Stone Maidens (15 page)

The iridescent feather fragment recovered by Howard from the Blackie crime scene flashed through Prusik’s mind. “Could you show me?”

They left Nona’s office. The upstairs hallway teemed with grade-schoolers.

“All these exhibits”—Nona extended her arm to include the whole exhibit room, which included many Indonesian artifacts in display cases—“are now wired with electronic security.”

Prusik’s eyes locked on a spotlighted feather mask. Its iridescent shimmer sent her heart skipping, and she realized she’d averted her gaze too late. Christine looked back at the botanist and met a Papuan clansman’s bold dark stare. Tattooed cheek lines under wild-looking eyes displaced Nona’s kind, weathered features.

“I...need to go.” Dizzy waves distorted her voice. A hard pulse throbbed in her head. She couldn’t shake the image of her attacker’s black eyes staring through his mask of iridescent blue-green feathers, the lanyard around his neck, the stone hanging from it braced between his teeth. With both her hands gripping his knife hand with all her might, she hadn’t been able to prevent the assailant from stabbing the blade’s tip in just below her ribs, slicing downward to her hip.

Though she was standing in a dimly lit room, intense sunlight now warmed her shoulders. The sound of a hard rain now filled her ears. She couldn’t control it. Wet leaves and broken branches suddenly matted across the marble floor at her feet.

Prusik took a step back, breathing too fast, and heard Nona ask if she was OK. But the forensic anthropologist was caught in the coffee-colored Turama River again, choking, water rushing up her nose and sinuses, pummeling her ears, momentarily blurring her vision. At each turn, the river’s currents did everything possible to sweep her into the advancing clutches of her frenzied attacker. The Turama had been an obstacle course from hell; it had nearly owned her, and so had he.

“Christine?” someone said, stroking her hand. “Christine, are you all right?”

Prusik felt cold marble beneath her back. She forced her eyes open and looked up, seeking the woman’s face that went with the gentle voice. Nona helped her to her feet and guided her to a bench along the hallway. With difficulty, Christine pulled herself back into the present and rummaged clumsily through the contents of her purse on the bench, spilling half of the items onto the floor. She pried open the pewter pillbox and downed two tablets dry. Antianxiety medication took time her heart didn’t have. She inhaled, counting to five, and exhaled, counting back down to zero. Then she noticed the throbbing in her pinkie and released her clenched fist.

Maybe things were getting too personal. Maybe she should let Thorne take her off the case or—better yet—she should recuse
herself. That would stump him. No, what she needed was her own forensic anthropologist to watch over her—a guiding spirit to steer her out of harm’s way. But she
had
survived New Guinea. Why wouldn’t it leave her alone then? Her ability to carve through the Turama’s churning waters had been her salvation. She had saved herself with her powerful swimming stroke. But still her heart beat too fast.
Come on, drug!

Children in single file headed her way. A few minutes later a paramedic appeared in a fluorescent yellow jacket. She refused a stretcher but, in compromise, agreed to be escorted down to the ambulance, not wanting to make more of a scene than she already had.

The emergency vehicle was idling at the bottom of the grand staircase that led to the museum’s main entrance. She sat on the tailgate of the ambulance, between the open rear doors, answering the medic’s questions. Christine closed her eyes, thankful that neither Thorne nor Howard—nor any of her lab team, for that matter—had been present to observe firsthand another chink in her armor. Only Nona MacGowan had witnessed it, and she had left puzzled as to what it was all about.

After she flashed her badge and repeated that she was not in need of transport to the emergency room, the paramedics made her sign a release form, then left.

