A Whisper of Bones

by Ellen Hart

  “Has that happened here, too? The thing with the window?”

  “No. But there’s other stuff. I don’t like to talk about it. It scares me.” She pulled her coat more closely around her shoulders.

  “But how did the kids in the neighborhood find out?”

  She held up a gnarled finger. “My fault. See, someone wrote an opinion piece in the Saint Paul paper about one of those TV shows that investigates ghosts. The guy called it bullshit. I wrote one in response, calling the guy’s opinion piece bullshit, and believe it or not, it got published. A few weeks later, a man knocked on our door, wanting to talk to me. He was writing a book about hauntings in Minnesota. I told him about my experiences. Signed something that gave him permission to use it in his book, but then I thought better of it and asked him to exclude my comments about our house. I assumed he would. But when the book came out, there it was. People in the neighborhood began talking. Eleanor freaked. And now, we’ve become ‘the official’ haunted house.”

  “Have you ever actually seen a ghost?”

  She hesitated. “Maybe.”

  “Do you think all houses have ghosts?”

  “I don’t know. But this one does. Another reason to drink.” She held up her cup.

  Butch hadn’t even tasted his. He had work to do tonight and couldn’t afford to get juiced. Hearing the front door open, he glanced up to find Frank standing, or perhaps more accurately, looming in the doorway.

  “I heard voices,” said Frank, opening the door and stepping outside.

  “Go away,” said Lena. “This is a private conversation.”

  “Are you two drinking? I smell alcohol.”

  “It’s Butch. He’s a real boozer. Show him your cup.”

  Butch held it up, at the same time noticing that Lena had hidden hers, as well as the flask, in the folds of her coat.

  “Now, run along, Frankie.” She flicked her hand at him dismissively.

  “You should come inside. It’s too cold to sit out here.”

  “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”

  He glared at her for several seconds, then turned and went back inside.

  Lena waited until the door was closed before saying, “He’s Eleanor’s spy.”

  “You’re kind of hard on him.”

  She shrugged. “Let me give you a piece of advice. The world consists of two categories of people: your friends and your enemies. It’s your life’s work to place everyone into their proper slot.” She held up the flask. “More?”

  “I think Frank’s right. I’m cold. Maybe it’s time we both turned in.”

  She blew smoke into the air. “Drink more. You’ll warm up.”

  “No, really. It’s late.”

  “Okay. You run along. I’m a tough old biddy. I’ll stay out a while longer.”

  He lifted up the grocery bag of empty bottles. As he rose from the rickety metal chair, she touched his arm.

  “Tell me one thing before you go. Is Butch your real name?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Butch. Is it a nickname?”

  “I don’t like my given name.”

  “Which is?”

  He cleared his throat. “Eugene.”

  “Ah. Got it.” She nodded. “Hey, before you go, as I think about it, maybe you should paint over that graffiti on the side of our house. No use advertising our sins.”

  “Your … sins?”

  “Ghosts hang around for a reason, not just because they like the cut of your jib.”

  He had no idea how to respond. “I’ll look for some stucco paint tomorrow.”

  “Super duper.” When he’d reached the sidewalk in front of the porch, she added, “Night night. Eugene.”

  5

  “You’re humming. For a second there, I thought you might break into a boisterous whistle.” Cordelia stood framed in Jane’s office doorway, hand on her generously endowed hip.

  Looking up from her laptop, Jane said, “I never whistle.”

  “I know. So why do I feel one about to burst forth from your lips?”

  Jane shut her laptop and leaned back in her chair. Eleven in the morning was the break of dawn for Cordelia. “What brings you here so early? I doubt it’s to check on my general happiness.”

  “Are you happy?”

  Jane thought about it. “Yes, I think I am.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  “Stop fishing. If you have a question, ask it directly.”

  Cordelia entered and draped herself over the couch. She sighed, casting an eye at Jane to make sure she was watching, then sighed even more loudly.

  “You’re not happy, I take it.”

  “No.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  “The usual.”

