Roots of Murder Read online

  “Mind if I keep digging?”

  “Be my guest. Better to get him or her out before the rain.”

  Nell put down her camera and took over Kate’s digging tools. She left the skull where it was and moved further down to see if she could find the rest of the skeleton. Starting where the hips might be, she carefully began loosening the soil.

  She half listened to Kate explain what they had found. “Given that the first skeleton was relatively intact, I’m guessing they were buried, not just left here in the woods,” Kate was saying. Then she described the discoloration of the bones. Nell surmised that might be a way of guessing the age. I hope Kate just recharged her phone, Nell found herself thinking. So far, she’d resisted the lure of communication everywhere. Partly because she didn’t want to even consider answering a phone in places like the ladies’ room, and the cell phone provided by the paper had sufficed. She used it mostly for work—which is where it was, snug in the charging station on Thom’s desk. That solution had neatly avoided whether to get her kids phones—a situation Lizzie was less than pleased with.

  Her trowel brushed against something in the dirt. Carefully, she excavated what she’d found. Part of a bone emerged from the dirt, then another one beside it. As she turned away more soil, the bones began to look like those of a forearm. Maybe I’ll get a hand this time, make him look more human, Nell thought. Then her trowel scraped metal.

  With her fingers, she burrowed into the earth to find the metal piece. Whatever it was, it was heavy and solid. Then, in growing horror, she realized it was a length of heavy chain and lay at the wrists of the body.

  Her fingers resting against both the chain and the bone, Nell felt a sudden shiver of revelation. This had been a person, these bones covered by flesh as living and breathing as she was now. And this person had died a brutal death, their bones hidden in a place they were never meant to be found.

  “Kate!” she suddenly called out. The other woman, still holding the cell phone to her ear, came over. Nell simply held up the few links she’d unburied.

  “Oh, fuck,” Kate said, then added a hasty “sorry,” although Nell didn’t know if it was for her or the professor on the phone. “One of the bodies appears to have its wrists bound with chain,” Kate reported. Then she went back up the tree and spent a long time listening.

  Nell gently let the chain fall back into the grave, then retrieved her camera. She took several shots as Kate finished her conversation.

  “Okay,” Kate said as she clicked her cell phone off and jumped down. “This is what Rebecca suggested. She was my grad advisor at the University of California. She’s going to call a colleague at LSU and see if they would be willing to work this. I told her about the predicted rains and she said hightail it into town and buy a bunch of painter’s tarps—the cheap plastic ones—then come back here and cover up anything and everything that might be part of this scene. Her assessment—and I agree with her—is chained arms and a bullet hole at the base of the skull aren’t from a crime of passion.”

  “Agreed,” Nell said. “This was cold-blooded murder. Meant to be hidden forever. We have about three hours of daylight left.”

  They both gathered their things, then Kate said, “It doesn’t feel right … just leaving her here.” She gestured to the partially assembled skeleton.

  “Her?”

  “Maybe. The hips seem to be a woman’s.”

  “Oh, good Lord,” Nell let out, then wished she’d said “fuck” like Kate. The years of child rearing made her seem more clean-minded than she truly was. “It seems even more evil, that a woman was killed this way.”

  “More evil? Or just closer to who we are?” Kate asked.

  They packed up and headed down the trail, Kate walking in front of Nell.

  They got Kate’s bike wedged into the back of Nell’s car, the effort aided immensely by Kate’s knowledge of bikes and her ability to quickly remove the front wheel, the seat, and the pedals and turn the handlebars in a less dangerous direction.

  As they neared town, Kate said, “You can drop me off. I can get my truck and go back out. There’s no need for you to continue mucking about in the woods.”

  “You’re going to dump me? Not on your life,” Nell said. “Besides, for an exclusive, the Pelican Bay Crier can expense account the plastic, a couple gallons of designer water, and your phone bill for all those calls.”

  “Can’t turn down an offer that generous,” Kate said. A look of relief flicked across her face, as if she didn’t want to go back out to the woods, with its buried secrets, alone.

