of horror made ugliness out of her beauty.
“What is that,” she demanded.
Samuel T. steadied Gin and spoke to her in a quiet voice. Then, as he began leading her back toward the house, he looked over his shoulder. “Do you call or shall I?”
“I will.”
As Lane fired up his iPhone with Deputy Ramsey’s well-dialed number, he absently noticed that his hands weren’t shaking. Guess he was becoming an old pro with nasty surprises, bad news, and the police coming to his family’s home.
Oh, hey, Officers, long time no see. And to make you feel more welcome, we’ve got designated parking for you right here in the front of the house.
One ring. Two rings—
“I was about to call you,” the deputy said by way of greeting. “They’re going to release your father’s body for cremation tomorrow—”
“No, they’re not.”
“Excuse me?”
Lane focused on that pale slice of flesh that was all smudged with fine Kentucky topsoil. “We found something buried. Right under my mother’s window. You and your boys in the homicide department are going to want to come back here.”
“What are we talking about.”
“It’s a piece of my father. As far as I can tell.”
There was a heartbeat’s worth of pause. “Don’t touch anything. I’m on my way. Have you called Metro Police yet?”
“No.”
“Call them—”
“So the report is logged.”
“—so the report is logged.”
Lane laughed in a hard burst. “I know the procedure by now.”
As they both hung up, Lane let himself ease back onto the grass so that he, Lizzie, and Greta were all sitting in a semi-circle around the hole in true campfire fashion. No s’mores. But there could be a ghost story coming, he thought.
A moment later, from the mansion’s open front door, sounds of an argument boiled out into the pretty morning, Gin’s voice the loudest, Samuel T.’s right behind hers in terms of volume.
Too bad he wasn’t murdered.
Samuel T.’s hypothetical echoed around Lane’s head as he wished he hadn’t emptied his glass into the boxwood hedges by the front door.
This could be a game changer, he thought to himself. Whether it was good news … or bad, remained to be seen.
“Edward,” he whispered. “Edward, what did you do …”
Out in Ogden County, Edward sat back in his Archie Bunker chair and refused to greet his visitor properly. “There is no reason for you to be here.”
Dr. Michael Qalbi smiled in his gentle way. The guy was thirty-five going on twelve, at least by appearances, his handsome face and jetblack hair belying his half-Iraqi heritage, his miss-nothing brown eyes a warning shot across anyone’s bow lest they were fooled into thinking his kindness could ever be manipulated. His intellect was so formidable, he’d Doogie Howser’d his medical school and residency programs, and then stepped in to help with his father’s concierge practice here in town.
Edward had been a member of their service for years, but he hadn’t paid his dues since he’d come back to Charlemont. Good soul that he was, Qalbi didn’t seem to care.
“I truly don’t need you,” Edward tacked on. “And is that a Scrabble tie you’re wearing?”
Dr. Qalbi looked down at the multicolored, multi-lettered silk strip that hung from around his neck. “Yes, it is. And if you don’t need me, why don’t you get up and show me to the door like the gentleman you are?”
“We live in PC times. I wouldn’t want to run the risk of insulting your masculinity. It could lead to a barrage of Internet backlash.”
Dr. Qalbi nodded at Shelby, who was hanging back, arms crossed over her chest like an MMA fighter at weigh-in. “She said you took a stumble in the stables.”
“Say that five times fast.” Edward pointed to the old-fashioned black bag in the doctor’s hand. “Is that for real or is it a prop?”
“It was my grandfather’s. And it’s full of goodies.”
“I don’t like lollipops.”
“You don’t like anything from what I’ve heard.”
The doctor came forward and kneeled down in front of Edward’s monogrammed slippers, the only thing that would fit on his feet, thanks to the ankle from hell and all its swelling.
“These shoes are fantastic.”
“They were my grandfather’s. I’ve heard that men in Kentucky never buy anything new except for wives.Our wardrobes, on the other hand, are loaves and fishes.”
“Does this hurt?”
As Edward’s broken body jerked back in the chair and he threw out hands to the armrests, he was forced to grit, “Not at all.”
“How about now?”
When his ankle was moved in the opposite direction, Edward hissed, “Is this payback for my misogynistic comment?”
“So