Bones in the Backyard
Copyright © 2001 by
Florence W. Clowes and Lois J. Blackburn
All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, magnetic, photographic including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher. No patent liability is assumed with respect to the use of the information contained herein. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Print ISBN 0-7414-0820-1
eBook ISBN 0-7414-9142-7
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are immensely grateful to those who permitted us the use of facts, opinions and observations from their personal expertise, including Dr. Robert D. Menardi, Alpine Animal Hospital, Flagstaff, AZ; Dr. James D. Murphy M.D., Palm Beach Gardens, FL; Sarah McFarland, Miss Hall’s School, Pittsfield, MA; Jean Waszkelewicz, Jupiter, FL; George Schiro, Louisiana State Police Crime Lab; Sergeant J. Paul Vance, Connecticut State Police; Patti Brule, Douglas (MA) Police; Chief Richard J. Westgate, Lieutenant Frank Hess, and Officer Pam Wineguard, Jupiter (FL) Police.
Numerous writers, friends and family also generously shared their time and talents to comment and critique. Special thanks to Lu Capra, Ruby Fraser, Suzie McCann, Fran and Charlie Burger, and our Backroom Writers group in Palm Beach County, Florida for their ongoing, enthusiastic encouragement.
PROLOGUE
Bashia’s auburn hair fell over her face as she poked the shovel into soft earth beneath the tall grass. “See this wet section? There’s something here. I know we have a lot of wetland in northeastern Connecticut, but I don’t think this is a spring.” She prodded further and dug into an even mushier spot in the soil. Soon the shovel struck something with a “clunk”.
Dottie glanced apprehensively around her back yard as Bashia shoveled more of the dirt aside and exposed a cement lid.
“Look, it’s the septic tank,” Bashia said, catching her breath. “This one probably needs to be pumped out. We throw yeast cakes down the drain every now and then to keep ours working. Here, help me get the lid off. It’s going to be heavy.”
For a few minutes they struggled with the lid, Bashia kneeling and tugging, while Dottie tried to help without getting too dirty. Finally they pried the cement lid loose with the shovel and pushed it aside. They jumped back and shrieked as foamy, brown water started flowing over their shoes.
“Ugh! Look at that mess, and the SMELL!” Dottie stepped back, shook the dirt off her hands and covered her nose. “Now what?”
Bashia leaned forward and peered down at the murky water bubbling out of the tank. Suddenly they could see something bobbing in the water–a round object with patches of light tan glistening through the green slime that clung to it. “Geekers, it looks like a skull!”
* * *
CHAPTER ONE
Bashia Gordon and Dottie Ann Weeks had met during their Peace Corps service in Jamaica three years ago and became friends. Their group of twenty-eight volunteers consisted primarily of recent college graduates with a few, like Dottie and Bashia, who were older, in their 50s or 60s.
Bashia had often teased Dottie about being the only Peace Corps volunteer who brought along her own hair coloring and false eyelashes. Dottie wore her shoulder-length blond hair loose, in a pageboy style with one section falling over her eye. Her favorite garb consisted of a baggy gauzy blouse and a native batik wrap-around skirt. Her sandals were entirely inappropriate for the rough sidewalks and streets of May Pen. Being accustomed to air conditioning in New Jersey, Dottie was able to improve her apartment by charming her Jamaican landlord into installing screens on her windows and mosquito netting over her bed. With that added comfort, she could open her windows to the cool breezes that danced in the nearby ackee tree. Her duplex cement block apartment was located behind the owner’s home and business, Bars and Grills.
When Bashia first heard the name she thought Dottie lived behind a tavern, but Dottie explained that her landlord welded steel bars into grillwork for doors and windows, a lucrative business in the third world country. Peace Corps volunteers were warned to guard their possessions, and Dottie proudly declared she was perfectly safe. She was accustomed to bars; after all, she had just left the Trenton State Prison where she taught English-As-A-Second Language.
Bashia, on the other hand, came from rural Connecticut and was comfortable in T-shirts, slacks or skirts and old sneakers. Her tousled dark hair curled at the least indication of heat and humidity, escaping from her short ponytail. Despite Peace Corps warnings, she frequently explored the countryside alone on her days off. For these adventures, she rode her bike–something Jamaican women didn’t do. The taxi drivers in Christiana soon began calling her “Gramma-Whitey”
Bashia’s living conditions were less refined than Dottie’s. She rented the rear apartment in a home precariously perched on a hillside. Her landlady, the town postmistress, raised chickens in the lower level, beneath Bashia’s bedroom. Each evening on returning from teaching at the Devon Missionary School, she looked for any stray chickens before she opened her door and flung her arms about to scatter the mosquitoes and cockroaches she knew would be inside.
As different as they were–Bashia outgoing and outspoken while Dottie was easily led, accommodating and indecisive–they clung to each other throughout the two years, often traveling the hour between their homes by taxi or bus. Dozens of other Peace Corps volunteers were scattered throughout the island, at least three hours away and at the mercy of independent bus drivers who made up their own schedules.