In the quiet of the car, Prusik traced her fingers over her blouse along the scar ridge beneath her ribs. In the frenzy of heat, mud, and battle, she’d slipped free from her attacker’s grip and dived into the churning mountain waters of the Turama. How had she survived? The wound had been more than a superficial cut, yet the flesh had held together, her life-sustaining fluids intact. The knife hadn’t punctured any of her organs. The wound hadn’t become infected. She hadn’t drowned in the river. Her fluids hadn’t been imbibed because of the Ga-Bong lust for blood, or in the reenactment of some ancient Papuan highland
ritual to bring male and female into balance, or whatever her bird-of-paradise-feather-masked assailant had had for a reason.

She moaned softly. When would it ever leave her, this panic, this sense of doom? Telling herself again and again that she must have survived against all odds for some reason had done nothing to dispel the awful memories that followed her in and out of motels, down hallways, at her office, and into the woods while she was trying to do her job. It was always the same: death on the ground, death on the examination table, and death whispering into her head that it would find a way in. Finish the job.

Had it finally found its way in?

And the question that was plaguing her during her long workdays and at night in her dreams remained: How could slit-open Indiana girls with charm stones lodged in their lifeless throats be part of all that?

Clouds were moving fast as the front pushed through. Only a few errant drops struck the windshield. He steered down the dirt two-track that led up to the large weathered barn, the site of his painting job. He waited, just as the man had said to do. Spanning the tired-looking asphalt shingles was a faded testimonial for Sweet Boy chewing tobacco from an era gone by. Annexed to the barn stood a one-story outbuilding in the same worn condition.

He kept the engine running. The WTWN announcer was finishing the 7 a.m. farm report. Corn futures were up on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. After an ad came the local weather report. Overnight rains should lead to clearing skies by midmorning. Good.

The hourly news report followed: “State Police Post Nine outside Crosshaven is continuing the search in Patrick State Forest for Julie Heath, age fourteen, who went missing four weeks ago on July twenty-eighth. Those who wish to volunteer to be part of the search party should contact—”

He clicked off the broadcast. A short man in one-piece bib overalls was approaching fast, holding down the front brim of his straw hat. He got out before the farmer reached the bed of the truck.

“You’ve come early,” the man said. They shook hands. “Fred Stanger. Glad to meet you. Lonnie Wallace at the Sweet Lick Resort said you were the man to get. A damn fast painter, he said.”
The farmer turned and surveyed his buildings. “Not much to look at. What do you guess?”

“Still a bit wet,” the painter said, kneading his hands.

“Nah, not for staining. It’ll be OK to get started. There’s a good breeze. Them upper boards are damn near dry enough. I’m just looking for a once-over. Nothing fancy.”

Stanger leaned sideways to see into the truck bed. “Got enough stain?”

The painter nodded. “Plenty for the job.”

“Like I said, five hundred dollars for the whole deal. Half now, half when you finish. Sound all right with you, Jasper? It’s Jasper, right?” Stanger noticed that the painter’s wrist was bandaged. “Cut yourself?”

“Just a scratch.” The painter pulled his sleeve down.

“Wife’s a retired nurse. You might want her to give it a look, make sure it’s not infected. Looks like your bandage could use changing.”

Jasper said nothing. He removed the triple-tier aluminum ladder he’d borrowed from the Sweet Lick Resort garage bay and one of the gallon tins from the bed.

Stanger stepped closer. “Would you like some help carrying—”

The painter swung his ladder, blocking the man from getting any closer to the truck. “It’s OK.”

“You’re forgetting something, aren’t you?” The farmer held out a wad of folded bills.

The painter balanced the stain on the top rail of the bed long enough to slip the cash from the farmer’s hand.

Stanger eyed him for a moment before nodding. “I’ll have the wife bring you down some iced tea around noon.”

“Don’t bother.” Jasper didn’t raise his voice. “Carry my own thermos with me.”

“Suit yourself then.” The farmer turned and headed for the small farmhouse across the road.

Jasper rested the ladder against the barn side and roped up the sectionals, then fully extended the ladder to within a few feet of the eaves. He watched the farmer cross the road and go up the gentle slope of high grass between some pruned-back apple trees. He removed a portable radio from the front seat of his truck, then climbed the full length of the ladder, hooking the radio to the cradle opposite the stain can.

