Buttons and Bones Page 4

  Jill said, “Maybe the pharmacist is the woman in brown that Emma Beth thought was a bear. But if so, it’s funny she didn’t come over to say hello.”

  “Does anyone live on the island?” Betsy turned to look back at the water. She had seen only the tumbledown ruin on the island, but maybe there was a house on the other side. She had seen a clapboard cabin and a fine, big house near the shore on the other side of the lake. The many trees hid other dwellings over there. And now the big trees on this side again hid everything but glimpses of the glittering water.

  “Not right now,” said Lars. “There’s a lodge across the lake, down toward the foot, and rumors they’re going to build another one up at our end. The existing lodge rents fishing boats. I’m surprised we didn’t see any on the lake—you can tell them by their daylight yellow color.”

  “Where are the loons?” asked Betsy.

  “They’re out there, fishing. But they’re hard to see unless two males get into a territorial battle. They only call at night. We don’t go looking for them because if they’re disturbed, they’ll relocate.”

  Later, while the children napped on the back porch, Jill, Betsy, and Lars took on the awful task of lifting the ancient, moldy carpet. Lars used a box cutter to free it around the edges of the living room and bedroom, and Jill and Betsy pulled it up. Lars cut it into manageable pieces, Betsy rolled it up, and Jill dragged it outside. She came back in from one journey to report that it was starting to look like rain.

  Under the carpet were two layers of linoleum, the top one matching the pale pink of the dining area. Lars, cutting deep with the box cutter, went through both layers and, curious, pried up a corner.

  “Say, Jill, take a look at this!” he called.

  Under the two layers of linoleum were wide planks of varnished wood. Betsy came for a look as well, and watched while Lars pulled up a bigger piece of cracked, faded linoleum and the less-faded brown-and-green piece under it. Pieces of linoleum stuck to the planks, but enough was clear for Jill to make an exclamation of delight.

  “Do you see that?” she demanded of Betsy.

  “Yes, a wooden floor. Is it hardwood?”

  “It’s old-growth pine, I’m sure of it. See how fine the grain is? What do you think, Lars? Am I right, old-growth?”

  “I think so,” he said with a happy smile. “Imagine covering this up with linoleum!”

  “Maybe it’s a mess in the middle,” said Jill.

  “Then we’ll refinish it,” vowed Lars. “Man, look how broad those planks are. I wonder if they were sawn from a tree on the property. I’m pretty sure the walls were built of trees cut down right here.”

  Betsy thought of the old tree on the downward slope to the lake. “I’m glad the loggers left one for the eagles to use,” she said.

  “Say,” said Jill thoughtfully, “suppose we pay for the renovations to this place with that tree. How many board feet do you think that big old pine would make?” she asked Lars.

  He sat back on his heels to consider the question.

  Betsy said, “Oh, Jill, you wouldn’t!”

  Jill began to laugh. “No, of course we wouldn’t. What’s more, we can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because we signed a scenic easement agreement with the Department of Natural Resources that we wouldn’t cut down any trees or alter the lakeshore or put up any new buildings. In return, they pay us a sum that’s about equal to one mortgage payment a year.”

  The removal of the linoleum continued. Though it was early afternoon, the sky darkened outside, and there came a faint rumble of thunder. Jill went into the kitchen and brought back three kerosene lanterns with tall, clear-glass chimneys. She lit them with the long-necked lighter Lars had used to start the charcoal burning in the grill. Their mellow, golden glow filled the room, making it cozy against the storm brewing outdoors.

  Suddenly a loud crack of lightning lit up the windows and a strong gust of wind blew in through the screens.

  “Mama?” came a sleepy query from the porch. Thunder rolled loudly across the clearing. “Mama!”

  “Mama!” said another, younger voice, this one full of tears.

  Lars and Jill went out on the porch to comfort and reassure their frightened children.

  “Who’s afraid of a little old thunder?” asked Lars in an amused, scoffing voice.

  “Not me,” declared Emma Beth, wiping her cheeks with both palms. “Silly old thunder!”

