Case of the Abandoned Bones Read online

  Case of the

  By

  J.M. Poole

  www.AuthorJMPoole.com

  Smashwords Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  This book is a work of fiction. All characters and locations appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or real locations, is purely coincidental.

  Published in the United States of America

  1st Printing: August, 2020

  1st Electronic Edition: August, 2020

  A HAGGARD TOY MEANS YOU HAVE A HAPPY DOG!

  For a complete list of titles available by Jeffrey M. Poole, including the best-selling series Bakkian Chronicles, Tales of Lentari, Pirates of Perz, Dragons of Andela, and Corgi Case Files, please click here!

  Case of the

  Abandoned Bones

  By

  J.M. Poole

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  EPILOGUE

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  CONNECT WITH THE AUTHOR

  MORE TITLES

  Acknowledgments

  Kudos must be given to my close circle of family, friends, and readers who have volunteered their time to help me get the book polished as much as possible. Jason, Carol, Mefe, Caryl, Diane, Elizabeth, and Louise. Thank you very much for all your help!

  Another shoutout to my niece, Kaylee, who helped me flesh out the character of Lucky Dawg, and was later changed to Red Dawg. Believe it or not, Red Dawg was actually based on a real-life person, only known as “Set ‘Em Up”, and as of this writing, Set ‘Em Up’s mine is still missing.

  Pick and shovel chapter graphic was found online at the link below, and is believed to be royalty-free. If it isn’t, please contact me for immediate removal.

  http://clipartmag.com/download-clipart-image#mining-drawing-26.jpg

  I hope you enjoy the story! Happy reading!

  For Giliane -

  Thoughtful quotation to be inserted here!

  ONE

  “What’s the latest? You asked me out here for a reason, so I can only assume construction must have hit some type of a snag. Level with me. What’d they find? Did something break? They expect me to pay for it, don’t they? Huh? Huh?? Well, you can tell them…”

  “Whoa, Zack,” my companion told me, chuckling. “Take it down a notch. There aren’t any snags. Nothing has broken. In fact, everything is right on schedule.”

  “Oh. Really?”

  “I heard about what you went through last week.”

  “Yeah, that was something. Wait. Which incident are you referring to?”

  “There’s more than one?” the second voice incredulously asked.

  I nodded, “Yep. Three. Which one are you talking about?”

  “I was referring to being forced out of a plane,” the second voice clarified. “At gunpoint. Dare I ask what the other two were about?”

  “Oh. Well, there was white water rafting, down the Rascal.”

  My winemaster shrugged. “That’s really not too bad. Provided you avoid David’s Drop, that is.”

  “And there was bungee jumping off some bridge in Central Oregon,” I added.

  “You went bungee jumping? You’re kidding. Which bridge?”

  I shrugged. “I forget the name of it. I think it was called Peter something.”

  My companion grabbed me by the arm and pulled me to a stop.

  “The Peter Skene Ogden bridge??”

  “Hey, that’s the one. I won’t ever forget that. Someone almost died out there.”

  “But… I just read about that in the newspaper not that long ago! You were there? How’s the guy doing?”

  “C2? He’ll pull through, only his road to recovery is going to be a long one.”

  “He wouldn’t be the guy you were telling me about yesterday, would it? The guy you hired to handle all of the winery’s social media accounts?”

  “Yep, that’s him.”

  “Do we really need to have that much of a presence online?”

  “It couldn’t hurt, right? Caleb’s job will be to monitor Lentari Cellars’ accounts, answer questions, and keep updated content on our pages.”

  Caden stared at me for a few moments before his face broke out in a smile.

  “You’re doing this to help him out. Let me guess. He can’t afford to take time off from work?”

  “Guilty as charged. I found out, from the former leader of the Daredevils, he had been let go from his job just a few days ago. He hasn’t found anything since. So, he’s our new IT guy.”

  “IT guy, too, huh? Well, good. That means I don’t have to be the one you keep calling when you can’t get your printer to work.”

  “Oh, puh-lease. I don’t call you that often, do I?”

  In response, Caden pulled out his cell phone from his pocket and showed me his call history. Of the dozen or so incoming calls on his screen, my name was there at least 7-8 times. Cringing, I offered my companion a smile.

  “Yeah, well… okay. Sorry ‘bout that. What can I say? That flippin’ printer has a mind of its own, and it has decided it hates me.”

  “I still can’t believe you went bungee jumping. What was it like?”

  “A once-in-a-lifetime experience,” I confirmed. “And one that I don’t ever plan on experiencing again. Unless, of course, I get a gun shoved in my face.”

  “Did someone really force you to jump out of a plane?” Caden asked. We crested the top of the north hill and stopped. “I’m not sure how I would have handled that.”

  “The same way I handled it, I’m sure.”

  “And how did you handle it?” Caden curiously asked.

  “By peeing my pants and screaming like a little girl all the way down.”

  Caden laughed out loud.

