I stood there, frozen, staring at the length of material and shoe. After a few seconds, I turned and headed for the medic tent. All thoughts of helping Kelly went out the window. This investigation was back on.
"Soo Jin!" I waved the clues at her. "Look what I found!"
The medical examiner turned away from Doc and looked my way. Her eyes lit up when she spotted what I was holding, but did I imagine a look of fear on Doc's face? That was interesting. After all, he found the leg first. He could've planted it and taken it away. But why would he do that?
Soo Jin rushed over. "Is this…? Where did you find it?"
Doc approached cautiously. Yup. Definitely afraid of something.
"It was outside the sutler's tent. I tripped over it!" And that's when it hit me. "No, that's not right. Someone put it there for me to find."
She cocked her head to one side. "Why do you think that?"
"Because it wasn't there when I went to the tent to get Betty. But it was there when I turned around." I explained the whole story about Betty and Tom Branson, the sutler.
"Wouldn't Tom or Betty have seen someone plant them in your path?" Soo Jin asked.
I shrugged. "Maybe they were hiding on the other side of this enormous skirt?" I pictured a man crouching behind me, planting the shoe. It seemed kind of stupid now that I thought of it.
Soo Jin laid the piece of fabric on a table with the shoe. After grabbing a surgical tool from the nineteenth century, she gently lifted the items, inspecting them closely.
Under his breath, I could swear I heard Doc mumble, "I was sure that was gone!"
Meanwhile, I fairly vibrated with excitement. Finding these things meant that the leg really had existed! Well, they'd need to go through some serious forensic testing, but as this was the Civil War era, the shoe and pant leg were most likely considered hard evidence.
"It sure looks like these things were with the leg." She pointed to the jagged edge. "This area resembles a sawing technique."
Doc just stood there, silent and pale.
"A saw!" I snapped my fingers. "Like in the amputation tent!"
We turned to look at the now sweating doctor.
He waved his hands in front of himself. "It wasn't me! Those saws are dull. Just for show! I didn't kill anyone and cut off their leg!"
Soo Jin patted his arm soothingly. "I'm sure you didn't. But could you run and get your saws, please, so I can rule you out?"
The man raced out of the tent, and I wondered if he would even come back.
"You don't think he's a suspect?" I asked.
She smiled. "That's not what I said. I implied it, but I don't think we can rule anyone out, besides ourselves of course."
"Now we just need the actual leg," I murmured. "And the rest of the body."
Doc ran back in and dumped three saws onto the table. He stood there, watching Soo Jin inspect each one, while he began sweating copiously.
After a few moments of silence, she asked the doctor to find Eddie. He gulped and ran off to do so.
"Are one of these the saw that did it?" I wondered aloud.
"I don't think so. Doc's right. These are very dull. It would take a lot of brute strength to hack through flesh with these. And the cuts on the pants would be far more messy."
Eddie entered the tent without Doc. "Hey, guys, we have a problem." He didn't seem to notice our find. "One of the Rebel units claim that they have a deserter."
My jaw fell open. "Our body!"
The state trooper shook his head. "We don't know that. Technically, this guy could've just left on his own. Or he's portraying a deserter."
"Why would someone do that?" I asked.
"For the fun of it," Soo Jin interjected. "I've heard of it being done before. The deserter is caught and brought back for a tribunal."
"Some reenactors attempt it to liven things up a bit," Eddie added.
"So," I said, "you're not here because Doc sent you?"
He frowned. "No. I haven't seen Doc today. Why?"
As Soo Jin explained the situation, my mind wandered. Why was Doc so nervous? After all, he's the one who brought the leg to our attention. Then again, he could have done that to deflect any suspicion from himself. It wouldn't be the first time I'd had a bad guy attempt to look innocent through misdirection.
And we knew Doc knew his way around a saw and was an expert on battlefield amputations. There's a lot of risk in misdirection. Why bring in the leg at all? Why not just get rid of it and leave us none the wiser? There were a lot of questions I wanted to ask him. If we ever found him again.
Now we had a deserter. Was the missing man our missing body? Was he the guy I'd seen at the rehearsal? Could I get away with torturing Ralph one more time?
"I'll send it to the lab." Eddie produced a cloth sack and put the shoe and fabric inside. "I've got a friend who'll look at it as a favor."
