“Join us. This sounds like a story that requires sitting,” Grandy said to Nappi. “And you too, Jerry.”
We took our drinks to the table Max had reserved. Grandy and I caught everyone up on Madeleine and David’s babies. We toasted the new arrivals and then all tucked into our food, which had just arrived. The wait staff at the Biscuit knew us all well enough that ribs arrived without us having to order.
“We should all go visit her tomorrow. Do you think she’ll still be in the hospital?” asked Nappi.
“We’ll call first,” Grandy suggested.
Talk then turned to the body found at the construction site and to the hit-and-run of Walter Egret.
“You sound as if you don’t think it was a simple hit-and-run,” said Nappi.
I couldn’t tell them about the phone call to Sammy, so I merely nodded. “Frida will sort it out.”
“Or someone will,” said Grandy with a wink at Nappi.
As we finished our meals, the sounds of Karaoke drifted from the bar into the dining room. I caught a familiar voice singing an old country ballad. “My friend Antoine’s at the microphone. I’d like to listen for a minute, then get on home. This had been a long day.”
“And you’re opening the store tomorrow,” Grandy reminded me. “Unless you have other, uh, things to do.”
“I’ll open if you step in for a few hours later.”
Even if Sammy wasn’t free to accompany me, I planned to get started on surveying the pawn shops for the watch. This was the first time Frida had asked for my help, and I wanted to show her I could get results.
“The weekend’s coming up. Are we opening the rig here at the flea market or taking it over to the flea market on the coast?” Like me, Grandy loved to drive the huge RV, our shop on wheels, over to the coast. She said piloting it successfully down the narrow road to the weekend flea market at Stuart made her feel like the captain of an ocean liner. She drove well, which is more than I could say for Madeleine, but then, she was at a disadvantage, having to place something behind her to reach the wheel and adjust the seat so her feet would reach the pedals.
“We don’t have enough merchandise to cover both stores. Maybe you’d like to make a run with me to some of our clientele in West Palm to see if they have any items for us,” I suggested to Grandy. We not only took in merchandise from wealthy matrons from West Palm, but we also offered them a pick-up service at no charge. “Shelley can open the store on Saturday.”
Shelley McCleary was the daughter of one of our former customers—the victim of a murder just last year. Shelley possessed great artistic talent, especially in the dress designer category, and we had hired her to do the shop’s tailoring. Not only did our place sell used designer clothing, but we offered alterations, something few other secondhand shops did. Shelley attended a fashion institute in West Palm at night and worked in the shop some weekdays and most Saturdays. She was responsible as well as skilled, and she loved selling and suggesting ways she could make an outfit look better on a customer. Someday she might join us as a partner in the business.
We all listened to Antoine for several songs. When he was finished, I went over to say hello and was joined by his boss, Jay Cassidy.
“Eve,” he said, greeting me with a tip of his hat.
Jay and I had been friends since I settled in Sabal Bay. We didn’t always see eye to eye on community issues, but we managed to keep the relationship going despite our disagreements. Madeleine and I, concerned about the preservation of wildlife and the loss of habitat, had challenged his view of land usage, which ran more to grazing cattle, sugar cane planting, and any development project that would bring in more tourists. He thought we were insensitive to the issues of economic development in the area. No one was persuaded to the contrary, but we kept our arguments friendly.
“Dance, Eve?” Jay asked.
“Not tonight. I’m beat. Did you hear Madeleine had her babies today?”
“I did. I had some flowers delivered to her room. I’d visit tomorrow, but I have to go to the polo field in Port Mayaca. I’m on the planning committee, and we’re going to have a gala around Christmas this year. You should come.”
I noticed the look in Jay’s eyes and guessed the next thing out of his mouth would be an invitation to attend the event as his date. Despite the fact that he considered me a nosey damn Yankee, he was also a bit sweet on me. I guess he’d heard Alex and I were no longer a couple.
“I’ll see if Sammy’s interested in doing a bit of dancing. Thanks, Jay.”
A dark look erased his earlier flirtatious manner. “Right.” He turned on his heel and left.
“You knew he was going to ask you to the dance, didn’t you?” asked Grandy. “I think you damaged his ego.”
“He’ll survive. He never holds on to negative feelings long. That’s what I like about him.”
Everyone said goodnight outside the restaurant. Grandy got into Max’s car and followed me to my place.
“Anyone want coffee?” asked Grandy when we got home.
“Nope. Only bed.” I walked into my room and flopped onto the bed with all my clothes on, including my shoes. The next thing I knew, I was jostled out of a deep sleep by Grandy shaking me.
“Didn’t you hear the phone ring? It’s right by your head.” She handed me the headset phone from the living room.
“ ’Lo,” I muttered into the receiver.
“It’s Frida. The body’s gone.”
“Huh?”
“Someone hit the guard I stationed at the construction site over the head, tied him up, and took the bones. I hope to hell Sammy and the tribe had nothing to do with this.”
Frida did not sound happy.
