Not what they were looking for!

Spencer was almost back to his place when he got stuck behind a dump truck pulling a trailer with an excavator on the back. John Monaghan on his way out to Spencer’s to start digging up whatever was down below the old barn footings. As they both pulled into his drive way, the truck pulled over to the side of the road so that Spencer in his much faster car could overtake and get past it. Cutting around Spencer was only waiting a handful of minutes for John to make the rest of the way down Spencer’s driveway.

“Morning John,” Spencer called out when John had parked up near where the barn used to be and got out of the truck.

“Morning Spence. Good day for it,” John commented. It had stay relatively warm overnight and looked like being a fine day.

“Fancy a coffee before you start?” Spencer offered.

“I’ll just get this old girl unloaded and I’ll join you but I brought my own mug this time,” John said as he fished out a dented metal thermo mug from inside the cabin of the dump truck.

Spencer took it and headed back inside the kitchen where he had a pot of drip coffee already made up from breakfast. He filled John’s mug up first before doing his own, adding cream and sugars to both. A few short minutes John came inside the kitchen through the side door, stomping his feet on the way in to clear any mud from his boots.

“Thanks Spencer, really appreciate it,” John told Spencer. Through their interactions over the last couple of weeks John and Spencer were forming an easy-going friendship. Both respecting and being impressed with the other man’s accomplishments.

After caffeine John headed back outside with Spencer watching from a safe distance. John began by digging the top layer of grass off from the building site making sure to keep his digger safely on the outside away from where they knew the cavity to me. Then he took off the top soil layer which was good fertile soil and started digging down in one corner until he struck open space below. Spencer found himself drawing closer as John carved out some steps down into the hole with the bucket of the machine and then switched it off so he and Spencer could get a look inside.

John had thought to bring a torch with him and he and Spencer hopped down into the excavation he’d just made. Shining the light on, John and Spencer were able to lift some burnt and chard timbers out of the way and squeeze inside. The space wasn’t big, barely big enough for the two men to stand with their arms out and not touch if they tried. Taking up most of the room was a big egg-like shape. As John swung the torch toward it, Spencer good make out a dull cooper sheen to it through a heavy covering of broken and collapsed timber and layers and layers of filth.

“What on earth is that?” Spencer asked.

“Haven’t you ever seen a home still before?” John said. The round cooper drum lining up perfectly with what he knew of stills and had seen on the radar.

Looking down on the ground in amongst all the debris was hundreds of old-style mason jars. Most broken but some of them still intact.

“Looks like moonshine,” Spencer commented.

“Want to give it a try?” John asked laughing.

Spencer bent over to pick up an unbroken jar when his eye sight took him to look further ahead around the side of the cooper still.

“What the fuck is that?” Spencer cursed having just gotten a huge fright.

John shined the torch in the direction Spencer pointed and coming closer to him could see almost buried against the side of the still was what looked like a human skull and the upper portion of a skeleton.

“We better get out of here,” John whispered which Spencer quickly agreed with.

Retracing their steps Spencer and John discussed what they would do about the skeleton they’d just uncovered.

“We have to call it through to the local police,” Spencer said.

“Damn straight we do,” John agreed.

Spencer was glad that John was on the same page as him. “We can’t do any more digging that’s for sure. I don’t know, is this a crime scene now?”

While John said he’d ring through to Massie and let her know what had just happened, Spencer returned inside the house and found the piece of paper he’d saved with Evelyn Malone’s phone number on it. He punched the number she’d given him into his cell phone and pressed call.

“Hello. Who’s this?”

Spencer was relieved to hear Evelyn’s voice. “Evelyn. It’s Spencer Askren.”

Her voice turned warm and happy. “Oh, hello Spencer. I’m so glad you called me.”

“I really wish I’d called you about something better,” Spencer began.

Her voice turned professional and all business in an instant, “what is it? Tell me what’s happened.”

“I’ve found a dead body on my farm.”

“Christ!” Evelyn cursed. That’s not what she’d been hoping for when she’d given Spencer her number.

“It’s old. Not recent. It could be 20 or 30 years old. It’s a skeleton actually,” Spencer informed her. He wasn’t getting his brief of the situation quite straight.

Evelyn thought if it was that old it had to be a cold case. There weren’t any missing persons or murders that she knew about. Still a little kernel of hope sprung up inside her, if this was a cold case and she cracked it, it would look fantastic for her reputation.

“Don’t do anything Spencer. Don’t touch it,” Evelyn instructed him.

“That was sure as hell not going to happen,” he confirmed.

“I’m on my way to your house now. Ill be 20 minutes tops,” Evelyn had been on main roads patrol detail when Spencer had run her. The Sheriffs Department had jurisdiction on all district roads in Avonwick that weren’t highways. She’d been parked up on a back road waiting for a speeder to come flying past to get her quota of citations up for the month. This was much more appealing. “Oh and Spencer, do me a favour.”

“Sure.”

“Don’t call this into the station for me.”

“Whatever you say Evelyn.”

If Evelyn was first on the scene, she’d have point on the investigation. There was no way the otherwise all-male department would assign her a case this juicy. She needed to claim this for her own.