"Make sure he studies the jagged edge," Soo Jin insisted. "If it was cut when the flesh was cut, there will be skin cells on it. The fact that there's no blood indicates the leg was removed postmortem."
Eddie nodded. "It may take months to get the results back. This won't be a high priority since there isn't a body part with it."
"Then don't send it." I snatched the bag from Eddie. "We stand a better chance of matching it to the leg if we find it."
Soo Jin and Eddie looked at each other.
"Well," she said slowly, as if trying on the idea, "there is a missing man."
"Does this mean we have to shut the event down?" I asked.
"Oh, I don't think so," the provost said as he walked into the tent. "This is just some sort of prank. And the deserter is going to turn up sooner or later."
Eddie gave Soo Jin a meaningful look. Then he took the sack back and showed Provost Smith the contents. "It looks like we might have some evidence of a murder after all."
"We don't have a body. There's no murder if there isn't a body." The provost's right eyebrow went up. "Right?"
"Technically," I spoke up, "isn't that something for the sheriff to decide?"
Stumpy narrowed his eyes at me, and I realized for the first time that I didn't totally trust him. After all, he'd been the one who'd had that strange conversation Betty overheard and the one where I'd heard him tell another man that this was a terrible idea.
Provost Stumpy moved to the top of my list, sharing the spot with Doc. Okay, so I didn't know what it was an actual list of since we didn't have a leg…or the corresponding body.
"I'll call him and ask," Eddie said tightly, his eyes studying the provost. "Since we don't have any evidence that a murder took place, we will wait until he shows up and gives us his opinion."
Smith turned this over in his mind. "Can't you just handle it, Trooper?"
"No, I can't. This is Sheriff Carnack's jurisdiction," Eddie said evenly. "We will wait to see what he wants to do next." And with that, Eddie left the tent.
The provost woodenly tipped his hat to us, his eyes lingering a bit too long on mine, and excused himself.
"Now what was all that about?" Soo Jin mused.
I cleared my throat. "I should fill you in on a couple of things."
She gave me a look. "Have you been investigating, Merry?"
I nodded.
"Good," she breathed. "Tell me everything."
"Where have you been?" Kelly scolded when I returned. "I've about had it, you know!"
She looked pissed. That wasn't good.
"I found Betty at the sutlery and then found the shoe and pant from the severed leg," I started.
Kelly held up her hands. "I don't want to hear it. You do realize, don't you, that I've handled every single meal and cleanup, morning wake-up, and bedtime preparations since we arrived."
My heart sank to my ankles with a cartoon boing!
"So I'm taking a break. I'm going to wander around and maybe have some fake romance story made up about me."
"With Stumpy?" I fired back.
Kelly, adult that she was, ignored me. "Lunch is in a couple of hours. I suggest that you figure it out." She unpinned her apron from the front of her blouse and went inside the tent.
The girls all looked from the tent, to me, and back to the tent again.
"I think you're in trouble," Ava said.
"Mrs. Albers is mad at you," Caterina added.
"Yeah," I said dismally. "She is. And I deserve it. Let me get out of this corset, and you girls can help me think about lunch."
Inside the tent, Kelly had changed from a work dress to a much nicer gown. Not the gown she'd reserved for Saturday night's Blue and Gray Ball, but one that was a bit too fancy for day-to-day wear. She was just fussing over her hair when she spotted me.
"What? I just wanted to get out of those work clothes."
"You look awfully nice," I said. "What did you mean about having a fake romance story made up about you?"
"Nothing." Kelly added another pin to her hair before turning her attention onto me. "You get to be Jane Peckinpah—poor, uneducated almost-prostitute in a love affair with a handsome officer."
"Well, I don't think Jane is uneducated or almost a prostitute," I said a little defensively. "She's more like a misunderstood badass…"
She threw her arms in the air. "While I'm just some lady who's taking care of a bunch of little girls morning, noon, and night. It's not fair! This was supposed to be fun! It was supposed to be an escape!"
"It wasn't supposed to be anything at all," I insisted. "There were no real battles here. This is nothing but fiction."
But Kelly was on a roll. "I just wanted to live the dream a little. Get outside the drudgery of ordinary life…"
"The dream?" I asked. "The Civil War is your fantasy? And I'd hardly call working for a private investigator drudgery…"
"It was a genteel time!" she shrieked.
