The Devil's Bones

by Carolyn Haines

  The paramedics loaded Cosmo into one ambulance and tore off with lights and sirens blaring.

  “Do you think he’s going to live?” Tinkie asked.

  “I don’t know.” There had been a lot of blood around his head. Aunt Loulane always told me that head wounds bled a lot. But how much blood could a body lose and still remain alive? I was never going to ask that question because the answer would haunt me. Ignorance was sometimes bliss.

  Tinkie put her arm around my waist. “Let’s see if Dr. Reynolds has some coffee or something. You look a little pale.”

  My head was throbbing. I pointed to the trail where the paramedics were returning with Betsy on another gurney. They were making great time on the rough path. They loaded her in the ambulance and after a private word with Sheriff Glory, they hauled it to the hospital.

  “The EMTs think they’ll both live,” Glory said as Daniel and Erik joined us.

  “Erik, they said you probably saved Betsy’s life with your CPR.”

  “I hope she’s okay,” Erik said. “I think she was poisoned. Did they say that’s what happened?”

  “We’ll know more once the doctors examine her.” Glory watched us closely to gauge our reaction. “Cosmo may have bleeding on his brain. If they can relieve the swelling and there’s no damage…”

  “Who did this?” Erik asked.

  “A good question. Where were you last night about ten o’clock?” Glory asked him.

  When Erik looked at me, he knew he was in serious trouble. I wouldn’t lie for him. I couldn’t. He was my client, but Tinkie and I had a code of ethics. “He was with me part of the night,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t ask me to specify.

  “When to when?”

  “From about three until now.” Erik didn’t wait for me to lie. “Is there a way to know when Betsy and Cosmo were attacked?”

  Glory countered with a question of her own. “Do you think Cosmo poisoned Betsy?”

  “Why would he?” Erik asked. “I doubt he even knew her. I can’t figure what she was doing in this neck of the woods. She never comes to Lucedale. Never. Why would she be in the gardens in the dead of night? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Unless she was lured here,” Glory said quietly.

  “Is that what happened?” Erik asked.

  “We’ll know more when the doctor finishes with her. Let’s hope she regains consciousness and can tell us why she was here and who hurt her.” She turned to Erik. “I’m going to let you turn yourself in. I need to get to the hospital. But I’m warning you, if you aren’t at the courthouse when I get there, it’s going to go harder on you.”

  In other words, Glory didn’t want to tell us any details, and I didn’t blame her. Erik was her prime suspect. I had the sense she was pretty much done with sharing information with us, and while this would make it harder on us, Erik had brought her reluctance to trust us on himself.

  Glory left us for a brief consultation with Daniel and Mrs. Reynolds. Erik blew out his breath. “She is really torqued with me.”

  And I didn’t blame her. “Erik, you’ve lied to us more than once. And the victims—alive and dead—are always in your vicinity. Count yourself lucky she’s letting you turn yourself in.”

  “I should go to work now, just for a while. To get things settled at the drugstore before I turn myself in,” Erik said.

  “Until you’re in that cell, I’m telling you for your own good, always have someone with you. Don’t go anywhere alone. Not even the bathroom if you’re going to be longer than ten minutes. I’m dead serious about this. If there are more murders and you don’t have a solid alibi, the judge will set the bail so high you won’t be getting out again.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Erik said, and he didn’t seem to be pretending to be contrite. Glory had finally penetrated his hard head with the utter necessity of having an alibi. I only hoped it wasn’t too late.

  When Glory returned, she had a few questions. “What was Betsy Dell doing at the gardens? If you have any inkling, now is the time to spill it.”

  “I don’t know,” Erik said. “I really don’t. Betsy hates me, and I understand she was trying to buy an ad accusing me of killing Johnny Braun on a Christmas cruise, but I never spoke with her.”

  “What?” Glory’s forehead was a thundercloud. “Erik, you need to tell me all about this. The complete truth. Who is this Johnny Braun and where was he murdered?”

  I let Erik tell the story, and once again, he told Glory the same thing he’d told me. His consistency with the details spoke in his favor regarding the dancer’s death, but it didn’t remove him as a suspect in two other deaths and two attacks.

