by Karen Harper
“Yeah, a baseball hat instead of a helmet’s not really my style,” Mitch said as he fell into step with Jace, twisting and nearly wadding up his billed cap. Even as they passed through the small airport, they kept their aviator sunglasses on. “So, have you done any more thinking about my proposal to fly for the hurricane hunters? A WC-130 turboprop plane sounds good to me, even though it’s not a jet. Those big babies fly right through the eyewall of the storm, so the excitement’s sure there, all in a day’s work. Besides, like I said, there are signs the bad boys running drugs into Southwest Florida might be onto us. Time to face a storm instead. So, did you tell your Brittany yet?”
“Not yet. Got formally engaged, though, and set a date. Finally gave her a ring. We’ve had each other’s back for a while, and I’d appreciate it if you’d be my best man.”
“I’m honored,” Mitch said, shaking his hand, then clapping him on the shoulder as they emerged from the small airport terminal. They sat at a picnic table on the other side of a fence from the runway. “I think we’re both ready to move on to new careers—new lives. But will Brittany be okay with the new gig? I mean, our current flights can be dangerous if our cover gets blown, but eleven-hour-long flights into insane winds while being responsible for a crew of up to sixteen people...”
“Yeah. On the other hand, I miss flying five hundred people over the Pacific. But you know, I have a friend named Bronco whose new wife went ballistic when he kept something back from her—”
“Are you nuts? You mean you proposed to Brittany but didn’t tell her—ask her—about flying into hurricanes?”
“Keep it down,” Jace whispered as a man and wife with two small kids walked past them into the airport. “We’re going to a wedding reception—my ex’s, no less—and Brit will be all emotional over that, so I’ll bring it up when we’re alone after.”
Mitch heaved a sigh that seemed to deflate his always rigid military posture. He was lanky whereas Jace was more solidly built. Mitch slumped a bit, elbows on knees, staring at the grass. The sun on his close-cropped light blond hair made it seem to glow.
“I’ve got to tell you something else,” Mitch said. “About our current gig—about that California pilot an explosive drone shot out of the sky. His girlfriend was with him. I didn’t learn that right away—didn’t read the papers from there. But just out of curiosity, I looked it up online yesterday.”
“Damn! Yeah, I’d better get out of Stingray. More than once Brit wanted to go up with me, and I said later she could. Listen, I figure once we change jobs we can get an article in the paper to announce, not that we’re leaving Stingray, but that two local guys are now consulting and flying full-time to protect the entire state from hurricane dangers. Okay, Mitch?”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m in.”
“Doubly terrible what happened. I don’t want to run or be a coward. I’ve risked my life plenty of times for the right reason, but I’m not going to endanger Brit—or let my chance at happiness go.”
“I wish I had someone. I’m tired of going home to an empty house after missions. Like I said, I’d be honored to be your best man, and I’m taking what you said as a yes for your becoming a hurricane hunter with me. Otherwise, protocol would have to make me move on without you so we wouldn’t be seen together where the drug boys could spot us—so, hell,” he said, turning his head to look at Jace again. “Here we are like sitting ducks at the airport we fly out of, on the chance that someone wants to knock us off. My marine sergeant would have killed me himself in the old days for something stupid like this—hoo-ya, man!”
They smacked raised hands. As Claire had said to tease him in the old days, Jace told Mitch, “Pilots of a feather fly together. And know what? I think I might just have the girl for you, a sharp blonde I knew years ago in college—no, I never dated her, so don’t look at me like that, but she did introduce me to my ex, Claire. Thing is though she’s into digging up bodies.”
“What in the...”
“She’s an archaeologist. You look up, she looks down. Tell you more if you meet me at Snook Inn. Let’s go get a brew to toast our new careers, and I’ll explain. For once, my man, you’re buying.”
