Bones (3 page)

He freed the brass latch, raised the lid. Inside was a gold velvet tray.

Empty; the noise was coming from below.

He lifted the tray, exposed a bottom compartment. Inside were… little white knobby things.

He picked one up. Smooth and white, with a pointy tip, and all of a sudden Bob knew what it was without being told.

Even though biology had never been his strong point, he’d flunked it once in high school, repeated, managed a D.

A bone.

Like from a hand or a foot. Or a paw.

Lots
of little bones, so many they nearly filled the compartment, didn’t make that much noise.

Had to be what… three, four dozen.

Bob counted.

Forty-two.

He examined his own hand. Three bones on each of the four fingers, two for the thumb, making… fourteen per hand.

Three hands’ worth. Or three paws’ worth. No reason to think these weren’t from an animal. Then he thought of something — maybe these came from one of those skeletons they used in medical schools, people willing their bodies to science.

Getting cut up and examined and reconstructed into skeletons using wires to hold it all together.

Nope, none of these bones had holes for wires.

Weird.

Bob picked up another of the smallest ones, held it alongside the top joint of his own index finger.

Not as big as his.

Maybe a small dog.

Or a woman.

Or a kid…

No, that was too… had to be a dog. Or a cat. How many bones in a paw or a claw?

Too small for a cat.

A medium-sized dog, like Alf. Yeah, this might fit Alf.

He missed Alf, living in Dallas with Kathy.

Was thinking about all that when he shut the latch.

The box rattled.

Bones.

He’d do a little research on the Internet. Maybe sell the collection as antiques — like from an Indian archaeology dig. Out in… Utah. Or Colorado, Colorado sounded more… exotic.

Antique collection of exotic bones.

Stuff like that eBayed great.

Milo had a fancy job title, courtesy the new police chief:
Special Case Investigator, Lieutenant Grade.

Or as he put it: “Hoo-hah Poobah Big-Ass Sitting Mallard.”

What it came down to was he avoided most of the paper-pushing that came with his rank, kept his closet-sized office at West L.A. Division, continued to work his own homicides until Downtown called and pointed him elsewhere.

Two calls had come in over the last fourteen months, both Rampart Division gang-revenge shootings. Not even close to whodunits but the chief, still feeling his way in L.A., had heard rumors of fresh Rampart corruption and wanted liability insurance.

The rumors proved false and Milo had concentrated on not being a nuisance. When the cases closed, the chief insisted his assignee’s name be on the reports.

“Even though I was as useful as a stone-blind trapshooter. Made me real popular.”

Easy metaphor; the morning he came up with it, the two of us were blasting away at clay pigeons on a Simi Valley firing range.

Late June, dry heat, blue skies, khaki hills. Milo lumbered through all five positions of the voice-activated trap setup, hitting 80 percent without much effort. Last year he’d been the target of a shotgun-wielding psychopath, still carried pellets in his left shoulder.

I’d emptied an entire box of shells before accidentally nailing one of the bright green disks. As I racked the Browning and drank a warm soda, he said, “When you shoot, you close your left eye.”

“So?”

“So maybe you’re right-handed but left-eyed, and it’s throwing you off balance.”

He had me form a triangle with both hands, positioned my fingers so the space between them was filled by a dead tree off to the east.

“Shut the left one. Now the right. Which one makes it jump more?”

I knew the eye dominance test, had run it years ago as a psych intern, researching brain laterality in learning disabled children.

Never tried it on myself. The results were a surprise.

Milo laughed. “Sinister-eyed. Now you know what to do. Also, stop rejecting the damn thing.”

I said, “What do you mean?” but I knew exactly what he was talking about.

“You’re holding it like you can’t wait to ditch it.” Hefting the gun and handing it over. “Embrace it — lean forward — yeah, yeah, like that.”

I’ve fired pistols and rifles in ugly situations. Don’t enjoy firearms any more than going through dental work, but I appreciate the value of both.

Shotguns, with their elegant lethal simplicity, were another story. Up till today, I’d avoided them.

Twelve-gauge Remingtons had been my father’s playthings of choice. An 870 pump-action Wingmaster purchased at a police auction stood in a corner of Dad’s closet, almost always loaded.

