Old Bones Never Die

by Lesley A. Diehl

  “Well, at least visit Dr. Halsey tomorrow. Tell her about the dream and see what she thinks.”

  I promised him I’d see the doctor first thing in the morning. Sammy crawled into the narrow bed with me, and we cuddled until I fell asleep. The next thing I knew, sunlight was bright in the window and moving across the bed. A limpkin called from the canal behind the house. All remnants of the dream had passed, and I jumped out of bed.

  “Bathroom’s free!” Sammy called.

  I turned on the shower to warm water then jacked the faucet to cold. By the time I poured my coffee from Grandfather’s old metal pot, I was ready for the day.

  I called Frida and told her what Sammy and I had learned from Renfro.

  “I’ll find out who handled the robbery and get back to you,” she promised.

  A few minutes later, my cell rang.

  “Bad luck, Eve,” Frida said. “The guy on the case is not only retired, but he died a few years back. The other guy working the case has relocated to San Diego. I’ve got his name, but no address.”

  “Oh, damn.”

  “But there is some good news. If I sit with you, the captain says he’ll let you look at the notes on the case. That’s kind of unorthodox, but he says he knows the tribe is anxious for a solution to the hit-and-run, and if this will do it, he’s willing to stretch the rules. I also told him I thought the hit-and-run was connected to the robbery of the bones, not that either one is top priority right now. I convinced him solving one might solve the other.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  She paused. “Maybe. I don’t really know.”

  Frida was coming around to seeing things the way I did. Great minds and all that. “I’ll be at the station in a few minutes.”

  “Cannot do, Eve. I’ve got to interview a witness to that shack fire this morning. I should be back at noon or so. I’ll let you know.”

  I hated waiting, but it gave me the morning to go to the shop. I hadn’t forgotten my promise to see Dr. Halsey, but the dream seemed so unimportant now that I told myself the good doctor could wait. I called Grandy and told her I would open this morning.

  “Madeleine will be in around noon with the babies. If neither of you mind, I’ll take the day to go fishing with Max,” said Grandy.

  I thought I caught a note of relief in her voice. I couldn’t blame her. She’d dedicated far too much of herself to the business. By the time this whole thing was over, I’d owe so many debts to so many people, I’d have to give Grandy, Shelley, and even Grandfather—who had agreed to accompany me to the coast with the RV this weekend—a percentage of my share of the business. And then there was Nappi. Madeleine and I had not been able to pay him for the RV, not that he’d accept any money for it, but I felt indebted to him for that and so many other things he’d done for me over the years. I should work as an apprentice to Crusty McNabb. I needed the income.

  Frida called me at one in the afternoon, but we put off looking at the robbery of the pawn shop case. Instead Frida had news that shook me to my toes.

  “The guy we found in that burned-out shack with the bullet in his head?” said Frida. “We identified him as the cousin of the pawn shop owner on the coast.”

  “And the watch?” I asked.

  “No watch anywhere. But there’s more bad news.”

  I held my breath.

  “The pawnshop owner has split. His shop is closed, and when I visited his residence, it looks as if he’s taken a runner. No car, the front door was open, and all his clothes were gone. And before you ask, Eve, there was no watch on the premises or in his shop, which we just searched.”

  The cases—the hit-and-run, the uncovered bones and their subsequent disappearance, and the missing pawnshop owner and his dead cousin—had just come together in one confusing puzzle. Was there some other horror that went along with these cases, some piece we were overlooking?

  Chapter 13

  “I guess looking at that old pawn shop robbery case is as good a place as any to begin unraveling this mess,” said Frida.

  My head was still spinning from the confluence of all these cases, but I agreed to meet Frida at the station in fifteen minutes.

  The file on the pawnshop robbery was slim and not very revealing. I expressed my disappointment to Frida.

  “It wasn’t a big deal. A small heist of some jewelry from a local pawn shop,” she replied.

