Skeleton's Key (Delta Crossroads Trilogy, Book 2) (8 page)

Jeb and his intern had been digging in a six-by-six grid as they carefully sifted for more parts of the skeleton. This afternoon, the earth outside of that grid had been untouched except for the impressions of their shoes. But now, thanks to the raccoon’s skilled scavenging, the area was churned up. In the middle of the animal’s playground, a human arm stuck out from what looked like a black trash bag. The arm extended toward Cage as if begging for help.

A finger was missing.

“Aw, sonofa
bitch
.”

He crossed the basement, pulling his t-shirt up over his nose. The smell was one of the worst things he’d ever encountered. Trying not to breathe, he knelt for a closer look.

Definitely a trash bag. Body had probably been secured inside until the raccoon discovered it tonight. Most of the visible flesh was waxy and white and looked loose enough to be mushy. Yellow, greasy slime oozed out of the tear in the plastic. That’s why the smell had come on so suddenly tonight.

This was not happening. An old skeleton? Fine. Happened more than a person might think in these old houses. But a body? He couldn’t begin to guess time of death, but the plastic wrappings had certainly preserved the corpse’s shape.

Someone had used Ironwood to cover up a murder.

He pulled out his cellphone and made the call. Sheriff was going to love this.

Upstairs, he found
Dani still sitting in the same spot. Her mouth was parted, and she breathed deeply, trying to calm herself. He hurried into the kitchen, ran her a glass of water, and brought it back to her motionless form.

“Drink this.” He put the glass into her hand and then knelt in front of her, his right hand hovering above her knee. He made a fist and rested it on the couch beside her.

She blinked. A single tear welled out of her eye and trickled past the smattering of freckles across her nose. “There’s a body in my basement.”

“Yeah.”

“Is it…is it all there?”

“Looks like it.”

“What happens now?”

“I called the sheriff. He’s sending out the head of the investigative department.”

She blew a shaky breath and took a sip of water. “Will you work the scene?”

Cage shook his head. “I’m a patrol deputy. Adams County has five investigators who handle major crime.”

“What about Jeb? Shouldn’t he be informed?”

“Sheriff called him. He’ll be here, along with Captain Barnes. She’ll handle the investigation.”

“The head of your Criminal Investigation Department is a woman?”

“Yeah, can you believe that?” Cage made sure to thicken his drawl with sarcasm. “We Rednecks are comin’ out of the dark ages.”

“Nice.”

“This isn’t the old South anymore, you know. I mean, sure, our way of life and our priorities are different. But most of us don’t believe a woman’s place is in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant.”

“Did I say that?”

“You don’t have to. Your shock and awe says enough.”

Dani thinned her lips. “I’m shocked and awed you’re still single with such a sunny disposition. After all, who wouldn’t want you grumping around in their life?”

“Beats me, I’m a catch.” He looked past Dani and tried to hide how deeply her comment had sliced. Is that why Jaymee had never seen him the way he wanted her to? He might take life too seriously at times, but he’d tried to be what he thought Jaymee wanted.

“Sorry.” Dani sighed and leaned back in the chair. “That was low and bitchy. I’m just in shock. And it’s nearly midnight and still baking in here. God Almighty, how do you people survive?”

T
here was a
body in her basement, and whoever it was had obviously met with some kind of foul play.

Maybe not. Maybe it was an accident. Or a suicide. And someone panicked and buried the body.

Right.

She pressed her fingertips against her aching forehead. Tomorrow, she was supposed to be digging up bones and making sure Ironwood’s foundation wasn’t harmed. She should be talking to the historical foundation about contractors who knew how to treat the house’s fragile mantles and crown molding. Talking to floor specialists, window experts, a heating and cooling guy who wouldn’t steal every dime she had. Not worrying about a rotting body in the basement!

One by one, Adams County cops arrived. Introductions were made, but Dani was too stunned to remember all of their names. Jeb nodded solemnly, and a gangly kid with dark hair and perpetually tanned skin followed him, looking far too excited to be here. Jeb introduced him as Billy the intern.

