Charmed Bones

by Carolyn Haines

  Once Budgie was safe and we knew he was uninjured, he’d be thrilled senseless by the discovery of tunnels and hidey-holes. “I’ll get a rope.”

  “Don’t bother.” Coleman jumped into the hole as if it were only a two-foot drop. He landed and stood up. He swung the flashlight around and let out a sigh. “There he is.” And he and the light disappeared as he took off down the tunnel. In a moment, I heard conversation between Coleman and Budgie.

  “He’s okay,” Coleman called back. “Someone tied him up and left him here.”

  In a few minutes, I heard Budgie clearly. “Thank goodness you came to find me. I don’t think my attacker is coming back. I could have died in here in the dark, and I would never have gotten to explore. There are tunnels that go everywhere. It’s a network. I believe Musgrove Manor might have been a stop on the Underground Railroad to help slaves escape to the North. Or Confederate soldiers might have hidden in these tunnels, sneaking out to attack the Union forces when they came through.”

  “We’re going to follow the tunnel,” Coleman called back to me.

  Tinkie and I paced the backyard as we waited for Coleman and Budgie to reappear. The problem was, we had no idea where the other end of the tunnel might be. Twenty minutes later, the two men came out of the dairy barn.

  Budgie was dirty and his wrists were bruised and bleeding where he’d been tied, but otherwise he looked okay. “What an adventure,” he said. “I just went poking around the old dairy and someone smacked me on the head. I wasn’t all the way out, but I couldn’t fight back. They dragged me into the dairy and through a trapdoor. It was … exciting!”

  Thank goodness Budgie had a great sense of adventure. “You’re not hurt?”

  “On the contrary. I’m fine,” Budgie insisted. “I can’t wait to write about this incredible find. I’m going to send it to the Journal of American History. This is quite an extraordinary thing! Those tunnels were dug by hand and reinforced with baked clay bricks in places. This is a goldmine of historical information.

  “There was a lot of resistance to secession, even in Mississippi. Jones County refused to secede or claim either side. If the Musgroves who first built the manor were antisecessionists, they might have felt the need for an escape route should their Union sentiments be discovered.”

  “Or the tunnels could have been built later,” Tinkie said. “I’d heard rumors that Trevor’s grandfather was a gambler and a bootlegger. This could be where he stored his whiskey. The tunnels are wide enough for barrels to be rolled down them.”

  That, too, was a good point.

  “Did you see who knocked you out?” I asked Budgie. I hadn’t even caught a glimpse of the person who’d whacked me.

  “He came at me from behind. I’m assuming it was a he. It could have been female. Or a team of a man and a woman.”

  A team! Budgie was brilliant! That would explain how one person could move around so quickly. There were two of them working in concert!

  The same bell ding, ding, dinged in Tinkie’s head. She looked at me, lifting one eyebrow. “We should have thought of two people working in concert.”

  “Kitten and Bob?” They wanted to buy the manor and land. We knew they were dishonest and capable of leaving an innocent woman in jail to further their own goals. Murder wasn’t such a big step from that.

  “At least this case is coming together,” Tinkie said. “I haven’t been able to fit the pieces into place no matter how I tried.”

  She was right about that. Land deals, witches, bad publicity, murder. It was all beginning to make a certain kind of crazy sense.

  22

  My goal was to search the chest in the hidden room, but Coleman was having none of that. DeWayne had brought an evidence collection kit, and Coleman put Budgie in the back of my car, along with Sweetie Pie and Pluto, and sent us off with Tinkie riding shotgun. Her charge—which she fulfilled—was to make sure Budgie and I both saw Doc Sawyer.

  “Good thing that noggin of yours is as hard as a brick wall,” Doc said when he proclaimed me perfectly fine. “Budgie, too. You’re both lucky. Again. I’m just going to keep Budgie here in the ER for observation. Just to be on the safe side.” He patted my shoulder. “I hope Coleman finds whoever is running around hitting people on the head.”

  “Me, too. And scaring people to death.” I arched an eyebrow at Doc. “Were Esmeralda and Trevor really frightened to death?”

