“So that’s why the skeleton hasn’t been dug up before,” I said. That and the fact that the backyard was fenced in. Big predators would have to jump a six-foot fence. Did they even have big predators in Mudville?
“How long was the woodpile there?” asked Tara.
“For as long as Uncle Phil owned the place. Before we were born,” said Simon. “Stella would know exactly.”
“So the body has probably been here for twenty years,” I said.
“Who do you think it is?” said Tara.
“No idea,” said Brent.
Ollie woofed. He nearly pulled my arm out of its socket, trying to get back to his treasure.
“I’m just going to put Ollie inside with Wolfgang,” I said. I walked to the back door, dragging the bouncy mutt all the way. It was a battle to get him on the other side of the door, but eventually I won. “You stay there,” I ordered him, closing the door firmly. Luckily, the door opened inward. All his pawing against it wouldn’t force it open.
I turned around. Nobody had moved. I could see them talking urgently among themselves. They stopped as I drew close. We all stared down into the makeshift grave.
“What should we do?” said Simon.
“What do you think, Tara?” Brent said. I found it interesting how he deferred to her.
“We should probably send for Simon’s uncle Bob.” Tara looked at her twin.
“He’s a cop,” Simon explained to me. “Other side of the family.”
I froze. The last thing I needed was police asking a bunch of questions. It wouldn’t take them long to figure out who Mom and I were related to. Word would get around. I didn’t want to be known as the kid whose father was in prison.
I was so lost in my thoughts, I almost missed the odd silence that had fallen over the others.
“Or,” Simon continued after the long pause, “we could simply cover it up again. Let the poor guy rest in peace.”
He glanced over at me. Thing is, Simon knows. He knows Mom and I wouldn’t want any police hanging around the place, looking for murderers. He knows I would vote with the “bury the evidence” club.
But even so—even though I was up against a wall—I couldn’t help wondering. Was Simon suggesting this option to protect our identities? Or was there some other reason he didn’t want the body investigated?
“We could still investigate,” said Tara. “Just quietly, among ourselves.” It was hard not to notice the longing in her voice.
“And if we found out anything interesting, we could present it to the police,” said Brent. I felt his eyes on me.
Okay, now I was suspicious. Simon must have told Tara and Brent why I had moved here. I grabbed Simon’s arm and pulled him away from the others.
“You told them.” I kept my voice low so no one else would hear.
Simon’s face went red.
“It was supposed to be a secret, Simon!” I felt betrayed.
“I only told them your dad was in jail. And that you were here to lie low. Nothing more.”
I turned my head so I could see Tara and Brent. They were looking down into the hole. Talk about awkward.
“We need their help,” Simon pleaded. “Don’t be mad.”
I wasn’t mad so much as embarrassed. But I had more important things to worry about. Keeping the cops away was number one. I gave Simon a look, and we joined the others.
“Shall we take a vote?” Tara said. “So far, only the four of us know about this.”
“And Ollie,” said Simon. “And Wolfgang.”
“And the dogs,” said Tara with a small smile. “We’ll have to do something to keep Ollie from digging up this spot again, if we…” Her voice trailed off.
“So…who is in favor of keeping the status quo?” said Brent.
“Let sleeping dogs lie?” said Simon.
Tara gave him a stern look. “Hands up for reburial.”
Four hands shot up.
“All in favor. Good,” said Tara. “It’s always awkward when someone disagrees.”
Like this situation wasn’t awkward enough.
“You realize that we’re probably breaking all sorts of laws,” I said.
“Don’t get lost in the details,” said Tara. “Harry is the important one here. Do you think he wants his bones laid out on a hard, cold steel slab in the police morgue? To be examined like a lab rat? I wouldn’t. We’re doing what’s best for Harry.”
“Harry?” I almost shouted it.
“Not his real name, of course,” said Tara. “But we need to give him a name. It’s only decent. And Harry is more fitting than John Doe.”
