Gone and Done It (8 page)

“What’s that old saying? Necessity is the mother of invention? I hit upon the ability to broadcast my thoughts in that moment of desperation.”

“Did you pick up a return signal from either of us?”

I shook my head, my ponytail waggling across my upper back. “I was too busy staying alive to listen.”

“There are techniques I can teach you to sharpen your reception skills, but let’s leave that for another day when you’re not so anxious. Tell me about your most recent dream.”

I described the crying woman. “I don’t recognize her. Do you have stranger dreams like that?”

“Sometimes I’ll get a stranger vibe in a dreamwalk. But my dreams at night are my own.”

“Oh.”

I must have looked disappointed. He leaned toward me. “Does it bother you?”

“The whole thing bothers me, but there isn’t much I can do about it.” I clapped my hand over my mouth. “Oops. I didn’t mean to be negative. It slipped out.”

Laughter danced in his eyes. “It’s all right. I didn’t come into this gracefully, either.”

“How did you get started?”

“Mama Mary trained me from the git-go. Her brother’s tuning ability was unstable, and she was determined that my mind would be fit enough to accept the calling. My mind had other ideas.”

Daddy’s uncle. That would be—“Uncle Emerald?”

He nodded.

I let out the breath I’d been holding. During Uncle Emerald’s funeral reception, I’d become trapped in his psychic delusions. That experience soured my outlook on extrasensory experiences.

“That’s when I knew I’d messed up.” Sadness permeated Daddy’s facial features. “I resented that Mama Mary trained me to do a job that I had poor aptitude for. I wanted you to have a choice, so I waited for you to come to me about your abilities. If I’d trained you from the cradle, you would have shielded yourself at the funeral. I failed you, and I’m sorry for that.”

Daddy’s apology caught me by surprise. I hadn’t known he carried guilt and shame for all these years. I’d been so busy focusing on
my
perceptions, I’d forgotten to be attuned to his.

“Don’t beat yourself up about it. I know how hard it is to be a parent. You believed in what you were doing. Never once have I blamed you for that event. No one is to blame. Stuff happens. We deal with it.”

The lines on his face relaxed. His color brightened. “Thanks for saying that. You’ve no idea how much better I feel.”

I lowered my shields and enjoyed his relief. “Actually, I do.”

We both laughed, and an oppressive weight lifted from my chest.

“How about your shielding?” Daddy asked. “That still working for you?”

“Thank you for teaching me how to do that. I wouldn’t have survived without that skill.” I pulled out the stone Roland had given me. “And this. Roland gave it to me.”

“Moldavite. Good choice. I carry crystals in my pocket during dreamwalks. Lacey covers me in them afterward.”

Made sense. Mama was a healer. My husband was not. The disconnect jarred me. “How did Roland know?”

Daddy shrugged. “How does anyone know anything? They look and learn.” He hesitated before patting my shoulder. “Be careful. Trouble is in the air.”

I drove out to Mallow to be alone with my thoughts. The talk with Daddy helped ease my mind, and I felt better until he issued that odd warning. My repeated questions on the matter fell on deaf ears. The only thing I was certain of was that the cosmic clock was ticking. Sometime in the near future, trouble would strike.

Well, it wouldn’t strike here because I was alone at Mallow. Just me and the birds out here right now. But I couldn’t hide out here for long. I wanted to be home before the school bus came by. If I didn’t get the Mallow people identified today, that matter would keep until tomorrow or the next day. Much better to lie low and let trouble find someone else.

Since the irrigation system wasn’t working, I watered everything that a length of hose would reach and made a mental note to call the repairman. A
Podocarpus
on the left side of the house angled forward. I walked closer to inspect the gangly shrub, swatting at the profusion of small flies in the area.

That was odd. The side stakes were loose. The one closest to the house had worked itself out of the ground. Carolina Byrd would have my hide if anything happened to her precious landscaping, and this plant was a perfect-size match to one on the right of the mansion. I hammered the stake with my fisted hand, but the shaft wouldn’t penetrate the ground.

What rotten luck. I’d dug this hole myself. Nothing was down there but root ball, sand, and peat moss. Why wouldn’t the darned stake go in?

