Bones (35 page)

"So you're going to take up SAR and cadaver dog work?"

He glanced down at his left leg, then with a determined look, said, "Yes. If Bingle decides he doesn't want to work with me, fine. But David put a lot of time into training him, and the least I can do for David and Bingle is to give it a try. And no one can better teach me how to work with Bingle than David."

At first, watching the tapes upset Ben, as they did me. This was David at his best, his happiest, and the tapes served as a reminder of who it was we had lost. Seeing Bingle work with him, it was clear that they communicated superbly, that he made the best of the dog's intelligence and abilities.

Since David's death, I thought, Bingle must have believed himself to be in the company of dullards.

At one point, Ben paused the tape. I heard him choke back a sob.

"Do you want to wait and watch these when you're feeling better?" I asked.

He shook his head. "There's no feeling better about David's death; only getting used to it."

He hit the play button again. He was watching a tape made in the summer. At the end of it, there was some footage of a hilarious swimming party that had included the dogs. I was laughing with Ben at Bingle's antics in the pool when I saw something that made me draw in a sharp breath.

Ben heard it and paused the tape again. "What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry--I didn't know."

He looked at the screen, and saw what had startled me. "His back, you mean? The scars?"

"Yes."

"The worst were from a radiator."

"An accident?" I asked hopefully, knowing it wasn't so.

"No. David was abused."

I couldn't speak.

"He must have been very comfortable with the people in this group," Ben went on. "He didn't usually take his shirt off around others, and unless he came across someone else who was abused, he certainly didn't speak of his childhood." He paused. "Please don't mention this to anyone else."

I promised I wouldn't. "I begin to understand why he didn't think Parrish's childhood excused him."

"Yes," Ben said. "We used to argue about that. David was an obvious example of the fact that not all abused children go on to become twisted souls, that many overcome the horrors of their childhood. But I used to tell him that not everyone was made up of the same stuff he was, not everyone was as strong. Not everyone could overcome what he did."

I thought of Nicholas Parrish. "Perhaps there are a few who don't want to overcome it."

"Maybe."

He hit the play button again, and went back to watching David.

** CHAPTER 35

TUESDAY, EARLY AFTERNOON, MAY 30

Las Piernas

The Moth stood still, watching, listening.

The door at the back of the garage was well concealed. There was a high fence, and a row of trees to shade the dog runs. The dog runs were empty, but clean.

A neighbor's dog was barking, but no one seemed to pay any attention to it. On a weekday, at this time of day, most of the residents were at work, and their children in school.

There was an old woman across the street who might have chanced to look out her window at the dead man's home, but if she had, she would be hard put to describe the person she had seen going into the backyard. A repairman, she probably would have guessed, judging by the large toolbox (mostly empty), the dark coveralls and boots, the leather work gloves, the billed cap pulled low over the Moth's face. She might have noticed a limp.

The Moth stooped to open the toolbox, then paused for a moment to handle a set of trophies there--drain plugs.

Not everyone would have thought of these fuel-coated bits of metal as treasures, and Nicky would probably be angry to know the Moth kept them. But Nicky wasn't here, was he?

In their intended place, these little darlings belonged beneath helicopters. By taking them, the Moth had ensured that the Forest Service Helitack units nearest to the meadow stayed on the ground.

The newspaper had even included a separate article about the cleverness of the ploy--an article the Moth had read every morning, almost as if it were a morning prayer--it was not a prayer, of course, but a wonderful tribute, even if Nicky had been given the credit.

Nicky had taught the Moth this method of disabling a helicopter, after all, and other methods as well. Still, the Moth had made choices. The Moth had succeeded.

The Moth was proud of this accomplishment not only because it had worked perfectly, but also because it was really a very considerate sort of sabotage, which gave it a subtlety the Moth liked. The removal of a drain plug could keep a helicopter on the ground without destroying it.

The renewed barking of the neighbor's dog reminded the Moth of the business at hand. The drain plugs were returned to the toolbox. The Moth removed a pry bar and, within seconds, entered the garage.

The Moth propped the toolbox against the door from the inside, to hold it closed, then flipped the light switch and listened to the soft "chink-chink-chink" and then hum of the chain of fluorescent lights overhead.

The garage was clean and orderly. A group of cardboard boxes was stacked along one wall, labeled with the names of rooms--KITCHEN, BEDROOM, BATHROOM, GARAGE and--the largest number of boxes, STUDY. Curious, the Moth inspected them more closely. The top of each box had a small address label on it, of the type that is sometimes mailed with a request for a donation. These had American flags on them. There were two names on the labels: Ben Sheridan and Camille Graham. The address wasn't this one.

Ben Sheridan. The Moth knew that Nicky was angry about Ben Sheridan. He thought he had killed Ben Sheridan, but he had only wounded him.

Only wounded for now, thought the Moth. Sooner or later he would have to leave that hospital. And poor Nicky, who couldn't go to a hospital! The Moth had wanted to comfort him, but wisely refrained. Nicky had been too angry to accept any coddling. Actually, the Moth thought, you really couldn't coddle Nicky. He didn't need anyone. Not even his Moth.