More fitting than…was Tara nuts?
Simon snorted. “I get it. The Trouble with Harry. That old Hitchcock movie. Harry gets buried and dug up and reburied and re-dug up all through the film.”
“That’s it.” Tara nodded. “You made us watch it last fall. So we’re agreed that we will cover up poor Harry while we investigate. But we need to do a better job of it this time. And somehow cordon off the area so the dogs can’t get at it.”
I swung my gaze around the yard, looking for something that we could use. Nothing.
“Okay, we don’t have much time,” said Tara. “Simon, can you find a shovel so we can fill in this hole?”
Simon nodded. “For now we can just fill in the hole. Brent and I can do the plants tomorrow.”
I glanced toward the pub. “I should probably check on the dogs. And keep Aunt Stella from getting suspicious.”
“We’ll take care of things the best we can back here,” said Simon. “Catch up with you later.”
I nodded. As I walked away, I heard Tara say in a low voice. “Do you think it could be Earl?”
Chapter Four
I found my aunt in the kitchen. Vern was nowhere to be seen.
“Hey, Aunt Stella, who is Earl?” I asked.
Stella stopped rolling pastry. She glanced up at me and then down at her work again. “How on earth…?”
I didn’t know how much to tell. So I kept it simple. “Something Tara said.”
Stella went back to rolling. “Earl Offerson was an older distant cousin of the twins. He ran off with another woman about twenty years ago.”
So that’s what the others were thinking! That maybe this Earl guy didn’t leave town with the other woman. Maybe he’d stuck around to warm the ground.
And if so, did his wife kill him? Or did the other woman? Or her husband?
“It was a bit of a scandal,” said Aunt Stella. “We didn’t live here then. We used to have our own house before Phil died. We rented out the upstairs of the pub to a woman named Sally Hooke.”
I got it now. Why it was awkward for her. They owned the love nest but hadn’t known it was being used for that purpose. “Is that who Earl ran off with? Your lodger?”
Aunt Stella put down the rolling pin. She looked me right in the eye. “What brought this up, Penny?”
I hesitated. My hands curled around the back of the wooden chair I was standing behind.
“Come clean,” she said. “If you’re going to live here, you’re going to have to trust me. And vice versa.”
She was right. I didn’t want to have any secrets from Aunt Stella. So I told her about Wolfgang’s bone. And then about Harry.
“Well, darn,” she said. “So Simon and Brent are out there refilling the hole?”
I nodded.
Aunt Stella was silent for several moments. I watched her forehead furl into long lines. Finally she picked up a tea towel and started wiping flour off her hands.
“Not a good idea, having the cops around. Especially on your first day here. Your dad…well, we don’t want anyone to know about that, now do we?” She took a deep breath. “So they’re willing to keep it a secret, right?”
I nodded. I knew she was referring to my new friends.
“Those kids are smart. We’ll keep it between ourselves. Although, if you don’t mind, I might tell Vern. No one else though.”
Relief! It felt good to have an ally. I am really lousy at keeping secrets from people I love. I sat down with a plunk in the wooden chair.
“You’ll meet Jean Offerson tonight. Earl’s widow. Both she and Dotty Dot are coming here. They’re inseparable.”
I tried to work it out. But no, it wasn’t happening. “Dotty Dot?”
“Dorothy Danvers,” said Stella. “Dot for short. She’s slipping, if you know what I mean. Rather ditzy. So we call her Dotty Dot.”
I had no idea how to respond to that.
“Funny thing about Earl,” said my aunt. “I haven’t thought about him in years. We all just assumed…”
I could see she was reading my mind. That maybe he hadn’t run away. Maybe he hadn’t gotten farther than the backyard of the Big Dill.
I checked on Ollie. He and Wolfgang were napping. I decided not to disturb them. A few minutes later I went back outside. Simon had found a spade and a snow shovel. He and Brent had the hole almost filled. Tara was supervising.