Dropping to my knees, I folded back the black fabric I’d installed to deter weeds and scooped the soil out of the way with my hands. I used the edge of the stake to loosen the soil as I dug. A putrid smell rose from the ground, gagging me.

I coughed the odor from my lungs and summoned a barrier to block the noxious scent. The fine hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention, putting me on high alert.

I grabbed another handful of dirt and saw a curved object.
What’s that?
It seemed familiar, and yet I couldn’t make it out in this context. Curious, I brushed more dirt away and the object came into view.

A hand.

A woman’s hand.

I wanted to bolt, but I couldn’t move. Time slowed to a crawl, thrusting my thoughts into overdrive. Hands didn’t spontaneously occur. They were attached to arms. Which were on bodies. This one was on a dead person.

Dread mounted. I’d found another body.

Only this one wasn’t two-hundred some-odd years old. This person hadn’t been in the ground long. I’d planted this
Podocarpus
ten days ago.

The body wasn’t here then.

I’d have noticed.

My temperature soared and plummeted. Blood ripped through my system as if chased by the denizens of the deep. Pressure built in my lungs until I forced in a breath of air.

I fell backward in a clumsy tangle of limbs, swatting at a thicker cloud of white flies, gagging on the smell of decay. I vomited. Moisture trickled behind my ears. My breath came in pants.

I crawled away on hands and knees, drained of energy, with the single-minded purpose of getting far away from that person. Leaning against the nearest palm tree, the irony stuck me hard. This was what psychic consultants did. They found bodies. How could I do this on a regular basis?

No answers came to mind.

Instead, dread whispered through my pores, inoculating me with a near lethal dose of fear. I couldn’t worry about all the what-ifs in the world of police work. My here and now was horrific enough.

With trembling hands, I dialed the emergency number and summoned help. I tried to pull myself together. Not an easy task, when the dead woman commanded my attention. The thought of uncovering more of her or taking another look prompted another bout of retching. I was definitely not a natural fit for this type of work.

A brisk sea breeze swept the scent of my vomit and her decay away. Overhead, dark clouds thickened, and in the distance, thunder rolled. A storm was coming. Mama had been right with her weather prediction. Only, was the storm a meteorological event or a portent of something more sinister on the horizon?

I’d discounted the divination of signs and symbols along with my extrasensory talents, but in hindsight, I realized I’d made another mistake. There were intangible connections to things seen and unseen. My enhanced senses were proof of that. Even so, the new and improved Baxley Powell didn’t know much of anything.

Lightning flashed. Thunder rolled. Rain splatted. I let it wash over me.

“I thought you had sense enough to come in out of the rain,” Sheriff Wayne Thompson growled.

He’d plunked me in the front seat of his SUV upon arriving. That was positive. He could have cuffed me and tossed me in the back of Virg’s patrol car. Or allowed Virg to tase me again. Instead, he showed me mercy and ordered his uniformed deputies to erect a tent over the hand.

Though my teeth wouldn’t stop chattering, I welcomed the cozy fleece blanket around my shoulders. Wayne’s woodsy aftershave permeated the space, but instead of my usual revulsion, his familiar scent lent comfort. I wasn’t interested in the sheriff, not in the way he wanted me to be, but I trusted him to sort this mess out.

I shivered. “Sorry. After I found the body, I kind of lost it.”

“I see that.” He stared at me. Wipers squeaked across the windshield. Hot air blasted from the heater. “You want a Coke or somethin’?”

I grimaced at the thought of putting anything in my queasy stomach. “No, thanks.” Water dripped from my ball cap brim onto the navy blue blanket. I was probably soaking through the blanket and drenching his seat, too.

“I have to question you,” he said. “Why were you here?”

“Carolina Byrd said she wouldn’t pay me until I got that cherry tree planted near Misery Road. She made it clear that the landscaping was my responsibility until the job is completed. The irrigation system isn’t working, so I watered with the hose. The rear stake from the
Podocarpus
was out, and the tree leaned at an odd angle. Carolina is so exacting, I knew I’d better fix it. Only the stake wouldn’t go in. Something was in the way.

“It should have gone in. I dug that hole myself. Nothing but sand and peat moss down there.” I paused for a breath. “So I dug down to find the obstruction. That’s when I found the woman’s hand.”

