When the police finally arrived, Charlie had grown tired and lay napping at my feet like an exhausted pony. As drained of energy as the dog, I simply pointed at the exposed skeleton. Charlie and I were led back to the farmhouse driveway, where an Oriole County sheriff van now joined a pair of blue Michigan State Police cruisers. Piper sat in the open doorway of my car, looking both irritated and bored.
“What in the world have you been up to in there?” she snapped at me.
“Oh, the usual. Digging up skeletons.”
She grabbed the leash from me. “I thought you had wandered all the way to South Haven. We’ve now wasted an entire morning because you got lost in there.”
“We’re surrounded by police because your dog ran off and your dog wouldn’t listen to me and your dog dug up a body. So think twice before you try to blame me for any of this.”
Before Piper could come up with an offended response, a state trooper led us to a weathered picnic table on the front lawn. She ordered us to sit and remain quiet. There were lots of people bustling about the property now, some heading into the woods, others coming back. An ambulance pulled up, presumably to retrieve the skeleton. I noticed Courtney O’Neill watching all this activity from the road, still astride her horse. There was a small commotion when a Sanderling Plumbing Supply truck arrived and the police refused the company employee access.
One of the county officers was clearly a dog lover. He came back from the backyard shed holding a metal bowl. Emptying the contents of a water bottle into it, he laid it down in front of Charlemagne. The dog lapped it up in less than a minute. I was so thirsty I would have drunk from the water bowl myself if it had been offered.
At least eight police officers now milled about, including the medical examiner. Detective Greg Trejo of the Michigan State Police was among them. He had been part of the Bowman murder investigation, so we weren’t strangers, although you wouldn’t know that from his brusque demeanor.
“I know that good-looking officer,” Piper muttered. “He questioned me last month after the Bowman murder. Suzanne at the police station calls him the ‘Latino hottie.’ If you ask me, he’s a pretty chilly number.”
I leaned closer to her. “Who do you think that skeleton is? I hope there isn’t an Indian burial ground on the property. The last thing I need is some curse coming down on me for disturbing a sacred burial place. Although this whole grave defilement can be laid at the paws of this big baby here.” I reached down and scratched Piper’s dog behind his ears. Moaning with delight, he stretched out farther over my feet.
“The Sanderling family have lived here for a hundred years. Don’t you think they’d know if there were bodies buried on the property?”
“Maybe all they needed was a Great Dane to dig them up.”
She rolled her eyes. “There are no Indians buried on Gordon’s farm.”
“How do you know? A lot of native tribes settled in Michigan. Especially Potawatomi.”
“True. But we’re too close to the lake here; soil conditions aren’t optimal for the preservation of material.” Piper smiled. “Don’t look surprised. I majored in archaeology back in college.”
“Okay, Indiana Jones. Maybe that skeleton isn’t from a Potawatomi burial ground. That means it’s much more recent. I’ll ask you again: Who do you think was buried in the woods?”
“No idea.” Piper cast a jaundiced eye at the police officers on the property. “I hope some Sanderling ancestor wasn’t deranged enough to take an ax to a relative. Perhaps the family got snowed in and things got out of hand.”
“If you ask me, murder seems an extreme response to lake effect snow.”
Her expression turned disapproving. “Let’s not even discuss the possibility. Oriole Point has barely recovered from the Bowman murder. We don’t need talk of another one so soon, especially during the week of Fourth of July. Besides, a skeleton is no proof of murder. A hunter might simply have dropped dead of a heart attack in there.”
“Then who buried him? The deer?”
Before she could reply, Detective Trejo approached us, accompanied by a man from the sheriff’s office. Yes, Trejo did qualify as a Latino “hottie” but that was only a surface judgment. His dark good looks and lean muscular frame were offset by a stony expression. He seemed to lack a sense of humor, as well as the ability to make anything resembling small talk. If I were a criminal, he’d scare the crap out of me. Maybe that was the point. At least his companion from the sheriff’s office seemed more approachable. He was a slightly husky man in his thirties with curly brown hair beginning to thin and eyebrows that needed plucking. I warmed up to him immediately when he squatted beside Charlie and patted his heaving flank.
