The Haunted Bones (10 page)

She blinked and her jaw tightened. "You're
calling me a liar."

"Yes, I am."

"You can't prove anything. You were
shot."

I thought about the pictures
I'd taken in
The Alley
Haunt
. The images of the crimes committed
there. And I thought about the woman I first saw, a face with a
name now: Patsy Granger. I'd taken those pictures and proven a
case. They weren't admissible, but Cahan had confessed. I
wondered…if I took pictures of the warehouse where I was shot,
would I see what really happened?

I refocused on her. "I wonder what that poor
boy did to you that was so bad you felt the need to frame him for
two murders." I left it at that, watched her jaw move for a bit,
turned, and walked away from her.

But I couldn't help thinking I'd signed my
own death warrant.

Fifteen

After pissing Llse off, I ran by a CVS and
grabbed a first aid kit before taking Julie to a hotel (finally!)
and we both slept hard. No one knew where we were and I'd used one
of the department's unmarked cars to get us there, leaving mine
parked at the station. After much-needed showers, a change of
bandages and a fast food brunch, we received a call from Vale.

Once we were in his office
he announced Cahan had been right: They'd found remains in the
wall. "It looked as if someone had knocked down the cinder block on
both sides and then walled this woman up inside.
The Alley Haunt
had a bar
installed over the bricked area and the opposing side had a faux
fireplace made to match the bricks."

Vale looked at each of us. "I suspect
whoever called Cahan to let him know you were looking to buy the
property is somehow involved in the mystery woman's death and
internment."

"So you think they were using Cahan to stop
the sale?" Julie held a coffee cup in her non-bandaged hand. She
seemed to like the stuff they had in the precinct. Lots of things
changed when I woke up, especially my intolerance to bad coffee.
"By shooting Devan?"

"As stupid as it sounds, yes." He leaned
back. His chair creaked. "Cahan's been very cooperative. I think
the guilt of his daughter's death was slowly getting to him. It
didn't take much for the caller to push him over the edge. We've
downloaded his phone LUDs (local usage details) and Meehan's going
through them to see if we can track the call. I've arranged for the
discovery of the body in the wall to hit the six o'clock news."

I smiled at him. "You hope to smoke them
out. If they see the body's been unearthed…" Wait a minute. "Hey,
doesn't that make me a bigger target?"

"I don't think so." Vale sat forward and
placed his elbows on the table. He clasped his hands together. "If
we've already found the body—and the write-up for the media does
not release the name—I don't think you'll be a target in the same
sense."

Julie looked at me then Vale. "What are you
planning, Captain?"

"I'm convinced whoever hacked into McNally's
computer is the same person who broke into your house, and is the
same person who called Cahan. They first attempted to destroy your
evidence, then they tried to have you silenced, then they tried to
steal the computers." He tilted his head toward his right shoulder.
"Do you see the mistakes in this?"

"I do." They were glaring. "First, how did
this person even know I had those pictures? The only people who
knew I took the shots were the bank and—"

Holy hell.

Julie clued in on my thoughts at the same
time as she sat forward and put her cup on Vale's desk. "Mary
Smith."

"The visitor looking for the bar?" Vale
asked. "The one you said wasn't suspicious."

I slapped a hand to my head.
"I thought she was being nostalgic.
She
knew I was taking those pictures.
She asked me if I saved them to the tablet and I told her I
uploaded them into a cloud."

"Can you describe this woman?"

"Medium height, blond hair, large blue eyes,
and dressed well. She drove a Mercedes. It was almost fenced but I
threw rocks at the kids. Then she drove off."

"And her name was Mary Smith?"

Julie pursed her lips. "She said she
recently lost her husband. I'll go do a search on the recent deaths
of well-off Smiths." She stood, grabbed her coffee, and patted my
shoulder as she left Vale's office.

"She wants you as her partner."

I hadn't expected Vale to say that. "I'm not
sure that would be a good idea. And besides, I'm not allowed back
on the squad."

"You know that wasn't my idea." Vale stood,
walked around his desk, and started closing the blinds. "After your
recovery, and after it was obvious the doctors were right—that you
wouldn't remember what happened—I got a call from the chief of
detectives."

I sort of already knew that.

He finished closing the blinds and made sure
the door was shut before he moved back to his desk. He didn't walk
back to his chair. Instead, he leaned against the desk and looked
down at me. "He suggested you couldn't be trusted. That you were
hiding something—and he believed you knew more than what you were
saying. He also alluded to you and Llse having an affair."

I looked up at him. "I heard the rumors,
too. They cost me my marriage."

"Were you having an affair?"

"No." I kept my return stare unwavering.
"But I think Llse is an intelligent woman. And I think though she
and the chef of detectives are divorced, she still has a lot of
sway over him. He still loves her."

"So why would she insinuate something that
wasn't true?"

"To discredit me."

"Why?"

I licked my lips. "Because I knew she was
sleeping with Jim. And recently…" It was now or never. I had to put
it out there or I would never know if finally remembering something
would put my life back together. "I remembered something."

Vale's usually stoic expression slipped for
a second. He licked his lips and swallowed. "Oh?"

I told him what I'd told Julie. What I'd
told Llse. And I watched his face. It was unreadable again. The man
would be killer at poker. Finally he stood and went back to his
chair. He grabbed a yellow pad and pen and set them on the desk.
"Write that out, in as much detail as you can, and sign it."

I did as he asked, very glad Julie had
already had me write it out once. When I was finished, he took it
and put it in his desk and locked the drawer. That…wasn't what I
thought he'd do. "So, do you believe me?"

"We need corroborating evidence for me to
even bring this case back up, Devan. Llse testified she heard you
and Ferrell and Jim arguing. She heard three shots. And she wasn't
shot in the head."

"So my injury makes me suspect?"

