Reviving the Hawthorn Sisters by Emily Carpenter

Author:Emily Carpenter [Carpenter, Emily]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781542016193
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2020-10-19T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Florence, Alabama

Present

“It was about a month ago. The guy was waiting for me when I got home from work,” Ember said.

“Did you recognize him?” Griff asked.

“Well, I had met him once before, but I never found out his name.”

“What did he look like?” Althea asked.

“Like every old redneck around here.” She sighed. “The first time I met him, I was hammered, spaced out on Xanax too. I went to a bar in town, Toasties. We started talking there . . . I don’t know exactly what was said, but I’m sure it’s all”—she swirled her hands above her head—“up there somewhere, in the cloud.” She turned back toward the murky shadows. “All I remember is the man acted like he was just one of those Alabama history wing nuts. He said he’d heard I had Steadfast Coe’s bones, that he thought the old man’s maid had killed him, and he wanted to give me a thousand dollars for them. A couple of nights later he showed up at my house.”

“Did you also have a document with them?” Griff asked. “Like an old letter? The guy said he had a signed confession.”

“Nope,” Ember said. “Nothing like that. Just the bones.”

“Okay, back up,” I said. “You didn’t think that was weird at all? That he wanted some old bones? And he had an opinion about who killed him?”

Back still to us, she peeled off her tank and pulled on a threadbare plaid flannel shirt. I averted my gaze to an old lawnmower, plastered with grass clippings and dirt.

“Believe it or not,” she said, “bone collecting’s a thing. Naturalists, oddity freaks, people who get off on that stuff. He said he’d been looking for a full male skeleton, and I guess word got out that I had one.” She shrugged. “I’m used to it. The religious nutjobs, the loonies who worship the Hawthorn Sisters, asking me for mementos.”

She appeared in a weak shaft of light. “It’s old-timers mostly. I’m told the Sisters were quite the superstars back in the day. Anyway, my dad had the bones for years. He kept them down in our basement. After he and my mom died, I cleared out their house and brought them over here.”

“Not trying to be a smart-ass here,” Althea said, “but you knew Steadfast’s disappearance was never solved. If you had his bones, why didn’t you turn them over to the police?”

She let out a short, nervous breath. “I was a kid when I first found out about the bones. Like, I literally stumbled across them in my parents’ basement one day. When I asked my dad, he told me it was my great-great-grandpa Steadfast Coe and that he had found the bones on our family property. In Alabama, if you find human remains on your property, you’re not required to report it.”

“Why didn’t your dad have them properly buried then?” I asked.

“Because he was a jerk.” She shrugged. “He told me not to tell anyone. I was twelve; I didn’t question him. My dad was not the kind of guy you messed with, if you know what I mean.

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