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“Okay. When I arrived that day, I made my way directly to the workshop and … there was something inside, but there were no people yet.”
“Jesus, Minnie, spit it out.”
“Someone had brought in something. It was a bird, but only in the front. A fish in the back, and it had … feet. I didn’t know what animal they came from.”
For the first time in days, it felt like some information suddenly became organized. Now I thought I understood why Calloway and Graham had brought up rogue taxidermy to me, and why Calloway had asked Graham for help. “Minnie, rogue taxidermy became a thing back then. It’s art.”
Minnie nodded. “I know what rogue taxidermy is, Hazel. It’s really quite interesting. But while that might be what someone was using as an excuse to create a horror, that’s not what this was. This wasn’t made from the skin of the animals, it was made by parts of the bloody corpses.”
“Oh my God,” I said. “My father probably lost his mind.”
“I ran out of there so fast, I don’t know the details. I never looked back. A few days later, your father tried to talk to me, but I was a kid, and he knew better than to try to force any conversations with me.”
“Minnie, who did that? My father never would have …”
I was listening to her words, but somewhere in the back of my mind, something else was spinning. Did her podcast somehow accuse my father of … whatever this was? Why hadn’t I listened?
“I never found out. The other kids came to me later, telling me the classes were over, that it got even worse, but no one would tell me more. We made a pact, a vow of silence, but the others know even more than I did. None of them have told me anything else.”
“You’re not a kid anymore either. That shit doesn’t matter, and it appears people are being killed, their bones posed like desert creatures. If Calloway heard this on your podcast, it’s no wonder Wilmot’s name is coming to mind.” I sighed. “I’m going to need the other names, Minnie. Calloway is going to need them.”
She shook her head. “Well, I didn’t know about the sculptures until very recently.” She paused. “We made vows.”
“Do you understand what’s going on here?”
“Yes, and I hear you, but I do think that looking at your long-gone father is a stretch or an easy look or something. Posed skeletons aren’t taxidermy.”
Before she’d given me this new information, I would have said, “Exactly!” But things were different now, and, frankly, I was surprised she didn’t see it.
I didn’t want to tell her about the finger bones, that, no pun intended, seemed to point at Wilmot’s potential involvement. I didn’t know what the sheriff wanted to keep under wraps—maybe I wasn’t even supposed to talk about the sculptures, but I would have been surprised if the news hadn’t hit social media somewhere. I could only hope that I was allowed to share the details.
“Minnie, the first skeleton had a red scarf tied around its neck, representing blood. It made it seem like something … different. If Calloway heard your podcast, I can see why his thoughts went where they went.”
Minnie’s eyes widened as I’d told her about the scarf. She suddenly looked rattled, which was probably something that she rarely was. “Hazel …”
I waited for as long as my impatience at her incomplete sentence would allow, which wasn’t long. “Damn it, Minnie, what?”
“I’ve never told anyone about this part, but on that … thing that I saw, there was a red scarf—well, a scarf, I think it was soaked in blood—around its neck.”
“Oh boy.”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“This is going to sound absolutely ridiculous, but was there, by chance, also a barbeque fork?”
She gasped and tears filled her eyes as her hand covered her mouth, and she nodded. “A tail,” she managed to whisper the words.
She was beginning to freak out, and none of us needed that. “Okay, okay, let’s step back a moment. We’re here and we’re fine, and these are all helpful clues. Okay?”
She pulled her hand away and seemed to listen to reason. “Yes, I agree.”
I leaned forward, my hand on my knees. “We’re going to need those names, Minnie. Right away.”
CHAPTER
14
MINNIE GAVE ME the names.
