Bodies & Buried Secrets: A Rosewood Place Mystery (Rosewood Place Mysteries Book 1) (10 page)

Annie swallowed the last few drops of water from the unbroken glass she’d fetched from the cabinet (after she’d swept up the remainder of the broken one but before she’d fully absorbed the magnitude of the situation taking place in her kitchen.)

“I’m sorry, I just don’t have any more information than the police do at this point,” she found herself reiterating for the third time. “Mr. Tremaine, to be perfectly honest with you, I wasn’t happy to see Suzy here. She was very aggressive in her assurances that she should have been the one who bought this property. I’m not sure why she was so adamant, but she left here in a very bad mood, and that was the last time I saw her until the next morning, when--”

Daniel put a hand up to stop her. “Please, I still can’t believe that she’s gone.” His face fell and his shoulders slumped. Annie looked more closely at his eyes and saw dark circles that she was all too familiar with. It was hard to sleep when you’d just lost someone you loved deeply, and Daniel was obviously in the throes of mourning. Why else would he torture himself by coming to the scene of his beloved’s death?

“Do you know who she was working for, who wanted my house so badly?” Annie wanted to ask why someone would want
her
house, the house that had stood empty for ten years, that had been in a pretty sorry state and that had sold for far less than it was potentially worth, despite its heritage and several acres of land.

“I don’t know who her client was by name, only that he was an out-of-town buyer, someone from out west. Probably some Hollywood type who wanted to use this place as a movie set or turn it into a posh spa. She was a very successful, and busy, realtor. In fact, it’s how we met.” He reached into an interior pocket of his jacket and pulled out his smartphone. In a few clicks and swipes, he pulled up a series of photographs of himself and a smiling Suzy. One on the beach of some tropical island, another on a boat, several of them in evening wear at various functions. Clearly Suzy and Daniel had lived a very jetset lifestyle together.

“Did she sell you a house?” Annie asked, not sure of what else to say.

“No, I’m also a realtor,” he confided, “though not nearly as good as Suzy. She was called “The Closer” in our office because she closed on most of the houses she worked. Suzy was very competitive.”

Annie tried to smile, but it came out as a grimace. “I guess she hadn’t changed much since high school, then. Suzy and I didn’t exactly get on when we were younger,” she explained. “But I honestly held no grudge against her. I was shocked to see her here the other day,” Annie continued, trying to find something to say that wouldn’t make herself look guilty or make Suzy look like the crazy woman she’d obviously been that day.

“Daniel, why on earth would Suzy come back here at night, after we were all asleep? There was something more to her story of wanting this house for a client, wasn’t there?” Annie refused to believe that Suzy had come back to make Annie an offer on the place. Nobody did that in the dead of night, not even crazy realtors who couldn’t stand to lose.

The suited man shuffled slightly in his chair, then sighed. “I didn’t want to say anything because it just seems so silly, but I have a theory.” He looked from Annie to Rory, then back at Annie. They were listening eagerly enough, so he continued. “Suzy had a crazy old uncle that disappeared a while back. He was some sort of treasure hunter, kind of thought of himself as an Indiana Jones type.

He didn’t have any kids of his own, but he was always close to Suzy. I never met him, he disappeared before I met Suzy, but she used to tell me stories about him. Apparently he studied folklore about treasures and hidden caches of gold. He was convinced that there was something hidden in this part of the county, maybe even on this very property, and he disappeared while he was searching for it.”

Annie thought about the body in the barn. Did Daniel know that Suzy’s uncle had been found? She wasn’t sure she should tell him about her discovery. Something just didn’t feel right, it didn’t feel like her place to disclose that information, so she didn’t.

“That’s pretty outlandish, don’t you think? I mean, it’s not like there’s buried treasure just scattered all over the Carolinas for every fortune hunter to find.” She put her hand on the table, stopping before actually touching Daniel’s own hand. “It’s a nice idea, but I’m sure her uncle was looking for something that never even existed.” She waited for him to respond, but he simply stared at her. “Still, it’s a nice idea,” she added, pulling her hand away awkwardly.