“The victim is a woman?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know that?”

I shrugged. “I just do.”

He stilled, the intensity in the vehicle amping up a few notches. “What else do you know?”

“Nothing. I couldn’t bring myself to go over there again. I believe she’s our age. She’s someone’s daughter. Or wife or sister.”

He glanced over at the sagging tent. “We have no missing women reported in our county.”

“She came from somewhere.”

“Can’t you tap into the woo-woo stuff and tell me who she is?”

“Not today. Besides, if I consult for you, I expect to get paid for my work.”

He covered my trembling hands with his capable ones. “You don’t have the stomach for this work, babe.”

My heart agreed with him. My pocketbook did not. I chose my words with care. “This was a nasty surprise. It rattled me. I admit it. But I didn’t run screaming from the scene. I called you and waited here. I’ll bet even your seasoned officers would hurl if they’d dug up a rotting corpse.”

I glanced over my shoulder at the tented area. Near the dogwood, Ronnie held a cloth handkerchief to his mouth. When I turned back, I saw Wayne had noted his deputy’s distress.

“You may be right,” he admitted.

“I know I’m right. Cut a rookie a little slack.”

He turned down the heat and was quiet for a minute. Windshield wipers cleared the droplets off the glass. “You see the paper today?”

“Not yet.”

“Charlotte wrote a front-page feature about the mystery people you dug up out here. She came right out and said we’d dug up old bones dating from another era.”

“So?”

“So, Running Wolf and Gentle Dove have been marching outside the funeral home all morning. They claim the bones belong to their Native American ancestors and demand they be given the honor and respect they deserve. They’ve mobilized the regional tribes to mount a major protest. We’ve already had calls from network news in Savannah.”

I swore under my breath. This notoriety would anger Carolina Byrd. “We have to shut that down.”

“I agree, but the damage is done. The state archaeologist and I have an interview with a television reporter late this afternoon.”

My empty stomach lurched. I fought a battle with nausea and won. “My client won’t like this.”

“Neither do I.”

An hour later, the rain stopped, but judging by the leaden sky, more was on the way. Thanks to the sheriff, I’d mostly dried out, and my hands had stopped trembling. My hair was still a sodden mess. I tugged off my ball cap and undid the ponytail, combing through my wet hair with my fingers.

Outside the sheriff’s SUV, where I’d been told to sit, Mallow bustled with activity. Virg and Ronnie dug up the body and stood around with their hands in their pockets trying to look busy. Wayne snapped pictures of the dead woman. The show began when the coroner and the state archaeologist arrived. I rolled down the window to listen.

“I’m taking over this case,
Dr.
Seavey.” The state archaeologist gave extra emphasis to our coroner’s title. Gail Bergeron’s tone was as crisp as the pressed pleats in her immaculate sea-foam green coveralls. “The board will sanction you for your inappropriate conduct. This time you won’t wheedle your way out of it. This time the charges will stick.”

For a slight woman, Gail sure packed a lot of heat into her words. What had our skeletal and oversexed coroner done to earn her scorn? Had he made a pass at his blond superior? Had he screwed up a case? He’d been the county coroner forever. If he’d mishandled cases, Sinclair County could be forced to revisit every death in the last thirty or so years.

“Gail, dear, there’s no need to get hot and bothered.” Bo Seavey trailed her around the shallow grave. “I’m grateful for your assistance on the other case. Your in-depth training in old bones will help us to narrow down the possibilities in an expedient manner.”

She shook her pen at him. “If you keep talking down to me, old man, I will file another written complaint with the disciplinary board. They will yank your medical license.”

The coroner fiddled with his bow tie and shot her a roguish smile. “I call every woman dear. Don’t take it personally.”

Dr. Bergeron looked up from her notepad, pen poised like a deadly dart. Her pale blond bob softened the line of her angular jaw. But there was no softness in her anger. “That doesn’t excuse your lecherous behavior. In this day and age, your actions constitute sexual harassment.”

They continued to trade barbs, Dr. Bergeron asserting her authority, Dr. Sugar, as we called our oversexed coroner, tried to placate her and made the situation worse. Meanwhile, the body was exhumed, bagged, and loaded for transport. Dr. Bergeron collected big clumps of earth as well.