Kelly never shrieked. What was happening?
"Ladies wore beautiful gowns and were ideals of romance and femininity!"
That sounded a little like Kim from the Magnolia Girls…
She continued, "But nooooooo. All I get to do is cook and clean. Is that fair?"
"Um…no?" I offered.
"No! You're damn right it's not!"
We stood there in silence for a few moments.
"I'm so sorry, Kelly," I finally said. "I've been taking advantage of you. It stops here. I'll handle lunch and dinner. I'll take the girls to the battlefield for the skirmish today. You can just have fun."
Kelly sighed. "Sorry. I didn't mean to go off on you. I just need a break."
I waved her off. "You're absolutely right. Go and take the rest of the day off if you need to. I've got this."
As I watched my co-leader and best friend leave the tent, I wondered what was really going on. Kelly just didn't lose it. That was my thing. Shame settled over me, and I knew she was right. Here I was, tearing off after a phantom leg, investigating, sneaking about, engaged in a fake romance with a Union officer. It wasn't fair.
And I was going to make it up to her—no matter what.
For the next half hour, I went through the coolers Kelly had brought and tried to figure out what we should have for lunch. I rarely handled cooking when we went camping. My area was keeping the girls from dying on the zip line, keeping them from killing each other on the ropes course, and keeping Betty from escaping when we kayaked.
This was new territory for me. How hard could it be?
"Where did Mrs. Albers put the hot dogs?" I asked one of the Kaitlyns.
She frowned. "They didn't have hot dogs then, Mrs. Wrath. So we can't eat them either."
"Oh," I said. "What about sandwiches? We could have sandwiches."
I found a loaf of bread, uncut. Maybe we could borrow one of Doc's saws. There had to be some meat leftover from the stew or something, but I had trouble locating it.
"Yes," Caterina said. "But I don't know what we could put on them. We don't have any meat, except for the roast."
"And that's for tomorrow's supper," Ava cautioned.
"Hey!" I pulled a ham from a basket. "We can have ham sandwiches!"
"Why isn't that in the cooler?" Lauren asked.
Why wasn't it in the cooler? I looked it over.
"It's salt-cured." I breathed a sigh of relief.
"Do we have cheese?" Betty asked as she appeared at my elbow.
I jumped. I was so used to the kid disappearing that it was unnerving to have her around.
"No cheese," Hannah said sadly.
"Just ham and bread?" Inez asked. "No mayo?"
"Look, girls," I reasoned. "I know it sounds boring, but this is the kind of stuff they ate then."
In truth, I had no idea if that was true. But we found ham, and we found bread. And that was good enough for me.
"It's too early to eat now," Caterina said. "We just had breakfast."
I stopped willing the bread to slice itself. She was right. "What time is the battle today?"
Betty pulled a very expensive-looking gold pocket watch from the confines of her skirt and studied it. "Noon." She put it away and noticed we were all staring at her.
"Why did you need to look at a clock to tell us what time the fight happens?" Ava frowned.
Betty shrugged.
"Where did you get that?" Lauren asked.
"Found it." Betty brushed her off.
"Found it or won it?" I asked.
"Found it. Definitely found it." The girl grinned.
"What did Mrs. Albers do between breakfast and lunch yesterday?" I asked.
"She got ready for lunch," one of the Kaitlyns said. "And then between lunch and dinner, she got ready for dinner."
Now I really felt guilty. "That doesn't sound like fun." I clapped my hands together. "And anyway, we're having ham sandwiches for lunch, so there's really no prep time. What can we do until then?"
"Are you supposed to be throwing knives?" The now sunburned redheaded tourist had returned for a second day and was watching as I gave my troop a lesson.
"Yes," I lied. "Totally authentic. Young ladies had to know how to defend themselves back in the day."
"I think you're wrong," the woman said. The others around her murmured in assent.
"I know I'm right," I insisted as Betty threw two knives at once that hit the bullseye side-by-side.
These girls were very quick learners. And they were good at ignoring the nosy crowd around them. It was a very valuable skill, tuning people out.
"There was a whole group of little girl assassins on the Union side," Lauren embellished. "They were hired to infiltrate drummer boy units to bring them down."
"What?" the lady gasped.