The recent call from Dottie came as no surprise to Bashia, for they frequently phoned each other since returning to the States, but her news left Bashia puzzled. Why would she want a place with 30 acres? Why did she buy out here in northeastern Connecticut? What did she know about rural living? Did she really intend to set up the ceramics studio she often talked about? That was one thing the two had in common–Dottie loved decorating ceramics and Bashia loved decorating homes.
Bashia knew most of the back roads in the region, some still unpaved and unmarked; many of her clients lived in these secluded areas in large colonial homes. She had no problem following Dottie’s directions and sighed with satisfaction as she admired the ancient maple trees awash with gold autumn leaves shimmering in the early morning sun. Small farmhouses were scattered here and there along Englishtown Road. It twisted and turned in a gradual climb to Moon Lane, where she turned right onto a narrow gravel driveway at
pole number 213. Numbered brass plaques on telephone poles helped phone company workers locate residences and people used them as landmarks. There was no immediate sign of a house. The long winding drive was flanked by a tangle of raspberry bushes and birch trees, before it ended in a clearing.
There stood an old, weather-beaten, dull brown story-and-a-half Cape Cod with an unusual transom light over the door. Symmetrical six-over-six windows on the first floor paired up with half-windows peeking out under the eaves on the second. The house seemed to be in the process of being swallowed by English ivy climbing the walls and overgrown lilac bushes at the windows.
Geekers! Bashia thought, I think I’ve been here before.
Dottie stood at her doorway, motioning for Bashia to park next to her Subaru, and then ran to hug her as Bashia got out of the car. Bashia returned the hug and stopped to look about. “Hello, hello! It’s so good to see you! I know this place, I remember stopping by at an auction a few years ago. Some beautiful antiques, but nothing I could afford!
“When we were in the Peace Corps, I never dreamed you’d be my neighbor. Your phone call certainly took me by surprise! What made you decide to buy a place here? How did you ever find it?”
“You haven’t changed a bit, Bashia! Stop talking so fast, we’ve got plenty of time. Oh, I’m so glad to see you. It’s been a long time! Now you won’t have to come visit me in New Jersey. Isn’t this great?” Without waiting for an answer, she took her friend’s fabric sample books from her arms and led the way inside. “Come on in!”
They entered the narrow central hall which held a Victorian coat rack with a tall mirror and a seat with a hinged lid that lifted up to store boots and shoes. A pair of mud-caked sneakers, minus laces, sat nearby. Bashia noticed that the original stairs had been ripped out, exposing hand-made bricks and the shape of a huge central chimney. An old, worn, brown high-top shoe was jammed into one of the crevasses near the ceiling. Bashia looked at it curiously, but before she could ask about it, Dottie led the way into a sunny room on the right. The large fireplace with its gray granite hearth dominated the room. Bright sunshine shone through a pair of casement windows opposite the fireplace. The wide bare plank floors and honey-colored wainscoted walls gave the room a cozy feeling.
Bashia nodded approvingly as she admired the floor, which was a little uneven and had half-inch spaces between many of the boards. She ran her hand over the smooth chair rail and breathed in a whiff of the cedar and pine in the room. This room looked like it had secrets and stories to tell. She loved working in this type of home–making the old comfortable for today’s living. Many of her clients treasured the past and refused to make any changes, but others appreciated Bashia’s creativity.
“Isn’t it great?” Dottie repeated. “There are so many interesting old features still left in the house. This fireplace is one.” She laughed, “Of course, if the fireplaces were taken out, the house would fall down! There are three fireplaces connected to this chimney, and the basement is practically taken up with the base of the chimney. It starts with huge boulders at the bottom and they get smaller as the chimney rises to the first floor. Then the brick takes over–but you probably know this already,” she paused and put her hand on the wall. “These are all hand-made bricks! Would I find a place like this in Trenton? No way!”
“What’s that old shoe doing on the chimney?” Bashia asked as she arranged her sample books on an antique round oak table, the only piece of furniture in the room.
“The seller, Mr. Thompson, told me that New Englanders had a superstition that a shoe built into an opening of the house will ward off evil spirits. When the former owner tore down the stairs, they found the shoe concealed in a gap and decided to leave it there. Do you think it will keep on warding off evil spirits, even though it’s not concealed?”
“Well, I’ve collected a lot of New England legends but that’s a new one for me!” Bashia laughed. “It certainly is a conversation piece! I guess New England is one of the few places in the country that still has reminders of the past. This place is great; I love it! But what made you buy here? Not that I’m not happy to have you living close by.”
Dottie joined in her laughter. “You’re still the same, wanting to know everything right away. You should have been named Curious Cathy! But seriously, when we returned from the Peace Corps, I thought about my lifelong dream to have a ceramics studio. With the $5,000 bonus from the Peace Corps I could equip one, but building prices are too expensive in New Jersey. Then I thought of you and your bragging about New England, so I started looking in The Hartford Courant, The Norwich Bulletin and Providence Journal. When I saw this property advertised in the Journal, I called about it, visited it, fell in love with it, and here I am, ready to dress it up!”
