Bones (59 page)

"Sorry, yes I am. Started when I woke up thinking of a song by the Boomtown Rats called, 'I Don't Like Mondays.' Do you know it?"

"Yes." He sang a little bit of the chorus.

"Exactly. It triggered a memory. The inspiration for that song was a shooting in San Carlos--that's in the San Diego area. A sixteen-year-old girl named Brenda Spencer decided to point a rifle at a schoolyard and embark on a sniping marathon. This was in 1979, when it wasn't so common for shots to be fired in elementary schoolyards."

"Definitely cynical. I do remember this story, though. She fired from inside her house toward the school for several hours, right?"

"Yes. And during that time, she killed two people and wounded nine others. When they asked her why, she said, 'I don't like Mondays.' "

"Jesus."

"She said, 'I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day.' "

"And this song reminded you of something else?"

"Yes," I said. "I like the song. Lots of people do. But it was written in the year of the shootings--a couple of decades ago, now. So until recently, it had been a long time since I had heard it."

He was about to say something when the officer outside the door stepped in and said, "Ms. Kelly? You ready?"

"As I'll ever be--thanks," I said. "Ben, I'm going to have to ask you to wait in the other room with Frank."

"Frank's here?" he asked, looking around.

"Yes. Don't worry. You'll be able to hear everything we say," I said, and reached behind my back.

"You're wearing a wire?" he asked in disbelief. "I'm not sure I--"

"Please, Ben," I said, "Frank can fill you in on everything."

He folded his arms.

The officer's radio crackled.

"Now or never, Mrs. Harriman," he said.

Ben didn't budge.

"Ben, if you trust me at all, get out of here now."

Reluctantly, he left with the officer.

I flipped a switch, gave my name, the date, time, location and said that Nick Parrish was present.

Parrish made his "Mmmaaah" sound.

I looked outside the glass wall toward the nurses' station. A person who was dressed exactly like a nurse but who wasn't taking care of any patients nodded to me. In another room, the reel-to-reel was turning. In my mind, wheels that had been whirling all day kept right on spinning.

The elevator door opened.

** CHAPTER 61

WEDNESDAY, LATE AFTERNOON,

SEPTEMBER 27

Las Piernas

I wiped my palms.

She approached cautiously, tentatively. She was dressed in a business-style woman's suit, the skirt at the most conservative length I had ever seen her wear. She carried a stylish leather handbag. I couldn't rid myself of the notion that she looked like a child playing at being a grown-up.

There was the slightest sign of surprise on her face when she saw me, but then she came into the room. "Hello, Irene."

"Hello, Gillian."

"I--I'm relieved to see you here, Irene. I'm a little afraid to be in here alone with him."

"Why come at all, then?"

"I had to." She looked back at me. "Did they search your purse when you came in here?"

"Yes," I said. "They've searched everyone."

"Why?"

"Someone might want to harm him. At this point, they're letting God get all the vengeance."

"Not just God--you, too. I heard about what you did."

I tried not to let that unnerve me.

"Maybe you'll think I'm some kind of freak for saying this," she went on, "but I had to see him. I had to see the man who did those things to my mother. Four years, I've waited."

"But you've seen him before," I said.

Her eyes widened a little.

"He was your neighbor, right?"

"Yes," she said, creeping closer to the bed. "But that was a long time ago." She leaned over, and looked into his eyes.

"Mmmaaah," Parrish said. She turned white and shrank back from the bed.

"Here," I said, putting an arm around her shoulders, "have a seat. He's not so scary once you get used to him--although I imagine he looks very different from the last time you saw him."

"Yes."

"About four years ago?" I ventured.

"No--yes. I mean, no, longer than that."

"Strange. Jason thought you saw him when he showed up to stalk your mom."

"What?"

"You know, the night you were baby-sitting, and Parrish's car was outside the house?"

"Jason said that? You can't believe anything that kid says." She shook her head. "It's sad."

I thought it was sad that I hadn't believed every word Jason told me about his sister, but I said, "Oh, wait, now I remember--he said there was a car, but you went outside and couldn't find it."

She shrugged. "Not that I remember."

"You know, I've been meaning to get in touch with you again, anyway," I said, moving between her and the door. "I thought you might help Ben Sheridan with his dog."

"The man who lost his leg, you mean?"

"Come on, now, Gillian, you know more about him than just that fact. You had contacted him about your mother's case."

"Did I? I contacted so many people. I don't remember. You said something about helping him with his dog?" she asked uneasily. "What dog?"

"Oh, you know this dog really well--Bingle. He used to be David Niles's dog."

She didn't say anything.

"I saw some interesting videotape this morning. You went out with the SAR group he worked with, right? I saw you on the tapes, talking to David, learning to work with Bingle."

