Bodies & Buried Secrets: A Rosewood Place Mystery (Rosewood Place Mysteries Book 1)

by Ruby Blaylock

  20

  History, Mystery, and Stormy Weather

  Annie almost caved right there in front of Emmett. She wanted to tell him about her discovery, she really did. Her father’s voice filled her head, reminding her that innocent people didn’t keep information from the police. Her mother’s voice filled the lobby of the police station, offering up exclamations and theories about what exactly lay hidden on the old Rosewood Plantation. But Annie didn’t speak, at least not just then. She told herself that she would tell Emmett everything once she’d heard all he had to say, and once she’d spoken to Rory, too.

  “Now, my wife and I had a theory,” Emmett explained, confiding in Annie. “We believed that whatever money John Cooper came into was from a pirate ship. Of course, the Golden Age of piracy along the East coast ended in the mid-seventeen-hundreds, but there were still plenty of pirates down in the Caribbean, and many of them traded along the eastern seaboard. A lot of stolen gold and other items changed hands along the east coast in those days, let me tell you.

  Between the British forts scattered across the state and the pirates that picked their way across it, I’m more surprised that there aren’t more discoveries of loot around here. The British were infamous for confiscating loot from criminals and storing up at places like Fort Charlotte, but money went missing all the time in those days.” Emmett finished explaining his theory and waited for someone to question it, but no one did.

  “So John Cooper came into some money through dodgy means, and so he decided to hide it? That just doesn’t make sense to me.” While Annie was fine with playing along on this treasure hunt, she was beginning to think that everyone else had been truly infected with some sort of treasure-seeker’s fever. Grasping at straws, guessing at what might have happened, those things left her feeling unsteady, unsure. Annie wanted facts. She wanted to know what everyone was really looking for, and she wanted to know who was killing people in order to find it. Annie knew she wouldn’t be able to rest until she had concrete answers to her questions, and if that meant doing a little investigating of her own, so be it.

  “No, ma’am, I guess it doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Emmett replied, scratching his upper lip through the bristly white whiskers. “But there’s an awful lot about your place that doesn't’ make sense. Take for example the fact that nobody seems to keep it for long. Well, I mean, sure, there’ve been folks who had it for a few decades or so after it left the Coopers, but for the most part, it just gets passed on like a cold.

  And then there’s old Thomas Anderson. I knew the man personally, always thought he was a little odd, but a nice enough fella. How did he come into possession of whatever resources told him that there was buried treasure hidden at the place?”

  Annie wished she could have asked Thomas the same thing herself. Had he found the map inside her home? “Maybe he read the same history books you and your late wife did. Could he have found something in the local library, or talked to the historical society?” Annie was only guessing that Coopersville still had a historical society.

  “Oh, I’m sure he did talk to them, and we’ll be speaking with them, too, but there’s the matter of how he found that map with what looks like some sort of coordinates on it, that’s what I’m most interested in finding out. It seems to me that if we could only find the other half of that map, we might just be able to work out the rest of those coordinates, and maybe see if old John Cooper actually did hide anything valuable on your property.”

  Again Annie’s gut twisted. She had Thomas Anderson’s notebook and Rose Cooper’s diary in her possession, and Emmett didn’t have a clue. If he found out that she was keeping this evidence from him, she had no doubt he’d throw her in jail right next to Rory, and although sharing a cell with her former flame sounded romantic, it wasn’t exactly practical if she wanted to get the bed and breakfast up and running.

  “Emmett, I’m sure you’ll find whatever it is that Thomas was looking for, but for now, can I please take Rory home? I’ve got holes in my roof and the weatherman’s calling for rain, so unless you are one-hundred-percent positive that he killed Suzy Anderson, could you please let me have my handy-man back?”

  Emmett cocked his head to one side. “You sure are one determined lady, Annie Richards, I’ll give you that.” His gaze drifted over to Bessie, who had stopped looking indignant and was now smiling politely, fingering the fringe on her cardigan and casting her eyes upwards as if to ask the Lord above whatever could be done about her hard-headed daughter.