Like Dad.

Summers — late June — he’d make me tag along on squirrel and small-bird hunts. Stalking flimsy little animals with absurd firepower because all he wanted to do was obliterate. Using me to search the bloody dust, bring back a bone fragment or a claw or a beak, because I was more obedient than a dog.

Scared of his mood swings in a way no dog could ever be.

My other assignments were keeping my mouth shut and toting his camouflage-pattern gear bag. Inside, along with his cleaning kit and boxes of ammo and the odd dog-eared
Playboy,
were the silver-plated whiskey flask, the plaid thermos of coffee, the sweating cans of Blue Ribbon.

The reek of alcohol on his breath growing stronger as the day wore on.

“Ready, Dead-eye?” said Milo. “Shut the right, open the left, and lean — more — even more, make yourself part of the gun. There you go. Hold that. And don’t aim, just point.” Eyeing the bunker.
“Pull!”

Half an hour later: “You hit more than I did, pal. I’ve created a monster.”

At ten thirty we were loading the trunk of my Seville when Milo’s cell phone beeped the first six notes of “My Way.”

He listened while following the ascent of a red-tailed hawk. His big, pale face tightened. “When… okay… an hour.” Click. “Time to head back to anti-civilization. Drive,
por favor.
”

As we got on the 118 East, he said, “Body dumped in the Bird Marsh in Playa, some volunteer found it last night, Pacific Division’s on it.”

“But,” I said.

“Pacific’s shorthanded cause of ‘gang suppression issues.’ The only free guy is a rookie His Holiness wants ‘augmented.’ ”

“Problem child?”

“Who knows? Anyway, that’s the official story.”

“Yet, you wonder.”

He pushed a lick of black hair off a pocked brow, stretched his legs, ran his hand over his face, like washing without water.

“The marsh is political, right? And the chief’s a politician.”

As I drove back toward the city, he phoned for details, got a sketch.

Recent kill, white female, twenties, evidence of ligature strangulation.

Removal of the entire right hand by way of a surgically clean cut.

“One of those,” he said. “Time to keep both your eyes open, Doctor.”

The Bird Marsh is a two-acre triangle of uneasy compromise half a mile east of the ocean, where Culver and Jefferson and Lincoln boulevards intersect. Three sides of the triangle face multilane thoroughfares, condominium-crammed bluffs loom over the southern edge, the LAX flight plan brings in mechanical thunder.

The bulk of the wetlands occupies a bowl-like depression, well below the view of passing motorists, and as I parked across the street, all I could see was summer-brown grass and the crowns of distant willows and cottonwoods. In L.A. anything that can’t be appreciated from a speeding car doesn’t count, and federal protection for the flora and fauna sandwiched between all that progress has remained elusive.

Five years ago a film studio run by a klatch of self-proclaimed progressive billionaires had tried to buy the land for an “environmentally friendly” movie lot, funded by taxpayer money. Shielded from public exposure, the plan progressed smoothly, the usual soul kiss between big money and small minds. Then a talk-radio dyspeptic found out and latched on to the “conspiracy” like a rabid wolverine, leaving spokes-people tripping over each other in the rush to deny.

The save-the-marsh volunteer group that formed soon after disavowed the shock jock’s tactics and accepted two Priuses donated by the billionaires. So far, no sign of earthmovers.

I turned off the engine and Milo and I took a few minutes to soak in the long view. Cute little wood-burned signs fashioned to resemble summer camp projects were too distant to read. I’d visited last year with Robin, knew the signs granted street parking — a generosity now rendered irrelevant by yellow tape and orange cones.

A larger white sign directed pedestrians to remain on the footpath and leave the animals alone. Robin and I had figured on a hike but the path covered less than a fifth of the marsh’s perimeter. That day, I’d spotted a scrawny, bearded man wearing a
Save the Marsh
badge and asked about the lack of access.

“Because humans are the enemy.”

Milo said, “Onward,” and we crossed the street. A uniform stationed in front of the tape swelled his chest like a mating pigeon and blocked us with a palm. When Milo’s gold shield flashed, the cop said “Sirs” and stepped aside, looking cheated.

Two vehicles were parked in a gap between the cones — white coroner’s van, unmarked gray Ford Explorer.