  The theft had occurred during the night. There was no surveillance camera. The thief came in through a back window. Two of the bars protecting the window had been pried loose using some kind of tool—perhaps a chisel, perhaps a hand drill of some kind. The thief obviously was worried about the noise made in entering and had rushed through the store, grabbing merchandise in a few cases and drawers. The safe was unopened.

  The list of items taken was in among the papers. “One pocket watch, cover etched with a wading bird,” it read. Although the detectives had tried other pawn shops in the area, suspecting the thief might have tried to pawn what he had stolen, the watch never showed up at another shop. Several of the rings and other jewelry stolen did.

  “I think maybe the guy wanted the watch for himself,” I said.

  The file indicated the detectives followed up by interviewing several suspects who had been involved in other thefts in the area. One of the neighbors had spotted someone running down the alley that night. The witness thought the person they saw was an Indian.

  “Oh, boy,” I said to Frida. “It’s beginning to look as if Sammy’s father broke into the pawn shop, took a bunch of stuff, then kept the watch for himself. I guess he didn’t have the money to buy it back after he pawned it.”

  “That makes sense,” said Frida.

  “And then someone killed him and buried his body with the watch on it. Walter recognized the watch, took it, and was killed for it.” The pieces began to fit. Except I wondered why Sammy’s father was killed.

  “Are you going to tell Sammy and Grandfather what you think happened?” asked Frida.

  “Not just yet.” I kept thinking about how the thief got into the pawn shop.

  “I’d like to see the pawn shop window where the bars were ripped out,” I said.

  Frida gave me an odd look, then shrugged. “Sure. Why not? I’m going to follow your lead until I come up with a better approach.”

  When we got into Frida’s cruiser, my nose caught a smell that tickled a vague memory.

  “What’s that funny smell?” I asked. I thought I’d caught a whiff of something in the police station when we were looking at the files, but in the enclosure of the car, the odor was stronger.

  “Can you smell it too? It’s from my trampling around that burned shack this morning. I guess I should have popped home and changed my clothes. Sorry about that.”

  “No need to apologize. It reminds me of something.”

  “What?”

  “I can’t put my finger on it. Something just out of reach.”

  We pulled into the alley behind the pawn shop. Frida went around the front to tell Mr. Renfro what we were up to while I examined the window. The bars were old, clearly the ones that were here when the robbery occurred, and it looked as if they had been cemented back into place after someone—the thief from all those years ago, I assumed—had ripped them out.

  “Satisfied?” asked Frida. “What did you hope to find after all this time?”

  “I’m not sure.” I stood back and looked at the space the thief must have opened to get into the shop, then walked back to the window and placed my hands on the bars to get a sense of how wide the space was.

  “Tight squeeze,” I said.

  Frida nodded. “Ready?”

  We walked back to her cruiser.

  On our way to the station to pick up my car, Frida slid down in the seat and heaved a deep sigh. “I really didn’t need this case or cases to get so complicated. And now I have no time to look into who broke into your house and tried to …” she stopped short, but I finished for her.

/>   “Kill me?” I remembered my promise to Sammy to get in touch with my shrink this morning and realized I hadn’t called her. I had something more important on my mind.

  “Can you give me the name of that detective who worked the pawn shop burglary case, the one who moved to San Diego?”

  “Sure, but it’ll be a bitch to get in touch with him.”

  “For me, maybe, but I have resources.”

  Frida gave me a warning look, which I ignored. She knew I was about to call on my pal Nappi for some help on the West Coast.

  “Tell him I said hi. And I hope he had nothing to do with the disappearance of the pawn shop owner and the hit on his cousin.”

  “You think the murder looked like a mob hit—the bullet in the back of the head. But the shack was burned. That doesn’t sound like what the mob usually does. They like to leave the body to make a statement, not cover it up with a fire.”

  “Maybe not, but still it looked like a professional hit to me. The shack was probably burned to destroy evidence.”

  Like a watch?

  “I thought the mob simply tortured people until they found out what they needed to know,” I said.

