The Devil's Puzzle

by Clare O'Donohue

  But Oliver was about to help me out with a better title. He was planning to propose to Eleanor in just a few hours.

  As a gesture of new beginnings, he was planting a rose garden in the neglected backyard of my grandmother’s Victorian home. Eleanor always grumbled about the mess her garden had become, but she never had the time or inclination to do anything about it. She told me once that her friend Grace Roemer, the former owner of the home, had a dozen different rose varieties planted there. But when she died, the garden died with her. It was a minor regret, but one Eleanor voiced every spring when the weeds took a stronger hold of what had once been a magnificent wash of color and fragrance.

  Now, thanks to Oliver, it would be returned to its former glory. I raced to the backyard to see how the work was coming, hoping I’d find rosebushes already planted. When Oliver and I first cooked up this plan we knew it would be nearly impossible to get the entire garden cleared and planted in one day, but we were confident we would make enough of a difference to give Eleanor a preview of things to come.

  His plan was to show her the garden when she returned home in the late afternoon, then open a small box and reveal the diamond ring he’d bought. Ever the romantic, he’d found one that had been made the year she was born. Even though I wasn’t actually going to be there for his proposal, I could picture the whole thing clearly and I was almost as anxious and excited as he was.

  If the plan was going to work, then Oliver needed to get to his house, change his clothes, and pick up the champagne and cake he’d ordered. And I needed to supervise the workers and get dinner ready. But when I got to the back of the house, instead of seeing a rose garden in progress and a would-be fiancé ready to propose, I saw Oliver and several workmen standing over a hole, shaking their heads and speaking in low tones.

  “Hi,” I shouted, but no one made a move to look at me. I took a few steps forward. “Sorry I’m late, but don’t worry, Oliver. Eleanor doesn’t close the shop until four, so we still have plenty of time.”

  Oliver finally heard me and turned. He was tall, over six feet, with gray hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He was imposing, but in his soft blue-gray eyes, there was a sweetness I had come to adore.

  “What’s going on with the garden, Grandpa? Don’t mind if I call you that, I hope.” I smiled.

  He didn’t smile back. “We’ve run into trouble, Nell.”

  “Whatever it is, I’m sure the landscapers and I can work around it. You’ve got to get out of here so you can get ready for your big night.”

  Every time I had mentioned the proposal before, Oliver had shyly smiled. This time, though, a weary sadness crept across him.

  “I don’t think that I can go through with it tonight,” he said.

  “What? Of course you can, Oliver. Don’t get cold feet now. Eleanor is madly in love with you. And you are madly in love with her. We’ll get this garden into shape. You’ll get dressed. You’ll say that beautiful speech you’ve been rehearsing. Eleanor will be thrilled. Everyone will be thrilled. And you and Eleanor and me, and the quilt group, can start planning a wedding, and more important, a wedding quilt.” I smiled, looking for signs of optimism from Oliver, but there were none. I tried again. “Nothing, absolutely nothing is going to stop this proposal from happening tonight as planned.”

  Oliver nodded, but he didn’t seem all that convinced.

  He motioned for me to come toward the hole where he and the landscapers had all been looking. It wasn’t deep, maybe two or three feet.

  “I think this is going to stop it, Nell.”

  “No way,” I said.

  But as soon as I peered over, I realized he was right. We had run into the kind of problem that would likely change our plans for the garden, the proposal, and maybe much more. At the bottom of the hole, still half covered with dirt, was a body.

  Or, more accurately, a skeleton.

  CHAPTER 3

  “Ididn’t put it there,” Eleanor said forty minutes later, as she stood by the hole, shaking her head.

  “No one thinks you did,” I said.

  When I’d called her at the shop and told her to close the store and come home, I’d only said there was a problem at the house. I hadn’t said that the problem was a skeleton.

  “I don’t understand what you were doing digging up back here anyway,” she said.

  “Oliver and I just thought you would like it.”

  I wasn’t about to tell her about the proposal, which hopefully was still on. No one wants to hear soft, romantic words in the vicinity of a dead body. At least I hope not.

  “Is this why you insisted I take your shift at the shop?” Eleanor asked. “Why didn’t you just tell me you were going to dig back here? Why do you keep me in the dark about everything?”

  “I told you about this.” I pointed toward the skeleton.

  My grandmother just shook her head and stared at it. “Honestly, Nell, only you would dig up a rose garden and find a body.”

  She walked away from me, still mumbling about my knack for getting in the middle of things.

  I didn’t know if I had a knack, but I was a definitely in the middle of this. There were only twelve officers on the Archers Rest police department, and half of them were milling about around me, all over the backyard. Greg, one of the detectives, carefully photographed the skeleton and then stood back to stare at it.

  “Crazy, isn’t it,” he said.

  “It is.”

  “I sure wish Jesse were here.”

  “He’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “You probably miss him, Nell. But right now I miss him more.”

  Jesse Dewalt, the town’s chief of police and my significant other, had gone on a camping trip with his six-year-old daughter’s Brownie troop. It was only one night. When he was debating whether he should be in the woods out of cell range, I laughed off his concerns.

