  “Let’s see what the cemetery holds.”

  I followed Nappi around the perimeter of the fence until we came to the gate. It opened easily, without a sound, not that anyone could have heard a creak with the gusts of wind and the thunder rolling in from the west.

  As we entered the cemetery, lighting hit in front of us, illuminating the house, which was closer than I had realized.

  “Someone looking out the window could have seen us,” warned Nappi. “Maybe we should get out of here.”

  “Not yet. I just want to see how arrogant this family is.”

  “You really expect them to dig a grave for their son’s remains and not try to hide it?” asked Nappi.

  “Maybe. I don’t know, but I need to find out.”

  Through the sheets of water, we looked for evidence of newly disturbed soil. We didn’t find it, but we did find a marker.

  “Albert Cypress, Beloved Son,” it read.

  The marker was old, and there was no sign of disturbed soil to indicate a grave had been dug there recently.

  Were my suspicions wrong?

  “Let’s get out of here before anyone catches us.” I grabbed Nappi’s hand and pulled him toward the woods.

  “We got off lucky,” said Nappi.

  The two of us were back at my house, drying out our clothes and sipping tumblers of Scotch.

  We spoke in whispers so we didn’t awaken Max. Grandy was already up when we arrived. She sat in the recliner, clucking her tongue at Nappi and me. Between clucks she told me what an idiot I was and informed Nappi she couldn’t believe he didn’t have the sense God gave a chicken. How could he justify aiding and abetting my crime?

  “You’re the adult,” she said, as if I were a mere child.

  He gave her a stern look. “I am also a mob guy, in case you’ve forgotten. This is stuff we do. We like it. We take chances, and if they don’t pay off, we hire lawyers to get us off.”

  She waved her pudgy arms dismissively as if she held a magic wand to make him disappear.

  I was certain I was right. It all made sense. It all fit, but how to prove it?

  Nappi, reading my mind yet again, set his glass on the coffee table. “I know what I would do. I’d get my shovel and start digging up that graveyard, but that would be highly illegal.”

  “Where would you dig?” asked Grandy. “Eve said there were no new graves there. And that the marker for the son’s grave or what would become his grave when they found him was not a new burial. You’d have to dig up the entire cemetery.”

  Suddenly it hit me. “There is a new grave there.”

  “A dog’s grave behind the cemetery,” said Nappi.

  “Or so we’ve been led to believe.”

  I waited until morning to call Frida, asking if she could look at the tire molds the crime scene technicians had taken of the tire tracks in the dried mud behind the trees near the construction site. The forensics lab had identified the tires as those used on big trucks, information she had from day one. Until now those tracks seemed unimportant, but the foreman confirmed a truck had been parked in that location from the time the construction began. With the foreman’s description of the man sitting in that truck in the stand of trees near the construction site and his indication that the logo on the side of the four-door white truck with dually wheels in the back was that of the Cypress Ranch, Frida might just have enough for a search warrant.

  “Am I right? Do you have enough for a search warrant?” I asked her as we sat in a corner of Sabal Bay’s favorite breakfast spot. It was an hour after most of the breakfast crowd gathered, so we had the place mostly to ourselves apart from a few men in suits—local bankers, I surmised, getting their usual late start on their money-managing day.

  “It’s a tricky case, but it fits together if you look at all the pieces as a whole. I would have bet my job that the truck hidden in those trees had to be from Gator Way. Weren’t you surprised the foreman said it was a Cypress Ranch vehicle?”

  “Well, a little, but once he did, everything seemed to fall into place. Am I going to get into trouble for trespassing on Cypress land last night?”

  “It was a dark and stormy night. You just lost your way and wandered in there. Right?”

  I nodded.

  “Now I need to find a judge savvy enough to see the pattern, and willing to take a chance on offending one of the most powerful families in this town. I’d better get moving on this. Wish me luck.” She got up and started for the door in a hurry.

  “I’ll get the bill,” I yelled at her, but the door had already closed on her retreating form.

  At noon, as I was about to go on a lunch run for Madeleine and me, Frida entered the shop with a smile on her face. “Got it.” She waved a paper in my direction. “Want to see?”

