A Rumor of Bones: A Lindsay Chamberlain Mystery

by Beverly Connor

  "Augustine and Isabel Beaufort's father owned a dry goods store where the hardware store is now. If you look close to the top, you can still see the name Beaufort in large, faded letters. Their father, Rudolph Beaufort, was a strict man, but it didn't seem to do them any good. Both of them were wild and willful. Augustine and Isabel fought like cats and dogs. Teachers never put them in the same classroom if they could help it. Augustine was the nicer of the two, but that wasn't saying a whole lot. They were rich children, and every other child's father in school owed their dad money. They enjoyed their position in the community.

  "Edward Tyler, Sr., was the only man in town richer than Rudolph Beaufort. He owned both the sawmill and the bank. His son, Edward, Jr., would have been the most eligible bachelor in town if he hadn't been such a scoundrel. He was always trying to get us girls alone and touch us. We always had to travel in twos and threes if he were anywhere around. But, I'll say one thing," she said, and nodded for emphasis, "he brought David and me together. Edward caught me out by myself, and he had ahold of me with those roving hands of his. That boy had the ugliest hands I have ever seen. Too big, I always thought. Anyway, he had just taken ahold of my arms and pushed me down when David came up behind him and knocked him down. Edward scrambled up and ran. He was a coward when it came to other men, even ones smaller than himself."

  Elaine Darby took another drink, then smiled at the memory. "I remember David held out his hand, gallant as a knight. I took it, and he pulled me up" Then she frowned. "The thing that none of us could understand was that Augustine seemed to really love Edward, and he loved her. She was a pretty girl and could have just about anybody, for a while anyway, until her personality caught up with her." She shook her head. "We all guessed that the rich only liked the rich, no matter what kind of ugly rascals they were."

  "You never told me these stories, Grandma," Marsha said.

  Mrs. Darby shrugged and patted her granddaughter's hand. "It was a long time ago."

  "The problem was," she continued, "Isabel liked Edward, too. But Isabel was such a hateful girl. Even a scoundrel like Edward did not like to be around her for very long. I remember overhearing an argument between Augustine and Edward that afternoon. The Tylers had us town folk over to Tylerwynd for the annual Fourth-of-July picnic, same as the one we had today. David and I were out by the stables when we heard Augustine's voice, and she was so angry. I can't remember after all this time exactly what she said, but at first I thought it was Isabel because it was so hateful. I do remember her saying something like, `It may turn out to be a grand joke on Isabel herself.' She came charging out, Edward following meekly behind. David and I stood back in the bushes. That was the last time I ever saw Augustine."

  "No one had any idea what happened to her?" Derrick asked.

  "Oh, there were lots of ideas and rumors. There were just no real clues. No one saw any suspicious strangers or anything else. One theory was that Augustine fought with her father and ran away. They were always fighting, and Augustine was always threatening to go up north where there were more things to do. Another was that she got pregnant by some fellow passing through and ran off with him. I always wished it were that one, mainly because I didn't like to think she was dead, and I liked the idea of her jilting Edward. But it would not be like her to just leave her inheritance. One story went that Augustine got pregnant by Edward and he killed her. But he was crazy about her. Some said she was kidnapped and sold as a white slave. That one was popular with a lot of folk."

  "What did you think?" asked the sheriff.

  Elaine Darby shook her head. "I don't know. At the time, I thought she had just run off to worry everybody, but now ... I guess somebody killed her, didn't they? Isabel got everything she wanted after Augustine disappeared."

  Marsha's grandmother shook her head again. "Isabel and Edward became engaged that next winter. After they married, Isabel started going to church. The family always went to church, but now Isabel took an active role. She became much more like her father-stern"

  "I can remember always being scared of her when I had her for Sunday School," Marsha said.

  "I sure remember her chasing me off her property once with that cane of hers," the sheriff said, grinning. "Me and a couple of buddies were in her strawberry patch. She caught old Billy and walloped him good with that cane. We pulled him away and got out of there fast"

  "That's just the way her father was about the strawberry patch. Rudolph Beaufort refused to talk about Augustine. It was as if she never existed. He thought with all the stories going around, she had shamed the family. David and I got married that next year and moved away for about six years. A lot of people moved away from Merry Claymoore looking for work. When we moved back, no one ever mentioned Augustine. A lot of people didn't even know Isabel had a sister. I thought that was real sad." Mrs. Darby hesitated a moment. "Would you think it terrible of me if I asked to see her bones?"

