“Walt just made a fresh pot,” Danielle added.
“Thanks. I think I will.” As Joanne reached for a coffee cup, she asked Danielle, “Would you like some?”
“Yes. And we should probably finish up the cinnamon rolls,” Danielle said cheerfully.
Minutes later the three sat at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and sharing two cinnamon rolls.
“Has there been any news about the remains found next door?” Joanne asked.
“Nothing new. But I keep thinking it has something to do with the rosebushes,” Danielle said. “First someone steals one, and then a bird finds those bones in the hole the rosebush was taken from.”
Joanne frowned at Danielle. “How do you know that?”
Walt and Danielle exchanged quick glances, and Danielle wished she could take back her comment. She obviously could not tell Joanne it was what Max had told Walt. Instead she said, “I’m just speculating. I mean, we know the dogs dug up the bones there, and I just assume the rosebush being taken is what exposed the soil in the first place.”
“I remember hearing something about those rosebushes,” Joanne said as she set her cup on the table. “The woman who planted them supposedly created some new rose.”
“I’ve heard the same thing,” Danielle said. “She was involved with the local garden club.”
“I don’t really know much beyond what I heard about her creating some new rose, but you know who might know more is Toynette from the nursery. That nursery has been in Toynette’s family for years, and I know her mother was the president of the local garden club before she passed away.”
“Maybe I’ll stop at the nursery after I drop the earring off to Faye,” Danielle said.
After Joanne returned to her housekeeping, Danielle called Faye Bateman to let her know she had found her ruby earring and wanted to drop it off. Faye insisted Danielle join her for lunch that afternoon, telling her she wanted to thank her again for the stay over spring break, which she had enjoyed.
Danielle arrived at the Bateman home a few minutes past noon. She was shown to the sunroom by Faye’s housekeeper, where they were to have lunch. Faye looked regal sitting in a velvet upholstered wingback chair, wearing a floor-length midnight blue dress, with diamond earrings dangling from her earlobes and her platinum blond hair recently coifed. She didn’t stand when Danielle entered the room but extended her hand in greeting.
Danielle accepted Faye’s hand, giving it a gentle squeeze, and then handed her a small plastic bag holding the ruby earring.
“Thank you so much for bringing this over. I didn’t even realize it was missing. It belonged to my mother. I would hate to have lost it,” Faye said as she accepted the small bag and then set it on the table next to her. She motioned to a chair, asking Danielle to sit down.
A few minutes later, after they had both been served lemonade by Faye’s housekeeper, Faye asked, “Has there been any news about those remains found at my old house? I just shudder to think they may have been there all along when I was growing up.”
“That’s entirely possible, considering they say they could be over a hundred years old. Of course, they say they might be half that age.”
“Which would mean the woman I sold the house to could be the person who buried them there,” Faye said with a shiver.
Danielle looked up from Faye as she sipped her tea while doing her best not to voice the thought that had just popped into her head.
As if reading Danielle’s mind, Faye gave her a smile and said, “Because it’s obvious it couldn’t have been anyone from my family who buried any bodies on the property.”
Danielle arched her brow, yet again resisted comment.
Faye’s smile widened and she gave a little chuckle before saying, “Because, dear, my family has been in the funeral home business since before I was born, and if we had any dead bodies to dispose of, it certainly wouldn’t be done in our backyard.”
Danielle broke into a grin. “You do have a point.”
“And I assume the authorities should be able to identify those remains. I asked Norman, and he said they can use skeletal remains to get DNA. So hopefully they will be able to find out who those poor people were and give them a proper burial.”
“True. But that will only work if someone they’re related to has given DNA. And considering the possible age of those bones, any DNA on file would likely be a distant cousin, which would make it difficult to make a positive ID. Unless, of course, their sibling or child has DNA on file. I suppose that’s possible.”
