Bones (43 page)

"What do you suppose he was trying to do?"

"To scare me. To let me know that he knows where I live, to tell me that he's around. He succeeded--I am afraid. More afraid."

I considered telling her more, but I wanted to go back to work, and I was convinced she'd never give me the release if I told her everything. If I could go back to work and stay busy, I wouldn't have so much time to dwell on memories of people in little pieces in a meadow or photographs in graves.

"I think most people would be afraid if they found leg bones in a box on their front porch," she was saying. "What are you doing in response?"

"Doing?"

"About your personal safety."

"Oh. That's the other problem. Frank has worked it out so that I'm never alone. If he can't be with me, then someone else is. Our friend Jack is in your waiting room as we speak."

"Does that seem unreasonable under the circumstances?"

"No, but I saw Parrish take out seven men in about three minutes flat, so I'm not comforted, either."

"Is that what bothers you about it?"

I didn't have to think long about that question. "No. It bothers me because it's confining."

I have to admit that she was very slick. She managed to get me to talk about my fear of confined places, and somehow that led to talking about being in a tent, which led to talking about the expedition and what had happened on it.

Jack had a long wait.

After a while, she asked, "Before you left for this journey, you were uneasy being in the mountains. You struggle with claustrophobia, yet you agreed to be part of a group that would be sleeping inside tents for several days. Detective--Thompson, was it?"

"Yes."

"Detective Thompson had been unpleasant to you on a number of other occasions, yet you decided to become a member of the expedition he was leading."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I didn't have any say over who would lead it."

"Why did you agree to go on this journey to the mountains?"

I shrugged. "What can I say? I'm a glutton for punishment."

She waited.

"I went for work," I said testily. "It was a good opportunity for the paper."

She kept waiting.

"My hour was up a long time ago," I said, picking up my purse.

"Why did you go?" she persisted.

"Julia Sayre!" I snapped.

She didn't respond.

I set my purse down. "No, not Julia, really. Her daughter, and her husband and son. For years, they've wondered what happened to her. I was trying to help them resolve their questions about her disappearance."

"A good purpose."

"At a damned high cost."

"Yes, but you didn't set that price, did you?"

"No."

"In fact, it cost you much more than you bargained for."

I shook my head. "Other people paid much more."

"What can you do about that?"

"Nothing."

"Have you talked to any of the families of the men who went up there with you?"

"God, no." I felt myself color. "No. I feel terrible about that, but when I think of facing those people . . ."

"What will happen?"

"I don't know. They might ask--just after I came back, Gillian asked about her mother. I couldn't tell her. I can't--I can't talk about what I saw. Not to the families. Not yet."

She poured a glass of water, gave it to me. She waited for me to calm down a little.

"You talked to Gillian before her mother's body was released to the family?"

"Yes."

"But by now, the families have already been through funerals, right?"

I nodded.

"I doubt they'll have questions of that type, but if they ask," she said, "and you politely tell them that you'd rather not talk about that just now--?"

"They'll still be angry, even if the subject never comes up. They must hate me."

"Because you survived?"

"Yes. And because media attention was probably one of the reasons Parrish killed all of those men. You're looking at the only reporter that went up there."

"Did you go up there to glorify Parrish?"

"No. I suppose any attention from the media could be construed as glorifying him, but that wasn't my plan."

"So you think the families will be angry with you because he tried to use you for a purpose other than your own?"

"Yes."

"Really?"

"People aren't always reasonable. They'll see me as a reporter. Some days, I think it would be easier to tell people that I'm an IRS auditor."

"Do you have any evidence that this particular group of people--the families of the victims--will be unfair to you?"

"No," I admitted.

"Perhaps you should find out how they feel. Visit one or two of them. You have a little carving to give to Duke's grandson?"

"Yes," I said, awash with guilt over not having brought it to Duke's widow.

As I started to leave Jo Robinson's office, I said, "I want to go back to work."

"I think you will be able to do that fairly soon."

"I mean, this week."

"Soon," she said. "Try something entirely new--be patient with yourself."

She held the power to keep me from my job at the Express for as long as she liked. I was more than a little angry about that, and she undoubtedly read that in my face. She continued to calmly regard me.

I wondered if a woman reporter who had thrown a large object through the glass wall of her editor-in-chief's office could get a job an another paper. I wondered if I should go back to my friend and former boss at the PR firm I'd left a few years ago to ask if my old job was still open. I knew he'd hire me, but the thought of being forced to write cheerful, upbeat copy for the rest of my life truly depressed me.

Instead, I did my homework assignment.

Two days later, I completed the last of my visits to the widows and families of the officers who had died in the mountains. I was exhausted. No one had asked about remains. None of them had failed to welcome me; all had thanked me for taking the time to come by. There had been plenty of tears at each stop along the way.

