The Haunted Bones (A Lin Coffin Mystery Book 3) (9 page)

“
W
hat did
the police say when you reported what we saw at the cemetery?” Viv carried a plate with sliced mozzarella, crackers, olives, and cherry tomatoes to the deck.

“They wrote down my concerns and thanked me. That was it.” Lin had stopped at the police station to talk to them about seeing the man enter the mausoleum and finding the broken lock which then had been replaced the next morning. She placed small plates for the appetizers onto the deck table.

“They weren’t suspicious about why we were at the cemetery so late at night?”

“The officer didn’t bring that up.” Lin slipped napkins under the plates. “They must hear all kinds of nutty stories.”

“You think the officer was doubtful about what we saw?”

“He probably wonders how in the world the lock could have been replaced so fast.” Lin heard her front door open and Jeff call hello. “Which is what I wonder, too.”

“At least you reported it.” Viv scratched Queenie’s cheek. The cat sat in one of Lin’s deck chairs enjoying the sun. “Maybe the investigating officer will take it seriously.”

Jeff came out to the deck carrying a bottle of homemade sangria and a six-pack of craft beer. He kissed Lin and greeted Viv, Nicky, and Queenie. Lin brought out glasses and they sampled the tasty sangria.

“Where’s John?” Viv looked worried. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, John burst into the house and practically raced to the deck to join the others. He had a look of triumph on his face as he rushed to gather Viv in his arms and dance her around the deck. “I just closed on a deal,” he announced as he twirled his sweetie around.

Sensing the happy mood, Nicky danced beside the couple and Viv giggled. She was happy and relieved to see John in such high spirits.

“It’s a huge place out in Surfside.” John beamed with joy. “Which means a huge commission for me.”

Congratulations were given and the girls hugged him while Jeff shook John’s hand.

“Too bad we don’t have any champagne,” Lin lamented.

“Homemade sangria will do the trick.” John reached for the bottle and a glass. They all clinked their glasses together and settled into the cushioned deck chairs to chat and sample the appetizers. Lin had prepared a pasta salad with veggies and had chicken breasts baking in the oven. Viv had recently taken up bread making and she’d made fresh rolls which would be popped in the oven as soon as the chicken was roasted.

John told them all about the deal. “Now I’m thinking of getting a bigger boat.” He grinned at Viv and waited for her to admonish him for being extravagant and not putting the money into savings.

His jaw dropped when Viv said and meant it, “Do whatever makes you happy.” She smiled at John and hugged him. They all knew that Viv and John would marry one day, the couple just hadn’t made it official yet. Viv and John had wanted to save money and grow their businesses before walking down the aisle.

“I wasn’t expecting that.” John chuckled, amazed at Viv for giving her blessing about a new boat. “It must be a trick of some kind.”

Everyone laughed.

Conversation turned to island news and the new gig that Viv and John had secured to play once a week for the rest of the summer and into the fall. The manager of a downtown pub had caught a recent set that Viv and John’s band played at a club and offered them a contract for the next eight weeks.

When Lin carried out the dinner and the four of them were enjoying the food, John brought up the bones. Viv glanced at him, surprised that he was the one who initiated the subject. She was pleased that his anxiety over finding the murdered young man in the empty house last month seemed to be coming under control.

Lin and Viv relayed their suspicions that a grave robber was at work and told about their cemetery adventure of the other night leaving out the part about Emily Coffin making an appearance.

John and Jeff stared at the girls with their mouths open.

“Grave robbing?” Jeff was appalled.

“It can be lucrative from what I’ve read.” Lin passed the pasta salad to John. She told them the dollar figure that could be had for a skull and a full skeleton.

John was about to make a joke about quitting real estate to go into the bone market, but he was interrupted by Viv. “Please don’t make a joke. It’s just too awful.”

“It’s too bad you didn’t get a good look at that guy at the cemetery.” Jeff was still shaking his head. “Or at the car he was driving.”

Lin told them about her visit to Jonas Bradley’s office and her conversations with Olive and Lloyd Sawyer.

“It seems Jonas and Lloyd have something in common,” John said. “They both have rotten personalities.”

“And they both seem suspicious of each other.” The sun was almost fully set and shadows had fallen over the deck, so Lin lit the candles in the center of the table. “From Jonas’s comments, it makes me think that he and Lloyd had a run-in of some kind, but Olive didn’t allude to anything like that when she was going on about how she didn’t like Jonas.”

“It seems Olive would have said something if there was bad blood between her husband and Jonas,” Jeff said.

“From what Lin tells us about Olive, I don’t think the woman would hold back about a disagreement or whatever happened between Jonas and Lloyd.” Viv reached for the platter of chicken breasts. “Olive seems pretty forthcoming.”

“You know,” John held up his glass of sangria and swirled the liquid around absent-mindedly. “I’m thinking about suspects.”

“What are you thinking?” Viv’s eyes met John’s.