  Kate had a practical bent that suited Nell; they went in separate directions to accomplish their chores. Kate got the bravery points by venturing to the local sprawl mart during its after-school peak of madness. Nell was left to the relative comfort of the hardware store.

  There were two men behind the counter, one a young high school-age kid who obviously considered a middle-age woman of no interest. The other man was old enough to be his father, and his son had evidently inherited his disinterest in women. They continued talking about the upcoming football game.

  Nell started to tell them there were bodies to be covered up today while the football game wasn’t until Friday. But she stopped. Someone had marched two people deep into the woods, murdered them, and hidden the bodies. Just because the murder happened a long time ago didn’t mean those who’d wanted the silence weren’t still about.

  Nell headed to the painting supplies. The older man started to follow her, then two black teenage boys entered the store. He left her alone and followed them.

  Nell suddenly wished she had a few illegal bones in her body—not to mention the skill and balls to shoplift. She’d obviously been assigned to the annoying-but-safe-woman category, while the two boys had been tried and found guilty. Nell quickly found the plastic sheets and noted that even if she were to fall into a life of crime—and what better cover than a middle-aged widow?—shoplifting bulky plastic tarps was not the best place to begin.

  The high school boy did manage to tear himself away from the sports channel long enough to take her money. The two other boys joined her in line, carrying masking tape and markers and also talking about the upcoming football game.

  Nell’s next stop was a pay phone; she blessed the change in her pocket and cursed the work phone still at work. Lizzie answered on the first millisecond of the ring.

  “You won’t believe what happened in school today,” she exclaimed into the receiver.

  Somehow Nell suspected she was not the intended recipient of this juicy tidbit.

  “What won’t I believe?”

  “Mom? What are you doing calling here?”

  “I thought it might be nice to call home and let my darling children know I’m working on a story and might be out for a while longer.” With a quick glance at her car to ascertain Kate was still shopping, Nell inquired, “Just what won’t I believe happened in school?”

  “Oh. That’s nothing. Do you want to talk to Josh?”

  Nell tried to quell the rising annoyance. Her mother had had no time for evasive answers. Had Nell tried Lizzie’s end of the conversation, she would have been met with an “I asked you a question. Answer it now, Naomi Nelligan!” She would then thump her cane or whatever magazine she was holding to emphasize her point. Nell was the youngest of eight, and her seven other siblings swore by the time she came along, their mother had mellowed and she’d had it so much easier. Maybe it was easier, or maybe her mother had used up her mothering on the seven others and had little time or energy for the final and unexpected daughter. But the memories gave Nell little help in handling her own on-the verge-of-adolescence daughter with her mood swings and secrets.

  “No, I don’t want to talk to Josh. I want you to tell me what happened in school today.”

  “Ah, Mom, just the usual stuff. I got a B+ on my math homework.


  “That is pretty unbelievable. Why do I suspect that wasn’t what you were so breathlessly going to tell Janet?”

  “Mom!” Lizzie let out an exasperated whine, making the word two syllables. “It’s nothing, okay? Why do you have to always question everything I do?”

  It’s probably nothing, Nell told herself; someone broke off the three-week-long, love-of-their-life relationship to date someone else. Nothing for moms to be involved in.

  “We’ll talk when I get home,” she said, not quite willing to let Lizzie win the point. Was that good mothering or just damn stubbornness? “I’ll probably be a few hours more, so try … try to keep things calm.” In the past, she’d said “try to stay alive,” but that wasn’t funny anymore.

  Nell saw Kate come out of the store with a surge of mothers and children. She said a hasty goodbye—clearly Lizzie was waiting for a more important call—and headed to her car.

  Kate had been to the camping section and gotten stakes, a long roll of heavy twine, a large plastic storage container, and enough water to replace all they’d already swallowed twice over.

  “Sale,” she said as she loaded the jugs in the trunk.

  “Good idea, although it’s a struggle to get my kids to drink water unless it’s disguised as lemonade.”

  “At least it’s not Scotch with it.”

