Bones to Pick

by Linda Lovely

As we scooted out, he handed us beach towels. As I peeled off my wet duds, their odor seemed to intensify. A piquant mélange of mold and sweat with a dash of algae or dead fish. More clothes to burn.

  After we emerged in our towel-wrapped birthday suits, Steve and his colleague—the nametag read Gary—wrapped us in thermal blankets, checked our vitals, and tsk-tsked when they discovered our temperatures hovered around ninety-five degrees. Before I knew it, I was on a stretcher, and they’d poked me with an IV. I hate IVs and complained. Steve’s eyes twinkled when he suggested there was an alternate—using a catheter to pump warm water into my kidneys.

  Cheeses.

  I fell asleep. Exhaustion trumped anxiety.

  I woke as they rolled my stretcher into the ER. When I opened my eyes, Mom, Dad, and Trooper Swihart were jockeying for prime bedside positions.

  I looked at Mom. “You got my message?”

  She nodded. “We were worried sick. Phoned the state police. Good thing Andy and Paint called them, too, so they knew where to head. Friends in EMS let me know when they got word an ambulance was bringing you to the hospital. Are you okay?”

  “Ma’am, I’m sorry but you can’t be in here,” Swihart interrupted. The trooper had hopped into the ambulance for our trek down the mountain. Apparently he wasn’t going away any time soon.

  “I’m her lawyer,” Mom huffed. “And I’m advising her not to speak with anyone until we talk. So maybe you should leave.”

  A man in a white coat cleared his throat. “How about this? I want everyone to exit except the young lady. I need to examine her. Please take your custody battle outside.”

  The doctor declared me dehydrated—sort of ironic since I’d soaked in lake water for at least thirty minutes. The doc prescribed more fluids—external ones, thank you very much—and said I was good to go. He smiled when he handed me a bundle of clean, dry clothes. “Your ‘lawyer’ asked me to give these to you.”

  When I left the curtained examining area, Mom and Dad hugged me. Swihart had vanished. Mom Esquire had won temporary custody of the suspect.

  “I informed Trooper Swihart I was also legal counsel for Paint, Andy, and Mollye,” she said. “No one is to speak with any of you unless I’m present. They’re keeping Mollye overnight for exhaustion, but she’ll be fine. Now tell me what happened and don’t you dare leave anything out this time.” She paused and lasered me with her sternest stare. “I hope you’ve learned it’s a very bad idea to hold out on your lawyer. Before we head to the SLED office, you need to tell me everything—including anything stupid the four of you did. They’re holding Paint at SLED now. He’ll be the first to be deposed.”

  I confessed all, including our—in hindsight potentially dangerous—plan to unhinge Victor with the news the Sunrise Ridge sale was kaput. I continued with a report on how we’d eavesdropped on the banker’s chat with the sheriff and deputy. When I got to my eyewitness report of Victor’s murder and the efforts of Jones and West to make it look like a carjacking gone bad, Mom’s hand flew to her mouth.

  “Oh, my God. You are so lucky to be alive.”

  I handed Mom my waterlogged iPhone. “We can prove we’re telling the truth if someone can salvage the photos we took.”

  Dad snatched my phone. “I’ll take it to Hal. He teaches computer engineering. If anyone knows how to retrieve those photos, he will.”

  Mom shook her head. “No, honey, we have to give the phone to SLED so Jones won’t be able to argue we tampered with the evidence. If it’s possible to save the photos, SLED can do it.”

  I fell asleep as Dad drove Mom, Andy, and me to the SLED office in Greenville. Dad had gone looking for Andy and found him just as he’d been given his walking papers.

  Andy wore scrubs a doctor friend scrounged up. I remember getting in the backseat of Dad’s SUV with Andy, whose truck was still at the crime scene. Besides he probably wasn’t in any condition to drive. I sure wasn’t.

  Not sure how Mom convinced Swihart it was kosher for her to let her two “clients”—Andy and me—travel in the same car without the officer’s butt planted between us. Maybe Swihart was as tired as we were.

  I woke when the car stopped. I was snuggled against Andy. His arm held me close to his chest. I could feel his steady heartbeat—a heartbeat the sheriff would have ended if he’d had the chance. Andy and Paint took quite a risk to come to our rescue. I sincerely doubted my ex-fiancé would have put his life on the line like that.

  Limburger and Liverwurst. I was wildly attracted to both Andy and Paint. How could that work out? Not.

  “We’re here,” Dad said. “I’ll park the car and be in as soon as I call Eva. Promised I’d give her an update. She wanted to come, but I told her to sit tight. Nothing she could do, and who knew what vengeance other Watson relations might have in mind. She needs to keep watch on her animals. ’Course I’d love the chance to ‘interrogate’ the sheriff. Water boarding seems more than appropriate. That cold-blooded killer needs to hang. I’d do whatever it takes to make sure he pays.”

  Wow. While Dad writes murder mysteries, his heroes rarely do more than tiptoe over a legal line to get their man. Having a killer target his daughter and older sister seemed to change where he was willing to draw the line.

