Disembodied Bones (24 page)

They went through another stainless steel
door. Leonie had the impression they were in a hospital. It smelled
of disinfectant and chlorine. Everything was shining and spotless
and even Larry was dressed the part as a pseudo-doctor. He only
lacked the stethoscope around his neck.

“The basics, I think,” Scott said. “It’s not
like it would be giving her an advantage.”

Leonie stopped as she saw the lines of steel
drawers on one side. It was five high and went down at least twenty
deep. Each one was numbered accordingly. One hundred bodies, she
thought and wondered with another shiver if the drawers were all
full.

Larry led them to the sixth row and paused at
6B. A small metal plate identified the drawer. It was so simplistic
that Leonie felt as though the death that was ingrained in this
room wasn’t appreciated enough. Even Scott was keeping his words to
a minimum. He looked at her and then he looked anticipatively at
the drawer.

Larry shrugged nonchalantly. “It’s not like
she has to see the body, right? How does it work? She touches it?
She ‘feels’ who it is? This should be interesting.”

“I said, it doesn’t work like that,” Leonie
said softly. “There has to be a connection. Someone has to be
missing her. Then it’s like synapses firing. One links to another.
Another one shows me the way. I may only be able to give you what I
see, and it’s not necessarily a name and an address.”

Pulling out the drawer with a swift, sure
movement, Larry said, “Whatever.”

The still form was covered with a plastic bag
that had been zipped up. Plastic tags poked out on one side so that
the corpse could be more readily identified. The body was almost
above Leonie’s eyelevel. It was the second from the top drawer in a
rack of five. Her head was level with the drawer and she got an
immediate whiff of decay and death. Instantly there was a gag
reflex that caused her to gulp. She urgently covered her mouth.

“Oh, man,” said Larry warningly. He backed
away. “Don’t puke in here. I’ll have to clean it up and then it’ll
be-”

Leonie closed her eyes. She swallowed
convulsively once and then again. Death was only another part of
life. She had been taught that in Catholic school. She believed it.
Bad things happened to people, but the Lord above kept the score
board for when everyone eventually stood before Him. There was a
reason for these things to happen. Human beings lived and died
every day.

Scott muttered, “Maybe this wasn’t such a
good idea.”

That familiar headache had returned to Leonie
in spades. It crashed down on her like a ship being launched on the
water. One hand went up to rub the scar at her cheekbone. It
throbbed as though it had a life of its own and would, at any
moment, leap away from her face and scramble off to hide in some
black corner. For a single instant it was as if someone were inside
her head, calling her name urgently, and she resisted the urge to
look around to see who was saying her name in such a manner.
Leonie? Leonie
! And then there was nothing but what was most
important.

Suddenly opening her eyes, all Leonie could
see was the still figure under the plastic that would never move
again, that would never breathe or love or laugh because someone
had viciously taken her life away from her. Her limbs were lithe
and strong. Her figure was curved with the bloom that came with the
onset of adulthood. Even the frost-beaded plastic couldn’t quite
obscure the delicate lines of her face as she lay there cold and
unwanted, all because someone didn’t value life.

Leonie took a deep breath and it wavered in
her throat. The connection was there, but she knew that the gift
didn’t always work the way that police officers wanted it to work.
When she finally began to speak, both men froze because Leonie
sounded so odd. “A young woman. Someone misses her. Someone with a
hat covered with plastic cherries, the same kind you’d find in
Hobby-Lobby. They’re as red as rubies and she thinks they’re just
marvelous. That woman goes to church regularly. She lives near it,
too. A big church with a huge spire that reaches almost to heaven.
It’s new. Real new. They just finished it last month. This lady
sold candy and other things door to door to raise money for the
building. So did this young woman.”

Larry relaxed his shoulders. “That’s pretty
vague.”

Leonie’s head slowly tilted to the side as
she considered the young woman in front of her. “So young. Pretty,
too. She was pregnant, you know. A few months along. The father is
the one who killed her. He didn’t want people to know he’d slept
with her. Because he’s older than she is. Old enough to be her
father.”