“This must be the puppy responsible for getting all of us out here,” he said. The dog turned onto his back, inviting a few pats on his belly. After petting him for a moment, he looked up at Piper and me.
“I’m Captain Holt, head of Investigative Services at the sheriff’s department. One of you, I believe, is Marlee Jacob.”
I raised my hand. “That’s me.”
“Marlee Jacob,” he repeated. “I’m going to guess your mother was a fan of Charles Dickens.”
“Good guess.” I smiled. “My mom’s a professor of English literature at Northwestern. When she went into labor, she was reading A Christmas Carol. It also happened to be Christmas Eve. With a last name of ‘Jacob,’ she couldn’t resist naming me after Scrooge’s partner, Jacob Marley. I’m thankful I wasn’t a boy. I might have been called Ebenezer.”
He chuckled, but Detective Trejo didn’t even blink. I swear the man was made of granite.
“You have my sympathy,” Holt said. “My mother’s favorite book is To Kill a Mockingbird. She was rereading it for the eighth time when I was born.”
My smile grew wider. “She named you Atticus?”
“She did. At least our last name wasn’t Finch.”
Detective Trejo cleared his throat. “Now that we’ve gotten introductions out of the way, you may be interested to learn Ms. Jacob was also involved in the Bowman murder last month.”
“So was I,” Piper said. No matter how unpleasant the connection, Piper Lyall-Pierce refused to be overlooked.
“I seem to recall Ms. Jacob was the one to capture the murderer.” Captain Holt nodded in what I hoped was approval. “The next time there’s an opening in the sheriff’s department, you may want to think about applying.”
Trejo’s expression grew even chillier. “Ms. Jacob employed a few unorthodox methods to unmask the criminal, including an illegal break-in. I doubt she’d pass the background check.”
“I didn’t actually break into the house. After all, I had known the—”
“You broke in. And you’re lucky the Oriole Point police chief is a generous man who likes your family. I would have had you up on charges.”
Detective Trejo grew less attractive by the minute.
Captain Holt seemed amused by the exchange. “I don’t care if Ms. Jacob employed magic to track down the killer. The important thing is that the murderer was caught. But none of us are here today to rehash the Bowman case.” He pointed at the woods. “The skeleton buried in there may also be the victim of foul play. Let’s concentrate on that right now.”
“The person could have died from a heart attack or some sort of seizure,” I suggested, hoping Piper was right. Perhaps it was just a hunter who suddenly dropped dead. Lord knows, I did not have time to be caught up in another murder.
“We’ll know more when the medical examiner has been able to do her job. And the K-9 unit has just arrived.” Holt looked over as officers emerged from a newly arrived sheriff’s van. Accompanying them were two German Shepherds, who, fortunately, were leashed. Charlie sat up in obvious excitement at the appearance of the dogs, letting out a thundering bark. The K-9 unit barely glanced his way as they were led toward the woods.
“Do you think there are more bodies buried in there?” I asked him.
“That’s wha
t we intend to find out. We also need to know why you and this woman were on the property.”
Piper stiffened beside me. Even I would have quailed before referring to her as “this woman.” “I am Piper Lyall-Pierce,” she announced. “And you should be aware that my ancestors founded Oriole Point.”
Trejo turned to Captain Holt. “More important, her husband is Lionel Pierce, a retired executive who was elected mayor of Oriole Point three years ago. His wife currently works at the local visitor bureau.”
“I do far more than simply work there.” Piper’s voice was sharp enough to cut glass. “I run the Tourist and Visitor Center in Oriole Point and there isn’t a single thing to do with tourism in our village that I don’t oversee.”
“She’s right,” I chimed in. “If some tourist drops their frozen yogurt in the street, Piper is likely to hear about it.”