  Inside the SLED facility, Andy and I were escorted to a waiting area, while Mom was whisked to the interview room where officers waited to talk to Paint.

  After Dad joined Andy and me, we sat in uncomfortable silence. An hour went by. Then another hour slipped past. What was taking so long? Didn’t they believe Paint? Were they charging him with murder?

  Finally Mom appeared with Paint at her side. Andy jumped up and gave Paint a brotherly hug. “Hey, man, looks like you’re free. Did they believe you?”

  Paint’s lips quirked up in a grin. “Iris Hooker, Esquire, is one heck of an advocate. Think I’ll owe her free moonshine for life, or my first born.” He winked at me. A gesture that prompted Andy to roll his eyes.

  “Iris made sure they asked all the right questions,” he added.

  Mom patted his arm and gave us a quick summary. “Brie and Andy, you still need to give statements, but SLED now has sufficient evidence to charge Sheriff Jones with the murders of both Victor Caldwell and Deputy West.”

  “What?” Andy, Dad, and I sang out in a fair imitation of a trio.

  Mom nodded. “West was shot in the back with a small-caliber bullet. They believe it came from a throw-down gun Jones kept in an ankle holster. Max Weaver, a deputy, confirmed Jones always carried it. The gun was found in the water a couple feet from shore.”

  “How did Jones think he’d get away with killing West?” Andy asked.

  “Imagine he planned to claim Andy or Paint snuck behind them and killed the deputy,” Mom said. “Jones just didn’t plan on troopers patting him down, finding an empty ankle holster, and asking one of his deputies about it.”

  “Why would the sheriff kill his partner in crime?” I asked. “They were in this together. From the beginning—forty years back.”

  “Suppose it’s the same reason Jones killed Victor,” Andy said. “The sheriff didn’t trust West to keep his mouth shut. He didn’t want any loose ends that could unravel and contradict whatever story he spun.”

  Mom smiled. “You go to the head of the class, Andy. None of you are suspected of wrongdoing. Brie’s pictures told the real story of how Victor died. Deputy Weaver, who the sheriff tried to dupe into believing Victor was carjacked, confirmed that Jones and West stopped Mollye’s Camry—the one now at the bottom of the lake.”

  Mom paused and cut a look my way. “With the possible exception of illegally planting listening devices, you’re off the hook. Given the circumstances, I doubt there’ll be charges. Let’s get your statements taken, and maybe we can get out of here before dawn.”

  FORTY-SEVEN

  When I woke, sun streamed through the lacy curt
ains in my new bedroom. I glanced at the clock: 4:02 p.m. Holy Swiss Cheese. Eva’d let me sleep away the entire day. I rubbed my eyes. Tried to shake off that logy feeling that comes when you’ve been totally zonked out. ’Course I’d only slept twelve hours.

  It was four a.m. when Mom and Dad deposited me at Udderly. They wanted me to come home with them, but Udderly was my home. Wow. The realization made me chuckle. Who’d have thunk it? A vegan chef calling a goat cheese farm home. Lots of kidding around. Pun intended.

  I threw on jeans and a t-shirt. I heard Eva bustling about in the kitchen and headed her way. She squeezed me in a hug that would do any wrestler proud. When she returned to face down the onions and celery on her chopping block, I took a second look at the kitchen counter and barked a laugh.

  “What the deviled ham?”

  My loose-leaf cookbook lay open next to a lineup of vegan essentials—tofu, walnuts, oats, and beans. Eva was making my moatloaf. Would wonders never cease?

  My aunt gave me her best steely eyed stare. “Don’t you say a word. This is a one-time deal. A thank you. Never gonna happen again. I’m convinced tofu is Lucifer’s evil version of slimed cream cheese, and I hope I never have to stick my hands in it again.”

  I laughed and kissed her cheek. “Want me to finish?”

  “Don’t need to ask me twice.” She turned on the kitchen faucet and scrubbed her hands like they’d been exposed to deadly toxins. “Your folks and all your fellow troublemakers—Mollye, Paint, and Andy—are coming to dinner. I already fixed lasagna loaded with meat and cheese for us normal folks.”

  The troublemakers arrived within a few minutes of each other. Mollye drove up in her psychedelic van, and Andy and Paint came together in Paint’s truck.

  “You still without wheels?” I asked Andy as he climbed out.

  “Till morning, supposed to get my vet-mobile back before noon. They impounded it to photograph and measure the bullet holes. Imagine that’ll give my customers a new conversation topic. Not sure my insurance covers shoot-out repairs.”

  Mollye piped up. “Hey, your truck may have a few holes, but Mom’s Camry is now a moldy fish tank. I’m praying the Sheriff’s Department has to cough up the money for a replacement since Jones and West pushed it in the lake. Mom would be doubly mad at me if buying new wheels comes back on her or ups her insurance premiums.”

