Bone Thief (8 page)

The fibulas and tibias of the brunette's legs just fit the kiln. It was designed to fire clay pottery, but was quite adequate for drying human bones. It was important that all of Colm's relics be dehydrated and preserved. Without moisture they'd survive the insult of time, like those Inca kings who emerged intact after centuries buried in the dry sands of Peru. Colm stood by, motionless, embraced by the searing heat that permeated the small room, while the kiln performed its magic.

The ring of the oven's timer shattered his reverie. He opened the kiln door and stared at his trophies, appreciating their purity. The bones were whiter than white, chalky. He longed to hold them, but he'd have to wait until they sufficiently cooled. Only then could the fondling commence.

A buzzer sounded, profaning the solemnity of the ritual. Colm shivered like a night creature in his burrow, narrowing his eyes to tiny cracks, straining to detect the slightest stirring from the outside world.

The buzzer sounded again. The resonance was unmistakable. He had a visitor at the gate. He turned on the security monitor. The image of a young girl filled the screen. She was no more than four feet tall. Her blue blazer and plaid, pleated skirt draped a thin frame. She had a curious smile, and she was alone.

“Shouldn't you be in school?” he asked, his voice crackling through the outdoor speaker of his palatial estate.

“Would you like to buy some shortbread cookies?”

“Cookies. Now there's a thought.”

Colm buzzed her in. The gate unlocked. He had plenty of time before she reached the door. Swiftly, he turned off the heat and headed for the vestibule. The doorbell sounded. He opened the door and invited her in.

“And you are from Saint Agnes Elementary,” he said, eyeing the insignia on her blazer.

“Sister Mary Sean is collecting for our missions in San Salvador.”

“Our missions?”

“Yessir, because of the war there are many orphans.”

The girl, perhaps twelve, looked more fragile in person than she did through the security monitor. Her glassy eyes revealed signs of malnutrition. Poverty was etched all over her skin.

“I do have a sweet tooth,” he said.

“The cookies have been blessed by Monsignor Carlucci.”

“Delighted.”

“Smells like something's burning,” she whispered, sniffing the air.

“You've got me there. I'm an awful cook.”

Colm disappeared, leaving her in the vast, well-appointed living room. When he returned, she was nowhere in sight.

It was going to be a room-to-room search, was it? All twenty-two of them, throughout the mansion? The thought intrigued him. He had never hunted a Catholic schoolgirl before.

“What took you so long?” she grinned, emerging from behind an Oriental screen, her snooping interrupted.

“I thought, for a minute, you wanted to play hide-and-seek,” he replied.

“No time for that. I'm here on a mission,” she said. “And that is to help the missions. Gee, I made a joke.” She giggled. “Anyways, it's really, really important to help our missions, so can I count on you to buy some cookies? Please?”

The vision of her skeleton, her bones, like twigs of malnourished brush, exhilarated him. But her ashen skin told of unnamed deficiencies and genetic defects. She'd make a pale trophy in a room full of glorious relics.

“Would you like to taste one of the cookies?” she asked, opening the near-empty box with spindly fingers.

Colm envisioned the bones below those fingers, like white pebbles chiseled and polished by the tide. The urge to suck them was compelling. His craving became intense.

“I'd like that,” he murmured.

She approached, offering a chocolate-covered shortbread like a priest dispensing the Eucharist. The proximity of her fingers was maddening. “Come on, take a little bite.”

He quickly took hold of her hand, his lips avoiding the shortbread and nibbling her pinkie instead. His head lolled in bliss. To mask his perversion, he gulped the cookie whole.

“Those are three dollars and fifty cents,” she stammered, tears welling in the corners of her eyes. She withdrew her hand and gawked fearfully at the tip of her pinkie finger. “Maybe I should go now.”

“Feed me another.”

“I'd hafta open a new box.”

“Please do. I'll pay for it.”

With trembling hands, she unwrapped the box's cellophane and exposed row after row of glazed cookies. Reluctantly, she brought a second one to his lips.

This time, desire emboldened him. He slid his tongue into the hollow of her hand. She didn't budge, frozen now in fear.

“You could win a statue of the Blessed Virgin,” she whimpered. “If you buy two boxes, your name goes into the raffle. Please let me go home.”

As the clock struck, sounding the hour, the buzzer at the front gate interrupted his rapture. Colm had another visitor. He gave the girl a puzzled look.

