Old School Bones (23 page)

SHE hears Gracie gasp. Then feels the girl’s hand grab her right arm, squeeze so tight, she almost loses control of the Saab. “Look at all those fire trucks!”

The lane leading to Ronnie’s cottage on the cranberry bog in Yarmouth is a maze of emergency vehicles, pumpers, ladder trucks, hoses, firefighters in slickers and helmets. Cops. The foggy night lit with flashing red and white and blue lights. Small plumes of smoke rising from the charred walls, merging with the fog. Roof, windows, front door gone.

“Something terrible’s happening.” Her foot presses hard on the brake pedal. One hand instinctively grabs for Gracie’s, feels the deepening hollow in her guts and the girl’s.

“Don’t let go.” The voice wavers, fades. She’s not sure whether it’s Gracie’s or her own.

Then she sees Ronnie up ahead, wandering among the police and firefighters, the shadows, the strobing lights. Black T-shirt and boxer shorts. Swigging on a bottle of Wild Turkey.

She doesn’t remember letting go of Gracie or leaving her behind in the Saab. All she knows is that she has him in her arms, wraps him in a hug. Right here in the middle of the lane, the scent of burnt pine, melted roofing tar clotting in her nostrils.

“My god, are you alright?”

He’s crying. No, sobbing. His huge head pressed against her tiny shoulder. The tears hot, soaking her blouse.

“What happened?”

“I’m fucked. Totally fucked.”

“You had an accident?”

He tries to speak … but his body convulses. Shakes his head no. “I was asleep on the couch.”

“I don’t understand.”

He suddenly pushes himself free of her, takes a step back, glares at the wreckage of his cottage, takes a sip of bourbon. “When I woke up. I thought I was back in Baghdad for a minute. And all hell had broken loose again.”

“Your house burned down.”

“Somebody torched it!”

Gracie is out of the car, homing in on them. “They tried to kill you?”

“I don’t know … Maybe they weren’t after just me.”

“What are you saying?”

He looks at his twin sister with cold eyes. “You and your pals been staying here off and on for a week. And you’ve made some serious enemies.”

“Jesus.” She reaches out for his bottle.

He pulls it away, afraid she’s going to take it from him.

“Ronnie! Nippe Maske!”

“What?”

“Give me a drink, goddamn it!”

The fire trucks are gone. The remains of the cottage, the bog lost behind a curtain of fog. The dark so complete here in the Yarmouth heath, the inside of the Saab feels like a tomb. Except for Ronnie snoring in the back seat.

“This is a nightmare. Michael in jail … Ronnie’s place a pile of ashes. And us sleeping in a freaking car,” she says. “Can anything else go wrong?”

Gracie takes a pull from a bottle of Evian. “I think I lost Michael’s bail money.”

“You what?”

She feels the girl fussing in the shotgun seat. Fishing in the pockets of her army fatigues, huffing, pulling something out. Handing over a wad. Bills. “Nope. Found it!”

“Can I ask you where you got all that cash?”

Gracie takes another sip of water. “Let’s just say my cousin Jason might be missing a little golden statue of Yamantaka.”

“What?”

“A little household god. From the second Tibetan Dynasty, the broker said.”

“You stole it?”

“From his bathroom.”

“And sold it?”

“While you thought I was at the movies.”

“Unbelievable.”

Gracie leans back, snuggles against Awasha’s shoulder. “I really miss Liberty.”

She smells the oil in the girl’s hair. “Me too.”

The tribal drums. Flutes. Dulcimers.

And now Aaserah’s whispering.
“
I feel so lonely …”

He’s lying on her bed, the sheets still damp beneath his bare back. She’s beside him, kissing his neck, his chest. Her tongue slick. Soft. Tasting every inch of him. Fingers tracing his cheekbone, jawline. He knows she’s trying to commit him to memory.

“You cannot come back here again, Nippe Maske. The
isabaat musallah,
the militia, has been here. They suspect us. They have their spies, and we are being watched. I am afraid of what they might do.”

“We could run away. I heard that in Dubai we …”

She puts her fingers to his lips, kisses him on the mouth. Slides her body on top of his, helps him enter her.

But he’s unable. The bitterness, the fear numbing him. As if she is already gone. Already smoke …

Later when they are dressed, pressing together one last time behind the closed door of her apartment, she hands him her cell phone.
“
Wait for me. It may take some time. But I’ll call you, my love. When I find a way out of Baghdad.”

THE secretary picks up the phone, glaring at him, Awasha, Gracie. As the ancient redhead whispers into the receiver, he can hear Lou’s voice rumbling through his head.

