But the mutts were no longer in the Marlows’ backyard. They were now behind her rosebushes, tearing up the ground. Furious, she wanted to go downstairs and take care of those dogs herself, but she was not foolish enough to take on a pit bull, not even with her baseball bat. Instead of informing the negligent pet owners of what their dogs were doing, she decided the best course of action was to call the police. She would call animal control, but she knew they were not open on Sundays. Perhaps if the police filed a report, animal control would do its job and seize the two menacing dogs.
Chris was just taking the steaks off the grill when Hunny came streaking across the yard, Sadie close behind her. They were no longer playing with a tennis ball, but instead each had their own prize. The dogs, covered in muddy dirt, each carried in their mouths a suspiciously long bone. They were certainly not the type of bones sold at the local pet store.
“What do they have in their mouths?” Heather asked as she stood up and looked to the dogs, who were in the middle of the yard, their tails wagging, looking as if they were prepared to take off running for more play.
“Is that what I think it is?” Danielle said.
“Sadie,” Ian called out. “Sit!”
“Hunny!” Chris yelled, setting the platter of steaks on the picnic table. “Stay!”
Walt walked over to the two dogs with Chris and Ian. The three women trailed after them. Hunny and Sadie, now sitting, dropped the bones on the grass. The dogs looked up to the men, panting, their tongues hanging out of their mouths and tails wagging.
“Where did you get those?” Walt demanded, now standing over the dogs.
“Oh, my god,” Heather groaned. “That looks like part of a human leg.”
All six gathered around the dogs when they heard someone call out, “Hello!” They looked to the sound of the voice. Walking in their direction was Brian Henderson, and close behind him was Pearl Huckabee. They had obviously entered through the front side gate.
“I understand Sadie and Hunny were over in Mrs. Huckabee’s yard,” Brian said when he walked up to the six friends. They continued to stand around the dogs.
“They tore up my yard!” Pearl said. “You need to take those dogs in. They are dangerous! They are a menace.”
Once Brian reached the group, they all took several steps back, giving Brian an opportunity to see what the dogs had brought over.
Brian looked down at the bones; his eyes widened. “Is that what it looks like?”
“I think it may belong to the hand,” Danielle told him. “You might want to check out Pearl’s yard. See if you can find the rest of him.”
“What are you talking about?” Pearl snapped, shoving past Brian. She froze once she saw what they had been looking at. “What’s that?”
“Bones, obviously,” Heather said. “It looks like it’s from a human leg.”
“Where did they come from?” Pearl asked.
“From your backyard,” Heather told her.
“They did not!” Pearl shouted back.
“Mrs. Huckabee, you did tell me you saw the dogs digging in your backyard,” Brian reminded her.
Walt, who had been silently conversing with the dogs, looked to Brian and said, “From what I gather, the dogs slipped out our back gate—we must not have closed it properly.” He glanced over to Danielle and then looked back to Brian. “They got into Pearl’s backyard through her broken gate. And you know dogs and bones—if they find them, they will dig them up. And I suspect there are more where these came from.”
“No!” Pearl shouted. “You are making this up! There are no human bones in my yard!” She turned to Brian and said, “I want you to arrest those dogs, do you hear me? Arrest them right now!”
Twenty-Six
The six friends from Beach Drive had finished eating by the time more responders arrived, which was good for them, since it started to rain and they were able to move inside with less hassle—but bad for the responders, who had to search Pearl’s yard in a downpour.
Wanting to remain dry, the friends all retreated to one of the upstairs bedrooms at Marlow House so they could watch the action. All but Danielle stood at the window. They passed around a pair of binoculars to get a closer look. Danielle sat on the bed with her laptop open.
Having her turn with the binoculars, Lily peered into Pearl’s backyard. The rain had subsided to a drizzle. What appeared to be bones were being pulled from the ground and then placed on sheets of plastic that had been spread over one section of the ground.
Lily glanced over at Danielle and then looked back through the binoculars. “I don’t know why you don’t want to watch this. It looks like they’ve found gramps.”
“That’s who I’m looking for too,” Danielle said.
“What are you doing?” Walt asked.
“Andy mentioned one of his cousins had done some genealogical research. I was just wondering if any of it was posted on Ancestry,” Danielle told him.
Lily handed Heather the binoculars and then walked over to Danielle and sat on the side of the bed. “Did you find anything?”
Danielle looked up to Lily. “Actually I did.”
“Nancy Drew is at it again,” Chris said with a chuckle.
Danielle flashed Chris a quick smile and then looked back down at the laptop. “I found Darin and Betty Burnette, Pearl’s grandparents. Pearl’s on the family tree—at least, I assume it’s her. But it says private, so they don’t have her name or any information, which is what they do for someone who is still alive. But since all her first cousins have passed, they are listed by name, as well as her parents. Darin’s other family is on here too. Looks like he had two children from that marriage. Either they are still alive, or whoever created this tree didn’t input death information, so it just says private.”