“Goody, goody,” said the girl. “That must be Mommy.”

All things considered, it wasn't a bad day. Goulee had gleaned enough copper and brass pipes for two quarts of Thunderbird. It pissed him off, though, that he had to split the loot with the sanitation foreman. After all, he was the one crawling around in all the filth.

“C'mon down, Goulee, today's my lucky day, and you gotta leave,” hollered the foreman from the bottom of the trash heap.

“What're ya talking about, Henshaw, it can't be three-thirty yet,” Goulee yelled back, tugging on what looked like the narrow end of a fishing pole.

“Never mind watchin' the clock, ya prick. Get down here. Now!”

Goulee gave one last yank on the fiberglass rod and threw up both hands in frustration. “Give me a minute.” He took out a spray paint canister and marked a circle where the fishing pole was embedded so he could resume his search on his next visit. That is, if the trucks didn't offload more trash on top of his find. The dump was huge. The odds were in his favor.

“C'mon, numnuts. Put a move on!” Henshaw's lucky day meant his waitressing girlfriend was getting off early, and he could steal away to her house for some horizontal mambo before her husband came home.

“I'm comin'. I'm comin'. Keep your fucking pants on!” Goulee hollered as he stepped grumpily over the mounds of refuge.

That he was endowed with only five toes, all of them attached to his left foot, made his stepping precarious. What he sought was solid footing. He balanced himself on a thin fragment of discarded plasterboard. It didn't hold his weight, and his body cartwheeled. An avalanche of garbage cascaded down, smothering Henshaw. Goulee was lucky, though. He had landed on something soft and gelatinous that had spilled out of a plastic trash bag.

The stench from Goulee's find gagged both the Medical Examiner and Driscoll.

“Jesus H. Christ!” Driscoll exclaimed.

The abomination stared at them under the flash of the camera manned by Jasper Eliot, the coroner's assistant. Illuminated was boneless membrane and tissue, along with blood-drenched cartilage that was full of maggots.

“This one looks like it's been in a blender. It's hard to tell if it's human,” said Pearsol.

“What's that mound?” Driscoll asked, gesturing toward a protrusion in the middle of the bloody mush.

“An air bubble. Fermentation does that.”

Driscoll took a pair of surgical tongs and reached for the blood-soaked bulge. Steel teeth clenched a spongy mass.

“Mother of God! It's a fetus!” Driscoll cried out. “And what's that thing in its middle?”

With surgical pliers, the medical examiner freed a plastic card.

Driscoll wiped it clean and read its inscription:

 

COURTESY OF SAKS FIFTH AVENUE
TO OUR PREFERRED CUSTOMER, AMELIA STOCKARD,
ACCOUNT NUMBER
2476-3876-1204

 

A flurry of flashes radiated as Jasper Eliot followed the find with his high-speed camera.

“Amelia Stockard? That name sounds familiar,” said Larry Pearsol.

“It should,” said Driscoll. “She's the Magnolia tea heiress. Worth more than fifty million dollars.”

“She was pregnant. There's a man involved. Could be your elusive assailant.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. We'll need to track him down to find out. But one thing's for certain.”

“What's that?”

“Move over,
New York Post
and
Daily News
. This particular murder will make international headlines.”

“That's sure to put the heat on.”

“In a hell of a hurry.”

Driscoll pulled out his cellular and punched in a number. Cedric Thomlinson answered the call and spoke quickly. “Lieutenant, the scene down here is like a madhouse. Newspaper reporters and TV crews are camped outside the building. Santangelo's been on the horn four times. He wants to know what progress we've made in the case.”

“Well, he's not gonna like the latest development. Amelia Stockard is our latest victim.”

“Holy shit! That was the Magnolia tea heiress they found at the dump?”

“That's right. Now listen carefully. I want you to get hold of Butler and Vittaggio. Fill them in on the latest development, then send them to Saks Fifth Avenue. Have them get the rundown on Miss Stockard's charge card, number 2476-3876-1204. They're to see the security manager and keep it on the QT. I want a list of purchases for the last year, and I want to know if anyone else was authorized to use the card. They're to get me her current address as well.”

“I'll get on it right away.”

Detective First Grade Liz Butler was part of the Task Force. She was a top-notch police officer, with a keen investigative mind and tenaciousness. Her partner, Luigi Vittaggio, stood on equal ground. Driscoll knew they would both do a thorough job. Now if only he could keep the press and the newscasters at bay. But this was New York City, the capital of the world, and as far as news was concerned, the death of the tea heiress would rival the sojourns of Patty Hearst.

