Bone-a-fied Trouble Read online

  “No, not Hafner. It’s his co-worker, Dr. Sandra Wells.”

  “A woman died at the dig? What happened?” I had visions of walls caving in or perhaps an accident with a pick ax. Digs were always dangerous because the method of removing the soil also allowed for cave-ins and mistakes.

  “Her body was found hanging above an intrusive burial grave. It’s this really deep shaft someone—and not someone with the dig—cored out of the mound. They were either going to bury Dr. Wells’ body and got interrupted or they were looking for something.” Tinkie said. “Oh, yeah, Dr. Wells was tortured.”

  That was a surprise. “She was murdered?”

  “Since she didn’t torture herself, so it would seem she’s the victim of murder,” Tinkie said.

  “Thanks for the sarcasm,” I said.

  “Sorry, it’s just that I happened to know Sandra Wells. She was a guest speaker at the Zinnia Historical Society. Prima donna, and she was a piece of work.”

  In Tinkie’s terminology, a “piece of work” was either a conniving woman who trapped men into marriage or someone who pretended to be someone they were not. “How was she killed?”

  “Hung upside down and her throat was cut. She bled out into a bowl just discovered in the dig. A ceremonial bowl that the lead archeologist, Frank Hafner, said could possibly have been used for human sacrifice.”

  “What?” That was way beyond gruesome for my home county. Things like that didn’t happen in Zinnia. We had our share of murders, but not ritualistic killings. “The Tunica tribe wasn’t known for human sacrifice. They were peaceful, until the whites began claiming all their land.”

  Tinkie was matter-of-fact. “I’m just reporting what Frank said. By the way, he’s our new boss. I took the case. You’re always saying how you need money, so he paid the retainer upfront. Now we should hustle over to the dig and see the body before Coleman has it removed. Doc’s already there.”

  I nudged Scrapiron into an easy trot. It was hard to hold the phone, post, and talk, but I managed. “I’ll head that way as soon as I get home. Maybe five more minutes.”

  “I’m going out there. I’ll make some photos at the scene and start the interview process. Hafner hasn’t been arrested yet, but Coleman told him not to leave the premises.”

  “If Hafner is innocent, did he have any idea who the murderer might be?”

  Tinkie’s laughter was clear and contagious. “He thinks it’s a spirit guarding the burial grounds, which means he’s not pointing the finger at anyone until he has more information. He has this woo-woo story about the student workers too afraid to stay there after dark because of some spirit plodding around in the woods. But he’s smart enough to know he’s going to be the first suspect. He and Sandra Wells hated each other.”

  “Then why was she at his dig?”

  “It was sort of their dig. She brought a grant that totaled over three-quarters of a million dollars and she bought a lot of specialized equipment with it. That’s a lot of money for a dig that isn’t likely to yield gold or jewels.”

  No kidding. Other than pottery shards and a better knowledge of the Native Americans who lived in the region, there wasn’t any wealth to be gained. The Tunica tribe that populated the Delta area, adding onto the mounds left by a much earlier people, was not warlike. They’d gotten on well with all the French and Spanish explorers who walked through the land, sharing their food and hunting skills. Trouble began when the white settlers claimed the land as their own. In the Tunica world, the earth belonged to all and was meant to be shared. The concept of fences or property titles didn’t exist.

  Tinkie cleared her throat. “Hafner has made headlines with some of his finds in the mound.” There had been news media, photographers from national magazines, a few international delegates, and some tribal officials on the site. I’d driven by the mound, which had been there for centuries beneath a gracious old plantation house. The Bailey family that owned the house abandoned it years back, and not so long ago the house had burned to the ground. No one thought anything about the high mound—assuming that the people who constructed the house had built it to avoid the flooding that had been a bane of the late 1800s and early 1900s. No one in recent times had considered that the Bailey plantation might sit atop a burial mound. No one except Frank Hafner, and he’d been correct.