Daniel smiled. It was the smile of someone who told lots of lies, a salesman’s smile. “Annie, I would have agreed with you six months ago, but Suzy showed me some things that her uncle left behind when he vanished. She had notebooks filled with research, pages and pages of old maps, and one word just kept popping up. Rosewood.”

Annie felt a shiver slip down her spine at the mention of the house’s former name. “This place hasn’t been called that in a long time, and I am sure that the property lines have changed a great deal over the years. If I understood my own realtor correctly, this place used to be over a hundred acres in total. I bought the house and just over ten acres, the rest of it’s been sold off over the years. If there was ever treasure here, someone would have found it.”

Daniel nodded. “Perhaps they did. But I think, as crazy as it sounds, I think that Suzy was convinced that her uncle found something on this very land. In fact, she suspected that that’s the reason he went missing.” He sat back in his chair and let this bit of information sink in.

Annie didn’t like the look that Daniel gave her as he said this last sentence. He had gone from a bumbling, grieving man to someone who seemed to think Annie had the answers to his questions, and he didn’t seem to want to leave until he had them. “Mr. Tremaine, if I find anything that correlates with what you told me, I will gladly notify you. The police are investigating Suzy’s death, and I am sure that they will have a breakthrough any day now. Women don’t just get murdered like that without clues and suspects turning up, and if Suzy was killed because she was looking for some sort of treasure, well, then the police will figure that out, too.” Annie stood, hoping that Daniel would take the hint. He hesitated and rose slowly.

“Mr. Tremaine, again, I am so very sorry for your loss. But I’m afraid I can’t help you with this.”

Daniel smoothed down the lapels of his jacket, then reached into his interior pocket again. He pulled out a business card and passed it to Annie. “If you find anything that backs up what I told you, no matter how small, will you please just call me?” Annie nodded. “Thank you. And I know you don’t believe me, but Suzy told me that she had a piece of jewelry that was supposed to have come from the treasure her uncle was searching for. She said that it had belonged to one of the original owners and had somehow found its way into an auction house twenty years ago. Her uncle bought it, and that’s when his obsession began. If I bring it to you, will you believe me?”

His desperation was both frightening and touching. Annie glanced at Rory, who simply shrugged his shoulders. “Fine. But it’ll have to wait for at least a few days, Mr. Tremaine. As you can see, we are hardly ready for visitors here. Why don’t you call me next week and we can have a chat.”

Annie walked Daniel to the back door, the one he’d claimed had been standing open when he arrived. She watched him get in his sleek black sedan and drive slowly down her long, winding driveway. “Well, now, that was weird.”

Rory grunted his approval. “I don’t know about that guy. He smells fishy to me. I mean, what kind of guy just shows up at a complete stranger’s house and starts grilling her about her property?” He pointed to the door. “And that was closed. I shut it myself.”

Annie didn’t say anything, but she was sure that Rory was right. There was something odd about Daniel Tremaine and his interest in her property. He seemed more worried about searching her property for buried treasure than he was about losing his fiancée. As Annie watched her mother’s car pull into sight, she realized that they hadn’t looked in the attic yet. A glance at her watch told her that she had just under two hours until the Chief of Police would drop by for a chat.

“I guess we’d better tell Chief Barnes about our visitor,” she said with a sigh. It was beginning to feel like so much effort, getting settled into the new place. As Annie watched her mother and son make their way towards the house by car, all she wanted was to put Suzy’s murder behind her and begin making the old farmhouse feel like home.

“Who was that man, Annie?” Bessie came out of the car quicker than most might expect a woman in her late sixties to move, but when she was curious about something, she could be spry for her age. “Rory, be a dear and help Devon carry those groceries in. I’m gonna make us a delightful tray of sandwiches for lunch, then I’ve got something special planned for supper.”

