Skye Cree 03: The Bones Will Tell (32 page)

Zoe nodded.
“I’ll tell him how this woman prevented me from getting to the car when I tried to run like you told me to do.”

“Good
girl. Because I want you to tell Harry everything the guy said to you, everything his wife said to you when she took you down into that crypt and tied you up. Do you think you can remember everything?”

“I’ll try.
They were both crazy and mean, Skye,” Zoe wanted her to know still curled into Skye’s side.

“
Yes, they were crazy and mean, Zoe, a deadly combination. You saw me take the guy down though, right?”

“You were awesome.
You kicked his ass.”

From a few feet away, Skye noticed Josh’s eyes twinkle with amusement
.

“Skye Cree, an amazing warrior,” he added
for emphasis.

Grinning at them both, Skye went on, “I did what I had to do. Anyway, y
ou know Berkenshaw’s dead and will never hurt you. But the other one, the woman, is still alive.” When she saw Zoe’s alarmed reaction, she patted the girl’s shoulder and quickly added, “She won’t be able to touch you either. If you tell Harry everything, it will ensure that she stays locked up for a very long time. Do you understand?”

Skye
wrapped her arms around the girl’s shoulders, hugged her tight to get an answer. “It’ll be okay, Zoe. You’ll see.”

“Promise?”

“I promise. Will you come see us at our new house? We’re all settled in now. I want you to meet our new dog, Atka.”

“I
’d like that. I was hoping you’d ask me.”

“You’re welcome there any time.
Now go, do what you have to do. The sooner it’s done with, the sooner you can get on with your life.”

O
ver the next twenty-four hours, authorities discovered the Berkenshaws’ dumping ground, a mere fifteen yards from the front door of the bunker. The final resting place for a multitude of bodies turned out to be a plot of earth that measured twenty by twenty feet.

County officials verified it was on federal land
—which meant some of the murders could have occurred there. It also meant that, Adela, if found guilty, could end up in a federal facility in Texas for death row inmates.

That ought to
wipe that dumbass grin off her face from yesterday, thought Skye as she studied Harry and Dawson, deep in conversation overseeing the first attempt at excavating the vast number of remains.

When her phone chimed, she visibly jumped. It was just that kind of simple noise that could spook a person out in a place like this, even in broad daylight, even with a dozen people standing around.
For the past couple of hours, if she didn’t know better, she was almost certain it felt as if someone watched them. Old ghosts with a powerful history, Skye decided.

She shook off the feeling
, read the display. When she saw Judy Howe’s name and number appear, she did a double take. Sliding the bar across to answer the call, she wanted to know, “Is that really you, Judy?”

“Yes
, it’s me. Is it true what they’re saying on the news? Is he dead? They said on the news you caught him. Is it true or did they just make it up?”

“It’s true
, Judy. You don’t have to fear him showing up at your doorstep, not anymore. He’s gone. He’ll never be able to hurt another person.”

“I want to work. I want to work for the Artemis Foundation. You haven’t given
away the job you promised me, have you?”

Skye laughed.
“Nope. There are still phones to answer and envelopes to stuff. But you’ll have to leave your apartment, Judy. Do you think you can handle that?”

“I’d like to try.”

“Good. Then show up bright and early Monday morning. If you need help, call me.”

By the time Skye ended the call,
both Harry and Dawson had made their way over to where she and Josh were standing to the side, away from the digging.

“How’s it going?” Josh asked.

“Can’t complain,” Harry replied. He stood there another minute before he could find the words he wanted to say. “A couple of things you might be interested in though. First, we found out Adela is a nurse, was working on a fifteen-year career at the same hospital. We think she used her position there as easy access to drugs, drugs the two of them used on their prey. That’s why the drugs varied so much from victim to victim. Whatever Adela could get her hands on, that’s what they used. One day it was rocuronium, the next, rohypnol or GHB.”

“I’ll be damned.”

“Second, we may never know how the DNA that turned out to belong to Travis got on that scarf. Travis tells me he knew Ellen, so I’m thinking it might be one of those quirky things that often pop up during investigations now and then. Third, we don’t know what happened to the real Jason Berkenshaw.”