When Danielle left Faye’s house, she headed to the nursery to talk to Toynette. Just as she pulled into the nursery parking lot, she spied Carla from Pier Café loading several houseplants into the back of her car. Danielle pulled up beside Carla’s vehicle and parked.
“Hi, Danielle,” Carla greeted her as she slammed the trunk of her car shut. “Any news on the dead bodies?”
“Skeletal remains,” Danielle corrected. “And no. They had to send the bones to a lab out of town, and it will take a while before they know anything.”
“I went out a couple of times with the guy who used to own that house,” Carla said as she twirled a lock of her purple and pink hair. “Andy Delarosa. I’m just glad to know those bones are older than he is. I’d hate to think I dated a serial killer.”
“I’ve met Andy. He owned the house with his cousins.”
Carla rolled her eyes while still twirling a lock of hair. “When I first went out with him, he made it seem like he owned the house himself. He’s kind of a player.”
Danielle studied Carla a moment and then impulsively asked, “You don’t happen to know anything about the rosebush that was stolen from that house, do you?”
Carla grinned and glanced around quickly and then whispered, “You mean the one Andy took?”
Danielle arched her brow. “He did?”
Carla nodded and giggled, releasing her lock of hair and placing her hand on one hip. “One of Andy’s friends, Ted, asked me out after I stopped dating Andy. Ted is a nice guy, but he really isn’t my type. But he stops in the café every week and flirts with me. I think he figures I’ll finally agree to go out with him. The last time he was in, he told me Andy borrowed his truck and used it to take one of the rosebushes from his old house. He was kinda pissed at Andy because he left the back of his truck all muddy. And he couldn’t figure out why he would want to take some plant from a house he had just sold.” Carla paused a moment and then added, “But please don’t tell anyone I told you that. I wasn’t supposed to say anything. Ted doesn’t want to get Andy in trouble. They’re still friends.”
“You dated Andy. Do you have any idea why he would steal the rosebush?”
Carla shrugged. “It might be something to do with the stuff they found in the attic. When I first went out with Andy, he led me to believe he owned the house. But then he said something about selling it and how it was going through escrow. That’s when he admitted he owned it with some cousins. They sold it to another relative and were selling it with all the furniture. But at the last minute they decided to get some trunk in the attic that had belonged to Andy’s great-grandmother. I don’t know what was in the trunk, but when I saw Andy after he went to look through it with his cousins, he was kinda pissy, and later that night had too much to drink and said, ‘Those damn rosebushes, if I had only known.’ I asked him, ‘Known what?’ He never said. But we stopped dating not long after that.”
Danielle found Toynette sitting on a bench at the rear of the nursery, taking a break. Danielle had seen the woman around town and at the nursery, yet had never talked to her before. She guessed Toynette was in her late fifties, a tall slender woman, wearing denim jeans, navy blue sneakers and a plaid flannel shirt, with her gray hair cropped short and covered with a baseball cap to help shade her blue eyes.
“Oh yes, I remember my mother talking about Betty Burnette,” Toynette said after Danielle introduced herself and explained why she was there. The two sat side by
side on the bench. “Mom used to say the woman had a way with roses, but was at a complete loss when it came to dealing with people. Betty was active in the garden club, but always seemed to rub people the wrong way.”
“Do you know if she really developed a new rose?”
“Mother said she did. But Betty didn’t patent her rose. It was during the war. I don’t think she could afford it. Of course, this was before I was born. According to Mom, someone else patented Betty’s rose years later. Maybe that’s who she buried in her backyard.” Toynette chuckled.
“You think Betty Burnette buried those bodies?”
Toynette shrugged. “I was just joking. But according to Mom, Betty seemed to only love her roses—and later her grandchildren. I guess she had some issues with her daughters, but she turned out to be a doting grandmother. I guess some people make better grandparents than parents.”
“They say the bones could be a hundred years old. If the lab finds that’s true, then I doubt Betty or anyone in her family was responsible for those remains being there.”