  Doc’s lips tightened. He hated it when he couldn’t figure something out. He had a sharp mind and years of experience with healing and the reverse—murder. There were times his medical expertise was sought by other jurisdictions. He’d become something of a forensic celebrity. Few things flummoxed him for long, but I could see he had no answers about Trevor or Esmeralda.

  Doc had been captivated by the idea of secret rooms, tunnels—everything that appeals to the young boy hiding in all grown men. As Tinkie was giving a rundown on how we’d found the trapdoor and the tunnels, my cell phone rang.

  “What’s the verdict on your head?” Coleman asked. He kept his tone light, but the very fact he called told me he’d been worried.

  “Budgie and I both are fine. No long-term effects, other than a headache.” Mine was dull and throbbing. It wouldn’t kill me but some aspirin, water, and a warm bed would certainly be appreciated.

  “I’ll stop by Dahlia House as soon as I can. You might consider sending Tinkie home.”

  The promise lingered between us, sweet and tempting. “I’m sure she has business with Oscar. The two of them have been going at it like monkeys on a hot-wired fence.”

  “Sarah Booth, I swear you have a knack for creating the most unromantic visuals.”

  I had to laugh. “I’m not easy,” I said with pride. “If you want me, I’ll have to be wooed and won.”

  “Oh, I am always up for a challenge,” Coleman said, his baritone deep and sexy. A flush rose up my cheeks, and I realized Tinkie and Doc were watching me with amusement.

  “Stop the phone sex,” Tinkie said knowingly. “We have work to do. I swear you two are like randy teenagers. Doc, did I ever tell you about the time I blew in the front door of Dahlia House and Coleman and Sarah Booth were right on the stairs bu—”

  “Enough!” Doc didn’t need that image of me and Coleman naked on the stairs in his brain. “Tinkie, I promise you. There will be payback. And it will be like Jupiter’s bolts of lightning.”

  Doc and Tinkie looked at each other. “Sarah Booth, you can sure hurl a threat,” Doc said. “Tinkie, we’ll talk later. Now you two scoot. I have work to do.”

  * * *

  I was still formulating payback when we pulled up at Dahlia House. The critters were delighted to escape the car and head into the warm kitchen. I was pretty happy, too. Spring wasn’t far away, but looking out at the landscape, I didn’t see a trace of it yet. That was the way of spring in the Mississippi Delta. One morning, I’d look out the window and the first trace of green would be poking through the soil. Within two weeks, the landscape would completely shift from brown and dead to green and vibrantly alive. It was the miracle of new life.

  “Let’s get to work on Florian Keel,” Tinkie said. “While Doc was tapping on your skull, I did a little research. I have his phone number. I say we call.”

  “He sold the land Arlington Woods was built on. Maybe he knew the land wasn’t good to develop.”

  “He’s not legally accountable,” Tinkie pointed out. “But if he didn’t tell the developer, there’s possible grounds for liability.”

  “He said, she said.” Unless it was written in the contract, and no seller would be foolish enough to put in writing that a parcel of land was virtually unusable.

  “Call him,” Tinkie said. “I’ll make some tea. I need a tonic to boost me.”

  Tonic my butt. Tinkie’s nerves were as frazzled as my own. “Make me a Bloody Mary instead, please,” I called to her as I dialed Florian Keel’s number. On the fourth ring, he picked up.

  “Who is this?”
he asked.

  I told him the truth.

  “Private investigators.” He laughed and his voice sounded rusty. “I wondered how long it would be before someone came sniffing around.”

  Tinkie returned with our beverages, and I sat up straight and put the phone on speaker so she could listen. “Why did you think someone would investigate?”

  “I told the truth when I sold the land. I’m too old to manage timber cutting all over the South, and I had a lot of holdings. That river land is fertile, good soil. But you can’t plant anything but timber because of the flooding. Trees can take rising water. I told Simon Caldwell that. He knew going into the deal that a development on that property would be a fiasco. And he did it anyway.”

  “Simon Caldwell?” This was a new name. It seems my case was like a cancer. It grew in a thousand directions all at once.