Annie explained briefly who Daniel was and why he’d visited the house. “I don’t think he’ll be back,” Annie said, hoping that she was right. She had a feeling that the man had simply been swept up by emotion, choosing to believe in some unbelievable story about treasure because he was too stricken to deal with his grief. She’d been there, she knew grief intimately. It was like a knife in the gut that you couldn’t bring yourself to remove. First, when the police delivered news of her husband’s death, and then again when she’d been confronted by his mistress at the funeral home, Annie had hugged that knife tightly, unwilling and unable to let it go. Annie supposed if someone had made up some fantastic story to sooth away the pain of her loss, she probably would have bought it hook, line, and sinker, too.

Rory and Devon dutifully carried the shopping, then made themselves scarce while Annie and Bessie put it away. After Annie relayed the events of her morning, minus the opening of the attic door, Bessie sighed. “Well, you could have told me we were having company this afternoon,” she complained, referring to the visit by the Chief. “I won’t have time to tidy this place up.”

Annie laughed. “Mama, it’s going to take weeks to tidy this place up, and besides, he’s not making a social visit.”

Despite Annie’s protests, Bessie settled on whipping up a plate of cookies and some freshly squeezed lemonade. While she finished putting the shopping away and preparing for the Chief’s visit, Annie went in search of Devon and Rory.

She didn’t have to look very far, because they were on the veranda, swapping tales of their research into pirate lore. Devon seemed excited by his information, and he couldn’t wait to tell Annie what he’d discovered at the local library.

“First of all, did you know they have free WiFi at the library? Why am I not living there until you get this place hooked up?” he teased his mother, who was secretly pleased that her son was so enthusiastic about a library, even if it was just because he got access to the internet there.

“Mom, I was telling Rory what I found out about this place. According to the local history books there, this used to be one of the biggest plantations in the state. It was also one of the first, but the guy who owned it lost it in a gambling bet, can you believe that!” He pulled out his cell phone and read the notes he’d made.

“John Garrison, bought the land in 1695, built the first part of the house in 1704. I couldn’t find any pictures of it back then,” Devon continued, “But apparently the house wasn’t that big.”

Rory chuckled. “I don’t think they had many cameras back in the 1700’s,” he explained to a puzzled Devon.

“Oh, right,” Devon replied, blushing. “I didn’t think of that. But anyway, I also found out that John Garrison lost the property in 1709. The book says he was gambling and bet the property, but he lost, so it became owned by somebody called Elijah Cooper.” Devon paused to make sure his mother was still listening. “That’s the Elijah Cooper that Coopersville is named after, by the way. The plantation didn’t have a name back then, but later on, they started calling it Rosewood after Rose Cooper, one of Elijah’s great granddaughters, who also lived here. I don’t know why they didn’t just call it Cooper place, but I guess they were just weird in those days.”

Annie was suitably impressed. Devon had found a lot of information in the local history books, but nothing to indicate that there was any sort of buried treasure. Her son continued, prompted occasionally by Rory, who provided a few details from his own memory of the books he’d read years before. “It never specifically says pirates in the history book, but it does say that old man Cooper was into some dodgy stuff, even for a slave owner.”

Annie cringed. “Those were dark times, Devon. Thank goodness we’ve moved on from that sort of thing, hmm?”

“This place did have slaves on it, then,” Rory mused. “I mean, I guess it made sense, with all these acres and the fact that we’re right in the middle of a former plantation, but I kinda hoped this was one of those plantations that used paid labor. I guess I’m just an optimist,” he admitted, shrugging his shoulders. “But slaves or not, Cooper’s ‘dodgy deals’ could have involved stolen goods, even stolen treasure, so I say we’re still on for a treasure hunt.”

Devon’s face lit up. “Alright! You bring the metal detector, oh, and the shovels, and I’ll bring the brains,” Devon said, pointing first to Rory, then at himself.