  “Braun’s body was never found,” I told her. “The supposition that he was poisoned came from Betsy, not any officials, as far as I can tell. You’ll have better access to records from Cozumel.”

  “I’ll get on that right away.” She rounded on me and Tinkie. “You knew this?”

  We both nodded. “I wanted Erik to tell you. And he was going to.”

  “When were you expecting him to come clean? Sometime this decade?”

  “ASAP,” I said. “He was going by the office to tell you this morning, but he decided to come with me and Tinkie to look for Cosmo. He was worried about his friend.”

  “Did it occur to any of you that you should have reported Cosmo missing?”

  “I wasn’t certain anything was wrong. Sometimes he goes off in the woods to sleep under the stars,” Erik said. “I figured he’d turn up, but I wanted to be sure that he was safely home before I went back to town to talk to you. I would have called you had we not found Miss Dell, and then Cosmo.”

  “You have a lot of woulda, coulda, shoulda stories going, Erik.” Glory stared at him, arms akimbo.

  “I’m not in the habit of thinking someone will be murdered. Or attempted to be murdered. Call it one of my character flaws.” He was a little prickly.

  Glory gave him a cold look. “You take the cake. You’re up on two counts of murder, two attempted murders and you want to snark at the person who can help you.”

  “Chalk that up to another character flaw,” Tinkie said.

  “What are your plans for the rest of the day?” Glory asked Tinkie and me.

  “We’d planned to visit Betsy Dell in Mobile today, but I guess we’ll check at the hospital to see if she can talk. Did you have a chance to talk with Erik’s dance partner, Ana Arguello?”

  Glory shook her head. “It’s on my to-do list.”

  “Tinkie and I will check that out. I’ll also tell her to get in touch with you ASAP.” But I had something else to tell her. “I did some basic research on Johnny Braun. His death was officially ruled accidental. He was a top dance competitor on the cruise line, a regular in the dance world throughout the Southeast, and he was popular with the ladies.”

  “I can’t tell you the number of women who were after his scalp,” Erik said. “He was caught dealing from the top and bottom of the deck too many times. Most of the women took a fling with him as what it was—temporary and just for fun. But Johnny led a few of them on in a way that was cruel.”

  “Erik, do you have something else to tell Glory?” I wanted him to spit it out.

  He took a deep breath. “I won the competition after Johnny disappeared. It was a fifty-thousand-dollar prize. Betsy was Johnny’s dance partner and she would never believe I had nothing to do with his disappearance. The authorities believed he was sick and fell over the railing while vomiting. Food poisoning or something of that nature. As you can understand, the cruise line was happy to bury the whole thing as quickly as possible.”

  “Sick, eh?” Glory knew how to add two and two. “Maybe poisoned?”

  “Not by me,” Erik said.

  “You have to admit you have the medical knowledge to make someone very, very sick or even kill them.” Glory posed her statement as a mild observation, but it went deeper than that.

  “I do admit it. And I’ve been a hardheaded fool not to heed
your advice about an alibi. I see how guilty I look on circumstantial evidence. But don’t forget Snaith is equally capable of manipulating herbs and plants for a toxic outcome. Most everyone in these parts knows about castor plants, the spotted water hemlock, and a variety of other dangerous plants that grow like weeds around here.”

  “Was Snaith on the cruise line? Is there some secret dance society on cruise lines filled with Lucedale residents?” Glory didn’t hide her sarcasm.

  “He wasn’t there,” Erik said.

  Glory nodded. “But Cosmo would know about those deadly plants, too, wouldn’t he?” She waved to Reynolds, who seemed to be waiting to talk to her. “Erik, the evidence points most clearly at you, but Snaith and Cosmo are still viable suspects.”

  “Cosmo wasn’t aboard the ship either. He isn’t a violent man.” Yet again, Erik defended him.

  Reynolds, who’d joined us, spoke up. “I would have said the same thing a week ago, but Cosmo seemed to slip his grip on reality in the past few months. He threatened me with violence if I expanded the Holy Land another inch.”

