by Rickie Blair
Boomer let out a low growl and half-rose to his feet.
Frank froze.
“Stand down, Boomer,” I said. “Everything’s fine.” Placing the box on the coffee table, I tapped a finger on it. “Tell me about this camping trip.”
Frank closed his eyes a moment before heaving a sigh and settling back in his chair. “It was before you were born. Claire was eight months pregnant. But she was determined to take one last trip before there were diapers to deal with.”
I must have frowned, because he held up a hand. “She was thrilled about you. We both were.” He smiled briefly, lost in thought. “On our last day in the bush, we came across a black bear skeleton. Most of it was gone—scavenged. But one paw was intact. Claire kept those bones as a memento. I’d forgotten all about it.”
I shuddered. “It’s a bit creepy, if you ask me.” Then, remembering my mother’s dream career of archaeologist would have included the examination of human bones, never mind animal, I backtracked. “Depending on your perspective, of course.”
We contemplated the box, saying nothing.
Frank sat so still and silent I could almost imagine he was not there.
Finally, he shifted in his chair. “You want me to leave Leafy Hollow and never come back, right? Give me that box, and I’ll go.”
“No.”
“No—you won’t give it to me? Or no—you don’t want me to leave?” He stared at me. I could tell he was holding his breath.
It occurred to me that he might be telling the truth. After all, why would Mom tell Adeline or me about an old bear paw? It was only meaningful to her and Frank. Maybe she hoped he would come back one day. And she left the puzzle box for him to show there were no hard feelings. That she remembered their time together fondly. And—perhaps—that she still loved him.
Hard as that may be for you to understand.
As my father’s words echoed in my head, my thoughts turned to Jeff. I’d been fortunate enough to find love again. My father had not.
“No—you won’t give it to me?” he repeated. “Or no—you don’t want me to leave?”
“Both,” I blurted, then added a qualifier. “For now, anyway.”
Leaving that hanging in the air, I drew the box toward me. “But I’m keeping this for the time being.”
Animal or not, I intended to show those bones to Jeff.
Chapter Twenty-Five
After showing Frank the door, I drove to the police station on the highway and asked to see Jeff. Given the side-eye I got from the reception sergeant, it was obvious my new status as a murder suspect was topic of the day.
“Verity,” he said in low tones, leaning over the desk. “Nobody thinks you’re a killer.”
“Thanks,” I said drily.
When Jeff walked out into the reception area, I held up the box. “I have something to show you.” I inclined my head at the nearest corridor. “In private.”
Seated at an interview table behind closed doors, I watched while he studied the bones wired to the cardboard. His brows gathered. “Hmmm.”
“What does that mean?”
Carefully, he placed the hand on the table. “Frank might be mistaken.”
“Or lying?”
“Let’s not attribute motives.”
“But you think those bones are human.”
“I’ve seen skeletal bear paws and he’s right—they do resemble human hands. But this—” Shaking his head, he picked up the hand and stood. “The pathologist is here today. I’ll ask him to take a quick look and see what he says.”
I grabbed his arm to hold him back. “Wait—you’re not going to mention Frank, are you?”
He gave me a piercing look. “Is there any reason why I shouldn’t?”
“No. Except… he claims that hand belongs to him.”
Jeff smiled. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
I sat down to wait. My stomach was churning too much to chance the station’s vending machines, even though I knew from experience they contained some surprisingly tasty bear claws. Groaning, I slapped a hand across my forehead. How could I even think such a thing?
It was barely ten minutes later when Jeff walked in and closed the door. He sat, slid the cardboard-backed bones into the box, and set it on the table. His expression told me he had bad news.
“I’m sorry, Verity. The pathologist says it’s definitely a human hand, but…”
I didn’t listen to the rest. Even though I half-expected this news, it hit me like a blow to the gut. “Oh, my God,” I whimpered, slumping forward with my arms pressed to my stomach.
Jeff got up to rub my back. “Deep breaths,” he said. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay.” I leaned my head on my hands, gasping for air as I waited for the room to stop spinning. “It’s not okay.”
The reasons why it was anything but okay whirled through my brain. A severed human hand had been hidden in Rose Cottage for years. And Frank lied about it—my own father lied to me. But then, that was hardly a surprise, was it? He’d had plenty of practice in lying—to the police, to my mother, to me…
A voice broke into my tumbled thoughts.
“Verity. Look at me.”
I slumped in the chair with my hands lying limp in my lap. Jeff was crouched beside me, looking worried. “Sorry,” I said. “I’m fine now.”
“I don’t blame you for being upset. But I don’t think you heard me. The pathologist confirmed it’s a human hand—”
“I heard you.”
“—but it’s old. Several centuries, possibly, although he can’t be precise without testing it.”
I stared at him. “It’s not from a—murder victim?”
“Probably not.” Jeff smiled.
I heaved a huge sigh. “It’s not Randall Dignam, then.” Seeing his confusion, I added, “The missing anthropology professor?”
“Oh.” He was taken aback. “No. Certainly not.”
I pulled the box toward me to twist the mechanism shut. “What happens next?”
