“Maybe,” Peter said, “but I like to print facts, not speculation.”
“Ok,” I said.
I knew a weapon could have been tossed into the ocean over a hundred years ago, but it was worth a look around. I started with the item I knew best, the sign.
“Hold this, please,” I said to Peter, handing him my phone and kneeling on the ground before the sign.
There were no traces of blood on the front or back of the heavy wood plank, so I studied the nails that had secured the sign to the wall. There were eight of them, and none of the nail heads were the same size, nor were the shafts of equal length. I lifted one that had fallen free, and I could feel the iron pin’s irregularities. I decided they were handmade. Old. That meant that the woman had been there a long time too. Based on the absence of dried blood, I decided that the sign had not been used as a murder weapon. Its function was to seal the tomb with the aid of a few hammered nails.
My eyes wandered up to the oversized hearth. I wondered if the murderer had hidden incriminating evidence there.
“Excuse me,” I said to Peter. I slid around him, still on my hands and knees, and began to explore the stones inside the hearth, which were thankfully free of mice. Before I knew it, my head and shoulders were entombed in the lowest part of the wide-based chimney. I was impressed with how well the structure had stood the test of time. A few of the stones were wobbly, but they were all still in place.
“Who was the guy who owned the house? I wonder if he buried the woman here,” said Peter as I felt around the dark, enclosed space.
“John Pierre’s great uncle, Fritz Hepenheimer,” I said to him as I continued to feel around. “He was a captain for the US Coast Guard. He died two years ago at one hundred years old.”
I wiped my hand on my leggings as my hand had touched something slimy and entirely gross.
“John Pierre told me that Uncle Fritz served in the nineteen forties at the island’s Coast Guard base. He bought the house in hopes of marrying a Nantucket girl, but she turned him down, so he hightailed it off the island and rarely returned.”
“Maybe she didn’t turn him down,” said Peter. “Maybe they married, and she died, and he had some fetish about Quaker garb, and he buried her here.”
“Nope,” I said. “You have a twisted imagination, but legend has it that he left after she dumped him. Between the Quaker dress on our skeleton and the period nails from the sign, I think it’s safe to assume that John Pierre’s uncle wasn’t a murderer. One suspect down, who knows how many more to go.”
At that moment, I heard the front door budge against the warped floor. I looked down from my post in the chimney and saw Andy’s black, police-issue shoes arrive at the edge of the hearth and face mine.
“So you found a human skeleton,” said Andy.
“Yup,” said Peter.
“I found her,” I said, ducking out of the chimney and into the room. “She was hidden behind this sign.”
Andy gave me a smile, one of the warm “hey how’re ya doing?” smiles he’s known for, but he also folded his arms and studied my excavation. I was about to return his greeting, but he held up his hand.
“I hate to break it to you, but according to sections five and six of Title Six, chapter thirty-eight of the Massachusetts General Laws, the medical examiner or, subsequently, an archaeologist if the body is more than one hundred years old, are the only individuals who can be touching the body right now,” he said.
As he spoke, he led us outside of The Shack before we quite realized what he was doing. I turned to reenter the building, but Andy stood between me and the door, his solid frame blocking my path.
“Slow down, Stella,” he said to me. “You will be happy to know that I called the medical examiner on my way here. He was leaving for his Saturday round of golf, but he’s on his way. Meanwhile, I have a job for you.”
Good thinking on his part. He had to follow protocol, but since I’d found the body, I wasn’t going anywhere, and he knew it.
“Bring it on,” I said, folding my arms in the same way he had only moments ago.
Peter nodded supportively, but Andy laughed as if he still couldn’t believe I had a newfound interest in tackling a good mystery. It really is sort of crazy that we’ve known each other all our lives but had only recently realized we shared a similar tenacity when faced with solving a good puzzle.
“You’re friends with the guy who owns the house, right?” said Andy.
I nodded.
“Can you call him?” he said.
“I can,” I said, dialing John Pierre, but sure we could come up with something more for me to do.
“Find any more candle artifacts?” John Pierre said to me after a couple of rings. I heard the sound of a bird in the background, on his end of the line. John Pierre owns a Christmas tree farm, so I imagined he was reviewing the stock for his upcoming season.
I put him on speaker, thanked him again for the sign, and let Andy give him the details of my discovery while I watched the ME arrive with a bag of tools and gadgets I’d have loved to explore.
“This is an incredible find,” said John Pierre when Andy finished.
“We’ll have to figure out what to do with her, but I can keep you updated on our options by phone,” said Andy
“Was there ever any sort of legend in your family, or clue that there might be a body on the premises?” I said to John Pierre after Andy handed me the phone.
The tiniest little shift in Andy’s jaw let me know that he was trying to decide a few things: how the case would need to be handled, how interested I was going to be in the case, and which of those two issues would be harder to manage.
“I never heard about a body,” said John Pierre. “But my great uncle kept to himself.”
“When you were visiting the island, did you spend time at the house?” said Andy.
I was happy to see that although he was following protocol, his natural curiosity was as high as mine.
“I didn’t spend much time out back,” said John Pierre. “I meant to peek in The Shack, but it wasn’t high on my list.”
“Southerland!” With that exclamation, the chief of police now made his appearance and crossed the yard.
“Sir,” said Andy, his attention shifting to his boss.
“What do we have?” said the chief.
The chief directed his question to Andy, but the medical examiner must have heard him from inside the building because he emerged too. As he exited, he pushed a pair of goggles to his forehead and peeled off a pair of latex gloves.
“I’ve given the skeletal remains and clothing a preliminary look. Judging from the bone structure, it’s a woman,” said the ME. “From her attire and the level of decay, I’d say she’s been deceased for over one hundred years. The body has suffered trauma. Cause of death could have been foul play, could have been an accident. This is more of an archaeological and historical site than a police matter. Maybe historians can ascertain more about her identity, or at least develop a composite description of who she might have been.”
Behind me, I now heard cars pulling up to the Morton house. From the moment Andy had arrived, my discovery of the hidden world of Cooper’s Candles had begun to feel like a three-ring circus. As the scouts began to open and close the car doors for their rides home, I picked up the chatter of parents calling out to each other from one vehicle to another. Their conversations focused on their concerns about what was happening in The Shack and were underscored by excited but also frightened chatter of the girls.