  “My advice is, don’t watch the news before you go to bed.”

  “Hard to turn away from a political train wreck.”

  Jane and Cordelia had spent entire days mulling over the current state of politics. Cordelia was angry and wanted to join every march, picket every representative, and generally analyze every twist and turn. Jane’s reaction was to read, to plow through books, blogs, and magazine articles to help her make sense of the country and the times in which she was living.

  “So you came here to sleep on my couch?” asked Jane.

  “Do I look like I’m sleeping?”

  “Are you hungry?”

  Her face brightened.

  They settled themselves in the upstairs dining room, at a table near one of the windows overlooking Lake Harriet. Cordelia seemed intrigued by the new winter menu. “This looks so different. Where did all the adjectives and verbs go, all the sourcing info and culinary poetics?”

  “I wanted to try something simpler, more direct. As for sourcing, I would hope our customers could trust by now that we’re finding the best possible food and serving it with creativity and elegance.”

  Cordelia took longer than usual to decide what to order. She finally settled on a short rib potpie with a side of honey and ginger roasted sweet potatoes.

  Jane had seen the morning fish order arrive, so she ordered the pan-seared scallops with roasted turnips and rainbow carrots. She liked her scallops with nothing but a squeeze of lemon as a garnish. The vegetables were finished with cream, bacon, and freshly grated parmesan.

  “Are you happy now?” asked Jane.

  “I’m getting there. Hard to be cynical about food.”

  Jane made a habit of eating in the dining room at least once a week. She felt it was important to get a customer’s-eye view of the experience, though she knew her cooks and waitstaff took extra care when she was the one at the table.

  “Hey,” said Cordelia, squinting and then jerking her head away.

  Jane turned to look.

  “No, no. She’ll see us.”

  “She who?”

  “Sylvia Moon. You know—Moon & Burroughs Creative? You met her once at one of my parties. She’s been around forever. Must be in her eighties if she’s a day. Did I mention I loathe her?”

  “Who’s that with her?”

  Cordelia tapped a finger against her chin.

  Jane wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard the word “enchanting” escape Cordelia’s lips. Turning, she motioned for the server. At the same time, she took a better look at the two women engaged in an intense conversation at a table near the hearth. “Enchanting” was hardly the word Jane would have used to describe the younger of the two. The woman had wildly curly red hair and looked as if she’d just escaped a violent windstorm. She was heavy-set and middle-aged, with weathered skin and heavy eye makeup.

  When the server arrived, Jane asked for a glass of the house Chablis.

  “Wonder who she is?” mused Cordelia. “Probably not a model.”

  “Probably not,” agreed Jane. She glanced up in time to see her upcoming appointment walk through the double doors into the dining room, more than an hour early.

  “So sorry,” said a serious-looking Britt, a leather
computer case slung over one shoulder. “I know we said twelve thirty.”

  Cordelia drew her eyes away from Sylvia Moon’s companion long enough to look up. “Hey, don’t I know you?”

  Britt blinked. “You’re the woman I met at that party the other night. The one who gave me Jane’s card.”

  “Small world,” said Jane.

  “Look, I know I’m early,” continued Britt. “I’ve got plenty of work to do, so I can meet you in the pub whenever you’re done.”

  “No, no, no,” said Cordelia. “I won’t have it. Anything you have to say to Jane, you can say to me. We’re partners in crime, you know. Have been for years.”

  Britt seemed puzzled. “Okay, but … I thought you were a theater director.”

  “I contain multitudes, to quote my old buddy Walt Whitman. Anyway, when it comes to detection, Jane’s the brawn. I’m the brains.” Removing the rhinestone-encrusted reading glasses perched low on her nose, she added, “You know, Janey, we should put that on those cards of yours. Truth in advertising.”

  “You mean ‘caveat emptor’?” asked Jane.

  “Exactly. No, wait. What?”

  Clearing her throat, Jane invited Britt to order lunch. She motioned for one of the servers to bring a menu.