Chapter 4
Frida didn’t ask for my help, but she’d told me earlier Linc Tooney was out with the flu, so of course she could use some assistance. Whether I was her choice for temporary partner or not, I determined her situation called for intervention—snoopy Eve intervention. I was out the door and in my convertible in seconds, heading to the construction site. Under other circumstances, Frida would have problems accepting my assistance—maybe she’d even reject it and shove it aside—but then, I argued to myself, why did she call me and let me know about the body? Clearly a call for help. I knew better than to discuss her call with anyone else, not even Grandy and certainly not Sammy.
Frida had called in the county sheriff’s department for backup, and the lights from her cruiser and those of the county cars lit up the construction area like daylight. An ambulance was at the scene, and one of the paramedics was attending to a uniformed officer, obviously the one who had been assigned to guard the scene. Frida spotted me and left off talking to the officer.
“I have mixed feelings about you being here, but …” she began.
“But you need to run all of this by someone with good instincts for snooping, and that’s me. Girl snoop.”
“Don’t step there, Eve.” Frida pulled me back from where the crime scene techs were working. “We’re trying to lift tire tracks.”
I nodded, and without being told, walked a wider perimeter around the construction area, shining my light at the ground.
“I’ve got a cigarette butt,” I called to her.
Frida directed one of the techs to it. “Bag it, but I’m certain it’s Henry’s.” She nodded at the officer whose head was being bandaged by the paramedic. “He thinks no one knows he smokes on the job. But I do.”
I knew it, too. I’d run into him at the police station numerous times. I have the nose of a bloodhound, so I smelled smoke despite his use of menthol cough drops.
“Any footprints?” I asked.
“Too many,” Frida replied. “I’m certain there are footprints from when we were here earlier today. And the prints would include those of the foreman, the backhoe operator, yours, mine, Danny Cypress and any others who were on the site this morning. Half of the county likes to come out here to see how the construction is coming. Big money for this area. The pro
mise of jobs.” Frida shook her head. “This is a disaster—one I’ll get blamed for, I’m sure. I should have put more than one guard here, but we are so short of people. Budget cuts and all.” She rubbed her eyes.
“Anything I can do to help ….”
Frida raised her head to gaze across the site and into the grove of sabal palms standing near the road. “Let’s take a look over there.” She motioned for me to follow.
I caught the first rays of the sun hovering at the east edge of the lake as we walked toward the trees. Daylight would help our search of the area. The amount of time that had elapsed since the attack on Henry would not.
“This is the only area the machinery hasn’t yet destroyed,” I said, picking my way across the dirt piles to the palm grove.
Despite it being untouched by the construction, the area wasn’t easy to walk through. Dead palm fronds covered the ground and vegetation grew thick under the trees.
“Watch your step,” Frida said.
I nodded. “No point in turning an ankle.”
“I meant look out for snakes. And it’s swampy in here. You can never tell if a gator might be snoozing under one of these fallen logs.”
Yuck and Yikes.
But nothing moved as we made our way through the shadowed area and approached the other side, nearer the road.
“Someone’s been in here,” Frida said. “There’re signs a person sat on this moss-covered log. It’s matted down and there are indentations in the ground in front.”
“As if someone was here, out of sight, watching the construction.”
“Someone hidden who could have seen Walter take something from the body,” said Frida. “Someone who might not have liked Walter removing the watch, if it was the watch. If Walter did remove something.”
“If so, then there should be vehicle tracks where the individual parked his car or truck out there.” I pointed to the other side of the trees, the side near the road. “No one in the construction area would have spotted a vehicle parked here. The palms obscure the view.”
It was a good place to park a vehicle if you needed it to be hidden from the backhoe operator and the foreman, and because the dirt track was located in a depression, it couldn’t have been seen from the road leading to the site.
Frida shrugged. “The construction workers could have parked here, not just someone wanting to hide their presence. We’ll take molds anyway.”
I nodded my head in agreement.
The sun seemed to suddenly pop up over the water, its reflection flooding the shoreline with brilliant light.
“Another screaming hot day.” Frida lifted her heavy hair off her shoulders and twisted it into a knot at the back of her neck. “I think that about does it for this crime scene.”
“Anything else I can do, I’m—”
“It was great to have a second pair of eyes, but if my boss knew you were here, he’d ….”
I put my finger in front of my lips.
“Or any of your friends,” Frida warned.
We headed back toward the construction site as the ambulance drove out onto the main road and another car followed by several older pickups pulled in.
“Here comes trouble,” Frida said.
“What?”
“The people from the state, and of course, some friends of yours.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“Representatives from the tribe, wanting to know if the remains found here yesterday are one of theirs. They will not react well when I tell them I lost the body.” Frida pulled back her shoulders and stepped forward, looking much like a prisoner feigning courage on the way to execution. This was one thing I could not help her with. She had to face them alone, and her guilt over her failure felt as palpable to me as the humidity that descended upon the desecrated burial site.
“Are you going to tell me what that phone call was all about?” asked Grandy when I returned to the house. “You rushed out of here like a shore bird being pursued by a hungry alligator.”