“True.” Toynette nodded and leaned back on the bench. They were silent for a few moments. Finally, Toynette said, “My mother hated driving by that house.”
“She disliked Betty so much?” Danielle asked.
“No.” Toynette shook her head. “Before Betty lived at the house, it was owned by the Morton family—the ones from the funeral home.”
“Yes, I know. In fact, I just saw Faye Morton—or Bateman—before I came over here.”
“Faye goes by her middle name now. When my mother knew her, she went by her first name, Maisy. That was when she was engaged to my uncle Kenneth, Mom’s older brother.”
“Your uncle was the Kenneth who married Maisy’s twin sister?” Danielle asked.
“You know that story?” Toynette asked.
Danielle nodded. “Yes, a little. But I’ve never mentioned anything to Faye that I know.”
“That’s probably a good idea. I never met my uncle Kenneth, but I know it broke my mother’s heart. She loved her older brother—and she really loved Maisy. She couldn’t stand Daisy. And she never understood why her brother did what he did. After they eloped, Mom never saw him again. But he did send her a postcard about a year after he left. All he said was sorry. Nothing else.”
“Wow.” Danielle let out a sigh.
“After Uncle Kenneth eloped, Maisy wanted nothing to do with Mom. It really hurt her, but she understood. Maisy felt betrayed by the man she had loved, and Mom was that man’s sister.”
Twenty-Eight
Pearl stood in her backyard and surveyed the change. All her grandmother’s rosebushes were gone. It had been a little over three weeks since the dogs—and then the police—began digging up her backyard. After they were done, there was no way to salvage the roses. She refused to admit that they had been beyond redemption before her neighbors’ dogs had dug up the old bones. As for those bones, the police still did not know who they had belonged to.
Work on the new back patio had been delayed, but Craig had managed to finish it yesterday. Pearl almost regretted having Craig build the new patio. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do with the area. It was now a big rectangle patch of nothing—a paver patio surrounded by damp dirt.
Turning from the backyard, she headed toward the front of her property, walking along the pathway next to the wrought-iron fence separating her land from the Marlows’. On her way there she picked up a rake she had forgotten to return to the toolshed. When she reached the toolshed, she went inside, leaving the door open.
Rake in hand, Pearl looked down at the wood floor and groaned. Mud from the recent storms had been tracked inside, leaving the shed floor covered in dirt. She set the rake in the corner and picked up the broom.
“That’s the house where the bodies were buried,” Pearl heard someone say. Glaring angrily, she looked out of the toolshed toward the street and spied two women walking down the sidewalk toward the pier. She didn’t recognize them and suspected they were tourists. The afternoon breeze had helped carry the woman’s voice up from the sidewalk. Shaking her head in disgust, Pearl turned her back to the street and began sweeping.
About twenty minutes earlier, next door at Marlow House, Walt and Danielle sat silently in the parlor, each reading a book. The only sound came from the steady ticking of the wall clock. Curled up on one end of the sofa, Danielle turned the page of her book. Walt, who sat across from Danielle in a chair, looked up and set his book on his lap.
“You want to walk down to the pier and get an ice cream cone?” Walt asked.
Danielle looked up from her book and smiled. “Ice cream? That does sound good.” She glanced up at the clock; it was a quarter to three.
Walt looked over to the clock, noting the time. “Doesn’t Lily have her doctor’s appointment today?”
“Yes, after she gets home from school. They’re supposed to find out if it’s a boy or girl today.” Danielle closed her book and tossed it on the table.
“I still can’t believe they’ll be able to find out if it’s a boy or girl so soon,” Walt said, standing up and setting his book on the table with Danielle’s.
Some fifteen minutes later, they walked out the front door of Marlow House, on their way to get ice cream. They noticed two women heading down the sidewalk, walking in the direction of the pier. Beyond the two women was Heather Donovan, walking in their direction.
