by Linda Lovely
I inspected the small bandage decorating my right palm as my vet doctor closed his instrument drawer.
“Your aunts talked about you all the time—terrific chef, triathlete, organic gardener.” Andy smiled.
“Don’t put too much stock in the advance billing. It’s biased.”
“Yeah.” He snickered. “I got that. You look more like your aunts than your mother. Eva bragged that she and Lilly named you.”
“They did. Mom lobbied to christen me Bridgette, her mother’s name. Dad wanted Marie, his mom’s name. The twins insisted I deserved my own unique name and combined my parents’ choices—Brie. Lilly took pride in coming up with a name no one could shorten. Said it was cruel to stick a kid with long ones that encouraged nicknames like Bunny and Marg.”
Andy smiled. “So your childhood was nickname free?”
I snorted. “You kidding? With Hooker as my last name? By middle school, the boys whispered plenty. When I groused, Aunt Lilly told me to suck it up, and said, ‘Just be glad we didn’t name you Ima.’”
Andy laughed and his green eyes twinkled. “Sounds like Lilly.”
“Lately I’ve been kidded about Brie as often as Hooker. ‘Pretty cheesy name for a vegan.’”
Andy grinned. “Sounds like something Eva might say. You two must have fun planning meals.”
“Lucky for Eva, I’m not evangelical. I believe it’s a healthier lifestyle, and it makes more sense for the planet. But I consider diet a matter of personal choice. I don’t make squinty-eyed faces or retching noises when friends stab into a bloody steak, though I may avert my eyes.”
Andy chuckled. “Good. I love burgers. You’d have a hard sell convincing me to give ’em up.”
When the vet grinned, he reminded me of Brad Pitt in his Thelma and Louise days—that is if Brad had been put on a rack and stretched. Andy looked to be as tall as Paint.
“I try to win vegan disciples through bribery and deceit,” I replied. “I avoid dairy in my desserts but spare no chocolate. And I excel at camouflaging tofu. I can make it disappear completely in my vegan version of meatloaf, the one Dad calls ‘moatloaf.’”
Andy took my arm to help me down from the high tailgate. My pants snagged and I freed the catch with my unbandaged left hand. “Thanks again. Time to check on the buffet and see if it needs replenishing.”
“Need help?”
“Thanks, but no. People dropped off tons of food yesterday. Never seen so many casseroles. I just need to keep an eye on the line and switch out dishes as they empty. I’ll bet Mom and Paint would like some company though.”
“Not sure about that.” Andy chuckled. “Paint thinks he’s a stand-up comic, and he has a captive audience.”
“Sounds as if you two know each other pretty well. Friends?”
“I’ve known Paint since he tried to corrupt our Sunday school teacher. Think we were six.”
I laughed. My reward? A mischievous smile. Andy might be pre-programmed to greet women with “ma’am,” but he clearly had a sense of humor.
For the next hour, I bustled between my aunt’s compact kitchen and the two picnic tables jammed together to hold the feast. Though busy, I snuck frequent glances toward Mom and her fellow guardians of the grave. No sign of the sheriff. Good.
The chilly breezes didn’t favor lingering. Most people paid their respects, filled a plate, ate, and boogied down the road. By four o’clock, only family and my aunt’s closest friends—Paint, Andy, and Billy—remained.
At ten minutes after four, an Ardon County Sheriff’s cruiser bumped down the rutted drive. Followed by two unmarked cars. A big black hearse rumbled in their wake.
FIVE
A man exited the cruiser. He turned and waited for the two men who’d arrived in unmarked cars to join him. The threesome then ambled toward Eva’s front porch where we’d congregated post-wake. Mom, Dad, Aunt Eva, and Billy, Eva’s farrier sweetie, occupied the four rockers. I sat on the dust-coated front steps with Paint and Andy. The moonshiner and vet had taken a proprietary interest in the skull they’d been guarding and weren’t about to leave until the bones were claimed.
As the lawmen approached, my fellow stair-warmers and I stood. I made a half-hearted attempt to dust off my rump, certain the black pants covering my hiney now sported a colorful mix of white dog hairs and finely ground red clay.