* * *
Claire and Kris both ignored the fact they were going to get their clothes bog-mud dirty. Even the raised planks they walked were water-and peat-speckled. Although the rain had stopped, drops of water peppered them from sodden leaves when the wind blew. But the plastic tarp that had been over the dig site had kept the grave quite dry. Doug, Aaron and Yi Ling were in their usual positions, half in and half out of the grave. Andrea was bending over them, somehow in another immaculate white outfit, even her shoes.
“Oh, I see what you mean!” Claire cried as she sidled closer to get a better angle. “Yes, that arm must be a woman’s, and I see the swell of her breast.”
“And,” Kris said, “her flat-on-her-back position and that other raised shoulder do indicate her other arm must be stretched out.”
Andrea said, “Obviously she and Hunter were somehow related, and not just in death. Claire, a challenge for you to discern and hypothesize how. Is that—Is she wearing a pelt? Perhaps she was Hunter’s wife.”
“Yeah, a pelt,” Aaron said, “though it’s so muddy it’s hard to tell. But I can see she has shoes still on her feet that look as if they might be deer hide—kind of shaped like modern bedroom slippers.”
Claire’s back and neck ached from leaning forward by the time they uncovered the woman’s face. She looked—well, young. Strangely, still pretty yet either she had died distressed or the weight of the bog had distorted her features.
“Look,” Claire cried. “That leather thong or whatever it is. Those stones and shells on it. It must be a necklace that came off her neck! Some smashed shells but those must have been pretty, polished stone.”
“I see it,” Andrea said. “I’m going to radio Brad and tell him we have another important artifact. We’ll treat it carefully and analyze it thoroughly. Put it in one of your plastic packages—carefully so it doesn’t come apart any more—and hand it to me, Yi Ling.”
Despite the peat and mud obscuring some of the stones and shells, Claire thought it must be a real work of prehistoric art. But then, Andrea was probably the kind that had to clean it first, study it and label it before coming to that conclusion.
“All of you know I name each of our finds.” Andrea’s sharp voice cut into Claire’s agonizing. “It’s their welcome to this modern world, sort of a naming ceremony. I am naming this one Reaching Woman.”
Aren’t all women reaching for something? Claire thought. But when such a rare artifact was found, didn’t Andrea usually name the body after the artifact versus the body’s position? The early bodies she had seen were Woman with Mirror, Woman with Medicine in Stomach. Why not Woman with Necklace here? It must be because Andrea valued, above all, the relationship among these three people, and psyching that out was now Claire’s assignment—and burden. All this seemed not just fascinating but almost sacred to her, and perhaps it did to Andrea too.
As they excavated Reaching Woman’s head and torso carefully, Claire asked, “She’s all there, isn’t she? I mean, not like Hunter with his chest hollowed out?”
Without looking up, Aaron said, “I can tell she’s all here, not caved in like Hunter, so—”
But he stopped in midthought. Yi Ling gave a grunt that sounded as if she’d been punched in the stomach. “Damn!” Doug said. “Do you believe it? What are we in here, murderer’s row—or murdered row?”
“What is it?” Andrea demanded, leaning closer.
Claire saw there was a large slit in the bodice of the woman’s clothing. The poor thing’s heart might be there, but it had a flint dagger much like Hunter’s in it, protruding upward from the left side of her chest.
11
Claire was dying to tell Nick all about the second executed or murdered person they’d u
ncovered today at Black Bog. But he came in late, and she couldn’t unload all that on him while helping Nita prepare dinner. Besides, their guest Dale Braun pulled into their driveway just a few minutes after Nick.
“Bronco and I are gonna eat our fajitas out in the gazebo,” Nita told Claire. “I’ll check on Trey now and then, and we’ll feed Lexi, give you three time to talk.”
She lowered her voice though Nick and Dale were out in the Florida room having a martini—Claire’s idea to get Dale to relax a bit so he might be more conversational. Their goal tonight, besides assuring him as a coworker and client that the firm was working hard for him, was to learn as much as they could about Cyndi and their relationship. Nick had said that if Cyndi was anything like her brother, she’d been as different from Dale in background and personality as day and night.