I said, “The body was removed last night, but the crypt crew’s back.”

“Fancy that.”

A hundred feet north, two other uniforms walked out of some foliage and climbed up to the sidewalk. Then a broad-shouldered, stocky man in blue blazer and khakis appeared, brushing off his lapels.

Blazer seemed to be studying us, but Milo ignored him and peered up at the mountain of condos. “Gotta be a hundred units, minimum, Alex. All those people with a clear view and someone chooses this place to body-dump?”

“All those people with a clear view of nothing,” I said.

“Why nothing?”

“No streetlights around the marsh. After sunset, the place is ink.”

“You’ve been here at night?”

“There’s a guitar shop in Playa Del Rey that runs concerts from time to time. A few months ago, I came to hear flamenco. I’m talking nine, nine thirty, the place was deserted.”

“Ink,” he said. “Almost like a genuine bucolic nature preserve.”

I told him about my daytime visit, the limited access.

“While you were here, you didn’t happen to see a slavering bad guy skulking around, wearing a large-print name tag and offering a DNA sample?”

“Sorry, never met O.J.”

He laughed, checked out the bluff again. Turned and scanned the expanse of the marsh. The cops were still there but the man in the blazer was gone. “Birds and froggies and whatever, sleeping through the whole damn thing.”

We slipped under the tape, walked toward a white flag waving from a high metal stake. The stake was planted five or so feet off the path, set in dirt solid enough to hold it still. But a few yards in, the soil melted to algae-glazed muck.

The path continued for a few yards, then took a sharp turn. Voices behind the bend led us to three figures in white plastic coveralls squatting in shallow water, partially hidden by saw grass, tule, and bulrushes.

Submersion in water could slow decomposition, but moisture combined with air exposure could speed it up. As would heat, and this year June was starting to feel like July. I wondered what state the body was in.

Not ready to think about who the body had once been.

The stocky man materialized around a second curve, walked toward us while removing a pair of mirrored shades. Young, ruddy, dirty-blond crew cut.

“Lieutenant? Moe Reed, Pacific.”

“Detective Reed.”

“Moe’s fine.”

“This is Dr. Alex Delaware, our psychological consultant.”

“Psychological,” said Reed. “Because of the hand?”

“Because you never know,” said Milo.

Reed gave me a long look before nodding. His unshielded eyes were clear, round, baby blue. The blazer was square-cut, made him look boxier than he was. Pleats and cuffs on the khakis, bright white wash ’n’ wear shirt, green-and-blue rep tie, crepe-soled brown oxfords.

Dressed like a middle-aged preppie, but late twenties, tops, with the short-limbed, barrel-chested build of a wrestler. The barley-colored buzz cut topped a round, smooth face the sun would ravage. He smelled like a day at the beach; fresh application of sunscreen. He’d missed a spot on his left cheek, and the flesh was heading toward medium-rare.

A car door slamming caught our attention. Two attendants got out of the coroner’s van. One lit a cigarette and the other watched his partner smoke. Milo eyed the white-clad women in the water.

Detective Moe Reed said, “Forensic anthropologists, Lieutenant.”

“The body was buried?”

“No, sir, left out on the bank, no attempt to conceal. Had I.D. left on it, too. Selena Bass, address in Venice. I went over there at seven a.m., it’s a converted garage, no one was home. Anyway, in terms of the anthropologists, visibility was poor so I thought it would be a good idea to bring in a K-9 unit, make sure we hadn’t missed the hand. We hadn’t but the dog got all excited.”

Reed rubbed his left nostril. “Turns out, there were complications.”

The Belgian Malinois named Edith (“a search dog, not a cadaver dog, Lieutenant, but apparently it doesn’t always matter”) had arrived with her handler at one thirty a.m., sniffed around the dump site, then proceeded to race into the marsh. Stopping at a spot thirty feet south of the body, she dove into the outer lip of a pocket of brackish silt no more than six feet from the bank.

Freezing in place. Barking.

When the handler didn’t get there fast enough, howling.

Ordered back on land, the dog just sat there. The handler asked for hip waders. Those took another half hour to arrive and the dog stayed in place for ten minutes, suddenly bolted.