Old Bones Never Die

by Lesley A. Diehl

  “Nope. Not my responsibility. My bosses might have.”

  Frida looked perturbed at the foreman’s obstructionist attitude. “I’ll call in case your bosses forgot.” She stepped away from the site and made a call. I leaned over the area.

  “The bones don’t look that old,” I said.

  “You some kind of an expert—an archaeologist, maybe?” the foreman asked.

  “No, but you can see pieces of fabric, maybe the person’s clothing near the bones.”

  He grunted again and walked back toward his truck.

  Gosh, it was tempting to get closer for a better look at those bones.

  I felt hot breath on my neck. “Don’t you dare, Eve,” said Frida. “You stay here. I want to take a closer look.” She stepped gingerly into the depression, drew on a pair of latex gloves and leaned over the skull. “I’d better not move or touch anything until we get the state authorities and our forensic team out here for a look.”

  I tried to stretch my neck out farther to examine it more closely and would have pitched forward if someone hadn’t grabbed my arm and pulled me back.

  “Who …?” I said.

  “Danny Cypress. I’m the lawyer for Coastal Development and Gator Way. Sorry to frighten you, but I was certain you were going to pitch forward into the good soil of our area and spoil your beautiful boots. We wouldn’t want that, now, would we?”

  I looked into black eyes and a broad smile. “You’re Miccosukee, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am, but only half on my father’s side. Maybe you’ve heard of him. He’s a rancher around here. Name’s also Danny.”

  “I’m not from around here,” I said. His hand was still on my arm, and the physical contact was beginning to make me feel uncomfortable.

  “I didn’t think so. You don’t dress like any woman I know in Sabal Bay. What’s your name?’

  “Eve Appel.” I moved away from him, forcing him to drop his hand from my arm.

  “You must be from the state then.”

  “No. I’m with the detective.” I nodded toward Frida, still carefully moving around the bones.

  “So … cop, then.” His tone turned less friendly.

  “She’s a friend,” Frida said. “How are you doing, Mr. Cypress? I heard you’d taken a job with the company developing the sportsmen’s complex.” Her words were respectful but had an edge. She appeared wary of Danny Cypress, and I wondered why.

  “I gather you contacted the appropriate authorities?” he said.

  “Just now. I assumed the company might drag its feet.”

  “Now, why would we do that? We like to stay within the law, and we respect the tribe’s right to their dead. I mean, if this body even belongs to the tribe. And that will take some time to establish, won’t it?”

  “Well, since you’re so eager for the company to obey the law, would you like to notify the tribal elders? With your contacts, you probably know them better than I do.”

  “I do, but I don’t think it’s my place to make that call. I work for the company, despite my Miccosukee heritage.”

  “Let’s keep everything above board. No conflict of interest, right?”

  “Right.”

  Wow, what a tense conversation this was.

  “Oh, and by the way, the state won’t be sending anyone out here until tomorrow. I’ll have to wait until then to see what evidence I can gather. I’ll be posting a guard here until they arrive.”

  A police cruiser pulled past the palms and drove up to the bulldozer. “Well, here the guard is now. Time for everyone to leave.” Frida said “everyone,” but her remark was directed at Danny Cypress.

  “She doesn’t trust me,” said the lawyer to me, loud enough for Frida to hear.

  “Right,” she said.

  Frida and I watched the foreman as well as Danny Cypress leave. Both of their vehicles—the foreman’s truck and the lawyer’s black Escalade—had the development corporation’s name and logo on the driver’s door: “Gator Way” and a picture of an alligator with a huge grin on his face. I looked over at the heron’s feathers in the pile of debris and couldn’t think of a more incongruous image for this company.

  “I wish I could get into that area with my forensics team. I’d like to take a closer look at those bones and collect evidence to take back to the lab.” Frida turned the cruiser into the parking area in front of the consignment shop.

  “Yeah, I know just what you mean.”

  “I’ll bet you do. I shouldn’t have allowed you near the place today, but I didn’t know what to do with you. All I did was set free the snooping monster inside you.”

