Charmed Bones Read online

  In the distance, Sweetie Pie set up a cry. She was on a scent. At last Harold and I reached the orchard and stopped dead in our tracks.

  “Oh, no.” I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. “This can’t be.”

  “How did they get the bodies out of the morgue?” Harold asked. He was as taken aback as I was at the sight of three bodies hanging in the apple trees. Trevor Musgrove, Esmeralda Grimes, and Faith Harrington all had been hanged from the crooked branches of the leafless apple trees. It was like a tableau out of a horror movie. The bodies swung gently in the breeze, the ropes creaking with the weight. At least Trevor and Esmeralda had been dead before they were strung up. Faith, I couldn’t say one way or the other.

  “Doc wouldn’t have released those bodies.” But now, at least, I had a clue where DeWayne might be and what he was up to. If Doc reported two bodies stolen and no one could find Coleman, DeWayne would have to take action.

  A muffled groan came to me and Sweetie Pie came dashing out of the trees with something in her mouth. When she dropped it at my feet, I saw it was a patch from Coleman’s official sheriff’s jacket. It looked like Sweetie had torn it from the sleeve. “Coleman is around here,” I said to Harold. “Take us, Sweetie.”

  Back in the woods Roscoe barked his evil little troll bark, and Sweetie took off. I went after her. “Should we cut these bodies down?” Harold asked.

  “Coleman and Tinkie first. Bodies second.”

  Not two minutes later I saw a strangely shaped tree trunk and hurried to where Sweetie had sat down, howling softly. “It’s Coleman,” I called to Harold. “He’s tied to a tree.”

  “Tinkie is here,” Harold called out. “She’s alive. Just gagged. And hopping mad.”

  The same was true for Coleman. I could barely get the tape off his mouth before he started barking orders. I was so glad to see him I just took it all in stride and hurried to do as he asked.

  “Have you seen Budgie?” I asked him as soon as he was on his feet.

  “No. Where are the sisters? And that bastard Malvik. As soon as we walked in the manor, he disappeared. He knows the secret passages in the house.”

  This was the hard part. “Faith has been hanged. Along with the bodies of Trevor and Esmeralda. They’re just ahead in the apple trees.”

  Coleman looked at me as if I’d grown a second head, but he followed me back the way I’d come. We collected Harold and one truly pissed-off Tinkie along the way. “I cannot believe that devil Spurlock got the jump on me and knocked me out with chloroform or something of that nature,” Tinkie complained. “Coleman went after Malvik, and Spurlock came out of nowhere.”

  “So Spurlock and Malvik are working together.” I wasn’t surprised. What I was shocked about was that Malvik had evaded Coleman. “At least Spurlock is out of commission. He’s tied up in one of the secret rooms. He plays a role in this whole attempt to steal the dairy and land from the witches.”

  “Let’s get back to the manor. I have to find the sisters.”

  I had to tell her before she saw it. “Faith Harrington is dead.”

  “What?” She stopped and Coleman nearly ran her down. “What are you saying?” She blocked the path.

  “Someone hanged her in an apple tree. We need to go and cut her down. And Trevor and Esmeralda, too. Someone stole the bodies from the morgue.” I didn’t say it out loud, but I couldn’t help thinking, thank goodness it was bitter cold. Decomp would be at a minimum, but it was still going to be keenly unpleasant.

  26

  “Oh no!” Tinkie really set up a wail when we were close enough to see the bodies. They turned slowly in the chill breeze. All around us the night was silent.

  “Where are Hope and Charity?” Tinkie asked.

  “We don’t know. Bob Fontana had them the last I saw.” That answer wouldn’t satisfy Tinkie for long.

  “Were they alive?”

  “They were fine.” Somehow I had to minimize her grief and panic. Even in the moonlight I could see she’d gone a pasty white and she clutched her stomach as if she might be sick. She turned away and dropped to her knees, gagging.

  “Tinkie.” I put a hand on her shoulder.

  “I’m okay,” she said, struggling to regain her composure.

  Coleman lifted her to her feet and turned her away from the swaying corpses. “Just don’t look. There’s nothing you can do.”

  I hugged her close to shield her from the gruesome sight just as the sound of voices came to me.