“How about we start by searching in the attic?” Annie suggested, half-jokingly. “If we hurry, we can have a scavenge around up there before the Chief of Police arrives to get in on our booty,” she added, the last part spoken in a pirate brogue. The other two stared at her like she’d gone mad. “Oh, okay, I get it. It’s fine when you guys joke about looking for pirate treasure, but when Mom does it, it’s just not cool.”

“Something like that,” Devon quipped, then he leapt to his feet and headed into the house towards the attic.

Annie and Rory detoured to Rory’s truck to grab three flashlights, then made their way back upstairs to the heavy wooden door that led up to the attic. When they arrived, Devon was nowhere to be seen, but a gentle glow from just inside the attic door illuminated his outline. Using his cellphone as a flashlight, Devon was the first to venture into the dark, dusty room.

“Be careful in there,” Annie called out to him. “Can you see a light switch?” She didn’t know why the darkness in the attic bothered her so much. Perhaps it was just leftover anxiety from finding two dead bodies on the property that made her so antsy, but it could also be the fact that she had know way of knowing what shape the attic floor was in. The last thing she needed right now was for one of them to fall through a rotten spot on the floor. The house wasn’t proving to be the money pit she’d originally worried it might be, but she didn’t want to take any chances.

“I can’t see much of anything, Mom.” Devon crept forward, panning his phone around the room. Over his shoulder, Rory clicked on the brightest flashlight Annie had ever seen. It illuminated first the back of Devon’s head, then the wall directly in front of him, which was a good fifteen feet, at least.

Devon spun on his heels. “I want one of those,” he said somberly, and Rory proceeded to pass him one of the spares. With two flashlights covering the attic, Annie could just begin to make out its contents. It was packed almost wall-to-wall with junk, some in cardboard boxes that looked as though they were barely holding themselves together, and other items strewn carelessly around the room.

“Raccoons may have gotten in here,” Rory suggested.

“Hopefully, they’re gone,” Annie replied, switching on her own light. She didn’t like the idea of being attacked by a rabid raccoon in the middle of this dusty, dark room, so she shone her light like a sword, in quick jerks towards any direction that looked like a good raccoon hiding place.

She was relieved to find a distinct lack of raccoons, rabid or otherwise, and amazed by the amount of stuff that was simply left behind when the last occupants left. An old chaise lounge stood against one wall, piled high with boxes and assorted debris. It had, unfortunately, been left unprotected inside the attic, and Annie could clearly see mold as well as tears in the fabric. Still, she reckoned that with a little effort (and new fabric) the old thing could be given a new lease of life.

Peeking inside one of the boxes, Annie was surprised to find a phenomenal amount of bric a brac, from tiny glass figurines to chunky wooden ornaments and more. Most items were fairly ordinary, clearly worthless, and hardly even worth a second glance, but a few items struck her as very beautiful, including a pair of cut glass doves and a heavy glass ashtray made from the type of colored glass that had been so popular back in the fifties and sixties.

“There’s probably some fairly valuable junk in here,” Rory suggested, running his hands over the walls as he moved around the room. He was looking for signs of rot or mold, but apart from a couple of small leaks in the roof, the room looked sound enough. It wasn’t a finished attic, but it was close enough. “I don’t think it would take much to finish up this attic,” he said out loud, tapping on the joist above his head. “A little insulation and some sheetrock would make it much more energy efficient.”

A large black cloth hung on one wall, and as Annie pulled it aside, she discovered that it hid a beautiful window. Without warning, the curtain came away from the wall, rod and all, and crashed to the floor in a cloud of dust. “Oh, my!” she exclaimed as Rory pulled her away from the falling rod.

“You okay?” he asked, and she nodded in reply, not wanting to breathe in the dust that was now settling in the bright rays of sunlight that shone into the room.

“Wow,” sighed Devon, “this place is great! Look at these old hats over here,” he held up what looked like a replica tricorn pirate’s hat. “There’s a whole box of them,” he added, digging through gingerly. “There’s also some dead bugs, and--oh, I think that’s mouse poop.” He sat the box back on the floor quickly and wiped his hands on his shirt. “Okay, that was gross.”

