Dreaming of the Bones

”Human scapula. And there’s more. But the decomposition’s quite advanced. It’s going to be a job getting her out.”
    The fragment of bone looked too small, too delicate to be human, thought Kincaid, and the leaching soil had stained it the color of old ivory.
    Gemma reached out, her fingers hovering over the bone as if she might caress it. She looked up at him. ”It seems Lydia was the voice of vengeance, after all.”
    She inserted the pick again and pulled, gently, until she dislodged another piece of the plaster. Now she could see more of the material, recognizing the small pattern as leaping sheep, a dirty white against stained pink. It looked like a blanket her children had had as babies. How very odd. The fabric seemed to be nestled in a cavity that had been only lightly covered with the plaster. Shifting her position so that her body wasn’t blocking the light, she tugged at the material, freeing a little more. It seemed to be wrapped round something, another layer of cloth .,. pinkish cloth with a row of rusted snaps.
    It’s a doll, she thought, still puzzled—a black baby-doll in a pink snap-suit. Why would someone put a doll inside the wall of a bam?
    Then, she realized that those were tufts of hair on the tiny head, that the face was not brown plastic but leathery skin, that sockets gaped where there should have been eyes, and that the tiny hands curled under the chin were curves of bone.
    Juliet jumped back as if scalded, and heard the high, thin sound of her own scream echo from the barn’s cold walls.



DEBORAH CROMBIE was born and educated in Texas and has lived in both England and Scotland . Her Kincaid and James novels have received Edgar®, Agatha, and Macavity awards nominations, and Dreaming of the Bones was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and was selected as one of the 100 Best Crime Novels of the Century by the Independent Mystery Booksellers of America. She is a bestselling author in Germany , and her novels are also published in Japan , Italy , Norway , the Netherlands , France , the Czech Republic , and the United Kingdom . Crombie travels to England several times a year and has been a featured speaker at St. Hilda’s College, Oxford . She lives in a small North Texas town, sharing a turn-of-the-century house with her husband, three cats, and a German shepherd. You can visit her website at www. deborahcrombie.com.