  “Yet. How much does the Crier owe you?”

  Kate handed her the receipt. “I’ll pay for the water.”

  Nell glanced at the amount. “Don’t worry, it was on sale. Did you … mention what we’re doing?”

  “To the thongs of just-out-of-school kids?”

  Nell pulled out of the lot and headed back out of town. “I did some thinking while wandering the hardware store. Just because the murders happened years ago doesn’t mean it’s over.”

  “‘The past is prologue.’ But aren’t you going to put this on the front page of the paper?”

  “Eventually. I haven’t decided whether to run it this week or not. Might be better to know more. We’re a weekly paper—it’s not like we can win the breaking news contest.”

  “Do you think someone from here murdered those people?”

  “Someone buried the bodies here. How could a stranger know where to go?”

  Kate’s cell phone rang.

  As she drove, Nell listened to Kate’s side of the conversation. It was Rebecca, Kate’s graduate professor, calling back. Her colleague from LSU was interested in studying the remains, but probably couldn’t get to Pelican Bay until a few days later.

  The oak tree hadn’t moved, nor had the purple bandana. Nell parked the car, Kate ended her conversation, and they got out.

  The sun had gone, and clouds heralding the soon-to-come rain had appeared.

  Kate packed the supplies into a canvas tote bag, leaving, Nell noticed, the lighter stuff for her. Kate slung the bag over one shoulder, then tucked the plastic storage container under one arm.

  “What’s that for?” Nell asked as they started down the trail.

  “Jane Bone. It might be a good idea to take the skeleton we’ve mostly unearthed with us. Sheriff Hickson or Chief Brown—not likely, I know—should get out here and secure the site sooner than later, but I can’t see that happening today and I don’t want to leave the bones out overnight.”

  “What do we do with them?”

  “Got room in your refrigerator?” Kate said.

  “Josh would love bones in the fridge. Lizzie would hate it and swear that I was trying to ruin her life.”

  “Guess it’s the morgue, then, and Josh gets to settle for pictures.”

  The encroaching clouds darkened the day. The unmarked graves in the bright daylight had been unsettling; the gray gloom made Nell feel that at any minute, deep organ music would begin. She and Kate worked quickly, covering the ground with the tarps, staking the corners and weighing them down with rocks and tree branches. Kate carefully packed Jane Bone into the storage container as Nell took a final round of pictures, proof of how they had secured the site. Animals would be more than happy to gnaw on the old bones. But Nell felt a prickle that it wasn’t animals they had to worry about.

  three

  Nell made the rounds, dropped off Jane Bone with the amazed morgue staff. She and Kate had said little, merely alluded to a long-ago lost hunter. She wondered if they were both spooked by the bullet hole and chains, or taking reasonable precautions. After that, Nell dropped off Kate, and only now, with the gray of the day dissolving into night, was she heading home.

  “Shit,” she said out loud as she turned into her driveway. “Shit,” she repeated because she knew how much it would annoy the person whose car blocked hers.

  Her mother-in-law’s big boat of an auto was parked there. Mrs. Thomas Upton McGraw, Sr.—Mrs. Thomas, Sr. as Nell thought of her—had busted Nell. Kids home alone, no parental supervision.

  If she hadn’t been sure at least one of the three waiting pairs of ears had heard her, Nell would have seriously considered heading back to the office. Not that it would have changed anything, but she was dirty, and tired, and wanting something to eat and a long, soaking bath.

  She had gotten along well with her father-in-law, and he and Thom had been enough padding between Nell and Mrs. Thomas, Sr. for them to have a congenial relationship. Four years ago, when Thom’s father died, the tension had increased. Nell’s version was that Mrs. Thomas was lonely and wanted more attention from Thom and her grandkids. That had led to times when Nell was left without a husband, or stuck doing double parent duty. Of course, it didn’t help that she never felt approved of by Mrs. Thomas. The McGraws were an old family. Nell was the daughter of a large blue-collar Midwestern family, her parents the first generation born in America.