I couldn’t tell Grandy much. I’d promised Frida, but I could repeat what I knew the newspapers would pick up on for this weekend’s local edition.
“That body had been taken,” I said.
Grandy’s eyes held a speculative gleam. “And just why were you privy to the early edition of that information?”
“Frida wanted to share.” I held up my finger to signal silence. “That’s all I’m allowed to say.”
Grandy shook her head. “The last person I’d want traipsing around my crime scene would be you, Eve.”
“Any why would you say that?”
“Because there would be no end to your continued interference into the case, now, would there?”
I couldn’t help myself. “Maybe that’s the point.”
Grandy made a noise like a cross between a snort and a tsk, but changed the subject. “Are we going to visit the babies today?”
I checked my watch. “We have just enough time to pop in for a minute and then to the shop.”
The babies were thriving, as was Madeleine. David still looked as if he was in shock. His hair needed combing and his clothes looked as if he’d slept in them, which he probably had. The Egrets, Grandfather and Sammy, were just leaving when we stuck out heads into Madeleine’s room. As he walked past me, Sammy put his arm around my waist and pulled me close.
“We need to talk,” he whispered in my ear. “We know about the body being stolen. I’ve waited years to find him, and now someone has taken him away.”
Sammy obviously believed the body at the construction site was his father’s because of the watch Walter allegedly took.
“Are you working the ranch this afternoon?” I asked.
He shook his head. “David said he has no clients scheduled today.”
“How would you like to visit some pawn shops?”
“How does that bring back my father’s bones?” asked Sammy.
“It doesn’t, not directly, but if we can find the watch and who pawned it, we might get a lead on Walter’s killer. That could lead us to more information about the body.” Okay, so it was a tenuous link, but it was all I could think of to say.
Sammy was losing patience. I could tell by the way he gave a kick at the floor with the toe of his boot. “Who else’s body could it be?”
“Please, Sammy. Let’s just do this. One step at a time.” I hugged his arm and looked up into his deep brown eyes.
“Okay.”
I knew he wasn’t happy about the task, but it would keep him away from the more immediate issue of who took the body and why. The tribe would be all over the police on that one. Best to keep Sammy out of it for now.
Grandfather touched my shoulder gently as he and Sammy left the room.
“What was that all about?” asked Madeleine.
I realized for the first time that she didn’t know about the body, Walter, the theft or the implications of all of it for the tribe and especially the Egrets. Should I tell her? I glanced at Grandy. Reading my mind as usual, she shook her head.
I crossed the room and kissed my best friend on the cheek. Madeleine reached up and threw her arms around my neck. “What do you think about the names for the babies? I was too tired to ask you last night. It’s okay with you to name little Eve, Eve, isn’t it? You seemed so upset when I told you about the name last night.”
“Of course. I’m just thrilled about it. You took me by surprise, that’s all.” Thank goodness Madeleine was too preoccupied with the twins to pursue much going on outside the mommy and baby world.
A nurse entered the room. “So, Mrs. Wilson, are you ready to go home with your twins?”
David’s face grew a whiter shade of overwhelmed. “Now? It’s only been a day. Now?”
Madeleine reached out and grabbed her husband by the hand. “Get ahold of yourself, honey. You didn’t think I’d move in here, did you?”
“I don’t think I’m ready for this,” David said and steadied himself against the wall.
“I know that. It’s all taken me by surprise.” David straightened his shoulders, cleared his throat and tried to look fatherly.
“Nine months of pregnancy, and he’s surprised.” Madeleine chuckled.
Once at the shop, Grandy and I opened the doors to several customers waiting there.
“Sorry we’re late today, but we stopped by the hospital to see Madeleine and the twins. She delivered yesterday,” I announced to the women. Regulars in our shop, they knew Madeleine and me well. We talked for several minutes about Madeleine and the babies.
As I was ringing up a sale for one of the women, the bell announcing another arrival tinkled and Shelley, our seamstress, walked in. She overheard the baby talk.
“Isn’t that great news,” she said. “I stayed up late last night to get these ready for her.” She reached into a bag she was carrying and pulled out several articles of clothing.
“What’s all this?” I asked. The items looked familiar—at least the materials looked as if I should recognize them—but after a few minutes I realized what she held in her arms. The several dresses, blouses, and skirts were items we had taken in on consignment a few weeks ago, but now they were almost unidentifiable. In her clever way, Shelley had transformed the clothing to produce several beautiful outfits of a petite size—Madeleine size.
“I figured Madeleine would be fairly sick of wearing those maternity clothes, so I made her some new—well, almost new—outfits. What do you think?”
I hugged Shelley and said, “That is so thoughtful. She’s going to love these. And she’ll need them, since she’s going home today.”
Shelley looked so proud of what she’d accomplished and so pleased that I thought her work was just the right gift for Madeleine. She blushed and looked around the store for a moment. “I should make up a sign letting all our customers know about the babies. What did she name them?”
Everyone in town knew Madeleine was having twins, but no one, not even the expectant parents, had known the sexes before the births. We’d generated lists of possible names over the months of the pregnancy.
Old Bones Never Die Page 4