  Miss Scrapiron clopped down the driveway with a trot that was easy to post, and I hung up so I could unsaddle and hurry to meet Tinkie. My single desire was to grab a cup of coffee and slap some make-up on my face more to avoid getting chapped in the windy sunshine than for glamour reasons. When Miss Scrapiron was running free in the pasture with her buddies, I hurried to the back door. Someone stood in my kitchen window.

  I stopped dead in my tracks to study the strong profile of the woman in my kitchen. She wore her hair braided and pulled back in a deer skin sheath decorated with beads. Her blouse was of woven fabric. Whoever she was, she was striking and fearsome.

  In the back of my mind, I suspected that Jitty was at work, and I had to wonder about my dream of the masked person and the sudden murder at a dig excavating a Native American burial area. Now a bronzed warrior goddess was standing in my kitchen.

  When I opened the back door, she turned to face me and I heard the rattle of a snake and the low, throaty tones of a Native American flute.

  “There is danger around you.” She lifted one hand, palm outward, and made a motion that seemed to encompass the space around me. “The grandfathers are unhappy. The grandmothers weep at the destruction of their rest.”

  “Who are you?” I asked. I knew it was Jitty, taking on the persona of someone who had come to give me a warning.

  “I am Lozen, warrior, medicine woman, and prophet of the Cheyenne Chiricahua Apache. I am the right hand of my brother, Chief Victorio. We shield our people in battle. We protect our right to ride free. Though we are gone now, even our resting places are destroyed for the greed of some.”

  “Is this about the archeological dig?”

  “This is about your need to be strong. You will be tested. You, too, must stand and fight for what you believe in.”

  A chill swept across me. Jitty was forever deviling me with half-cocked theories and advice that would land me in prison for twenty years. But this was something different. This was chilling and had the feel of ancient wisdom brought to me from the Great Beyond.

  “Don’t talk in riddles. Please just tell me.”

  She lifted a small earthen bowl she held in her right hand. She dipped the fingers of her left hand in the bowl and drew three red marks on each cheek. “Chiricahua for the Red People. For the red clay that is our home. For the right to ride free.”

  “Jitty.” I whispered her name, almost a plea. Lozen was a fierce warrior and she had scared me so badly I found it hard to draw in a full breath.

  The features of the warrior began to shift and meld, modeling into the softer features of my beloved haint. “Jitty!” I was so glad to see her I wanted to hug her, but I would clasp only empty air.

  When I saw the eye roll that was so typical of my sassy ghost, I exhaled a long sigh. “What in the hell are you trying to do to me? I’m not fond of your impersonations, but sometimes they’re at least entertaining. That was downright unpleasant.”

  “Lozen died of tuberculosis in an Alabama prison camp. Now that’s what I would call unpleasant.”

  She had a point, but I was still glad to see her. “I have to hustle out of here, Tinkie is waiting. If there’s a message from Lozen or the Great Beyond, spit it out quick.” The whole time I was talking I was walking up stairs to the bathroom to put some foundation on. Jitty followed still in her Indian garb. “Spit it out, Jitty. Time’s a’wastin’.”

  “You want to talk about time wastin’, do you? Put a hand on your gut and feel the slow death of those eggs. You want a message from me, get pregnant. You got a good, virile man, at last. He knows his business when he wants to bump uglies. Now get out of your own way and let nature take its
course.”

  More than anything Jitty wanted an heir to haunt. I was the last Delaney so it was up to me to provide for her future—or so she thought. I’d fought too hard for the right to be just me to be considered an incubator by society or Jitty. “I don’t have time to reproduce.” It was a statement of fact.

  “Lozan delivered a baby in the middle of a battlefield while she and her people were retreating.”

  I wanted to know more about this woman, but not now. Tinkie was waiting, as was Coleman and a dead body. I grabbed a cold biscuit from the bread box and some hot coffee in a thermos. I had to get to the site.

  “Be safe,” Jitty said. She’d returned to the stoic warrior goddess of the Apache tribe. A wind rippled through the kitchen and the rattle shook. Then Jitty/Lozen was gone.