  “Everything is good here,” said Cordelia, flapping her napkin in front of her and then tucking it into the neck of her sweater.

  When the server brought Jane’s wine, Britt ordered a cup of coffee. “This is all I need, really. After what happened last night, I’m too keyed up to eat.”

  “Never happens to me,” Cordelia whispered into her glass of iced tea.

  Jane quickly brought Cordelia up to speed on the case. She was right about one thing: Jane did lean on her when she needed a sounding board, though at times Cordelia’s snap judgments, otherwise known as her infallible intuition, sent Jane careening in exactly the wrong direction.

  “So what happened last night?” asked Cordelia as her lunch was set in front of her.

  Britt played with her napkin. “It was a strange evening all around. Sometimes I felt like I was in the middle of a family fight, while other times it was like being inside a Scandinavian art film. Anyway, after dinner, I had a few minutes to myself, so I wandered back into the living room. When I looked up the stairway I had this sudden memory. I recalled being upstairs in one of the bedrooms. I must have been asleep when Timmy came into the room because all I remember is his face looming over me. It was early morning. He started bouncing on the mattress and grabbed my hand. I can still hear his voice telling me to get up, to come with him. I followed him down the stairs. He put a finger to his lips, said, ‘Everyone’s asleep. We gotta be quiet.’ He opened the pocket door into his grandfather’s study.”

  “He was your grandfather, too, right?” said Cordelia between bites.

  “Yeah, but I never met him, so he might as well have been a ghost. Anyway, Timmy ran in and said something like, ‘Cool place, huh?’ There were several big, overstuffed chairs, one large potted plant, books and magazines on a bookshelf, and then a rolltop desk toward the back of the room.”

  Jane sipped her coffee, marveling at the vividness of Britt’s recall.

  “Timmy hopped up onto this leather swivel chair by the desk. ‘Come on, let’s draw,’ he said. He found a couple of pads of paper in one of the desk slots. He gave me one, along with a pen. And then he climbed down and said something like ‘You draw and I will, too. And then we’ll play hide-and-seek like we did yesterday. Except this time, we’ll hide our drawings.’ We hunkered down on the rug to create our masterpieces. We hadn’t been at it for more than a few minutes when we heard the stairs creak. Timmy tore his picture from the pad and then grabbed mine. He put the pads back, and we each hopped up on a chair. We were sitting there, more or less twiddling our thumbs, trying to look innocent, when Eleanor came in. She told us that we needed to go upstairs and get dressed in our good clothes because we were all going to church. I would imagine it was the day of the funeral.”

  “Interesting,” said Cordelia, tapping a napkin against her mouth. “But a memory isn’t exactly proof of Timmy’s existence.”

  “Just wait. The study is now a TV room. As I stood there, I remembered that Timmy had slipped the pictures we’d drawn into a crack between the wall and the baseboard, sort of close to the desk, which was where the TV is now. I eased myself behind it and ran my hand along the baseboard. When I didn’t find anything, I found a paperclip in my pocket, straightened it and pushed it down into a couple of the more visible cracks. I didn’t really think the drawings would still be there, but on the third try I hit pay dirt.” She removed two folded pieces of paper from the pocket of her cardigan. “Here,” she said.

  Both pages had grown yellowed and fragile with age. When Jane unfolded the first one, she found a child’s drawing of a boat with waves, a flock of birds—elongated Vs—the sun in the sky, and a name scrawled in big, loopy letters at the bottom. “Timmy,” she said, looking up.

  “Let me see that,” said Cordelia, reaching across the table.

  “I’m not crazy,” said Britt. “Timmy was real. He was there and so was I. Eleanor and Lena are lying about him and I need to know why.”

  It wasn’t the kind of proof that would hold up in a court of law, though for Jane, it was more than enough.

  “Can you help me? Can you find out what happened to him?”

  “Of course we can,” said Cordelia, studying the drawings. “No problem.”

  “I can’t promise anything,” said Jane. “But if you hire me, I’ll do my best.”

  “Have you ever had a case like this before?” asked Britt.