“Count your lucky stars, Rambo, that little Chinese cutie made your bail. Or you would be pulling a train a mile long by tonight. Middlesex County jail’s newest bitch on the block. Now stop dicking around, and go public with those fucking bones in the attic before you or one of your
posse
gets whacked!”

So … why is he here, ignoring the man?

Why has he let Awasha and Gracie talk him into coming back to Tolchester, diving into the volcano? Going face-to-face, head-to-head with one of the Grand Dragons of Red Tooth himself, Malcolm Sufridge? The man Red Tooth’s old boys on Tolchie’s board of trustees no doubt imported from among the English brethren to steer their ship for them.

Because it’s worth the risk. Because Roxy’s bones and her story are our only leverage against Liberty’s killers and her own.

The secretary glares at him, Awasha, Gracie again. “Dr. Sufridge says he will see you now.” The huge oak door springs open, but no one is visible in the doorway. Or beyond.

The butternut-paneled office seems particularly Gothic with the harsh light of a May morning cutting the room into cubes of gold and dark recesses. Shelves of leather-bound books tower to the ceiling.

Bumbledork sits in a shadow behind his immense desk in his black academic robe. The Windsor knot of a red necktie just visible above the robe’s collar.

“You have a lot of nerve, Dr. Patterson, coming back here like this. I should call security and have you—”

“Is that a Red Tooth club tie you’re wearing, Dr. Sufridge?” Gracie lands her first strike below the belt.

The old don blanches, seems to choke.

“It’s quite simple, Doctor.” Awasha takes the lead. “We know about Red Tooth, the drug dealing, and the death of Roxana Calderón.”

“Roxana who?”

“Come on, Doc. The girl who died in Hibernia House in 1975.” Michael’s voice echoes with his impatience.

“Who the hell are you?”

Your worst nightmare,
he thinks. But what he says is, “Legal counsel.”

“Am I supposed to feel intimidated?” The posh Midlands accent is regaining some of its timber.

“That depends on whether you care that we let the media and the Middlesex County D.A. know that you’re a Red Tooth boy, that your cozy brotherhood still exists at this school and that it has been covering up a murder for almost thirty-five years.”

“Don’t be absurd.”

“I’ll bet you one thousand dollars you’re missing a twelve-year molar … and the police can find it on your key chain.” Gracie strikes again.

“You’re talking nonsense. I don’t know anything about …”

Michael shakes his head. “You really think anybody will believe that, Doctor Sufridge, when I can summon multiple witnesses to expose all the horrendous things your band of brothers has been up to?”

“Balderdash.”

Awasha says she can provide incontestable evidence that points to Red Tooth boys killing Roxana Calderón. And the trail of evidence will show Red Tooth’s hand in Liberty’s death too. Then there is this mess of recent dirty tricks. Including the burning of her brother’s house and now Bumbledork’s firing her.

“You’re speculating, Dr. Patterson.”

“I don’t think so,” says Gracie. “Not as far as Roxy Calderón is concerned.”

“Bunk.”

“Then how do you explain this?” Michael opens his brief case, unrolls a green nylon banner. The words on the banner in large orange script: CLUB TROPICAL. Beneath the words, scrawled in pink paint, SUCKS SHIT. And in fuzzy red lettering, RED TOOTH

RULES!

“That doesn’t prove anything.”

Time to drop the A-bomb.
“Tell that to the crime lab that has matched the pink letters in the graffiti to the nail polish found on Roxana Calderón’s finger.”

Sufridge inhales deeply, leans back in his office chair, puts his hands together as if to pray. Beams a thin smile at the three people across the desk from him.

“Here’s the truth. Trust me. Red Tooth has had nothing to do with any of these events. The brothers are extremely upset that someone has been implicating Red Tooth in Liberty’s death and all these dirty tricks you refer to, Dr. Patterson.”

“Yeah right!” Gracie’s cheeks are coloring.

“Not so fast, young lady.”

He says they’ve just had a slight misunderstanding. The membership has authorized him to say that as an act of good faith all of Ronnie Patterson’s problems will soon disappear. Awasha’s old job is hers if she wants it … or he knows of a position at a school in Seattle, with many Native American students, that could be hers for the asking.

Awasha’s jaw drops.

“And you, my spirited young Gracie. Your dorm room still awaits you.”

Her teachers will not expect her to be making up any work missed in the last two weeks. Her name is already being engraved on a Tolchester-Coates diploma. She can graduate in June. A year early. Won’t that save her parents a bundle of money and make them happy?