  "Of course not," said Lindsay. She rose and they went to the laboratory tent. Marsha, Mrs. Darby, and the sheriff walked in as if they were about to view a body. Lindsay retrieved the box containing Burial 23 and set out the bones on the table.

  "Augustine, I'm sorry none of us knew what happened to you," whispered Mrs. Darby when Augustine's bones were laid out. "I know you loved living"

  "Are you all right, Grandma?" Marsha asked.

  "Yes, I'm fine, dear. It's just poor Augustine ... All this time she was right here, and her father was too concerned about the family name to even look for her. That's all I know, sheriff."

  "We'd better go back home, anyway," Marsha said.

  "Frankly," said the sheriff when Marsha and Frank had gone to take Mrs. Darby back to her retirement home, "I'm going to have to figure out how to proceed on this thing. I don't know how Isabel is going to take it that her sister has been found after all these years."

  "Who do you think killed her?" Derrick asked.

  The sheriff shook his head.

  "Isabel was certainly disturbed when I discovered that she even had a twin sister," said Lindsay. "It seems to me she would be the prime suspect"

  "I'll have to see if I can find any old records on the case," the sheriff said. "I don't think I can accuse Isabel of murder based on her reaction to your statement. The woman is well-known for her strange reactions to people."

  "It is not remarkable for one twin to have schizophrenia and the other one not," Lindsay said. "I suspect that is where the scenario of the so-called evil twin comes from"

  "Are you saying Isabel is schizophrenic?" The sheriff was skeptical.

  "No. I'm not an expert by any means, but people can lead relatively normal lives and have mild cases of it." Lindsay threw up her hands. "I don't know. I'm obviously reaching because of Isabel's dramatic reaction to my mention of her twin. I do believe this, however: The Tylers are a dysfunctional family, and Isabel is a sadistic old woman. After talking to Rachel, I suspect the daughters were molested by their father. One grandchild has committed suicide, another is in an institution, and others can't seem to choose a direction for their lives. Oddly enough, despite my suspicions of Mickey Lawson, he seems the most normal."

  Sheriff Duggan said nothing. Derrick, too, was silent throughout her dissertation. Lindsay began to feel unsure. "I just find it more than a coincidence that so much seems to lead back to that family-Isabel's sister, Augustine, and her grandniece, Peggy Pruitt, both murdered. Two murders in the same family? What are the odds?"

  "You're right. All roads seem to lead to the Tylers these days," the sheriff agreed while nodding his head. "But there is absolutely no real evidence that links them to anything. I'll question Isabel about her sister, but I'm sure not looking forward to that. Maybe some folks are still around who remember Augustine Beaufort's disappearance. Elaine Darby can't be the only one." The sheriff set down his drink bottle and stood up. "Don't get your hopes up that I'll find who killed Augustine Beaufort. After all this time, unless someone confesses to doing it or witnessing it, it's proba
bly a dead end."

  Lindsay and Derrick stood, too. "What about Mickey Lawson?" she asked. "I suppose that is a dead end, too?"

  "I've been looking into his background. So far, I've not found any complaints of child molestation or anything like it lodged against him. There is usually a history of this kind of thing starting from a very early age, and it escalates. It's hard to believe that if he is guilty the molestation and murder just started as an adult. So far, I haven't come up with anything against him."

  Derrick had a smug smile on his face. "This may help. I've been waiting to tell you and Lindsay some news that should make your job easier." He held out a plastic bag containing the rusted pan lock. "I did a bit of snooping around the Tylers' outbuildings. If you get a warrant for the one farthest from the house next to the pond, I believe you will find the tripod that this fits"

  The sheriff stared at him for several moments before taking the bag from Derrick's hand. "It is one of them, then," he said quietly. "Probably Mickey." Then he looked up at Derrick. "This is the first direct evidence we have found. I'll get a search warrant."