  “When was this?” Glory asked, her pen already scratching across her pad.

  “Yesterday, late afternoon. We had a disagreement out by the Mediterranean Sea. Cosmo just came out of nowhere and was furious because he’d seen the blocks and cement I’d moved to the west boundary of my property. He said I was violating nature and he meant to stop it.”

  “Are you violating nature?” Glory asked Reynolds.

  “Of course not. Nothing I do harms the environment. You can see that for yourself. Cosmo really hated the people coming here to tour the Holy Land and the gardens. It wasn’t what I was building or planting, but the traffic. He’s a recluse. The idea that strangers were near his place drove him crazy. Literally.”

  “Did you know he was on your property last night or early this morning?” Glory asked. To me, it was clear she had moved Daniel Reynolds onto the suspect list. At least as far as Cosmo’s assault went. “You’ve been here, at the scene of all four body dumps. Why here? Why not Chalk Gully or down a million dirt roads into timberland?”

  “I didn’t know Cosmo was on my premises or I would have reported him for trespassing. And I have no idea why some sicko would dump bodies or injure people in a scale model of the Holy Land. That’s someone really, really sick.” Reynolds was a little affronted at the accusation in her question. “I’m not a man who resorts to violence, for any reason. Now if you don’t have any more questions, I have work to do.”

  “I’ll be in touch,” Glory said.

  Reynolds whistled up Brutus and the two of them headed back into the woods.

  “Reynolds wouldn’t hurt anyone,” Erik said. “And neither would Cosmo. But someone is trying hard to hurt a lot of people.”

  Glory motioned me over to the side. “Do you think this Gertrude Strom somehow knew you were coming here and set all of this up?”

  With Gertrude, I’d learned that anything was possible. But to be able to dig so deeply into the lives of several Lucedale residents to uncover competitions, bitterness, and murderous impulses was extreme, even for her. “I don’t think so, but don’t rule it out. She wants to kill me bad enough to go to all kinds of trouble to get the job done.”

  “You might consider going home, Sarah Booth. Tell Sheriff Peters about all of this.”

  It wasn’t a bad suggestion. “I want to find the person responsible for these acts. I can’t do that if I leave.”

  “Then let’s get some evidence that either convicts Erik or clears him so we can move on to the next suspect. This needs to end right now.”

  26

  Tinkie and I stopped in at the Coffeepot Café for some caffeine. I’d delayed calling Coleman last night, so I stepped outside the café and made a quick call. I was incredibly relieved to get Coleman’s voice mail. I hated fudging the truth to him. “Tinkie and I are fine. We’ve had more attempted murders. It’s a long story. I think Glory could use your help down here. Call me tonight.”

  In my mind I included the assaults on Tinkie and me in the blanket statement about “more assaults” so at least I hadn’t lied about that. But I hoped he wouldn’t ask for details before I got home. “I love you,” I said a little breathlessly. The words came easily, more easily than I’d ever anticipated. With Coleman, my love was connected to who I’d once been and to who I wanted to be. He’d known me during the worst thing that had ever happened to me. He’d been there, on the periphery, during the loss of my parents. He was the friend who’d taken a teenage girl nearly crushed by loss for canoe trips along the slow-moving rivers of the Delta, to bonfires to celebrate Beltane with other young people. He’d been a friend when I’d been unable to accept anything more than friendship. He’d given me the room to grow up. Now he was the person who loomed large in my future.

  As I reentered the café, Tinkie asked, “Do you think it’s too early for maternity pants? I swear I think these slacks are going to damage my pancreas or something else vital.”

  “Maybe just go with bigger pants and suspenders. I can see you in a pair of knee britches and lederhosen held up by festive braces. That’s a great look for you.”

  She rolled her eyes. “When you get pregnant, I’m in charge of your wardrobe.”

  “We have to talk to Betsy and Cosmo, but we should go with Snaith, first. Give the docs a chance to finish up with Betsy and Cosmo.”

  “I couldn’t agree more. Let’s do it.” She hopped to her feet.

  We paid the bill and left a tip. It was a short drive to Snaith’s apothecary, and when we got there, we were surprised to see that the front door was ajar.