I swallowed hard. “Okay, slight change of plans,” I said. All three looked over at me.
Tara said it first. “You told Stella.”
I shuffled my feet and nodded. “She figured something was up. I couldn’t lie to her.” I could see Simon was not happy to hear this. “But it’s okay!” I added. “She agrees that we should all keep quiet about it. After all, it was a very long time ago.” Besides, you told Tara and Brent about me, I wanted to say to him. But I didn’t.
“The murderer is probably dead by now,” said Tara.
Brent was standing with both arms leaning on the snow shovel. He had a big frown on his cute face. “Have you thought about why your aunt might want to keep this quiet?”
Yes. I had thought about it, actually. It was her property. Could she and Uncle Phil have had something to do with it? I told them what I had just learned.
“They owned the place. But they didn’t live here at the time,” I said. I told them, too, about the lodger, Sally Hooke, running off with a man called Earl.
I saw Tara dart a look at Brent. He was looking at her too. Then he nodded.
I wasn’t surprised. After all, Tara had been the first one to mention Earl. They just didn’t know I had overheard.
“So. What do we do now?” said Simon.
“Finish covering up the grave,” said Tara. “And don’t tell anyone else.” She gave me a stern look.
“I won’t,” I said. “Don’t forget—I have the most to lose.”
“But we should get investigating,” said Tara. “You know what we could do first?”
“What?” I asked.
“Track down Sally Hooke. If Earl is still with her, then we’ll know the bones aren’t his.”
“Even if they aren’t together, Sally might know what happened to him,” I said. But she also might know that it is him in the ground, I thought. A warning flashed in my brain. But before I could think it through, Simon said something that distracted me.
“Brent, can you do a trace?” A what? Simon turned to me. “Brent’s a whiz with computers,” he said.
Brent? Not Simon? I stared at Brent. “You don’t look like a nerd,” I said.
Brent raised one eyebrow. “Oh? What does a nerd look like exactly?”
I could feel my face going red. What a stupid thing to say! Just because someone was hot didn’t mean they couldn’t be smart. I was an idiot.
“Tara, we need to get home. But I’ll bring my laptop tonight,” he said. “See you at seven.”
“Tonight?” I said. “Why? What’s happening tonight?”
Simon grinned at me. “It’s your first night in Mudville. The whole town will be coming to the pub.”
Simon wasn’t kidding. People started to arrive right at five. A few came via the back door. Simon’s uncle Bob, the cop, came in the front. He gave my aunt a quick hug and then sat down with Vern. He was a big guy, with a shaved head and a great smile. Seemed friendly rather than scary. I took his order and started back to the kitchen. That’s when the commotion started.
A shout came from outside the pub, and then I heard several more raised voices. I hurried toward the back door, but Bob was quicker. He reached the door first and swung it open.
Ollie trotted over. He had a huge bone in his mouth.
The dogs had dug up another bone.
Chapter Five
“Shit, shit, shit,” said Vern. He hung on to the doorframe, panting. “Who let the dog out?”
I stifled a hysterical giggle. By this time Aunt Stella had joined Vern in the doorway.
“It’s probably just an old soup bone,” said Aunt Stella. Her voice was unusually high.
“That doesn’t look like a soup bone,” said Bob. He gave my aunt a pointed look. Then he walked swiftly to the gravesite.
It was as bad as I could imagine. When customers had come in the back way, Ollie must have squeezed out. And he had dug up the bones again. A small circle of people stood gaping into the hole.
“Shit,” said Vern again.
We watched Bob pull a cell phone from his pocket. No question that he was calling the station. I felt my forehead break out in a sweat. Had we left any trace? Would Bob figure out that we had already seen the skeleton?
At that point, I made a decision. I followed Bob out to the scene of the crime. He didn’t know I had seen it before. I had to make it seem like this was the first time.
I gasped loudly, looking down at the human bones.
