Old Bones Never Die

by Lesley A. Diehl

  Old Bones Never Die

  An Eve Appel Mystery

  Lesley A. Diehl

  Camel Press

  PO Box 70515

  Seattle, WA 98127

  For more information go to: www.Camelpress.com

  www.lesleyadiehl.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Cover design by Sabrina Sun

  Old Bones Never Die

  Copyright © 2017 by Lesley A. Diehl

  ISBN: 978-1-60381-317-4 (Trade Paper)

  ISBN: 978-1-60381-318-1 (eBook)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2016961011

  Produced in the United States of America

  * * *

  To Minnie Appel Diehl, my grandmother.

  The idea for Eve Appel and Eve’s last name came from my paternal grandmother, who was the queen of recycling and gave me a passion for used items. In my grandmother’s memory, I gifted this appetite to Eve Appel. Somehow my grandmother foresaw that the world is a greener place when we reuse what we can and preserve what is here. Thanks for the foresight, Granny.

  * * *

  Prologue

  The morning air was cold, but once the sun rose over the levee, its heat penetrated the construction site and brought with it the humidity of south central Florida. The backhoe operator paused to remove his sweatshirt and push his thick, black hair away from his face, then moved the levers of the machine forward so that the mouth of the bucket opened, showing its large metal teeth. Another move of the lever lowered the bucket. The teeth bit into the black dirt of the Big Lake basin.

  The operator felt the assessing gaze of the foreman, who stood at the side of the pit, his hardhat pushed back on his forehead. New to the job, Walter Egret was skilled, but he knew he’d been hired by the company against the foreman’s wishes. As a Miccosukee, his work would be scrutinized more closely than that of others employed by Coastal Development Company and its construction arm, Gator Way. The foreman’s constant surveillance bothered him, but not as much as the feeling that someone else watched him from the cover of the sabal palms that stood at the edge of the property. He’d felt a shadowy presence there for several days. It was probably nothing, but today he would take a walk over to the trees during his lunch break.

  This land now being readied for a sportsman’s retreat had once belonged to his people, but legal maneuvering by slick lawyers deeded it away from the tribe into the developers’ hands. Walter didn’t like to think about that too much. Being a backhoe operator was a job, a way for him to support his three boys. He dumped the bucket of dirt and maneuvered the machine back to bite the earth again. This time the bucket picked up debris lighter colored than the soil. Probably some buried tree limbs, he thought, halting the rise of the bucket. Huh. Looked like bones from some animal, maybe a cow. Lotta bones.

  “Hey, dump that back in the hole. What the hell have we got?” shouted the foreman.

  Walter did as he was told and deposited the bucket load back in the area he’d dug. He shut down the backhoe, and both he and the foreman jumped into the hole to take a closer look.

  “Oh, damn,” said the foreman, “look at that.” He pointed at a round object, dull and gray, lying in the dirt. “I think we’ve got ourselves a burial ground. I gotta make a call.”

  The foreman climbed out of the hole and walked away, his cell in his hand.

  Walter continued to stare at the object. A skull. Those were human bones. Maybe the bones of one of his people. Bending over to get a closer look, he saw a metal object buried in the loose dirt. He pulled it out, brushing the soil off what turned out to be a heavy gold chain. At the end of the chain swung a pocket watch. It looked like one he dimly remembered seeing when he was a child.

  “Get the hell out of there. Don’t move anything.” The foreman’s face was red and shiny with sweat, not from exertion but something else—fear, maybe? “You find something?”

  Walter’s fist closed around the watch. “No. Just more bones.”

  “Yeah. Well, we got to shut down and notify the authorities. That damn Indian grave stuff.”

  “The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act,” Walter said.

  The foreman shot him an angry look. “Real wiseass, aren’t you? Well, I don’t know when we can begin work again, so you’re out of a job for now.” His words seemed to suggest it was Walter’s fault the job had to be halted.

  The foreman hesitated, then added, as if embarrassed by his earlier accusatory tone, “Well, you seem to know your way around machinery, so you’ll probably hear from us.” He grunted a goodbye and turned toward his pickup truck, which stood parked near the palm tree grove. “You go on, now. I’ll wait here for the authorities.” Walter watched him climb into his truck and start it up. He knew the foreman would sit there in air-conditioned luxury until someone showed up.

  As he began his five-mile walk home, Walter envied the man the cool air. His old Ford truck wouldn’t start this morning, so he’d had to walk to work, and he was spectacularly unsuccessful at thumbing a ride. No one wanted to pick up a Miccosukee in work clothes and beat-up work boots unless it was some other tribe member. The morning’s walk hadn’t been so bad because it was cool. Now the midday sun beat down on his head. He pulled a strip of leather from his pocket and tied his long hair back. Once well away from the construction site, he stopped and took the watch from his pocket. It was battered and scraped; a long gash on the back told him one of the bucket’s teeth had gouged it. He wiped away the dirt on his jeans to reveal a plumed wading bird etched on the cover face. He tried to pry open the case, but wasn’t successful. He knew that if he did, he’d find an inscription inside. He was certain this was the watch his mother had given his father as a birthday present.