  Restless, I wiggled around on the seat. “That’s something I wanted to talk to you about today.”

  “Turning over a new leaf? Is it that you’ll stay out of police business because you have enough stuff of your own to do? What is it with you, Eve? It seems you have the need to multitask more than any person I’ve met. Don’t those two shops take up enough of your time? Maybe I should talk to your Miccosukee lover Sammy about filling your life with more stuff like canoe rides in the moonlight, or would you like to take over his airboat business too?”

  She was kidding, but her words held a kernel of truth. I seemed to have endless energy. And the most curious mind. That was what finally drove Alex and me apart, my insistence that I could do the job he did—follow leads, interview people, ferret out clues. He agreed I could do these things and well. He just didn’t like my presence in his cases. Frida felt much the same way.

  As for Sammy, my snoopy nature didn’t bother him. He accepted it as part of who I was. He and I had something going on, but we hadn’t yet decided what it was. I’d felt nothing like it for any other man. There was an odd tension between us, a sensual feeling, as if the air was filled with a longing almost fluid in nature, like a mist. We seemed to breathe each other in, as if there was no space between our bodies or our souls.

  Frida broke into my thoughts of Sammy and surprised me by her comment, an echo of something Alex had said. “Maybe you should consider working with Crusty McNabb, apprentice yourself to him. With Alex gone to Miami, this area has only one private detective. I know Crusty could use the help, and his office is about next door to your shop.”

  I was aghast at Frida’s words. “You’re kidding, right?” Why would she suggest such a thing? And then I knew. “You figure if I have cases of my own, I’ll be too busy to help with yours.”

  Frida smiled. “I think the word we want here is ‘interfere’ with my cases.”

  “I’ve been a big help. You know that.”

  Frida leaned her head into the headrest. “You have, but if you’re hell-bent on fighting crime, you could use some discipline, not enough to destroy your creative, intuitive side, mind you, just enough professional training to hone your skills. I’m only saying this to make my life easier.”

  I gave her a look filled with hurt. “You find me a nuisance.”

  Frida reached out and touched my arm. “Sometimes. And sometimes you are positively brilliant. I want you to find your calling. Maybe it isn’t selling secondhand designer fashions fulltime. Maybe it’s a combination of things.”

  “Okay. I’ll give it some thought. Would you help me? I’ll have to carry a weapon—I mean other than my sassy attitude and my stiletto heels.”

  My meaning seemed to finally hit Frida. Her normally café au lait skin blanched. “A gun? Oh God. You’ll be carrying a gun. I hadn’t thought of that.”

  I had, and I thought I liked the thought, but before I could tell Frida how I felt, I caught sight of Grandy, my grandmother who was tending the store today, waving to me from the front window.

  “Gotta run. Something’s up. We’ll get together and talk more about guns and stuff.”

  Frida gave me a tentative smile as I jumped out of the car and ran into the store.

  “David just called. Madeleine’s gone into labor.” Grandy sounded excited and looked as if she couldn’t be any happier if she was Madelein
e’s grandmother. Instead she was mine, the woman who raised me and who was responsible for the nosy, impulsive gal I turned out to be. She grabbed me and hugged my skinny frame to her shorter, chubbier one. Her white curls bounced as if with joy.

  My heart seemed to momentarily stop beating, then take up a faster rhythm. Finally, Madeleine, who had spent the last two months in bed, could look forward to the imminent arrival of her babies.

  “I’ll bet she’s overjoyed. I am,” I said to Grandy.

  “I can’t figure what’s gotten into David. He was with his first wife when she delivered, but he’s totally fallen apart with Madeleine.”

  “She’s having twins, and she’s tiny. He doesn’t know how tough she is.”

  “I think we should close up the rig for the day and pop off to the hospital,” said Grandy.

  “They probably won’t let us in to see her.”

  “I’m not worried about her. We need to be there for David. He’s supposed to be her labor coach, but he didn’t sound like he could coach Jell-O out of a mold.”

