Page 13 of Gem Warfare

“I got the gist of the conversation.”

“I’m glad one of us did.” I paused, irritated and puzzled. “We should probably go,” I said, the decision reluctantly made. “But if it’s a fool’s errand, I’m going to tell my mom how irritated I am.”

“A fair exchange.” Solomon reached for his keys. “Let’s go.”

Since my mother hadn’t made it appear like a life or death situation, we took our time driving to my parents’ place, eating the sandwiches on the way, and although the evening commuter traffic had long since died down, construction work on the roads burdened us with crawling slowly through a half mile section before we could break free.

By the time we turned onto my parents’ street, it was twilight. I’d consulted my phone repeatedly, both puzzled and relieved that Mom hadn’t called again, and somewhat furious that she hadn’t picked up any of my three calls. Nor had my dad until he’d finally texted:No point asking me.I’m the last person to ever know what goes on in my own house. Love, Dad.

Before Solomon slowed the car to pull in, I pointed ahead where a blue and white cruiser was parked next to the corner house, its lights emitting a steady flash.

“We’ll leave the car at your parents’ and jog over,” said Solomon. “I don’t want the car to get stuck with no way out if more emergency vehicles arrive. Clearly, something happened over there.”

“Okay,” I gulped, my heart thudding, more concerned than ever at what my mother had become involved in.

As we jogged over, curtains twitched in the neighboring houses, yet only a couple of households had moved to theirporches to unashamedly watch.

We slowed to a walk when we reached the house and followed the sounds of voices around the side. My mom stood with a couple about my age, nodding as the younger woman waved towards the partially fallen fencing, and said something we were too far away to hear.

“Mom!” I called out as we approached and my mother whipped around.

“There you are!” said Mom, beckoning us, then, “This is my daughter, the investigator. Not the one that went to Harvard. That’s my older daughter, Serena. This is the younger one. She did go to college though and now she fights crime as a private citizen. The rest of the family fight crime legally on the police force.”

“Thanks for the introduction,” I said, holding in the internal sigh that threatened to break forth every time my overachieving older sister was mentioned. “I’m Lexi. This is my husband, John Solomon. We’re both PIs.”

“Thanks for coming,” said the younger woman. She wrung her hands, alternating between looking at us and back toward the yard. “Your mom said you’d be able to help and I just don’t know what to do.”

“Do you live here?” I asked, pulling her attention back. The “For Sale” sign had disappeared a couple months back but I hadn’t kept tabs on who had bought it. My mom had mentioned construction work had started but I couldn’t remember when that was.

“Oh, yes, we do. I’m sorry. Where are my manners? I’m Carrie Dugan and this is my husband, Pete Dugan. We own the house.” She nodded towards the house that occupied the end lot.

Solomon had stepped away momentarily, monitoring the yard and when he returned, he asked, “Did you call the police?”

“Yes, it seemed the right thing to do,” said Carrie. “Weshowed them the yard and they’ve been in there ever since.”

“I’m not sure how we can help in a way the police can’t but perhaps you can tell us why you called them and we can figure something out,” I suggested, glancing around for sight of the police officers.

Carrie eyed my mom, who nodded encouragingly, and grimaced. “We were just doing a little light evening work. It’s too late to use any power tools at this time, but Pete wanted to get started with the landscaping so that our little girl can play in the backyard. She’s at my mom’s tonight so Pete was just excavating—”

“By hand,” chipped in Pete. “That is, with a shovel. I wanted to get the foundation dug out for a small retaining wall around the patio area since the lawn slopes a little on our plot.”

“Exactly,” agreed Carrie, nodding along. “So Pete was digging and well…” she trailed off, looking at her husband.

He took a deep breath, paling. “That’s when I found the body,” he said.

Chapter Four

“A body?” I repeated, wondering if I’d heard him correctly.

“Not a fresh one,” said Pete as his wife elbowed him. His already flushed cheeks reddened further. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful. I meant it’s obviously been there a while. It’s a skeleton. I thought it was a prank at first. I actually laughed! I thought they got me good! I thought maybe the construction crew were playing a joke on me because I mentioned I wanted to get this done while they finished working on the interiors, but then I looked closer and well, it looked real.”

“Because itisreal,” said Carrie.

“How can you be sure?” asked Solomon.

“They’re sure,” said Mom, shushing him. “Tell them.”

“I dug up more of it,” said Pete. “I thought since the guys went to the effort of this big prank, I might as well dig it up anyway and see what other business the crew had in store for me. But the earth was more compacted than if it had been freshly dug, which was weird and when I started to reveal more of it, that’s when I got the horrible feeling it was no joke. I called Carrie out to check.”

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