  * * *

  Chapter Two

  * * *

  Pluto was on the front porch waiting for me when I stepped outside, and I knew there was no hope of leaving him behind. Sweetie Pie magically appeared at the car. I opened the car door for the critters and we were off. I suspected Dr. Hafner would not be happy to see a cat and dog, but when he paid for Delaney Detective Agency, he got all of our resources.

  The dig site was only twenty minutes from Dahlia House down a little used dirt road that led to the abandoned estate that had once belonged to a family named Bailey. They’d fallen on hard times, sold the land to an agri-business, and shortly after that, the family had left the area. The house was abandoned for years and had stood sentinel on the high mound until it had mysteriously burned down. No one had lived there, and there were no insurance claims. Rumors were that kids had accidentally set the fire, but lightning was ruled the official cause.

  The blackened timbers of the house had been reclaimed by the woods and volunteer trees had sprouted all over the top of the mound, until the archeological crews showed up. When they’d begun excavating, they’d taken out the trees and plants in their way. Now, after a few rains, parking was a mess at the base of Mound Salla and the steep sides of the mound, fitted with large timbers to use as steps, showed recent wear. The site had become a big news item, and along with the officials who had a reason to be there, about four dozen gawkers had arrived. I called them the Tragedy Vultures. Whenever disaster struck, the same people came to see the latest accident or drama. Several locals were filming on cell phones. Budgie, one of Coleman’s deputies, had them so far back their little phone cameras would be useless.

  Tinkie and her dust mop, Chablis, were waiting for me, and Budgie waved us through. He knew we were on official business. I hadn’t been to the mound up close and I was awestruck by the fact that something built hundreds of years before had not eroded. It was a steep incline, and the massive cypress timbers used to make steps had weathered the decades and decay. The Mound Builders had been masters of situating and packing various types of dirt to provide permanence.

  It was a vigorous climb up the side of the mound, but Tinkie and I put our glutes into it and made the top where Coleman and Doc Sawyer, the local emergency room attending and county coroner, knelt beside a sheet covered body.

  “Sarah Booth, Tinkie,” Doc said, nodding a greeting. “Are you tourists or working?”

  “Dr. Hafner hired us,” Tinkie said.

  “And he’s going to need you,” Coleman said matter-of-factly. “He’s my number one suspect.”

  “You know that already?” Tinkie asked.

  “I do. When I’m done here I’ll tell you why.”

  Coleman wasn’t a man who rushed to judgement. The evidence against Hafner had to be pretty convincing. But it was Tinkie’s and my job to look around and find details that would lend themselves to Hafner’s innocence, if he was innocent, and that remained to be seen.

  About twenty yards from the sheet-draped body was a tripod of poles that had been lashed together with stout ropes which also held a massive hook. I was reminded of the hooks in slaughter houses, a thought that made me queasy. I stepped over and photographed the rope and knots. It was a primitive hoist, and I knew instantly that Dr. Sandra Wells had been hung from the hook in the center. She’d died on that spot, or if not died, this was where she’d been bled.

  The earthen bowl that contained her blood remained on scene. I glanced at the symbols drawn into the clay bowl, ignoring the pool of gore inside. The bowl was huge—and I was amazed that it had survived hundreds of years buried in the ground without a crack or chip.

  “Good lord, Sarah Booth, she was hung up like a cow or pig, her throat was cut, and she just…they say exsanguination is painful.”

  Death was always shocking, but even more so when it was such a brutal murder. I stepped back and looked out over the vista. The flat fields below us, newly planted, stretched for miles to the east, and the dense foliage of a swampy brake extended west. All evidence of the plantation house that had burned had been removed, but in the thicket of trees I saw what had to be a fort made by children. I’d done much the same on the grounds of Dahlia House, taking old boards and scraps of wood, wire, and tin to construct my own secret hideaway. The Bailey family included several children—this had to be their work. For a rural child, a fort was a perfect hideaway.