  “T’under nice!” said Airey in unconvinced tones. His voice was still choked with tears. “Want Bin-kee-kee-kee,” he said, surrendering to his sobs, then trying to muffle them on his mother’s shoulder.

  “Why, of course you do,” said Jill. “Here, come with me and we’ll find Binky.”

  Binky, Betsy knew, was a blue teddy bear who had been Airey’s companion since he was born. Jill went into the bedroom and in a few seconds the two returned, Binky safe in his small master’s arms. Poor Binky had been kicked, sat on, slept on, dragged through mud puddles, shoved across play-ground equipment, and run through the washer and dryer almost as often as he had been hugged and kissed in his short life. And he looked it. His head lolled dangerously to one side, his eyes didn’t match, and his nose had been rubbed completely off. But Airey loved him passionately, and wiped the last of his tears away on the bear’s face.

  Airey was put into the log easy chair with Binky—the chair had been moved into the dining area of the big room. After closing all the windows, Jill and Lars moved the cushions from the porch furniture into the bedroom, and operations on the carpet resumed. Emma Beth “helped” by holding one end of the hunks of carpet while Betsy rolled them up.

  “Well, look at this!” said Jill after a little while. She was in the center of the carpeted area.

  “What, you found the damaged part of the floor?” asked Lars, not looking around.

  “No, look, there’s a trapdoor.”

  “There is? Where?”

  “Here, in the middle of the floor.” Lars and Betsy came for a look. Jill had pulled up random pieces of linoleum, looking for the damaged boards. Instead, she had found this.

  The trapdoor was about half uncovered and the three of them quickly pulled back more linoleum to reveal the rest of it.

  The door was made from the same boards as the rest of the floor, set in so it was flush. Even the handle was inset, with a small piece of wood filling the space where fingers could be inserted to grasp and lift.

  “I didn’t know there was a basement to this place,” said Lars.

  “It wasn’t mentioned in the legal description,” said Betsy.

  “It can’t be a regular basement,” said Jill. “There are no windows on the outside to bring light into it.”

  “That’s right,” said Lars, half closing his eyes and nodding as he walked in memory around the cabin.

  “Well, are you going for a look or not?” demanded Betsy, eaten up with curiosity.

  “Lars, bring me a flashlight, please,” said Jill.

  “Sure.” He headed for the kitchen and began opening cabinets and drawers in a search. “Here it is.” He came back. “You found it, you get to go down first.”

  Jill, meanwhile, had picked out the fragment of wood, which had been cut and smoothed to fit the opening, and lifted the door. It opened with a very traditional squeal-creak, and its edges were draped with the traditional cobwebs.

  Betsy could see a set of rough wood steps leading down into darkness.

  “I bet it’s full of old clothes and shoes,” Lars said. “Since this place doesn’t have an attic.”

  Jill turned on the flashlight and went down the steps. In a few seconds her voice was heard. “Betsy, take the children into the bedroom, will you please? Lars, come take a look.” Her voice was brisk and a trifle stiff.

  “What is it, what have you found?” asked Betsy.

  “I’ll tell you in a little while. Just take the children into the bedroom. And close the door.”

  Five
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br />   LESS than a minute later, Betsy, from inside the bedroom, heard the Larson’s SUV start up and drive off. Jill came into the bedroom right after that, with a look on her face that Betsy interpreted as world-weary.

  “What is it, what did you find?” Betsy asked.

  “An S-K-E-L-E-T-O-N,” Jill spelled out.

  “No!”

  “What’s a ess-kay, Mama?” asked Emma Beth from the center of the bed where she sat straight-legged. Airey lay curled up beside her with Binky.

  “It means some old bones, Baby,” said Jill.

  “I’m not a baby, Airey is a baby,” replied the child.

  “That’s true, you aren’t a baby anymore. So what shall I call you? How about ‘child’?”

  “Em-Beth. I like Em-Beth. It’s Emma Beth, only shorter.” She sounded as if she’d been thinking about it for some while.