“Exactly,” Piper said.
“So you and your husband run things in Oriole Point?” Holt asked. That wasn’t as impressive as it sounded. Our lakeshore village only numbered four thousand inhabitants.
Piper sat back. “Many people might say that.”
And Piper would definitely be one of them, I thought.
Holt now looked at me. “I’m the owner of The Berry Basket in downtown Oriole Point,” I said with no small amount of pride. Piper wasn’t the only person who liked to brag. “My shop sells berry-related products, and I’ve been open for two years. Before that, I lived in New York City, but I was born and raised in Oriole Point. In fact, the Jacobs have been here almost as long as the Lyalls.”
“Almost,” Piper repeated.
“My family once owned orchards in Oriole County, but they were sold off when I was a child.” No reason to tell him that after my grandparents died my father and his sister lost the orchards due to a stunning lack of business acumen. Since then, I had tried to make up for their shocking ignorance by working almost as hard as my namesake and his hard-hearted partner, Scrooge. However, I hoped I was much kinder.
“None of this explains why the two of you are here today,” Holt said.
“We’re at the farm because of the Blackberry Road Rally,” I said. “I’m responsible for promoting the event.”
“And I am in charge.” Piper sat up even straighter.
“The rally is less than two weeks away,” I continued, “and we planned to begin the rally at the Grunkemeyer farm, but that fell through. After Gordon Sanderling gave us permission to use his farm, we came here to make certain the property is suitable. If so, I can correct the info on the poster artwork before sending it to the printer.”
“It’s an exhausting process,” Piper added. “And I still have to visit the rally locations to plant the clues. But first we need to find a suitable starting point for the event.”
“This doesn’t explain how you ended up in those woods, Ms. Jacob.” For the first time, Captain Holt looked like the suspicious law enforcement officers I had come to expect.
I reached down to scratch the Great Dane behind the ears. He fell back against my knees in a doggy swoon. “This puppy got away from his derelict owner.”
Piper gave a squeak of protest.
“He took off for the trees like he’d been shot out of a cannon,” I went on. “Because Piper’s not dressed for tracking, I ran after him. You may have noticed his legs are pretty long. The dog can run, and those woods go on for a lot farther than I thought. When I finally caught up with him, he was happily digging in the dirt. That’s when the skeleton showed up.”
“Did you disturb the site in any way?” Trejo asked.
I made a face. “Why in the world would I do that? Seeing a skeleton dug up is an unnerving sight. I wanted nothing to do with it. I tried to put a leash on Charlie so we could get out of there, but he wasn’t cooperating. That’s when I called Piper, and she took it from there.”
“Aside from the skeleton, did you see anything unusual at the burial site?” Holt’s dark brown eyes gazed at me with the same rapt attention as Charlie’s.
“No. But Charlie was flinging so much dirt around, I didn’t want to get too close.”
“His name is Charlemagne,” Piper reminded me.
Holt smiled. “He looks big enough to warrant more than one name.”
I smiled back. Holt did indeed make a strong contrast to the impassive Greg Trejo. As someone named after a literary character, I enjoyed casting people as their fictional equivalents. Looking at the two officers, I had a sudden thought that the trim, unsmiling Trejo seemed the perfect Mr. Spock to Atticus Holt’s huskier—and friendlier—Captain Kirk.
“Are we done here?” Piper asked. “We’ve already been delayed far too long. Whatever was found in the woods has nothing to do with us or the Blackberry Road Rally. Therefore, I’d appreciate it if you would allow us to get on with our plans for today while the police handle whatever is going on in there.” She pointed in the direction of the woods.
As always, Piper lived up to my belief that she was the embodiment of a privileged Edith Wharton heroine. Just now, she was being as insufferable as Bertha Dorset in The House of Mirth.
Trejo glared at her, but Captain Holt took her attitude in stride. “We need written statements from both of you. Officer Morrison will handle that.” He looked over at the young woman who stood a few yards away with a fellow officer.