“I was giving the case some thought.” John put his glass down and rested his arms on the table. “Who would have chosen the backyard of the farmhouse and the cellar of that house I was showing to hide bones? There are probably other places with bones hidden, too, but thinking about these two places specifically made me realize something.”

“Tell us.” Lin was eager to hear John’s idea.

“The person would have to know that those two houses were unoccupied.” John looked at everyone.

“A Realtor?” Lin’s eyebrows shot up. “A Realtor is hiding the bones?” Her mind raced with the possibility.

“It doesn’t have to be a Realtor,” Jeff said. “But it has to be someone with access to that kind of information.”

Viv leaned forward. “Someone who works for a lawn service would know that a house was empty.”

“Someone who works at the post office would know, too.” Lin added to the list.

“Or someone might hear about empty houses if he knows
a Realtor or a service provider.” Jeff leaned back in his chair. “The fact that a house is empty could come up in conversation. Someone hears about it and then uses the place to stash the bones.”

John curled his lip. “I guess my idea isn’t so great after all. There are a lot of people who have access to the information.”

“It is a good idea.” Lin nodded at John. “We can apply the idea to possible suspects. We’ll need to consider how the suspect might know about unoccupied homes.”

“Who are viable suspects so far?” Jeff asked.

“Jonas Bradley could be one,” Viv suggested. “Olive thinks he’s weird, Lin thinks he’s weird. He had access to the farmhouse backyard.”

“But did he know about the empty house on North Ave?” Lin wondered.

“He might have a friend with access to that information.” Jeff opened a bottle of beer,

“Jonas doesn’t strike me as someone who would have any friends.” Lin made a face thinking about her interaction with the man.

“What about Lloyd?” Viv asked. “He seems odd from what Lin says and he was skulking around in the backyard. Why would he be over there? It’s rude to be in someone else’s yard, especially at night.”

“And Jonas seems to suspect Lloyd of something,” John noted.

Lin said, “The car we saw. At the cemetery. We should try to see what these men drive. Viv and I thought the car at the cemetery looked big, like an old Lincoln or something like that.”

“It looked dark, too.” Viv narrowed her eyes. “We need to spy on these guys and see what kind of car they’re driving around in.”

John thought of something. “What does Lloyd do for a living?”

Lin looked at John with a blank expression. “Why haven’t I asked that question?”

“Let’s see if we can find out.” Viv got her phone out of her bag and tapped at the screen. “We’ll look him up.” After a minute, she said, “Here it is. He’s a retired professor, writes books, lectures all over the world.” Viv moved her face closer to the screen. “I bet he looks a lot better in this photo than he does in real life.”

Lin leaned close to Viv to look over her shoulder. “He does. Maybe that’s an old photo taken when he was younger.” She squinted to try to read the words on Viv’s phone screen. “What does it say? What’s he a professor of?”

Viv read aloud. “He’s actually a medical doctor who also has a Ph.D. His area is forensic pathology.”

“What does that mean exactly?” John asked.

Lin said, “It’s figuring out the cause of death by examination of a corpse.”

“Like a medical examiner,” Jeff said. “Interesting.”

Lin nodded. “Does his profile say anything else?”

“Oh.” Viv’s head snapped up. Her eyes were like saucers. “He’s an expert in osteology.”

Lin’s jaw dropped.

“Osteology?” John looked puzzled.

Lin looked at him. “It’s the study of bones.”

L
in carried
several boxes of flowers to the side of the entrance of Mid-Island Cemetery. It was the first day she’d been back to work there since she’d talked to Quinn about seeing the person in the mausoleum and the broken lock on its door. She hoped Quinn was busy in his office and wouldn’t come out to talk to her.

Nicky sniffed around the trees as Lin knelt and dug in the soil making small holes for each plant. The sound of a motor caused her to turn and see Quinn coming along the skinny road through the cemetery driving in an electric golf cart. He used the cart to get around the grounds more easily. Quinn waved to her and she groaned as he headed the cart in her direction.

“Morning.” He stepped out and walked over to Lin

Lin stood and brushed the dirt from her hands. “Hi.”

“I was going to call you this morning, but realized you’d be working here today so I waited to talk to you.”

Feeling nervous and uncomfortable, Lin worried that Quinn might be about to fire her. She waited for him to continue talking.

“The police came by.”

She sighed. “I had to report what my cousin and I saw. It wouldn’t be right not to.”

“I know, that’s fine.” Quinn gave a shrug. “It had to be done.”

“What did the police say?” Lin wondered if the police did an inspection. “Did they check out the mausoleum?”

“Yeah. But I wanted to tell you that after you left the other day I talked to Tim, the head caretaker. He said he’d noticed that the lock on the Sparrow mausoleum was broken. It was discovered during a regular check of the monuments and vaults. When he went to replace it a few days later, the lock was fixed. He assumes that one of his crew changed it.”