“Every discovery of human bones, even old ones, has to be investigated. This will likely fall under what we call an ‘unreported but non-criminal burial site.’ The experts will deal with it.”
“You mean anthropologists?”
“Correct. They’ll need to know where it was found, though.”
“But you know where—it was in Rose Cottage’s basement. And not buried, either. It must have come from somewhere else originally.”
“There was no indication in the box? No address or map?”
“Nothing. Just the hand.” Frank’s original words echoed in my brain. The whole cottage might have to come down. “Will they dig up the house?”
“No. Of course not.” Jeff hesitated. “I don’t think so. I haven’t had a lot of experience in this area.”
I made a face.
“Don’t worry. It’s unlikely the rest of the skeleton is under Rose Cottage. What about the hidden objects you found in the attic? Like those postcards—do they shed any light on this?”
I shrugged. “You saw them. Did you see anything suspicious? Anything that might explain a centuries-old human hand? Except…” I remembered the broken arrowheads. “What if it’s indigenous? The hand, I mean?”
“Given the age, it very well could be. What are you thinking?”
“Maybe my mother took it from that dig—remember, the one in the photo? And hid it so no one would know what she’d done.”
“Why would she?”
I considered this question. On the face of it, it was absurd. If my mother made a find like that, she and the professor would have wanted to announce it, not hide it. And treat those human remains with the respect they deserved.
“Where were those postcards mailed from, again?” Jeff asked.
“Genoa. New York. And Buenos Aires.”
“Any return addresses?”
I shook my head. “No. And before you ask, I checked under the stamps for microdots.”
Jeff stifled a chuckle. “You’re kidding, right?”
“No,” I said, my tone indignant. “It’s possible.”
“Not since J. Edgar Hoover.”
“Wise guy.”
“Thanks.”
I traced the box’s intricate carving, wondering how long it took my father to complete it. “Can I keep the bones until I check in with Frank? He’s not answering my texts.”
Jeff narrowed his eyes. “Why are you worried about him?”
While explaining my father’s injuries and his claim they were accidental, I texted him again. No answer, even though my message—now I’d heard the pathologist’s report—was pretty scathing.
“You should have told me,” Jeff said.
I put my phone to one side. “Sorry. But it only happened a few hours ago.” I hesitated, remembering the professional-looking bandage on Frank’s nose. “Or maybe last night. He wasn’t specific.”
“It gives me a reason to step up surveillance, at least. I’ll put out an APB on his rental car. Meanwhile, you can keep that box—” He worked his lower lip, studying my hopeful expression. “For now.”
“How long is for now?”
“Forty-eight hours. That’s the best I can do.”
“Thanks.” I picked up the box before turning to the door.
“Verity.” His familiar warning tone was back. “Be. Careful.”
My next text was a true cry for help.
i need the team’s strategic assistance. meet me at rose cottage.
Fifteen minutes later, Emy, Lorne, and I gathered around my kitchen table to contemplate the puzzle box sitting in the middle of it. Next to it I lined up the pencil case, the broken arrowheads, and the three postcards from Adeline.
Emy picked up an arrowhead for a closer look. “What does Frank say?”
“I can’t find him. He’s not at the motel, either. And he’s not answering my texts.”
“That’s weird. He’s been following you around since he got here.” After replacing the arrowhead on the table, she picked up another.
“I know.”
“And you have forty-eight hours to solve this?”
I nodded. “I have to find out where my mother found that skeletal hand.”
“There were no clues in the box?”
“None. That’s why I need your help.” I pointed to the assembled objects. “I’m convinced the answer lies here. There’s something I’m not seeing.”
Lorne picked up Adeline’s postcards and shuffled through them, dropping them one by one on the table. “Did your mother travel to any of these places?”
“I doubt it. Frank and Claire didn’t have any money when I was a child. They couldn’t have afforded a trip to Italy or Argentina. I suppose they might have driven to New York, but that’s about it.” I picked that one up for a closer look. Greetings from the Empire State Building. “Anyway, these postcards are from Adeline. She was the traveler.”
“Could your aunt have brought the skeletal hand home from one of those places?”
“It seems unlikely. I think the answer lies closer to home.”
Emy took the postcard from me, frowning at it. “How does Adeline explain the hand?”
“I haven’t told her about it yet.”
“Why not?”
“Jeff says we have to report it. But since it’s not related to a crime—at least not one in the past few centuries—he’s giving me time to sort things out with Frank first. But if I tell that to Adeline—”
“She’ll freak out.”
Nodding, I glanced at my silent cell phone.
“You look worried.”
“Somebody broke Frank’s nose. He says it was an accident, but what are the odds? He could be in trouble.”
Emy’s eyes widened. “When did this happen?”
“Today. Or last night, possibly. He showed up here this morning with a battered face and scrapes on both knuckles.”
Lorne nodded grimly. “A fight, then.”
“That’s awful,” Emy said. “You think it had something to do with these bones?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I called you. I need advice.”
“Okay, let’s think this through.” She reached for the puzzle box, then hesitated, her face contorted into a grimace.
“It’s closed,” I said. “The bones can’t fall out.”
