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Authors: Kathleen O'Neal Gear,W. Michael Gear

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BOOK: Bone Walker: Book III of the Anasazi Mysteries

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“Piper,” he calls. “Bring me … the water jar.”

But Piper’s eyes are on the smokehole and the invisible bubbles. The other little girl who lives inside her hears, but Piper doesn’t really hear.

“Piper … for the sake … of the gods! Look at me!”

Piper jerks and looks.

Grandfather has dead flying squirrel eyes, huge and black. They glow in the starlight falling through the smokehole.

He is talking to her, but the door curtains in Piper’s ears have fallen closed. She stares at Grandfather’s silent moving lips.

Then curls into a tight ball beside the warm embers of the fire and falls asleep.

Voices whisper. From the bottom of her heart. The words rise up through her chest and come out her own mouth like snake hisses:

“Run away, run away, run away.”

CHAPTER 12

Office of the Medical Investigator, Albuquerque, New Mexico

MAUREEN HAD BEEN in similar buildings before, but always as an observer or outside expert called in to offer a professional opinion. This was the first time she’d entered a medical examiner’s office as a victim’s friend. Dusty walked stiffly at her side. She’d warned him that they might want him to identify the corpse, and he seemed to be dreading it more with every step.

The Office of the Medical Investigator of the State of New Mexico, the OMI, filled the eastern side of the ground floor of the Tri-State Labs and was run through the University of New Mexico Medical School. Maureen had worked with this OMI before and knew that they maintained a staff of full-time pathologists, labs, offices, and the facility for processing corpses. That included an autopsy room, cold room, isolation area, and rear garage entrance, where gurneys could be rolled in and out unobtrusively from ambulances.

Maureen stopped at the reception desk. “We’d like to see Sid Malroun, please.”

The slender black-haired woman behind the counter studied Maureen from over her bifocals. “Do you have an appointment?”

“No, but I’m Dr. Maureen Cole, with the Department of Anthropology, McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. And this is Dusty Stewart.”

“Just a moment, please.” She picked up the phone and dialed a number.

Dusty walked away and pretended to study a picture of the San Francisco Peaks that graced the wall to their left. The light of dawn had turned the snowy mountains pink.

She watched him. He didn’t fidget or pace. He stood absolutely still. Every moment seemed to drag on eternally, as though time had turned in upon itself. Perhaps he knew, as she did, that if they didn’t keep busy, do what their professional selves demanded, the realization that Dale was truly dead would claim them.

The receptionist said, “Please, have a seat. Dr. Malroun is in the lab. He’ll be with you as soon as he can.”

She indicated the chairs next to the small wooden coffee table and the potted plant. Dusty walked over and sat down.

Maureen said, “Sid Malroun is an old acquaintance. Forensic anthropology is like archaeology, a small world. Everyone knows everyone else.”

She took the chair opposite Dusty.

For a long time, neither of them spoke. Then Dusty looked at her with eyes as hard and glittering as sapphires. “I keep imagining what his last moments must have been like. I can see it happening from inside Dale’s head.”

She’d done the same thing after John’s death. She’d imagined that he must have called out to her, wanted her there, and known at the end that he’d never see her again.

“Do you think he called out to you?” she asked softly.

Dusty stared at his hands. “If he did, it was for help.”

And you weren’t there.

Modern people had trouble with death. Adding a terrible and senseless murder into the mix just made it that much worse. Dusty’s words ate into her. What had Dale’s last moments been like? She couldn’t help but feel his horror and desperation.

Dusty had pulled the card from his jacket pocket. In
silence, he turned it so that he could stare at the drawing of the basilisk.

“I wonder how long that was under the wiper?”

Dusty shook his head. “It wasn’t there this morning. And you can bet that cop didn’t leave it there. No, this is something else.”

“Maybe we just didn’t see it on the drive down from Santa Fe.”

“Doctor, this stuck out like a white potsherd in a scatter of Emery Gray ware.”

“Sylvia?” Maureen asked. “Maybe it’s a joke?”

Dusty shook his head. “You know Sylvia. She’d never do something like this. No, this is a warning. A message for me.”