The newcomers advanced in Southern slow-mo style. Mom said she’d met Sheriff Jones but didn’t know if his reputation as a slacker was deserved. The driver of the cruiser matched her description of the sheriff. His pocked face topped a thick neck totally in keeping with a fireplug build. The sheriff’s khaki uniform looked as wilted as romaine lettuce in a day-old Caesar salad. He clutched a cowboy hat in his left hand. A big honking gun hung from a thick leather belt with a coiled snake on the silver buckle.
Neither of the men who joined the sheriff wore uniforms. Based on the camera hanging around his neck, I figured the middle-aged dude in black slacks and a blue sweater had come to document the skull’s location in case it was a crime scene. The other gent wore dirty jeans and a flannel shirt. An off-duty deputy?
No one exited the black hearse cozied up behind the unmarked cars. The final slumber wagon squatted on the driveway like a fat cockroach mired on a sticky pest strip. Its occupants—assuming they were all among the living—seemed content to wait until they were summoned to a grave.
Dad walked down the stairs. Mom suggested he handle the meet-and-greet with the sheriff to avoid any later claim of interference from an officer of the court in another jurisdiction. Dad had that hangdog look he got when he had a distasteful chore. I’d seen that face plenty as a kid when I’d been naughty and he needed to scold me.
Paint, Andy, and I shuffled to the side so we wouldn’t impede Dad’s march. He seemed determined to intercept the authorities before they reached Aunt Eva’s homey cabin. Dad succeeded, greeting the men about five feet short of the front porch.
“You must be Sheriff Jones. I’m Howard Hooker.” He kept his voice low. I figured Dad wanted to spare Aunt Eva more grief. Like that was possible.
The sheriff didn’t bother to introduce his sidekicks.
“I’ll show you where the skull was uncovered,” Dad said. “This is my sister’s property, but we just held a wake for her twin. Surely there’s no need for her to be present at the excavation?”
Sheriff Jones peered up at the porch. The sun, low in the sky, reflected off the cabin’s tin roof with laser-like intensity. I doubted he could make out the faces of the porch sitters huddled in deep shade.
“No need for Eva to be present.” The sheriff’s voice sounded like Paint’s white lightnin’ tasted—raw and potent. “We can interview her later.”
“You know my sister?” Dad sounded surprised.
“Yes.” He didn’t elaborate. “Tell me again who unearthed the skull.”
Dad gave a succinct account of Tammy’s big pig dig. He didn’t mention Eva’s conviction that the skull belonged to one Jed Watson, a man she apparently had an excellent motive to murder.
“All right. Let’s see what we have,” the sheriff said.
Dad waved up at the porch-sitting contingent. “Iris, why don’t you take everyone inside? It’s a mite chilly. These gentlemen have everything they need. No point staying out here.”
“Sheriff, do you mind an audience?” Paint asked. “Kind of curious how you go about gathering up old bones. Promise not to get in the way.”
The sheriff glanced at his silent helpers. The jean-clad man and the camera guy both shrugged. “Don’t care. Long as they stay a ways back, out of the way.”
Andy smiled. “Good. I’d like to watch, too.”
Excellent. Since the vet’s comment prompted no objection, I saw no need to ask permission to tag along.
Dad led the sheriff toward the site, and the three of us looky-loos f
ollowed at a respectful distance. The procession had only advanced a few yards when Camera Man peeled off and headed for the hearse. He rapped on the slumber wagon’s front door. The two men who emerged weren’t dressed like pall bearers. One wore jeans a tiny step up from threadbare. His soiled shirt’s rolled-up sleeves revealed bulging muscles and a “Mom” tattoo. The other gent sported overalls atop greying long johns.
I’d fallen behind while checking out the hearse crew and scurried to catch up. Dad, Mr. Dirty Jeans, and the sheriff crouched over the pinkish skull. Paint and Andy sat atop the hay bales they’d moved a few yards back to provide orchestra seats. Close enough to see all the action, far enough to stay clear of any flying shovels. Andy patted the empty spot of hay awaiting my tush. Nice and cozy between two attractive hunks.
I climbed up.
“The man in the jeans is the coroner,” Paint whispered. “The camera man’s Deputy Lawson. Don’t know the gravediggers, but that fella with the Mom tattoo on his forearm looks kinda familiar.”