  “I’ll have Delbert bring him up. It won’t take long, but I’ve got some papers for you to sign. I trust you read the small print at the bail bondsman’s place.” Annie nodded. “Good. So you understand that you forfeit all collateral you put up if he doesn’t show up to court or if he skips town or whatnot.” Annie nodded again, a little more vigorously.

  “Well, then you tell him I said to be smart and lay low. I reckon you probably put that house of yours up for collateral, and I’d hate to see you lose it over any man, even Rory Jenkins.”

  Annie squared her shoulders but said nothing. Emmett picked up the phone on the wall beside the entrance to the office and called down to request that Delbert bring Rory up front. After he hung up, he pulled Annie aside.

  “Now, listen. I probably shouldn’t be telling you this--no, I definitely shouldn’t be telling you this, but I’m going to, and if you say anything about it I’m going to deny it, you hear?” Annie started to reply, but he cut her off. “Just listen. I don’t think that whoever killed Suzy is finished with your place. As a matter of fact, I am almost positive that Suzy’s murder and her uncle’s death are directly related. Thomas Anderson did not appear to have died from natural causes.” He paused to let this sink in. “If someone murdered him because of what he was searching for, and they were willing to wait eight years to try and get their hands on it, I doubt they’re going to stop at killing Suzy. Someone knows what Suzy knew, and that means they could be waiting for the chance to get into your house and take whatever she was looking for.”

  Annie shook her head. “I’ve looked in the house, up and down, Emmett. Apart from some dusty old furniture in the attic and a few cheap knickknacks, there’s nothing that I’ve found that’s worth anything.” Well, except for that gold coin, she added in her head, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from spilling the beans about that little discovery.

  “Still,” she sighed, “I promise I’ll be extra careful. I’ll lock my doors, and I’ll keep the lights on, so I can see them coming,” she joked.

  Just then, Delbert and Rory emerged from the door at the back of the room. Annie restrained herself from pulling away from her conversation with Emmett. Despite the fact that she was elated to see Rory free and unharmed, she kept her joy disguised neatly. Rory didn’t look too bothered to be regaining his freedom, so Annie knew that his brief stay in the Coopersville jailhouse had been a tolerable one.

  Bessie set to fussing over him almost immediately, and Annie simply thanked Emmett for his help, hoping to leave without further discussion of her family’s impending doom should they return to the farmhouse. The aging lawman took a clipboard from Delbert and showed Annie where to sign for Rory’s release, but he did so without saying more than a few words. Annie thought that she might just get away without further warnings, but Emmett had one more thing to say on the matter.

  “Annie, you make sure you lock your doors at night, and you call me if you so much as hear a strange dog barking near your place. If I’m right, whoever killed Suzy knows that they’re close to whatever’s hidden up at your place, and they won’t stop until they get it.”

  Annie nodded wordlessly, then grabbed her mother by the elbow and ushered her little gang out the front of the jailhouse, where the previously sunny skies were now covered over with dark grey clouds. A biting breeze nipped at them all as they headed down the pathway that led to the parking lot. Annie remained silent, but Bessie was chattering away enough for the both of them.

&
nbsp; “Oh, heavens! Let’s get on home before the skies open up on us! Rory, you and Devon can ride in the back and I’ll ride up front with Annie.” The elderly woman was surprisingly quick and she reached the car before anyone else. “Come on, Annie, if my hair gets wet it’s going to go all pouffy, and I can’t stand that!”

  Annie hustled to get the car unlocked and everyone inside. As she climbed into her own seat, Rory leaned forward and whispered into her ear. “Thank you, Annie.” His warm breath made her shiver, and she tried to shrug off his thanks.

  “Don’t mention it. I’m sure the Chief will have all this straightened out soon and we’ll be back in business.” She pushed a smile onto her face, though she really didn’t feel it.