Lin stared at Quinn. She had been so sure that whoever drove up in that dark car the other night and went into the mausoleum had changed the lock, but it was a cemetery crew worker who’d done it. “So someone working here changed the lock?”

Quinn nodded. “Yeah. Who knows how long it was broken. There are regular checks on things, but you yourself said the problem with it was hard to notice.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that my cousin and I saw a man go into that mausoleum the other night.”

“Tim checked the vaults. There didn’t seem to be any issues.”

Lin cocked her head. “What about the keyhole on the vault? It looked like something had been at work scraping the hole, like it had been picked.”

“That kind of thing can come with time. Some of the marble can look scratched. It isn’t indicative of anything wrong. It can be the natural aging of the stone.”

“Did the police look inside the mausoleum?” Lin couldn’t figure out what was picking at her about this development.

“I took them over there. Tim came with us. We went inside after we showed them the new lock. I told Tim what you’d seen. He was concerned so he opened the vaults to check the caskets. Everything was in order.”

Lin narrowed her eyes. “Did he open the caskets?”

“Oh, no. We’d need permission to do that. Tim checked the caskets for tampering though. Everything was fine.”

Lin looked across the cemetery to the hill on the far side near the mausoleums.

“The police think that maybe that guy you saw was using the mausoleum to store something. Drugs probably. They suspect the guy is a dealer and came to get his stash.”

“That was convenient, wasn’t it?” Lin had a hand on her hip. “The guy cleaned out the mausoleum of the drugs on the very night we happened to see him.”

“Maybe he noticed you and your cousin and decided to remove everything. Or it was coincidence.” Quinn shrugged again. “The police suggested that we check the locks each morning for a while in case the guy comes back and wants to use the place for storage again.”

Drugs. It was possible, Lin thought, but the whole thing seemed too neat. If someone was storing drugs in the mausoleum, it was a mighty big coincidence that he just happened to remove everything the very night Lin was present. She didn’t buy it. “Well, I guess that’s wrapped up then.” Lin didn’t want to share her misgivings with Quinn.

“I wanted to let you know.” Quinn smiled. “You don’t have to worry about grave robbers or anything like that.”

Lin forced the corners of her mouth to go up. “Thanks. I better get these flowers in.” She pointed. “I need to get to the next client.”

“How’s your truck running? Did you find out what was wrong with it?”

“I haven’t had time to get it looked at. It took me five tries to get it going today.” Lin picked up an eight-pack of white impatiens and started to plant them. “I’m going to have to replace it, I guess.”

“I have a truck I want to sell, if you’re interested. It’s used. Older, but it runs great. Let me know.”

Lin thanked him and said she’d think about it. Quinn got back into the golf cart and headed away down the cemetery road.

As she planted and dug more small holes, Lin went over everything that Quinn had told her. She guessed the scenario he’d presented was possible. Tim, the caretaker said everything looked okay. He wouldn’t have any reason to lie unless he was involved with removing the bones.

Lin had seen Tim around and had exchanged pleasantries with him. He was an older man who was the foreman of the place, assigning jobs to the younger guys that worked at the cemetery. Tim was definitely not the one she and Viv had seen with the duffle bag the other night. Tim had a crooked back and walked with a slight limp. The person they’d seen was easy and quick on his feet. It wasn’t Tim.

It was certainly a coincidence that one of Tim’s crew had changed the lock the morning after Lin discovered it was broken. She pushed off her knees and sat back on her heels, thinking for a minute.
The piece of metal that I found. The piece of the shank from the top of the lock. If that was part of the broken lock, why was it near the top of the hill by the fire road? If a guy from Tim’s crew removed the broken lock, he wouldn’t have carried it
up
the hill to the fire road.

Nicky came up beside his owner and licked her cheek.

Lin rubbed the wet spot and chuckled. “Nick, your kisses are awful sloppy.” She hugged the little mutt and scratched him under his chin. Thinking about the piece of metal shank she’d found, she realized that it could easily be part of something else and nothing to do with the broken lock on the Sparrow Mausoleum. Lin shook her head. If she was going to figure out who was involved with these bones, she had to be more careful not to jump to conclusions. She sighed and went back to working on the planting.

Lin pondered how to make some progress on the case. She wanted to talk to Olive again to ask if she recalled the name of the company that had managed the lawn when the farmhouse was being rented. She also hoped to get Olive talking again about seeing her husband and Jonas in the backyard, and if possible, she wanted to talk to Lloyd. Lin and Viv needed to try to figure out if any of their suspects drove a large, maybe older, dark car.

Lin glanced over her shoulder. She hadn’t seen Emily Coffin lately. She could sure use the ghost’s help, but knew that the spirits only showed themselves when they wanted to.

She placed the last flower in the ground and pushed the soil around its roots. She watered all of the new flowers, and while winding up the hose, her phone dinged with an incoming text from Viv.

Can you get away? You need to see this. Meet me around the corner from Jonas Bradley’s office.

Lin sprinted to the truck with Nicky at her heels, praying that her vehicle would start.