The Bone Man (14 page)

I turned to go, got ticked off all over again that Fogarty could get to me so easily, and went in search of the “specimen.”

I found one of my old friends, a tech, and she led me to the decomp refrigerator.

“I hate this room,” I said. Here was where they brought waterlogged corpses and once a bubonic plague victim. And a woman who’d been so badly mauled by a mysterious animal that fluids leaked slowly from her body. It was a small room of horrors, and when I’d worked in the building, I’d once found myself locked inside, facedown on the floor, having been knocked out by a killer.

I visited decomp as little as possible.

The small red-tiled decomp suite hummed with filters
and fans that ran not nearly well enough for my twitchy nose.

“Where’s the specimen?” I asked.

She pointed to the inner room, where decomposing remains were often stored. I realized I wasn’t up for it.

“Thanks, Chris,” I said. “I’m, well, not today, I guess.”

She waved her hands. “No, no, wait. You don’t understand. He’s fine. Really. The joke is Fogarty put him in here because he’s superstitious.”

A horrific feeling of panic overwhelmed me. I flung open the heavy steel door to the inner room. The light burst on and I saw . . .

“A fox?” I said as I turned back to Chris.

She crossed her arms and nodded. “Fogarty says it’s a spirit animal. He’s afraid of it.”

“But it’s a poor little fox,” I said. “How did it even get here?”

She wagged her fingers. “No idea, but I have a feeling that it’s from Mount Auburn Cemetery.”

I nodded. “Sure, the one with all the bird species and wild animals. But this poor creature doesn’t deserve to be in our decomp room.”

“What can I say?”

A noise from outside the room. “I’d better go. Hey, have you see Dr. Morgridge?”

Chris swung open the door. “Last I saw her, she was in the fridge.”

I spotted her leaving the refrigeration room, followed by another ME and a tech hauling a gurney.

“Addy!”

She turned and stepped in front of the gurney. But she hadn’t been fast enough.

“Addy?” I ran down the hall and slammed to a stop in front of Addy and the body she was trying to shield. “Addy, don’t.”

She moved aside.

My hand flew to my mouth. Governor Ben Bowannie’s bullet-riddled corpse lay naked on the cold gurney, with only his medicine pouch slung around his neck. At least they’d had enough respect to leave that.

I bit back a sob. Hank had lied to me.

I walked to the gurney, lifted the governor’s hand, and held it to my cheek. The cold, so familiar. He’d been such a warm presence. His long gray hair was unbound, his eyes closed as if in sleep. He’d been shot—I counted—six times.

“Tally?” Addy said.

“One sec, huh?” He looked at peace, but I had none. That he’d died here and not in Zuniland. I wished I’d known him better.

Oh, I am so sorry that you have left us. So sorry. Dear Lord . . .

“Damn. Damn, damn, damn!”

I knocked on Gert’s door.

“Cripey, Tal,” she said. “You look like crap.”

Had to smile. “Leave it to you, Gertie. Can I come in?” She hugged me as she closed the door behind us. I told her about the governor and Enoch.

“Oy, what a lousy day, Tal.”

I nodded. I wanted to vent about Hank, but didn’t see the point. Gert was such a dear, and so endearingly empathetic. But what I really needed was Carmen’s earthy common sense.

“I’ve got to go, Gert.” I walked to the door. “You’ve been a huge help. Thanks, hon.”

“I don’t like that look you’ve got,” she said. “What are you up to?”

“Just some stuff.”

“You been saying
that
for a year.”

“True.”

“We need you here, Tal. I need you.”

I hugged her again. “That’s sweet. But you really don’t. You and the staff, you’re doing a terrific job.”

She crossed her arms. “It’s not the same. Doc Morgridge needs you, too. Come back. Please?” She blew a bubble.

I smiled. “Honestly, Gertie, it feels good to hear you say these things. Better than good. But there are things I need to do.”

“Like
what?
”

That I need to fix
, I thought. Yes, that was it. “Gotta run, hon.” I slipped into my coat. Penny yipped. She knew.

Gert walked to her desk and retrieved a pink slip of paper. “Here.”

I read the note.
Virgil Soto, Gallup, NM
. “This is . . . ?”

She popped another pink Bazooka bubble, wouldn’t look at me, but straightened papers on her desk. “The guy on the Vineyard. The creep who cut your face.”

Was he Didi’s killer? I wondered. I slid the note into my pocket, kissed Gert’s cheek, and headed for New Mexico.

I drove down Storrow Drive, and folks walked their dogs beside the Charles River, and rowers pulled skulls through the water, and a few day sailors’ jibs luffed in a sudden wind.

It was one of those blindingly bright days that had warmed to where I took off my jacket and still felt warm. I wished that Penny slept beside me, curled in a ball.

I sighed. I’d made the right decision, leaving her with Jake. He loved her almost as much as I did, and I trusted him totally. We’d had a sad farewell. She knew I was going somewhere without her. But if anything happened to me, my Penny was in good hands. The space beside me felt empty. She wouldn’t be around to watch my back, either.

I switched lanes. I had a long way to travel, and since I didn’t want whoever had taken the potshot at my bow window to come after me, I bagged Logan for the more distant airport in Manchester, New Hampshire. It was
smaller, less crowded, and I could observe the comings and goings of people more easily.

I kept seeing Delphine’s head. And that damned pot. And Didi and the governor and poor Enoch and the governor’s aide. Ghosts.
Chindi
, the Navajo called them, an evil force left behind by the deceased that returns to avenge an offense. I wondered . . .

