Free Bones of Contention by Jeanne Matthews Page A

kangaroo rat kicked them in the chest and water geysered out all over the place and formed the lagoons and creeks and rivers.”
    Dinah didn’t think the man who speared the turtle on Melville Island was looking for water. The poor creature was probably just an unlucky bystander. She halfway wished Jacko were here to “noodle” a few more theories with her. Unless the police solved the crime soon, she might never find out what happened.
    “Mack, thank you so much for sharing all this with me. I truly hope you’re able to locate your mother.”
    “It’s rather a forlorn hope. The adoption records were destroyed and I don’t even know which clan she belonged to.”
    “Your adoptive parents don’t know anything at all?”
    “Only that my father was an American serviceman. The records at the time contained a note that my birth mother had contacted the American Embassy to ask them to intervene because I was half-American.”
    Dinah judged Mack to be somewhere in his mid-to-late thirties, which would place this putative American serviceman in the Vietnam age bracket.
    A wild thought sprang into her mind. Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jericho and Jerusalem. Could this be the answer to
why here
? Was former Marine Lieutenant Cleon Dobbs’s decision to change his will and do himself in at Ian Mackenzie’s middle-of-nowhere hostelry a coincidence, or was he going to announce over dinner that he’d fathered an Aborigine son out of wedlock?
    “You looked perplexed,” Mack said.
    “What? No, no. It’s just hard to believe how heartless a…a government can be.”
    He said something, but she didn’t hear. She was gnawing on Cleon’s remark about unfinished business in this neck of the woods. She was mulling the implications of the verb
discombobulate
.

Chapter Ten
    “Dear Dinah. We’re so happy you could be here.” Neesha simpered and held out her arms.
    Dinah squeezed out an answering smile, steadied herself, and forged into the dining room. “You look well, Neesha. The strain doesn’t show.”
    “You’re sweet to say so. We’re all under a dark cloud, of course.”
    Dinah frowned. Was it possible she knew about Mack’s origins and was making a bad double entendre?
    “What a darling little dress you’re wearing. I told K.D. that you’d wear something simple as pie and make it look chic. I know you think we’re puttin’ on the dog, but the finery is for Cleon. I want his last hours to be filled with beauty, even in this depressing place.”
    “He doesn’t seem depressed,” said Dinah.
    “Oh, he is. We all are. We’re just trying to make it easy on one another. It’s what Cleon wants.”
    Cleon had already ensconced himself at the head of the long, rectangular dining table. “I trust you ladies won’t take umbrage if an old invalid don’t rise for y’all.”
    “Of course not,” said Neesha. “Here’s my place card. Don’t you want me next to you, Cleon?”
    “Not tonight, darlin’. I told Tanya to shuffle us up, give a couple of the others a chance to partake of my companionship.”
    Wendell held out Neesha’s chair for her, one seat removed from Cleon.
    “Thank you, kind sir.” Neesha patted the chair to her left. “And dear Dinah’s gonna be right here next to me.”
    Wendell held out the chair for Dinah. She exchanged a look with Cleon and sat down with a nebulous sense of dread. There was enough tension without the introduction of a brand new Dobbs.
    Eduardo flitted around the table humming tunelessly, reading the place cards. “Here you are, Lucien, in the hot seat again.” He moved a chair out of the way and parked Lucien’s wheelchair between Cleon and Neesha. “Voilà.”
    Cleon said, “But for your fine manners elevatin’ the tone, I don’t reckon we could call ourselves civilized, Eduardo.”
    Eduardo sashayed around the table and found his place card in the middle of the table directly opposite Dinah. He leaned across the table and mouthed, “See what I mean?”
    Wendell seated