  "Do the Tylers have a lot of power in the community?" Derrick asked. "Maybe they paid people off."

  "They used to. They still do with some of the oldtimers. To tell you the truth, many of the younger people in Merry Claymoore find the Tylers a little too odd to take seriously. It helps that their financial holdings are not what they once were. They don't own the banks anymore, and the sawmill has a lot of competitors in the area. Most of their holdings now are in land, and I think stocks."

  "I wonder," said Derrick, "if Isabel could be behind Seymour Plackert's accusations and murder. We thought it had something to do with the power company but couldn't think of any motive for them. Plackert was Isabel's lawyer, too, and it was her sister buried on the site."

  "There's a lot to look into. And I'm still not satisfied that Ned doesn't have something to do with this thing. I'll tell you what I've been thinking," the sheriff said, "and I'm telling you this because since I've been working with you, I believe you really want to find the child killer and won't let friendship interfere."

  "Of course," Lindsay agreed.

  "I've been toying with the idea that there are two killers." Derrick and Lindsay looked at each other. "One taking photographs and another molesting and killing the children."

  "We've had a similar idea," Derrick said.

  "I think Mickey may be the photographer, and Ned may be the killer," the sheriff said, "and that is why Isabel sprung Ned-to avoid a scandal in her family."

  Lindsay had to agree that it made sense. She hated it, but it made sense.

  Lindsay and Derrick watched the sheriff drive off toward town. Some of the crew members were gradually coming back to the site. They could see the Fourthof-July celebration was still going strong over at the scout encampment. Soon the fireworks would start.

  Maybe this will be the end of it, Lindsay thought, but she doubted it would be the case.

  Bones make good witnesses, they never lie and they never forget.

  -Clyde Snow

  Chapter 11

  FRANK BROUGHT THE newspaper when he came to the site the next morning. Though Lindsay had expected that Mickey Lawson would be arrested for the murder of his niece, Peggy Pruitt, it still came as a surprise. Isabel Tyler took to her bed, and the town was divided on the issue. For the most part, the evidence was circumstantial, except that it had been established that Mickey had been the last person to see his niece before she disappeared. Her mother had picked her up from school and had taken her home, leaving her in the backyard to play. It was thought that Peggy had disappeared from there.

  Upon closer inquiries from the sheriff, however, it was discovered that the druggist had seen Mickey buy her an ice cream cone thirty minutes after her mother had last seen her. The druggist remembered the time because his watch had chimed for his 3:30 pill. In addition to the eyewitness evidence, it turned out that Mickey owned the tripod found at the Tyler estate, the tripod that exactly fit the broken pan lock.

  Mickey vehemently denied killing his niece or any of the other children. He did admit to taking Peggy for ice cream, but witnesses and family members reported that it had been a common practice. He was close to his cousin Sarah, and he often looked after Peggy for short periods of time.

  "Why didn't you tell her mother that you took her?" the sheriff had asked.

  "We often did that," Mickey had said. "She wasn't supposed to have ice cream so close to supper. It was just a thing we did."

  When the dominoes started falling against Mickey, they fell quickly, thought Lindsay.

  "Will you show me how to identify animal bones?" Sally asked later in the day as she helped Lindsay and Thomas take bones out of a large trash pit near the palisade. "I think I'd like to become a zooarchae- ologist °"

  "Sure. First you divide them into mammal, reptile, fish, bird, amphibian, and unidentified bones"

  "That's easy," Thomas said. "It's all unidentified bones to me."

  Lindsay smiled. "It's really pretty easy once you develop an eye for it. Bird bone is lighter and has thinner walls." Lindsay looked around in the pile of bones. "This is the humerus of a wild turkey. All humeri tend to look alike. So once you've learned what the upper arm looks like, you can identify it immediately, no matter what animal it comes from."

  She handed the bone to Sally. "Feel how light it is and look down the middle of the shaft where it's broken. See how much smoother on the inside it is than, say, this deer bone?" Lindsay gave Sally a section of deer bone for comparison.

