Magnolias, Moonlight, and Murder Read online

  I had noticed it one day when I spotted a pale yellow stone marker, an obelisk, poking through the curtain of leaves and bushes. I’d taken a few steps up the embankment and stopped there to study the worn markers. No poison ivy for me, thank you. It hadn’t made me feel the least bit scared, only a little sad to see the graves so abandoned.

  Rex pulled on the leash, ready to move on, but I paused, frowning. “Now, that’s not right,” I said. In the fading light, I saw a white Halloween mask, a skull. It sat under a bush outside the kudzu-draped fence, contrasting sharply against the dirt and dark leaves.

  “Kids,” I muttered as I climbed two steps up the embankment and angled my foot to kick the mask clear of the greenery. It looked like the Halloween pranks were starting early this year.

  I hesitated and leaned down. It looked so realistic.

  Correction. Not realistic. Real.

  Chapter Two

  Even though I’ve watched those TV forensic shows and seen bones and human remains in all their grisliness recreated on the small screen, nothing had prepared me for the real thing. I think that was what freaked me out the most. I knew the skull was real. I didn’t have to touch it or move it to understand that. I just knew.

  I stepped back and slipped. My arm splatted down into the soft mud. Thankfully, I didn’t land on the skull, since I’d stepped back, but I didn’t want to be on eye-level with it either. I righted myself, holding my left arm away from my body.

  All I could think of was the bleary picture of the missing woman. I swallowed and looked at the skull. Was that Jodi? My heartbeat ramped up.

  I wanted to sprint away, but my jerky movements made my feet skid again. I hadn’t noticed on my quick climb up the embankment that the earth was still soaked from the rain, but now, as I took a few deep breaths to calm down, my feet shifted slightly in the sludgy earth. My heart hammered like it did when I actually got around to doing my kickboxing video.

  My gaze followed the trail of mud that had cascaded down from the cemetery. Rex’s paw prints dotted the mud slide. At the top, I could see a piece of the kudzu-covered wrought-iron fence that had surrounded the plot of land, broken away and dangling. A few kudzu vines threaded through the piece of fence and were stretched taut, which had kept it from slipping down with the rest of the mud.

  The back corner of the cemetery plot had sheared away, leaving a casket exposed. Its sides had collapsed, creating a gaping darkness under the lid that had tumbled sideways and was wedged in the earth, half covering the other pieces of the casket.

  I thought I saw another skull-like shape.

  Surely not. In the fading light it was hard to make out the details in the mix of dark mud and shadows, but it did look like another one, another skull. I squinted, then forced myself to take one more step up the embankment. As much as I didn’t want to believe what I was seeing, I had to admit that even to my untrained eye, it was another skull. It was half buried in the mud near the splayed casket, but the curved dome of the skull and the empty eye sockets were impossible to mistake.

  I stayed as clear of the mud slide as I could and picked my way directly up the rise of land and circled around to the back of the cemetery. I didn’t realize that Rex had been trotting along beside me until he rubbed against my leg. I transferred the leash to my muddy left hand and rubbed his head as I studied the cemetery. The rest of it was intact and undamaged. Well, undamaged was probably not a good word choice. The rest of the cemetery looked the same as it always did, abandoned and disheveled. There were no more exposed graves. I looked back at the two skulls and got that ice-cube-down-the-spine feeling. One of them could be her. I stood on the rise, considering what I should do. Call 911 was the obvious answer, but I didn’t have my phone with me.

  I looked up and down the path. I couldn’t see back around the bend, the direction I’d come, but I could see several feet down the path in the direction I’d been walking. Not a soul in sight. It was late. The color was draining from the sky, leaving it icy blue. The cloud was now tangerine and the darkness around the trees was thicker. I doubted anyone else would walk this path again until tomorrow morning. I did my best to shake the uneasy feeling.

