Body in the Woods (A Reverend Annabelle Dixon Cozy Mystery Book 3) Read online

  BODY IN THE WOODS

  ALISON GOLDEN

  &

  Jamie Vougeot

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  EPILOGUE

  REVERENTIAL RECIPES

  REVEREND ANNABELLE DIXON WILL RETURN…

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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  CHAPTER 1

  IT HAD BEEN a tough week for young Master Douglas “Dougie” Dewar. It had begun with him tearing his school uniform during a particularly ambitious tree-climbing adventure, continued with reprisals about his over-active imagination from his teacher Miss Montgomery, and reached its peak when Aunt Shona discovered he had been trying to rustle sheep by training none other than the church cat, a ginger tabby named Biscuit.

  How could they blame him? He had been in Upton St. Mary for only four months since his mother had sent him there from their home in Edinburgh, and he still found the village and the vibrant countryside surrounding it full of possibilities.

  He would trek the rolling hills armed only with a trusty stick and an insisted-upon sandwich, imagining himself a brave adventurer on a quest to find a wise, old wizard. He would swing from tree branches like a wilderness warrior, announcing his presence with a signature yell, determined to save all of civilization, reaping world domination as his prize. And he would creep through the dense forest, envisioning it as some deep, exotic jungle on a strange new planet, while encountering delicate, well-camouflaged wildlife that demonstrated all the curiosity and nervousness of timid alien visitors.

  For Dougie was not just energetic and rambunctious of body, but of mind as well. When he wasn’t scampering through the rolling countryside in search of adventures, he was poring over pages of the most astonishing and outlandish tales he could find, stoking the fires of his imagination before he lived out his fantasies against Cornwall’s glorious pastoral background.

  Oh yes, it had been a tough week indeed, but it had also been an incredibly fun one.

  Now it was Friday, and the glorious feeling of being on the precipice of the weekend’s adventures had Dougie running wildly through the forest on his way home from school. After his mishap earlier in the week, Aunt Shona had insisted he change out of his uniform when he got home before embarking on his adventures. It was a small price to pay, thought Dougie, as he darted, jumped, and swerved around the various tree trunks. But he wasn’t home yet.

  “No more school,” he shouted, as he deftly switched his weight from one foot to another to avoid slipping on a tree root. “No more Miss Montgomery!” As he kept on running, he ran through his weekend plans. “I’ll meet the boys to play football tomorrow, and then Aunt Shona promised me a trip to the bookstore. Gonna get the next in the ‘Reptiloid Hunter’ series. Woo-hoo!”

  His imagination ran wild with excitement. He ducked his head and pictured himself a spaceship shooting through an asteroid field. He skipped off a bank and fancied himself on a flying carpet. He spread his arms and turned sharply like a fighter jet, his school satchel sailing behind him like a tail.

  Just as he was about to bank sharply again and release another barrage of missiles, however, Dougie found himself genuinely floating in mid-air, his feet up behind him. For a split second, he almost believed he was flying.

  “Oof!” he grunted as he landed on his chest atop the tough late summer soil.

  Dougie bounced back up almost immediately, his youthful exuberance overwhelming the sharp pain in his elbow and the winded sensation in his chest.

  “Oh no! I’m going to be grounded for a week!” he cried as he looked down at the dirt and grass firmly embedded into his school uniform. Cautiously, he checked the spot where the stinging sensation was coming from on his elbow.

  “Noooooo!” was all Dougie could muster. He had been well-schooled in the art of politeness and not even being alone in the middle of the woods was enough for him to forget his good manners and utter anything ruder – however much the frayed tear on his blazer warranted it.

  He spun around, his pained expression turning to one of anger. Whichever tree root was responsible was going to get it. He took a few steps toward the spot at which he tripped and scanned for the offending object.

  The thin, bar-like protrusion which jutted out of the ground at a low angle was not like any tree root Dougie had ever seen. In fact, he had never come across anything remotely like it on his treasure hunts across the forest. He knelt and brushed some of the dirt away.

  As he uncovered more of the thin, white oddity, Dougie’s heart seemed to sink lower, until it turned a somersault. He knew what this was. They had studied the human skeleton just last week in class.

  Dougie’s mouth opened slowly as he stared at the bone, his mind searching for another, less terrifying prospect. Suddenly, he found himself out of all other potential explanations and incredibly afraid. He hopped to his feet and sprinted toward Aunt Shona’s cottage – only this time he was trying to stifle his imagination rather than explore it.

  “The boy’s fine,” Shona Alexander assured her sister on the phone, “he’s a little scamp. With a boy like him you only need to worry about when he’s not up to something… Oh, of course he misses you. He asks after you every chance he gets… He’s still so distracted by the excitement of a new place… You’ve got enough to worry about right now with the chemo, Olivia, just let me take care of Dougie for now… Oh, wait, I think I hear him coming in. I’ll get him to call you later, okay? Bye, Olivia.”

  Shona placed the receiver down gently and turned around.

  “That was your mot—”

  “Aunt Shona!”

