Stitch X For Murder: Stitches in Crime - Book 5 Page 2

  “I try my best,” I said as I stood up next to her. “I know you’re going to be turning this into pasture, and I didn’t want any of the animals to get hurt by leftover nails or,” I pointed to the crates, “broken glass. Look okay?”

  “I’ll be moving the alpacas in tomorrow if the fencers can come. It looks perfect. Thank you.” She smiled again as she looked down at Mika and the men who were still hauling out goodies. “You guys have fun.”

  As she turned to go, Mika squawked like a chicken and said, “I think the fun part is over.” In her hand, she held up a human skull.

  2

  “Oh Lordie,” Summer said as she sat down hard on the ground beside me. “It wasn’t just a story.”

  Santiago was already on the phone and calling in Deputy Winslow to help secure the scene. I could hear the tone of his voice, and he was in official sheriff mode now. I sat down with Summer and asked, “What do you mean?

  She shook her head and pulled her eyes away from the skull, which Mika had set gently on the ground beside the privy hole. We weren’t going anywhere with anything we’d retrieved just yet.

  When Summer met my eyes, she said, “I thought it was just talk, just folks not wanting things to change. You know how folks around here can be.”

  I did know. Many people in our beautiful rural county really wanted things to go backwards instead of forwards. That was true for buildings but also for things like LGBTQ+ rights and access for disabled people. Sometimes it felt like our county motto was, “Even if it was broke, don’t fix it.”

  “Two old-timers came back last week and told me that I had better leave the barn as it was, let it fall down on itself. ‘Nothing good will come out of digging up the past,’ one of them said.” Her eyes grew wide. “They knew.”

  I put my hand on her arm. “Maybe. Or maybe not. It could just be that they were sad and didn’t want the barn to get taken down. You need to tell Santiago, though.”

  She nodded, and as she took some deep breaths and closed her eyes, I signaled for Santi to come over when he was done with his call. He nodded, and I turned back to Summer. She was still quietly breathing, and it looked like she needed to focus her attention there.

  I stood up, dusted off the backside of my pants, and walked back over to Mika, Dom, and Chris. “You okay?” I said to Mika as I hugged her.

  “Seriously, Paisley, why do we find all the bodies? Are there so many secrets around here that we can’t help but dig them up?” She ran her fingers through her hair and then squeaked. “Anyone have any hand sanitizer?”

  Chris reached into his pocket and handed her a small bottle. “Always,” he said.

  Mika lathered up her hands, gave the bottle back to Chris, and then shook her hands until they were dry. “Thanks,” she said, “but really, Paisley?”

  Dom sighed. “Maybe everyone finds bodies around here, but you two are the only responsible ones to report the finds.” He shrugged.

  “I’m not sure it makes me feel better to think that there are a bunch of unreported murders in my town, but thanks,” Mika said with a wan smile.

  I put my arm around my friend’s shoulder and squeezed her close. “We dig up things, Mika. That’s my job. But I’m sorry you keep getting dragged into these horrible finds.”

  Mika swallowed. “What are you sorry for? You didn’t kill these people. And I wouldn’t want you out here by yourself finding a skull, you know.” She gave me a look of part anger, part sympathy. “We’re in this together.”

  “Always,” I said. “You guys okay?” I turned to the two men who were sitting on the ground.

  “Oh yeah. I’m just reliving my days as MacBeth in college.” Chris said as he laid a hand on the center of his chest.

  “No, we’re not going Shakespeare in the, um, field,” Dom said. “No ‘Alas’ here, okay?”

  Chris rolled his eyes. “Spoilsport. But seriously, that is sad. Someone has been buried in an outhouse hole for who knows how long.” His face got a shade paler, and Mika moved to sit next to him.

  Even in this moment of awfulness, I couldn’t help but feel a little lift of joy that these two had, at least, become friendly. I smiled as she put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed.

  Apparently, Dom was of the same mindset because he caught my eye and winked just as Santiago and Summer came over. “Winslow is on her way,” Santiago said as he slipped his arm around my waist. “Sadly, I think you two know the drill,” he said to Mika and me. “I need you to hang around until she can get your statements.”

