The Bone Man (36 page)

“Oh, come on. I didn’t break into anyone’s apartment.”

Styx smiled, and again the room glowed. “Yes, you did.”

Zoe inhaled a stuttering breath. “Will you still like me?”

“Oh, Zoe,” she said in an incredibly warm and friendly tone. “Nothing you say could change my feelings for you.”

The younger girl beamed. “She’s got the key.”

The key? I held my palms up to Hank and Aric. I had no idea what she was talking about.

Aric whispered in the microphone. Styx nodded, then said. “I don’t understand. What key?”

“The key, the key. That old fetish everyone’s been after. I was supposed to find it or something. Maybe it was never there. I don’t know. Just a bunch of new junk that I took with me.”

“I don’t know either.” Styx carefully folded her knitting and slipped it back into her bag. Her eyes went to us, behind the mirror. Aric leaned forward, into the microphone. “Thanks, Styx.”

The woman nodded and rose to leave the room.

“Wait!” wailed Zoe. “Aren’t you going to stay with me?”

Styx slipped out the door and closed it behind her.

We found Jerry Devlin in the system. When a bland, nice-looking guy stared back at us from the computer screen, I knew I’d seen him before.

“I know this guy,” I said.

Hank leaned over my shoulder for a look. “And . . . ?”

I tapped a key. “And, nothing. I know him. He was the anchorman for the National Geographic team. Allegedly, they were going to film the reconstruction and the skull. Two of them are dead.” I explained who they had been. “Things are coming together, Hank.”

“I’ll be back in a sec,” he said.

I printed out the image of Jerry Devlin. I wondered if he’d look the same. The other two men, Paulie and the killer at the lodge, hadn’t.

“I need to get out of here for a while, okay, Aric?” I said.

“Sure.”

We headed toward the front of the barracks.

“I’d like to meet her,” I said to Aric.

“Styx?”

I nodded. “She interests me. A very unusual girl.”

“She doesn’t like people much,” Aric said.

“She’s talented,” I said.

“She is,” Aric said. “She works for the FBI part time.”

“She could help with the case.”

He shook his head. “She always gets what we need. But at a price to her. It’s painful to watch. C’mon. Let’s walk.”

“Should we wait for Hank?” I asked.

“He had to do something with the prisoner. That kid’s a pistol.”

Our footfalls sounded hollow on the polished linoleum.

“You mean Zoe?” I said. “She’s been in this from the beginning, I’m thinking. She’s a nasty little piece of work. Only out for herself.”

“Seems so,” Aric said.

We blew through the front doors, and the minute I inhaled the sea, I calmed. “Zoe’s dangerous. I’m terribly worried about Amélie. If Zoe’s even half right . . .”

I couldn’t help imagining the fear she must be feeling. How they might abuse her. How they’d kill her, just like they’d killed her mother. And we still didn’t know who
they
were.

I didn’t for a minute believe that Zoe’s boyfriend Devlin was in charge of the operation.

We walked to the beach. That day, it was pristine, with few footprints and no people. The rain had stopped and the sun emerged, but the ocean still roiled with the storm’s energy. I cherished its vastness, that feeling of smallness, much the same as I felt in the desert.

I sat on the wet sand, legs crossed. The cold seeped into my bottom, and I didn’t care. The cool spray refreshed me, and I felt cleansed, if only for a moment.

“The ocean always amazes me,” Aric said. “She’s probably dead.”

“Amélie? I can’t think that way. Not one more corpse. Please. All for some stupid pots.”

“You
should
think that way,” he said. “It’s sensible.”

“Oh, and sensible sure describes me, Aric.”

He walked to the sea and let it lap the tips of his boots. “Your point of view affects everything.”

I jumped to my feet. “Well, dammit, Aric. I refuse to believe that girl is dead. So let’s get Hank and haul our asses to Salem and figure things out once and for all.”

His lips thinned, and he scraped a hand through his clipped black hair. “Yes. It’s time.”

The drive to Salem didn’t take long. We were already on the North Shore, and so we just shot up Route 1A to 107 to 114. Penny and I sat in back, and Penny’s ears stayed at attention the whole time. She knew something was up.

The men tossed around different ideas about the case, and at some point, Hank made sure we’d have backup at the museum.

We arrived in front of the mall that housed the museum in less than forty-five minutes.