  Shona and Dougie stared at each other, each bearing an expression of absolute horror.

  “Good Lord, Dougie! Look at you!”

  “There’s a.... There’s… It’s… I don’t know why it’s there!”

  “Is that a rip? Turn around! Turn around, now! Oh dear Lord…”

  “No, Aunt Shona… I saw a… It was right there!”

  “What was?”

  “A… It looked like… There’s a… There’s a dead body in the woods!”

  “Oh, there’ll be a dead body in the woods, alright, if you don’t explain to me how you made a mess of yourself when I specifically told you not to go running about before coming home to change.”

  “Really, Aunt Shona! There’s a bone sticking out!”

  “Sticking out of where?”

  “Out of the ground! I tripped over it!”

  Shona placed two hands upon her hips and circled Dougie as if inspecting a car she was considering buying. She shook her head as she noticed every stain, assessing how much time it would take to get each one out.

  “You really do have quite an imagination. I hope you realize this means you won’t be playing soccer this weekend, young man!”

  Dougie stamped his foot impertinently and cried out desperately. “I don’t care about the football! There’s a dead body in the woods!”

  Bizarrely, Shona found Dougie’s first statement more surprising than the second, and when she saw the earnestness in the boy’s face, she realized that he mea
nt both of them sincerely. Dougie certainly attracted more than his fair share of trouble, but if anything, it was his open, impulsive nature that drew him to it, rather than his proclivity to spin tall tales.

  “Sit down,” Shona commanded the boy, as she pulled out a chair and sat on it. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

  Inspector Mike Nicholls was in no mood for games and hadn’t been for a while. He had grumbled and complained his way through each workday for over two weeks, and yet his fellow officers had grown none the wiser as to the cause. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened, and the incidents they had dealt with were remarkable only in their consistency and mildness. Even the weather hadn’t been so bad. Yet not even a cup of tea could be served to the Detective Inspector without vociferous criticism about its sweetness or lack thereof. He did not hold back expounding on any other grievance he found pertaining to the cup in question, either. The tea might be too hot, too cold, too strong, or the wrong kind of brew entirely. Officers within his vicinity were liable to receive spiked comments about their manner or work ethic, and even those not present would be noted for their absence, the reasons for which were undoubtedly nefarious in the Inspector’s newly negative outlook.

  So when the call came from Constable Raven that drove the Inspector to leave the city for the countryside immediately, the officers of Truro police station breathed a sigh of relief before drawing straws to decide who would go with him. Constable Colback drew the short one.

  After a long trip, during which Inspector Nicholls articulated his grievances on topics as wide-ranging as long car journeys, people wasting police time, the declining standards of police ceremonies, and the road manners of his fellow drivers, he and his bedraggled constable met the local village bobby, Constable Raven, outside Shona Alexander’s house.

  “Hello Inspector! Long time no see,” said Constable Raven, more cheerily than the grave circumstances demanded.

  “I have a forensic team on standby, Constable,” the Inspector responded curtly. “So I sincerely hope this is not a waste of time.”

  Picking up on the Inspector’s unusually stern tone, Raven stood upright.

  “I don’t think so, Inspector. Ms. Alexander and Dougie, her young nephew, sound very concerned.”

  “How old’s the boy?” the Inspector asked.

  “I believe he’s eight, sir,” Raven replied.

  “Wait a minute, Constable,” Nicholls said, a dark cloud passing over his face. “Are you telling me that I’ve just put all my other duties aside, made a formal request for the forensic team to enter the area, and driven for almost an hour, based on the story that a schoolboy told his aunt? You didn’t check the site yourself?”

  Constable Raven struggled to disguise his gulp. He was an informal but effective officer, though diligence and rigor had never been his strengths. Under the intense glare of the Inspector, he suddenly wished they were.

  “I didn’t want to disturb the scene, Inspector. I thought it right that you be here to witness it first.”

  DI Nicholls winced, opened his mouth to say something, decided against it, and walked up the pathway to Shona Alexander’s door, leaving Constables Raven and Colback to exchange sympathetic glances.

  “I’m Detective Inspector Nicholls,” he said to the blonde woman who opened the door, “I believe you are Ms. Shona Alexander and this lad is Dougie Dewar?”

  “Yes, thank you for coming, Inspector.”

  The Inspector crouched, bringing himself to eye-level with the freshly-washed boy who clung to his aunt’s trouser leg.

  “What did you see out there, boy?”

  After a few seconds, Dougie gathered up the courage to speak.

  “There was this bone. An arm bone, sticking out of the ground. I tripped on it and got mud and dirt all over me.”

  “How big?”

  Dougie raised his hands and held them about four inches apart. Nicholls looked around to cast another stern glare at Constable Raven.

  “Now are you sure it wasn’t a twig? A strange stick, or maybe something plastic?”

  Dougie shook his head, too intimidated by the Inspector’s direct, unyielding approach to speak.

  “A lot of animals have bones, you know. Tell me why you think this was a human bone? An arm, you say?”