Frowning, the Moth picked at the address label on one of the boxes marked STUDY. It came off easily. The Moth carefully pocketed it. Using a utility knife to cut the tape which sealed it, the Moth opened the box and studied its contents. Books. Not even the books the Moth had hoped for--ones about forensic anthropology, which might have photos of dead bodies in them--but stupid, stupid books, by Jane Austen and James Baldwin and Charles Dickens and Graham Greene and Flannery O'Connor. Poetry by Auden, Dickinson, Eliot, Housman, Hughes, Neruda, Poe.

Tired old books that any kid in high school might be made to read! Why, any public library had these books in it--why buy them? And what did any of them really have to say about life in these times? Nothing! Had the writers ever met the likes of Nicky and the Moth? No, never!

Disgusted, the Moth folded the box closed and proceeded into the house.

The door between the house and the garage was not locked. The Moth stepped into the kitchen, then stood motionless.

Someone had already been here. The Moth could tell that the house had been opened, aired out. The Moth drew in a deep breath, tried to allow the scent of the house to tell the story, as Nicky might have done.

There was still the smell of dogs. If you allowed dogs to live indoors, even house-trained dogs, there would be their doggy scent. Trying not to allow that to interfere, the Moth continued through the house. In the kitchen there was the scent of cleaning products--chlorine and something with lemon in it. The Moth opened the refrigerator. The shelves were pristine; there was no milk or meat or any other thing that might rot. There were only a few jars and an open yellow box of baking soda.

The trash had been taken out; there was a new white plastic bag in the kitchen trash can--the only object in it was a crumpled paper towel, smelling of window cleaner.

As the Moth walked slowly through the house, it became clear that someone had been here in the time since the owner died. Who? Did the dead man have a maid? No--no, he only taught at the college. He had no money to hire someone to clean his house.

The Moth knew this, and all sorts of other things about the dead man, things most people didn't know. The dead man's mother had died when he was two; his alcoholic father had abused him terribly throughout his childhood--if there had been larger pieces of him left behind in the Meadow, investigators might have seen the scars.

The dead man's father had always marked him in places that could be covered by his clothes. These facts might have shocked another person, but they had quite a different effect on the Moth. The Moth knew all about hidden scars.

Like many abused children, David Niles was a good student, a child who tried to please. His father died when he was a teenager. He had been sent to live with his mother's sister, an old maid who raised dogs in New Mexico. He loved dogs. He loved his aunt. She put him through college, where he met Ben Sheridan, who was a year or two ahead of him.

The Moth knew that it was Ben Sheridan's enthusiasm for physical anthropology that led David Niles to change his major. Niles's graduate studies were interrupted when he took care of his aunt before her death. She had already found homes for her dogs when she became too ill to care for them. No one would take care of her except her nephew. After her death, he went back and finished his doctorate, then--with Ben Sheridan's help--obtained a part-time teaching position at Las Piernas College. Just before he died, he had been promoted to a full-time position.

The Moth also knew that David Niles--no, the Moth decided, call him the dead man--had inherited a little money from his aunt, and had used that to buy this house, build the dog runs, and cover the expenses of buying, training, outfitting, feeding, and otherwise caring for two large search dogs.

The Moth knew a great deal about every member of the group that went up to the mountains with Nicky, but knew more about this dead man than the others. This one had been the Moth's special project, which was how it came about that this search of the dead man's home was necessary.

In the living room, the Moth detected an odor of lemon furniture polish and, in the carpet, the scent of the dogs.

Not nearly as well as Nicky would have done. Nicky could distinguish scent better than any human alive. The Moth firmly believed this to be true.

Nicky would have been angry to know that the Moth had overlooked one small, small detail. But the Moth was about to take care of it, and Nicky need never know.

The Moth thought about the drain plugs in the toolbox and wondered why keeping secrets from Nicky was so exciting.

Before long, though, the Moth was feeling not excitement, but panic. What the Moth sought should have been in the living room, but it wasn't. And suddenly, what seemed like a very small detail loomed very large.

Why, of all things, should this be missing?

Did the police know? Had they already made the connection?

There was a knock at the door. The Moth froze, then moved as quietly as possible to one of the bedrooms, and hid in the closet. Would the Moth have to kill the person at the door? Nicky would be furious--the Moth wasn't here at Nicky's bidding. Nicky would have planned for this, would have foreseen this! What if the person at the door went around to the garage and found the toolbox?

Long moments passed, in which the Moth thought of the toolbox and the drain plugs, and felt sick, absolutely sick.

The doorbell rang.

The Moth curled up into a little ball.

There was a long silence, then the Moth found the courage to stand up and leave the closet.

The Moth made a quick search of the two bedrooms and of the bathroom, as silly a place as it would be to hide what the Moth wanted.

The neighbor's dog began barking again. Losing any remaining courage, the Moth left the house, picked up the toolbox in the garage, and hurried away from the dead man's house.

Driving away, the Moth didn't take time to look at the old woman's house, to see if she was spying at her window. The Moth's thoughts were consumed by a single idea, a notion that was becoming something of a Moth mantra:

Don't tell Nicky!

Don't tell Nicky!

Don't tell Nicky!

** CHAPTER 36

WEDNESDAY MORNING, MAY 31

Las Piernas