  I carefully sidestepped down the embankment, going out of my way to avoid going too near the washed-out portion of earth. I went slower on the way down. I didn’t want to get any muddier than I already was. Once back on the path, I thought about cutting through the trees. It would be the quickest way since I was past the pond. The path mirrored our street, and our house was directly above the curve in the road. I could cut through and go in our back gate.

  Rex trotted off in the direction we’d originally been headed, and after a few seconds I followed him. The woods were too dark and I wasn’t feeling that brave, especially after seeing two skulls. I stuck to the path and jogged home.

  The garage door clattered and began to rise as I walked up the driveway. With a lithe movement, Mitch ducked under the door when it was halfway up. He was carrying a garbage bag in one hand and didn’t see me right away.

  “Mitch,” I called as Rex bounded up the driveway.

  He turned and reached down to rub Rex’s ears, then glanced up at me and froze. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” he asked, his face concerned.

  “The little cemetery on the gravel path—” I had to stop, catch my breath.

  He took in my muddy side, dropped the garbage bag, and gripped my upper arms, steadying me. “Take your time.”

  The garage door stopped with a final rattle. My ragged breathing was the only sound in the sudden quiet. Another deep breath and I realized my legs felt quivery. “The cemetery?” Mitch prompted.

  I nodded. Mitch knew the path as well as I did from his jogs. “Part of it’s washed away. There’s an open grave and bones.”

  His grip eased a bit. “It’s probably been there for at least a century, Ellie. It’s not surprising—”

  “Mitch.” My sharp tone cut him off. In the twilight, his dark eyes looked almost black. “There’s one open grave and two skulls.” We stared at each other for a moment. “The missing woman—the posters. We have to call the police,” I said.

  He nodded, reluctantly. This wasn’t the first time we’d had to call the police. “Look, I wish I hadn’t seen it. I don’t want to call them either.” I knew there would be an endless round of questions and a very late night after that phone call. “But we have to.”

  “I know.” His voice was quiet, restrained. “Were they…recent?”

  “I don’t think so. I mean, there was no…skin or anything. That’s why I think it might be her…Jodi. She’s been missing for almost a year. If her body’s been in the woods that long…” I couldn’t bring myself to talk about a human body decomposing. “I thought it was a Halloween mask. It wasn’t gross, just…” I searched for the right word. “Eerie. The path was so still and deserted.”

  He released my arms, picked up the garbage bag with one hand, and circled my shoulders with his other arm. “Let’s go inside. I’ll call. You can go wash the mud off before they get here.”

  Two hours later, I sat on the curb near the stop sign where I’d talked to Coleman May. I felt a bit of mud still stuck to my arm and rubbed it away. The sky and woods were dark, but the path was full of light and movement. Bars of light sliced through the trees and hurt my eyes when I glanced from the pale moonlight that bathed the rest of the street to the glaring lights.

  I checked my watch and figured Mitch would be here in a few minutes. We’d decided that he would stay and get the kids in bed, then call our neighbor Dorthea to come sit with them while he met me at the path. We figured it would be best to keep the kids on their schedule and not disrupt their routine. No need for the whole family to be freaked out.

  It wasn’t the police, but the sheriff’s department that responded to the call. I’d forgotten that our subdivision was in an unincorporated area of the county and the sheriff had jurisdiction here. The man who arrived first was unfailingly courteous, but his good
manners barely coated his skepticism when I told him what I’d seen.

  By the time I walked down the path with the officer, I’d begun to doubt my story, too. But his strong flashlight picked up the unmistakable human remains and cracked casket.

  The officer had escorted me back to the neighborhood street and cordoned off the whole path. Then the parade began—cars, vans, SUVs, all with official logos on their doors, disgorging their official people. I watched the show with a strange feeling of detachment. When the neighbors began to emerge from their houses, I’d shrunk back, not wanting to talk to anyone. I planted myself on the curb where the dark night and the front tire of a sheriff car shielded me from curious looks.