His discovery of mouse droppings didn’t seem to quash his enthusiasm, and soon Devon was explaining all the ways in which he would help Rory transform the attic into a teenaged boy’s dream living space. Annie couldn’t help but smile, thrilled that Devon finally seemed excited about something other than his new kitten for the first time since they’d moved down from New York. She listened as he planned his renovations, and she picked through several of the boxes, trying to decide whether to clear them all out at once or just wait until she’d finished with the rest of the house first.

She carried a small glass figurine over to the window so that she could look at it more closely in the sunlight, but her attention was drawn to a book lying haphazardly on the floor. Thinking that it must have fallen out of one of the boxes, Annie bent to pick it up. It was a heavy little book, a journal, by the look of it, and as she opened it, she realized with some small amount of surprise and dread that she knew exactly who it belonged to.

“Rory, look at this,” she said, flipping open the cover to confirm her suspicions. On the front cover of the book, someone had inked in the initials T.A., and a glance at the inside front cover confirmed that its owner had indeed been no other than Thomas Anderson, the very same Thomas Anderson whose skeleton had been discovered in her barn.

Rory let out a low whistle when he saw the name. “So he was up in the attic before he died.” He scratched his chin thoughtfully, “I wonder what he was doing up here--do you think he was looking for something?”

Devon dropped a box he’d been holding and scurried over to his mother, peering over her shoulder as she flipped through the book. “It looks like a diary, or maybe a field journal,” she explained, pointing out sketches of what looked like landmarks on the property. Anderson’s spidery handwriting included coordinates and random, cryptic notes, presumably to keep whatever he’d been searching for a secret.

She turned the pages carefully, tried reading the entries by the sunlight coming in the window, but struggled as a cloud passed by the sun. She could see a sketch of what looked like her barn, and one of something that looked like a statue, though she’d certainly never seen anything like that on the farm. Her heart leapt when a single word caught her attention.
Rosewood
. Thomas Anderson had definitely been looking for something here, on her property, before he died.

Annie peered out the window. The barn stood directly behind the house, on a slight hill. From this vantage point, it was all she could see, though the property extended for a couple of acres past the barn. That land was on yet another small hill, covered with brush, briars, and a few scrubby trees. Annie had yet to explore that area, mostly because it looked like the perfect place to get bitten by a snake. Maybe it was time to take a walk and see if there was anything to this legendary hidden treasure that Anderson had seemingly died searching for.

She passed the book to Rory, who flipped through its pages gently and wordlessly. After a moment, he simply nodded. “I wonder if any of this makes sense to anyone other than the guy who wrote it,” he mused. “I guess we can take a better look when we go back downstairs.”

“Do you think we should tell the Chief about it?” Annie asked, suddenly remembering that he would be at the house any minute.

“Let’s wait and see what he brings you. This could just be proof that a crazy old guy was wandering around in an empty house. If Thomas Anderson died of natural causes, the journal won’t make any difference to their investigation.”

Annie wondered why Rory suddenly had a change of attitude about Thomas. Not long ago he’d been convinced that the man was onto something with his search for treasure, but now that they had actual proof that he was looking for something, Rory seemed to back down from the idea. She decided that she would keep the journal a secret for now, but if there was any chance that it could help the police solve Suzy’s murder, Annie would hand it over in a heartbeat.

Annie was wondering if she had time to go through more of the boxes before the Chief arrived, but the matter was settled when her mother’s voice carried up from the entrance to the attic. “Woo-hoo, Annie! We have company, so you’d better come down here and see to your visitor.”

Reluctantly, Annie and the others headed back out of the attic and down to the kitchen, where Chief Barnes was waiting. The attic would keep until later, but for the moment, Annie needed to know exactly what the police had learned about the two deaths that had occurred on her property, and hopefully she’d find out who might have caused them.