  “The guy wasn’t tortured, but he’s just as dead. You sure seem to know a lot about mob hits. You must have learned it from someone, maybe a friend?”

  “I read a lot.”

  “Sure you do.”

  “Nappi had nothing to do with those murders,” I said, but then remembered he knew the pawnshop owner’s cousin. What else did he know about the guy? Anything my cop friend Frida should also know?

  “You’d tell me if there was anything I should know. Right?” Frida asked.

  I searched her face for any sign of suspicion on her part, but she shot back her most innocent look, the one I always thought highly suspicious.

  Speaking of Nappi, I hadn’t talked with him for a long time, so I invited him to share dinner with Grandy, Max, and me. I also invited Sammy, but he had promised to take Walter’s two oldest boys to the early movie while Grandfather took care of the youngest. He then confided that the boys were eager to see me again so I could report on my progress in their father’s case. Jason had been reading about private detective work. Sammy said Jason expected both a written and a verbal report of my progress. Kids are just too smart for their own good. Next thing I knew they’d want an itemized list of my expenses and a time sheet. How far could I stretch that thirty-plus dollar retainer without the boys having to do extra yard work or quit school and take part-time jobs? The case had just gotten more complicated, but I told him I’d be at the house tomorrow when they got out of school. If he could get away from the hunting ranch, I’d make a picnic, and we’d take the canoe out into the swamps.

  Not only did I want Nappi to help me find the detective who moved to San Diego, but I also wanted an update on how the lawyer was proceeding with the case of the young boy who shot Alex. As it turned out, Nappi was willing to offer me even more services, most of them legal.

  I never understood how anyone could eat ribs at the Biscuit and not wear the sauce on the front of their clothing. In Nappi’s case, he was the king of keeping his cuffs white and his cufflinks shining gold in the restaurant’s lights while I was up to my elbows in the stuff. The soiled napkins were piled up next to my plate, and I grabbed for another one, noting that he had barely used his. I didn’t feel too bad. Grandy and Max ate like I did, with gusto and utter disregard for how saucy our fingers were. I had been in a restaurant up North where they offered plastic gloves with rib dinners. Where was the fun in that?

  “I am so sorry for what happened to you, Eve, but I’m happy to see your encounter with the intruder didn’t ruin your appetite.” Nappi dabbed gently at his lips, and I could swear he left no trace of sauce on the napkin.

  “Thanks, but it took me some time to recover. Being hired by Sammy’s nephews to take on their father’s hit-and-run was just what I needed.” I dipped my fork into my coleslaw and stuffed a forkful into my mouth.

  “Hired?” Nappi said.

  “Miccosukee contract. The nephews are only kids,” I managed through a mouth filled with coleslaw.

  Nappi pushed his plate away and tented his arms on the table in front of him. “I hope I can be of help.”

  “Sure can. Let me bring you up to speed on what we know so far.” I told him about the murder of the pawn shop owner’s cousin and what I’d found out about the robbery at Renfro Shop here in Sabal Bay.

  “And of course the police here are wondering if I had anything to do with the hit,” he said.

  “I assured Frida you did not. And no one here knows that you were familiar with the guy murdered in that burned shack.”

  “We should keep it that way. Just between us.” Nappi looked to Max and Grandy for confirmation.

  “There’s just one thing,” said Max.

  We all looked at him in surprise. Max was usually so quiet, we never expected him to say much.

  “Go ahead,” said Nappi.

  “If there’s going to be any stuff like surveillance or a bit of breaking and entering, you know, work that’s just this side of illegal …. What I mean to say is, I want to be in on the fun. Eve and Grandy are always in the thick of it while I’m fishing or captaining a boat. Fun for me, sure, but I like a walk on the wild side sometimes, too.”

  “We don’t purposely leave you out, honey,” said Grandy.

  “Well, if you’re worried about my health, I’m just fine.” He shifted back in his chair and gave us all a stern look.

  “I’m sure Eve can find some way to use you,” said Nappi. “There’s always room for another member on this team.”