  “Us, too, I suppose,” Chris said.

  “Yep, you, too. But I promise after we get squared here, we’ll all go for burgers,” Santiago said. “My treat.”

  “Now, let’s be clear here,” Chris said. “When you say ‘my treat’ we aren’t talking slabs of frozen beef on flat buns from a drive-thru, are we? We’re past that stage in our friendship, I believe, and I cannot accept such a gift.”

  “We have the best burgers in the state, I’ll have you know,” Santiago said as he looked at me. “Back me up, Pais?”

  “He’s right, but just because we have them doesn’t mean that’s where you’re taking us all for dinner,” I said with a wink.

  Dom laughed. “I like her,” he said. “And she has a point.”

  “Burgers and beer on me at the Lafayette Inn after we finish here,” Santiago said very slowly. “Clear enough for you?”

  “Crystal,” Chris said. “Now what?”

  “Well,” Santiago said hesitantly, “If you guys are up for it, we need to see if there are more remains.”

  Mika stood up. “Tell me how to do it, and I’ll go back in. No one, not even a skeleton, deserves to be left this way.”

  Chris stood up. “I like you, Mika Grace,” he said with a smile. “I’ll be your right-hand man.”

  Dom, Santiago, and I all exchanged a look, and Summer grinned and said, “Well, those two have that handled. What else can we do?” She clearly understood the situation and was savvily suggesting we give these two some time alone.

  “Since this is now a crime scene, we need to scour the site for other evidence.” He sighed. “This may be mostly pointless given that most of the site just left on a truck, but we should still check.”

  “And then we’ll need to check at Saul’s lot, too, look at the materials we gathered?” I asked.

  “Yep, but as long as Saul agrees to Winslow’s conditions – she’s stopping there on her way here – that can wait until tomorrow,” Santiago said. “He’ll tarp everything and let his crew know to leave it be.”

  “I’m sure he will,” I said. “So coach us on what to look for?”

  “Wish I could tell you,” Santiago said. “Until we know cause of death, I can’t tell you what the weapon might be. So we look for anything that could have been a weapon.”

  “Bullets, bats, poison,” Summer said and then turned to look at the crates of bottles nearby. “Guess that might be a starting place?”

  “Yep. I’ll need to take all of those in and have them checked,” Santiago said. “Let’s spread out.”

  The three of us headed in different directions and walked carefully as we stared at the ground. I had done this twice before already, and I had a pocketful of nails to show for it but nothing else. I didn’t think it likely we would find anything at all, but I wanted to be thorough so I kept scouring.

  Just as I was about to say it was hopeless, Mika hollered. “You can stop looking. I found the murder weapon.” In her hand, she held a huge knife, and from the looks of the blade, the dried blood of our skeleton was still on it.

  Chris helped Mika out of the hole, and Santiago carefully took the knife in his gloved hand and then slipped it into an evidence bag. “You didn’t get cut, did you?” he asked Mika.

  “Nope. Chris gave me these fireproof gloves, and they protected my hand.” She smiled at Chris, who blushed. “You think that could be what killed this poor person?”

  Santiago turned the knife over in his hands. “That sure looks like blood to me, but we won’t know until we test it, of course.”

  Mika nodded. “I think I’m almost at the bottom, but maybe someone who knows anatomy better than Chris could help him out.” She gestured toward the pile of bones that I had completely missed in the excitement of the knife find.

  “Whoa,” I said. “So someone did throw an entire body in the privy?”

  “Sure looks like it,” Chris said as he arranged what I thought was an arm bone down by the kneecap.

  “Let me help,” Summer said and quickly began arranging the bones in what actually resembled a skeleton, or at least the skeleton that had hung in my high school biology classroom. “I was a nurse before I retired.”

  Chris smiled. “You’re retired? You can’t be a day over forty.”