  Mom and Dad pulled in while all members of the newly formed Udderly gang of thirty-somethings stood on the front porch. Dad brandished two bottles of champagne—a definite signal of good news.

  “Let’s go inside, you scallywags.” Mom made shooing motions to move us into the cabin. “Take a seat so we can tell you all how this story ends—a happy ending for a change.”

  Due to repeated interruptions from her audience, Mom needed almost an hour to unwrap the layers of a conspiracy that lasted four decades. The insider details had come from an unexpected source—Deputy West’s wife.

  “Deputy West may have been a scumbag, but he loved his wife—and trusted her,” Mom began. “Told her everything he and the sheriff had ever done. Where all the bones were buried. Soon as she heard the sheriff would be charged with killing her husband, she spilled all. The solicitor was kind enough to share the information with me—sort of an apology for trying his dangdest to deny Eva bail.” Mom turned to Dad. “It would make one heck of a murder mystery. But who’d believe it really happened?”

  Thanks to Deputy West’s monologue, Mollye and I knew most of the backstory, but Mom provided a synopsis of the original crime for our tablemates. Her tale began when Jones, West, and Jed, Eva’s unlamented late hubby, planned to rob the Yankee scam artist, Kaiser, and run him out of town. To appear as innocent victims, the trio agreed they’d make it look like they’d all lost money to Kaiser. That meant the sheriff and Jed would forfeit Watson timberland to the scam. Wasn’t worth much, and they could always buy it back down the road. They simply had to wait long enough that people wouldn’t wonder where they got the dough.

  When they ambushed Kaiser, he tussled with Jed and shot him with his own gun. Jones returned the favor and shot Kaiser.

  Now West and Jones had two bodies to explain. They buried Kaiser and planned to give Eva a starring but dead, non-speaking role in a staged murder-suicide. Only Eva flew the coop. Not knowing if she’d ever come home, they buried Jed at Udderly, figuring if his body was ever found, Eva’d be the prime suspect. The sheriff kept Jed’s gun, knowing it might come in handy later in a frame-up. It did.

  While Victor wasn’t present at Kaiser’s ambush, he was in on the plan. His job was to launder the money so they could cash out in their early forties and retire to the good life. That way their newfound wealth could be explained by shrewd investments. Victor hooked them up with Burks and Sunrise Ridge.

  The killers didn’t anticipate two things. They didn’t know Burks, the presumed head of the posh development, fronted for much bigger and nastier crooks, and they didn’t plan on an environmental group delaying development for more than a decade.

  At this point in Mom’s story, Mollye interrupted. “But why did they murder Nancy and Eli Watson?”

  “They were desperate for the Tisnomi sale to go through,” Mom answered. “They couldn’t afford to have Nancy caterwauling, saying Jed never really sold that timberland. If there was a question about the title to the land, they knew Tisnomi would walk. Jones hanged Eli to keep anyone from asking why Nancy was killed. Went back to his original murder-suicide playbook.”

  Eva nodded. “And Jones killed Victor because he panicked and he thought the banker would do something stupid, get caught, and sing like a canary.”

  “That’s right,” Mom said. “Jones also figured West might turn into a chatty Cathy, given how messy things had gotten with the truants at this table. With West gone, the sheriff could spin any tale he wanted, and there wouldn’t be a soul around to contradict him.”

  “So am I in the clear?” Eva asked. “When can I get this itchy electronic spy contraption off my ankle?”

  Dad smiled. “Your favorite attorney got all charges dropped and made you an appointment to have your ankle jewelry removed tomorrow. ’Course your legal bill is going to be mighty steep.”

  “Put it on my account.” Eva smiled. “And pour the champagne, little brother.”

  Dad poured—vegans have no problems guzzling, uh, sipping champagne—and the toasts began.

  Eva was the first to raise her glass. “To my favorite niece, Brie Hooker. Without her snooping and roping in her friends, I might well be headed to jail. Thank you, love.”

  I looked around the table. I’d lived on Udderly Kidding Dairy such a short time. But I loved everyone at this table, including outrageous Mollye and the two handsome men sitting on either side of me.

  I almost spit out my champagne when Paint’s active fingers snuck under the tablecloth to give my knee a squeeze. A fraction of a second later, Andy played his hand, slightly higher.

  Holy ham hocks. Life at Udderly was going to be interesting.

  About the Author

  Linda Lovely finds writing pure fiction isn’t a huge stretch given the years she’s spent penning PR and ad copy. Linda writes a blend of mystery and humor, chuckling as she plots to “disappear” the types of characters who most annoy her. Quite satisfying plus there’s no need to pester relatives for bail. Her newest series offers good-natured salutes to both her vegan family doctor and her cheese-addicted kin. She’s an enthusiastic Sisters in Crime member and helps organize the popular Writers’ Police Academy. When not writing or reading, Linda takes long walks with her husband, swims, gardens, and plays tennis.

  The Brie Hooker Mystery Series

  by Linda Lovely

  BONES TO PICK (#1)

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