Beverly Connor - One Grave Too Many

“I didn’t want to tell you, I mean, after last night, but. .”

“Do you know what happened?”

“It was after they picked up her breakfast. She used a corner of her bed to cut her wrists. God, she had to be desperate to go through that. They said she lost a lot of blood.”

“An otherwise healthy person can lose up to forty percent of their blood volume before they even require a transfusion.” After she said it, Diane realized that it must have sounded so technical and cold. She wanted to be comforting. “I can come over.”

“I don’t know what to do,” he said.

So much sadness. Diane felt guilty. Last night her story, and now this.

“Find out who did this to her family. It won’t heal her overnight, but it will help.”

“I know, but right now, I don’t know what else to do,” he repeated. “We got all this information, but what does it leave us with?”

“That’s why I called. I think I know where to look for the rest of the skeleton.”

The other end of the phone was silent except for the hospital sounds in the background.

“The skeleton?” Frank finally said. “You mean the one the collarbone was taken from? You know where it is?”

“Maybe. I’m not certain, but it’s a good lead. Remember I told you that it might be someplace where animals were processed? Andie told me about an item in the sheriff’s incident report about someone trespassing on land belonging to a taxidermist.”

Sheriff’s incident report. Diane just realized that probably meant it was in the county and not the city limits-not the jurisdiction of the chief of detectives but in the jurisdiction of the county sheriff. She hoped that boded well for their investigation.

“I remembered the mounted animal heads in George’s house, and that sounded like a good lead. This was just a few days ago. The trespasser could be someone looking to recover a body he left there several years ago, hoping it would never be discovered.”

“That does make sense.”

Diane could hear relief in his voice. Hope is a powerful thing.

“Do you know the taxidermist’s name?” he asked.

“It might be Luther.”

“Luther Abercrombie. He’s mounted a fish or two for me. Did some work for George too. You too, as a matter of fact.”

“Me?”

“If I’m not mistaken, Milo Lorenzo bought some stuffed animals from him for the Georgia collection.”

“Can we make arrangements to go see him?”

“Yeah. We can do that. I want to visit with Star first, when they let me in.”

“Would you like me to come to the hospital? Could you use some company?”

“No, but thanks. I’ll be all right, especially now we have this lead. Maybe I can hold out some hope for her. Look, thanks, Diane. This. . just, thanks.”

“So,” said Sheriff Bruce Canfield, “you’re asking me if I can help solve one of the biggest murders here in decades and at the same time make a fool of that new chief of detectives in Rosewood?”

Sheriff Canfield was a large man in his late fifties. He had a full head of hair the color of brown that comes from a bottle, and a uniform that looked like it might have shrunk a bit in the wash. He laughed out loud.

“That’s not exactly the way we’d put it,” said Frank, grinning at the sheriff. “But yes, that’s what we’re asking.”

“Well, who can pass up a deal like that? Let’s go.” He stood up and guided them out of his office. “How is George’s little girl?”

“Right now she’s sleeping and sedated.” Frank told him about her trying to kill herself.

“Poor thing. Maybe we can do something here.”

Diane and Frank followed the sheriff’s car out to the Abercrombie farm, which consisted of three hundred acres of woodland and pastures, a white farmhouse and a garage with a sign that read ABERCROMBIE’S TAXIDERMY. They parked their cars on a gravel drive and walked up to the gate. The sign on the gate read: I’LL GIVE UP MY GUN WHEN THEY PRY IT FROM MY COLD, DEAD FINGERS.

The sheriff opened the gate and hollered, “Luther, you got company.”

A man much younger than Diane had imagined came out of the taxidermy shop wearing a leather apron and wiping his hands on a towel. He pushed his straight black hair from his eyes and smiled. His teeth were white against his neatly trimmed, short black beard.

“Frank Duncan, what you need with a sheriff’s escort?”

“Hey, Whit. How you doing? This is Diane Fallon. She’s the new director of the RiverTrail Museum.”

“Come for more business, I hope.” He grinned.

“We want to take a look at where your father dumps his carcasses,” said the sheriff.

“Now, sheriff, you know he disposes of his waste legally-since he had to pay that fine a couple of years ago.”

“This would be an old dump,” said Frank. “We think there may be a body in it. It could be why your father had a trespasser the other night.”

Whit gave a long whistle. “This is serious. I guess you need me there too.”

Diane raised her eyebrows and looked at Frank.

“Whit’s the county coroner,” said Frank.

“Well, that makes everything convenient,” said Diane.

“Can I ask why you are interested?” he asked Diane.

“I’m a forensic anthropologist.”

“I see.” He looked at the sheriff. “Do you know where you want to look?”

“A site that was being used from about five to ten years ago,” answered Diane.

“Let’s see. I covered most of them up for Dad.”

“Do you have one that could have been visited by George Boone or his son, Jay?” asked Diane.

“Dad mentioned George was out here with his son a couple weeks ago for target practice. That’s just awful what happened to that family. Is this about them?”

“Maybe,” said Frank. He explained about the bone.

“There’s one place I had a hard time getting to. I just lightly covered it, so it might have eroded out. Let’s go take a look.” He hung his apron and hand towel on a post, and led them back out the fence. He looked at the sign as he was closing the gate and shook his head. “Some folks think that’s clever, but I told Dad it looks like an invitation to me. Let’s go in my Jeep.”

It was a bumpy ride down an infrequently used dirt road. The sheriff rode in front beside Whit. Diane and Frank rode in back, which made the ride for her even more like a buckboard. The rough ride through the woods was too much like the ride through the jungle. Diane gripped the seat until her fingers cramped. When they stopped with a lurch, Diane thought she would throw up her scant breakfast.

“You OK?” whispered Frank.

Diane nodded, but accepted his help in getting out of the vehicle.

“We have to walk from here,” said Whit. He sprayed himself with bug spray and tossed the can to Diane. “Lot of deer ticks in the woods, not to mention mosquitoes.”

After the four of them sprayed themselves, they set out through the woods. The North Georgia woods are quite different from the jungles of the Amazon and Diane found herself missing it. The rain forest is far more dense and so green, lush and full of oxygen it made Diane happy just to be breathing. The trees are tall, with leaves big enough to curl up in. The thick rain forest canopy doesn’t let much wind down to the understory, so the stillness there is palpable.

Here a breeze fluttered the leaves and ruffled Diane’s short hair. The smell of insect repellent traveled with them and masked the natural scents of the forest. As the trail became more overgrown, the woods threatened to become as thick as the jungle, and Diane was glad she had dressed for it. Shortly, they came to another dirt road intersecting the path they were on.