  “Forty-two actually, and thank you. Unfortunately, my husband died young, but he left me enough money to live on for the rest of my life . . . and while I loved nursing, I felt a real calling to do something else. Hence, this farm.”

  “And all the activism . . .” I said. “Summer used to volunteer with Greenpeace and The Sierra Club.” I didn’t know this woman too well, but she, like many a woman I knew, often downplayed her work, especially to men. I wasn’t about to let that happen. “She’s an environmental powerhouse.”

  “Wow,” Dom said. “Maybe when we’re not trying to solve a murder, you can consult with me on a case I have in Charlottesville?”

  She smiled and blushed. “I’d like that.”

  Santiago, Chris, and I smirked and looked at each other. It seemed like maybe matchmaking was in the air today.

  Still, someone had been chucked into a privy, and we needed to focus on the matter at hand. As Mika dug through the last of the debris and then spent a few minutes sifting through the dirt at the bottom of the pit, Summer assembled the skeleton and said, “I can’t be sure, but it looks like a man’s body. I think this is a man’s pelvis.”

  I sighed. The more we learned about this person, I knew from experience, the more the sadness of the situation would sink in. Once a pile of bones got the characteristics of a human being, things got a whole lot more real.

  “Anything else strike you?” Santiago asked.

  “You mean besides this giant slice through one rib? No not much,” Summer said as she stood up.

  “Seems pretty certain you found the murder weapon, Mika,” Santiago said, and then he took out his phone and called the coroner.

  * * *

  Deputy Winslow arrived a few minutes later with assurances that everything was secure at Saul’s lot. “He’ll lock up tight tonight, and as long as we can keep this quiet until we can review the evidence tomorrow, we shouldn’t have to worry about people snooping around.”

  Santiago looked at each of us in turn. “That means you can’t say a word to anyone, not even your dad or Lucille, Pais,” he said as he held my gaze.

  “I understand,” I said, and I did. But it was always so hard for me not to talk about things. I had to make a firm commitment to myself that I wouldn’t say anything. Fortunately, Sawyer was staying the night with them and then going to his dad’s in the morning, so hopefully I wouldn’t have to see any of them until the news was already out.

  Just then, an old, red Chevy pickup drove by very slowly, and because it was only poking along, we all turned to stare at it. It was only when it was past us that we realized the driver – as well as any other driver who had come by in the last half hour – may have been able to see the bones laid out beside the privy hole. It was going to be hard to keep this quiet.

  “I’m going to issue a statement, if it’s okay with you, Sheriff, that we found the remains of a cow out in the old barn in Lucky Hollow. Say it looked like it had fallen into an old privy and broken a leg and ask the farmers around to let us know who might have lost a cow a couple decades back.”

  Santiago smiled. “Good plan. Throw people off and maybe get some folks giving us info we need. I like it Savannah.” Santiago clapped her on the back and grinned.

  “We’ll have to play that up tonight at dinner, too. Talk about the poor animal and stuff, really sell it,” I said.

  “I am a really good actor,” Chris said as Dom groaned.

  “No monologues at dinner,” Dom said. “You have to promise.”

  “Is this a thing?” Mika asked Chris.

  “I like to memorize beautiful language,” Chris said before he winked at Mika, “You never know when you might meet a woman who deserves to be serenaded with words.”

  I laughed a bit too loudly and then quickly turned to the police officers and said, “Now what?”

  “Now we wait, and I practice due diligence and get in the hole.” He glanced at Mika. “I’m sure you found all the remains, but I need to do my job.”

  “Of course,” Mika said. “I would feel horrible if some part of this poor person was still down there.”

  While Santiago lowered himself into the hole, we all watched as that same pickup drove by again, and this time, Summer said, “I think that’s one of the guys who came by my place last week.”

  “You think their visit has something to do with this,” Savannah asked.

  Summer shrugged. “I’m not sure.” Then she told everyone else about the two men who had come by her house a few days earlier. “They were definitely warning me off, but I didn’t make much of it until today.”

  “Did they tell you their names?” Savannah asked.

  “Homer Salis and Lee Sutton,” she said.