Bob turned. “Get back in the pub,” he said, waving a hand. He turned to the other gawkers. “You people, go home. Penny, tell everyone in the pub to go home. I’ll talk to you later.”
Vern and Stella had crept up behind me. We hurried back into the pub. Vern gave everyone there the bad news. We had the place to ourselves within minutes.
“I’m sorry,” said Aunt Stella. “I should have thought about Ollie getting out.”
“We should lock the front door. Put the Closed sign up,” Vern said.
“Good idea,” said Aunt Stella. “Penny?”
I rushed to the front door, locked it and switched the sign around. As I came back, Bob was dragging Ollie by his collar back into the pub. Minus the bone.
“Don’t let this dog out again. Don’t let anyone else come out.” He directed this to me. I met his stormy eyes and nodded. The door banged shut behind him.
“At least he doesn’t think you and the kids had anything to do with this,” said my aunt. She came over to the kitchen table, carrying a tray with three coffee mugs and a carafe. Her hands were shaking a bit as she set down the tray. Vern moved over to make room for her on the bench.
“Why do you say that?” I said. I plunked down on the bench opposite them.
“You acted totally surprised. I kinda fudged on the soup-bone thing. And Vern kept saying shit, like he had something to hide.”
“Shit,” said Vern.
“So what should we say to the police?” I needed to rehearse it.
“We say nothing,” said Aunt Stella firmly. “Ollie just dug up those bones. We don’t know who it is or why it is there.” She carefully poured coffee into each mug and handed them around. “Penny, you should text Simon and the twins. Let them know what’s going on here.”
“And tell them to keep quiet,” said Vern. “They weren’t here. They don’t know anything about dug-up bones.”
“Except word will get around, Vern,” said Aunt Stella. “You know how it is in this town. Everyone will know everything by tomorrow.”
“Shit,” said Vern.
The pub was shut down. More policemen came. We watched from a window. They put a tent up over Harry’s gravesite. Then the crime-scene officers got to work. A young cop in uniform stood guard at the gate.
Aunt Stella made us sandwiches for dinner. Vern left after we’d eaten. I sent text messages to my friends, explaining what was going on. Shortly before eight, I got a text back from Simon.
Can you get out? We’re across the street.
; I sneaked out with the excuse that I needed to walk the dog. We couldn’t let him out to pee in the backyard anymore. Two cops were settling down to interview my aunt. They didn’t seem interested in me. I grabbed Ollie’s leash from the hook in the kitchen.
Ollie bounded happily out the door, pulling on his leash. He picked up the pace when he saw Simon and Brent across the street at the riverfront park. It took all my strength to keep up with him.
It was a lovely summer night, clear without too much humidity. The sun was getting ready to set.
“Let me take the dog,” Simon said. “You guys can talk.” I handed over the leash. Simon took off with Ollie, running.
“I did some research online with Simon. We found Sally Hooke,” said Brent. “At least, I think it’s her. She’d be the right age. I have an address in Hamilton.”
“That’s terrific!” I said, clapping my hands together. “What do we do now?”
“Simon and I have to work the early shift for the next two days. But Tara is off on Thursday. She said the two of you could go check it out.”
“Sure,” I said. But I was a little disappointed. It would have been nice if Brent could come too.
“You can report back on Thursday night. We’ll be seeing you then, of course.” He gave me a lazy smile that did something to my insides.
Ollie was having a grand time too. Simon had let him off leash. It was hard not to smile, watching Ollie bounce along the shore. He picked up a big stick and came trotting over with it, proudly dropping it at my feet. Then he went charging back to get another.
Simon jogged back to us, puffing a bit. “Did you tell Penny the plan?”
“Everything except your travesty on Thursday night,” Brent said.
Simon punched him on the shoulder. “Hey! It’s a class act. Even Tara thinks so.”
“What’s happening Thursday night?” I said.
They both grinned at me. “You’ll see,” said Brent.
After they walked me back to the Dilly, I set to unpacking my suitcase.
The Crime Club Page 2