We watched along with the folks inside the crime scene tape as the men carefully cut away rebar. The debris from their work was caught by the tarp. The noisy job seemed to take forever, but finally the guys with the saws stepped away.
Candace knelt and seemed to be deciding whether they had enough room to lift out the body. But if I thought the waiting was over and we’d know what happened, I was wrong. As the men with saws walked back to their truck, heads down, Candace made a call on her cell. She then crossed her arms. A silent vigil began that seemed to fill the fall air with a bitter chill.
In the meantime, despite no news about this on the scanner, word got out that something was happening at this construction site. Onlookers began to gather, mostly hesitant at first to come close enough to ask questions.
Deputy Morris Ebeling noticed them, hitched his heavy police belt higher and made his way outside the crime scene tape.
The old grouch, about ready for retirement, nodded at Kara and me as he passed. He might have been grumpy, but he was a good man—and he did have the town’s respect. About a dozen people were edging closer by the second. He raised his arms and shouted, “Y’all, this is police business. No one’s in danger. Miss Kara is right here, so you know you’ll get the straight story from her in the Messenger. Now go on about your business.” He cleared his throat and added, “Please.”
The “please” seemed to do it because they all complied. Some walked away; others got in their cars and left.
Morris ambled back to where we stood. “That’s gonna keep happening. Wish that doc would get here. She said she wasn’t too far away.”
Kara appeared puzzled. “A doctor?”
“You know. That forensic woman—archaeologist or something. The one we had out at the mill that time a while back.”
“Dr. Worthy?” I asked.
Morris stabbed a gnarled finger my way. “That’s the one.”
“You’ve found a skeleton?” Kara said.
“Nope. Fresh corpse, from what we can tell. We all saw the skin on an ankle. But we gotta preserve the evidence, you know.” Morris nodded in Candace’s direction. “She’d never let me forget it if we just dug the thing up and got it over with. Gotta do it by the book.” He grinned at me. “I’m getting too old for this, Miss Jillian.”
I caught Lois nod in silent agreement and withheld a smile.
“Morris, you know Candace is right,” I said.
“Ain’t she always?” He smiled again and patted my arm. “I see more rubberneckers pulling up. I’d rather deal with them than the crazy lady who wears high heels to a crime scene. Don’t get that Lydia Monk. Not for one minute.”
Morris and I surely agreed on that.
But the latest rubbernecker, as Morris mentioned, wasn’t a curious onlooker. I recognized Dr. Worthy the minute she stepped out of her vehicle. She wore a white paper suit over her clothes, as did the three other people who climbed out of the SUV she’d arrived in—two young men and a young woman. They all carried what looked to be large toolboxes.
Once the crew reached us, Dr. Worthy broke into a smile. “Are you a crime scene junkie like me, Jillian?”
“Actually I’m the chauffeur for the reporter here.” I introduced her to Kara and asked if she knew Deputy Jewel. They shook hands and Lois wrote something in her notebook.
Dr. Worthy gestured at the three people she’d brought with her and said, “Students of mine.” She gave Lois their names, which I didn’t catch. The doctor then looked at Kara and me. “Nice seeing you folks and wish it were under better circumstances.” Her expression grew serious. “Let’s get to work, young people. The police have waited on us long enough.”
I thought I understood why she was here. If gravel and dirt covered the corpse—and how I hated the word corpse—then everything would have to be painstakingly removed. I’d seen work like that done on the Discovery Channel. It would take a while, for sure.
“Kara, why don’t I take the wedding favors home and pick us up some lunch?”
Kara nodded absently, her attention on the new arrivals.
I looked at Lois. “Would you like a sandwich or a burger?”
“No, thanks. Gotta stay focused here.” She stared back at those white-suited forensic experts kneeling by the space where the rebar had been cut away.
Kara lifted her camera. “Black bean burger. Not messy, though. Just ketchup and mustard. Large coffee would be nice.”
That got Lois’s attention. “Guess a coffee would help.”
I made a mental note of what she and Kara wanted and left. As soon as I drove away I felt the tension leave my shoulders. A body had nearly been buried in concrete. It dawned on me that I’d seen no construction crews hanging around. Maybe Mike sent them all home? Even so, I would think Rhett Marner might be lurking. This was his project, after all, but so far, I hadn’t caught sight of him.
As I pulled out onto the nearby side street, I nearly collided with Rebecca Marner’s SUV. Maybe that was Rhett now, but I couldn’t be sure, since the windows were tinted and I couldn’t see the driver.
I drove home first, still filled with questions. But I had work to do and I pushed all that I’d just witnessed to the back of my mind.
I stored the favors in my office closet and locked the door, much to the chagrin of four kitties. Cats plus ribbon and tulle spelled disaster. I wasn’t about to let them ruin all of Lynn’s work. None of them seemed too happy with me once I’d thwarted their future mischief. They considered a locked door an affront at the very least, and perhaps more of a personal insult. Merlot chattered up at me as if to ask, how could I do this to them?
