Dead Floating Lovers (21 page)

Dolly and Lucky Barnard were there ahead of me, parked in the wide clearing behind the trees. They leaned against Dolly’s patrol car, stepping forward to wave when they saw my Jeep drive in.

Lucky said he’d heard I’d been followed by a couple of men from over to Peshawbestown. “You better be careful ’til we find out what’s going on. Nothing says that the men you saw out to Dark Forest are dangerous, but I wouldn’t say they aren’t either. Not with this double-murder investigation going on and you in the middle of it. I’d say, Emily, that you maybe should back off a little and let me and Dolly handle things from here on in. And if your paper wants a story about where we’re getting on the investigation, why we will be happy to fill you in ’cause we know you need the money and we know how hard you’ve been working to make it up here. Those books of yours not selling.” He shook his head, took a deep breath, and put a hand to his chest.

“ … Or, as I was saying to Dolly before you got here, if you two want to keep working on this together, well, I guess I can’t stop you and maybe the faster you keep going, the faster it will be over with.”

So, that established—or not established—we made our way down the sand path and through the trees to the lake. We walked around the lake again, since there was no road or path on the other side. Dolly pointed to where the house had been. She and Lucky squatted, poking at the charred beams and the few burned pieces of furniture, while I moved off to the other side of the hole in the ground that had been Orly’s cabin. In one spot, to the side of the cabin, I found a pile of rusted cans covered with vegetation. It looked like a household refuse pile; the kind of pit I’d found around old lumber camps back in the woods.

I turned over one of the rusted cans and disturbed a couple of ground wasps building a nest. It didn’t take more than that to move me to another spot. I parted the weeds as I walked, examining the sand. Not far off, there was a place that looked as if it could have been a root cellar. Sand had blown in and filled the area so only the tops of the blocks could be seen. I moved around behind this “cellar,” keeping my head down, eyes narrowed, looking for anything out of place. Anything man-made.

As I walked, I must have put my left foot down at the wrong angle, or stumbled on uneven ground. I fell to my knees, hands straight down to save my face. I scrambled back up to my feet, pulled the hem of my sweater from my jeans, and bent to wipe at my chin where I’d hit the ground. Sure enough—dark blood. Not a lot. The palms of my hands were both scratched and bleeding slightly along the scratches. I searched behind me for whatever I’d fallen over and saw it wasn’t a thing, but a place where the ground dipped and fell inward. The depression in the sand was about six feet long and maybe three feet wide.

I called Dolly and Lucky over to take a look. Probably just another garbage pit, but it stood examining.

Dolly walked around the depression and glanced up at Lucky. “Got a shovel?” she demanded.

He nodded. “Yours,” he said and left us, head down, shoulders forward. He was on his way back to the car they’d come in together. I knelt and scooped some sand from the pit with my hands. We would be waiting quite awhile for Lucky to get back. It wasn’t that I was impatient, but I’d geared myself so high to get this thing moving, even an extra half hour seemed too long.

“Better leave it for Lucky,” Dolly called as I poked down in the pit I’d found.

I nodded but scooped sand anyway. I figured I would find a can or old bottle. Maybe something better. I had found old bottles and old pots at the lumber campsites. Once, I even found a metal pry bar for switching train tracks.

After awhile I got up and brought a rusted can back from the other garbage dump. With the lid bent off, it made a perfect scoop.

“Me and Lucky found shredded stuff all around that house,” Dolly said, motioning back toward the burned timbers. “Not old stuff. Could be tobacco, or something. Don’t know. But why wouldn’t tobacco have burned up with the house? Isn’t that what it’s for?”

I shrugged. There was no rush to do anything, and I was tired from the walking and searching. I sat beside the pit, half lying on one side, poking and scooping, then sifting the sand from the can through my fingers.

My search was languid. I had already had a terrible day. Let Dolly look over the hillocks and depressions. I figured I’d done enough, and though I could envision the Naquma family in this place, there didn’t seem to be ghosts, or lingering spirits. It was too pretty, and placid, and away from people.

From where I half lay on the ground, scooping and emptying, the lake, through the brush, stretched flat and mirror-like. A couple of gulls flew high above my head. One crow—huge and dark—fluttered close above me, landing in a tree nearby and cawing his heart out.

I dipped the can into a fairly deep part of the hole and lifted it out. I was smiling up at the crow, talking to him, taunting him, when I felt the sand sift away between my fingers and something hard land in my palm.

I glanced down, thinking I’d brought up a rock—maybe even a Petoskey Stone. What lay there was not a rock. It was brown, black at one end, and long. Very narrow. I looked closer. I held a bone. Maybe the first knuckle of a finger bone.

I called to Dolly, who came bumbling up through a patch of pickers.

“Yup. Bone,” was all she said, bending down to take a look at what I held. “You go tell Lucky. He’ll call Detective Brent and get investigators out here. God knows what you’ve stumbled on now. Then you go on home. When I get through I’ll be over. You know, Emily, you might just’ve found the rest of that family.”

I agreed to go, but this time I took photographs of the grave and a couple close-ups of that single bone. There had to be a lot more bones down there, but I had no right to keep digging. I took shots of the charred timbers and what was left of the house. I wasn’t going to be caught short again. Not that it was easy, with Dolly shouting at me to get going every time my camera snapped.

I met Lucky coming back with the shovel. He frowned when I said there were more bones by the house. I took off with just a backward wave at him. I had a darned good story to write. The only thing missing was what else Brent’s men would dig up from that grave.

Sorrow didn’t come running when I got home. Usually, he would have worked his way back into the living room from the screened-in porch, or he would be waiting at the door as I drove down the drive, his shaggy black and white body quivering with anticipation at the sight of me.