  “How much could happen in our sleepy little town in one night?” I’d said.

  As it turned out, a lot.

  “I don’t know how comfortable I am removing the body, or whatever it is, without Jesse looking at it first,” Greg said.

  “Then don’t. Just leave it here until tomorrow. It’s obviously been here a long time, so one more day isn’t going to hurt anything. I think we have a tarp in the garage you can use to cover the hole.”

  That seemed to relax Greg. He grabbed a couple of men and they went off looking for the tarp, something to hold it down, and crime scene tape to wrap around the trees and make the whole area offlimits. I moved closer to the edge of the hole and stared into the makeshift grave.

  It is an odd thing to look at what is left of a person after his skin has gone. The skeleton was a yellow white, with bits of what, I assumed, was tissue clinging to the bones and his empty eye sockets. The lower half of his jaw was detached from his skull and his ribs looked broken. Though he was nothing like the bleached white, almost cheerful depictions of skeletons I’d seen every Halloween, there was something haunted about him. He was a man robbed not just of his life but of the dignity of a real grave.

  And, at least for the moment, of his identity. The skeleton seemed to be of a man. At least that was my guess by what was left of his clothing. Though they were heavily decayed, it looked as if he had on pants, a shirt, and a tweed jacket.

  I crouched down at the edge of the hole and reached my hand toward the man’s coat pocket. Nothing. I reached into the other. I came up empty again. I looked around. The officers, most of whom worked part-time for the force, were too busy trying to wrap trees with crime scene tape to pay any attention to me, so I stretched my arm out farther and dug my fingers into his pants pocket. There was something round and hard. Too big for a coin. I pinched it between my fingers and slid it out.

  “A poker chip?” I said out loud without meaning to. I saw Eleanor turn to look at me, so I quickly stashed the chip back in the dead man’s pocket and got up.

  “What are you doing, Nell?”

  “Nothing. Just looking
.”

  “Well, stop right now. You’re a grown woman, Nell Fitzgerald. I shouldn’t have to tell you not to play in the dirt with skeletons.”

  I didn’t bother to argue. I just walked over to the porch to join her and Oliver. “Grandma, do you have any idea who he is?”

  “Of course not.”

  “He could have been there for years,” Oliver pointed out.

  “Maybe. How long has it been since you’ve done any work in the garden?” I asked Eleanor.

  “I’ve never done any work in the garden, Nell. You’ve seen how it was. I’ve been terribly neglectful of it.”

  “So it’s been undisturbed for how long?”

  “I don’t know. Years, decades, I guess.”

  “You’ve never had anyone work on the garden?”

  Eleanor shrugged. “Yes, in the spring, to cut back the weeds and keep it from taking over the place. I had a gardener come for a while, but I’ve not planted anything there since my own children were small.”

  “Do you think it’s been there since Eleanor moved into the house?” Oliver asked. “That was more than forty years ago.”

  “I don’t know, but Jesse will want to look into it. A murder gets investigated no matter how long it’s been.”

  My grandmother turned white. “You can’t know it’s a murder. That’s just bones in that hole.”

  “Grandma, people don’t just bury someone in the backyard if they die of natural causes.”

  CHAPTER 4

  “Do you remember anyone going missing in town?” I asked Eleanor once we were alone in the kitchen making lemonade and sandwiches.

  The officers were still in the yard covering the hole with a tarp, secured with a handful of bricks and some shovels we had in the garage. Oliver stood just outside the kitchen door, as if protecting us from any possible harm. The only male who had come inside was Barney, my grandmother’s twelve-year-old golden retriever. He sat in his dog bed, half-asleep, half-annoyed at the commotion outside. He didn’t seem a bit worried about our safety, and frankly, I trusted his instincts.

  While I waited for my answer, Eleanor poured sugar into a bowl and searched for the right spoon.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I pointed out.

  She looked at me, annoyed. “You’re putting too little ham on those sandwiches. Those men are working hard out there, and they’re hungry. Don’t be stingy with the lunch meat.”

  “It’s a police investigation, not high tea.”

  “I’m aware of what it is, Nell.”

  “What are you so nervous about? You said you didn’t know anything.”

  “I don’t.”

  “I’m sure Jesse will believe you. He’s practically family.”

  She took a deep breath. “What did you mean by that? What do you know?”

  “What do I know? I know you didn’t bury a body in the backyard if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “No. About Jesse being practically family.”

  “I just meant that he’s here a lot,” I answered. “I know he really likes you. He’s says one of the great benefits of dating me is that he gets to eat your cooking.”

  I noticed she was tapping her fingers on the kitchen counter. My grandmother doesn’t rattle easily, but it seemed to me that she was rattled.

  “Does it bother you that Jesse is here a lot?”

  “No. It’s just that . . .” She glanced out the kitchen window as if she were afraid of being overheard.

  “It’s just that what?” I was getting impatient.

  “I think he’s going to propose.”

  For a moment I felt the floor drop out from under me. I was almost afraid to ask what she knew that I didn’t. It’s not that I wouldn’t have been happy. I think I would have been happy about a proposal from Jesse. It’s just that we had never discussed anything even remotely like marriage.