  I watched a young man stride quickly toward me. He had a badge clipped to his belt and was dressed in chinos and a navy polo shirt with the words Dawkins County Criminal Investigation Division stitched on it. I stood up.

  “Mrs. Avery?” he asked, extending his hand. “I’m Detective Dave Waraday. You found the remains?”

  As I shook his hand, another officer trotted up to us and hovered. Waraday said, “Excuse me, ma’am,” and stepped over to the officer. When we first moved here, I might have been slightly offended to be categorized as a “ma’am,” but now I knew it was just ordinary courtesy. Southerners took politeness to a new level and sprinkled “ma’am” and “sir” throughout their conversations.

  The second officer said, “The GBI is on the way.”

  “Good.” Waraday nodded. “Let me know when they get here. And move those people back,” he said, glancing at a cluster of people beside the yellow tape. “I don’t want anyone slipping past us through the trees to the site.”

  “Yes, sir.” The officer nodded and raised his voice. “Okay, step back, please. Y’all can head on home.”

  I studied Waraday as he turned back to me. This was the boss? The other man had certainly spoken to him with a deferential tone and looked to him for instruction, but Waraday looked more like a high school quarterback than a crime scene investigator. How long had this guy been investigating crimes? Was he even old enough to rent a car?

  I couldn’t see a wrinkle anywhere on his face. My path had crossed with a few law-enforcement types, and from what I’d seen, time had certainly left its mark on them: wrinkles, gray hairs—or no hair—and a weary manner marked most of them, well, except for Thistlewait, a military investigator I’d met at our last assignment. He’d actually had a full head of nongray hair, but he’d been in his thirties.

  Waraday tilted his notepad toward the light and jotted down my pertinent information, then said, “Do you walk this path often?”

  “Yes. Lots of people in the neighborhood take it when they’re walking or jogging.”

  “When was the last time you walked it, before tonight?”

  “I’m not sure.” I looked over his shoulder at the beginning of the path. “I’d have to look at a calendar, but I think it was last Saturday. It’s been raining nonstop for at least a week, so it wouldn’t have been this week.”

  “And you didn’t notice anything out of place with the Chauncey Cemetery last time?”

  I shook my head. “No. But it’s not like I check it every time I walk by it. For weeks, I didn’t even notice it. Chauncey? That doesn’t sound familiar,” I said.

  “The Chauncey family died out a couple of generations back. They owned everything south of the railroad depot. You know that white house on Scranton Road right before the turn-in to Magnolia Estates? That was theirs. It was the only house for miles and the cemetery was their family plot.”

  “I’d wondered why no one kept it up. It’s not surprising it’s in such bad shape.” Waraday went back to writing in his notepad. I was surprised he’d shared that bit of local history with me. In my run-ins with the police, I’d found they were fond of asking questions and never too keen to give answers.

  Maybe I should stop right here and clarify. I’ve never been arrested. Although it’s been close. I wondered how Waraday would feel about me once he found out that I’d been involved in murder investigations. Would he be as chatty? Maybe his friendliness was a southern thing.

  I rotated my shoulders to relax them. No need for me to worry about getting mixed up in this investigation. I’d sworn that off after last time. And there was no way I could be considered a suspect this time. Those bones had obviously been there a long time, and since I’d never set foot in Georgia, much less Dawkins County, until ten months ago, I was in the clear.

  “Did you touch anything?”

  “No. I thought the first one was a Halloween mask, but when I got closer, I knew it wasn’t a costume. I did go to the top of the little rise beside the cemetery to see if any more graves were open. I tried to stay away from the mud.”

  He’d been writing, but his gaze snapped up to mine. “And why did you do that?”

  “Because if there were other graves open, then two skulls wouldn’t be that strange. It would be bad, don’t get me wrong, but it wouldn’t cause this.” I looked around at the jam of cars and milling people.

  He had me walk down the path with him again and show him exactly where I’d walked and describe what I’d done after I found the bones, then thanked me and turned away.

