A Corpse for Yew Read Online Free Page A

and a lot of yelling and cursing. I don’t need it. I’m tempted to retire right now.”
    “Like you could. Mary doesn’t want you underfoot at home. And you live for this job. So get over it and figure out what happened.”
    He laughed, his large frame and broad, black face shaking. “Girl, you’re a pistol! I suppose you talked to John like that, too, huh?”
    “If he started feeling sorry for himself.”
    “All right.” He pulled out his notebook again. “Who found the body?”
    “I guess you could say it was a joint effort. Geneva saw something that made her scream, and we all walked back with her. I saw something white in the mud, and it was poor Lois, bless her heart.”
    “So you say Mrs. Mullis was supposed to be here today.”
    “She was. This is the core of the group. I think there’s about ten of them altogether, but these seem to be the movers and shakers. Or in this case, bone finders.”
    “What the heck are they doing out here?” Al looked back at the ghoulish scene of the dry lake and swatted a mosquito on his face. “I mean, is it safe to be out here with all that stuff? Aren’t there diseases?”
    “Not after a hundred years, or so our local historian tells me. Maybe you know him, Jonathon Underwood? He’s a contract forensic historian for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police. I guess we’re kindred spirits.”
    “And all these little old ladies are out here digging up these old bones to add to their collection?”
    “You could say that. But their collection is as prestigious as you just described Lois Mullis. All of them have relatives who are wrapped into the fabric of the history of this area. Every one of them can trace their roots back to the Revolutionary War and beyond.”
    “That’s fine and good.” Al accidentally marked his face with the pen in his hand. “That still doesn’t account for us having a dead geriatric socialite out here in the mud.”
    “I realize that.” She reached up and cleaned the pen smudge off his face. Al had been John’s partner and an adopted member of their family for many years. “I wish I could say something else to help, but that’s all I know. I think you’ll find all of these women are as well connected as Lois. It’s not going to be easy.”
    He took a deep breath. “Thanks for your help, Peggy. I’ll just dig in like always. You remember how John used to call me the old hunting dog? That’s what I am, I suppose.”
    They walked back to the group, who wore their anxiety on their sweaty faces. Jonathon stepped forward. “I think I should be the one responsible for Lois’s death. I organized this trip and knew who was supposed to be here and who wasn’t. I never dreamed she was here all the time and we didn’t know it. Has someone called her family?”
    As he asked the question, another police vehicle joined the twenty or so others already on the scene. But this one was more impressive: a shiny black SUV with a siren and the police chief insignia on the side. The driver swung wide to align the vehicle with the gray hearse, and the occupant of the backseat jumped out. Chief Arnold Mullis ran to the side of the stretcher bearing his aunt’s body.
    “Here comes trouble,” Al muttered. “Excuse me. You folks wait right here. We’ll need to talk to each of you about what happened.”
    Everyone waited until Al was gone, then they formed a circle around Peggy and threw questions at her the way children throw snowballs in the winter.
    “This is terrible.” Mrs. Waynewright’s frown on her eighty-plus face expressed her displeasure. She was a sturdy woman with pale skin and thin, gray hair. “Does that man believe one of us hurt Lois? None of us even knew she was out here, did we?”
    “And along those lines,” Dorothy Myrick said, “where is Lois’s car? She must’ve driven out here. If we’d seen her car, we would’ve known she was here.”
    “Of course!” Grace Kallahan slapped her hands together. “She was kidnapped.