Larry abruptly opened and shut his mouth. The
part about the anonymous Jane Doe being two to three months
pregnant had not been in the newspapers or on the news
broadcasts.

Leonie went on. “They’re all black. All three
of them. The woman with the cherries on her hat isn’t her mother,
though. She’s her grandmother. Her mother is in prison, because of
drugs. And her grandmother is blind. She wouldn’t read the paper
anyway and the television news didn’t bother her, because she knows
where her granddaughter is. She knows that the child has gone away
to study at some bible foundation. He tells her about it. He reads
her notes that he’s written himself because he knows that she can’t
question their authenticity. And this elderly lady misses that girl
something awful, so far away from her.”

“What about a name, Leonie?” Scott said
quietly.

“Not even her friends think anything about
it, because he tells them she’s gone off to Georgia. She doesn’t
write much because she’s so busy and her grandmother’s phone has
been disconnected for more than eight months because her disability
checks don’t stretch as far as they used to.” Leonie suddenly
coughed. “Oh, he strangled her and he stripped her clothing away
and dragged her into a dark section of the woods in an undeveloped
area ten miles away from where her grandmother lives. Poor girl.
She never stopped hoping that he wouldn’t carry on through with his
threat. And the woman with the cherries on her hat misses her
little grandbaby. Misses her terribly. Not the same way as someone
who doesn’t know her fate, but in a general way, because she used
to be the light of her grandmother’s life.”

Scott pulled a little pad out of his pocket
and started to scribble things down with a Bic. “Anything else,
Leonie?”

“You should probably find this woman pretty
quick,” Leonie said in a stunned tone. “He’s thinking about killing
the grandmother too. Making it look like a robbery. Before she gets
suspicious about her granddaughter. Before she starts asking too
many questions.”

Covering her face with her hands, Leonie
muttered, “I need some fresh air.” She turned away from the
startled pair and rushed out the doors, leaving only the sounds of
her footfalls as she went faster and faster to find her way outside
to where the air didn’t smell like death incarnate. Something metal
clattered to the floor on her way out and it rolled around loudly
for several seconds before it stopped.

Larry waited a moment before saying,
“You-uh-believe that, Scott?”

Scott sighed. “A big, brand new church within
ten miles of where the body was located. A blind woman with a
granddaughter who’s been gone for six months to some kind of bible
study in Georgia. Seems to me it should be easy to disprove.”

“She got some of it right, you know,” said
Larry thoughtfully. “The girl’s pregnancy. Strangled and left nude
in the woods. Marked feet indicate dragging. Some of that is way
out of the realm of simple, extra-sharp perception.”

“You know who’s got this case?” Scott said.
“City or county?”

“City case. Found in southeast Dallas. Big
guy named Deacon Brady.” Larry shook his head. “He won’t go on the
word of a psychic, though.”

“I know Deacon,” Scott murmured. “He doesn’t
like loose ends. Maybe he’ll look into it, just for me. He knows
the south side of Dallas like it was the backside of his ass. He’ll
probably know exactly where this church is. If there really is one,
that is.” He looked around. “I guess I better go find her.”

Larry was sliding the drawer shut and he
said, “Better you than me. Whoa. Morticia Addams action there.”

Scott shot him a dirty look and left the
medical examiner’s offices.

•

Leonie fled the public building as if demons
chased on her heels. In front of her she could see one of the most
recognizable buildings of the downtown Dallas skyline, the Reunion
Tower, with its round ball top that was covered with sparkling
lights at night. Next to it was the equally recognizable Hyatt
Regency Hotel with its stair-stepping shape that went up and down
forever. She hesitated in a group of people who seemed to be going
in all directions at once and let herself catch her breath.

Suits abounded. Men with briefcases chatted
on tiny cell phones. Women in equally professional attire hurried
on their way to destinations unknown. Many were both entering and
leaving the building she had just been inside. Did they know about
the corpses lying in shining metal drawers on the third floor?
Would they care if they did?