Chris turned from the window and walked over to the bed. “If you found Darin on the tree—with his first name—that must mean whoever put that information in there knows when he died—which would lead me to believe he isn’t the one buried next door.”
Danielle shook her head. “No. There’s a note attached to his profile. It states the death date is only a guess. When inputting the data, it’s not uncommon to estimate the death date when you assume the person is dead and want the information to show up in a search.”
“Is there anything else on him?” Lily asked.
“Oh…this is interesting,” Danielle muttered, her eyes on the monitor.
“What?” Lily asked.
“Whoever inputted the information writes how they discovered Darin had another family, and he deserted both of them. The person speculates he might have had a third family out there that he ended up with.”
“Or maybe one of his families decided to keep him close by,” Lily said as she stood and walked to the window. “In the backyard.”
It was almost dark and the rain had stopped. They could see the police and all the responders were preparing to leave, but yellow police tape partitioned off a large portion of Pearl’s backyard. Curious to learn what they had found, Ian, Chris and Walt left the women in the house while they went outside to see if Brian would tell them anything.
By the time they reached Brian, he was just about to get into his squad car.
“You found who went with the hand?” Chris asked when they reached Brian.
Brian turned from his car, which was parked in front of Pearl’s house, and faced the three men while the other vehicles from the police and coroner’s department were driving off.
“Oh…yeah. And then some,” Brian said with a weary sigh.
“Then some?” Ian asked.
“There was more than one body planted at your neighbor’s. The only good news, it looks as if they have been there a long, long time.”
“More? How many more?” Ian asked.
“At least two, but there could be a third. And since we had to stop, not only because it’s getting dark, but because more rain is expected tonight, it’s possible we’ll find more. I’m leavi
ng someone here to keep an eye on the place so no one tampers with what appears to be a crime scene—a very old crime scene. We’ll be back in the morning.”
“Three or more?” Chris asked. “Holy crap.”
“Two for certain. The two femurs your dogs brought over are believed to be from the same body, considering their size. We found two other femurs. Yet we’re not certain they go together, considering some irregularities with one of them. It’s possible it’s from a third body that was buried at a different time.”
Walt glanced up at Pearl’s house. She stood in the upstairs bedroom window looking down at them. He looked from Pearl to Brian and asked, “I assume you told Pearl?”
“Yes. She, by the way, is convinced you put them there,” Brian said.
“What?” Ian asked.
Brian glanced at Ian and smiled. “Not you.” He looked at Walt and said, “Walt and Danielle. Or more likely Danielle. You know, when she was fixing up Marlow House and unearthed all the skeletons and decided to move them next door. Which is why Pearl’s back gate is broken. That’s how Danielle got in to bury the bones, she smashed in her neighbor’s gate.”
“You are kidding? Right?” Walt asked.
Brian shook his head. “No, I’m not. But I don’t think she actually believes that. She’s rattled, trying to make sense of it all. And she has to find someone to blame. And for whatever reason, you are not her favorite people. And she really doesn’t like any of your dogs.”
On Monday morning Danielle and Walt decided to have breakfast at Pier Café. The rain had stopped, and once again the sunshine instead of rain clouds brightened the sky. As Walt backed the Packard out of the garage, they noticed several police cars driving up to the alley entrance of Pearl’s property.
“Looks like they are here to do some more searching,” Danielle said. “I wonder if they’ll find more bones.”
“Considering all the mediums who live on Beach Drive, it’s amazing none of the spirits attached to those bones have contacted any of you,” Walt said as he drove the Packard down the alleyway, heading to the pier.
“No surprise. According to Brian, they’re really old. So I imagine those spirits moved on long before we arrived. And hey, you were here for almost a hundred years, and you weren’t aware of them. I wonder if Eva knows anything.”
“When I was a ghost, I didn’t get out much,” Walt joked.
Danielle pulled her phone from her purse. “I’m going to see what the chief has found out.”
Walt was just pulling into the parking lot near the pier when Danielle finished her call.
“He didn’t really tell me much more than what Brian told you last night,” Danielle said as she slipped her phone back in her purse. “Other than it will probably take weeks before they even know how old the bones are, much less learn anything that will help identify who they belonged to.”
“Why is that?” Walt asked.
“Budgets and priority. I guess the labs are currently understaffed, and skeletal remains that might be over a hundred years old—”
“They are that old?” Walt asked.
Danielle shrugged. “He said it’s hard to tell considering their condition. But if they’re over fifty years, they don’t take priority.”
Ten minutes later Walt and Danielle sat at one of the booths at Pier Café. They had just picked up their menus when Carla walked up to their table with a pot of coffee.
“I can’t even imagine all those dead bodies buried right next door to you!” Carla started the conversation as she righted the clean mugs on their table and began filling them with coffee.
“Not bodies exactly,” Danielle corrected. “And it looks like they’ve been there for decades.”
Setting the coffee pot on the table and placing her other hand on a hip, Carla said, “You think it’s an old Indian burial ground?”
“I doubt it,” Danielle said. “How did you hear about it?”