  “All right, for the rest of today you are Em-Beth. Now, Daddy’s gone to use the telephone at The Lone Wolf General Store. He’s going to call some people who are going to come and look at the old bones.” Jill looked at Betsy. “It’s a root cellar, dirt walls and floor. Takes up maybe a third of the area of the upstairs. There are some shelves down there with some old home-canned goods on them.”

  “How old is the—I mean, how old are the bones?”

  “They look very old. It’s naked, no clothing visible.”

  “Mama, you said naked!” said Emma Beth in a shocked voice.

  “You’re right, Em-Beth, I shouldn’t have said that word in front of company. Little pitchers have big ears, my grandmother used to say whenever the conversation got interesting and we were in the room.”

  Betsy laughed softly. “My grandmother said the same thing. Then we got sent out to play.”

  “Us, too. We’ll have to make different arrangements now, because it’s raining.”

  It was a sparse rain with no wind, but the occasional flicker of lightning and the lengthy pause before the rumble of thunder meant this was just the leading edge of the storm. The sky was very dark.

  “Looks like it’s going to come down in buckets pretty soon,” said Jill.

  “Jill, may I go look at the bones?” Betsy was not fond of gory stuff, but a skeleton wasn’t gory.

  Jill hesitated, then said, “If you’ll stay on the steps. I don’t want the scene disturbed.” She handed Betsy the flashlight.

  The cellar wasn’t very deep, barely head-high—and Betsy was five feet, four inches tall. The steps down into it were made of thick planks of unfinished wood, gray with age. Betsy stood on the bottom one, shoulders hunched to keep her hair from brushing one of the cobwebby timbers supporting the ceiling.

  Two of the walls were lined with a double row of thick, rough-plank shelves, supported by pegs hammered into the dirt. There were perhaps a dozen glass jars, very dusty, with some long, greenish vegetables suspended in them, probably green beans. What had probably once been white adhesive tape with a short message—a date?—could be discerned on the closest jar. Like the ceiling, the shelves were draped with cobwebs.

  Betsy let the flashlight linger on the shelves for a few long seconds before bracing herself and turning it downward.

  The skeleton lay in a disarticulated heap in the center of the floor. Its details were blurred with dust but it seemed all there. The skull was turned upward and away from the rest of the bones, its square eyeholes looking toward her, a gold molar gleaming faintly under the flashlight’s beam. The rib cage had collapsed, the lower jaw lay teeth down among them. The shinbones were across the thighbones—Betsy had the sudden thought that the body had initially lain with its knees drawn up. One arm was outflung, the ends of the fingers mere suggestive bumps under the dust.

  There were no footprints; obviously Jill had stayed on the steps, too.

  There were small round objects here and there around the skeleton, barely discernable, and Betsy puzzled over them for a while. Then, Oh, she thought, buttons. But there did not seem to be any remnant of clothing present. That was another puzzlement until—Mice, thought Betsy, recalling the fate of the mattress and quilts. She shuddered at the thought of mice making nests from a dead man’s clothes.

  But was it a man? It could be a woman. Betsy didn’t know how to tell the sex of a skeleton.

  Who are you? She thought at the skeleton. And how did you come to be here in this root cellar?

  There came no reply. She went back up the steps.

  Jill was sitting cross-legged on the bed regaling the children with the story of Jack and the Beanstalk.

  Lars got back a few minutes later, ahead of the heavy rain, but only just, rushing back into the cabin right as the wind picked up. Betsy went out to greet him. He had a big block of something wrapped in newspaper.

  “Ice for the ice box,” he explained and went to put it in a compartment at the top of the refrigerator, next to a much-diminished bag of ice cubes. “Sheriff’s on his way,” he added.

  “Deputy John!” cried Emma Beth happily from her place in the bedroom doorway.

  “No, honey; up here they have a different deputy. I don’t know his name yet.”

  “Will he want a Cherry Coke?” In Emma Beth’s experience, a deputy always appreciated a Cherry Coke.

  “We can ask him when he comes. But first we’ll have to talk some business over with him. I want you and Airey to stay in the bedroom while we talk. Can you do that?” Lars could put on an air of authority that was scary. He wore it lightly now, but it was unmistakable, and Emma Beth nodded. Even Airey nodded, his face solemn.