  I thought about that image. “All you need to do is upend the mold and then dump it. Not difficult at all.”

  “That’s what I mean. You want to drive or me?” she asked.

  “Me.” We jumped into my Mustang convertible, and I sped out of the parking lot and onto the road.

  At the hospital, we found David in the maternity ward waiting room.

  “This can’t be good,” said Grandy, as she dashed over to his side.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be in there, coaching her?” I asked.

  “They kicked me out. Something about one of the babies being in distress.”

  Chapter 2

  Grandy put her arms around David and walked him over to the waiting room couch. “That’s not unusual with twins, and she is small. Didn’t they tell you about the possibility of having to do a C-section?”

  “Oh, right.”

  Grandy seemed to know just what to say and do to help him. David brightened up, and he seemed less distraught.

  I stood by helplessly, almost as upset as David. Madeleine and I had been best friends since elementary school. With the death of my parents in a boating accident when I was nine, she and Grandy were the only family I had. Madeleine had to be all right. She just had to.

  Grandy caught my panic out of the corner of her eye. “Eve, honey, why don’t you get David here a cup of coffee from the cafeteria. I think it’s still open.”

  “I really don’t want—” said David.

  “Oh, yes you do,” Grandy insisted.

  I stood, unmoving.

  “Get going. Now, Eve!” Grandy said.

  I knew that tone of voice. Grandy’s orders were not to be disobeyed. I ran out the doors and down the hallway. I had no idea where the cafeteria was located, but I ran into a cleaner—actually, I ran him over—and asked him.

  “Turn right across from the elevators.” He pointed, righting his bucket of soapy water.

  By the time I got back with the coffee, I was out of breath, and David was calmer. Leave it to my Grandy to know how to handle us both. Thank God for the Grandys in our lives.

  “Any word on Madeleine?” I asked.

  Both Grandy and David shook their heads.

  We waited. And waited.

  “Should I try to find someone?” I asked.

  “I’ll go,” said Grandy. She grabbed me to her and whispered in my ear, “Keep him relaxed, would you?”

  I guess I’d graduated from the role of hysteric to that of calming influence, but I didn’t have Grandy’s know-how with stressed-out husbands.

  “How do I do that?”

  “Talk to him.”

  “Great idea. About what?”

  “Anything but babies, pregnancy, delivery, hospitals, C-sections. You know. Nothing Madeleine-related.” She gave me an encouraging pat on my shoulder and left.

  The only thing David and I had in common was Madeleine. Now what?

  David owned a game ranch, and although he now had Sammy operate it part-time because David had an aversion to guns—odd, huh?—he still knew more about hunting and weapons than most of the cowboys around here. All I grasped of firearms was they made loud noises, fired bullets, and when aimed with some accuracy, could kill. If I wanted to go into the PI business, I needed to know more. So I talked to him about guns.

  If David figured out what I was up to, trying to take his mind off Madeleine and the babies, he didn’t let on. We played the game, and it made us both feel better.

  Grandy appeared several minutes later when I was just about to run out of questions and David was starting to fidget and glance anxiously out the door into the hallway. Behind her trailed the woman I knew was Madeleine’s obstetrician.

  “Sorry I couldn’t get in touch earlier, but we were kind of busy,” she said.

  “A C-section, right?” said David.

  “Nope. That little gal of yours just kind of popped both of them out like lifesavers from a roll. One of the shortest labors and delivery times I’ve ever seen with twins.” The doctor grinned.

  “But David said one of the babies was in distress,” I said.

  The doctor’s grin widened, and she leaned close to me. “Madeleine saw how agitated he was, so she asked me to make up a story to get him out of there. I agreed. She was doing just fine, but I was worried he’d upset her.”

  The doctor turned back to David. “You want to see her and the twins now?”

  David nodded and followed the doctor down the hall. Grandy and I were right behind him.