“It was on the radio this morning.” Carla glanced at the menus. “Do you know what you want yet?”
“Why don’t you give us a few minutes,” Walt suggested.
“Okay.” Carla picked up the coffee pot and flounced away.
“You’re Walt and Danielle Marlow, aren’t you?” the elderly man in the next booth asked.
Walt looked over to him and said, “Yes, we are.”
“I’m your new neighbor, Bud Caine.” The elderly man extended his hand over the back of the booth in greeting.
Walt shook his hand and Danielle asked, “Really? Where did you move into?”
“I’m in the house three doors up the street from you.”
“Glad to see all our dead bodies haven’t scared you away,” Walt said with a chuckle.
“Actually the house has been in our family for years. I just moved into it last week.”
“Would you like to join us?” Danielle offered.
Fifteen minutes later Walt and Danielle sat in the booth with their new neighbor, Bud Caine. The three had just given Carla their order, and she had just left to turn it into the kitchen.
“I actually grew up in Frederickport,” Bud explained. “That house belonged to my parents. My wife and I lived there for a while after they died, but she was never fond of the beach. Too damp for her. So we moved to Nevada, rented our house here out with Adam Nichols. You know him?”
“Oh yes. Adam is a good friend,” Danielle explained. “And so was his grandmother.”
“I was sure sad to hear of Marie’s passing,” Bud said with a sigh. “I used to have quite a crush on her before I met my Janie. Marie was a few years older than me, but a cute little thing and sassy. Never did understand why she married Nichols. He could be sort of a jerk.”
“What brought you back to Frederickport?” Walt asked.
“My wife, Janie, passed away last year,” Bud began.
“I’m so sorry,” Danielle said.
Bud shrugged. “She was pretty sick. I suppose it was a blessing. But I miss her. We never had any kids. And most of our friends seemed to be dropping like flies, so I figured I would come back here. I always missed Frederickport, and frankly, I was never a fan of the desert. But it was a good place for Janie.”
“I suppose you know the people who lived next door to us, where they found the bones,” Danielle said.
Bud nodded. “Oh yeah. The ones I knew the best were the Mortons. Daisy was a close friend of my older sister. My parents never approved of her. She was a wild thing, always smoking and running with a different boy each week.”
“Her sister, Maisy, still lives in town,” Danielle told him. “She and her son still own the funeral home.”
Bud nodded. “That’s what I heard. I never knew the twins personally. They were quite a bit older than me. But my sister kept in touch with Daisy over the years.”
“After she left Frederickport?” Danielle asked.
“Yes. Daisy eloped not long after her father died. She never came back, which I guess I can understand, considering the circumstances surrounding her marriage.”
“That she married her sister’s fiancé?” Danielle asked.
Bud nodded. “So you know about that?”
“Yes. Adam told me about it. Marie had told him,” Danielle explained.
“After destroying whatever relationship she’d had with Maisy, I always wondered if Daisy felt it was worth it. She became a widow fairly young. Never remarried. But she traveled all over the world, would send my sister postcards and letters, up until my sister passed away.”
“Do you know anything about the people who moved into the house after Maisy sold it?” Danielle asked.
“I remember the woman—can’t recall her name—she had two little girls, and I heard her husband either died or left her. She was active in the local garden club back then. My sister was too, which is why I remember. According to my sister, the woman had developed some sort of new rose—it was quite the deal back then. That’s about all I really knew about her—other than she wasn’t very fr
iendly. Aside from her involvement in the garden club, she kept to herself and never had much to do with any of the neighbors other than screaming at any of the kids who stepped on her property. She was kind of sour, from what I remember.”
Walt and Danielle exchanged glances, each thinking the same thing: just like her granddaughter Pearl.
Twenty-Seven
The next two weeks flew by, and nothing new had been reported about the skeletal remains. No one had seen Pearl outside her house since the discovery, but the neighbors did occasionally get a glimpse of her peering out one of her windows, which some found both creepy and reassuring—reassuring because then they knew she wasn’t somewhere in the house dead or dying.
On the second Monday morning of May, Joanne Johnson was busily vacuuming the first floor at Marlow House while Danielle reorganized the kitchen pantry, with Walt sitting at the table drinking coffee and unofficially supervising. They had been at the project for about fifteen minutes when Joanne entered the kitchen carrying what appeared to be a ruby earring.
“I found this under the bed in the downstairs bedroom,” Joanne told Danielle as she handed her the earring.
Taking the delicate piece of jewelry in hand, Danielle looked at it. “This is Faye Bateman’s. I saw her wearing them.”
“Did she ever mention losing it?” Joanne asked.
“No. She must not realize she lost it.” Danielle placed the earring in a teacup on the counter so as not to lose it. “I’ll take it over to her house when I go out later.”
Walt looked at the housekeeper, raised his coffee cup, and said, “Joanne, why don’t you sit down and take a break. Have a cup of coffee. You’ve been on your feet all morning.”
The Ghost and the Baby Page 17