The Almost Sisters(32)

“Is that . . . Was that a person?” Lisbeth Barley called. “Was that bones of a person?”

“I’m calling Cody,” Martina Mack announced.

God help us. Birchville had five full-time policemen, and one of them was Martina’s grandson. “Jackass” did not skip any generations, at least not in the Mack family. Cody was the last thing I needed in our yard right now.

“Miss Wattie, you and Miss Birchie go inside,” Frank said quietly.

Birchie leaned in with worried eyebrows. “I need to put my trunk away,” she said, one hand reaching for it. Wattie held her fast, kept her from touching it. “I need—”

I cut her off, saying, “Go on inside. It’s okay.”

I was scared of what she might say next. She’d just publicly claimed ownership of a box of human bones. I would not let the Lewy bodies convict her of God only knew what else on the lawn in front of the Barleys and Martina Mack.

Martina was already barking into her cell phone, “Naw, naw, Cody, I’m saying! You get your butt over to the Birch house, right away!”

“Come on, now,” Wattie said. “Leia and Frank will handle this.”

I nodded, reassuring, though I had no idea what “this” was. Once they were moving in the right direction, I turned back to Frank. “Should we take the trunk inside, too?”

“Don’t you move that,” Martina called. She was off the phone now and pointing at the sea chest with one quavering old finger. “That right there’s a crime scene!”

Lavender and both boys watched, big-eyed and quiet. Hugh loomed over her, protective. Jeffrey had only a couple of inches on Lav, but he was doing his best to loom protectively over her other side. My bare feet were cold in the dew-wet grass. Down the road I could see the blue-clad teardrop shape of Cody Mack, already speed-walking up from the square. His officious gait set his Maglite swinging.

“It’s not a crime scene, Martina,” Frank said, mild and dismissive. “We don’t know what it is yet.”

“I own almost every season of Law & Order on DVD. I know a crime scene when I see one.” She turned her beady glare on me. “Y’all uppity Birches! I shoulda known. I hope they bring cadaver dogs and dig up the whole yard.” She gave the Barleys a knowing nod and added, “I bet you anything there’s a whole slew of bones and folks and suchlike buried under there.”

The Barleys actually looked alarmed.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I snapped.

Martina looked down her nose at me, tilting her head back and flaring her nostrils so wide I could practically see all the way up into the dark cavity where her brains ought to have been. “My daughter took me to see Arsenic and Old Lace over at the Montgomery theater. I know what’s what!”

She’d prepped her grandson about what was what as well, because as Cody bustled up, I saw he’d brought a roll of glaring yellow crime-scene tape with him. It was so old it was dusty.

“What in blue blazes is going on?” he snapped, glaring from Frank to me. “Gran says you’ve got a body in that chest?”

I started to answer, but Frank put one calm hand on my arm.

“We’re not sure what we’ve got here, yet,” Frank said.

“I’m going to need to open it,” Cody said to Frank. “I need to see.”

Frank waved his hand in a be-my-guest gesture. Cody pushed in close and dropped into a crouch.

I turned my face away and looked at the Barleys, huddled close and whispering to each other. I heard the chest’s lid creak, heard Cody grunt. Down the road Della Brody was standing on her porch, peering over at us. Next door to her, the Maxwells had come outside, too, so First Baptist’s super-efficient phone tree was already working. We’d have most of Birchville on our lawn within ten minutes. I kept my face pointed safely at the neighbors, watching them coalesce, until I heard the click and creak of the chest closing again.

Cody was asking Frank about the car with its smashed bumper and how the chest had come to be resting in the grass in the first place.

“It was in the back of the car.”

“Where was it before that?” Cody asked. “Where did it come from?”

That was the real question, wasn’t it?

“The attic,” Frank answered, calm and brief, supplying truthful information, but only the exact things Cody asked for.

While they talked, I picked my way over to Lavender and the boys, the damp cuffs of my pajamas flapping at my bare ankles.

“You kids go make Birchie and Miss Wattie some hot sweet tea, please? Or cocoa. I think they’re in shock.”

“Can we have cocoa, too?” Lavender said, her kidcentric interest lured by chocolate and sugar. Jeffrey’s smile sparked hopeful at the question, but Hugh’s face remained grave, a mirror of his father’s. He was only two and a half years older, but they were big years; I hoped that Lav had picked the safety of a crush on Jeffrey. Lavender wasn’t ready for a high-school boy, minutes from driving, with a full complement of adolescent testosterone thundering through his body. But I looked at how close he stood beside her, so protective, and I knew he was there whether she was ready or not.

“Sure,” I said. They started off.

“I’m going to need to question Miss Birchie,” I heard Cody say behind me, and I whirled back.