Scent of Roses & Season of Strangers Page 32

  “Sorry if I woke you,” Zach said, stepping protectively in front of her. Seeing the wild look in Miguel’s eyes, she was grateful. She backed a little farther away.

  “I was not asleep.” No, he just looked like he’d been sleeping in his clothes for a couple of days.

  “We need to talk to you, Miguel.”

  “Why?”

  Zach moved forward, forcing Miguel back inside the house, flicking on the lamp near the sofa. Elizabeth followed them in, turning off the porch light and closing the door behind them.

  “We need to search for something,” Zach said. “We’ve come to do that tonight.”

  Miguel frowned and shook his head as if he tried to clear his thoughts. “I do not understand.”

  For the next few minutes, Zach patiently explained about the murder they believed might have taken place in the old house that used to sit on the spot where Miguel’s newer house now sat. Zach told them how they had searched and found a child who had disappeared, a little girl who looked like the ghost Maria had seen in the house, and that a couple who lived in the old house might have killed her. He explained that they believed they might find her body buried in the ground underneath.

  “Things are happening here, Miguel,” Elizabeth said gently. “Things that can’t be explained. Surely you have felt these things. Surely you have noticed there is something wrong in here.”

  Miguel glanced away. “I have never seen a ghost.”

  “We think she comes to Maria because of the baby,” Zach said.

  “The ghost is trying to warn her that your baby is in danger,” Elizabeth added.

  Miguel seemed to be having trouble sorting all of this out.

  Elizabeth reached over and caught his hand. “Look at you, Miguel. You aren’t yourself lately. You haven’t been for some time. You’re angry. You’ve been drinking way too much. It’s the house, Miguel. Whatever is here is making you act this way. We have to find a way to stop it. We have to look for the little girl. If we find her, maybe all of this will end.”

  For the first time, Miguel seemed to understand. “My wife believes there is a ghost. And I am not myself at all.” He looked down at his wrinkled, dirty clothes as if seeing them for the first time. “Do what you must.”

  “Thank you,” Elizabeth said.

  While Zach went to the door and motioned for the men to unload their gear and move the car out of sight down the road, Elizabeth said a few more quiet words to Miguel.

  “Everything is going to be all right, Miguel. We just need to find out the truth.”

  He nodded, seemed resigned, perhaps even relieved. “How will you do it?”

  Zach walked up just then. “We’ll go under the house through the access in the side. We’ve got lights so we can see and shovels to dig. We’ll follow a pattern. That way we’ll be sure to cover all of the ground. It may take more than one night.”

  “There is a way in through a hole in the floor of the bedroom closet,” he said. “I will show you.”

  “Great.”

  They used both entrances, bringing in the lighting gear and a number of long, heavy-duty extension cords. A big piece of cardboard was used to cover the access hole at the side of the house so the lights couldn’t be seen. Then they lowered the shovels and buckets and Sam’s metal detector through the hole in the floor.

  Zach took the grid sheet and dropped down through the access hole beneath the closet floor, followed by Sam and Ben.

  “I’m coming with you,” Elizabeth said. “I know you have plenty of shovels.” Dropping down behind the men, bending over to fit beneath the floor, she picked up one of the shovels. The shorter handle made it lighter, she was happy to see, easier to use.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Zach said. “I kind of figured you could just keep tabs on Miguel.”

  “I’m fine. I want to help.”

  He started to argue, but her warning look told him not to.

  “Not much headroom under here,” Ben grumbled. “Good thing the house isn’t very big.”

  Using his flashlight, Zach panned the area under the house. Being just four years old, its condition wasn’t too bad—only a few spiderwebs clinging to the floor joists and a cluster of bugs here and there, scurrying off into the shadows.

  Elizabeth pulled up the collar of her blouse and refused to think what else might be lurking in the darkness. “It’s damp down here,” she said, noticing the moist earth beneath them for the first time. “How can that be?”

  Zach shined the flashlight on the garden hose stuck in through the side access. He grinned. In the harsh light and dark shadows, his features were distorted, making him look like a demon.

  “I came by early yesterday and started the water while Miguel was at work. Earlier today I moved the hose around so it covered a different area. I just turned it off. I figured the ground would be a whole lot easier to dig.”

  Ben smiled. “Good thinking.”

  Sam turned on his metal detector, whose handle barely cleared the floor joists. Bent over, moving crablike, he began to make a sweep of the area under the house.

  They had decided to dig down a couple of feet in each grid square, then run the metal detector again in that particular location. If they didn’t find anything, and since there wasn’t much room to stack the dirt, they would refill the square and dig the next. Sam finished his cursory sweep with the metal detector, turning up a few rusty nails and a quarter that read 1947 in the bank of lights that blazed under the house, then they started to dig.

  Trying to decipher the placement of a possible grave, Ben and Sam worked the grid starting in the middle of the southwest quarter of the house, working outward, while Zach and Elizabeth started in the middle on the southeast quarter and did the same.

  They’d only been digging for a very few minutes when Miguel jumped down through the opening. “I have decided to help. If there is a body, I will help you find it.”