“The guys with the shovels are the Webster brothers,” Andy chimed in. “Their wives drag them to our church twice a year at Christmas and Easter.”
The vet nodded at the men who’d just dumped shovels, a gurney, and a pile of black bags on the ground. “Last week, they buried a mare I had to put down at the Gage farm. Used a front loader for that job, not shovels.”
I shuddered at the image. Why were we so intent on watching these bones be unearthed? Did I really need to know if the skeleton matched the skull’s same absurd shade of pink—the color of white undies washed with a red shirt? Of course, maybe there was only a skull. The idea of a severed head seemed even worse than the discovery of more bones.
The wind picked up, making Dad’s murmured conversation with the sheriff impossible to decipher. I shivered and Andy jumped up. “I’ll get a blanket out of my truck.”
Dad walked over as Andy hustled away. “Honey, you look like an icicle before the spring thaw,” Dad said. “You must be freezing. Why don’t you go back to the cabin? No need for you to be here.”
I shook my head. “I’d like to stay. Andy’s getting a blanket.”
“Okay,” Dad answered. “I’ll head back to tell everyone what’s going on.”
“What is going on?” I asked. So far the action looked mostly like prep work with Deputy Lawson putting down mini-flags, measuring distances, and snapping pictures.
“The deputy’s documenting the location of the bones and anything else they find in case it’s a crime scene,” Dad answered. “If there’s a whole skeleton, they’ll try to keep it intact. Transfer it to a body bag and put it on that gurney. Then they’ll bag the soil around the bones so it can be sifted later and analyzed for clues about the manner of death. They’ll take everything to a SLED lab in Columbia where experts can determine the skeleton’s age and ethnicity.”
“Will you come back after you check on Aunt Eva?”
Dad nodded. “I’ll bring a thermos of hot coffee and some of those cookies Mrs. Maish dropped off from the Methodist Ladies Auxiliary.”
As Dad walked away, Andy arrived with the same big, smelly Army blanket he’d spread on the tailgate for me.
Paint made a face. “Peeuuww. I’m afraid to ask how you last used this blanket. Delivering a breech calf? Wiping off Tammy’s behind to give her a shot?”
Paint’s ribbing made the blanket seem less godsend and more germ wrapper. But I was cold. I pictured a long hot shower in my near future.
Andy gave Paint one corner of the blanket and took the other before he plopped down beside me. In seconds, I was given the ends of the wrap, binding the three of us in a cozy, odiferous cocoon. Maybe I’d just burn these clothes. The pants already had a snag in them.
The grave diggers wasted no time. Shovels flying, they dug a wide trench around where they assumed the rest of the body might rest given the orientation of the skull. Then the coroner stepped down in the trench and used what looked like a wooden dowel to delicately prod the clay island that presumably hid a skeleton. “He’s in here, boys,” the coroner said. Deputy Lawson snapped more pictures.
The Webster brothers traded their shovels for small versions akin to garden trowels. They collected the dislodged soil in plastic five-gallon buckets. With surprising delicacy, they quickly unearthed ribs, then the humerus and radius bones of an arm. I recognized the parts courtesy of Anatomy 101 and the skeleton some high school buddies stole from a classroom one Halloween to deposit on our teacher’s front lawn. There were bits of cloth, too. I assumed remnants of a shirt though the grime made it impossible to say.
As the grave diggers prodded the area near a finger bone, light glinted on metal.
Paint hopped off the hay bale. “Sheriff Jones, did you see that?” He pointed at a rounded bit of gold.
Using what looked like a dentist’s pick, Deputy Lawson scraped dirt away from the metal. I was glad it was no longer attached to the adjacent bones.
Elbowing Lawson aside, the sheriff pulled a hanky from his pocket and polished a ruby-colored stone at the center of the ring. Apparently he didn’t think the ring needed post-burial fingerprinting.
“Good grief, that looks like Dad’s high school ring,” Andy said. “His class was the last to graduate from Winding Creek High before they tore it down and started bussing kids around here to Central.”
Andy and I leapt to our feet, joining Paint in a huddle above the sheriff and his treasure.
