Skeleton's Key (Delta Crossroads Trilogy, Book 2)

by Stacy Green

  Cage had tried to keep an open mind about his new employer, but the idea of a Northerner being in charge of Ironwood’s restoration tied him up in knots. Restoration expert or not, what did Danny Evans know about Southern history and tradition? Nothing more than what he’d read in history books, and that didn’t do Mississippi any justice. People didn’t know what life was like down here until they experienced it for themselves. So how could Evans fully care for Ironwood without a true understanding of what the place meant to Roselea?

  “You ought to at least give the Yankee a chance,” Jeb said. “Don’t be judging someone before you even met them. Maybe this Evans will do Ironwood justice.”

  “We’ll see.” Cage shrugged. “Can’t imagine he’ll be thrilled about the new development. Ready to see what I’ve found?”

  Sheriff Robards descended behind Cage, with Jeb bringing up the rear. “You tell Harvey Lett to keep quiet about this?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Means it’ll be all over town by tonight,” Jeb said.

  “I hate these old basements.” Sheriff Robards grumbled as the men gathered in the dank cellar. “All of them smell like centuries of piss and mold.”

  “Careful on these steps,” Cage warned.

  He’d replaced the light bulb and set up a camping light on the rotting shelves. The additional light made navigating slightly easier, but it also made the heavy cobwebs shine like silver mist. He raked his hands through his hair and across his shoulders and then scratched the back of his neck. He hoped to God there weren’t any black widows down here.

  “Skull’s over there.” Cage pointed to the back corner. It sat exactly as Cage had left it, partially hidden in the dirt. The additional light made the bone even creepier.

  “You look for any more of the skeleton?” Robards asked.

  “No,” Cage answered. “Figured I’d let Jeb do that. You know, protocol and all.”

  Jeb knelt down to inspect the area. He breathed deeply and then coughed, waving his hand in front of his face. “Too bad CaryAnne never managed to put a concrete floor in. She was John James’s daughter and the last of the original family.” Jeb ran his gloved fingers carefully over the skull. “She probably ran out of money.”

  “What makes you say that?” Cage asked.

  Jeb shrugged. “My grandmother knew CaryAnne. Used to have tea with her in the evenings before CaryAnne’s health took a bad turn. That was in the late forties, after World War II and during the industrial boom. This place was never one of the giant cotton producers, but the family kept things going pretty well until the Great Depression. You know they come from the Evaline Laurents?”

  Cage knew the story. Built by one of Roselea’s founding fathers, Evaline claimed the title of oldest antebellum in Adams County. “Henrî Laurent disowned his son for marrying a descendant of the Natchez Indians. The son built Ironwood, and the two families never reconciled. CaryAnne supposedly never set foot in Evaline, even though the feud was two generations behind her.”

  Jeb continued to examine the earth. “CaryAnne never married. She kept this place up for a long time after her daddy died, but by the end, it wasn’t doing too well. Guess that’s why it never got treated like the big house.”

  “You think the skull could be Native American?” Robards asked.

  Jeb continued to examine the remains. “Hard to say, and I’m certainly no expert. Skull is clean–no sign of any tissue left. My best guess is that it’s a few decades old, but I’m just a county coroner. A medical examiner needs to make that call.”

  Robards shifted his weight, hiking up his belt. “We need to start digging, find out if there’s more skeletal remains or just a dumped skull. Then we ship everything to the state medical examiner’s office in Jackson. They’ll have to go through any remains, but unless they can get a DNA match, we may never find out who this is.”

  “I’ve got an intern who’s had some experience with archeological digs,” Jeb said. “He’s helping us out during summer vacation. He and I can start working on this today, but it might take a few days to make sure we find every bone. If there are any more.”

  They stood over the remains, the yawning eye socket offering nothing more than a blank stare and more questions.

  “You’ll have to call the Yankee,” Robards said.

  Cage’s chills morphed into prickly irritation. Something terrible was about to happen.

  “You’re the sheriff,” Cage tried. “Something like this would probably be better coming from you.”

