“So which bed was it?” asked Ted, who’d been following the story with rapt attention.
“Ted!” Marcie said sharply, even as Marigold’s mouth snapped shut, making a clicking sound when her teeth set.
“No, but I don’t understand,” Ted confessed. “Which bed was it?” And when both women now gave him angry looks, he added, “Oh, I see. It’s a trick question, isn’t it?”
“Oh, Ted,” said Marcie, as Marigold shook her head at so much dimwittedness.
“I think it was her bed,” said Dooley. “Otherwise she wouldn’t have been so upset.”
“Dooley, it can’t have been her bed,” said Harriet, “since they’re not in a relationship.”
“Aren’t they? But I thought they were a couple.”
“No, they’re not a couple.”
“But they look like a couple.”
“But they’re not.”
“Yes, they are. And I’ve seen enough couples to know the difference.”
Now we all looked at Marigold, and I have to confess Dooley’s words made me wonder. Could it be? And since my brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders just then, it was actually Brutus who came to the next logical conclusion first.
“Okay, so Angel is nineteen?” the black cat asked.
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“Okay, so bear with me here, you guys, but if Marigold and Father Reilly are a couple, and they already were a couple twenty years ago, then Angel…” He dropped a pause pregnant with meaning, and wiggled his brow for good measure, too.
“… is Father Reilly’s daughter!” said Harriet.
“Can you please be quiet back there!” suddenly Fifi called out. “We’re trying to focus here!”
“Sorry, Fifi!” Harriet yelled. But then, quieter: “Oh, my God, you guys!”
“I can still hear you, Harriet!” Fifi snapped, then put her nose to the ground once more.
We were deep in the woods now, walking along a narrow path that the passage of time had made, though it would probably be more accurate to say the passage of people had created it—people like Angel who used it as a shortcut to Bickersfield, the new development that had sprung up on the other side of the Bickersfield woods.
Suddenly, and quite abruptly, both dogs halted in their tracks. And when we looked over, we saw that they were staring at a small pond.
“Here is where the trail stops,” Fifi announced.
“I concur,” said her colleague Rufus.
We glanced at that pond, and I think we all shared the same thought: surely Angel hadn’t decided to go for a swim in the middle of the night? I know the first thing I did was scan that pond for a body floating on the surface. Luckily there was none.
“What’s wrong, buddy?” asked Ted as he crouched down next to Rufus. “Where’s Angel?”
But Rufus sank down on his haunches, gazed into his human’s eyes and produced a soft woofle.
“This is where the trail stops,” Ted correctly interpreted his dog’s message.
Marigold muttered,“Oh, no…”
“I think it’s time we called the police,” Marcie said, and put her phone to her ear.
And it was a testament to Marigold’s distress that she merely offered a token protest this time.
10
Odelia had watched Abe Cornwall carefully inspect the bones they’d found, and now the coroner rose with some effort and a distinct cracking sound of both knees, and said, “I’m not entirely sure, but your theory might bear out, Alec.”
“So you think this might be Blake Carrington’s boy?” asked Uncle Alec.
“Well, like I said, I can’t be sure, but it certainly is a possibility.”
“When will you know for sure?”
“Dental records,” said the large man with the perpetually frizzy hair. “I’ll try to get you an answer as soon as possible.” He peeled off his gloves, and then proceeded to instruct his people to carefully go over the immediate area with a fine-tooth comb, and move the mortal remains to the coroner’s office for closer inspection.
“You have to call Mr. Carrington, Uncle Alec,” said Odelia. “This is his land, and he needs to be informed.”
“Unless he already knows,” said Chase.
“You mean if he reinterred his boy and somehow his remains were dug up?” said the Chief.
Chase nodded.“Could be that Carrington not only decided to use this piece of land as a shrine to his son, but also as his final resting place.”
“Is it possible for a body to turn into a skeleton in ten years?”
“You’ll have to ask the expert,” said her uncle, and called out, “Abe!”
The coroner came walking over and Alec nodded to his niece.
“Is it possible for a body to look like that after only ten years?” she asked.
“Well, it all depends where and how the body was buried,” said Abe. “If the body wasn’t buried in a coffin to protect it from its immediate surroundings, then yes, it certainly is possible. In a coffin the body would obviously be much better preserved, which is why I wonder if this really could be Steven Carrington. I remember the kid’s funeral, and he was buried in a very ornate, very expensive wooden coffin. And in that case it would be quite impossible for a body to decay to this extent.”
“Of course we don’t know whether he really was in that coffin all this time,” said Chase. “Could be that they buried just the coffin, and that the body was buried here.”
“Only Carrington himself could have arranged that,” said Alec.
“Well, I’m off,” said Abe. “For some reason this has been my busiest week this year. Must be the weather or something. Or maybe there’s something in the water.”
And then the big man walked off with unsteady gait.
“Sciatica,” said Uncle Alec before Odelia could voice the question. He smiled at his niece, happy to satisfy her natural curiosity. Then he glanced down. “You know, I had a feeling something was missing. Where are your cats?”
“I have absolutely no idea. Usually they like to stick around for this kind of thing, only now they’ve all decided something else was a better use of their time, apparently.”
No doubt they’d be at the house, having a nap and a bite to eat, and would be back soon, to be brought up to date on the latest news from the frontline, which this time was very close to home indeed.
She shivered slightly, and Chase said,“What’s wrong?”
“No, I was just thinking—the way it now looks Carrington buried his boy out here and he’s been lying here ever since, directly behind our houses, and none of us ever knew.”
“And probably we’d never have known, if somehow the body hadn’t been dug up.”
It was a disconcerting thought for sure, and one she didn’t like to entertain. Death was part of life, but she still didn’t enjoy it when death came this close to her home and family.
“I think I better make that call now,” said Uncle Alec, and took out his phone.
“Carrington?” asked Chase, and her uncle nodded, then placed his phone to his ear.
It took a moment for the call to connect, and then he said,“Blake? Alec Lip. We need to talk.”
Just then, Chase’s phone chirped. “Dolores,” he murmured as he checked the display. “Yeah, Dolores. What’s the emergency?” He listened for a moment, then turned to Odelia with a frown. “Can you arrange for a diver? Thanks. Yeah, we’ll head out there now.” And when he disconnected the call, he said, “I think I know where your cats are, babe.”