  "Okay," said Sally. "Bird bone is light, smoother, and mostly hollow, and mammal bone has thicker walls and is heavier."

  "Right. Some species of animals have specific bones that are easily recognizable. Take this for instance." She handed Sally a bone with a very prominent thin ridge running its length. "This is a breast bone, a sternum. Whereas human sternums look like an atlatl ..." Sally laughed, and Thomas rolled his eyes "... bird breast bones have this keel."

  "What about reptile bones?" Sally asked.

  "They are thick and heavy. I don't see any here, but once you see them, they are easy to recognize." Lindsay looked up to see the sheriff's car pulling into the parking lot. "Oh, dear," she whispered.

  Thomas and Sally looked up from the bones. "What now?" Thomas exclaimed.

  Sheriff Duggan and two deputies got out of the car and came walking toward the site, as if on a mission. Lindsay automatically looked to see if Ned was in Section 3. He was, and for a moment Lindsay thought he was going to drop his trowel and run. She could see his body tense, but he stood there watching the lawmen come to get him. The sheriff cuffed him, read him his rights, and led him off the site. They could hear the protest in Ned's voice but could not hear his words.

  Frank came over to Lindsay. "I guess I had better follow in my car. Do you want to go with me?"

  "Yes." She left Thomas and Sally to gather up the bones.

  Frank and Lindsay sat in the sheriff's office in front of his desk. Sheriff Duggan sat looking grim, his hands clasped in front of him on top of his desk.

  "Why did you re-arrest Ned?" Frank asked.

  "I think Isabel Tyler gave him an alibi to protect Mickey. We can't find anyone to corroborate Mrs. Tyler's story that Ned was on her property that day or any other day. We are building a good case for Mickey murdering Peggy Pruitt. We believe we have a good case for Ned trying to kidnap Jenna Venable. If I can get them to tell on each other, I'll have them both for all the murders"

  "I hate to hear that about Ned," said Frank.

  "I know," the sheriff agreed. "I've known Mickey for a long time, too."

  "Can I talk to Ned?" Lindsay asked.

  "I don't know what you can accomplish," the sheriff answered.

  "Perhaps nothing," Lindsay said, "but I won't do any harm."

  The sheriff nodded and stood up. "I'll take you down there."

  For the second time, Lindsay walked into t
he cell block. Nothing had changed. It still smelled and looked the same. She passed by Mickey's cell. He called out to them, and they stopped.

  "You've got the wrong guy, sheriff. I didn't do this. Sarah's my cousin, for God's sake. I hardly know Ned. We went to school together when he was in Merry Claymoore, but we weren't friends. Hell, I wouldn't go on a life of crime with him. This is crazy. Dammit, Greg, let me out of here!"

  "I know," the sheriff replied. "Everybody I lock up is innocent."

  They came to Ned's cell. He was stretched out on his bed but sat up when the sheriff let Lindsay in. This time she didn't sit down but stood in front of him. Ned didn't rise. He looked as if he hadn't the energy.

  "You came to see me again?" he asked. "I guess you think I did it."

  "Actually, I don't," Lindsay replied, "though the sheriff is convinced you did. Jenna did identify you. That's pretty strong evidence."

  "I know. I can't explain that. Why did you come by?"

  "I want to ask you two things, and I want you to answer me with the truth"

  "What?"

  "Why did Isabel Tyler give you an alibi?"

  "I guess I can tell you now. Last time I was here and you came, it got me to thinking about the past and staying with my grandparents. I remembered Grandma telling me about Isabel Tyler and her sister Augustine, how Isabel hated Augustine and how Augustine disappeared, how there were lots of rumors about what happened to her. It just dawned on me. That Burial 23. It could be her." He shrugged. "It was worth a chance, and I was right. Old lady Tyler came down here and gave me an alibi."

  It has the ring of truth, Lindsay thought. "Okay. Why did you undermine Frank? Why did you think they were going to flood the site ahead of schedule?"

  Ned took a deep breath. "Seymour Plackert told me that was their plan, and I thought he knew. He told me he would help me be in charge of the dig."

  Lindsay was not surprised. She had thought it was something like that. "He was lying to you," she said.