  “It’s Bob. And Spurlock!” I couldn’t believe he’d gotten free. “Hide.”

  We scattered and took cover in clumps of weeds and fallen limbs, and just in time. Bob and the alleged cunning man came toward the hanging corpses. They stopped short. “What the hell?” Bob asked.

  “Who did this?” Spurlock sounded genuinely puzzled, and he walked with a distinct limp where I’d kicked him. “Was it that crazy Kitten? I told you months ago not to count on her. I’m not going to take the fall for this, Bob. I did your dirty business with that Jackson development that turned to crap. I won’t be implicated in murder. You’d better find that crazy wife of yours and see that she takes responsibility.” He sounded more desperate than dangerous.

  “Where are Charity and Hope?” I whispered to Coleman.

  He shushed me and found my hand. My fingers were freezing, and the warmth of his palm closing over mine gave me comfort. I pressed Tinkie against my other side. We would all get through this, and we would make the guilty parties pay.

  “We have to get rid of Kitten,” Bob said as he walked up to Esmeralda and set her body on a more vigorous spiraling swing. “We can hang her here, pretend she was strung up with these others. Blame it on Charity and Hope. And we have to get that deed away from the deputy. You’re responsible, Spurlock, running around those passages and tunnels like some kind of secret agent. You had the land deed and you let Malvik steal it from you. You’re the idiot who put them in that trunk. Now we have to get them back.”

  “Okay, just get off my back. I’ve done the grunt work in most of this deal and I don’t need you treating me like your toady. You brought me in on this, promising I’d get a position in your development company. I can’t go home. The Pickingill Society is out for blood. If we don’t get control of this situation, you’re going to prison and I’m going to skip the country.”

  “Shut up.” Bob drew back as if he might slug Spurlock, but he stopped. “We can pull this out. We just have to keep our cool. We can lay all of this at Kitten’s door, and if she’s dead she can’t dispute it. We just have to stay calm.” Bob nodded, agreeing with his own assessment.

  Spurlock drew in a long breath. “Okay. We’ll make that deputy give up the deed, and I’ll take care of your wife. Then I want my cut and I want to get out of this godforsaken state.” Spurlock was ready to be done. “Where did you stash Kitten? I want this over with.”

  “Pantry off the kitchen. She’s a hellcat. Use the Taser if she gives you too much trouble.”

  “Will do.” Spurlock ambled back up the path, leaving Bob alone with the bodies. Bob went to them, one by one, looking up as if he had no clue who they were or how they had gotten there.

  “Let’s take him out,” I whispered to Coleman. “He’s alone. We all have guns. Let’s just shoot him.”

  “Good plan, except that would be murder. We have to find out where Hope and Charity are. We may be able to save them.”

  I wasn’t in the mood for rational behavior. I wanted action. “Okay. What’s the plan?” Tinkie and I had plotted to use the witches and a pretend magic spell to get the truth out of Bob and Kitten. All of that was out the window. It was up to Coleman now.

  The sound of Latin chanting came from the darkness. I knew it was Hope and Charity, even though I couldn’t see them. Somehow they’d gotten loose and were … casting a spell? That was really freaking helpful—not. Why didn’t they just bring more guns? How did they get away from Bob and Spurlock? What the hell was going on?

  Bo
b took a stance and sighted his gun on the path. “Come on out and I’ll make it quick. If I have to chase you down, you’ll regret it.”

  The incantation grew louder and more passionate.

  “Stop that shit right now.” Bob was losing patience.

  The two women appeared at the top of the path. They were dressed all in black, the gauzy fabric of their outfits floating around them. Somehow, they’d had time for a costume change. They chanted louder and harder, switching to English, and swirls of mist began to form around them. I was riveted in place.

  As the mist grew thicker and swirled faster, they continued chanting. “Return the life to those who have been cheated. Fill the empty vessels with your power. Hecate, Goddess of the Moon and the feminine, give back what was wrongly taken. Esmeralda Grimes, Trevor Musgrove, Faith Harrington, return from the land of the dead and demand payment from the one who took your life.”

  “You don’t scare me.” Bob started for them. He didn’t want to shoot them—too obvious, but I had no doubt he would kill them. The two witches took off back down the path, and I gathered myself to jump at Bob. Coleman held me back.