  He made it sound as if we were about to take the field for a game of football.

  I watched as someone familiar walked up behind Nappi. Danny Cypress, a man I wasn’t keen on seeing again.

  “Enjoying your dinner?” Cypress gave me a smile filled with sexual promise.

  Nappi turned in his seat and stood up. “Mr. Cypress, I believe.” He put out his hand in greeting.

  The smile disappeared from Cypress’ face, replaced by a wary look. “Have we met?”

  “Once, perhaps, and only in passing. Back when you worked for some folks I know in Miami.”

  Cypress took the proffered hand and shook it. “I don’t remember the occasion.”

  I introduced him to Grandy and Max.

  “Would you like to join us?” asked Grandy.

  No, no, no, Grandy. I kicked her under the table.

  “I’m sure Mr. Cypress is too busy to bother with us,” I said.

  “I’m never too busy for two beautiful women,” Cypress oozed.

  Max rolled his eyes, and Grandy shot me a sheepish little grimace of apology. Cypress moved a chair from a nearby table to ours and inserted it between Grandy and me.

  I looked across the table at Nappi, whose eyes never left Cypress’ face.

  “Ms. Appel and I had a lovely dinner the other night, and I was hoping we could repeat it.” Cypress snapped his fingers together to get the attention of the waitress.

  I hate that. I wanted to snap mine at him and yell, “Hey, fella! Get some manners.”

  Nappi continued to stare at Cypress with a pleasant expression on his face. “Perhaps I can get some service for you, Mr. Cypress.” Nappi took his gaze away from Cypress and smiled across the room at the waitress, who rushed over.

  “This gentleman,” he said, pronouncing the word with a sneer in his voice, “would like to order a drink.”

  “I’ll have what Ms. Appel is having,” said Cypress.

  The waitress nodded and hurried away. She returned with a glass of water, which she set in front of Cypress.

  “What the hell is this?” he yelled at her.

  “It’s what I’m drinking. Water. I’m still on pain meds and can’t have alcohol.” I brought my glass to my mouth as if to drink, but I was hiding a smile.

  Cypress recovered his smooth quickly. “Yes, I think I heard
something about someone breaking into your house and assaulting you.” His face grew red and his voice got louder. “Whoever would do a thing like that should be shot. Or worse.”

  “The police are looking for him. I’m sure they’ll find him soon.”

  Cypress raised his glass and sipped. “Did you get a good look at the guy?”

  “Not really,” I said. “I was too busy stabbing him with my shoe.”

  This brought a smile to his lips. “That’s my girl.”

  “Actually, Danny, I believe that’s my girl.” Sammy leaned down and kissed my cheek.

  “Hi, honey. How was the movie?” I returned his kiss and pulled him down into the chair next to mine. “Mr. Cypress stopped by to say hello and was just leaving.”

  Danny Cypress’ face was red, not with embarrassment—he didn’t have the social sensitivity for that, I was sure. Anger might be closer to what he was experiencing.

  “I was merely commenting on how glad I was to see our Eve was back on her feet so quickly, given her recent experience. She certainly is resilient.” Danny pushed back his chair.

  Sammy gave Danny his best smile, the one he reserved for those he didn’t like, the one that didn’t light up his eyes. They remained black, like those of an eagle on the hunt.

  “So good of you to stop by.” The words were hardly out of Sammy’s mouth before he turned his attention back to me, slipping his arm around my shoulders.

  “I guess I’ll say goodnight.” Danny nodded to all of us and donned his hat as he left.

  No one paid him any mind except for Nappi, whose gaze followed him until the exit door closed behind him.

  I watched him go with relief. “Mr. Cypress doesn’t seem to like being around you, Nappi. Why is that, do you think?”

  Nappi leaned back in his chair and finished his Scotch. “He thinks I know about his past work in Miami.”

  “With a ‘family’ there,” I added.

  Nappi nodded. “He thinks I know more than I do, but I believe he’s hiding something, and I intend to find out what it is.”