  With Thom’s death, their fragile cordiality had shattered. When he had been alive, leaving Josh and Lizzie for a few hours while they worked late had never been an issue. The children were old enough to know better than to play with matches or stick their fingers in electric sockets, and not yet at the age where they might sneak out to buy drugs or have sex on the couch. They could be more or less counted on to do nothing more troublesome than forget to do their chores.

  But with Thom gone, Mrs. Thomas had huffed and puffed about not leaving the children alone. When Nell was exasperated, as she was now, she called it controlling, meddlesome, and a few other choice words. On more charitable days, she saw it as a way for Mrs. Thomas to be needed and connected to her grandchildren without admitting any of that to Nell or herself.

  But tonight—after Nell let out some of those choice words—there was nothing to do but go inside.

  “Mom, you’re home,” Josh greeted her.

  “Nell, where have you been?” Mrs. Thomas asked, giving her dirty clothes a look. “Certainly not at the office.”

  “Hello, Mother. Hi, Josh. Where’s Lizzie? No, not at the office,” Nell said slowly, not sure how much she wanted to say. Her mother-in-law wasn’t the reporter her husband and son had been—they would have quickly understood digging old bones in the woods for a story. Instead Mrs. Thomas, Sr. would see a single mother by herself (or almost, with only another woman for protection) in a place where people were murdered, and, most grievous of all, leaving her children home alone.

  “I drove by, saw the lights on and that your car wasn’t here, so I checked in.”

  “Lizzie’s in her room on the phone,” Josh answered. He was taking on Thom’s role of mediating between them, Nell noted. Lizzie, on the other hand, was decidedly isolationist; she wanted to be nowhere near the battlefield.

  “Lizzie is fourteen, Josh twelve. They’re old enough to be by themselves for a few hours,” Nell told her mother-in-law in as calm and nonconfrontational a voice as she could.

  “I’m not so sure,” Mrs. Thomas replied, using the same coolly nonconfrontational tone Nell had used; Nell noted that it was pr
etty annoying coming from the other direction. “Times have changed since you grew up. Even towns like Pelican Bay have their dangers.”

  “Mother,” Nell said, the coolness slipping from her voice, “I can’t follow them around twenty-four hours a day. Even when Thom was alive, there was no guarantee we could keep any and every bad thing from happening. Lizzie broke her leg with you, me, Thom, and Thomas all there.”

  “Still, Nell, I don’t see why you can’t bother to call me when you know you have to be late. Or just stick to a regular schedule, like Thom and Thomas used to do.”

  Nell could remember no such regular schedule, certainly not for Thom. He was often out at all hours, usually with his father. Between Thom and Nell, they managed to be home on a somewhat regular basis, but it was unreasonable for Mrs. Thomas to expect Nell to manage that and run the paper at the same time.

  She was too tired to prevent the words from coming out. “If Thom kept such a regular schedule, we wouldn’t have been on Post Road after midnight.” And I wouldn’t be a widow and we wouldn’t be standing here arguing like this, she silently added.

  “Mom,” Josh said softly, taking her hand.

  “Nell! You shouldn’t say such things in front of … ” Mrs. Thomas trailed off.

  “I think they know,” Nell retorted. Then she caught herself. This would solve nothing. She needed to find a way to de-escalate before it became really nasty. “Mother, I appreciate your concern, but I can’t do the things two people did. I do call, I do check up on them; Josh and Lizzie knew I would be late.” She thought of ratting on her children, telling Mrs. Thomas they knew they could go to her place—Lizzie showed remarkable enough facility on the telephone that she could call her grandmother—but that Josh and Lizzie didn’t want to go. However, even to avoid an argument, Nell couldn’t be that venal. Whatever the petty satisfaction, it wouldn’t make things better to tell Mrs. Thomas that her grandchildren preferred the dangers of being home alone to her company.

  “I know we’re all going through a hard time.” Mrs. Thomas regained her cool politeness. “But I do wish you wouldn’t leave them home alone, especially when I can be over here so quickly.”