  “I studied the skeleton at school last week. It has a curve like this,” Dougie said, proudly tracing his finger along his forearm, “and another bone next to it like this. That’s what it looked like.”

  Nicholls sighed deeply.

  “Well, let’s get to it then. The young lad can show us the path and tell us about it on the way.”

  The detective stood up and began walking back down the path, followed by Dougie and his Aunt Shona. As he passed Constable Raven, he glowered once again and said:

  “I hope this kid’s knowledge of anatomy is better than your knowledge of police procedure, Constable. For all our sakes.”

  The sky was turning a dark shade of orange as the five figures approached the long shadows of the woods. Though the days still bore the pleasant warmth and brightness of summer, the sharp decrease in temperature as the sun set over the hills indicated that the warm season was about to be chased away. There was a little crunch in the rustle of leaves underfoot, and the fervent greens that rolled away in all directions began to wane into shades less vivid as encroaching hues of brown and yellow made themselves apparent.

  Though Dougie was meant to lead them, he shuffled along beside his Aunt Shona, clutching her hand, while Inspector Nicholls strode forward, setting a brisk pace. Constables Raven and Colback brought up the rear, chatting a little and scanning the surroundings purposefully when they thought Nicholls was watching.

  DI Nicholls turned to Dougie as they passed through another clump of trees and began to navigate the deepening shade of the dense forest. Dougie, still rather intimidated by the Inspector’s intense silence, raised his arm and pointed ahead, a little to one side. Nicholls nodded once and continued onwards determinedly.

  “There!” Dougie squealed suddenly. “That’s where I fell! So the bone is…”

  Everyone watched the boy’s finger trace a trajectory in the air until it pointed to a spot on the ground. Dougie stepped back and pressed himself up against Aunt Shona’s trouser leg once again.

  DI Nicholls almost leaped toward the spot Dougie had indicated, followed closely by the two constables. They gazed at the strange protrusion for a few seconds, musing over its unusual shape.

  “Take the woman and the boy to the edge of the forest, Colback. It’s a little way over. You can meet the forensic team there if we need them. Constable Raven?”

  “Yes sir?”

  “Help me dig it out a little – carefully.”

  “Yes sir.”

  As Shona walked after Constable Colback, pulling Dougie away and holding his head so that he couldn’t look back, Nicholls and Raven pulled away at the dirt from which the bone emerged. After almost ten minutes of clawing at the ground, growing increasingly impatient, they unearthed what was unmistakably a human elbow.

  DI Nicholls pulled out his phone.

  “Colback? Call in the forensic team, and bring them over. Tell them we’ve confirmed it.”

  Within the hour, night had fallen swiftly and Upton St. Mary had become shrouded in darkness. Drivers on the lazily curving country lanes had to depend on their headlights to see, and the quaint cottages and houses were apparent only by the warm glow coming from their windows and visitor lamps. Few people were outside, most choosing to enjoy the comfort and warmth of their homes, but for those who were, the sky was clear enough for moonlight to help them along their way.

  Tonight, however, there were vibrant additions supplementing Upton St. Mary’s nighttime illuminations. Multiple police cars had parked by the wall of trees at the woods’ edge, their blue lights casting ominous blinking shadows across the forest flow. A little deeper in the woods, powerful lamps, set up by the forensic team, cast a piercing white glare over the s
cenes of crime officers as they carefully excavated and examined the forest floor. Police officers circled the area, scanning for clues or merely making their way through the unlit portions of the woods, directing their flashlight beams erratically like they were roving spotlights.

  There would be gossip in the morning for sure, thought DI Nicholls, as he marched back toward the woods from Shona Alexander’s house. He had really needed that cup of tea, but his lengthy conversation with Dougie and Shona had not revealed much. The boy had been more concerned with the mess he had made of his uniform, while his aunt seemed to live an incredibly isolated life at the big stone cottage, sentimentally named “Honeysuckle House.” Despite living for fifteen years in Upton St. Mary, the closest she had come to giving him a lead was information concerning a land dispute that had been resolved eighteen months ago.

  “Damnit!” Nicholls exclaimed into the dark night as he stubbed his boot on a large rock, almost stumbling head over heels. “Bloody rock!”

  “You should have a torch,” came a distant voice.

  Nicholls looked up and was blinded by a powerful beam.

  “Get that light out of my eyes!” he cried, angrily.

  The beam was lowered, and as his eyes adjusted once again to the darkness, Nicholls saw the svelte figure of Harper Jones emerging from a cluster of trees.

  “Sorry,” DI Nicholls growled, as she drew closer, “I didn’t realize it was you, Harper.”

  Not many people could elicit an apology from the Inspector, but Harper Jones demanded a certain respect, not least because she was one of the most brilliant pathologists in Britain and thus the Inspector’s best hope for making some sense of the dead body in the woods.

  Harper reached the Inspector and dropped her flashlight to her side. Even in the dim light, the Inspector could make out Harper’s attractive face and upright bearing from the slivers of fading light that outlined her sharp features.

  “This body’s been here a while,” Harper announced rather obviously, never one for small talk.