  “What about Rory’s truck and camper?” Annie had almost forgotten that Devon was in the back seat, too. He’d hardly spoken since they’d arrived at the police station, and his question made Annie cringe. She’d forgotten all about the fact that the police had impounded Rory’s vehicle, along with his traveling home and every single one of his tools. Her stomach lurched as she realized that although she’d gotten Rory out of jail, she’d done him no favors since he was now homeless and unable to work.

  “Oh, crap,” she sighed, her head dropping back on her shoulders. “I totally forgot about that.” She hesitated only slightly, but Rory jumped and spoke before she could offer a solution.

  “Look, I can just go stay with my parents until this all blows over,” he offered. “I’m sure it won’t be long and the Chief will have finished his investigation, then I can get back to working for you.”

  “Oh, nonsense!” Bessie turned in her seat, straining against her seatbelt. “You are staying at the house with us. We have more than enough room, and I have Bob’s old tools you can use until you get your things back. We can’t stop working on the house just because somebody thinks you killed someone.”

  Bessie’s nonchalance about the whole situation made Annie want to laugh. Trust Bessie to find a way to make this situation work, even if it meant harboring a suspected killer and arming him with ancient hand tools just so he could keep making repairs on the old farmhouse.

  “Miss Purdy, I couldn’t impose on you like that.”

  “Rory, it’s no good arguing with her. No one ever wins an argument with my mother, ever. Just come with us and stay in one of the spare rooms until Emmett releases your stuff back to you. We’ll figure out the tools situation tomorrow. It looks like we’re in for a big storm, and I left all the windows open, so we really need to get back if we don’t want to spend ages mopping up water.”

  As if on cue, the air was filled with light, followed by the most thunderous cracking sound that Annie had ever heard. An instant later, the skies opened up, and the car was pounded mercilessly by rain. Annie drove as quickly as she dared, which wasn’t a shade above forty miles per hour. They passed through a brief shower of hail, and the rain seemed to worsen the closer they got to the house. Annie cursed under her breath, while her mother gave a running commentary on every flooded field or bit of debris that had been blown onto or near their course.

  “Would you look over there! The sign for the laundromat has blown right down the street to the grocery store parking lot!” Bessie put a cold hand on Annie’s arm. “You be careful driving, Annie. We could be in for a twister!”

  As if she needed one more thing to worry about, Annie added the fact that a tornado could be on the verge of sweeping them all up to her list of things to concern herself with. The wind was making a terrible time of things, shaking the car more than she liked and sending the rain in every direction at once.

  Cutting through her mother’s ominous monologue, Annie’s cell phone chirped a happy tune on the seat between them. Bessie jumped, as though afraid the phone might give her a shock or sweep her away out the window of the car. “Oh, who could be calling you in the middle of a storm like this?”

  Annie glanced at the number on the screen, ignoring the ringing and trying to keep her eyes on the treacherous road at the same time. “I have no idea who it is, but if it’s important, they can leave a message.”

  Lightning illuminated the horizon, creating a beautifully ominous snapshot of the rural area in which Annie now lived. It was breathtaking, but Annie just hoped that the storm would pass soon, and hopefully without knocking out their electricity at the old farmhouse.

  Slowly, much more slowly than they’d proceeded to the police station, Annie drove her little party home to Rosewood.

  The trees that lined her driveway were bending and twisting in the strong, sudden winds and a small river of mud ran down the hill beside the gravel driveway, washing leaves, sticks, and who-knows-what-else down the land in cascading rivulets. Twice the car’s tires spun on the slippery gravel, and Annie realized that she’d been pressing the accelerator too hard, trying to force the car to carry them home more quickly.

  She eased off the gas and the car pulled its way through the storm, carrying them safely to the front of the house. The rain was coming down in hard, angry pellets now, and Annie could see nothing through the windows of the car once the wipers had been switched off.

  “Maybe we should sit here for a minute until the rain lets up,” Rory suggested.

  “Nonsense,” Bessie chided. “You’re not made of sugar, and you won’t melt. Just get to the porch and you’ll be alright, There’s a roof on it, at least.”

