Skeleton Letters Read Free Page A

cordoned off, and my officers are interviewing everyone who was hanging around the church. Plus, we’re canvassing the neighborhood.”
    â€œI think some people left before you got here,” said Ava.
    Gallant leaned forward. “Did you get a look at them?”
    Ava shook her head. “Not really. It was more like hearing them.” She looked suddenly thoughtful. “You know how when you’re in church you’re aware of people nearby, you hear their voices and shufflings and such, but you don’t really look at them?”
    â€œI suppose,” said Gallant. He seemed keenly disappointed that Ava wasn’t able to give him a complete description. He directed his gaze at Carmela. “You said earlier that you thought the killer was wearing a brown robe?”
    â€œHe definitely was,” said Carmela. “Like a monk’s robe. Dark brown with a deep cowl and hood.”
    â€œWith a white rope knotted around his waist,” Ava added.
    â€œThere’s a bunch of those robes hanging in the back room on a row of hooks,” Gallant told them.
    â€œThat’s a problem, then,” said Carmela. “It means anybody could have grabbed one and thrown it on.”
    Gallant shifted on the uncomfortably hard pew. “What’s the story with the garden and graveyard outside—all the digging and the stakes and ropes and things? Either of you know?”
    â€œIt’s an archaeology dig,” Ava told him. “Been going on for almost four months now.”
    â€œDo you know who’s in charge of it?” asked Gallant.
    Ava shrugged.
    â€œI’m pretty sure it’s the State Archaeology Board,” said Carmela. “With assistance from students at Tulane.” She paused. “At least that’s what the article in the Times-Picayune said.”
    Gallant jotted something in his notebook. “They find anything?”
    â€œTen feet down,” said Ava, “they discovered the ruins of the original church. The one Père Etienne founded back in 1782.” Père Etienne had been a Capuchin monk who’d been a much-beloved figure because of his tireless work with the sick and the poor.
    Gallant looked mildly interested. “Ruins, huh. Anything else?”
    â€œThey also unearthed an antique silver-and-gold crucifix,” said Ava, “believed to have been the personal crucifix of Père Etienne.”
    â€œWhich was stolen during the murder,” Carmela said suddenly, almost as an afterthought.
    Gallant reared back. “What? A crucifix was stolen?”
    â€œFrom the saint’s altar,” said Ava. “Where Byrle was killed.”
    â€œI think,” said Carmela, “Byrle was struggling with her killer, trying to wrest the crucifix back from him.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you mention this sooner?” Gallant demanded.
    â€œBecause,” said Carmela, “we thought it was more important for you to dispatch your men immediately to hunt down suspects.”
    â€œSo a robbery and a murder.” Gallant stroked his chin with his hand. “I wonder . . . was this crucifix terribly valuable?”
    â€œByrle thought so,” said Carmela. “After all, she gave her life for it.”

Chapter 3
    T HE tiny brass bell over the front door da-ding ed melodically as Carmela and Ava slipped into Memory Mine. At ten o’clock this Monday morning, Carmela’s scrapbook shop already held a half-dozen customers. Eager scrapbookers and crafters busily browsed the floor-to-ceiling wire mesh baskets that held thousands of different papers, perused newly arrived rubber stamps, and sorted through various packages of stickers, brads, beads, tags, and embellishments, to say nothing of embossing powders, ink pads, and spools of ribbon.
    The hum of activity was a welcome sight to Carmela, who’d come through a few lean years since that gigantic hiccup known as Hurricane Katrina. Business was