The women laughed and assured him they didn’t mind.
As they made the trip to the resort, Birdie gave them a brief history of the area, the Di Luca family’s vision for this place where the land met the sea and sky and what they could expect in the way of activities. All the while she passed more hors d’oeuvres.
The newlyweds fell on them with enthusiasm: they were teenagers, this was free food—and they were going to need the energy.
The drive took twenty minutes, and as Kellen turned onto the sweeping driveway toward the portico, she saw something white near the drive under a row of rhododendrons. She knew what it was; one of the coyotes must have dragged a bone away from the carcass out on the grasses to gnaw on in peace.
Kellen interrupted Birdie, and with a broad gesture, she pointed toward the resort. “The main hotel building was built in 1957 and inspired by the royal palace of the Spanish kings of Navarre Olite. The resort was enlarged in 1970 and again in 1999. While you’re here, take the time to study the antiques the Di Luca family has collected.” She drove under the portico, turned and smiled at the guests. “Here we are! Your luggage has been tagged and will be in your rooms when you get there. Go in, check in and enjoy a complimentary beverage.”
Russell opened the van door and helped the ladies out. Chad Griffin grabbed his bag and hurried in. Birdie herded the guests into the lobby.
Kellen waited until they were inside and standing in line at the desk, then she pulled on her rain gear, grabbed a handful of linen napkins out of the van and sprinted down the wet driveway and into the grass. She started to reach for it, then halted, her hand inches from the broad bowl of the well-gnawed bone. It wasn’t a shank or a rib, but a hip socket or…or something similar. The femur remained in the socket and that, too, had been gnawed on.
Something about this wasn’t right. More than not right. Terribly, horribly wrong. This looked like…
A man’s voice spoke behind her. “That’s a female human pelvic bone.”
She jumped hard and spun around.
Nils Brooks stepped back, hands up.
Right. He had startled her, but she’d overreacted. Feeling foolish, she snapped, “How would you know?”
“Writer. Suspense. I study this stuff. Also, I was in the military. I saw some bodies while I was on active duty.”
Rain fell. Wind blew. He kept his glasses in his pocket and those eyes—brown with dark lashes—made her nervous. Made her wipe her damp palms on the thighs of her pants. “What branch?”
“Marines.”
No wonder she didn’t like him.
“Why are you out here?” she asked.
“I spotted the bone when we drove in, saw you run for it, thought I’d see why it had your attention.”
Great. He was observant and irritating. “This held my attention because guests are squeamish.” Covering her hand with a napkin, she picked up the bones.
The femur wiggled around, grinding in the socket.
“Unless you have gorillas around here, there is nothing other than a human woman that has that distinctive shape.” He bent to look more closely.
She covered the bones with another napkin. “I’ll show this to the Cape Charade policeman.”
Nils Brooks stuck his hands into his pockets. “Let me know what he says.” Turning away, he wandered back toward the portico and the lobby, and as he did, he called back, “But I’m right.”
Too bad that he probably was right.
She sprinted across the soggy lawn toward the hotel wing where the remodelers were working, and as she ran, she called Temo. “Did you get that carcass picked up yet?”
“Not. Yet.” She could hear the motor of his ATV, the wind blowing past the phone and his incredible frustration. “First I had to explain to two of the local idiots that, no, I’m not paying them to play games on their iPads. Then Smart Home called. They are neither.”
“Smart, nor home? I am sorry, Temo. Let me know what you find as soon as you find the, um, skeleton.” She hung up on him, then called Sheri Jean Hagerty. “I have an emergency. Can I postpone for an hour?”
“You had an emergency yesterday.”
“Did you hear about the carcass found on the grounds this morning?”
“What about it?”
“One of the coyotes dragged off a chunk and a guest saw it.” Which was true. Nils Brooks had seen it.
No one understood the megrims of some guests as well as the guest experience manager. “Let me know as soon as you’re free.”
“Will do.” Kellen ducked under the tape warning guests not to enter, opened the door and walked toward the still-unfinished concierge lounge. Sheets of plastic hung over the door; she pushed them aside and entered a hell of leaning ladders, a roaring belt sander and swirling wood dust.
Lloyd Magnuson stood alone in the middle of the room, wearing ear protection and a filtering mask, and frowning at the cornice board he was smoothing.
Kellen waited until he paused, then shouted, “Lloyd!”
LLOYD MAGNUSON:
MALE, 5’7”, 130 LBS., BALDING IN FRONT, DREADLOCKS IN BACK, AGE 46, LOOKS 60. CAPE CHARADE POLICEMAN, DUTIES INCLUDE DEALING WITH: SPEEDING TICKETS, VEHICLE COLLISIONS, UNRULY TOURISTS. MAIN INCOME FROM CARPENTRY WORK + CREATING OBJETS D’ART FROM DRIFTWOOD, SHELLS, FISHING NETS, FLOATS. SELLS AT CAPE CHARADE GROCERS.
He looked up, startled, dropped his ear protection around his neck, wiped his sleeve over his safety glasses and pulled his mask to the top of his head. “Now what?”
They’d had an argument about the size of the cornice board, Annie had taken Kellen’s side and he was still irritated.
“I need you to be a policeman.” She pulled off the top napkin and held the bones cradled in the other napkin. “I found this in the rhododendrons and I was wondering… That is, I thought it looked like…”
Lloyd pulled a pouch out of his pocket, unzipped it and pulled out a clean rag. He wiped off his safety glasses. “Yep. I’m a hunter, and that’s a hip joint.” He studied it. “No animal I’ve ever seen.”
“A woman’s?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Yeah…”
She put it down, napkin and all, on the cornice board.
“Don’t! After all the work I did on that cornice board, I’m not having someone’s moldy bones mess it up.”
“Then you move it. I’m not holding that any longer.”
He stepped back instead.
“Maybe the coyotes had dug their way into the local cemetery?” she asked hopefully.
“Are you kidding? Agnes visits Felix and Oscar every day.”
Kellen blinked. “Um…”
“Agnes Juettner. Spinster lady who donated a new fence around the cemetery in return for getting her dogs buried there. This is probably a suicide or an accidental drowning that washed up onshore in the high tide. Let me check in with the sheriff. She’s in Virtue Falls, north of here. I swear, Sheriff Kwinault’s got connections with everybody in the county, and with the state and Feds. She’ll know if anybody local is missing and for how long.”
“How did the hip bone get to the resort grounds?” Kellen answered the question herself. “Coyotes.” And said, “Oh God. Oh no.” She had connected the dots. The carcass she had sent Temo to collect wasn’t a deer or a raccoon. It was a woman. She pulled out her phone. It rang in her hand. She answered before the first ring finished. “Temo?”
His voice was tense. “I’ve got a situation here. We need the cops.”
Kellen looked at Lloyd Magnuson. “I’m here with the cop.”
“The cop. Of course there’s only one.” Temo laughed harshly. “Bring him—her?—and come out. Now.”
9
Kellen was pretty sure she already knew the situation out there in the scrubby grass, and she drove that ATV fast enough to make the rain splat against the windshield and Lloyd Magnuson clutch at his seat. He didn’t say a word, though. He, too, knew what they were likely facing.
When they got close to the place where Temo stood, draped in rain gear and leaning against a shovel, she rolled to a stop. Not only because she didn’t want to run over any evidence, but also…she didn’t want to see this.