  “That’s who handled the paperwork on the sale for the investment company.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Slender man. Elegant. Very well turned out and old-school manners. Like he’d watched a lot of proper British movies.”

  “Would you recognize him?”

  “I think I would.”

  “Is there anything distinctive you can remember?”

  “Like I said, he seemed to come from a different time. Old-worldly, mannered. A few speech quirks.”

  “Like?”

  “He made a reference to a cunning man. I had to look it up. It’s a healer or a person who uses magic to heal. He said an ancestor had been pressed to death in old Salem for being a conjurer. It was just a curious turn the conversation took.”

  “And you handled the sale of the land yourself?” I pushed a little.

  “My broker. Miss Marsh. She handled the sale and reinvested the proceeds.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Keel.”

  I hung up and faced Tinkie. “I know who Simon Caldwell is.”

  “Who?”

  “It’s the man who brought us a check from the Pickingill Society. It’s Marlow Spurlock, if that’s his real name.”

  “Why in the world would someone involved in rotten real estate deals pretend to be part of a coven or support witches?”

  “It all has to do with the Musgrove Dairy property.” I couldn’t connect the dots, but I knew they did, somehow, connect. “Esmeralda, Trevor, Kitten and Bob, Malvik, Spurlock. They’re all somehow involved with the Harrington sisters and that property.” And it was looking like the Harrington sisters, whatever their involvement, might end up being pushed off the property they’d worked to improve.

  “At last we have a lead we can follow.” Tinkie finished her tea. “And we need to get busy. Where shall we start?”

  “I know just who to ask about Marlow Spurlock.”

  “Malvik.” Tinkie’s blue eyes held determination.

  “Exactly. He’s in this up to his ears. Maybe the sisters are innocent, but Malvik is not.”

  “How are we going to force him to talk?” Tinkie wasn’t fool enough to believe Malvik would just spill his guts.

  “We’re going to trick him.” A dark plan had begun to form in my brain. Malvik and Spurlock had shown up on the same day; two men dressed in black and connected to witches and a witch society. They had to be working together. And I had begun to see what their end might be. Land development. A really big deal that could make all involved über wealthy.

  Before we left Delaney Detective Agency, I looked up the Pickingill Society. A brief phone conversation led me to the truth. Spurlock had gone rogue. The organization had not voted to send a check in defense of the Harrington sisters. Spurlock, a member of the board, had taken it upon himself to write the check and defend the sister witches.

  “We’ve had our doubts about Marlow,” the president of the society said. “His frequent trips to Florida in the past few years. Rumors of land-development schemes that had collapsed. We hear things, though our focus is always of a spiritual nature, not with the physical world. Sadly, Spurlock has betrayed us.”

  “We’ll refund your money.” It killed me to say that.

  “No need. The Harringtons are genetic witches. They have a heritage and deserve our support. Just tell Spurlock that he will face the consequences of his actions upon his return.”

  “Why is Spurlock so invested in the Harringtons?” This was a key question.

  “He comes from a long line of witches and cunning men. He views the Harringtons as his peers, those whose destinies were chosen for them. They must live with their gifts and abilities, just as Spurlock does. They’ve captured his sympathy. But there is something else that would prompt him to steal from us. Greed. So now it’s up to you. Please, help those young women. Find the truth. And if you discover Spurlock’s deeds, our money will be well spent.”

  “That we will do,” I assured him. Dahlia House would get some necessary repairs! I hung up looking like the Cheshire cat.

  Now it was time to corner Malvik. Tinkie and I agreed on that point. “We’re going to need the sisters to help us.”

  “Really?” Tinkie was all-in. “Help us do what?”

  “We’re going to cast a spell on you. And under the influence of magic, you’re going to reveal the truth about who killed Esmeralda and Trevor. Look, the Fontanas and Spurlock have someone on the inside. It has to be Malvik, running around the manor in those secret rooms. He’s the one who did in Trevor and Esmeralda. Possibly because Trevor insisted on selling the property to the witches. God knows what Esmeralda unearthed snooping around. She always went for the sensational story, but she was pretty good at digging things up. I believe Esmeralda and Trevor are dead as damage control.”