It was then that I noticed that Kaitlyn's brother and several other drummer boys were watching, arms folded over their chests. Their eyes, however, were filled with envy.
"There's a song about it," Lauren added. "Want to hear it?"
There was? I assumed we were all making all of this up.
Ava cleared her throat and began singing:
Johnny Reb's drummer boys marched into battle
They were big babies and dumb as cattle
The Kaitlyns surprised everyone, including me, by harmonizing:
One at a time they died a gruesome death
Crying for their mamas as they took their dying breath
Inez piped up:
Arms and legs were shot off and lying everywhere
The stupid boys ran away like cowards from a bear.
"A bear?" I asked.
The four Kaitlyns picked up, singing slowly and solemnly:
No horses died. Horses never ever ever died.
The song ended just like that.
A confused audience burst into applause while Kaitlyn's brother and the other boys just glared at us.
"That was quite a song," I said. "When did you guys make that up?"
Lauren shrugged. "Just now."
Then they turned back to throwing knives.
"You're teaching them to throw knives?" Kelly shrieked in my ear.
"There you go again," I insisted. "Relax. They're fine."
A knife whizzed between us and embedded itself into the side of a drum. The boy holding it burst into tears. We turned to Betty.
"Oops?" She shrugged. "I guess it slipped."
"You're done!" Kelly collected the knives. She wasn't sure what to do with them but apparently thought it was a bad idea to give them back to me.
"Is there a problem, Miss Kelly?" Provost Stumpy appeared.
"Would you take these for me?" Kelly handed over the knives. When Stumpy turned around to hand them to a soldier nearby, she hissed, "You're supposed to be little ladies!" She turned on me. "And you!"
I protested. "What? I was just teaching them a useful skill!"
"Go back and eat lunch." She pointed in the direction of our tent. "Now."
Glumly, we marched back to our tent. Oh well. We might as well eat. As I sliced the bread and ham with one of Betty's knives, I noticed the girls were making up more verses to their song. All the boys had been dismembered and Cookie the Wonder Horse reared up, clocked the Rebels in the forehead, and ended the war single-handedly. It ended with Abe Lincoln riding off into the sunset on Cookie.
I had to admit it was catchy.
We sat to eat our sandwiches.
"Ugh!" Hannah spit out her food. "This is horrible!"
I took a bite and had the same reaction. It was as if we were eating salt, held together by molecules of ham.
The girls were now spitting food out of their mouths at an alarming rate. A few of them threw the salty sandwiches onto the ground and stomped them with their shoes, while the others gagged and dry retched. A few curse words rent the air, and I'm pretty sure they came from me.
We put on one hell of a show. Tourists were turning away in droves as a familiar, angry redhead barged through.
"What are you doing?" Juliette turned as red as her hair as she watched us all upchuck sandwiches.
Betty sat there, eating all of hers. When done, she asked if she could have another one.
"That ham is the worst!" I said after draining two canteens.
"Stop barfing at once!" Juliette shrieked.
"I'd love to oblige you," I said as I scraped my tongue with a wooden spoon. "But I think we just ate salt licks."
"It was poisoned!" Ava shouted.
The girls gasped and raced for their canteens.
"You're ruining the whole reenactment!" Juliette screamed at the sky. "Again!"
Just then, Ike and his donkey walked over. The animal began eating the stomped sandwiches that peppered the ground. One of the remaining tourists threw up.
"Salted ham," Ike said, spitting a long stream of brown tobacco. "Barely edible." He looked at the rest of it sitting on a chair. "Can I have it?"
"Knock yourself out." I handed it to him and began dividing up the bread to the girls to help clear their palates.
"Don't encourage them!" Juliette shook her fist at Ike.
He gave her a long look. "Hep!" he shouted.
Then the donkey did something unmentionable to Juliette. As she ran off to clean her urine-soaked shoes, I thanked Ike.
He gave me a funny look. Like he had something to tell me. Instead, he reached into the donkey's saddlebag. "I was told to give you this." Ike handed me a folded piece of paper then took his incontinent beast, his ham, and left.
As the girls regained control of their voices, they all expressed admiration for having a donkey who could pee on someone on command. I smiled as I unwrapped my note.
We need to talk. Meet me at the battlefield at 10:30pm.
Come alone, or you'll be sorry.