I looked down at the four of them, sitting in a row by that closed door. I took the time to snap a picture with my phone before I said the magic word hoping to distract them. “Treats?”
But though my three amigos followed me eagerly to the kitchen, Magpie stayed back. Maybe she thought she could get inside the closet if she tried hard enough.
I doled out tuna munchies, making sure Chablis didn’t steal from the others—because she was, after all, addicted to these things. Merlot liked to savor his and often lost out to her because of this. I sat cross-legged on the floor and petted each of them. My world had been busy the last few months as I prepared for the wedding, but I never neglected my dear friends.
I was talking and petting and they were purring and bunting—bunting is what cats do when they want to show affection by rubbing their head against you—when I burst into laughter. Merlot jumped at the noise, but I couldn’t help myself.
Magpie was dragging a large spool of ribbon that she’d pilfered from my sewing room. If a human had locked away the fun of satin ribbon and tulle, she decided to fix the problem. She held it in her mouth like a prize mouse, and a stream of ribbon flowed between her legs and trailed behind her.
Oh, this girl was trouble all right.
Thirty minutes later I headed back to town after watching four cats destroy the ribbon I didn’t even know I had—which for me meant it was more important for them to have a good time than for me to save it. But where had that little sneak found it? And what else did Magpie have up her paw?
Rather than bring sandwiches and coffee for only the three of us at the crime scene, I called up a Mennonite friend who owned a donut truck. He parked in spots all over the area, but he and I became friends after his wife taught a quilting class I attended. They made the best donuts in the world and he often had homemade bread and jam on the truck as well as candy and sometimes cinnamon rolls. And yes, nice fresh coffee. Not as good as Belle’s, and he didn’t drink it himself, but he had no problem selling it. He told me he’d been about to close up the truck where he was parked—no problem with him having a cell phone either—but he’d call his wife, restock the truck and head out to the site. After all, the area would be populated by police and other workers for hours, if not the rest of the day.
I stopped at a local chicken spot and bought a dozen sandwiches because donuts and coffee might not be enough to satisfy hungry workers. I’d ordered Kara’s burger ahead of time from her favorite vegetarian café on Main Street—Sprouts and Soups. When I passed the construction site before making the turn onto the side street to enter the area, the talkative fire crew was now on the scene along with the paramedics. In Mercy, paramedics were often the ones who transported a body to the morgue about twenty miles away. If no autopsy was needed, the local funeral homes did the unpleasant task of carting a body off.
I parked next to Rebecca’s SUV and saw a black car was parked on the other side of hers. Up ahead Rebecca Marner and Rhett’s second wife, Zoe, stood silently together, shoulders touching. They’d both crossed their arms, as if trying to hold themselves together. I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach because Rhett Marner would have been here if he could. My guess was that he already was here—and about to be unearthed from the kind of grave no one deserved.
I hurried to where Kara and Lois stood, being careful not to send three cups of coffee in a cardboard tray flying. When I’d stopped for the sandwiches earlier, I decided to buy these drinks rather than make them wait for the donut truck to arrive.
The bright day indicated we wouldn’t be rained on, but the autumn wind was brisk enough to have colored Kara’s cheeks. I noted that Lois had put on her leather gloves. They both thanked me for the coffee, but before I could tell them about the food I’d left in my van, I noticed Candace approaching the two Marner women.
She never even gave Rebecca a glance but focused in on Zoe, who was twirling a blond curl at her temple with so much force I thought she might pull her hair out. Candace held a man’s wallet and when she was face-to-face with Zoe, she opened it and showed it her.
The woman’s hands went to her mouth and then I heard her cry out as if she’d been cut with a knife. She bent over and then fell to her knees.
Rebecca dropped beside her and put an arm around the sobbing woman. She looked up at Candace, who wore an anguished expression. She glanced our way before kneeling in front of Zoe and Rebecca. She spoke to them both this time. After a brief conversation where Rebecca nodded in apparent understanding and Zoe continued to cry, Candace stood and returned to where Dr. Worthy and her team continued to work. They needed to completely uncover the body and probably sift through dirt and debris for evidence.
Billy Cranor, one of the firemen who’d stood watching the proceedings from the other side of the crime scene tape, made his way toward the women still on the ground. It was apparent Rebecca was having trouble helping Zoe to stand.
Without even a thought, I reached the two women first. I helped Rebecca raise Zoe to her feet just as Billy got to us.
“The paramedics are standing by to . . . to take the . . .” He lowered his voice. “The you know. Should I ask them to check out Mrs. Marner?”
Why he asked me this question, I wasn’t sure. Maybe because he knew me better than the other two women.
Zoe spoke haltingly, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I’ll be okay. I—I—”
She went limp and fell into Billy’s arms. She’d fainted.
The question concerning a paramedic was answered without further conversation.