  “We’re going to make Malvik believe in revenge magic,” Tinkie said.

  “Yes we are. We’re going to catch him at his own game.”

  23

  Of the three sisters, Tinkie felt Hope would be more inclined to help us. The fewer people who knew about our plan, the more successful I felt it would be. We needed one of the sisters to work with us, but the other two would remain in the dark. “Loose lips sink ships” was another of Aunt Loulane’s favorite sayings. She had never been one for gossip, and she disapproved of tongue-wagging about other people’s business.

  We were about to leave for the manor when Coleman pulled up at Dahlia House. Watching him stride up the steps toward me, I felt my heart stutter. After my engagement to Graf Milieu had fallen apart, I’d never anticipated such intensity again. I’d convinced myself that my heart couldn’t be tricked into feeling so … deeply. And yet watching Coleman walk toward me sent me into a spiral of anticipation and anxiety. The human heart was a strange and wonderful organ.

  I saw no reason to hide my true feelings from Tinkie. She might tease me later, but in her own way, she was my biggest supporter in the quest for true love. She was a believer, a person who wanted everyone in her life to share in the joy of a committed relationship. She and Oscar had worked through some hard times and faced a continuing challenge with her whole baby obsession. They’d stuck it out together and grown stronger. I’d thought after Graf that such a thing wasn’t possible for me, but the handsome lawman staring at me gave me new hope.

  Coleman swept me into his arms and kissed me with a fierce passion that left Tinkie applauding. “I’m leaving right now,” Tinkie said. “Don’t worry, Sarah Booth, I’ll take care of getting Hope in line. You take care of … business.”

  Coleman finally released me and I stepped back, light-headed and buzzing. Coleman’s grin told me he knew exactly how he affected me. He turned to my partner. “Wait up, Tinkie. I have news.”

  “Did you find the legal documents in the old trunk?” I asked.

  Shifting his weight from foot to foot, Coleman frowned. “There wasn’t anything in the chest but female clothing. And there wasn’t any trace evidence inside the claw gloves. Whoever wore them took forensic precautions not to leave any evidence behind. As to the pentagram you drew out, the sisters said the icons represent the five element
s of the wise. They said the pentagram wasn’t satanic and the elements are fire, water, earth, wind, and spirit at the top. It’s common in pagan religion but doesn’t have a negative meaning.”

  “Who drew it and who erased it?”

  “The sisters denied even knowing about that little room.”

  “And those documents are gone?” I’d seen them. “How could they simply disappear?”

  “The same way the pentagram was wiped away and you were hit in the head. Trevor’s rooms were ransacked, obviously for those papers. Whoever had them stashed them in the trunk until he, or she, could get out of the house with them without being seen. That’s why they knocked you out. With the Harringtons’ permission, we’ll search all of the passageways and tunnels. I followed one tunnel to the apple orchard. I’m pretty sure that was how the murderer traveled the night Trevor was killed.”

  “Any idea how old those tunnels are?” I asked.

  “Budgie seemed to think they date back to the 1840s when the manor was originally built. Once Doc cuts him loose, he’s going to look up some priory building in the Scottish borderlands. He says Musgrove Manor was patterned on that house, and perhaps the tunnel system will also reflect the same.”

  “Thank goodness Budgie wasn’t hurt.” I still carried guilt at involving him.

  “He’s thrilled to be part of this, Sarah Booth. In fact, he’s going to apply for the deputy opening I have. And I’m going to give him serious consideration.”

  “He works in the administrative offices at the prison. He doesn’t have any law enforcement background,” I said.

  “He doesn’t need enforcement experience. He can learn that easily enough. He’s educated and a lot more in touch with computers. He knows how to research in ways that DeWayne and I don’t. And he knows history. You know the old saying that history repeats itself. If that’s the case, Budgie could be very useful.”

  “True.” Budgie would love wearing a uniform. His sweater vest and long-sleeve shirts were something of a uniform already. “He’s plenty smart.”