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Rory really knows how to ask all the right questions. Knows how to remain calm under pressure.
“They paid me half up front and then half after.”
“Why not just take the half up front?”
Harvey’s lips twitch. “They threatened me.”
My heart stumbles in my chest. I might not be happy with Harvey right now, but he’s not a bad guy. He doesn’t deserve to be threatened like that.
“Said they’d get the bones stolen and then pin it on me even if I didn’t do it. I don’t know how or—” Harvey takes off his ball cap and rings it in his hands. “It was a rock and a hard place, Sheriff. You understand, right?”
Rory doesn’t deign to agree. “So you stole the bones and then…”
“I was told the location to put them. And the grave was already dug, the other bones were already there. I hadnothingto do with the human remains, I?—”
“Oh, Harvey,” I say softly.
“Look, I’m not proud, Constance. I’m not, but you know money can be tight and?—”
“So you used the money to buy a new Mustang?” Rory prods, leaning on the hood of my car, boxing Harvey in. “Hardly sounds like the way you should be spending money if it’s tight.”
“I’ve been saving for that car for years.Years.” Harvey looks at me apologetically. “This was just the money that put me over the top to get it.”
I get Rory’s perspective, but I get Harvey’s too. Just because pennies need to be pinched sometimes doesn’t mean we don’t want things, doesn’t mean we don’t deserve to get them. Harvey just went by it in a dishonest way.
“So you snuck into the museum…” I prompt.
Harvey nods. “Used my key, got in and out early morning.”
“Then you went to the Wilhelm house, placed the bones, and then what?” Rory asks.
Harvey gulps. “I was instructed wait a few hours for my usual job, then to place them, cover the hole enough that it would look like I stumbled upon it like an accident, and then… call for help.”
I can’t help myself. I have so many questions, so many directions I’d like to go to learn more as fast as possible. “Do you have the notes, Harvey? Were they handwritten?”
He flushes. “I burned ‘em. Got rid of the paper trail.”
Rory pushes himself up off the car. “Great.” He takes a few steps away to gain his composure, running his hands through his dark hair, leaving me and Harvey alone.
“I’m sorry, Constance. I’m really sorry.”
I shake my head. “It’s okay.”
It isn’t really. I haven’t been able to inspect the bones for damage, don’t know if their integrity has been compromised. And Harvey’s betrayed my trust, the loyalty I thought all of us here in Horace had for one another, in spite of our differences.
Making him feel worse isn’t the answer, though. Even I have a heart sometimes.
“I just have one question,” I say. “Why?”
Harvey’s lips twist to the side. “Why’d they want me to do it?”
“Yes, did they tell you?”
Strangely, he chuckles to himself. “You’ll like this, Constance.”
I quirk an eyebrow.
“They said they were doing it to preserve our history.”