Driscoll turned his attention back to Larry Pearsol. “Can you take a DNA sample from the fetus and run it against the known sex offenders list?” It was a long shot, but Driscoll wanted to cover all possibilities.

“Sure, but it may take a couple of days.”

“Larry, I may not have a couple of days.”

Colm had been at it since 6:00
A.M
. when his shift had begun, and it had proved to be another grueling day. The workday's end seemed out of reach, and he was in the grip of despondency, finding no immediate escape or relief. His vocation offered some insulation from his demons, but everyone else he was forced to work with annoyed him, and his mood was growing increasingly bleaker. He glanced at his watch. It would be another forty-five minutes before he could put the day behind him and meet his date. Time seemed endless.

He leaned back in his swivel chair and closed his eyes. For some reason, the memory of his first visit to a hospital floated to consciousness.

It was to the Williston Medical Center in South Burlington, Vermont. He remembered the shushing sound his gurney made as it zigzagged through the hospital's bleach-scented corridors on its way to a cloistered ward on the third floor. His wrists and ankles were restrained, held fast to the metal transport by leather straps. In a dreamlike state, brought on by a potent dose of diazepam, he had difficulty remembering the events that had led up to his arrival at the hospital. And where were his parents? Why weren't they at his side? He sensed something ominous had happened to them. And what was that smell? It wasn't coming from the winding corridors of the hospital. No. It was coming from his own tattered clothing. In his drug-induced stupor he had difficulty affixing a name to the scent, until it suddenly dawned on him: it was the smell of smoke. Had he been in a fire? He looked up at the orderly that was guiding his gurney. He tried to speak but had difficulty forming words. It was as though someone had put a stranglehold on his vocal cords. Drool was all that escaped his mouth. He tried to communicate through tear-soaked eyes, but all the orderly saw was Colm's glassy-eyed doelike gaze.

Into the elevator they went, where the orderly exchanged pleasantries with a talkative nurse. Colm felt ignored. Peeved at the dismissive orderly, he fought the urge to swipe at the man, despite his restraints. Then, with a jolt, the elevator came to a stop. His gurney was on the move again. More winding corridors. He heard the definitive sound of a woman's voice crackling over a loudspeaker. She was directing doctors and nurses to different departments within the hospital.

“Ride's over,” said the orderly as he slid the gurney to a stop in front of an eight-foot high steel door. The door had a plastic sign affixed to it:
PEDIATRIC PSYCHIATRIC WARD
. After pressing an admittance bell, the orderly stared through a wire-meshed pane of glass in the door's center. His call was answered by a willowy-looking man dressed completely in white. Colm figured the man to be a doctor.

Wordlessly, the orderly relinquished his responsibility, and Colm was placed in the care of this pristine-looking man. Again, the gurney was in motion, this time inside the confines of the dreary ward. The bossy directives that had filtered through the hospital's loudspeaker were replaced with the guttural sounds of people in emotional distress. This cacophonic chorus of human wreckage came from every direction. Terror-stricken, Colm looked to this newly assigned caretaker with pleading eyes.

“You're going to be all right,” his new watchman said as he lowered the height of the gurney and unfastened Colm's restraints. He then led Colm into a small room with a bed and a simple wooden chair beside it. Colm sat in the chair and began to cry.

 

The shuffling of feet in the corridor outside of Colm's office brought him back to the present. It was precisely 3:00
P.M
. Quitting time. Driven, he got up from his chair and walked to his closet. In the darkness of that intimate space, several items of clothing were impeccably displayed on wooden hangers. It was a casual look he would need today. He selected a Polo shirt and Levi's slim-fit jeans, then slipped into a pair of Sperry Topsiders. Thus armored, he was ready for his next encounter.

He left the building, ambling lightheartedly toward the parking lot where he had parked the van. In just under an hour he would arrive at the Kings Plaza Shopping Mall. The anticipation exhilarated him.