“But, who knows about
el basilisco?”
Maureen asked. “Maggie?”

“Never. She takes things like this too seriously.”

At that moment, a thin, bespectacled man stepped through the door. He’d gone completely bald since the last time she’d seen him. He wore a white lab coat and a surgical mask hung from straps around his neck. “Maureen?” he asked. “My God, it’s good to see you! What on earth are you doing down here in the sunny south?”

“Hello, Sid.” She stood and hugged him as Dusty stuck the card in his pocket. “How are Marla and the kids?”

“Marla’s great. United just made her a full pilot. She’s somewhere between Denver and Cincinnati as we speak. Will’s a freshman this year, taking music of all things, and Tina is a junior in high school.” He glanced at Dusty.

Maureen said, “This is Dusty Stewart. He’s an archaeologist.”

The men shook hands, Sid apparently oblivious of why they had come.

“Sid? Could we talk to you for a moment?” Maureen asked.

“Sure, come on back. I think there’s a little coffee left in the pot.” He pushed the door open and led them back into a long hallway lined with offices. “We just had a really strange …”

He stopped short, glancing at her, worry reflected in his face for the first time. “This isn’t just a friendly visit, is it?”

“No,” Maureen returned grimly. “Dale Emerson Robertson. That’s why we’re here. He was Dusty’s adopted father. We’d like to know what you’ve found.”

Sid glanced back and forth between them, as though trying to decide, then said, “Come on back,” and led them farther down the lighted hallway to a cramped office filled with bookcases, a desk, and two chairs piled with reports. “Sit down. Have you talked to the FBI?”

“No,” Maureen answered, and sat next to Dusty. “We’ll be talking to them this afternoon. But they brought the body into OMI didn’t they? It’s federal jurisdiction, and you get everything in the region when there is a suspicious death.”

Sid lowered himself to the corner of the desk. “Yeah, he’s here. We just finished the autopsy. Maureen, look, I’m not sure I should be talking to you.”

“Relax, Sid. All we want to know is what you found. In a few days, your report is going to be available to anyone involved in the discovery phase of the trial. We just want to know what happened.”

Sid folded his arms and considered. “All right, it’s just that, well, this is the first time we’ve had one of our own come through the back door. It’s a little spooky.”

“Spooky, how?” Dusty’s shoulders squared, as though preparing himself.

“Robertson was buried upside down in one of the archaeological sites out at Chaco Canyon. Bill Hendersen, my associate, flew up there in a chopper this morning to watch the fibbies record the crime scene.
He said that Dale’s feet were sticking out of the sand. This is the strange part. The bottoms of his feet had been skinned.”

“What?” Dusty looked ashen.

“Skinned, Dr. Stewart. The hide carefully peeled off.” Sid raised an eyebrow, waiting for some explanation. “You’re an archaeologist, right? What does that mean?”

Dusty stared unblinking at Sid, then leaned back in his chair. “It’s Navajo.”

“Navajo?”

“Navajo witchcraft. Skin walkers. What else did you find?”

“Well”—Sid gestured awkwardly–“things I don’t understand. Someone had poked yucca leaves through his knees, through the ligaments and synovial membranes until the points penetrated the joint between the tibia and the femur.”

Dusty gripped the arms of the chair hard, but his voice came out soft. “Was anything buried with him? Any artifacts?”

“Hendersen said they found a twisted yucca rope, well, more like a hoop, I’d guess you’d say. It had been laid around him and then buried in the dirt.”

Dusty swallowed hard. “Dale was
inside
the hoop?” Sid nodded. “Why?”

Dusty shook his head, more in denial than negation. “Witches jump through yucca hoops to change shapes.”

“So,” Sid said, fascinated. “What does that mean? What did the murderer want him to change into?”

“I don’t know. Go on. Tell me the rest.”

“Well, some kind of meat was stuffed in his mouth. It was held in by a little rock sculpture, a carved black stone.” Sid was watching Dusty warily now. “We haven’t run the precipitation tests on the meat yet”

“It’s human,” Dusty said. “Probably boiled and slightly decomposed, because it was dug from a fresh grave.”

Sid shifted uncomfortably. “Boy, I really don’t like the direction this is going.”