  “In all honesty, it really wasn’t as bad as people made it out to be,” I said.

  “He didn’t have a gun?”

  “Oh, he had a gun, all right.”

  “I see. It wasn’t loaded?”

  “I’m pretty sure it was loaded,” I confirmed.

  “But, he wasn’t going to use it?”

  I shrugged, “I’m pretty sure he was going to use it, too.”

  “Then I disagree,” my companion said. “It was just as bad as I’ve heard. In fact, I think it’s worse. I can’t even begin to fathom why you’d want to do something like that.”

  “I was helping out a friend,” I jovially told my winemaster. “He was having a mid-life crisis. Wanted to prove he was still young at heart, I guess. Don’t get old, pal. It sucks.”

  First things first. Introductions. My name is Zack Anderson. I’m the owner of Lentari Cellars, the private winery Caden Burne and I were currently touring. Actually, if you want to get technical, the two of us were slowly cruising past the new warehouse that was (slowly) being constructed. For some reason, I thought we’d be further along than having less than a quarter of the framing in place. But, based on how many inspections has to be performed, in the correct order, I really shouldn’t complain. Caden was doing a remarkable job of keeping the contracto
rs in line and making certain the winery ran as smoothly and efficiently as possible.

  I honestly don’t know what I’d do without the guy.

  “Where are you taking me?” I politely inquired, as we left the main winery building behind and headed north.

  Row after row of healthy vines stretched out in all directions. Big fat clutches of grapes could be seen on each and every single plant. This was truly going to be our largest harvest yet.

  Caden took a hand off the wheel of the John Deere Gator he was currently driving and pointed. I glanced in the direction we were headed and nodded. For some reason, my winemaster wanted to show me the new orchard he had planted. Wanting to expand the winery’s offerings, Caden had talked me into investing a sizeable amount of money on bringing in large, older fruit trees of all sorts: apples, peaches, pears, and so on. Planted next to our new fruit trees was nearly a full acre of various berry bushes, from marionberry to gooseberry. Looking forward to snacking on some fresh fruit, hot off the tree and/or bush, I couldn’t sign the checks fast enough.

  “They’re coming along nicely,” I observed, as we slowed to inspect a row of apple trees.

  “They’re doing better than I could have hoped,” Caden agreed. “There. Do you see this? This here, along the left of the road?”

  “Looks like bushes,” I dryly observed. I turned and pointed at the matching rows behind it. “In fact, they look just like those, and those, and those over there.”

  “Can you identify them?” Caden challenged.

  I shrugged and turned back to the closest row of berry bushes. After silently studying them for a few minutes, I turned to my companion and nodded.

  “Marionberry.”

  “Nope. Those are over there.”

  “Gooseberry?”

  “Nope.”

  “Umm, salal berries?”

  For those who may not know, salal berries are a lesser known, native-to-Oregon berry which taste like sweet blueberries with a hint of grape thrown in. And, I can actually say that I’ve tried a piece of salal-berry pie. That was back when we actually had a bakery-related murder. I don’t know about you, but death by muffin doesn’t really sound like a bad way to go, does it?

  “They’re on the list for next year,” Caden confirmed. “Now isn’t the time of year to be planting anything. And, for the record, I’m surprised you’ve heard of them. I mean, let’s face it. They’re not a popular berry.”

  “I know they’re not commonly known, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t heard of them. And, I’m sorry to say, not in a good way.”

  Caden turned to me and cringed. “I have a feeling I don’t want to know.”

  “Well, um, it had to do with…”

  “Were Sherlock and Watson involved?” Caden hastily interrupted.

  “They were,” I confirmed.

  “Then it’s ‘nuff said for me.”

  Sherlock and Watson. Where do I start with those two? Well, for those who are not familiar with my two dogs, let me give you a brief history. They’re both corgis. Pembroke Welsh Corgis, to be exact. They’re the breed of corgis who typically don’t have any tails. Their ears are rounded, their legs are short, and they have personalities as large as Saint Bernards.

  I adopted my two corgis shortly after moving to Pomme Valley from Phoenix, Arizona. And by ‘shortly’, I mean in less than 24 hours of setting foot in this small town. I adopted my little boy, Sherlock, after being suckered into it by none other than Harrison Watt, my best friend from high school. How the two of us managed to find ourselves in the same, small town, hundreds of miles away from Arizona, still mystifies me. Well, Harry had become a veterinarian, and seeing how he was responsible for finding ‘furever homes’ for rescue dogs, he had guilted me into taking Sherlock.

  Now, several years later, I can’t imagine my life without my dogs in it. Oh, I suppose you’re wondering about Watson. Well, she came to me not long after… yes, you heard correctly. Watson is a ‘she’. My little girl has gone by other names, but after coming to live with us, I had given her the name ‘Watson’. Why? Well, it went with ‘Sherlock’, of course.

  Now, for the amazing part.

  Those two little dogs have an incredible skill. They solve mysteries, be it murder or robbery, or anything else you can think of. In fact, they’ve become so adept at solving cases that the local police department has made us official police consultants.