“I knew that.” Her hand continued to hover over the box.
“Let me, babe.” Lorne picked it up. “Now—” He tilted it from side to side, frowning. “We need to know where that hand came from. Where’s your laptop?”
I retrieved it from my desk, set it on the kitchen table, and opened it. “What am I looking for?”
“Let’s try those postcard locations on Google Earth. Read them out to me.”
Emy picked up the three cards to shuffle through them. “The Empire State Building in New York City. An art museum in Genoa—the Basilica di Santa Maria di Castello,” she said, carefully enunciating the words. “And the Palermo Woods in Buenos Aires. That last one is a park—it looks pretty big.”
Lorne nodded knowingly. “Plenty of space to bury people.”
“Eww, Lorne,” Emy said.
“Sorry, babe.”
He didn’t look sorry, and I suppressed a smirk.
“Maybe those are clues,” Lorne continued. “Let’s start with the Empire State Building. Type it into the Google Earth search box.”
“Check,” I intoned, with a side-eyed wink at Emy.
When the page opened on my laptop, I zeroed in on the elegant Art Deco skyscraper. The maps program had thoughtfully topped it with a bright red pin.
“What am I looking for?”
We peered at the map and then exchanged puzzled glances.
“That’s as far as I got,” Lorne said dejectedly.
“Let’s keep searching.” I bent over the keyboard, checking each section of the 3D map in turn. Emy shuffled through the postcards, carrying each to the window for a closer look. Lorne picked up the wooden box to study it more carefully, turning it over in his hands.
After ten minutes, we’d achieved nothing more than eye strain.
Pushing the laptop away, I slumped back with a sigh. “It doesn’t seem possible that my mother hid a human hand in Rose Cottage yet didn’t leave a single hint to tell us why.”
“You’d think it would be something on the box,” Lorne said, still puzzling over it. “But I can’t find anything. Although these carvings do repeat a pattern.” He frowned. “Is it possible the pattern itself forms a clue?” He brightened. “I know—Morse code! Let’s check the number of chevrons and compare that to the number of—I don’t know. Dots, maybe.” Emy pulled up a chair and they rotated the box, counting.
Watching them, I repeated Lorne’s words under my breath. “The number of...” I muttered. Those words triggered a memory. Something I’d seen recently, but not appreciated. I struggled to recall. “Wait a minute—”
I slid the laptop toward me, clicked on a dropdown menu in the corner of the screen, and gasped. “That’s it.”
Emy perked up at my expression. “What is it? What did you find?”
My hand fluttered excitedly as I pointed to the screen. “Lorne, you’re a genius! There is a code. But it’s not on the box. Where did I put that thing?” I jumped up, pushing my chair back so suddenly it would have toppled if Emy hadn’t darted out an arm to catch it.
I reached for the stack of mail on the far edge of the table. Dragging it toward me, I shuffled rapidly through it until I found the mysterious postcard addressed to Claire Hawkes.
Triumphantly, I placed it in the middle of the table. “Somebody mailed this to my mother. I thought it was a game move, or an error, so I ignored it. But it’s not a game, or even a code. It’s much simpler than that.” I pointed to the numbers handwritten along the bottom. “I think this is the location we’re looking for.”
“How?” Emy asked.
“Latitude and longitude,” I said.
> She bent over the postcard, running a finger along the numerals. “I don’t understand. Latitude and longitude measurements are expressed in degrees, aren’t they?”
“Usually. But look…” I pointed to the dropdown menu on the laptop screen. “They can also be expressed in decimals.”
“I don’t see how that helps us,” Emy said, her brow furrowing. “How do we make that conversion?”
“I have no idea, honestly. But it doesn’t matter. We just have to type the decimal version into the search bar.”
Emy was not convinced. “I don’t see any decimals on the postcard. Just a long string of numbers.”
“That’s the beauty of it. I think they’re implied.” Rummaging through a kitchen drawer, I drew out a pad and pencil, then handed them to Lorne. “Divide the numbers in half. Then add a decimal point after the first two numbers in each half.”
Emy and I watched intently, holding our breaths. Lorne’s pencil scratched across the pad. When he was done, he sat back and placed the pencil on the table. We stared at the numbers he’d written. Two lines of seven numerals each, with a decimal after the first two numerals in each line.
I bounced on my chair in excitement. “Let’s check it.”
I typed the numbers into the search bar and hit return. The globe on the screen whirled rapidly, eventually coming to rest with a red pin inserted halfway around the world.
We bent to study it.
“I’m not a geography expert,” Emy said, “but that looks like the Russian steppes to me.”
“That can’t be right,” I said morosely. “What did I do wrong?”
Emy’s eyebrows rose. “At times like these, it’s often useful to check the instructions.”
She was right, of course. It took only a few moments of reading to discover my error. “This instruction page gives sample addresses for the decimal system, and they all add a minus sign before the second number.”
“Why?”
“Who knows? But that hyphen on the postcard must be the minus sign.”
I retyped the corrected list of numerals into the search bar. My hand hovered over the enter key. Did I really want to do this? What if it was another dead end?
“What are you waiting for?” Emy urged. “Click it.”