  “Yes, Daddy. Can Mama stay with us?”

  “No, darling, Mama has to talk business, too.”

  “I can stay with you,” said Betsy. “We can color and I can read to you.”

  “Color!” cheered Emma Beth.

  “Book!” said Airey.

  “We’ll do both,” decided Betsy.

  The children were each given a cookie and a glass of milk to entertain them until the sheriff’s department arrived. When it did, it came in the person of a stocky Native American man. He drove a white patrol car with big green letters spelling SHERIFF on its side. He wore the brown and tan sheriff’s department uniform under a yellow rain slicker, and a shower cap over his hat. He introduced himself as Deputy Jack McElroy—pronounced “mackle-roy”—and stood streaming water onto the linoleum floor right inside the door while Lars introduced himself as a sergeant on the Excelsior police department and produced identification to confirm it. McElroy’s eyebrows lifted and Betsy thought she could detect a slight lessening of the tension he had brought into the cabin.

  “This is my wife, Jill, our children Emma Beth and Erik, and this is our friend Betsy Devonshire, also of Excelsior. We bought this cabin six weeks ago, and this is our fourth visit to it. We were taking up the floor coverings when Jill discovered the trapdoor.” He turned and gestured at the yawning opening.

  McElroy took off his hat and slicker while Jill swiftly explained how they had made the discovery.

  “We only looked and didn’t disturb the scene,” Jill concluded.

  “All right, Em-Beth and Airey, you come with me,” said Betsy. “We’ll get you out of the way so this man can look at things and talk to your mama and daddy.”

  “Thank you,” said McElroy, nodding at her, as he pulled a big, black Kell flashlight from his utility belt. He had draped the slicker over one of the folding chairs.

  He walked to the open trapdoor and shone the light down the steps. Then he bent himself into a shape suitable to go down and slowly sank out of sight. Betsy, herding the children into the bedroom, heard him give a low whistle. Then she firmly closed the door and said, “Let’s color!”

  Soon there was the sound of other arrivals, men’s feet clumping around, a woman’s voice—not Jill’s—and voices giving orders. It went on and on and on; the children were getting bored and cranky long before the door opened and Betsy changed places with Jill.

  Betsy was so relieved when Jill came in that it was
a shock to find herself confronted by the grim face of a man in civilian attire. He stood in the dining area looking at her. “Good afternoon,” he said in a voice oddly light for his size and expression. “You are Elizabeth Devonshire?”

  “Yessir,” replied Betsy.

  “I’m Investigator Mix, with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Will you sit down over here?” She joined him at the table, sitting on the least wobbly folding chair. Betsy could hear men’s voices—no, one was a woman’s—down in the cellar, speaking so quietly she couldn’t understand the words.

  Mix said, “We’re here assisting the Cass County Sheriff’s Department in this matter. Is it all right if I ask you some questions?”

  “Certainly. Ask whatever you like.”

  “How long have you known the Larsons?”

  “I’ve known Jill since before she was married, since before I inherited my needlework shop.” Betsy told him how she had come to Minnesota some years back. Guided by his questions, she explained about the other company she owned, New York Motto, and how it had led to Jill and Lars buying the cabin.

  “You bought it sight unseen?” Mix asked.

  “Yes, I almost never visit the property New York Motto buys. I’m a silent partner in the business and pretty much stay out of the day-to-day running of it. But this time I did take an interest, directing my partner to look for cabins in the northern area of the state, on or near a lake. Jill and Lars looked at several and said this cabin was what they wanted, so I recommended the purchase and sale.”

  “Have you done something like that before?”

  “No, most of the people I know don’t know about New York Motto, or if they do, they aren’t interested in my help acquiring property. This was a special case.”

  Satisfied that there was no link between Betsy and the skeleton, he thanked her and was about to dismiss her when she asked, “Do we have to stay here until you’re finished? The kids are getting bored, and frankly I’m tired of sitting in that room myself.”

  Mix smiled and said, “I understand. And I think we’re done with you. Unfortunately, we’re not done with processing the scene.”