“What the hell’s going on here, Cage?” Captain Regina Barnes had been the first to arrive. “First a skeleton, and now this?”

Dani tried to clear her head enough to get an honest impression of Captain Barnes. Likely in her early forties, small and compact but clearly an authority figure. No makeup, but she didn’t really need it. There was warmth in her grim smile.

“Don’t ask me, Gina,” Cage answered. “This is a few feet away from the skeleton, and I don’t think it’s got anything to do with it. Looks too…fresh. Raccoon must have smelled the remains after we started digging up the bones. You can imagine the rest. It’s running around down there with a finger, by the way.”

“You’ll need to take care of that.” Turning her attention to Dani, Gina laid a heavy black case on the table. “Captain Regina Barnes. You must be Dani.”

Dani extended a shaking hand. “I’d say it’s nice to meet you, but under the circumstances, it really sucks.”

“Not a very welcoming start to Roselea, is it?” Gina asked.

“Not at all. But I guess it can only get better from here, right?”

Gina sighed. “God I hope so.”

Heavy shoes smacked against the foyer’s marble floors. Another investigator with hard-soled boots and stomping feet banging around on the French marble. It had survived for centuries only to be beaten down now. Tears brewed in her eyes, but she didn’t have the energy to get up.

“Jesus, Landers.” Cage strode into the foyer. He stopped at the door, long fingers on his hips, the muscles in his arms tense. Sweat stained the back of his t-shirt, and his hair stuck to the back of his neck in wet curls. “Don’t stomp across these floors like that. And make sure ya’ll carry those shovels and anything else heavy. Don’t even think about dragging anything.”

“Foster, we got a body to worry about,” a man’s voice boomed in response. “I don’t care about–”

“You’re going to care.” Cage pointed a finger at the unseen voice. “You wouldn’t go into someone else’s home like a herd of damned elephants. You ain’t going to come in here like it, either.”

“Place is old.” The voice’s owner–Landers–appeared. He looked exactly like he sounded: short and squat with a bulldog-like face. His meaty hand clenched a shovel.

If he tried to drag that across the marble, Dani would beat him with the nearest heavy object.

“Which is why you’ll be extra careful.” Cage squared his shoulders. “Show her some respect.”

Lander’s donut-belly jiggled. “Who? The house or the Yankee? Where is she, anyway?”

A muscle in Cage’s jaw twitched. He turned his head towards Dani, still sitting in the middle of the tattered couch. Their gazes locked, and the humidity in the room swelled to bursting.

She needed to install ceiling fans, pronto.

“Sid Landers, meet Dani Evans, new owner of Ironwood.” Cage pointed at Dani.

She sucked in a deep breath and hauled herself to her feet.

Lander’s eyes slid over her as she approached, taking in her red, sweaty appearance with a raised eyebrow. “Ma’am.”

“It’s Dani. Or the Yankee, if you prefer.”

Cage’s soft laugh made her feel a little less like her world was imploding. She took in Lander’s shovel. “I realize you’ve got to do your job, Mr. Landers–”

“It’s investigator.”

“Investigator Landers. But this is my house, and I’m planning on saving her. So please be careful with your equipment.” Her tone left no room for argument.

The investigator’s jowls wobbled, his eyes narrowed. “Yes ma’am.”

She stepped aside, and Landers stalked past, muttering a barely disguised “damned Yankee” under his breath.

Cage shook his head. “He’s an ass, but he’s good at his job.”

“Thanks for watching out for the house,” Dani said. “I know it seems ridiculous considering what’s down…” She glanced toward the kitchen, “but I don’t want any more damage done to this place than absolutely necessary. And if they’re digging downstairs, the foundation has to be watched.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Cage said.

“Thank you.” Emotion suddenly overwhelmed her. Her eyes grew wet again, and her lips trembled. “I just…I’m not sure what to do.”

He looked down, shuffling his feet. “This is a crime scene now.”