When Danielle and Walt pushed through their front gate, the two women were already walking by Pearl’s house. A few minutes later, as Walt and Danielle passed by the side gate into their property, a police car pulled up and parked nearby, just as they came face-to-face with Heather. Driving the vehicle was Joe Morelli, with Brian Henderson in the passenger seat.
“Where are you off to?” Danielle asked Heather as she and Walt stopped to talk.
“I’m going to Chris’s house to pick up something. Where are you two going?” Heather asked.
Just as Danielle told Heather they were walking down to the pier for ice cream, the two officers started getting out of their car.
“Hi, Joe, Brian,” Danielle called out.
“Any news on who was buried next door?” Heather asked.
“Not yet,” Joe said, slamming his car door shut.
A moment later Brian joined them on the sidewalk, and they all exchanged brief pleasantries. “Here on official business?” Danielle asked.
“Yes. While we wait to hear back from the lab, we’re trying to get some more information from anyone who ever lived at this house,” Joe explained.
“I have a good idea who one of those bodies might be. But not sure about the other two—if there are really three,” Heather said.
“We only found two skulls, so I suspect it will turn out to be two people,” Brian said.
“So who do you think it is?” Joe asked Heather.
“I think it’s Pearl’s grandfather. Danielle thinks that too. Don’t you, Danielle?” Heather said in a loud voice. “And the other body might be one of his other wives. The guy disappeared about seventy years ago—after his wife found out he had another family. I say Pearl’s grandmother found out and got rid of him. And Danielle looked up Pearl’s family tree online and found out he pretty much dropped out of sight around that time, never to be seen again.”
“All lies!” Pearl shouted when she unexpectedly stepped out onto the sidewalk. She looked as if she might start swinging at any minute. She turned to Danielle and said, “I don’t know what you are doing snooping into my family’s business!”
“There were at least two bodies buried on your property,” Walt reminded her. “You can’t really blame us for wanting to find out who they were.”
“I just bought this house! You can’t possibly think I had anything to do with burying them here!” Pearl shrieked.
“Certainly not,” Danielle said quickly. “And no one was suggesting you had anything to do with those remains. You weren’t even born then.”
�
�I don’t appreciate you slandering my grandmother!”
“I think we should go,” Walt said. “Brian and Joe came here to talk with Mrs. Huckabee. I think we should let them do their job.”
“I don’t know why you need to talk to me again,” Pearl said five minutes later after she showed the two officers into her house. The three sat at her kitchen table.
“Your family has owned this property for over seventy years,” Brian reminded her. “And Heather is not wrong in suggesting someone from your family—or someone they knew—might be the ones responsible for what we found buried in your backyard.”
“Well, I certainly don’t know anything about it.”
“What do you know about your grandfather?” Joe asked.
Stubbornly folding her arms across her chest, Pearl glared at Joe. She sat in silence for a few moments and then said, “I know for certain he was not one of those unfortunate people buried in my backyard.”
“How do you know that? You weren’t even born at the time he went missing,” Joe asked.
“For one reason, he did not go missing. And for another, I knew him.”
“You knew your grandfather? The one who bought this house with your grandmother?” Brian asked.
Pearl nodded. “Yes. My mother loved her father. She was angry at my grandmother for making him leave and then telling everyone he had died. Mother said Grandma told her and my aunt, your father is dead to us.”
“But your mother saw him again?” Brian asked.
“Years later. Frankly, I understand why my grandmother kicked him out. But I also understand how my mother resented Grandma for so many years—blaming her. She was just a child and didn’t really understand.”
“You say you saw your grandfather?” Brian asked.
“Yes. After my grandmother died, my mother and aunt went through my grandmother’s things. Mother found a letter from her father. She used it to track him down. My father took us to see him—my grandfather was living in Nevada. I imagine they regretted making the trip—taking me to see him. It didn’t work out very well. He wasn’t the man my mother imagined all those years. He was the man my grandmother had kicked out. He died a few years later and was buried in Reno. He was going by another name. That was the name he was buried under.”
The Ghost and the Baby Page 18