The farmer had been right. The boards up high were dry enough to start on. An hour later, he had finished the top story of an entire broadside. The news report came at a good time to break. The dial in the truck was tuned to the same station. He unscrewed his thermos and savored the first sip.

“According to state police authorities, fourteen-year-old Julie Heath was last seen shortly after three o’clock on July twenty-eighth, walking home from a friend’s house on the Old Shed Road in Crosshaven.” The broadcast repeated a description of the girl and what she had been wearing then and the phone numbers to contact. There had been no new developments.

The drink refreshed him. He yanked a full can of stain out of the truck that sat next to a rolled, heavily blotched painter’s tarp. He lost himself in work. By two the sun began showing itself in and out of the clouds. By three the sky was completely clear and he had gone through six gallons, staining three complete sides of the barn and the entire annex. He was working the last section on the barn’s far side when the sound of joyful screaming snapped his head around. Another young voice joined in with the first.

He quickly finished the section and then put down his brush, his right hand drenched in stain from seven hours of its dripping down the handle. He determined that the shouts were coming from near the fruit trees across the road. He clambered down the ladder and jogged to the corner of the barn. He couldn’t quite see over the tall weeds, but they made for good cover. He fidgeted with the stones in his right front pocket.

“Say there!” Stanger was walking under the eaves of the barn straight toward him, inspecting what the painter had done.

“You sure do quick work.” Stanger wore a wide grin, obviously pleased. “Lonnie was right. Say, listen, would you be interested in some indoor painting over to the farmhouse? The wife wants the upstairs—”

He shook his head. “I only work outdoors.”

“I’ll make it worth your while. You sure?”

“As sure as eggs is eggs.”

Jasper headed for his truck, which was parked around front. Stanger’s presence made him uneasy. He yearned to hear the spirited young shouts again.

“Suit yourself.” Stanger trailed after him. “As long as I’m out here, I’ll pay you the rest.”

He took the money without another word. Stanger didn’t linger this time. The painter clenched his fists, cracking the dried stain over his knuckles. The interruption had spoiled things. Barely half an hour of staining was left to do—the double doors and the transom beneath the pulley and chain where a hay-lift claw hung rusted in the open position. It looked ready to snatch him. He didn’t know whether he could manage—his stomach was in such knots, his need was still so urgent. He was feeling a great, unfilled void. Over the last days the pangs had been getting worse.

He reached through his truck window, collected the nearly empty thermos, and upended it, yearning for the very last drop. He missed those young voices in the field so much it stung.

Over Labor Day weekend, a coon hunter was out walking the Patrick State Forest, a shotgun slung over his shoulder. The hunter’s German shorthaired pointer had gone sniffing ahead, crisscrossing, homing in on something only its nose could detect.
A crow flapped off a fallen bough, a small morsel threading its beak. The man marveled at the bird’s ability to avoid crashing into trees as it accelerated out of sight down a ravine riddled with oak trunks. Sunlight suddenly flooded the forest, bathing it in a sweet wine-colored light.

Movement in the ravine caught his attention—three deer bounding off in graceful arcs with hardly a noise, their white tails flashing. None had antlers. It wasn’t deer season, either. A doe’s head appeared farther down the slope, its sleek neck erect. The animal looked the hunter’s way intently, then disappeared behind a broken branch. The man waded through shin-deep leaves to where the doe had vanished.

Beneath a steep overhanging ledge of limestone, his dog let out a plaintive yowl. Its head hung low, pointing to something tucked under the rocky outcrop. With some difficulty, the hunter traversed the steep wooded terrain across to the spot drawing the pointer’s attention.

“What is it, Zeke? Coon got your tongue, boy?” A disturbed leaf pile drew the man’s attention. He squinted, trying to discern the meaning of a strange-looking mushroom shape poking up through the leaves.