  My father had offered to build a fort for me, but I’d refused. Then it wouldn’t be my secret place. I’d created a hut out of old fencing, boards, weeds, and straw. I was happy with my makeshift work. I turned away from the past and faced my partner, who was poking at a dead fire some of the dig crew had left behind. At the base of the mound, the student workers had been herded into a group. They milled around like cattle, looking up at the top of the mound with varying degrees of curiosity, horror, annoyance, or sorrow. Sorrow was definitely in the minority.

  Dr. Frank Hafner stood with them, consoling some and giving a pep talk to others. He was a very handsome man. Chiseled jaw, dimple in his chin, blue eyes the color of the March sky, light brown hair that ruffled in the breeze. He wore an expensive jacket that fit his broad shoulders and narrow waist to a T. He didn’t have the air of any academic I’d ever hung out with. He was more…super hero. Any minute he might jump in the air and fly off. He’d leave behind a bunch of broken hearts. Almost all the young women working the dig looked up at him like he was Adonis.

  “He’s a looker,” Tinkie said.

  “And he knows it,” I added.

  “Confidence is very sexy. And power. At this dig Frank Hafner has both.”

  “I wonder if he was willing to kill to retain those things.”

  “He told me he was innocent.” Tinkie arched one eyebrow.

  I faced my partner. “Then I assume he has an alibi?” Tinkie had spoken with him, but I had not.

  “He was with someone.”

  Oh, I could see this coming a mile down the road. “But he won’t say who because it’s a student and he doesn’t want to be fired or destroy the young woman’s reputation.”

  Tinkie only grinned. “Bwana pretty smart for a country girl.”

  I only rolled my eyes. Tinkie had developed a fetish for Alexander Skarsgard as Tarzan. She’d watched the movie at least a dozen times and sometimes when we were riding along a country road, she’d burst out in a Tarzan yell that would almost make me wreck. It was a phase she was going through and it would pass, but not quickly enough for my taste. “Stop calling me bwana.”

  “Yes, bwana.” She grinned and stepped out of my reach. “Frank Hafner kind of reminds me of Alexander, don’t you think? Tall, sexy. I wonder what he’d look like in a loin cloth. I’ll bet he works out regularly. I can almost see his six pack beneath that cotton pullover.”

  He did look good. “Call him bwana. He’ll love it.”

  “I suspect you’re right.” She held out a little finger with a crook in it. “Truce?” “Sure.” I hooked her finger with mine and pulled. It was second grade secret pact stuff, but so much a part of our history. “I’m going to see if Doc will give me a view of the body before they move it.”

  “Someone used an auger to drill d
eep into the mound. There are some things down in the hole, but Hafner has ordered everyone to stay clear. Coleman believes they were going to put Dr. Wells in the hole. An intrusion burial. Hafner is pissed about the destruction of the mound, though. Digging fifteen foot holes with an auger is not how an archeological dig is done.”

  “Great. Talk to Hafner about who knew how to run an auger. That would take some kind of expertise, I would think.”

  “Correct,” Tinkie said. “Hey, Hafner is eyeballing you pretty hard. I think he may have the hots for you.”

  I could feel his gaze drilling into my back. “Poke him in the eyes, then.” I wasn’t in the mood. “I’ll join you when I finish.”

  “Take photos. I don’t want to look at the body, but we might need the photos.”

  “Sure thing.” She was right about that.

  Sweetie Pie and Chablis had taken a watchful stance not far from Dr. Wells’ remains, but Pluto was nowhere in sight. If he didn’t show in a few moments, I’d begin a search. He was an elusive cat with a nose for trouble—causing it and finding it.

  I walked behind Coleman so that my shadow fell across him as he knelt beside the sheet covered corpse.

  “Death by exsanguination,” Doc Sawyer, who was on the other side of the body, said. “Not the method of death I’d pick. The cut was jagged and irregular, like the blade was rough. Maybe even stone.”

  “Like a caveman’s tool?” Coleman asked.

  Doc looked at Coleman and his gaze traveled up to connect with mine. “Yes. Like that. I’m tempted to guess that Dr. Wells was killed with a knife found here at the archeological site.”

  That put a new spin on the death. And it added to the ritualistic element of the murder. “Are you saying Dr. Wells was…sacrificed?”