Someone brushed by her arm and Leonie
flinched away. There was a large concrete patio in the front of the
building. Impressively huge planters displayed all kinds of
carefully nourished palm trees and plants she didn’t recognize. A
few people stood in the shadow of the building and puffed furtively
on their cigarettes, intent on finishing their brief jolt of
addiction and returning to work. Leonie was stationary, her limbs
numb, knowing that she stood out like a sore thumb, a woman dressed
in jeans that had a tear across one knee and a Cowboys T-shirt. For
a single moment she was that thirteen year old girl again, the same
one who had gone valiantly to the police station to tell a man
about Douglas Trent.

And there was that burning itch that settled
between her shoulder blades, like a target had been taped to her
shirt and she was simply waiting for the gun shot that would end
her existence. She panned her head around and found what she had
noted before. A dozen people moving in a rush to somewhere else.
They had a preference for suits but a few wore dress slacks with
white shirts and simple ties. One man strolled by, dressed in biker
leathers, at least six tattoos showing on his bare arms. He grinned
broadly at Leonie and meandered past, entering the public building
with aplomb. Women who preferred the less professional image wore
flowered dresses with two inch high pumps on their feet. They
rushed as well, their heels clattering on the concrete surface
below them. It was an endless stream of people, 99% of whom were
paying absolutely no attention to Leonie Simoneaud.

Someone is missing their cell phone
,
she thought and then it was gone. Someone else was missing his
boyfriend, who’d left for California the day before. Then that was
gone. A third person was missing his car keys and damning himself
because he’d had to drive his wife’s fifteen year old clunker. And
someone else was missing…
Leonie. What in the name of
God?

The unknown someone missed her like she was
the other part of his soul. Leonie suddenly realized that her mind
was wide open and she couldn’t tell from whom the thoughts were
coming from. That feeling of being watched persisted and Leonie
felt the eyes watching her like the tiny feet of insects crawling
across her bare flesh. She abruptly spun around and looked back the
way she’d come. There were only people coming and going out of the
building, normal, respectable people in neat, presentable attire,
who hung onto their briefcases and cells as if they would save
their lives. No one was looking at Leonie at all, not even in a
curious, perfunctory fashion.

Her head went around, following the length of
the building. The windows were shadowed, covered with some kind of
special film that prevented the sun’s harsh rays from heating it
like a giant oven and baking those sorry individuals who were
forced to work inside. It also prevented Leonie from seeing inside.
It was like the tinted windows of a vehicle. Those who were inside
could look outside but it wasn’t the opposite for those who were
standing outside. Anyone could be standing at dozens of windows
staring down at her, making her feel as though she were on parade,
an object to be looked upon and assessed.

It’s like I’m being hunted
. Leonie
admitted the realization to herself with some foreboding and she
thought immediately of G. Lily. In the store one minute, brushing
past Olga on his way out the door the next. Then he was in the
park, watching her with a frighteningly brooding expression on his
angular face. She didn’t see him, but it felt the same. Just as she
had been in the store the night before. There were a thousand
places in the county courthouse square where someone could stand in
the shadows and watch the windows of the Gingerbread House and
watch her. Who is G. Lily and how can he have known to follow me
here?

Then Scott Haskell came out of the public
building and stopped in front of her. There was an odd look on his
face. She wasn’t sure if she really cared what he did or didn’t
think. She knew he was sweet on Dacey and thought that Dacey would
end up going out with him, if he continued his unabated pursuit of
her, but she wasn’t in a conciliatory mood when it came to
skeptical law enforcement officials.

“What’s wrong?” Scott said. Leonie’s face was
even paler than before, if that were possible. She looked like the
ghost of a ghost and even her normally red lips were leached of
color. The incredible black spill of hair made her look all the
more white as it contrasted severely with her flesh.

Leonie shook her head. Scott shrugged and
said, “I’m gonna pass the basics onto the detective who’s got the
Jane Doe you looked at. He’s not a real open fella, I’ll tell you
what, but he’s also not one to ignore a lead, no matter how
tenuous. Even if he’s determined to prove that you couldn’t
possibly be correct.”