  Finally, the mystery was solved. He’d found his father. After so much time. Grandfather was right. The swamp had returned him. He had to call Sammy. Sammy would want to know, and Sammy would know what to do.

  He had no cellphone, but he couldn’t wait until he got home to call. He’d have to stop at the Dusty Boot, a biker’s bar up the road a mile, and use the phone there. He quickened his pace despite the heat. Once in the cool darkness of the bar, he grabbed a stool and asked for a coke. Remembering he’d left his lunch in the backhoe, he ordered a ham sandwich.

  There was no payphone in the bar, so while he waited for his sandwich to arrive, he asked the bartender if he could borrow the house phone.

  “It’s really important. A local call.”

  The bartender, a woman with teased blonde hair, a spaghetti strap top, and two full sleeves of tattoos hesitated, but once she’d looked around the empty bar, she shoved the phone his way. “I ain’t supposed to let ya, so be quick and don’t tell no one.”

  The call connected to Grandfather and Sammy’s answering machine.

  “Sammy? I need to see you tonight. I found Father’s watch on a body we unearthed at the construction site today. I think the body is Father’s.”

  The bartender brought Walter his sandwich, which he ate slowly, savoring every bite of the dry white bread and fatty ham concoction. Walter was happy. Now he knew what had happened to his father. Now he could bring Father home to rest.

  The car hit Walter Egret a mile down the road from the Dusty Boot. Two men stepped out of the black SUV and approached the body.

  “Do it,” the man in the suit s
aid to the other.

  The other man, short, ferret-faced, and dressed in jeans and a tee-shirt, searched the body. “Not much money, no cellphone, cheap wallet, and this.” He held up the pocket watch.

  “Nothing we should worry about, I guess. Leave it all. We want this to look like an accident.” The man in the suit got back into the car. He didn’t see the other man pocket the watch.

  The driver spoke into his cell. “We cleaned everything up here. We’ll finish it later.”

  * * *

  Chapter 1

  “No turtle bites. Darn. I’ve been wanting to try them since I moved here, but every time I order them, this place is out.” I perused the menu, looking for some other exotic, genuine Florida swamp delicacy to try. Actually, almost everything seems unusual to me. I’m Eve Appel, and sometimes I wonder if I belong here. I’m originally from Connecticut, but I moved to rural Florida several years ago to get away from Jerry Taylor, my husband at that time, and to start a business. Along with my best friend, Madeleine, I own a consignment shop here in Sabal Bay, a small city sitting on the edge of what Floridians call the Big Lake—Lake Okeechobee.

  To be clear, we now own two shops. One is stationary, housed in a newly renovated store in a small strip mall at the edge of town; the other has wheels, a large recreational vehicle converted to hold our merchandise. The big rig shop happened by accident when we were forced to move out of our original location. It was the brainstorm of my dear friend, mob boss Nappi Napolitani. He’s not merely “connected,” he’s creative, too.

  I was seated across the table from my friend Frida Martinez, a local police detective. She had the day off, so I invited her for lunch at the restaurant near the bridge crossing the Kissimmee River, where it flowed into Big Lake. Before you get all excited picturing blue water, long stretches of sand, and gentle southern breezes, this lake is for fishing only. The water is brown, it’s shallow, and the alligators rule. No one except the very stupid, inebriated, or drug-addled swim in it.

  Frida ran a hand through her dark hair and gave me a smile of sympathy. “Unfortunately, it’s today or never for the turtle. This place is scheduled to close this weekend. That sportsmen’s resort complex is breaking ground as we sit here, and the restaurant will be replaced by something finer. That’s according to the article in this morning’s paper.”

  “Sabal Bay doesn’t really seem like the place for ‘fine dining.’ Aren’t we more of a barbecue, pizza, and wings sort of town? I can’t see a sportsman just in from cleaning his catch, scales still clinging to his vest, eager to be seated at a table with a linen tablecloth so he can order foie gras.”

  Frida chuckled and nodded. The waitress approached again.

  “I’ll just have a burger, medium, with fries,” she said.

  “Me too.”

  The waitress gave us the look of disappointment I recognized from earlier, when we ordered the turtle. “We’re out of burgers. And fries.”

  “What do you have?” I asked, hoping against all odds it would be something I wanted to eat. If I waited much longer for lunch, I’d chew on an old cow hide. I was that hungry.

  “We have barbecue.”

  “Oh good. I’ll have that. How about you, Frida?”

  “We only have one serving left,” the waitress said.

  “I don’t understand why you even opened your doors today,” I said.

  More diplomatic than I—and who isn’t?—Frida said, “We’ll split the order. And cole slaw. You do have that, don’t you?”

  “Some,” the waitress said. She turned quickly away and headed to the kitchen.

  “I guess it was stupid to think this place would have much to offer just before closing its doors.” Frida sighed. “But the view is great.”