"Yes," she said, "I thought maybe if I could learn to work with cadaver dogs, I could go out on searches for my mother."

"Your dedication to finding her was so inspiring," I said, and tried a small bluff. "Learning about forensic anthropology, and cadaver dogs, and even talking to Andy Stewart about how botanists can find unmarked graves."

"Like you said, I wanted to find her."

"Mmmaaah," Parrish said again.

"What do you think he's saying?" I asked.

She shook her head mutely, but those blue eyes were wide, frightened.

"They think he'll be able to talk again in a few days," I lied.

"They do?"

"Yes." Bigger bluff. "A neurologist was just in here, saying he's improving by the hour. That's why I'm waiting here. I'll have a question for him when he can talk."

"You will?" Gillian asked.

"Yes. About something he said to me not long before he fell. This has been on my mind all morning, and I can't wait for him to come around so that I can ask him about it."

"What?"

"You remember that article Frank showed you when we visited you at your apartment?"

"Yes."

"That's a great apartment, over a garage. On--what street is it?"

"Loma, near Eighth," she said, staring at Parrish again.

"I think Ben was over that way, earlier today--a search exercise with Bingle. Anyway, about that underwear story--"

"It was so funny," she said, giggling a little.

Parrish made a gurgling noise.

"You remember it that well?" I asked.

"Sure. It wasn't that long." She recited it almost word for word.

"Amazing. You know, it never ran in the Express."

"No?"

"No. That's why I was so surprised when Nick here quoted some of it to me last night. How could he have known what was in that column, if he never saw it?"

Gillian finally looked away from Parrish. "It must have been someone else--that lawyer they were looking for--"

I shook my head. "You, Gillian. You."

"That's ridiculous," she said quickly. "Why would I have anything to do with Nick Parrish?"

"I don't know the answer to that. But then again, maybe I do. Maybe I should have listened to what Jason said about that, too. That you're cold. That you genuinely hated your mother."

She folded her arms and leaned back in her chair. The look in her eyes was one of pure malice. "Nicholas Parrish said this, Jason said that. You say you never showed that article to anyone else, but I don't believe you."

"They've searched the garage beneath your apartment, Gillian. Frank got a warrant. The dogs were there while you were at work this morning. Even before they went inside, Bingle and Bool and a bloodhound named Beau were alerting to the presence of remains."

She went back to looking afraid.

"They were right, of course," I said. "There were remains there. Pieces that match up with the femurs of the woman from Oregon."

"Femurs?"

"Leg bones."

"You mean Nicholas Parrish had the nerve to use my own garage--"

"You won't be able to bluster your way out of this," I said. "They found your toolbox."

"What toolbox?"

"The one the dogs refused to bother with when commanded to search for Nicholas Parrish's scent. You were at the SAR training sessions, so you know how this works. Two bloodhounds were given one of Nicky's dirty socks, then asked to find him. They alerted all over your garage, even up in your apartment. But they weren't interested in the toolbox. The one that has the helicopter drain plugs in it--the plugs with your fingerprints all over them."

She started crying.

"If I thought those tears were for anyone other than yourself, I might be moved by them. Your own mother, Gillian!"

"You don't understand!" she said.

"God knows I want to!" I said. "You've got a reason? Just let me know it."

"You won't believe me."

"Try me."

"My own father never believed me, why should you?"

I let out a breath I didn't even know I was holding.

"Your father," I said, trying to choose my words carefully, "doesn't like unpleasantness, does he?"

"Unpleasantness?" she mocked. "No, he doesn't like to know about anything that's unpleasant. And my mother controlled him. She tried to control everyone. Jason, my dad--but not me--you understand? Not me! She tried--and tried--and tried--but I won! I did."

"How did she try?"

"How do you think?" she sneered.

I didn't answer.

"You think this is the first time I've been in this place?" she asked. "You should ask my dad about how 'accident prone' I was before Jason was born."

"But I thought hospitals--"

She gave me a pitying look. "Maybe it was all the time my mother spent chairing the Las Piernas General Hospital Auxiliary--you think? We didn't come to St. Anne's very often, but I knew what a nun was before I was five, and we sure as shit weren't Catholics."

"So you weren't always treated by the same doctor?"

Her lips curved into a cold smile. "You'd be surprised how far we had to drive sometimes to get to a hospital."

"Jason didn't know about it?"

"I'm not really close to my little brother, you know? I mean, we didn't have the same childhood--get it? He wasn't around for the scaldings, the fall down the stairs, things like that. I don't remember all of it. I was little. After Jason came along, she learned to work it so that I didn't have to see doctors--didn't leave marks. He just heard what she said--'Gillian's bad. Gillian disobeys. Gillian's out of control.' Out of her control, all right."

"If you were--"