Bashia made a face and stared at her suspiciously. “Are you the same person who couldn’t decide if she wanted to travel for three hours to a Peace Corps R&R weekend? You made this decision all by yourself?”
Dottie pushed her long thin hair out of her pale gray eyes. “Well, I thought, if I don’t do this now, I never will. My son encouraged me; he’s in college in Arizona now, a 31-year-old perpetual student. There’s nothing to keep me in New Jersey. So I took a lesson from you, ‘Go for it’! Now, what can you do to help me decorate the place? This floor has three rooms–kitchen, dining and living room, or I suppose in the old days they called it a parlor–with a fireplace in each room!
“My furniture hasn’t arrived yet, but I’m managing. The previous owner left some nice things, too large to move, I guess. So I need a lot of help. I know you’ll know just how to put everything together!”
Bashia beamed. “It’s fun to see you getting so excited about something. If I didn’t know you as well as I do, I might think you were being impulsive! But this place seems to have an inviting ambiance of its own! You might even have me for a permanent guest. Let’s see the rest of the house. This will be fun, providing you’ve got money! Or do we operate on a shoestring?”
“I sold my condo in New Jersey and had a small savings before going into the Peace Corps,” Dottie explained. “Besides, I got this place so cheap–the house, a kennel and 30 acres–it was a steal! The kennel is what sold me.”
Bashia raised her eyebrows. “The kennel?”
“I can turn it into a great studio, just like your decorating workroom in your barn. The previous owner raised championship dogs here–bred and trained them and entered them in competitions all over the country. I don’t know anything about dogs, cats are my passion. I miss mine terribly, but I thought it would be better to leave my furry friends with my friend, Alice Forster, for the time being. I know my dear Siamese are in good hands with her. I couldn’t bear to board them at the vet’s for even a few weeks! At least I have their photo to keep me company.” She looked longingly at a picture on the mantel.
Bashia studied the photo–two cats sleeping on a double-tiered table in front of a window with sunlight pouring into the room. One cat had brown-tipped ears, face and paws, while its body was a light tan. The other one was smaller, with gray markings and an off-white body. “Who’s who?” she asked.
“Misha is on the top shelf, see, her ‘points’ are brown. Sarafina is the lighter, smaller one on the bottom shelf. I think they will like it here as much as I do.” Blowing an air kiss to the photo, Dottie turned to Bashia and talked of her dream of setting up a shop and teaching classes in ceramics. She had worked in a ceramics studio part-time some years ago and now wanted to do the whole thing, from slip to finished piece.
Bashia glanced around, “Well, this place does have possibilities. Sounds interesting. We can visit the Boston Design Center or go to East Hartford Design and get tons of ideas! Let’s see what else is here.”
The rear room in the house, originally the “keeping room”, had been extensively remodeled. A wall of windows faced south, and sunlight warmed the modern kitchen and breakfast nook. The windows looked out over a dry waist-high field of grass with the kennel on the w
est side of the property. The long, low whitewashed building was half hidden by clumps of grass. Remnants of a wooden stockade lay about in ruin.
Turning from the windows, Dottie proudly pointed out the original kitchen fireplace with its built-in beehive oven and a firebox on one side. Her rocking chair and braided rug already gave the room a lived-in homey feeling.
“You remember studying about the Underground Railroad in school? Well, people used to hide runaway slaves in the beehive oven just like this one–honest!” Bashia said. Dottie was impressed and secretly looked forward to the tales Bashia would tell.
As they walked through the empty house, they found something unique in each room. A tall old armoire, antique wainscoting, oak plank floors, and tiny cubbyhole doors under the stairs. All this was familiar to Bashia, but for Dottie everything was a novel and delightful discovery.
A new set of split-level stairs had been installed at one end of the kitchen leading to the second floor. Two small bedrooms under the eaves were empty, but a third, larger one was full of sunshine, thanks to the raised roof and the wall of windows extending from the floor below. It held an antique maple armoire and a single bed. Boxes marked “My Bedroom” were scattered about the polished oak floor.
“I’ve been expecting a call from the movers any time. I sure hope I hear from them soon,” Dottie sighed, as she pushed the boxes out of the way.
“You mean you’ve forgotten how to rough it? After all your experiences in the Peace Corps?” Bashia asked. “Oh, look at this view, wonderful! Let’s go outside. I can’t wait to see the kennel that caused you to buy this place.”
At one side of the house the remains of an old kitchen garden could be detected underneath heavily overgrown lilacs. “There must have been a herb or kitchen garden here. Oh, this is so neat; you’re making me jealous. You could do wonders here. Look, here’s some mint! You can have a variety of herbs here. We could get the soil ready and I’ll bring over some chives, scallions and thyme to plant. Then we’ll cover them with hay–the plants will go dormant in the winter and in the spring you’ll have nice, fresh herbs.