“I have more questions about this rally,” Trejo said. “I thought road rallies were all about driving to certain destinations in the shortest amount of time. What do clues have to do with it?”
“There are all kinds of road rallies,” I hurried to answer before Piper could. I didn’t need her irritating the police and delaying us even longer. “You’re thinking of TSD rallies, or Time, Speed, Distance events, where drivers follow a course and are timed at checkpoints. Our road rally is more of a scavenger hunt. Everyone is given a packet of instructions that contain ten clues leading them to different locales in the county. There’s also a task to perform at each location. The first car to solve all ten clues and return to the final destination wins the grand prize.”
“Which is?” Trejo asked.
“Cash, of course.” Piper looked at him as if he were a complete fool.
“Each person pays a fifty-dollar registration fee,” I explained. “With up to six people per car and the rally capped at thirty-five cars, that ends up to a nice chunk of change for the grand prize winner. There are cash prizes for second and third place, too. Not bad for driving around and having fun for a couple of hours. And that is the main purpose of the road rally: having fun.”
“Excuse me a moment.” Holt went over to two officers who had just returned from the woods. After they handed something to him, all three of them bent their heads to scrutinize it. My heart sank. I’d bet anything it was an evidence bag. I promised myself that I would never let Piper “volunteer” me for anything again.
Holt returned to where Piper, Trejo, and I waited in uneasy silence. He lifted up the clear plastic bag. “I need to know if this belongs to you, Ms. Jacob. If not, do you remember seeing this object when you were at the burial site in the woods?”
I squinted at the bag. Inside lay a charm bracelet encrusted with dirt. I could barely make out the details on the charms, but they were multicolored. “That doesn’t belong to me. And I didn’t see it when Charlie was digging. Then again, I didn’t look at much after I saw the skull.” I looked closer at the bracelet. “The charms look like tiny crayons.”
Holt nodded.
“So the skeleton belonged to a woman.” This knowledge made me even sadder. Such a colorful, whimsical bracelet indicated a young woman had been its owner. Maybe a teenager. What was that poor girl doing in the woods? Or had someone brought her body there?
“We’ll know more after the ME report. But it’s likely this belonged to the victim.”
“Victim?” Piper asked. “Are you saying this was murder?”
“I’m not saying anything,” Holt replied, now looking as impassive as Trej
o.
“I guess that rules out the skeleton belonging to an ancient burial ground.” I put my hand down on the wooden bench and was rewarded with a small splinter.
Holt took a deep breath before answering. “Given the condition of the bracelet and the skeletal remains, I think it unlikely. The burial appears relatively recent.”
While I worked to pull the wooden splinter from my palm, a pine green van sped up the long driveway. It braked so suddenly, gravel spit in all directions. The door flung open and Gordon Sanderling emerged.
“Gordon doesn’t look happy,” I murmured to Piper.
Indeed, the owner of Sanderling Plumbing Supply was beet red and muttering under his breath. A high-strung fellow, Gordon was prone to panic attacks. Last October, he became quite upset when his bid to supply pipes for a new subdivision was turned down at a city hall meeting; EMS had to be called to handle his chest pains. Although at least a hundred pounds overweight, Gordon reminded me of Thomas Barrow, the scheming footman from Downton Abbey: dark haired, aloof, and defensive. As far as I knew, he had few friends or romantic attachments, which didn’t surprise me. The few times I had encountered Gordon, an air of suspicion and regret seemed to surround him. Maybe the Cabot brothers were right about the Sanderling farm. Maybe it did bring bad luck, at least for its owner.
Growing even redder at the sight of all the police on his property, he headed toward us. “Piper, what is this all about?” he asked, ignoring both Trejo and Holt. “I kindly give you permission to begin your road rally here, and two hours later I get a call from the police telling me a body has been found on my farm. A body!”
“It was a skeleton, not a body,” Piper replied, as if the two had no connection.
Blackberry Burial Page 3