  Finally I found the words. “Why do you think that?”

  “I shouldn’t spoil the surprise, but I don’t want you to get so caught up in what’s happened in the backyard that you lose sight of what’s important.” She paused. “A few days ago Carrie saw Oliver and Jesse coming out of Fisher’s jewelry store. She practically ran into them because she was on her way in to get an earring repaired. When she went inside Mr. Fisher was very happy. He told her he’d just sold a very expensive antique engagement ring.”

  I could barely keep myself from smiling. It had never occurred to her that Oliver had bought the ring. I hugged Eleanor.

  “You didn’t spoil the surprise.”

  “You knew?”

  “I guess I knew that wedding bells were on the way.”

  I could see that she was fighting back a tear. “A good marriage is a wonderful thing. He’s a lucky man.”

  “Yes, he is. I think proposing will be the smartest thing he ever does.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Don’t get bigheaded about it. You’re a lot of trouble. I hope he knows that. Now bring those sandwiches out to the officers. And tell Oliver to get inside. He’ll get heatstroke standing out there all day.”

  “You know he’s practically family, too.”

  “What are you saying?”

  Now that the door had been opened, I couldn’t resist. “You just said a good marriage is a wonderful thing.”

  “Oliver and I get married?”

  “Why not?”

  “That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

  “Why? You never thought about remarrying after Grandpa died?”

  “Marriage is for young people with their lives in front of them. Oliver and I . . . well, we’re not young anymore.”

  “So just because you don’t fit the fairy-tale image of a youthful bride, you wouldn’t want to get married? I’ve never known your age to hold you back from anything before.”

  “That’s not it,” she said, an annoyance in her voice that was hard to miss.

  “Then why?”

  She started to say something, then paused. After a long hesitation she said, “I have my reasons.”

  “You love him, don’t you?”

  She softened for a moment. “I suppose.”

  “And he loves you. I know he does. If he proposed to you, you would say yes.”

  “No, I wouldn’t,” she said. “Honestly, Nell, where do you come up with these things? Get the sandwiches out there before those poor officers die of starvation.”

  There was no sense pushing the point. I’d have to back off and think of another way to bring up the subject. So I did what she wanted for the moment. I took the plate of sandwiches and walked out onto the back porch where Oliver was standing guard. He seemed so nervous that I wanted to give him a hug. Instead I gave him a ham sandwich.

  “A bit of a hitch in our plan,” he said.

  I looked back through the window at Eleanor. “Something I never would have anticipated.”

  CHAPTER 5

  “At 9:30 the next morning, I walked to the driveway, where Jesse’s car was just pulling up. He jumped out, grabbed my arm, pulled me toward him, and kissed me before I’d even said hello.

  “Aren’t you afraid of what people will say?” I said when we came up for air.

  “I know exactly what they’ll say. They’ll say Jesse Dewalt must have missed that crazy Nell Fitzgerald so much that he doesn’t care he’s breaking town ordinances against lewd public behavior.”

  “Kissing isn’t lewd.”

  “The ordinance was put into effect in 1750 and it’s never been updated, so technically . . .”

  “And I’m not crazy Nell Fitzgerald.”

  “Really?” He was smiling, having fun. “I go out of town for one night and you get yourself in the middle of it again.”

  I made a face, which he ignored. Jesse seemed to think I took every opportunity to meddle in his police investigations, but this time the investigation had come to me.

  “Don’t you want to see the body?” I asked.

  He nodded. The fun was over for th
e moment. Jesse was by nature a pretty serious person. Though only thirty-one, he was a widower with a six-year-old daughter to raise. He was careful, far more than I, but Eleanor seemed to think I brought out a playfulness in him. If only, my grandmother was fond of saying, he could bring out a bit of cautiousness in me.

  “I guess we should see what we’ve got,” he said.

  We walked to the backyard, stopping at the spot that was supposed to be a beautiful rose garden.

  He moved the bricks and shovel to one side and peeled back the tarp, revealing the skeleton, still half covered in dirt. Jesse crouched down, examining the remains from head to toe.

  “Looks like he was hit with something on the back of the head.” He pointed to a crack in the skull toward the back.

  “Maybe that’s how he was killed.”

  “Maybe.” He moved lower, looking at the ribs, the arms. As I’d done the day before, he checked the pockets, coming up empty on three of them, but finding the same red plastic poker chip that I had found in the fourth pocket.

  “No wallet. No ID. Just this.” He held it up to me.

  “A gambler?”

  “He could have been.” But Jesse wasn’t interested in the chip anymore. His eyes had moved to the exposed shinbone on the skeleton’s right leg.

  “Anybody hurt themselves here yesterday? Maybe one of the men working on the garden.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Anybody move anything after it was covered?” he asked.

  “Meaning me?”

  He nodded slightly.

  “No, Jesse. I left the tarp exactly where your guys put it. And so did Eleanor. And so did Barney, for that matter.”

  “So it looks the same as it did when the guys covered it yesterday?”

  “Exactly the same. Why?”

  He pointed toward a reddish-brown spot on the skeleton’s leg.