Page 32 of The Bones in the Yard

“Counting the days until retirement,” he answered, surprising me. He didn’t look old enough to be counting anything to retirement.

Then again, Nids age more slowly than normie humans. By how much, we still weren’t sure, but people who were in their thirties when they caught Arcana thirty years ago didn’t look like they were sixty now.

I wondered how long Kurtz had been a Nid, given that he didn’t look too much older than his mid-to-late forties.

“You don’t look old enough for that,” I told him.

He shrugged. “Don’t matter how old I look,” he replied. “Matters how old I feel, and I feel fuckin’ eighty.”

“Bullshit,” I replied, recognizing the twinkle in Kurtz’s eye.

He laughed. “You’re right, I don’t. But I get to kick back at sixty-five, so the wife and I are going to buy an RV and take the fuck off because we can. Bonus if we both still feel young enough to enjoy ourselves.” I wondered if that meant his wife was also an Arcanid, but I didn’t want to pry.

“So how many days?” I asked him.

“A hundred and thirty-seven,” he answered immediately.

“But who’s counting?” I joked.

“This fuckin’ faun, that’s who,” came the cheerful response.

“Come on, let me introduce you to my new boss.”

I led the way back over to where Raj had already found Ward under the shadow of the eaves and made the introductions.

Ward caught both Raj and Kurtz up to the particulars of the case, explaining about both Rosemary Carlisle and Theodore Newton.

“Anyone else?” was Raj’s question.

“Not immediately,” Ward replied. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. I can do a deep search, but that will get us anyone and everyone in the immediate vicinity, whether or not they’re connected to this—and I don’t know how deep I need to go. I might end up with a centuries’-old ghost who already crossed over who doesn’t need or want our help.”

“And the alternative is that we dig up the whole fucking yard,” I put in, “to find out if there are more bodies.”

“Unless we find someone who has been around and seen it, yes,” Ward confirmed.

“So it’s shit either way,” Kurtz observed, sucking on his large front teeth.

“Yep,” I agreed. “And if Ward finds out there are ghosts buried here, we’ll have to go digging anyway.”

I introduced both Raj and Kurtz to Madeeha, and then the three of us—Raj, me, Kurtz—got ourselves some shovels, gloves, and tarps and started expanding the hole Madeeha had started. She’d offered to help, but Raj had very politely informed her that he couldn’t have civilians working a crime scene—but if she wanted to find them any historical information about the house and its previous owners in the museum’s records, that would be helpful.

She disappeared inside to do just that, I assumed.

And the three of us got to work.

The idea was to expand the hole to see if we found anything in the immediate area. If we didn’t, then we might have Ward start looking for dead people. If we did—well, then he’d have other work to do.

I was in the plain white t-shirt I’d worn under my button-down, and both Raj and Kurtz stripped down quickly in the heat. Raj had on a tank, but Kurtz threw professionalism out the window—like anybody almost to retirement—and was digging completely shirtless.

About an hour and a half in, we took a break when Madeeha brought out water and some Chex Mix. By that point, we’d managed to unearth the rest of the canid skeleton Ward had identified as Theodore Newton, and we’d started moving outward, looking for anyone or anything else. So far, we hadn’t unearthed anything besides dirt and rocks, so the conversation turned to whether or not we thought that was everyone.

“Theodore isn’t the victim Rosemary saw,” Ward informed us as Raj threw back a glass of water.

“Oh, goodie,” I muttered, using the little paper cup that Madeeha had thoughtfully brought out as a scoop so I didn’t have to touch the Chex Mix with my filthy hands. I saluted Madeeha with it and spoke around a mouthful of Chex. “Fanks.”

She laughed. “Sure. I’ve got ownership records for the house, by the way, although I’m not sure if that helps.”

“It will,” Raj told her. “Once we get dates on the bones.”

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