“Lexi will love eating out with you two,” Claire told Nita. “Just be sure she’s got mosquito spray on her. Those little nasties are out early this year.”
“Oh, si, all three of us get sprayed, even though Bronco always says he’s too orn’ry to get bites. You know, Claire, helping with your family—kinda being a part of it,” she said, turning away from the stove, “it really makes me want children even more.”
Claire put her hand on Nita’s arm. “You will have them, my friend. So sorry your plans took a hit when we found the body in the freezer.”
Nita sniffed back tears. “It must have been so awful for her—Cyndi. I—I swear she was screaming, but it was a silent scream with no one to help.”
Because, Claire almost said, whatever sort of person Cyndi was, whatever Dale or her brother or anyone else said about her, she was a woman who was in danger. Such a sad, too common story even in this modern world. And then there was Reaching Woman, newly born from the bog but stabbed in the heart. Both that ancient female and Cyndi had needed someone to reach out to them, and Dale Braun had let Cyndi go. She just prayed he hadn’t hurt her more than that.
* * *
“Delicious food,” Dale said, wiping salsa off his mouth. “If I’d known Nita was a great cook, I’d have reduced the price of their house and had her deliver a meal now and then. But, yeah, I’m out of there as soon as possible, a decision I made way before the—the tragedy. Gonna move way downtown, I think, turn into metro man and let somebody else sell the houses on the land I inherited, now that my mother’s gone too. But I’m not even staying there now.”
Nick said, “I asked this yesterday, but you haven’t seen Cyndi’s brother, Tanner, have you? At least he hasn’t been back to the office.”
“No, but that’s one big reason I’m staying in the hotel downtown right now. I don’t need him cornering me somewhere, especially after what you said. I’m hoping the guy scatters Cyndi’s ashes on the beach and heads north. Tanner is just one more piece of proof I never should have fallen for her.”
“Nick, I forgot to ask,” Claire said. “What does Tanner look like?”
“Big and burly. Shaved head. Not to stereotype but a typical good-old Southern boy.”
Definitely not, she thought, the person who might have been stalking her or Kris. Claire realized this was not the time to think about it, but she couldn’t forget that person watching, perhaps following her. It wasn’t coincidence and she wanted to tell Nick, but that, like her news of the new bog body, would have to wait. Besides, all she needed was him thinking she should stay home all the time.
“I’ve seen pictures of Tanner,” Dale said, rolling his eyes. “The guy was standing in front of the courthouse in their Georgia hometown with a statue of Jefferson Davis and the Stars and Bars flag flying behind him.”
“Oh, great,” Nick said, frowning and shaking his head. “So what else made you decide to call off the engagement? I consider you to be a pretty discerning, careful guy, so why did you fall for her in the first place?”
“Infatuation, I guess. Well, it—she—kind of swept me away. Obviously, she’s—she was—beautiful, so feminine, flirty. She seemed needy, looked up to me, all that.”
Claire just nodded whenever he glanced her way. She intended to let Nick guide this conversation, but he’d asked her to weigh in if she saw a good opening to learn more. All she could sense so far was that Dale was suddenly more nervous, almost stuttering, but that was understandable. Still, she wasn’t in total agreement with Nick that his junior partner had to be innocent.
In the awkward silence, Claire said, “I’ll bet there was some incident that made you realize the two of you were from different backgrounds.”
“Yeah, no kidding. I ignored that at first and shouldn’t have. Two things. We double-dated with one of the other junior partners—it was Brent Atkins, Nick—and that night it hit me that Cyndi had no knowledge or interest in things, like—well, even current events, let alone culture, beyond Hollywood personalities. She thought the Kardashians were the royalty of America. I don’t mean to sound like a snob, but I am ambitious in my important and damn serious profession. She could hardly talk about something else over dinner besides what someone at the next table was wearing.”
“I understand,” Nick put in.
“Of course, she was ambitious too in her own way—just not my way. I know,” Dale rushed on, gripping his hands together so hard his fingers went white, “here we’re both from the deep, deep South, but her small-town Georgia background just didn’t mesh with mine. I finally came to my senses that night—the double date.”