Understanding dawned on her. “I can’t be here.” She threw up her hands. “Where am I going to go? How can I make sure the house is safe?”

“I’ll take care of the house,” Cage said. “I probably won’t be allowed to be directly involved in the investigation, but Adams County is a small staff, and I have a feeling they’re going to need every set of hands on this.”

She ran her hands over her pulled-back hair. “Okay. As long as you’re here. And I’ll find somewhere. I saw a bed and breakfast in town.”

“No need to pay money. You can stay in the carriage house.”

“That’s your place.”

“You also own it. And I can stay with a friend. This way, you’ll get to stay on the property.”

“You’d do that for me?”

He searched her eyes, the hard planes of his face softening. “Good old Southern boy, remember?”

She forced herself to smile instead of cry. “Thank you.”

Voices rose in the basement–it sounded like Landers and Jeb were arguing. “I’d better get down there. Why don’t you gather your things and head over to my place, get some sleep? I’ll check in when I can.”

She nodded, and he turned for the kitchen.

“Cage?”

“Yeah?”

“The stairs. Make sure they’re secure before anything is brought up. I don’t want someone getting hurt.”

*     *     *

He hated to
kill the pissed off raccoon, but it was faster than trapping it, and the police needed the finger, not to mention whatever evidence it had consumed. The animal was bagged and set aside while the body was recovered.

Cage hoped Dani hadn’t heard the gunshot from the carriage house.

More lights had been brought down, sitting precariously on whatever surface investigators could use. The result was a garish yellow glow that made the entire scene even more alien. Cage stood on the periphery, the humidity making the white paper mask Jeb had given him stick to his face. That was about all the flimsy paper had done. The smell was unholy. But the sight was even worse.

A blue tarp stretched from the wobbly stairs to the new dig site, and a second tarp covered the skeleton’s grave. Jeb had told Landers to keep his people off the skeleton’s area, and from the pouting look on Landers’s fat face, Gina backed the coroner up.

Every person at the scene wore booties and latex gloves, and Jeb and Billy had donned blue Tyveck suits that made them look like rejects from the Blue-Man Group.

“How did you people not find this when you were digging up the skeleton?” Landers demanded.

“Because we weren’t digging in that area.” Disdain colored Jeb’s tone. “This body’s buried at least two feet deeper than the skeleton was–and obviously out of our original dig site. I’d bet my ’67 Mustang one doesn’t have anything to do with the other. The skeleton’s old, bones worn away from time and earth. Could have been here before the house was built.” Jeb gestured to the dead arm still sticking out of the ground. “That poor soul was buried here a lot more recently.”

“I agree,” Gina said. “It’s pretty obvious we’re looking at a murder. Let’s get started.”

Inch by inch, the two men carefully sifted through the earth, piling the dirt on a separate section of tarp. A dirt sample would be sent along with the body to the medical examiner’s office in Jackson in hopes of finding trace evidence. The raccoon had torn a pretty good sized hole in the plastic, and Jeb had tried to reseal the tear, but enough decomposition fluid had leaked out to make the smell strong enough to gag a maggot. A yellow-gray substance that was a stinking cross between wax and slick grease had formed over most of the body, and tears in the plastic provided an outlet for the smell and the fluid.

“What is that?” Cage spoke into the elbow he’d pressed against his nose.

“Adipocere,” Billy said. “Forms in damp conditions when the fatty tissues of the body undergo a chemical reaction. Suppose the humidity combined with the plastic is what did it here.”

“We’re not even attempting to unwrap,” Jeb said. “This is out of our league. We’re just liftin’ and shiftin’. The body is going straight to Erin at the state medical examiner’s office.”

Gina and Landers hovered over the bag, taking pictures and trying to stay out of the coroner’s light. “We need to get the body out of here as soon as possible,” Gina said. “Whatever’s left is going to decompose pretty damned quickly.”

With all the dirt removed, the plastic clung tight to the body’s face, revealing the head was at least partially intact.