Sharyn McCrumb - Lovely In Her Bones

“Well, he hasn’t been home all day, which is what I needed to know. Now that I’ve got that, I can question him. You let me do the talking, though. One wrong word could cause more trouble than we’re equipped to handle.”

Dummyweed turned pale. “You think he’d shoot us?” he hissed.

“Coltsfoot, if he’s killed two people, I don’t reckon he’d faint at the thought of killing four.”

After this unwelcome pronouncement, Dummyweed lapsed into silence, spending the rest of the walk scouring the hills for smoke signals, machine gun nests-he knew not what. They found Bevel Harkness past the pond and up the side of the hill, searching through bushes for the missing cow. He scowled at them warily, sensing the magnitude of trouble that would bring them out there.

“What is it?” he growled.

“You mind telling me what you did today?” asked Pilot, carefully polite.

“Did my rounds. Why?”

“Anybody see you?”

“Now and then. It was too hot out there for most folks. You want to tell me what this is all about?”

“Directly,” nodded Pilot. “Would you have any objection to coming down to the office and having your fingerprints taken?”

Harkness’ eyes narrowed. “I believe I would.”

“Well, I’m sorry to hear that,” said Pilot apologetically. “Because you give me no choice but to suspend you for the course of this investigation. Two murders in Sarvice Valley related to this strip-mining business is more than I can overlook. Unless, of course, you’d agree to a polygraph, or-”

“Get off my land,” said Harkness in the softest of voices.

“On our way!” Dummyweed blurted out. “Have a nice day!”

When they reached the patrol car, Dummyweed asked: “What are you going to do now that you didn’t get his fingerprints?”

Pilot smiled. “Get ’em off his coffee cup at the office.”

“Then why did you come out here and ask for them?”

“I couldn’t lay him off without an excuse, could I? He maneuvered the car down the driveway. “You see, Coltsfoot, the sheriff doesn’t much like the Harknesses, especially since his nephew disappeared about ten years ago after taking on the deputy job in Sarvice Valley. That job had kinda been in their family awhile, and it looked mighty suspicious when Carver Johnson disappeared two weeks after replacing a Harkness.”

“What did they do to him?” asked Coltsfoot hoarsely, realizing who the present Sarvice Valley replacement was.

“Never found him,” grunted Pilot. “No evidence against them. But now that we have two fresh bodies in a situation that Harkess is mixed up in, why, I’ll see if I can’t find a connection.”

“He just disappeared?” murmured Coltsfoot, still thinking of the last non-Cullowhee deputy.

“Without a trace,” said Pilot Barnes solemnly. Catching sight of Dummyweed’s green and anxious face, it was all he could do not to laugh.

“You don’t suppose they’d mind my having skulls in the church do you?” asked Elizabeth, peering into the box.

Jake shrugged. “They were all members, probably.”

“I guess. It was nice of Mr. Barnes to bring them back this morning, wasn’t it? Do you think we should have gone to the inquest?”

“Nope. It’s just a formality, anyway. They’re going to announce that Alex died of a blow to the head, and that it was done by some person unknown. We already know that. I think it’s enough that Milo is representing our group.”

“You’re right.” Elizabeth unwrapped the measuring tools.

“Besides, you’ll have to go to the inquest on Victor since you found the body. You might as well stay and get some work done while you can.”

“Don’t you think someone ought to be with Milo?”

Jake sighed. “I think we ought to leave him alone for a while. I get the feeling that he’s alone even when he’s here.”

“He wants to finish the project. For Alex. I wish I hadn’t made a mess of it.”

Jake stared at her. “Will you snap out of it? You put him behind by maybe one day. That’s not such a big deal. On my first dig, I troweled through three soil layers, two black and one red clay, without noticing the difference.”

Elizabeth smiled. “Are you going to stay up here while I work?” She had decided to stay in the common room to do the measurements so that there would be no distractions from heat or insects.

“I’m not going up to the site alone,” he replied. “In fact, I wish I had told the day crew to come back today. I don’t feel very safe out here with just the two of us.”

“Yes,” said Elizabeth absently, intent upon her measuring. “Especially if I find who I’m looking for here.”

Jake nodded, glancing down at his book. A few moments later, her words set off an alarm in his mind. “What did you say?”

“Hmm? Nothing. Don’t distract me.” Elizabeth scribbled down a number in her notebook.

“No, wait a minute. What was that about ‘if I find who I’m looking for’?”

“I’m not supposed to tell,” said Elizabeth in a small voice.

“Look, if you know something that’s going to get both of us killed, the least you could do is let me in on it!”

Elizabeth looked around nervously, expecting to see faces leering at them from the windows. “We’ll be fine,” she said nervously. “Everybody is at the inquest.”

“Which adjourns in about five minutes,” said Jake, consulting his watch.

“All right,” she sighed. “I guess I can trust you.”

Jake laughed. “Considering that you are alone in this church with me in the middle of nowhere, you might as well.”

“Don’t!” Elizabeth shivered. “I don’t want to think about it.” She put the skull back in the box. “Milo thinks one of these skulls is a ringer.”

“One of them isn’t a Cullowhee?”

“That’s what we think. Remember that story you told me about the Moonshine Massacre, and how the sheriff’s nephew disappeared?” Her voice sank to a whisper. “What if it’s him?”

“Of course! What better place to hide a murder victim than in with a bunch of old bones?”

Elizabeth nodded. “That’s what we figured. But so far I haven’t been able to prove it.”

“So far they’re all Cullowhees, huh?”

“Oh, Jake, I don’t know!” wailed Elizabeth. “I messed up all the measurements the first time, and now this one has come out the same as before!”

“I’m distracting you,” said Jake quickly. “No wonder you can’t concentrate. Now, don’t cry! I’ll just sit here and read, and you start over. Okay?”

“Okay,” said Elizabeth, wiping her eyes.

The next hour passed in silence. Jake settled back with his book, occasionally peeping over the top of it at Elizabeth. She was intent upon her work: measuring, writing down the result, shaking her head, and measuring again. Finally he could stand it no longer. “How’s it going? You look worried.”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Did you find the ringer? It isn’t that tiny one, is it?”

“No. I’ve been concentrating on the skull measurements, and I don’t understand it. I came out with the same numbers I got the first time.”

“So?”

“Milo says they’re all wrong. They don’t fit the chart.”

“Have you checked your instruments?” asked Jake thoughtfully.

“No. I wouldn’t know how to go about it. Do you think something is wrong with them?”

“It’s possible, isn’t it? If somebody put your tools about of alignment, you’re not going to get any helpful results, are you?”

“I guess not. I’ll ask Milo if-Did you hear a car?”

Jake peered out the window. “It isn’t Milo. It’s the sheriff’s car.”