There was a long pause. He stared at his hands, then folded his arms over his chest as if to hide or protect himself, classic “I’m guilty” body language. And his reference to “that night.” Was that also the night he broke it off with her?
“We know this is so hard, Dale,” Claire assured him, leaning slightly forward. “That night you told her your engagement was off—when was that?”
“I told Detective Jensen and Nick it was just before my mother died.”
“Then she was seen after that, surely,” Nick put in. “You even told Jensen that Cyndi went to say goodbye to your mother.”
“Right. Mother didn’t like her, so that would have been good news. That is, if Mother didn’t think she was someone else.”
“You mean she might have thought Cyndi was someone else because of her dementia?” Claire prompted.
“Right. The thing is,” he plunged on after taking a breath, “you know, that double-date night Cyndi even made a couple of comments about her family once owning slaves way back. She said she could ‘use a couple of those.’ Just a joke, I guess, but enlightening and objectionable. Politics—I learned not to go there with her. That’s what I meant by saying I realized—too late—it just wouldn’t work out.”
He sighed, almost seeming to deflate, still gripping himself with crossed arms as if trying to hold himself up. “Besides all that, when I showed her the old ruined mansion my great-uncle had built when he fled here from Germany just after World War II, she said she absolutely wanted a place like that—maybe rebuild our home right there. She thought my heritage was great—probably thought I was rich too—even though I’ve tried to keep that low key.”
Nick visibly startled. “You mean that ruined mansion is still in the picture, still a concern?”
“Wait,” Claire said, hoping to head off Nick’s frustration. “I’m evidently missing something here. You own a ruined mansion? And you’ve tried to keep your German ancestor low key because they fled Germany?”
“Yeah. Right near the end of World War II. It’s all water over the dam—way past, so I shouldn’t even bring it up. But here’s the thing. My great-uncle, Wilhelm Braun, who went by the name Will Braun here, came from Germany with a lot of money near the end of the war.”
“Go on,” Nick prompted when he hesitated.
Dale nodded, and plunged on talking fast as if he had to get it all out. “So Uncle Will, like many others, was trying to establish himself as a solid citize
n here, because he had been a Nazi, pretty top ranking. The name of the game in Uncle Will’s life was to bury the past, though I knew nothing about this until after he died. See, after World War II, many of Hitler’s elite SS fled to South America, but Will came to South Florida, a less settled place in the 1940s. He was wily—knew not to go where the others went and could be found, not safety in numbers but safety in being a loner.”
Nick looked riveted. Dale paused and took a huge breath. Claire nodded. She knew there had to be more coming.
“As I said, Uncle Will had money,” Dale went on, frowning. “He built a sort of Southern plantation on his large estate, the land on which I now have a house, where my mother lived and where Bronco and Nita bought their dream home.”
He cleared his throat, hunched over with his elbows on the table and rested his chin on the heels of his hands, almost as if he’d like to gag himself, though he kept talking.
“What’s left of the mansion sits at the far back of the properties that were built on the site after Uncle Will died. Of course, it was a family secret he’d been a Nazi, in favor with Hitler, high up. It’s amazing he escaped arrest and a trial when the Americans and Russians came crashing into Berlin and rounded up war criminals. He was just plain lucky that no Nazi hunters tracked him down later.”
Claire said, “Of course, all that is safe with us. He’s long gone. The sins of the fathers—and great-uncles—should not be visited upon the children.”
He nodded. “Before he died twenty plus years ago, he told me never to call his fortune dirty or tainted money. I didn’t but I’m sure it was Reich money.”
Silence reigned for a moment. Blood money, Claire would have called it, but she didn’t want to stifle these revelations now. But how could any of this tie into Cyndi’s murder? Could someone have known about Dale’s family’s Nazi ties and tried to frame him for a murder, using poor Cyndi as the sacrificial lamb? No, she was reading too much in here, creating fiction instead of finding facts.