  “I’ve found missing people, but we knew they existed. And they’d left tracks. We have no idea what happened to Timmy.”

  “Those aunts of yours,” said Cordelia, handing the drawings back. “We’ll put the screws to them. Find out what’s what.”

  Britt toyed with her coffee cup. Looking down, she said, “I got the impression that they don’t want to see me again. They were happy to have me over for dinner last night, but when Eleanor said goodbye, she wished me well, like she didn’t expect to ever see me again. Lena was even less friendly. Even if I wanted to go back to the house, I doubt they’d talk to me. You’re my last hope to make sense of this.”

  “Look,” said Jane, seeing the hurt in Britt’s eyes, “you have to accept that, if I can find the answers you’re looking for, it might not be a positive outcome.”

  “You mean that Timmy’s dead.”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Anything’s possible,” offered Cordelia, sneaking another look at the women across the room. “Maybe your aunts did away with him.” Seeing Britt’s reaction, she added, “Or maybe not.”

  “I want to hire you,” said Britt. “Do I have to sign something? I can write you a check right now, as a retainer. Or whatever you call it.”

  Jane spent a few minutes discussing her process and her cost. She hadn’t touched her lunch and looked down longingly at the scallops as she began to jot down some notes, enough to get her started. “I’ll prep the papers and you can sign them the next time we meet. For now, the check will be enough.”

  Britt took out her checkbook. When she was done making the check out, she left it on the table, shook Jane’s hand, and then smiling, shook Cordelia’s. “Keep me posted.”

  “Will do,” said Cordelia. “And just an FYI, we know how to apply the third degree.”

  Britt cocked her head. “People don’t use the third degree anymore, do they?”

  Cordelia smiled. “Not since the FBI developed all those wonderfully inventive junk science methods of crime scene investigation, like bite mark analysis, handwriting analysis, hair analysis. Just an FYI. We don’t do much forensic evaluation. But never fear, we know how to do our jobs.”

  After Britt left, Jane picked up her fork and took a taste of her lunch.

  “She’s a real trip.”

  “We all are.”r />
  Cordelia stiffened. “They’re coming over to our table.”

  “Who’s coming?”

  “Sylvia,” said Cordelia brightly, standing and taking both of the old woman’s hands in hers. “So wonderful to see you.”

  “Likewise, darling. This is all so fortuitous. I have someone I want Jane to meet.” Waving a hand at the windblown woman next to her, she said, “This is Berengaria Reynolds. You may know the name. The Berengaria winery in Sonoma?”

  Jane rose from her chair. “Of course. Russian River, right?”

  “I’m flattered,” said Berengaria.

  “Every sommelier I’ve ever known adores your wines. I’d feature them on a regular basis, but we have trouble finding them.” Berengaria Reynolds was a cult star in the world of wine. She’d made her name on a Cab-Syrah blend, a world-class offering that had won numerous awards. She continued to produce fine wines, though, as with many great vintages, they were made in such small quantities that they sold out quickly. “What are you doing in Minnesota?”

  “Oh, a little of this, a little of that. Mainly, I’m consulting with a couple friends who own a local vineyard.”

  “Have you tried our ice wine?” asked Cordelia, removing the napkin from the neck of her sweater.

  Casting her first real look at Cordelia, Berengaria said, “You like sweet wines?”

  “I like sweet everything.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “And you are?”

  “Cordelia Thorn. Artistic director and owner of the Thorn Lester Playhouse.”

  Cordelia was six feet tall. Beside her, Berengaria looked like a dwarf. “Your first name,” Cordelia continued. “It’s … big. I love big.”

  “You an English history buff?”

  “Film. Cecil B. DeMille. The Crusades, 1935. Loretta Young played Berengaria and Henry Wilcoxon played Richard the First.”

  This elicited an amused smile from the vintner. They continued to lock eyes until Jane cleared her throat. “Would you like to join us?”

  “Can’t,” said Sylvia. “Berengaria has an appointment in Saint Paul and we’re already running late.”