  I slipped under the tape and breathed a sigh of relief. Most of the neighbors had retreated to their houses, and the few that were still hugging the tape didn’t see me as I circled around behind them. I trudged up the street, punched the garage door button, and padded through the house. The clean towels still overflowed the basket in the laundry room, but the dryer was clicking away. The kitchen, dining room, and living room were dark, so I went back to the bedroom, walking carefully since toys on the floor seemed to be the staple of our interior decorating theme these days.

  When I stepped into the bedroom, Mitch had the phone to his ear. “Oh, wait. She just walked in. Looks like we’ll be fine. Okay. Sure.” He punched a button on the phone and tossed it down on the duvet beside him.

  “Kids go down okay?” I asked as I softly shut the door.

  “Yeah. Well, Livvy had to have two drinks of water and she just couldn’t get her eyes to close.”

  “I’ve heard that one before.” I smiled and dropped onto the bed. “I’m so glad to be out of there.” I looked down at my hands. In the soft light from the lamps, I could see dirt encrusted in my cuticles.

  “What happened?”

  “They asked the basic questions.” I focused on my hand, rubbing at the dirt. “Waraday looks like he’s slightly older than Opie Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show. He told me the cemetery belonged to a family named Chauncey and they used to own all this land. Then I got out of there.”

  His hand covered mine. “Ellie,” he said, and then his voice trailed off.

  I knew what he was going to say. I gripped his hand. “It’s okay. I’m not going to get caught up in this.” It came out in a rush. “After what happened last time.” I closed my eyes and swallowed. “I can’t.”

  An Everything In Its Place Tip for an Organized Party

  Cost-cutting Tips

  Use computer software to create your own invitations.

  The easiest way to cut costs for large events, like wedding receptions, is to limit the number of guests.

  The more casual the event, the easier it is to reduce costs. A buffet is less expensive than a formal dinner. A children’s birthday party at a local park will cost less than a party for the same number of kids at a popular children’s party venue.

  Keep decorations simple. To save money, look around your house or scour dollar stores for ideas. Use what you have before purchasing a centerpiece. Flowers from your garden can be just as lovely as store-bought bouquets. If you’re serving Mexican food, a sombrero could be the perfect centerpiece.

  Party trays are easy to assemble. If you have the time, you can save money by doing it yourself. Purchase fresh vegetables and cut them yourself for veggie trays. Cold cuts, cheeses, and croissants, with condiments on the side, make a gre
at sandwich bar.

  Purchase in bulk. Warehouse stores are your best bet for finding large quantities of everything from napkins to food and drinks.

  Borrow from friends and family instead of renting.

  Chapter Three

  The next morning I was in what I’d begun to think of as the box room—I refused to call it a storage room. I’d worked my way through two boxes and was taking a break to change Nathan’s diaper when the doorbell rang.

  It was too early in the morning for Geneva, Livvy’s playmate from down the street. Geneva’s mom, Bridget, had a strict schedule for her daughters. I knew Geneva was listening to Mozart until ten o’clock; then they were off to Gym-boree.

  A petite woman of about fifty with short, curly blond hair stood on the porch. I opened the door and pushed the heavy glass screen door open a few inches.

  The woman said, “I’m Nita Lockworth. I’d like to talk to you about what you found last night.”

  She wore a sweatshirt embroidered with pumpkins, neat jeans, and Keds tennis shoes. I glanced over her shoulder at the end of the street. The gridlock of official cars had cleared out. Only one sheriff’s car remained. I couldn’t see the entrance to the path, but I could see the taut line of yellow tape tied to the stop sign.

  She waited with her hands clasped together at her waist and her head tilted slightly, her dark eyes on me. She reminded me of a bird as she stared patiently. I fumbled for a reply. Waraday hadn’t specifically asked me not to say anything, but he probably wouldn’t want me to talk about what I’d seen. And there hadn’t been anything in the paper this morning about the discovery. How had she found out about it?