  “Be still,” he whispered.

  Just as Bob passed by Esmeralda Grimes’s gently swinging body, she began to buck and quiver. My heart almost stopped as I watched the dead body reanimate. “Bob Fontana.” The words were spoken by the corpse in a deep, almost masculine voice. “I name you, Bob Fontana, as the taker of my life. I have come to claim what’s mine.”

  Bob jumped away from Esmeralda like he’d been snakebit. “I didn’t touch you, you crazy bitch. I should have killed you the way you were meddling in my affairs, but I didn’t. You stay away from me.”

  My heart almost stopped at the words that seemed to come from the dead journalist. It was impossible, but the corpse seemed to be talking—and moving.

  “Let me down, Bob. We have business.” Esmeralda began to kick and struggle on the end of the rope.

  Tinkie buried her head in my shoulder and I buried mine in Coleman’s chest. Esmeralda had come back to life! We were in an apple orchard with a murderer and a zombie.

  Bob stumbled away from the animated body and cursed a blue streak as he fumbled to find his gun. In his retreat, he backed into Trevor’s dead body. The artist’s corpse began to buck and twist at the end of the rope and make grotesque strangling sounds. “Bob! Bob! You want my land, don’t you?”

  “Get away from me!” Bob pushed at the body, setting Trevor to swinging.

  “Bob, still want to make a land deal?” Trevor asked. “We can work something out.”

  “Aaaahhhh!” Bob launched himself away from Trevor.

  The body of Faith Harrington began to twirl, and she sang in a clear contralto the song “Witch Hunt” by Rush. “Vigilantes gather on the lonely torchlit hill…”

  Bob stumbled backward, tripped over a fallen apple-tree limb, and began sobbing.

  The ground beside Bob opened up and Budgie Burton appeared with a baseball bat and a flashlight. He shined the light in Bob’s face and then brought the bat down across his shins. Bob howled. “Leave me alone. Leave me alone. I confess to everything. The land deal, everything. Just get me out of this orchard.”

  Coleman stood up and walked over to him. Bob scrabbled on his hands and knees to Coleman and grabbed his legs. “Help me,” he said. “Please, help me. They’ve come back to life and they’re going to kill me.”

  “Why would they do that?” Coleman asked, his voice so reasonable I wanted to slap him myself.

  “They’re going to drag me to hell. I didn’t poison them or kill Faith, but I was involved. I’m guilty. I’ll tell you everything I know if you stop them from taking me to hell.”

  “Good things happen to bad people,” Coleman said as he snapped the cuffs on Bob. Roscoe, Harold’s little evil dog, rushed over to Bob and peed on him. Roscoe had a way of getting his point across.

  “Harold, DeWayne, let them down,” Coleman called out. Slowly Faith began to descend to the ground. She gained her feet and stood up, removing the noose from around her neck.

  “Thank goodness,” she said. “My feet are asleep and stinging like I’m standing in a fire-ant bed.”

  “You’re alive?” Tinkie didn’t believe it and neither did I. We both stayed far back.

  “Do I look dead?” Faith snapped.

  “I’m not going to answer that,” Tinkie said. She was right. If Faith wasn’t dead, someone had done a great makeup job on all three of them. Their skin was pasty white with a bluish tint, their eye sockets hollowed. They were pretty damn creepy.

  Slowly Esmeralda’s feet touched the ground, and then Trevor’s. They all stood up and began unhitching themselves from some kind of harness beneath their clothes.

  “How did you do that?”

  “It’s an old hangman’s trick. Body harness that stuntmen use in movies, cable, fake noose.” Faith was brusque. “Once we figured out that someone had tried to poison Trevor and then Esmeralda, we knew we’d have to trick him into a confession. He knows who gave them the poison and we’ll get it out of him. Now, let’s get Malvik and that weasel Spurlock and make them tell us where my sisters are. If he’s harmed one hair on their heads … I’ll cook him in the caldron in the front yard.”