  We both turned our heads to look out the windows, which provided a view across the mouth of the river. Boats flew down the waterway into the lake while others sat at anchor, lines over the side, fishing for whatever the water offered here—bass, speck, and catfish.

  The doors to the outside porch were open, and earlier we had heard heavy machinery working the construction site just south of the restaurant. Both of us sat back and let the scenery envelop us.

  It was more than wanting to have a chat over food with an old friend that made me ask Frida to lunch. I wanted to pick her brain about something Alex, my ex-boyfriend and a private investigator, had said to me. Our relationship had shifted gears, and where it had once been made up of a lot of lust, now we were friends, no benefits. I still respected his opinion on criminal matters.

  I was about to steer the conversation around to my questions when Frida’s cell rang. She answered, but said little, then disconnected.

  “I know I’m off for the day, but there’s been some problem over at the construction site. My boss knew I’d be here for lunch, so he thought maybe I’d take a look since my assistant Linc Tooney is out with the flu this week. Why don’t you stay here while I run over there to see what’s up? You have my share of our lunch order.”

  The announcement that there was some official police affair made me lose my appetite—not because I was nauseated, but because the only thing I loved more than barbecue was poking my nose into crime scenes. Murder was the main crime that inspired my nosiness.

  “Couldn’t I come along? I promise to stay out of the way.”

  Frida gave me a skeptical look. She knew my promises about keeping out of her cases were worth about as much as a Confederate dollar, at least back in the days when Confederate money had no value to collectors.

  “Please? I mean we did come out here in your car. How am I supposed to get back to the shop? You owe me.”

  “I owe you a ride, not the right to pry into police business.” Frida hesitated. “But I suppose if I say no, you’ll just tag along and annoy everyone until you cause some kind of an incident.”

  “Oh, goodie.”

  The waitress approached our table and said, “I guess that serving of barbecue was already spoken for.” She nodded at the only other table occupied in the entire restaurant.

  That settled that. It was our fate not to eat, but to do crime stuff instead. My PI friend Alex Montgomery told me I had a nose for crime—not that he liked that trait in me—but he admitted I was pretty good at sleuthing out clues. That was why I’d asked Frida to have lunch today. I needed another opinion about how good I was at this detecting business. Alex had even suggested I might want to go after my PI’s license, as if I had time to do professional detecting with two consignment shops to run and Madeleine about to give birth to twins.

  Oh, did I forget to say that? Yep. My tiny best friend had found her soul mate, married him, and they were about to become parents. Any minute now, I suspected. She looked like an overstuffed piñata.

  “Well?” said Frida. “Are you coming or what?”

  I tossed a tip on the table. The waitress looked grateful until she saw the amount was only a few bucks; then she shook her head and muttered something about how badly women tip.

  “We’d tip better if we got food!” I yelled back at her as we rushed out the door.

  A bulldozer sat at the edge of an area scarred by earth-moving machinery and scraped clear of trees and grass. The debris removed from the site was piled up near the edge of the road. More than just bushes, trees, rocks, and dirt had been mercilessly disturbed and shoved to one side; I saw the wing of a white heron lying under one of the downed live oak trees. A breeze caught the feathers and moved them as if the bird were still alive and trying to lift itself from the rubble. Nothing escaped the machinery of development.

  No one was around, but as Frida and I approached, a man in a hard hat jumped out of a pickup parked near a stand of sabal palms not yet destroyed by the work.

  “You the cops?” he asked.

  Frida pulled out her badge and introduced herself. “And this is, uh, Eve Appel, who is observing today.”

  He nodded at Frida and said to me, “You must be on some kind of a criminal justice intern
ship, huh? You look kind of old for a college student.”

  “I am,” I said.

  For a moment, my remark puzzled him, but he shrugged and turned back to Frida. “Let me show you what we’ve got here.”

  He led the way to where the ground had been dug down several feet and leveled to begin setting forms to pour cement for the foundation of a building. He took us to the edge of the hole and pointed into the middle of the area.

  “See there? We dug up a skull.”

  I could just make out a domed grayish object and a few longer ones near it.

  “You the one who was operating the machine?” Frida asked.

  “Nope. I’m the foreman. I sent the operator home. Nothing for him to do now. I also phoned my boss and told him what we found. You know what this means, don’t you?” From the tone of his voice, he was clearly frustrated and angered at having to stop his work. “Damn nuisance.”

  “What’s he mean?” I asked.

  Frida explained, “This land used to belong to the Miccosukees, but the courts deeded it to the state, and the state sold it to the development corporation. Since it once belonged to the tribe, finding a body means it could be a tribe member buried here. The tribe might want to reclaim it for reburial in accordance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.”

  “That damn foolishness,” the foreman said.

  “Any body found on any piece of property requires investigation by the police; you know that.”

  He grunted in reply.

  “I’ll need the name of the backhoe operator. You should have kept him here, so I could talk with him. Have you informed the state authorities yet?”