"It makes you an unlikely witness. It's not
you, Devan. It's that we don't know that much about the mind. And
brain injuries give people the wrong idea. So what I need from you
is proof of opportunity, and motive. Especially motive. As far as I
can see, Llse didn't gain much from coming forward and testifying
that Senator Padeaus's son was gay and meeting another boy in
Piedmont Park. Why lie and say Ferrell shot him? And if Ferrell
didn't shoot Chad Padeaus, who did?" He held out his hands. "Do you
see the holes the case faces if I re-open it? I have to have
evidence that's airtight, because I do not plan on going to the DA
or anyone else and calling the COD's ex-wife a liar if I don't have
proof."

He was right. I didn't have proof. But I had
a hunch, and while I was a detective, hunches never let me down. I
stood. "Thanks for at least believing me, sir. Or pretending to.
Are you still planning on releasing information about the
pictures?"

He arched an eyebrow and the grin that
pulled at the corner of his mouth sort of frightened me. "Should
I?"

"I would. You don't have to say who they're
from. But I would release the one photo of the woman." I returned
his smile. "And see what turns up."

Sixteen

Panic pressed on her shoulders like weights
as she stood in front of the wall-mounted flat screen. Newsbreaks
between commercials alluded to remains found in Buckhead, and she
stood riveted to the screen, her tablet in her hand as she searched
online for something about the remains. But there had been
nothing.

Nothing!

Until the news came on at six, and the story
broke on all stations.

The remains of a woman were
found inside the firewall of
The Alley
Haunt
, a Buckhead bar that mysteriously
shut down over a year ago. They were crediting the find to a
picture taken by a local photographer. The pictures were snapped to
produce a selling brochure for the property and the ghostly woman
showed up.

And to her horror, they showed the very
picture she'd tried so hard to destroy on the television. Her
nightmare was there for everyone to see.

She dropped the tablet on the floor and
walked to the screen.

Did they identify her?

Do they know who she is?

And the question that had
haunted her all these years…
could they
trace her back to me?

The only scrap of information was the
remains were being examined, in the hopes that a positive ID could
be made. The photographer's name was being withheld for their
protection. She flipped from station to station; when one news team
finished talking about the remains and moved on to other news, she
flipped to the next.

Damn McNally! Damn him!

She threw the remote to her right. It just
missed Auggie's head as he stepped out of the bedroom, a towel
wrapped around his waist.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he
demanded "You're screaming at the TV!"

"Look!"

He looked at the screen just as the ghostly
image showed up. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped. "Wow. That's
not good."

"It's on TV! What if someone recognizes her?
What if they're able to match DNA?"

Auggie approached her but
didn't get too close. "Mary, calm down. First off, you still
haven't told me why you're so worried about this. And second, the
image is a ghost image. How can anyone recognize
who
that is? And third, in
order to identify her, they have to have a sample to match it to.
Look at the bottom runner—see? It says estimates are the body's
been there for twenty-five years. Forensics as we know it weren't
even around back then. No one's going to be able to identify that
woman."

She listened to him, watched him, then
looked back at the screen. "You sure?"

"Yeah. I am. And if it'll make you feel
better, let me get dressed and I'll make a call." He headed back to
the bedroom and shut the door.

Searching for the remote annoyed her.
Finding the back missing and the batteries scattered also annoyed
her. She was so angry she couldn't get the batteries back in the
remote. So she threw them into the sink before she grabbed her
purse and pulled her gun out of it. She should have shot McNally
that first day. No…she should have taken him to the woods and shot
him. In the heart and not the head. Yeah, that's what she should
have done. And that's what she was gonna do as punishment for
resurrecting her mother!

The bedroom door opened and Auggie stepped
out, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, his phone to his ear. He was
nodding. "Uh huh….and it's a positive match? Wow….no, no. I don't
need you to do that. I'll just—whoa, put that thing away!" He'd
seen the gun in her hand and pointed to her.

She lowered the gun. "What? What did they
just tell you?"

Auggie put the phone back to his ear. "I'll
call you later…and th….yeah, it's all good. Take it easy." He
disconnected and continued pointing at her. "First, you put that
away."

"Do. They. Know. Who. She. Is?"

"Yes…" He took a step back. "They do. And
they're going to announce it at eleven. But you need to
listen—"

She held up the gun, aimed, and fired. And
then fired again, and again, and again. Auggie's brains and blood
spattered the fireplace, the TV screen hanging above it, the floor,
everything around him. Some of the blood even hit her hand as she
stood there shaking. Adrenaline rushed through her system as the
smell of blood filled the air.

It took a few minutes before she realized
she was never going to clean this mess up. She had to act fast. So
she put her gun back in her purse and took the gun she'd stolen
from the cop's house. The same make and model as her own. She made
sure she didn't add any fingerprints, and tossed it on the floor.
Then she started wiping down every surface she could have
touched…but that would be the entire house. Her house.

NO!

So close to the end of the probation and
everything would be hers. Maybe if she burned it. Yeah…maybe if she
just torched the place and make it look like Auggie did it with his
drug buddies. Yes. That would work. Just burn all the evidence.

But they would find Auggie's bones, too,
wouldn't they? Just like they found her mother's bones. The
bones…the bones never disappear. She would be haunted by bones all
her life. So she needed to chop the bones up…and once she had them
chopped up, she would burn them.

She would burn the whole place down.

And then she would burn McNally and his
little cop girlfriend.

Then she would find her mother's bones and
burn them, too.

Seventeen

It wasn't long before the crazies started
calling. Julie and I stayed at the precinct and watched as the
phones lit up. People were wanting the name of the photographer
more than they had any clues to offer as to who the dead woman was.
It did cause a stir, but I wondered if it was going to rattle the
murderer's cage the way Vale hoped.