She returned in only a few moments with a fresh thermos of coffee and clean mugs on a tray. Mavity’s response to any calamity was to keep busy. And even as Mavity poured coffee, they heard the police radio, heard the unit patrol pull into the drive. To Charlie, that harsh static cutting through the still morning was as reassuring as a hug. Eagerly she watched the corner of the house as hard shoes clicked on the concrete, coming around the side.
But it wasn’t Max; she knew his step. Officer Brennan swung into view coming down the overgrown walk, his high forehead catching the light, his generous stomach bulging over his uniform trousers. Brennan nodded to her. Charlie rose and led him down the yard to the lower flower beds.
She was standing with Brennan, describing how Cora Lee had found the hand, when she saw Dulcie leap from the neighbor’s roof to a tree, and back down, dropping into the tall grass. At the little cat’s questioning look, Charlie glanced down at the excavation. At Charlie’s questioning look, Dulcie twitched her whiskers and flicked her ears. Dulcie had not found the kit. Quietly Dulcie approached the flower bed.
When she saw the hand, her ears went back and her eyes grew huge and black, the way a cat’s eyes get when it is afraid or feels threatened, and Dulcie’s rumbling growl shocked Charlie. Officer Brennan spun around, waving a threatening hand at her.
“Get out of here, cat! What the hell doyouwant? Cat’s worse than a dog! Dig the bones right up! Get out, get away!”
“She didn’t do anything,” Charlie snapped. “She’s just curious. She won’t hurt anything!”
“More than curious,” Brennan growled. “Cat’ll dig up the bones and carry them off!” He stared at Charlie strangely. “How do you think the captain would like that?” When he raised his hand, Charlie snatched Dulcie up in her arms. Dulcie didn’t resist, but she was still growling, her enraged glare turned on Brennan. Charlie moved away from him quickly. What had gotten into Brennan? She’d never seen him so grouchy.
For that matter, what was with Dulcie? This wasn’t the little cat’s usual crime-scene behavior. Dulcie and Joe Grey always stayed out of sight, they had no desire to stir questions among the law. Surely the little tabby would not be so bold around Max or the detectives. Neither cat wanted to be seen near a crime scene, nor did they want paw prints or cat hairs fouling the evidence.
In Charlie’s arms, Dulcie seemed to shake herself. More cars were pulling in, the slam of car doors, the multiplied cacophony of police radios. Brennan was still looking surly as Detective Davis came down the drive, her hard shoes clicking on the concrete, three officers behind her. Exchanging a comfortable look with Charlie, Juana Davis moved carefully along the weedy path where Brennan indicated that he had already walked.
Juana Davis was in her fifties, a stocky Latina with a usually bland expression and a keen mind. She had been on the force since long before Max became captain. She was pushing retirement but not looking forward to it. Though few detectives wore a uniform, Davis preferred to do so. Maybe she felt that the uniform gave her more status, more clout-not that she needed it. Davis was a skilled and capable officer. Or maybe she thought black made her look thinner. Dressed in regulation jacket, skirt, and black oxfords, she stood a few minutes looking around the yard, seeing every detail. She studied the hand, the heaps of earth around it. She looked up at Charlie to ask the usual questions. Who had found the hand? Who was present? Would Charlie ask them to remain until they could be questioned? Then she readied her camera and got to work. First the immediate scene from a standing position, before she knelt to take close-ups. She looked up briefly when the chief arrived.
Max moved down the yard, giving Charlie a glance and a solemn wink. Staying to the broken, weedy walk, he didn’t speak or stop. Standing at the edge of the flower bed, above Juana, he studied Cora Lee’s excavation, the small, frail bones, the piles of earth and weeds. And Charlie studied Max, taking comfort in his tall, lean frame, his sun-weathered face, his thin, capable hands, and the hard breadth of his shoulders. Max Harper, particularly in uniform, made her feel so safe-and always made her heart skip.
Max stood studying the little hand, then stepped back out of Juana’s way. Behind them, Brennan and two other officers moved around the edge of the yard stringing yellow crime-scene tape. Everyone present would be asking the same questions. How long had the hand been buried? Was there a full body lying beneath the earth, or only the lone hand? Who was the victim? How old? Boy or girl? If a child was buried here, where had that child come from? How long dead? How many years alone beneath the cold earth? How many years had a report on this lost child been filed away, inactive? Where were the grieving parents, presumably suffering their loss without knowledge of the death, or closure?
Shivering, Charlie returned to the picnic table to sit beside Cora Lee. She looked up as Mavity returned balancing a tray with cocoa and fresh coffee cake and another pot of coffee, enough for an army. Not only was keeping busy a comfort to Mavity, she considered warm beverages and rich food a comfort for everyone in times of need. Charlie guessed she was no different, though, as she reached greedily when Mavity passed the tray, taking enough for herself and for Dulcie. Cora Lee took nothing, she simply squeezed Charlie’s hand in her cold one. Charlie poured hot cocoa for her and put the piece of coffee cake before her, hoping the sugar would help strengthen Cora Lee’s shaky, chilled spirit.
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“Thebodies floating away�,” Cora Lee said, “the sight of that little hand brought it all back, from when we were children.”
“You needn’t talk about something painful,” Charlie said, putting her arm around Cora Lee where they sat at the picnic table.
Dulcie, crouching low on the bench, peered around Charlie, watching Cora Lee. She had never seen her friend so distressed. What had happened in her childhood?Let her talk, Charlie, I want to hear this.She knew that Cora Lee had grown up in New Orleans, on the Mississippi delta. She remembered Cora Lee telling about the vast city cemetery where, as a child, she would sneak inside the gate with her friends and race, terrified and screaming, among the rows of concrete boxes that all stood aboveground. Because of the shallow water table, no grave could be dug, no corpse could be buried; there they all stood, rows of granite and marble boxes with the dead inside.
“One year, we had a terrible flood,” Cora Lee said now. “The water rose so high, the caskets were washed out from under their raised tombs. Some coffins broke open and released the corpses, to float away down the streets of the city.” She looked up at Charlie. “That’s what I saw when I uncovered that little hand. I saw again those helpless, gruesome bodies floating, floating away, that had so terrified me.”
Charlie didn’t take her eyes from Cora Lee’s. She squeezed Cora Lee’s hand in her own freckled hand.
“And then,” Cora Lee said, “a year after the flood, Kathy’s bones�” She looked devastated. “My best friend� We were nine, we played together, were constantly together. Like sisters. She disappeared one night, three days before her tenth birthday.
“Her bedroom window was broken, the jagged pieces of glass scattered on the ground, and there was blood on her blanket. No note, no phone call. She was simply gone. It wasn’t as if her family had much money, to pay a fancy ransom. There was never a request for ransom. It took two years for the police to find her. They found�”