Jennie Bentley - Spackled and Spooked

“I don’t think you’re going to find anything in the house,” I said apologetically. “Not unless you look in the Dumpster. We tore out the carpets and the wallpaper the other day, as well as the kitchen and bathroom floor vinyl. The appliances are gone, and all the cabinets and closets are empty. Even the attic. We found a couple of boxes of old papers and books up there that belonged to Peggy Murphy and her little boy, but that’s all. They’re in the master bedroom, if you want to have a look.”

Behind me, Ricky stumbled over the first step of the stairs, and Wayne put out a hand to steady him. The poor kid probably couldn’t see where he was going through all the hair.

Wayne continued our conversation without missing a beat. “I realize it probably won’t be worth the trouble, Avery, but we’re the police; it’s what we do.”

“I suppose.” I opened the door and gestured the rest of them into the house. Josh headed straight for the kitchen counter with the pizza boxes, while Ricky and the two girls stopped in the middle of the living room and looked around.

“Nice place,” Shannon said after a moment. I nodded.

“It will be, once Derek gets finished with it. Nothing like your mom’s B and B,” or Aunt Inga’s house, “but very retro hip. I’ve been looking at some really cool mod light fixtures with colored glass for the living room and dining room. And in this bathroom down here,” I headed for the hallway toward the bedrooms with Shannon and Paige on my heels; Ricky was already in front of us, looking around as he went, “I’m going to incorporate some Mary Quant daisies and maybe some kind of funky sink and sink base. A chest of drawers or an old-fashioned vanity or something, with a freestanding sink on top. Something bright. I’m seeing pink, but that’s probably too much, you know? So I’m thinking maybe yellow or green. Something less girly but still bright and cheerful.”

I led the way to the bathroom, which looked anything but bright and cheerful at the moment. Farther down the hall, Ricky turned into the master bedroom where the second bath was. I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do with the tiled brown and navy shower down there yet. The tile work was pristine, so I couldn’t see myself ripping it out, any more than I could see Derek letting me; I’d probably just have to find a way to make the brown and navy work.

Beneath us, in the crawlspace, I could hear muted conversation, and then Wayne ’s voice, calling Brandon and Derek upstairs for pizza. It sounded surprisingly domestic. The activity downstairs ceased, and a moment later, several sets of steps came up the stairs to the back door. Shannon, Paige, and I left the bathroom and headed for the kitchen, where Josh had already dug into the top box and was halfway through his second slice of pizza.

Now, if it had been me downstairs, digging up bones and scraps of hair and clothing, I wouldn’t have had much appetite. In fact, the idea that such digging was going on, even if I hadn’t been a part of it, was enough to put me off my feed. I found myself nibbling daintily on a piece of crust while I watched the others tuck in.

Derek and Brandon seemed to have no adverse reaction to what they’d been doing. If anything, the digging had built up their appetites.

“So what’s the news?” Josh wanted to know as soon as Brandon had polished off a piece of pie and was reaching for another slice. “What have you found?”

Brandon rattled off, “Scapula, humerus, radius, five metacarpals, fourteen phalanges, a handful of carpal bones…”

“Sounds like you’ve found rather a lot of bones.”

Derek shook his head. “Not really. The human hand has twenty-six bones in it. Brandon has uncovered the bones in one hand and an arm, up to the shoulder. And he has just started finding leg bones. A femur-that’s the thigh bone-and a tibia and fibula.”

I nodded.

“No head?” Wayne asked.

Brandon shook his own.

“Did you look? Or is it missing?”

I put my crust down. A headless skeleton? Worse and worse.

“I’m sure it’s there,” Derek said reassuringly. “When Brandon got to the shoulder, he decided to go in the other direction. And leave the head for last.”

“As long as we get it out today.” Wayne bit into a piece of pepperoni pizza. Tomato sauce oozed unpleasantly. “The dental records are our best shot at getting an identification. Unless some benevolent higher power has seen fit to gift us with a wallet or a wedding ring with an inscription or something like that?”

He didn’t sound optimistic, nor did he look surprised when Brandon shook his head. “Sorry, boss. Not yet, anyway.”

“Of course not,” Wayne said. “That would have been too easy.”

Derek picked up another piece of pizza. “Don’t worry,” he said to Wayne between bites, “you’ll figure out who she is.”

“She?” Wayne glanced over at Brandon, who rolled his eyes.

“Dr. Ellis here thinks we’re looking at a female.”

“Really?” Wayne looked at him.

Derek nodded. “I can’t say for sure until I see the pelvis-the hip cradle is a dead giveaway-but it’s either a woman or a very young man. The bones are less heavy than you’d find in a full-grown male skeleton, and they also look shorter. Judging from the length of the femur, the tibia, and fibula, you’re looking at someone who was well under six feet in height. Because some people are long-waisted and short-legged, while others are the opposite, it’s hard to determine without the entire skeleton, but from what you’ve got right now, I’d say you’re looking at a person who was somewhere around five and a half feet tall at the time of death.” He bit into the pizza again.

“Interesting,” Wayne said. He pulled out his trusty notebook and pencil and made a notation.

Derek swallowed and added, “Also someone youngish. The bones are brittle now, but there’s no evidence of any arthritis or other bone disease prior to death. Also no fractures in what we’ve found so far.”

“So a young and healthy person, possibly a female, approximately five and a half feet tall. It’s not much, but it’s something. Anything else?”

Derek indicated Brandon, who cleared his throat. “We found a couple of little metal thingamajigs-grommets or something-that we think may have come from a pair of jeans.”

“Thingamajigs,” Wayne repeated, straight-faced, his pencil poised. “That’s the technical term, is it? Not much help there, I’m afraid. Everybody in the world wears jeans these days.”

Including the chief of police, when off duty. I’ve seen him. A quick look around the kitchen showed me that every one of us, except for the two policemen in their uniforms, were dressed in denim, from Derek’s comfortably threadbare Levi’s to Shannon’s seemingly brand-new hip-huggers, which fit her like a second skin.

“Where’s Ricky?” Josh said, and it wasn’t until then that it occurred to me that Ricky Swanson hadn’t been standing here with us, partaking of the pizza and gruesome conversation.

“The last time I saw him, he went into the master bedroom.” I gestured down the hall. “That’s a few minutes ago, though.”

“I’ll go,” Paige said quickly as Josh made to push off from the counter where he was leaning. She gave him a pat on the arm on the way past, and he smiled at her. Shannon quirked a brow, and Josh shrugged.

“I went to the newspaper archives while I was out,” I said, wondering what the byplay was all about.

“Yeah?” Wayne turned to me.

“I couldn’t find anything about any missing persons any time in the past twenty years, though.”

He shook his head. “Before Professor Wentworth disappeared this spring, we hadn’t lost anybody for a long time. The few people who went missing always turned up within a couple of days. Some of them were dead, but we always found them.”