  “Nice try. You’re the caretaker, and you found the thing.” Robard’s dimples shone through his chubby face. “Let us know how he takes it.”

  Jeb stood, wincing as his knees cracked. “No cell reception down here. I’ll go upstairs and call Billy. Get him over here and working.”

  Upstairs, Jeb went into Ironwood’s expansive and once grand ballroom to make his call. Robards sat down at the small kitchen table, folded his arms across the formica, and smirked. “Best get it over with.”

  Cage had been dreading talking to Evans for weeks. So far, the real estate agent had the pleasure of dealing with Evans and passing on the orders to Cage. Somehow, he couldn’t see the agent handling news of the skull very well. Easier for Cage to tell Danny Evans himself.

  Turning his back on his grinning boss, Cage dug out his cell phone and scrolled through the contacts until he came across the number he’d been given for Danny Evans. With any luck, Evans wouldn’t answer, and Cage could just leave a message.

  No such luck. Halfway through the second ring, the call connected.

  “Hello?” The response was so quick it took Cage a few seconds to process the response.

  “Hello? Who is this?” A woman’s voice rattled through the receiver. Like every Northerner Cage had ever encountered, she spoke too quickly, and he had to listen hard to understand her.

  “This is Cage Foster, caretaker of Ironwood.”

  “Who?”

  “Cage. I’m the caretaker of Ironwood.”

  “What about Ironwood?” The woman’s voice–Cage assumed she was Evan’s secretary–came out even more staccato.

  She couldn’t understand him, Cage realized. Heat spread across his cheeks. Caretaker probably sounded like “currtaker,” and he probably sounded like a dumb hick to her.

  “I’m the care taker.”

  “Oh!” She laughed, and even though it sounded like a song on fast forward to Cage, her laugh wasn’t unpleasant. “Cage. I love that name, by the way. Very Southern.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “And so polite. Everyone I’ve spoken to has been the same. Must be the country upbringing.”

  He dragged his teeth across his bottom lip. Country upbringing. She no doubt pictured him in tattered overalls with a piece of straw sticking out of his mouth and a greasy trucker’s hat on his head.

  “Maybe. Listen, we’ve got a development here at the plantation, and I’ll be needing to speak to Mr. Evans right away.”

  A beat of silence and then more laughter. “Oh goodness, Cage. We’ve had a bit of a misunderstanding.”

  “Ma’am?” The question came without thought, and he rolled his eyes. He’d definitely proven himself a country bumpkin.

  “Yes. There’s no Mr. Evans. At least not around here. We Northern women are independent, you know.” She might have been smiling, but all Cage could hear was the condescension in her voice.

  Embarrassment swept over his already flushing skin and rendered him silent.

  “I’m Dannette Evans, but I can’t stand my first name. Call me Dani, please.”

  3

  Heat rushed her in a single, eye-watering wave. Her breath, hot as fire, stunted in her lungs and evaporated. Shimmering waves of color, dulled by her sunglasses, danced across her field of vision. Her skin boiled and then erupted in sweat. Dani gasped at her first encounter with Mississippi.

  “Holy God.”

  She squinted at the ticket for the rental car she’d orde
red and then looked at the map of the enormous lot at the Jackson airport. “This is going to be fun.”

  By the time she found the blue Ford Focus, Dani’s fine, strawberry-blond hair was plastered to the back of her neck. Her thin cotton t-shirt clung as heavy as wool to her flaming skin. The heat was so oppressive dizziness swept over her. She jammed the key in the lock and leaned against the little car only to jump back in agony.

  “Ouch!” Her forearm burned where the skin had touched the hot metal. Opening the car door was like unsealing an oven. She cranked the air conditioning and lost count of how many minutes passed before the air was breathable.

  She’d lived through thirty Indiana summers, suffering through days that were so hot walking outside was nearly unbearable. But nothing compared to the take-your-breath away misery she’d just experienced.

  Doubt cluttered her head. What was she thinking moving down here? Starting a new life entirely on her own so soon after her mother died?