No Sorrow. Not on the porch, not in the house, not anywhere in the immediate vicinity. This wasn’t the first time he’d taken off. Being some kind of setter/Labrador mix, he’d been born with a wanderlust. But a small one. He usually stuck close to his personal supply of IAMS and dog bones.

I stood on the front deck and called his name, listening for a bark, the sound of a dog bounding through the ferns—something. I heard nothing. A loon, down at the lake, gave his wild cry a few times. Robins and chickadees sang and cackled. A black squirrel sat on a low branch above my head and chattered at me.

He’d be back, I told myself, despite a sinking feeling in my stomach. Silly dog never went too far, only down to the lake to chase a duck or two, or around through the woods, no doubt causing havoc among the skunks and raccoons and fox. I had better things to do than hunt for a dog. Calling Bill, at the paper, was first among them. I was rather proud that I’d been the one to find this grave with more bones.

“There’s a new development in the bone story,” I said when Bill came on the line.

Bill, a true newsman, was immediately interested. “What happened?”

“Think we found a grave with more bones out at Sandy Lake. Found the remains of a house, too. Seems a Native American hunting and fishing guide and his children—one of them Mary Naquma—lived out there about thirteen years ago. Could be whoever murdered Chet Wakowski and Mary did something to the rest of her family, too. House was burned. Nobody I’ve talked to has seen any of them in a long time. Except the brother. He works for the casino in Peshawbestown. I’m doing a story about the Dark Forest Cemetery for
Northern Pines
. It’s all Native American, out beyond Alba. I went there today to take photos and two men chased me. One was that Lewis George and I’m sure the other was Mary Naquma’s brother, Alfred. If that was really him, it could mean he had something to do with what happened to his sister and to Dolly’s husband, maybe his other sister, Christine, and the father, too. I called the tribal center for information on Dark Forest Cemetery and happened to mention both Alfred Naquma and Lewis George. The woman said she never heard of them. Didn’t know who I was talking about. They’re covering up something.”

“Christ! You think he did all of ’em in? It’s happened before. Hmm. So Gaylord working on this now? And, what do you mean—chased you? Was it a problem? What did they want? Better call Detective Brent and let him know.”

“Gaylord’s been called. I’m writing the story about the new bones now. And I’ve got photographs for you.” I delayed the “being chased” story due to exhaustion. I’d had enough of that whole thing.

“Good job. But what happened at the cemetery? These guys aren’t after you, are they?”

“I didn’t hang around to see what they wanted.”

“Be smart, Emily. In something like this, you never know who the enemy is. Oh, and Emily, wait to make sure the bone you found is human. No sense running something that turns out not to be true.”

“Of course,” I said, indignant, “but what else can it be? I held it in my hand. I know a bone when I see one.”

“Yeah, well, get it to me as soon as you have verification from Detective Brent.”

I groaned. “That could be days.”

“You want me to run it as speculation?” I heard, in his voice, what Bill thought of that idea.

“Guess not.”

“OK. So when you know … send the photos over with tag lines. You ever consider that those two men just wanted to talk to you about the girl’s bones? The Odawa are tough about the return of their ancestors or relatives. Awful things have been done to their burial sites in the past. Stuff even put up for sale on eBay. I can’t say that I blame them for hanging tough on this one. Hey, there’s another story you can follow—what’s been done, even recently, to Indian grave sites. Maybe see what you can find on their burial rites …”

“I’m kind of doing that for
Northern Pines
.” I hesitated, brain quickly searching for a different angle; a way to double dip on the same story. “Let me think about it. I just wish they weren’t ‘hanging tough’ on me. I can’t do a thing to help them.”

“Maybe they don’t want stuff in the paper about the dead woman.”

“Yeah. But if this Alfred Naquma is guilty of something …”

We hung up. To keep busy while I waited to hear from Dolly, I cleaned the refrigerator, dumping stuff covered with purple mold into the garbage. I was into black lettuce when I heard a car in the drive and went to let Dolly in, an odd smile on her pert little face.

“Write that story yet?” she asked and gave me an even bigger, un-Dolly-like smile.

“I called Bill. We’ll wait for ID. Want to make sure there’s no screw up.”

She shook her head and lifted her leg onto one of the stools at the kitchen island. She chuckled. “Don’t have to wait. Brent said he knew ’em right away.”

“Knew ’em? What do you mean?”

“Chicken bones. You hit on another garbage pit. Brent’s men dug into it while I was there and came up with not just chicken bones but rib bones, some bones from a deer, and a lot of other animal bones. Maybe, when the bones disintegrated, Orly Naquma used the soil for fertilizer. Found another pit nearby. That one was filled with whiskey bottles.”

I winced.
Chicken bones.

“Brent said we should go over and talk to the tribal police. He doesn’t think it would be a good idea to go back to the casino, or anywhere else, looking for those men. He said the Odawa like to handle their own affairs and, though this one isn’t reservation related, they would still need to be brought into it.”

“Sounds good to me. Do you think they’ll help?”

Dolly shrugged. She looked around and frowned. “They’re paid to keep the peace the same as I am. To tell you the truth, I’d rather have them on our side before we go looking for those others.” She frowned deeper and bent down to look under the table. “Hey, where’s Sorrow? I missed my usual welcome.”

“Got out while I was gone,” I said. “He’ll be back. He never goes too far.”

“Miss the big dope,” she said. She stood and stretched. “You come on in tomorrow morning and we’ll go see the tribal police.”

I agreed. I’d had enough for one day and I was a little nervous about Sorrow. Over the next few hours I kept hearing him scratching at the door. I opened the door and looked out in all directions. I called his name again and again.

Sorrow didn’t come home.