“Don’t sound so enthusiastic, Sheriff.” Miranda chided him. “We aren’t going to interfere in your case. We’re merely offering nourishment.”
Cynthia hopped out of the site.“Bless you.” She scratched Tucker’s head and motioned for Harry to follow her. Tucker followed also. “What do you make of this?”
Harry peered down at the skeleton lying facedown in the dirt. The back of his skull was crushed. Coins lay where his pockets must have been, and a heavy, crested ring still circled the bones of the third finger on his left hand. Tatters of fabric clung to the bones, a piece of heavily embroidered waistcoat. A bit more of the outer coat remained; the now-faded color must have once been a rich teal. The brass buttons were intact, as were the buckles on his shoes, again quite ornate.
“Mrs. H., come here,” Harry called.
“I don’t want to see it.” Mrs. Hogendobber busily served sandwiches and cold chicken.
“It’s not so bad. You’ve seen far worse at the butcher shop.” Harry deviled her.
“That isn’t funny.”
Mrs. Murphy and Tucker shouldn’t have been in the site, but so much was going on, no one really noticed.
“Smell anything?” The cat asked her companion.
“Old smoke. A cold trail—this fellow’s been dead too long for scenting.” The corgi wrinkled her black nose.
Mrs. Murphy pawed a piece of the skull.“Pretty weird.”
“What?”
“Well, the guy’s had his head bashed, but someone put this big piece of skull back in place.”
“Yeah.” The dog was fascinated with the bones, but then, any bones fascinated Tucker.
“Hey, hey, you two, get out of here!” Harry commanded.
Tucker obediently left, but Mrs. Murphy didn’t. She batted at the skull.“Look, you dummies.”
“She thinks everything is a toy.” Harry scooped up the cat.
“I do not!” Mrs. Murphy puffed her tail in fury, squirmed out of Harry’s arms, and jumped back to the ground to pat the skull piece again.
“I’m sorry, Cynthia, I’ll put her back in the truck. Wonder if I could put her in Monticello? The truck’s a ways off.”
“She’ll shred Mr. Jefferson’s bedspread,” Tucker warned.“If it has historic value, she can’t wait to get her claws in it. Think what she’ll say to Pewter, ‘I tore up Thomas Jefferson’s silk bedspread.’ If it has tassles on it, forget it. There won’t be any left.”
“And you wouldn’t chew the furniture legs?” the cat shot back.
“Not if they give me one of those bones, I won’t.” The corgi laughed.
“Stop being an ass, Tucker, and help me get these two nincompoops to really look at what they’re seeing.”
Tucker hopped into the dig and walked over to the skeleton. She sniffed the large skull fragment, a triangular piece perhaps four inches across at the base.
“What’s going on here?” Harry, frustrated, tried to reach for the cat and the dog simultaneously. They both evaded her with ease.
Cynthia, trained as an observer, watched the cat jump sideways as though playing and return each time to repeatedly touch the same piece of the skull. Each time she would twist away from an exasperated Harry.“Wait a minute, Harry.” She hunkered down in the earth, still soft from the rains. “Sheriff, come back here a minute, will you?” Cynthia stared at Mrs. Murphy, who sat opposite her and stared back, relieved that someone got the message.
“That Miranda makes mean chicken.” He waved his drumstick like a baton. “What could tear me away from fried chicken, cold greens, potato salad, and did you see the apple pie?”
“There’d better be some left when I get out of here.” Cynthia called up to Mrs. Hogendobber. “Mrs. H., save some for me.”
“Of course I will, Cynthia. Even though you’re our new deputy, you’re still a growing girl.” Miranda, who’d known Cynthia since the day she was born, was delighted that she’d received the promotion.
“Okay, what is it?” Rick eyed the cat, who eyed him back.
For good measure, Mrs. Murphy stuck out one mighty claw and tapped the triangular skull piece.
He did notice.“Strange.”
Mrs. Murphy sighed.“No shit, Sherlock.”
Cynthia whispered,“Oliver’s deflected us a bit, you know what I mean? We should have noticed the odd shape of this piece, but his mouth hasn’t stopped running.”
Rick grunted in affirmation. They’d confer about Oliver later. Rick took his index finger and nudged the piece of bone.
Harry, mesmerized, knelt down on the other side of the skeleton.“Are you surprised that there isn’t more damage to the cranium?”
Rick blinked for a moment. He had been lost in thought.“Uh, no, actually. Harry, this man was killed with one whacking-good blow to the back of the head with perhaps an ax or a wedge or some heavy iron tool. The break is too clean for a blunt instrument—but the large piece here is strange. I wonder if the back of an ax could do that?”
“Do what?” Harry asked.
“The large, roughly triangular piece may have been placed back in the skull,” Cynthia answered for him, “or at the time of death it could have been partially attached, but the shape of the break is what’s unusual. Usually when someone takes a crack to the head, it’s more of a mess—pulverized.”
“Thank, you, thank you, thank you!” Mrs. Murphy crowed.“Not that I’ll get any credit.”
“I’d settle for some of Mrs. Hogendobber’s chicken instead of thanks,” Tucker admitted.
“How can you be sure, especially with a body—or what’s left of it—this old, that one person killed him? Couldn’t it have been two or three?” Harry’s curiosity was rising with each moment.
“I can’t be sure of anything, Harry.” Rick was quizzical. “But I see what you’re getting at. One person could have pinned him while the second struck the blow.”
Tucker, now completely focused on Mrs. H.’s chicken, saucily yipped,“So the killer scooped the brains out and fed them to the dog.”
“Gross, Tucker.” Mrs. Murphy flattened her ears for an instant.
“You’ve come up with worse.”
“Tucker, go on up to Mrs. Hogendobber and beg. You’re just making noise. I need to think,” the cat complained.
“Mrs. Hogendobber has a heart of steel when it comes to handing out goodies.”
“Bet Kimball doesn’t.”
“Good idea.” The dog followed Mrs. Murphy’s advice.
Harry grimaced slightly at the thought.“A neat killer. Those old fireplaces were big enough to stand in. One smash and that was it.” Her mind raced. “But whoever did it had to dig deep into the fireplace, arrange the body, cover it up. It must have taken all night.”
“Why night?” Cynthia questioned.
“These are slave quarters. Wouldn’t the occupant be working during the day?”
“Harry, you have a point there.” Rick stood up, his knees creaking. “Kimball, who lived here?”
“Before the fire it was Medley Orion. We don’t know too much about her except that she was perhaps twenty at the time of the fire,” came the swift reply.
“After the fire?” Rick continued his questioning.
“We’re not sure if Medley came back to this site to live. We know she was still, uh, employed here because her name shows up in the records,” Kimball said.
“Know what she did, her line of work?” Cynthia asked.
“Apparently a seamstress of some talent.” Kimball joined them in the pit, but only after being suckered out of a tidbit by Tucker. “Ladies who came to visit often left behind fabrics for Medley to transform. We have mention of her skills in letters visitors wrote back to Mr. Jefferson.”
“Was Jefferson paid?” Rick innocently asked.
“Good heavens, no!” Oliver called from the food baskets. “Medley would have been paid directly either in coin or in kind.”
“Slaves could earn money independently of their masters?” Cynthia inquired. This notion shed new light on the workings of a plantation.
“Yes, indeed, they could and that coin was coveted. A few very industrious or very fortunate slaves bought their way to freedom. Not Medley, I’m afraid, but she seems to have had quite a good life,” Oliver said soothingly.