Duke's widow thanked me profusely for the little wooden horse, and would hear no apology for my delay in getting it to her. It was the same with each of them--lots of remembrances, a few regrets, but no recriminations. All anger, all blame was focused on Nicholas Parrish.

The last visit had been to the parents of Flash Burden, the youngest of the men who had died in the mountains. They had gathered their son's belongings from his apartment, and today, from cardboard box after cardboard box, they showed me trophies he had won--mostly for photography, but another boxful from amateur hockey. They proudly took me into a room which served as a gallery for photographs he had taken. These included stunning shots of wildlife, but also glimpses of city life that showed him to be a keen observer with a sense of humor. Frank had told me that he had liked Flash, and had liked working with him, but thought he was wasting his skills on police work. Seeing these photographs, I had to agree, and found myself wishing that Flash had never come along with us to the mountains.

As I was thinking this, his mother said, "These weren't his favorites, of course. He was happiest if one of his photographs helped solve a crime or convict a criminal."

I regretted none of these visits, but emotionally, each was a run through a gantlet flanked by grief and remorse, by terrifying memories and lost chances. Each renewed my anger toward Parrish, but also made me aware of how much I feared him. When I said good-bye to the Burdens and walked back out to the van, I was a little unsteady on my feet, and hoped Jack wouldn't notice.

I found him cleaning out the van's refrigerator.

"The secret life of millionaires," I said.

He took one look at my face and put an arm around my shoulders.

"Sorry to make you wait out here so long," I said, when I could talk. "You must wish you hadn't agreed to do this."

"Tough assignment, huh?"

I wasn't ready to talk about it, so I changed the subject. "What possessed you to start cleaning the refrigerator?"

He wrinkled his nose. "There's some kind of weird smell in the van."

My eyes widened. "You smell it, too?"

"Not very strong, and not all the time, but yeah--something strange. I don't mind it much, but . . . hey, why are you crying?"

So I told him about smelling bones after my visit to the map store. That led to telling him about imagining that I was seeing Parrish. "Christ, I've even made up a car for him to ride around in!"

He handed me a packet of Kleenex. I used every last one of them. When I had calmed down a little, he said, "Have you told Frank?"

I shook my head. "He worries enough as it is. He doesn't need to walk around wondering if the bughouse will take Visa."

"For what it's worth, I don't think you're crazy."

I didn't reply.

"What do bones smell like?" he asked.

"Sort of a subtle, dry, sweet smell. I can only smell it if the bones are what Ben calls 'greasy.' "

"You know about it from the burials up in the mountains?"

"No. Those weren't just skeletons--there was adipocere and other tissue, and a really overpowering smell of decay. But I've visited Ben at his lab at the university on a day when they were working with bones."

"I've been smelling something that's kind of a sweet, waxy smell. Do bones smell like that?"

"Could be described that way, I guess."

"So let's search the van."

I hesitated, looking back at the Burdens' house. "Let's drive away from here to do it, okay? I don't want to upset them if we do find something."

He climbed into the driver's seat, a big grin on his face. When I took the passenger seat, I asked, "What's so funny?"

"Not funny--just pleased that I've finally convinced you that this could be a product of something other than your imagination, or you wouldn't want to move down the street."

"Don't be so sure," I warned. I looked in the mirror on the visor. The most horrifying thing in that van had to be my face--eyes swollen and nose a la Rudolph. Still looking in the mirror, I opened the glove compartment and reached for my sunglasses.

My hand went into a pile of small objects before the smell hit me.

I screamed.

Jack slammed on the brakes.

Little bones spilled out of the glove compartment, onto my skirt, my feet, everywhere.

** CHAPTER 44

WEDNESDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 13

Las Piernas

"The glove compartment," I said. "I should have known."

I was at home, sitting on the couch, being held by my husband. He was stroking my hair. Maybe I wouldn't go back to work, I thought. Maybe I'd just stay home and sleep and wait for Frank to come home and stroke my hair. I sighed. Not likely.

I had opened the van door and leapt out into the street, a shower of small, straight bones falling all around me. After he managed to calm my hysterics a bit, Jack had used his cellular phone to call Frank.

The van was impounded to collect the fingerprints Nick Parrish blatantly left in it, and also to collect the remaining small bones of Jane Doe's toes and fingers.

Ben showed up at the police department, with Jo Robinson in tow. I don't know who had called him, but he had called Jo. My resentment didn't last long.

I ended up talking to her about vanishing Parrishes, and I learned that people who had been attacked often had this experience of "seeing" their attacker, especially in times of stress or in public places.