  Madeleine sat up in bed, the picture of maternal beauty, a tiny baby on each arm. The smile on her face could light up the entire city of Sabal Bay. Of course, she looked as if she had run a marathon, her skin red and sweaty, her hair lying in damp ringlets over her ears.

  We all rushed over and planted kisses on her and oohed and aahed over the babies. One baby was small and had Madeleine’s red hair while the other was a dark-haired bruiser with David’s coloring.

  “So what are they?” I asked.

  “They’re babies, Eve,” Madeleine said, a twinkle in her eye.

  “I know that. I mean boy, girl, boys, girls. What?”

  “A boy and a girl,” Madeleine said.

  “Perfect,” Grandy added.

  David reached for the bigger of the two. “Daddy’s big boy,” he said.

  “That’s the girl,” Madeleine said. “That’s Eve. And the boy is David Junior.”

  I hardly knew what to say. Eve was not one of the names we’d talked about, but obviously, from the expression on David’s face, he and Madeleine had.

  I took a deep breath, but it didn’t help. I began to blubber and cry, and Grandy had to lead me out of the room because I’d upset the babies. Both were howling.

  “A fine aunt you’ll make. They’ll never ask you to babysit.” Grandy handed me a tissue.

  I blubbered some more, soaking it through.

  My cell rang.

  Continuing to sob with happiness, I handed the phone to Grandy. “Can you answer it?”

  She said hello and listened for a moment, then held the phone against her chest. “Get ahold of yourself. It’s Sammy, and there’s trouble of some kind.”

  Grandy and I left an exhausted Madeleine and an equally wrung-out but happy David and headed down the highway toward Sammy and Grandfather Egret’s house and airboat business. With Sammy working David’s game ranch, the airboat business was being operated by Grandfather Egret, who booked reservations and sold tickets while Sammy’s two nephews piloted the boat. Sammy was eager for David to find a permanent foreman for the ranch; he wanted to get back to the airboat tours. And everyone wanted him back there. His tall, dark, good looks and knowledge of the swamp were as much a draw for the tours as the life found in the swamps. My ex, Jerry, had stepped in at one point to help out on the tours, but tourists expected a member of the tribe, not some pasty white guy from up North.

  Sammy wouldn’t tell me on t
he phone what was happening. He only said he and Grandfather could use my help in a criminal matter. He knew I couldn’t ignore that kind of request.

  I pulled my car into the now deserted parking area next to the airboat chickee where Grandfather sold tickets for the tours. Grady and I climbed out and hurried down the path to the Egrets’ place, a traditional Florida swamp house made of hand-hewn lumber and set on stilts. A light shone through the open door onto the porch, which ran the length of the front of the house. Grandfather Egret sat in his rocking chair, puffing on his pipe. Sammy paced up and down the porch. He ran to greet me and pulled me close, enveloping me with warmth like the sun of a Florida summer. Each time Sammy and I got together, the heat between us could start a bonfire. From our first meeting, it had always been like this, though we had ignored it as long as we could.

  “We just had a visit from a state trooper. My half-brother Walter was found on the side of the road that runs out to the Kissimmee bridge. Someone hit him and then drove off.”

  “Is he …?” I asked.

  “Dead.”

  Grandfather removed the pipe from his mouth and nodded. “The body has been removed to the medical examiner’s office for autopsy.”

  Headlights from a car pulling into the airboat parking lot shone onto the side of the house.

  “It’s me,” Frida called. “I was told a trooper notified you about Walter.”

  She approached the house, stepped past me onto the porch, and stooped to give Grandfather a peck on the cheek. Reaching out to touch Sammy, she said, “I’m so sorry. But we’ll get the guy. I was just at the scene.”

  “Eve and I are leaving to go out there,” Sammy said.

  We were?

  “It’s too dark now to see anything,” Frida said. “We’ve covered the area pretty thoroughly.” Her tone was reassuring and held a note of official finality.

  “I need to see the spot for myself,” Sammy insisted, his voice anguished. “We were more than half-brothers. We were brothers and close friends. And he’s left behind three boys. You know his wife died several years ago?”