The electric feeling in the car gave me goose bumps. Inside the museum was Jerry Devlin, going about his daily work as one of the museum’s Native American curators.

How could he so betray his profession? His passion? I guessed that Paulie had said it all: money.

“So what’s our plan?” I said.

Hank turned to me wearing his Serious Sheriff face.

“What?” I said.

“Our plan is, you stay here.”

“No way.”

“You must, Tally,” Aric said. “Our worry for you could
jeopardize the whole operation. Devlin knows this place in and out. To get him, we must use surprise. You, Penny, do not constitute surprise.”

“But Aric, Hank . . .”

“We won’t go in,” Hank said. “Unless you give us your word.”

I hated this. Hated it. But I looked from Aric’s face to Hank’s and back again. They meant what they said.

“Fine. I’ll stay here.”

Hank stabbed a finger at the dashboard. “Right here. In this car. You will not leave it. Deal?”

How could I make a deal like that? Not to go after Devlin, to sit passively by? That wasn’t me, not at all.

I sighed. They weren’t kidding.

We could either drive away and let others handle Devlin. Or I could stay put.

“Deal.”

I scooched into the backseat of Hank’s Chrysler and tried to sleep. The rain had started again, playing a melodic tattoo on the metal. I found it soothing. It would lull me to sleep.

I couldn’t believe this was happening in Salem, of all places. Talk about creepy. Here women had been hanged as witches and a man pressed to death beneath stones. The air was different in Salem. The town thrived on that difference, and its gabled homes and Gothic churches only enhanced that feeling.

I watched Hank and Aric walk across the street toward the museum, one of the most wonderful in the state. I didn’t like their leaving. Penny didn’t like it, either.

“Right, Pens?”

She woofled a sigh.

I closed my eyes . . . and saw the governor. He wore the sweetest expression of caring and love. I began to cry.

I sat up, sniffled. I was being stupid.

I reached into my bag for some tissues. Nothing like getting all maudlin to bring on the waterworks.

As my hand searched for the tissues, my fingers found cool silk. I pulled whatever it was out. “Look, Pens, Delphine’s gloves.” Good thing I hadn’t brought them with me to New Mexico. They’d have been destroyed. I didn’t remember tucking them into my purse. I was glad I had.

I laid them in my lap. They were beautifully knit, and the colors of the rainbow. I wondered if we’d ever find her remains. I sure hoped when Aric and Hank caught up with Devlin, he told some good tales.

Penny whined.

“Huh? What’s up, Pens?”

She scratched at the window, but I wasn’t getting it.

“What?”

She scratched again, an obvious bid to get out of the car. An urgent one.

I assumed she needed the bathroom. I leashed her up and opened the door.

She took off, yanking the leash from my hand.

“Penny!” I shouted.

The rain was falling faster and thicker, and if she wasn’t black and tan, I wouldn’t have been able to see her. “Penny, dammit!”

She sat perfectly still at the end of the parking lot, head tilted, waiting. As if she had something to show me. I’d seen it plenty of times, but . . .

I’d promised Hank I’d stay in the car. But Penny definitely had something to show me.

Oh, hell, Hank should know me better than that.

I slipped out of the car with a confidence I was far from feeling. I wore my hat and jacket, and wished I’d brought the Taser. I tucked the gloves in my pocket.

I crouched in front of Penny. “What is it, girl? Something, eh?”

She whined and sat in front of me, as if she hadn’t just disobeyed me.

I picked up her soggy leash. If I were right, she’d take off like a bat. Then I pulled the gloves from my pocket. “Is it this?” I held them out to her.

She whiffed them once, twice, and off we went.

Boy, was Penny in a hurry. We flew.

Across the street, Penny paused by the stately Episcopal church, with its majestic stonework and green window trim, past its pocket-corner graveyards and soaring Gothic dignity. Then we ran again, down the brick sidewalk, past the church hall, and more buildings. Past a parking lot, where we had a gorgeous view of town and beyond.

“Pens?”

She trotted on, down the hill to a seedy parking lot and an ancient barn and an abandoned building out of witchy nightmares. She paused on the gravel surface, nose twitching. I tried to catch my breath.

The old stone building was massive. It took up a city-block corner. It sprawled across acres, and there, on the side of the building, over to the right—geesh—was an old graveyard, the kind out of a Washington Irving horror story. Hard to imagine anything spookier.