  Her barely recovered breath lodged in her aching throat. Had it really been less than six months since she’d buried her mother? The grief ebbed and flowed, and right now it flowed stronger than rushing flood waters. Diabetes. The silent killer. But the disease wasn’t so silent in the end. Death came as a relief to Dani’s mother, but it nearly shattered Dani. She’d spent the last few years of her life caring for her mother, and suddenly, there was nothing left but her career.

  Dani’s world splintered. Pain swallowed her whole. Her mother’s influence stretched over every facet of Dani’s life. Her mother encouraged Dani’s profession, and after her mother’s death, work was a prison, and home was hell. She couldn’t bear to walk through the house, expecting to hear her mother’s throaty voice and then realizing the comforting sound she’d relied on her entire life was gone. The loneliness was indescribable. Days drifted by until she realized she’d sunk to the bottom of the well of grief. Something had to change, or she’d spend the rest of her life sleepwalking between her warm bed and a haze of misery.

  And even then, her mother’s guidance remained.

  Dani’s mother nurtured her love of history and lived vicariously through Dani’s career in historic preservation. They’d dreamed of traveling the Deep South, exploring the old plantations, and maybe finding one of their own to restore.

  Her mother never got out of Indianapolis, but she’d made Dani promise to follow that dream someday. Embarking down this road without her mother stung worse than a yellow jacket, but it was better than rolling into a ball and giving up.

  So here she was, melting in a Mississippi inferno, a new preservation specialist at the Adams County Historical Foundation, and the proud owner of a once great plantation home in desperate need of her expertise.

  With a skull in the basement.

  She caught her wilted reflection in the rearview mirror and realized she was smiling. She should probably be frightened–or at the very least, sickened. She definitely shouldn’t be rushing down to Roselea nearly two weeks before she was due to move. But she’d been counting the days. Her apartment was packed, her affairs were in order, her goodbye party at Indiana Landmarks Association over and done with. A skull in the basement gave her the perfect opportunity to grab the necessities and leave early.

  Cage Foster had called this morning to let her know the coroner believed the remains to be more than a hundred years old. With Dani’s permission, the coroner and Cage were digging for more bones, which would then be shipped off to a state medical examiner for identification.

  Ironwood’s caretaker had sounded testy on their second phone call, and Dani worried she’d embarrassed him with the good-natured teasing she’d given him about assuming she was a man.

  “You don’t need to come right now.” Cage’s lazy drawl would have been appealing if it weren’t for the disdain in his tone. “We’re taking care of it.”

  “But it’s my house,” Dani had said. “I should be there.”

  “We’re capable.”

  “I don’t mean to say you aren’t.” Dani had tried to smooth things over. “I just think I should be there.”

  “I suppose you need someone to pick you up at the airport and drive you into Roselea?”

  She needed to make things right with Cage as soon as she arrived at Ironwood. The historical foundation raved about his work as Ironwood’s caretaker, and she didn’t want to lose him.

  “No, thank you. I’ve got a rental car. I’m sure I can find my way.”

  “All right then. Call if you get lost.”

  This afternoon should be fun, Dani thought as she navigated away from the airport and onto the interstate. The exit for US 84 was four miles ahead, and according to her GPS, she’d arrive in Roselea in about two hours. The Union Army spared the town in the Civil War, and many of the antebellum homes and plantations survived. Roselea’s location at the southern tip of the Natchez Trace made the town a thriving tourist stop.

  A sign for Route 61 caught Dani’s eye, and for a moment, she was tempted to change course and head for the northern end of the Delta. The legendary crossroads where blues great Robert Johnson allegedly sold his soul to the devil was just a few hours down the road.

  Patience. She could do that another day.

  She had another day.

  Reality began to sink in. Finally, after all these years, she was here, ready to see the places she and her mother had so coveted.

  She had all the time in the world.