  He seemed a little more himself, a little less distracted. He had even combed his wild mane of hair.

  “Great.” Zach handed him a shovel. “We can use all the help we can get.”

  And it didn’t take long to discover how true those words were. Elizabeth’s back ached from working in the awkward bent position and her hands were already getting sore. Zach laid out the grid pattern with string, covering the ground inside the square concrete foundation of the house.

  He fanned one of the lights around the perimeter of cement, lighting the area.

  “Looks like they actually used the old foundation instead of pouring a new one—at least wherever they could. The old house was a little bigger, though, which means there’s a chance the gravesite might actually be outside the existing house. But this would have been the main section for both. For now, let’s hope we’re in the right place.”

  Though it was cooler under the house than it was outside, it didn’t take long for all of them to break out in a sweat. Moving the damp soil around was extremely hard work, but everyone was determined.

  They took a break after an hour, climbing out through the hole in the closet floor, making their way straight to the ice chest filled with soft drinks Elizabeth had fortunately thought to bring.

  Gatorade and Diet Cokes, all she’d had in the fridge.

  “Man, I’m glad you thought of this,” Sam said, guzzling half a bottle of Gatorade, wiping his shaved head with the cold moisture off the bottle. Zach popped the top on a Diet Coke and held the can out to Elizabeth, who took a good long drink and passed it back.

  Zach finished the can. “How are your hands holding up?”

  She looked down at them and winced, noticing the first sign of blisters. “Not as good as I’d hoped.”

  “The rest of us all brought gloves. Maybe Miguel has an extra pair around somewhere.”

 
“Sí, I have some gardening gloves that Maria likes to wear. She loves to garden. I will get them for you.” There was such a wistful note in the younger man’s voice, a lump rose in Elizabeth’s throat. This entire family needed help. She prayed that tonight they would get it.

  Miguel returned with the gloves and they all went back to work. She and Zach had just cleared another square in the grid—without any luck—when a deep voice reached them from above.

  Raul Santiago dropped down through the access hole. “Do not be angry. Pete and I came to help…if Sam says it’s okay.”

  Hunched over, Sam duck-walked forward to where the two boys crouched. “Dammit, how did you know about this?”

  “I heard you talking to Zach on the phone. We will go back if that is what you want, but this is my sister’s house. We both have strong backs and we would like to help.”

  Sam sighed, but without any real rancor, and perhaps a hint of relief. It was really hard work. The more help the better.

  “I’ll call the farm,” he said, “tell them you’re with me and Zach.” Sam passed over his shovel. “Here. You want to work. Get to it.”

  Raul grinned, making another ugly face in the eerie lights. “Thanks, Sam.”

  “I’d save my thanks until later,” Sam warned as he hoisted himself up through the floor.

  Zach took Elizabeth’s shovel out of her hand. “Take a break. Let Pete dig for a while.”

  Pete smiled as he gripped the shovel. He was Raul’s best friend, shorter than the beefy young Hispanic, thinner, a wiry youth with dark eyes and friendly smile. His black hair was short, flat on the top and combed upward, not radically, which wasn’t allowed at Teen Vision, but neat and stylish.

  As the shovel left her fingers, Elizabeth couldn’t help an inward sigh of relief. Her hands were hurting and sweat trickled between her breasts. She wasn’t used to manual labor. And she could start digging again a little later.

  They traded off after that, four men on, working two grid squares, the others resting or getting something cold to drink. When the cold drinks ran out, they switched to water, which tasted delicious after the dirty, backbreaking labor.

  By midnight they were all getting discouraged.

  They had covered nearly the entire top half of the grid, but found nothing of interest. Each time a grid square was exposed, Sam ran the detector over it, hoping to pick up a clue of some kind. So far, there hadn’t been any new sounds, nothing but a few more nails that had worked their way deeper into the soil.

  Of all the men, Miguel seemed to be working the hardest. He refused to trade off with anyone and simply continued to dig, working like a madman.

  The thought made Elizabeth uneasy. She kept seeing an image of Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Any minute she expected Miguel to grin and leer, “Heeere’s Johnnie.”

  Instead he just kept digging.

  “You need to take a break,” Zach said to him, having a similar thought.

  “Not yet.” Miguel tossed out another shovelful of dirt, then plunged his shovel into the ground for another. When the square was complete, Sam ran the metal detector over the dirt and this time picked up a pinging sound from the machine. It came from the far left corner of the square and everyone’s attention focused there.

  “I’ll get the hand rake and trowel.” Zach went for the tool, then returned and jumped into the hole. Bending down, he carefully raked the dirt away from whatever it was they had found. It was buried deep. He used the trowel to dig down, then used the rake again. Something clinked. He pulled up a piece of metal, but couldn’t make out what it was.

  Moving over to the bank of lights, he held it out in his palm. “It looks like some kind of medallion, maybe a military medal of some kind.”

  “Can you make out the writing?” Sam asked.

  “Looks like some other language.”

  Ben came over to look. “I think it’s military, all right. You said the old house was built here during the war.”

  “That’s right.”