  Somehow, and I have never figured out how, those two dogs can zero in on clues so trivial that, for all intents and purposes, it looks like nonsense to an outsider. However, once the details of the case are laid out, the ‘corgi clues’ as I’m now starting to call them, inevitably pan out. Every. Single. Time.

  I’m stumped. My good friend Vance Samuelson, a detective on the Pomme Valley police force, is also stumped. Sherlock and Watson have solved murder cases, located stolen loot, and have even located people who don’t want to be found.

  How?

  I honestly have no idea. The only rule we have, when working a case, is to be on the lookout for the omniscient ‘woof’. Yep, that may sound laughable at best, but when you’re driving around town, looking for stolen property, or trying to find a missing fugitive, hearing one (or both) of the dogs woofing at something will always warrant a second look. Oftentimes, I’m driving, and I don’t have the ability to bring my Jeep to a safe stop. So, what do I do? The next best thing: take pictures.

  There have been many occasions when those pictures can (and will) break a case wide open. Therefore, I pay attention to whatever catches my dogs’ attention, regardless of how silly, or insignificant, it may be. Take the last case the dogs and I worked. Photos of trash from a campsite, the backside of a guy in camouflage pants, and a number of other shots all looked as though they would never be related to an ongoing murder case. Yet, they all were, and somehow, the dogs knew.

  Still fresh in my mind, since that particular case had just wrapped up a few days ago, the stunts I ended up doing with a group of young thrill-seekers still continued to amaze me. As I mentioned before, those stunts were white-water rafting, bungee jumping, and sky diving. Put those three activities together and I guaran-damn-tee you the first thing you’re going to think of is mid-life crisis. Well, believe it or not, I wasn’t going through one, but my afore-mentioned detective friend, Vance, was. He talked me and Harry into joining the Dysfunctional Daredevils in an effort to locate an escaped mass murderer. Undercover, of course.

  Jillian, my fiancé, was none too pleased with me, but did support my decision to help out my friends. Now, with those events safely behind me, but in the not-too-distant past, I was eager for some down time, only as you will shortly see, it wasn’t in the books. Life, I’m sorry to say, has a plethora of ways to deliver reality checks. For me, they were the equivalent of a swift kick to the family jewels.

  The all-terrain vehicle came to a sudden stop. Lost in my own thoughts, I had to blink a few times to clear my head. Slowly turning to see where we were, I nodded. We were out in the northern fields, which had been included in the winery’s expansion a year or so back. This particular field had once belonged to a former neighbor of mine. Tim Parson had once farmed this land, but had since retired and moved away. His family, desiring nothing to do with farming, had sold the farmland off to several people, with one of them obviously being me. Thanks to Tim’s oldest son’s generosity, Lentari Cellars had increased from 15 acres to an astounding 50, seemingly overnight.

  For close to a year, the northern field had sat, vacant. Now, as the two of us sat in the Gator, looking over the empty field, I could only imagine what Caden had in store. More fruit trees? Berry bushes? Perhaps something completely different?

  “What’re your thoughts?” I wanted to know. “Plan on putting more fruit trees out here?”

  “Honestly? I haven’t gotten that far yet.”

  “You haven’t? I’m surprised, amigo. Well, why are we out here?”

  Caden turned and pointed at a mound of large, nearby boul
ders. “Oh, I have a few things in mind for this land. However, that is nowhere on my list.”

  “Hmm? Are you talking about those big rocks?”

  Caden nodded, “Exactly. Whether we continue to plant more fruit trees, or use the land to plant more vines, those rocks have gotta go.”

  “And you’re telling me this because I need to put ‘rock removal’ on my To Do list?”

  Caden shrugged before he looked my way. “Aren’t you the one who loves working in the new tractor?”

  “I do,” I confirmed. I then pointed at the closest rock, which looked to be the size of my Jeep. “I think even those may be a little on the large side. There’s no way the tractor could pick that thing up.”

  “You could if you break them apart,” Caden suggested.

  “And how would you suggest I do that? Smack it with the loading bucket?”

  Caden chuckled, “No. I was thinking you could rent an attachment for it. They do have specialty tools a tractor can use, you know.”

  Intrigued, I nodded. “I really hadn’t thought of that. All right. Maybe there’s something I can use on the tractor which could break apart those rocks. I’ll see what I can do.”

  The following day, I was at the controls of my John Deere 5083EN tractor. Sitting comfortably inside the cab, I glanced over at the buddy seat and gave each of the corgis a pat on the head. Then, I turned my attention to what had replaced the bucket. A hydraulic hammer, which to me, looked like a squat black box with a long, thick spike angled down, was poised directly over the first of the large rocks I had intended to break apart. One of the winery’s interns, Douglas, wanted to accompany me with the flatbed truck, only I pointed out that I was breaking apart the rocks at this stage, not lifting them. That would come tomorrow.