“
What? Excuse me?” Skye expressed in disbelief. “I know exactly what happened to him. I stabbed the bastard in the heart.”

Harry tightened his lips, rocked back on his heels. “The man you took down
was a killer, no doubt about that. But he was not born with the name Jason Berkenshaw.”

“What?
Are you absolutely certain of this, Harry?”

“The man you took down yesterday was not the real Jason Berkenshaw
but someone who had used his name for years. The guy born with that name had a brother who has been looking for him for twenty-five years or more. The real Jason Berkenshaw was three inches shorter than the guy in the morgue, had brown eyes instead of green, and attained a degree from Portland State in 1967. That means he was born in 1945, a long damn time before the imposter came along and stole his identity to join the army.

“
After that he used Jason’s diploma from an accredited school, changed the dates on the paper and applied to ICE. When the media broke the story last night, I got a call from the brother, Sam Berkenshaw down in Eugene, Oregon. Sam told me his brother took a trip to Seattle back in 1989. He was never seen again. Checking out our perp’s background, there were red flags all over the place. But we may never know who the guy actually was, where he was born or where he came from.”

“Well, that sucks,” Josh stated.
“I wondered how he pulled off getting into ICE. What about fingerprints?”

“
Nothing came back to tell us his true identity. The real Berkenshaw had to be dead by the time our guy entered the army.”

“Why’s that?” Skye wanted to know.

“Because the army fingerprints match our dead guy in the morgue.”

Dawson shook his head. “
It isn’t all bad news, guys. There is hope. The imposter’s DNA will be entered into CODIS. If he had a relative who has ever been picked up and jailed, we might one day get lucky. I doubt the mystery will go unanswered forever.”

“I hope you’re right, Dawson,” Skye
uttered. “What about Adela? What happens to her?”

“She’ll like
ly plead out to avoid the death penalty,” Harry stated. “That woman’s a real piece of work though. She’s already playing the Jason-made-me-do-it card. She was so dedicated to her hubby, so willing to do whatever he told her to do. I believe she used the words ‘cult member’ twenty-seven times during her first interview. She claims she doesn’t have a mind of her own. For years, Jason told her how to dress, how to act, how to think.”

“That’s bullshit,” Josh shot back. “I’m not buying
it.”

“Me either,”
Skye agreed. “You didn’t see how defiant she was before you showed up. Although I do think Berkenshaw told her how he wanted her to
look
.”

“Her complacency is an act.
That woman has a temper on her. We saw it firsthand yesterday,” Josh explained.

“If it’s an act it’ll eventually come out,”
Harry assured them. The cop turned to Dawson. “Tell them what you found.”

“I
’m able to confirm that the Berkenshaws, or whoever they were, over the course of their active years here, layered the bones we’ve found at various depths.” He surveyed the burial ground and went on, “Eventually they ran out of room, started to put bodies on top of bodies. I’ve no doubt this mass grave has the potential to yield forty plus victims. All I know at the moment is it’s bigger than anything I’ve ever experienced. What I don’t understand is where Berkenshaw kept the mummified body where the hand came from that he sent you, Skye.”

“
That’s easy. It’s in the crypt. Well, that’s what Josh and I labeled it. That hollowed out piece of ground located under the bunker. It’s creepy down there.”

Josh turned to look at Skye.
“I wasn’t sure you’d seen that.”

“Hard to miss a mummified body stuck in the corner.
That victim must’ve been special to him.”

“
I see I’ll have to send the lab down there. The good news is thanks to the hard work your Foundation did ahead of this, we have a long list of the missing already categorized in a database. It’ll make things go a lot smoother over the next several months as we try to put names to the remains.”

Josh glanced at Harry.
“You still haven’t found any sign of Selma Tolliver though. Any luck with leaning on Adela to give up where they put Selma and any others that aren’t here in this same spot.”

“
Not so far. But we will put pressure on her.”

Skye blew out a ragged breath. “This has been
such a long process. I’ve never been so tired of a case before until right this minute.”

Josh
picked up her hand, tugged her toward the car. “Then come on, Mrs. Ander, let’s leave Dawson and Harry to their work. Let’s get out of here and go home.”