  * * *

  Torturing Malvik turned out not to be necessary. When we arrived back at the manor, Doc, Charity, and Faith were waiting on us. Budgie had found them in the tunnels and released them. Doc had come when DeWayne called him—and had helped prepare the hanging scenario and then searched the tunnels with Budgie. Now the only person locked in the pantry was Spurlock. Doc had gotten the drop on him.

  We could only deduce that Malvik had found Kitten trussed up off the kitchen and released her. They were both gone. They’d realized the poop was about to hit the fan and teamed up, at least for the escape attempt. DeWayne’s roadblocks caught them on a backroad to the interstate. They were being returned to Sunflower County jail.

  Coleman loaded Bob and Spurlock into the backs of two cruisers and DeWayne and Budgie, who’d been officially sworn in as a deputy, took them to the jail. The rest of us trudged into the manor, where Faith built a roaring fire in the men’s parlor and we all lined up to warm our bones.

  Trevor and Esmeralda were beside themselves, and I felt only slightly mean as I congratulated them on not being really dead. Someone should have told me. My plan for the big sting to get Bob to confess hadn’t involved dangling corpses, but then again, neither Coleman nor Doc had bothered to tell me that Trevor and Esmeralda weren’t really dead.

  Faith washed the makeup from her face and joined Charity in mixing a round of Purple Zombie Cosmopolitans. It was an appropriate drink for the evening we’d just survived. Everyone was exhausted, but I had a bone to pick with one lawman. And Doc Sawyer, who kept shooting glances at me.

  I sidled up to Coleman, who put his arm around me and hugged me close. “Not so fast,” I whispered. “You could have told me they weren’t dead.”

  “I needed you and Tinkie to believe it. You’re an actress, Sarah Booth. You could have known the truth and pulled it off. But no one else involved in this has acting chops. You and Tinkie have a psychic connection that astounds me. If you had known the truth, Tinkie would have known the truth. She might have given our plan away.”

  That was a crock of rancid butter. “When Esmeralda started talking, I almost croaked. What if I’d had a heart attack?” I asked.

  “It would have been my pleasure to perform CPR.”

  “You aren’t going to get out of this with cheesy sexual innuendoes.”

  “He might,” Doc said, grinning.

  “Be careful, Doc. You’re on my list, too. You had to know all along they weren’t dead. You could have told me.”

  “It wasn’t my place to tell anyone,” Doc said. “It was a lucky stroke that I recognized the poison used on Trevor. Back in the day, when I did some work for Doctors Without Borders in Haiti, I saw a case of poisoning that showed m
any of the same symptoms as Trevor, and don’t feel badly, Sarah Booth, his heartbeat was undetectable without a stethoscope.”

  “Thanks. I could have sworn he was dead.”

  “All part of the poison. At any rate, I was able to get the antidote and use it before he actually did die. The poison left both of them in a zombie state—not dead but not really alive. The antidote came from those thorny trees you cut down, Coleman. Devil’s walking sticks. When I saw that patch of trees in the backyard, I knew exactly what to do. Trevor and Esmeralda are both terribly lucky. For a time, I didn’t know if they actually would live.”

  “So no one trusted me to keep a secret.” I whirled on Coleman. “Or to be able to act. You didn’t believe in me.” That was a bitter pill indeed.

  Coleman looked a little worried. “I made a judgment call. Don’t blame Doc for this. It wasn’t about trusting you with information or believing you could act. I did what I thought was best for everyone, Sarah Booth. I’m sure you’ve been there before.” There was a hint of sadness in his tone. “I didn’t expect we’d have to keep the secret as long as we did.”

  “You let me think you were in harm’s way. And Tinkie, too. If Harold hadn’t been willing to come with me…” I was getting really mad.

  “Sarah Booth, you’re being a little … unfair.” Harold lifted one eyebrow at me.

  “People in glass houses…” Doc threw in. I glared my response at him.

  Tinkie cleared her throat. “The important thing is that the case is resolved. No one is dead. An innocent woman will be released from prison and the guilty will be punished.”

  “And the price of my art will skyrocket.” Trevor laughed. “I saw the headlines of my death. Suddenly all the critics are lauding my work as masterpieces. This is how the art world works. You’re alive and you’re nothing. When you die, suddenly you’re a genius. Well, I’m going to have my cake and eat it, too, thanks to all of you.”