  Whatever it was, it didn’t look like a clue to finding the body they were searching for. Setting the rusty old medal aside, tired and discouraged, everyone went back to work.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The heat and the closed-in space finally got to him. Zach gave up and took off his shirt. His back ached from the bent-over working position and sweat covered his face, neck and torso. He’d known it was a crazy idea, finding the body of a ghost, but over the course of the past few weeks, he had actually come to believe they would find the little girl, Carrie Ann Whitt, buried under the house.

  Inwardly, he cursed, called himself an idiot and a fool. There were no such things as ghosts. This was all just some crazy series of coincidences. He had half a dozen people down here breaking their backs and for what?

  A big fat zero, no doubt.

  He hefted another shovelful of dirt. With so many people working, they had covered more than three quarters of the grid squares on his printed plan. Everyone was hot and sweaty, tired and wishing this was over. But no one was willing to quit until they had covered every inch of ground under the house.

  He was working again with Liz, though he had argued with her about it. He didn’t want her down here busting her ass for nothing. He couldn’t believe he had actually convinced himself they were going to find a body down here.

  “Hey, Zach. What’s that god-awful smell?” It was Sam, glancing around and oddly sniffing the air.

  For the first time he noticed it. Not the foul, unmistakable odor of a rotting body. A thirty-six-year-old corpse would be decayed well past that stage. Instead the odor was heavy, cloying. Such a nauseating smell it made the bile rise up in his throat.

  “Roses…” Liz said, looking across at him, a trace of fear creeping into her eyes.

  “Smells awful,” Ben said. “Like a decaying compost pile, only worse. And kind of sickening-sweet.”

  Miguel made a kind of hissing sound in his throat. “I have smelled it before.”

  So had Zach. The night he had come with Liz to the house.

  “Maybe they’re doing something to get ready for the Rose Festival,” Sam said hopefully. “It starts next week.”

  Liz looked at Sam and shook her head. “She’s here…” Her gaze darted around the tight space beneath the house. “The smell comes…whenever she appears.”

  Ignoring the nauseating odor and the conviction he heard in her voice, Zach jammed his shovel into the dirt, more irritated than ever. But instead of the blade sinking in, he felt a sharp jolt of resistance.

  He tried again, more gently this time, felt an object beneath the blade.

  “You find something?” Sam moved toward him beneath the floor joists as Zach jumped the two feet down into the square they had nearly finished digging.

  “Hand me the hand rake and trowel.” Kneeling in the dirt, he took the garden tools Sam handed him while the others moved toward him, forming a group around the edge of the hole. Liz stood above him, her face gone pale in the eerie glow of the lights.

  Raul moved one of the light poles into a better position, fully illuminating the grid square, while Zach carefully began using the trowel, digging around the area where the shovel had hit, then using the rake to clear some of the dirt away.

  “This is weird,” Ben said, glancing around. “How can it be getting cold in here?”

  Goose bumps rose across Zach’s bare chest. How, indeed? he thought, remembering the night he had spent in the house, remembering what he’d read about cold spots and beginning to feel as uneasy as Liz. Around the hole, it wasn’t just cold, it was freezing. Zach ignored it and continued to dig.

  “Can you tell what it is?” Raul asked, leaning over the hole, looking a little uneasy himself.

  “Can’t tell yet.” But little by little, the object began to ap
pear, something dark that looked like a piece of rotten leather. There was something underneath it. “Toss me the brush.”

  Pete went to get it, brought it back and handed it to Zach. Clustered around the square on their hands and knees, everyone watched as Zach used the trowel, rake and brush to uncover more and more of what lay buried in the earth.

  “What is it?” Ben asked.

  Ignoring the freezing temperature and the sight of his breath in the lights, Zach dug a little more, brushed the dirt away, and uncovered a square piece of metal that rose above what appeared to be a hunk of rotten black leather.

  “It looks like a buckle of some kind.”

  Liz made a sound in her throat. “Oh, God, it’s a little shoe buckle.” Her gaze was riveted on the rusted chunk of metal, and he knew in an instant what they had found.

  “The day she disappeared…” Liz said, “Carrie Ann was wearing…” She swallowed. “She was wearing a pair of black patent leather shoes. I think that’s what that bit of leather is, and that’s the buckle that must have been on top of her shoe.”

  He dug a little more, revealing bit by bit what they now all believed lay beneath the dirt. The shoe was mostly gone, eaten away by time and insects, but there was enough of it to recognize what it had been. He brushed away more dirt, exposing the first glimpse of bone, and heard Liz’s sharp intake of breath.

  Undisturbed for all these years, protected beneath the house from animals and weather, the body would remain pretty much the way it had been placed in the homemade grave. Though most of the clothes would have rotted away and the flesh would be gone, the bones would remain in the position they had been in from the start.

  The moment the anklebone appeared, Zach stopped digging. He carefully removed a little more dirt from the area and saw that a shinbone followed. Smaller than those of an adult, they could only be the bones of a child.

  “Time to call the sheriff. Wouldn’t you say so, Ben?”

  Ben nodded gravely. Like everyone under the house, he was eager to leave. “I’ll make the call right now.” Moving toward the access hole in the closet, Ben hauled himself up and hurried off to use the phone.