“What’s happened? What did you find?” Dad’s voice boomed as he hot-footed it from the cabin.
“A man’s class ring,” the sheriff answered. “Winding Creek High. Class of ’79. Doubt more than twenty boys graduated that year, and I know most of them. My cousin Jed was in that class. Far as I know he’s the only one who’s gone missing. Looks like Eva Hooker may have more than a few questions to answer.”
“My wife just put Eva to bed. Gave her a sleeping pill. Surely this can wait till tomorrow. Jed might have lost his ring. You don’t even know it’s his skeleton. This could all be coincidence.”
Sheriff Jones studied his shoes, then stared straight into Dad’s eyes. “It can wait. Won’t take long to confirm this is Jed. The skull’s intact, and my cousin had one of his front teeth capped after it got chipped in a football game.”
My stomach dropped. Ye gods. Poor Aunt Eva. Abusive husband. Buried on her farm. She’d be a suspect for sure. And the sheriff was Jed’s kin. He’d make the case a priority.
Could she be guilty? I tried to squelch the question rattling round in my brain. Aunt Eva couldn’t even bear to put a crippled, old dog to sleep. Yet a niggle of doubt persisted. Maybe it was self-defense. No telling what any of us are capable of if we’re pushed hard enough.
Dad took my hand. “Time to leave. I don’t think we need to see or hear more.”
“We may be here for hours,” the sheriff said, “now that it appears to be a crime scene. I’m calling our homicide expert. This whole area will be posted off limits till we finish processing.”
I trudged toward the cabin with Dad, Andy, and Paint. When we reached the porch, the vet and moonshiner bid their farewells and headed for their trucks. I stole one more glance toward the burial site. The flash on the camera bloomed and the spill of light momentarily spotlighted Sheriff Jones’ face. Was he smiling?
Before I entered the cabin, Dad squeezed my hand. “I know you must be wondering. Don’t. I know my sister. Eva didn’t kill anyone. But Lord help her. I hope she doesn’t have to prove it.”
Mom was alone, stretched out on the sofa reading a book. Cashew snored softly on her lap.
“There you are.” Mom sat up and Cashew woke. I picked up my dog, who squirmed in my arms, attempting to lick me to death.
“I tucked Eva into bed half an hour ago,” Mom said. “Billy left a few minutes later. What’s happening?”
Dad broke the news.
“I’ll tell Eva in the morning,” he added.
“Tell me what?” My aunt appeared in the hallway. Dressed in a lace-trimmed flannel nightie, her curly hair poked every which way. She looked like a lost child. Her dog, Kai, rubbed against her leg.
“Close your mouth, Howard, or you’ll catch flies. It’d take more than a sleeping pill to knock me out when they’re digging up trouble in my backyard. It was Jed, wasn’t it?”
Dad nodded. “They found a class ring with the bones. Class of 1979 Winding Creek High.”
“Figures.” Eva’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. “That sorry son of a gun never would wear a wedding band, but he loved his stupid class ring.”
She didn’t say another word, just pivoted and headed back to her bedroom. Kai padded silently behind her.
“I should stay here tonight,” Dad said. “Where are you sleeping, Brie?”
“On the couch. It didn’t feel right to invade Lilly’s bedroom.”
The minute I learned of Lilly’s death I’d called Aunt Eva and asked if she wanted company. Her crusty “not necessary” answer didn’t jibe with the quiver in her voice. So I told the owner of the restaurant I needed to start my two-week vacation immediately. If he’d said no, I’d have quit. I’d been job hunting in Charlotte, Raleigh, and Charleston. I loved Asheville, but, in many ways, it was a small town. I seemed to run into Jack, my ex-fiancé, everywhere I went, and the head chef had little interest in trying new dishes. Time to move on.
“Dad, why don’t you both go home? I’m here if Eva needs anything.”
“No, I want to stay. I’ll bunk on the old Army cot Eva keeps in the barn. I have some old work clothes around somewhere unless Sis threw them out.”
Mom nodded. “Should we go ahead tomorrow with the reading of the will?”
Dad shrugged. “Guess so. I’ll help with the morning chores. Then we can all gather at our house. I’ll let Sheriff Jones know our plans.”