 

Colm strolled the bilevel plaza, stalking his own reflection in the store windows, until he reached the Croissant Shoppe. That's when he saw her, demure yet provocative. Time to act like any other shopper in need of a coffee break. After she stopped watching him, reasonably certain he was not her date, he circled the girl and sat nearby, in a corner of the restaurant where he could study her. Her garish attempt at makeup disturbed him. Despite the cones of nipples that indented her cotton halter, she looked boyish, with masculine legs. From his vantage point, he could see the reflection of her nubile form multiplied in the mirrored walls of the eatery. The expansion made him dizzy.

Her impatience was growing thinner by the minute. He knew she believed her date was a no-show.

She walked briskly to the counter and ordered a cappuccino that she sipped angrily, scalding her tongue. She squatted on a bench, slid a Virginia Slims between her lips, and was about to light it when she spotted the
NO SMOKING
sign. She bit her nails and stared at her watch. She confirmed its reading with the large industrial clock dangling above the cashier and, exasperated, stormed out of the shop, coffee cup in hand. Her hasty dash caused her to spill some of the cappuccino on her denim skirt. Aggravated, she threw the cup in the trash and made her way down the windowed corridor.

Colm was in heaven. He had watched her every move and felt her every emotion. He decided to follow her.

She turned into Aubrey's Bookstore. Her attention span was infinitesimal. She moved from hardcover to paperback, opening and closing jackets, leafing through pages, then replacing each book on its shelf, only to start all over again.

A girl called out her name. “Clarissa!”

A smile formed on the face of his intended.

Who was this other girl? A friend? A classmate? A lover, perhaps? She certainly was not part of the plan.

Together, Clarissa and the newcomer walked out of the bookstore, their laughter ringing under the glass cupola of the mall. They continued down the corridor, turning hurriedly into Sweet Delights, a confectionery store. Colm followed.

The variety of candies, their shapes and colors, the fragrance of licorice, vanilla, fruits, and sugars inebriated him.
Sweets for the sweet
, he thought. He filled two gilded gift boxes with sugar-glazed fruit drops and approached the cashier. “Please present these gifts to my two friends over there…after I've left the store. And make no mention of me.”

“No sweat. How 'bout I tie a ribbon on top? Just two bucks more?”

“You read my mind. How much do I owe you?”

“That'll be…fifteen-forty-nine. But no credit cards under thirty dollars.”

He handed the teenager a twenty and vanished from the shop, hiding behind a polymer ficus that stood beside the store's entrance. How he reveled at their astonishment, their nubile giggles, their pixilation. Like children presented with new gifts, they quickly ripped open the boxes and marveled at their candies. Clarissa, the more vivacious of the two, picked out a blood-red confection and popped it in her mouth. Her eyes beamed with delight. Her friend did the same and grinned. The pair strolled out of Sweet Delights, visibly giddy. Obviously, Clarissa had gotten over her no-show date.

When they reached the bank of elevators, they hugged and kissed and promised to call each other later that evening. Clarissa was now alone, and Colm could get back to his stalking.

Upon its arrival, he entered the elevator with her. They were finally together, inside the glass cage. Just the two of them. He took a good look at her. She was made of the finest stuff. Ebony eyes, alabaster skin, porcelain nose, silky hair. The thought of her bones made his skin tingle. “Isn't an elevator a wonderful thing?” he said.

Surprised, Clarissa smiled. “You don't get out much, do you?”

He began to whistle a familiar melody.

“That's from
The Wizard of Oz!”
she said, grinning.

“Correct. You just won a trip for two to Hawaii! You and your guest will be staying at the lush Waikiki Grand Hotel, overlooking beautiful Diamond Beach.”

Clarissa gave him a look.

The elevator reached the exit-floor landing, and she stepped out.

“Wait,” he pleaded. “The ride's not over.”

“It is for me.”

Colm caught up with her in the parking garage, daringly burrowing his fingers inside her halter, rubbing the ridges of her vertebrae.

She bolted from his touch, running headlong into and under the front wheels of a Ford station wagon packed with kids. “Someone call 911!” the driver's voice rang out.

As shoppers encircled Clarissa's inert body, Colm approached his intended. Pulverized calcium was all he saw.

Two police cruisers arrived, followed by an ambulance. Colm's head ached unbearably, as though shards of glass were lacerating his brain. He turned away from his misfortune and ambled for the shelter of his waiting van.

His hand reached for the glove compartment, scrounging for a bottle of Tylenol. He popped open the cap. The bottle was empty. Colm flung it against the van's windshield.

“Goddamn it,” he cursed as he put the vehicle in gear and headed for the exit ramp.