The empty building stopped me short. Penny tugged on the leash. “Stand still.
Ruce vzhuru
.” Even for Salem, the place was disturbing, with upsetting vibes that seemed to make everything worse. The building was constructed of large, rectangular blocks that appeared to be granite. It must have been flush at one point, since it was trimmed in copper. Two strange cupolas—one pointed, the other with a round adornment—sprouted from the roof, as did numerous brick chimneys. I shielded my eyes trying to read the engraving on the side of the building. I stood on tiptoe. 1884.

The two-story building was surrounded by heavy wire fencing, atop which were several rows of barbed wire. Dying
vines threaded in that inhospitable place, up the fence and around the barbed wire. How unlovely.

Why had Penny brought me to this empty relic, with its disturbing vibe and blown-out windows?

The rain was coming faster, the wind whipping the drops into a frenzy. This was the last place on earth I wanted to be.

“Penny, can we go now?”

She whined. I let her smell the gloves, and . . .

“Take that dog home!” came an angry voice.

I turned. A woman bundled like a polar bear was shaking her fist at me.

“Pardon?”

“Look at this rain,” she said. “She’ll freeze.”

This was incredibly annoying. “Her coat is thicker than mine. Excuse me.”

As I went to walk around the woman, she slammed something hard on my wrist. I reflexively loosened my grip on Penny’s leash, and she trotted away.

“Dammit!” I raced after my dog, while the woman’s cackling laughter sent a chill down my spine.

Something was wrong. “Penny!”

The wind stole my voice, and Penny ran on, alongside the raggedy barn with the collapsing roof and through a hole in the chain-link fence.

“Penny!
Zustan!
Don’t do that!
Fuj!
”

She wasn’t listening. She was on the scent.

I looked behind me. The woman wasn’t there. It didn’t matter. I had to get Penny.

I followed Penny through the hole in the fence, scraping my jacket on the broken steel link.

It was a lot creepier inside the fence than out.

Penny loped down the hill, and I ran after her. The wind gusted, and the sudden blast of rain blinded me. I couldn’t see Penny. I called again and again, but I didn’t see her anywhere. I tried to find her paw prints, but of course I couldn’t spot them in that terrible rain.

I ran down the slope, stumbled, caught myself. I ran up to the building. I shivered. There were bars on all the windows. Maybe the place had been an insane asylum.

Think, think
. Why would Penny run there? The gloves, of course. Had to be. Pens was a good cadaver dog. Delphine’s remains?

I ran from window to window, plowing through increasingly nasty gusts of rain. The storm was a real Nor’easter, the worst kind.

Bars, bars everywhere. I rounded a corner and . . . there . . . a door, cracked open enough for Penny to slip inside. Could I?

I reached the door, tried to squeeze inside. No way. I pushed and pushed, and nothing happened. I began to call, then clamped my teeth tight. If the pot thieves were inside, they’d hear me.

I pressed all my weight against the door, imagined it opening, pushing inward. I pushed and pushed and . . . The door flew open, and I tumbled inside, landing flat on my face on the cold, filthy marble floor.

A boom.

The place went dark. Someone clamped my hands together behind my back. Brutal hands yanked me to my feet, and rough arms dragged me up a set of jagged stairs. I couldn’t see a thing—no light whatsoever—and when I struggled, a man’s voice growled in my ear, “Cut it, or we kill the dog.”

At the top of the stairs, I was hauled down a corridor. Metal clinked, a door opened, and the guy gave me a shove. I flipped around and slammed inside a small room, right into a cinder-block wall. Pain shot through my elbow. The door went
snick-snick
behind me.

Hell
.

But it wasn’t all bad. At least, that’s what I told myself. I’d seen his foot. He wore cowboy boots. Dark ones with lightning bolts up the sides. I’d seen boots like that before,
on the man who’d tried to kill me at the trading post. Yet another of the National Geographic guys. I should say fake Geographic guys. I doubted homicide was part of their job description.

What was with the lightning on the boots? What was I missing here?

Didn’t matter. I looked around and shivered. The room was freezing. I felt all that granite surrounding me and the weight of old, old souls pressing against mine. There was a terrible wrongness to the place. It was suffocating, like a stone squeezing my chest, like that poor old man pressed to death beneath those stones.