  I nodded, and Madeleine and I gathered around as Frida spread the search warrant out on the counter. We read it quickly.

  “Carefully worded. I’m meeting my guys out there now. I’ve got to hurry.”

  “I wish I could come with you,” I said.

  Frida hesitated, tapping the warrant with her finger. “Well, I’ve got no one to say otherwise, and I am short-handed as you know, so I guess I can call you one of the private investigators I took on for this case.”

  “I don’t have a license.”

  “I’m sure Crusty McNabb will vouch for you as an apprentice, should anyone ask. Let’s pop next door and see what he says.”

  McNabb was sitting with his feet up on his desk, the surface of which was littered with papers, sticky notes, and old coffee cups. One of his cigars burned in an overflowing ashtray.

  “I thought you were coming back here to fill out some paperwork,” said McNabb. “I guess you chickened out again. And here I thought Alex was right about your detecting skills.”

  Frida dismissed his remarks and launched into her story about how she needed his help. For once, I kept my mouth shut.

  McNabb listened, reached in his desk drawer and drew out a sheet of paper. “Sign this,” he said to me.

  “Let me read it.” I pulled the paper toward me.

  Frida grabbed the paper, picked up a pen off the desk and shoved it into my hand. “I’m sure he knows what he’s doing. It’s his hide, you know, his business, his reputation. We need to get moving, Eve. Sign the damn thing.”

  So I did.

  At the Cypress Ranch, the father met us at the front door, where Frida handed him the search warrant.

  “What’s she doing here?” he asked, pointing to me.

  “One of the police’s private investigators,” said Frida. “Now let’s get this over with.” She tried to maneuver herself past Mr. Cypress, but he blocked her way.

  “I need to call my lawyer, my son.”

  “I can wait, but he’ll tell you to cooperate.”

  Cypress removed a cellphone from his pocket and turned away. I couldn’t hear the conversation, but I assumed it was with Danny.

  He turned to face us again. “My son will be here in five minutes. I’d like him to see the warrant.”

  “Certainly.” Frida was being very patient with him, but then, she had him in her sights. There was no way he could tamper with what the warrant specified in the search.

  A black Escalade sped up the drive and slammed on its brakes in front of the house. Danny Cypress jumped out.

  “Let me see it.” He held out his hand and Frida gave him the warrant. He read it over quickly. “This looks legitimate. Do your search.” If he or his father was worried about the search, neither their body language or their faces betrayed any anxiety.

  Danny turned to me. “I knew you were trouble the first time I saw you. I should never have invited you to my house.”

  “I thought the invitation was a mistake
also, but it was your idea.” I was being smug about my position here and I knew it, but I wasn’t frightened, at least not until I saw the black looks on the two men’s faces. If this search didn’t yield what I hoped it would, I’d be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life.

  We proceeded to the cemetery. As we trekked through the field in front of the fenced-in graveyard, I looked back at the house and saw a face at one of the upstairs windows. It looked like that of Mrs. Cypress. This search would cause her more pain, regardless of how successful or unsuccessful it was.

  Cypress Senior opened the gate to the cemetery and gestured for Frida, me and the other officers to go through.

  “Not here,” I said to Frida. “Back there.” I pointed to the marker and freshly dug dog’s grave on the other side of the cemetery.

  “Wait a minute. The warrant specifies you’ll be digging into a grave to find my son’s bones. That’s where we buried the dog. Here’s where you’re authorized to dig.” Mr. Cypress pointed to the cemetery and placed himself in Frida’s path.

  “The warrant gives us the right to dig up graves, and that’s where we want to begin.” She pointed beyond the cemetery to the burial site of the dog. “Your son’s bones were not moved to the cemetery, but to the dog’s grave.”

  Mr. Cypress turned away and gazed out into the woods. Something had gone out of his face. His shoulders slumped as if in defeat.

  Danny approached his father and touched his arm, but he said nothing.

  “Go dig,” said Mr. Cypress. “I’m going back into the house to be with my wife.”

  Danny turned as if to accompany his father, but he pushed his son away and shook his head.

  “I’ll accompany you,” Danny said to Frida, “to make certain you do it right.”

  There was no fight left in the father, but Danny wasn’t willing to admit defeat.