“What about justice for Liberty Baker?” Michael feels indignant, fears Awasha and Gracie may start to waffle in the face of these bribes.

“Show me where the bones are, where you got this banner, and I will make sure that the police are notified. That they will find the person or people who killed these girls.”

“Yeah, right. The police you’ve been paying off to the tune of more than a million dollars a year?”

Bumbledork stiffens. Shoots him a look to crush an elephant. “Does this mean there’s something else you want the brotherhood to—”

Gracie surges toward the headmaster’s desk. “Fuck you, old man. Just fuck you! My friend is dead!” The spit from her words catches on the breeze blowing through the window, showers them all.

Michael winces.
Code red!

THE afternoon sun is scorching when he heads down the wharf at Sesuit Harbor, East Dennis, in search of Lou Votolatto.

A classic Lyman runabout is tied to the town float. The detective’s in the boat, bent over the Chrysler Crown Special engine. Votolatto sips from a can of Bud, stands up, shoots a sideways glance at Michael. Grimaces. Burps into his fist.

“Don’t even start, Rambo. It’s my goddamn day off. The blues are running. I should be out there right now, two lines in the water … But my engine’s fucked. You want to tell me what you know about fixing bum carburetors, start talking. Otherwise, please just leave me in goddamn misery.”

“I think we got the killers on the run. It’s just that Gracie kind of went off on—”

“Ah, Jesus H. Christ! What did I do to deserve you?”

He pictures jets, needle valves, floats, choke plates, idle screws. The outboard engines he’s rebuilt. The Chevy 357 he had in high school. Yeah, he can do carburetors. It’s just all this murder stuff, and romance, that short-circuits him. Maybe he needs to take a deep breath. Right here, right now. Change the polarity.

“This could be your lucky day.”

“Sure thing. The patron saint of cluster fucks is paying me yet another surprise visit … and I’m supposed to be overjoyed.”

Michael rolls up the sleeves of his white dress shirt and steps into the Lyman. “Want to crank the engine?”

“Don’t fuck with me today. I’m not in a happy place. You know what I mean?”

“Please. Crank the engine.”

The detective hits the ignition, the engine spins. Doesn’t even cough. Michael puts his ear next to the carb air intake, listens for the wet hiss of gas and air. Doesn’t hear it, smell it. No fuel. Smiles.

“Yeah?”

“How bad you want to go fishing?”

“I’m not in the mood for games.”

“I can get you on the water in ten minutes. Guaranteed.”

“But—”

“Just talk to me a minute or two about this other stuff.”

The cop rolls his eyes, settles back with his butt braced against a seatback. “You better not be fucking with me, Rambo.”

“The headmaster’s dirty as hell. He tried to bribe Awasha, Gracie, and me this morning. Wanted us to just walk away from the Roxy Calderón mess. But here’s the weird thing. He didn’t seem to know where we found her bones.”

“So he’s stonewalling. Fronting for someone … probably a bunch of people in that club of his.”

“He said if we told him where the bones are, he would bring in the local police.”

“The ones who rubber stamped the Baker girl’s death a suicide.”

“Yeah.”

“And you think that kind of mischief is going to happen again.”

“Or someone’s going to drop a mountain on me and my friends.”

“I’d say the avalanche has already started. Have you forgotten the night you spent in jail, the fire at Ronnie Patterson’s place … or that you, Ronnie, Pocahontas, and the Ninja chick are now sleeping in a fucking tent in Nickerson State Park?”

Something is burning behind his eyes. “I feel like I’m so close to these killers, I can smell them.”

“Yeah and they are going to eat you alive. Listen, kid, why don’t you let me have a little talk with the U.S. attorney. She’d love to be the one to crack the Magic Airplane Case. How many times do I have to tell you to stop dicking around? Go public with those bones before you or one of your sweeties gets whacked. It’s way past time, you know?”

“That’s not going to help Liberty Baker.”

“Whatever. We still get the bad guys off the street, right? The headmaster and his Red Tooth bunch.”

“Things still don’t add up for me.”

“Jesus Christ. This isn’t math class. You got to let this go. For everyone’s sake.”

“If someone was stonewalling, how would you get around him?”

The detective finishes his beer, tosses the can in a rubber trash can in the back of the boat. “Find the weakest rock in his wall.”

“That’s what I thought. Thanks, Lou.”

“Hey, hero! What about my engine?”

“Someone’s got to talk to Kevin Singleton.”

The detective pulls a.38 special out of the pocket of his fishing jacket. “How about I take you to the U.S. attorney right now, bub?”

“Maybe you want to change the fuel filter first.”

“What?”

“I thought you’d rather be fishing.”