  During the ride from Jackson, she was grateful for the traffic’s leisurely pace. It gave her plenty of time to soak up her surroundings. The grass was a deeper shade of green, lush beneath the bright sun. Large farms, many of them old, dotted the landscape, but the ramshackle places with rotting roofs and sad looking lawns were just as prevalent. Poverty and grandeur interwoven into the state’s fabric.

  She reached the outskirts of Roselea right on time and wistfully turned south instead of driving straight into town. There would be plenty of time to explore its history after she got settled. Anticipation began to swirl in her stomach as she threaded her way through the countryside, squinting to read the mailbox addresses and trying to keep her heart from taking permanent residence in her throat.

  And then she saw it: 15 White Creek Road. The mailbox was a simple plastic affair–green with white letters. A wooden rail fence sat on each side of the dirt drive marking the entrance to the property. Ironwood sat back off the road more than a hundred feet, and a hulking live oak that had taken up residence in the front yard hid Dani’s initial view of the house.

  Ducking her head to see beneath the oak’s drooping branches, Dani turned into the drive. Glimpses of dirty white railing partially hidden by rosebushes had her clenching the steering wheel with anticipation. The path wound slightly to the left, around the big tree, and Ironwood emerged.

  Pictures hadn’t done her justice. The mansion’s wooded exterior was gray and faded, the balconies sagging dangerously in places. Its four front columns were cracked, its iron railings rusting, and the widow’s peak had lost part of its outboards.

  But she was still beautiful, like a weathered grandmother who’d seen more of life than most could comprehend. The grand home’s front was a five bay structure, its centerpiece a two-story portico with four perfectly spaced Greek pillars. An exquisite bracketed cornice marked the roofline, and while several of the Italianate brackets were missing, their craftsmanship was still visible on the remaining pieces. Standing guard over the house was a widow’s walk with a balcony that circled a small cupola. Additional porticos marked the east and west sides of the house.

  Dani closed her eyes and imagined the house’s mistress standing on the walk, waiting for her son to come home from the Civil War. Her summer dress would be lightweight, but hoops and underskirts would have added several pounds to her frame. Her hair might have hung in pin curls or been done up in a more stately but ornate knot. A delicate white handkerchief etched with precise stitching – probably flowers – would be crushed in her han
d as she prayed for her son’s safe return from the war.

  That son would have been John James Laurent, and he did return from the war. He and his father kept Ironwood afloat during the Reconstruction, and the plantation employed free blacks for decades, running a modest but successful cotton crop until sometime during the Great Depression. Ironwood had been slowly sinking into quiet despair since. The once grand home was no more than a shadow of its former glory.

  Moisture dripped onto Dani’s lip. She flushed, hastily wiping the tears away. Old homes had always held a special power over her, but the plantations were a force she couldn’t explain. It was as if the last remnants of a forgotten way of life desperately grasped for survival. For someone to remember. To save them.

  She would save Ironwood.

  She wiped her face once again and checked her reflection. Her fair Irish skin was no longer pink, but her hair was still flat from the humidity. Quickly, she dug a brush out of her purse, dragged it through her hair, and pulled it into a loose ponytail. That would have to do.

  An Adams County Sheriff’s cruiser was parked in the winding drive in front of what was obviously the carriage house. Single story, moderately maintained, a few flowers out front. Lived in.

  The flowers.

  Her attention was drawn back to the sprawling house. Well-kept blooming rosebushes surrounded the front of the house, and sweet jasmine peeked out from the bottom of the bushes. A mint julep plant adorned the side of the house, its rugged foliage neatly trimmed. Two large planters loaded with azaleas marked Ironwood’s entrance.

  Someone else loved this place, too.

  The front door, partially shaded by the portico, swung open. A tall man stepped outside wearing a sleeveless shirt and dark cargo shorts. Standing well over six feet, he was broad shouldered with just the right amount of muscle in his bare arms. Tanned skin, long legs, and chestnut colored hair that could use a trim.

  He strode down the steps toward her car. This must be Cage. She reached for the door handle, ready to greet him with as much friendliness as she could muster. The door didn’t open, and she realized it was locked. She fumbled for the button in the unfamiliar car.