  “I’ll go first,” Annie declared, “and unlock the door. You all follow me and we’ll try to get in without getting washed away,” she added, meaning it as a joke, but nobody laughed. After a count of three in her head, she pushed open the car door and leapt into the rain, slamming the door behind her.

  The cold rain took her breath, and for half a second she stood there, frozen in place. Common sense kicked in, and she bolted up the steps and onto the front porch where, as Bessie had reminded her, there was, indeed, a roof to stop the downpour. Once on the porch, Annie paused, wiping the water from her eyes and shaking off the drops of rain from her arms and legs. She located the front door key in the bundle of keys that she now carried, and raised her arm to find the keyhole. She stopped short of touching the door.

  It stood open, just a few inches, but it was definitely open. Annie took a step backwards and nearly fell down the slippery stairs of the front porch. She fell into Rory, who had climbed out of the car moments after she had.

  “What’s wrong? Why aren’t you going in there?” He looked at Annie, then followed her gaze to the gently swinging door.

  “Because that was locked when I left it,” she said plainly. “And now, it’s not.”

  21

  A Fine Mess

  Rory wouldn’t let Annie inside the house until he’d stepped inside first and made sure that it was empty. A very quick run through the empty house told him that it was, so he returned to bring Annie inside.

  “Are you sure it was locked? Could it have come open in the storm?” Rory seemed to want to believe that there was nothing more sinister than the weather to blame for the open door, and Annie did, too, but she couldn’t. Unless she was losing her mind, that door had been firmly closed and locked when she left. As the storm raged outside, Annie pushed her worries to one side. She suspected that she had a mess to clean up and her mother and Devon were still sitting not-too-patiently in the car.

  The floor of the parlour was dry, except for the trail of water that Annie and Rory tracked in. Annie surmised that this was because the porch was covered; it likely kept the rain out, at least in that part of the house. The rest of the house hadn’t been quite so lucky. The kitchen floor held a goodly-sized puddle from the open window above the sink, and the sitting room had a little moisture on the floor by each window, though this was the least of the damage done by the still-raging springtime storm.

  The wind had invaded every open window, blowing over boxes and scattering papers across the shabby, unwaxed wooden floors. A box of books lay tilted on its side, its contents spilling out across the floor
of the sitting room. As Annie rushed to close the windows, she nearly tripped over the small side table beneath it. Some thought tickled her mind, begging for her attention while she darted around the house, struggling to close the slippery windows in the old farmhouse.

  Rory managed to locate Bessie’s large umbrella and liberate it from a pile of unpacked things still sitting in the parlour. He braved the elements once again to bring the rest of Annie’s family inside, and she began the task of mopping up the water that had accumulated downstairs. She only hoped that the upstairs wasn’t badly soaked, especially those rooms with leaks in the roof. She wanted to kick herself for leaving the windows open, but it had been so hot in the house without the air conditioning, and it would only get hotter as spring yielded to summer. She sighed and realized that she would have to spend a great deal of money having proper air conditioning installed in the old house since the previous owners obviously hadn’t been bothered enough to do so.

  After what felt like hours, but was really only more like ten minutes, Annie’s entire family, plus Rory, was safe inside the farmhouse.

  “Oh, my heavens!” Bessie’s exclamation was loud and dramatic. “Our sitting room! Annie, did the wind do this?”

  Annie looked around at the spilled boxes and a lonely, broken lamp that lay in pieces on the floor. “I guess it must have,” she replied, rubbing her temples. “Devon, why don’t you run upstairs and check on the cat. Let me know if there’s any water up there anywhere.” He didn’t say anything but did as she asked. “Rory, would you mind grabbing the broom and dustpan for me? I think I left them by the back door in the kitchen.”

  Annie began picking up books and re-boxing them. Then she did the same with the scattered papers that had blown around the room. Most of them, she noted with some annoyance, were simply pieces of junk mail her mother hadn’t bothered to throw out before she’d packed. Rory returned after a few moments with the broom and dustpan. He had a troubled look on his face but shrugged it off when she asked if anything was wrong.