  “This doesn’t look good,” Tinkie whispered. “We should call the law.”

  “Sheriff Glory and her deputies are at the hospital,” I reminded her. “Let’s just check this out before we jump to the worst conclusions.” Too late, I’d pretty much frog-hopped to the lily pad of breaking and entering, possibly murder. Though I listened intently at the door, I couldn’t hear anything inside. Only silence. Snaith was not my favorite resident of Lucedale, but I sure didn’t want to walk into another scene of carnage.

  “The door is open…” I hesitated with my hand on the knob.

  “It’s still breaking and entering,” Tinkie said.

  “The place is wrecked.” Through the crack, I could see broken bottles of elixir, pills scattered around the floor, and general chaos. Either Snaith had pitched one helluva temper tantrum or someone had maliciously destroyed his home. In my heart of hearts, I knew it was the latter.

  “Snaith!” I called out. “Snaith! Are you okay?”

  There was no answer, which was ominous in the still heat of the day. I reached for my phone. We had no option but to call Glory. Tinkie stilled me. “Hush. There’s someone in there.”

  I heard it then, the sound of someone shuffling in one of the back rooms. If the attacker was still in the house, we had to move right away. We couldn’t wait.

  Since the apothecary was in an old Victorian house, we entered cautiously. There was no central hallway so we had to go through a series of rooms—and anyone could be hiding in one of them. Even Gertrude. A chill touched my neck like an icy hand. Was it possible that Gertrude was behind all of this death and tragedy? I’d disavowed that idea to Glory, but I’d learned never to underestimate crazy when it came to Gertrude Strom.

  Beneath the fear Gertrude’s erratic behavior elicited was a growing anger. It infuriated me that my mother was unjustly accused—and that Gertrude was so insane that she’d almost killed someone I loved and had put my friends and lover in danger. I started forward.

  “Stop. Let me get the gun.” Tinkie’s grip on my arm held me in place. “Is it still in the trunk?”

  I nodded. Tinkie was the better shot and the trunk to my car wasn’t locked. She took off at high speed and I listened to more muffled sounds coming from the back. My impulse was to rush into the back rooms and confront whoever it was. But I waited.

  Tink
ie was back in a flash, the gun at her side. “Let me go first,” I whispered.

  She stepped ahead of me. She was pregnant, but she was also brave. “If I have the gun, I can’t be second. I might shoot you in the back. Stay close.”

  We crept through another room filled with bottles of medicinal treatments, bins of flax seed, hemp hearts, some bottles of essential oils, and pills that I didn’t recognize at all. The calming scent of lavender came from one area of a back room. At last we came to a small, well-lit room where a laboratory had been set up. Beakers bubbled over Bunsen burners, and I could see a back door standing wide open. Whoever had been in the house had likely left.

  Tinkie moved forward and I was her second skin. When we rounded the edge of a table, I saw Snaith. He was on the floor. Fully conscious but bound and gagged, he watched me with wide eyes. He couldn’t say anything, but he cut his eyes toward the door, indicating that whoever had tied him up had departed.

  “What the hell?” I knelt beside him and removed the duct tape that had silenced him.

  “Ouch! Dammit! You tore half my face off.”

  He wasn’t lying. That handlebar mustache he was so proud of had mostly gone with the duct tape. I ignored his complaint and went to find something to cut the binding around his wrists and feet. Tinkie was moving outside, gun at the ready in case the attacker was lurking about.

  “Who did this?” I asked him.

  “I never saw. He came up from behind and knocked me out. When I came to, I was here, trussed up like a hog. I could hear him wrecking my apothecary. It sounded like he broke everything.” He shook out his hands and wrists when I freed them. In a moment I had his feet unbound, too.

  “You don’t have a clue who did this?”

  “Of course I do. It was Erik Ward.”

  I didn’t say a word, but this time I hoped to goodness Erik had kept his word and had gone to the pharmacy.

  “When did the attack happen?” I asked.

  “I’ve been here for hours. It’s a wonder I can still use my limbs. I’m going to sue Erik.”