Dusty turned to Maureen. “The murderer has crossed all the lines. Navajo, Puebloan, Mexican witchcraft, who knows what else.”

“I don’t get it,” Sid said. “What was Dale into?”

“Dale wasn’t into it,” Maureen said, a sinking sensation in her gut. “His killer was.”

“Dale’s head …” Dusty hesitated. “What did you find?”

“Dear God,” Maureen whispered. “You’re not thinking …”

Sid waited for her to finish. When she didn’t, he told Dusty, “The scalp had been peeled back on the right side over the ear. Someone used a hole saw, the kind carpenters use to cut holes for doorknobs into doors, to saw a hole in Dale’s right parietal. How did you know?”

Dusty closed his eyes as though struggling with himself. “That sick son of a bitch.”

“What?” Sid demanded to know as he straightened from the desk. “Tell me what it means?”

Dusty leaned forward, propped his elbows on his knees, and squinted, as though fighting for control.

Maureen knew why. He’d told her the story just last month. An old medicine man named Ruff-legged Hawk had told Dusty that his ancestors believed a soul could not reach the Land of the Dead unless it began the journey from Pueblo Alto, in Chaco Canyon. But this belief posed a problem, because people often died far away, while out on raids, or hunting. To solve this problem, people carried “soul pots” with them to catch the last breath—the escaping soul—of the dying, which they took back to Pueblo Alto and had priests ritually break to release the soul. Unfortunately, some people didn’t want to wait for the person to die, so they—

“The stone figure in Dale’s mouth,” Dusty pressed,
“it was a snake coiled inside a broken eggshell, wasn’t it?”

Sid could only nod. After a moment, he asked, “Why? Is that some special artifact? What is it?”

Dusty’s gaze bored into Maureen as he softly responded, “It’s called
el basilisco.”

BROWSER PULLED His blanket tight against the chill as he hurried across the flats toward Dusk House. Night had fallen cold and windy, a harbinger of the bitter winter to come. What would the Katsinas’ People do? Most of their corn supply had been burned. They had nowhere to live, and winter was rolling down from the north.

He felt torn as he tramped into the wind, half of him wanted to stay, to help his people. The other half chafed to be off with his uncle in search of Two Hearts and Shadow. How did he do both?

A shiver coursed his bones as Wind Baby slipped icy fingers past his twisted-rabbit-fur blanket. The Cloud People, as though angered, had obscured the night sky, turning the world as black as boiled pine pitch. The only way Browser could tell his destination was by the glow of a fire pot on the southeast corner of Dusk House. There, one of his guards, probably Wrapped Hand, was crouching for warmth.

“Has anyone passed?” Browser called in greeting.

Wrapped Hand leaned out, his form but a blot against the sky. “Not to my knowledge, War Chief, but the only way I will know is if they stumble over their own feet and I hear them.”

“Be wary, my friend.”

“Indeed, War Chief. I have no wish to end up as that Fire Dog, Acorn, did.”

“Good. Trust no one.”

“Your words are tied to my souls, War Chief. Have a safe and restful night.”

Browser passed through the gap that led into Dusk House’s plaza. He ran his fingers along the weathered mud plaster that coated the south wall to keep from losing his way. He rounded the corner and proceeded to the ladder that led up to the rooftop. Once on top, the red glows of warming bowls lit the doorways.

He made his way straight to Matron Cloudblower’s and called out, “Matron?”

“Come, Browser.”

He ducked inside a square room. Red spirals painted the white walls. Overhead, soot-coated poles supported the roof. Cobwebs hung down, indicating that until the arrival of the Katsinas’ People, no one had stayed here.

To Browser’s surprise, three people sat around a fire bowl filled with glowing coals. Matron Cloudblower, Uncle Stone Ghost, and White Cone, the Mogollon elder. White Cone wore a thick brown blanket that looked as if it had been spun from buffalo wool.

“Come, War Chief.” Matron Cloudblower indicated a place for him to sit beside her.

Browser knelt to her left and extended his cold hands to the warmth. “Cold out there. I can smell snow in the air. It’s no night to be out.”

BOOK: Bone Walker: Book III of the Anasazi Mysteries

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