  I gasped. “My dad came to see you?”

  3

  The coroner’s van arrived shortly after, which was good because when Santiago told me I needed to stop talking to Summer about my dad’s visit to her house, I found it very hard to do anything else. The distraction of watching the coroner examine the bones and then carefully load them into her van gave me something else to focus on. For the moment.

  But as soon as Savannah and Santiago loaded up the crates of bottles and Savannah headed back into town to catalog them, I couldn’t help myself. “My dad warned you not to disturb this barn?” I asked again.

  “I didn’t know he was your dad, Paisley,” she said. “Maybe I should have thought of that because of the last name, but a lot of folks around here share a name and aren’t close kin. Just look at the Shiffletts.” She blushed as she looked over at Santiago, Sheriff Shifflett. “Sorry.”

  “No need to apologize. It’s true, and you couldn’t have known that Lee was Paisley’s father, but now, we need to stop talking about this until I can get your statement,” Santiago said. “Have time to give it now?”

  “Sure,” Summer said, “if you do.”

  “Pais, could you and Mika head into town to get us a table at the Inn? Guys, you can give Summer and me a ride, right?” Santiago asked.

  “Sure thing. We’ll wait in the car,” Dom said, and the two men walked Mika and me over to my Subaru. “Actually, Paisley, mind if I ride with you? I wanted to ask you some more about your business.” He winked at me. “Mika, would you mind keeping Chris company?”

  I rolled my eyes as I thought my friend would never fall for such an obvious ploy, but she said, “Sure. Sounds like fun. See you in a few, Pais,” and got right into the front seat of Chris’s huge pickup, I smiled. “I think she’s smitten,” I said to Dom as I climbed into my driver’s seat.

  “I know he is,” Dom said. “I haven’t seen him smile that much in years except when Jill is around.” He drummed his hand against the dashboard. “She’ll be kind to him, right?”

  “Are you kidding? Mika is the kindest person I know, to a fault sometimes. He won’t take advantage of that, will he?”

  Dom shook his head. “Chris is a straight-up good guy. He’s had a hard run of it since his wife died a few years ago. Single dad. Lost his job as a chef. It was rough for a bit, but when he took what he loved – cooking with his daughter – and made it into a business, everything started to turn around.”

  I smiled and thought back over the last couple years of my life – my split with Sawyer’s dad, the need to build my own business to support the two of us, a new house to care for – and I almost laughed out loud for joy. All my hard work, all the things I had dreamed and imagined, all of them had come to life. Even a sweet, kind, self-sufficient man who didn’t need me but wanted me. All of it was there, and I could absolutely understand how Chris might feel in this moment when things got so much better. I was excited for him . . . and excited for how Mika might be a part of that for him and he for her. “Good. That all sounds good,” I said. I didn’t know Dom very well, and I didn’t think it quite appropriate to put my over-hoping joy at Mika and Chris’s connection on him. At least not yet.

  We rode in silence for a few minutes, and then he said, “I actually wasn’t totally BS-ing back there when I said I had questions about your business. I have this client, and she’s interested in starting a thrift store of sorts, all mid-century modern stuff, but she doesn’t know much about running a business. Any tips you’d give her?”

  I smiled. “Lots. Give her my number, and we can meet up and talk. I might even be able to work with her to get merchandise.”

  “Really? That’s very nice of you. I don’t want to impose, and I know she wouldn’t either,” Dom said.

  I glanced over at him as I turned onto Main Street and parked up from the Inn by Mika’s shop. “It’s not an imposition. I really believe in helping other women build their businesses. I’d be happy to help, especially since what she and I do are similar. I bet Summer would help, too. She’s decorated her entire house from things she picked up in thrift stores.”

  “Nice. I’ll ask her.” He blushed a little around his collar and then stepped out of the car. Mika and Chris pulled up just behind us, and when they walked over, they were both laughing. “You have to get Chris to tell you the story of the first time he made mac and cheese for Jill, Pais.” She put her hand on Chris’s arm. “You’ll pee your pants.”