Yet Zuni didn’t believe in
chindi
, not the way the Navajo did. Zuni did not fear their own dead. I preferred that point of view.

Gert answered on the first ring. “You okay?” she asked, worry threading her voice.

“Fine, Gertie. Yeah. I’ve got a thought.”

“You’ve got lots!”

“You’re a laff riot, kiddo.” I checked the rear-view mirror. All clear. “A favor. See if you can get one of those potsherds carbon dated.”

“You mean that antique one, that was with Doc Cravitz’s corpse?”

“That’s the one.”

“Have you been doin’ drugs?”

I chuckled. “I wish. Look, the thieves missed a couple of shards that fell under a table. Kranak told me. See if you can make it happen, Gertie. They might be able to help you over at the Museum of Science. You know, that guy you dated.”

“Yeah, I know, all right. I dumped him. He was too weird.”

I sighed. “Somehow. Please try?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. First, I gotta get ’em from evidence. That won’t be easy. Hey, how come?”

“Honestly? Maybe the pot was a fake. A fabulous one. But fake. I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense, since it came from the Peabody Museum, but someone could be pulling a scam. Say Delphine found out. They killed her.”

Gert popped a bubble. “And then why would they put her skull in a pot, huh? How’s that make sense?”

“Well, yeah,” I said. “It doesn’t. I don’t know where else to look. It can’t hurt, right?”

“Whatever,” she said in her strongest Brooklyn-ese. “Lotta murder for a bunch of pots, if you ask me.”

“We’ve seen worse, Gertie.”

“Yeah. By a long shot.”

“Just give it a try for me, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Will do.”

“Thanks. I owe you.”

The sound of Gert’s enormous Bazooka bubble popped in my ear. “You owe me about a million.”

I sure did.

Sun beat through the windshield. I lowered the visor and slipped on my sunglasses.

The Chief Medical Investigator for New Mexico, the fella who’d offered me that luscious job, was waiting to interview me at the other end. I didn’t think he’d mind my additional agenda. He wouldn’t even have to know. And the job made a perfect cover for me being out there.

I pressed play on my iPod, which I’d plugged into the car I’d rented for the drive to New Hampshire. Ella Fitzgerald’s voice filled the car, which was why, as I sped up Route 3, I didn’t hear the siren over Ella’s wail.

I looked in the mirror to change lanes just after crossing the New Hampshire border. Behind me, a sedan flashed a police light, one of the kind they stuck on the hood.

I checked my speed. No way was I going too fast. So . . .

Oh, crap. Hank? Unbelievable. He’d followed me. Now what?

He kissed me long and slow and held me tight, but gently, oh, so gently. I was lost again in that kiss. Thank heavens we’d found a pull-off beneath some pines where we could walk deeper into the woods.

The scent of pine and wood smoke and Hank made me delirious, and I let my brain relax. I surrendered to the joy of his touching me.

His lips began soft, but soon became hotly demanding. He pressed his body against mine, and I felt his erection and that neon urgency flushed though me. We unzipped, and he lifted me. I folded my legs around his waist, and he held me with hands that warmed me, while they somehow did magic on me. And I rode him, and he pumped me, and we slid into a rhythm that brought moans to my lips that burst from my mouth when I came.

Oh, God, I loved this man
.

“I do, you know,” I said as we lay on the pine needles.

His face, flushed and smiling, tilted up to a patch of sky that pierced the bushy trees.

“Know what?” he said.

“Love you.” He smelled glorious, and the
tha-thump
of his heart sang a sweet song.

“Love you, too. But that’s old news.”

“Never.”

He chuckled.

“What?” I said.

“You drive too fast, ma’am. Swear I was going to get a speeding ticket. That would not be appropriate, not now that I’m a loo-tenant.” He chuckled again.

“Why did you leave Winsworth, Hank?”

“Had to.”

“Why?”

His long pause comforted me. This was the Hank I knew, not that stranger who’d questioned me.

“You know, Tal.”

“Do I?”

“Ayuh. Couldn’t live without you.”

And suddenly I didn’t want to go to New Mexico, didn’t want to learn about Delphine, didn’t want to know why the governor was dead and Didi, too. No, I didn’t care. Not much.

It was Hank. I hugged him tighter. This was real.
He
was real.

“I want to tell you something, Tal.”

Uh oh. So serious. “Hank?”

“Heard you saw that Zuni governor.”

I looked away. I hadn’t reconciled that the man I loved caused Ben Bowannie’s death. “I did.”

“Well,” Hank said. “I know you’ve already tarred me, but it wasn’t us. We didn’t kill the aide, either. Somebody else was the shooter. Not a cop.”

I searched for the truth I knew I’d find in his eyes. I always did. A burst of joy, and I hugged him. “Oh, Hank. Then who?”

“Good question. One I don’t have an answer for yet. Not yet. I will. You betcha.”

Okay. Now I should tell him.

“So where’re you going?” he asked.

It was as casual as pie, the way he said it. But I knew the notes of his voice too well. He was suspicious. He wanted something. He was back on the case.

Long moments with threads of ideas swimming through my head. Finally, “Shopping. Pheasant Lane Mall. A few other places.” I feigned excitement. “Want to come?”

His burst of laughter sounded sweeter than Mozart to my ears. I cringed.

“You
know
I don’t,” he said. “I hate malls.”

I smiled, a fake one, so I didn’t look right at him. “I know. But, well, I thought maybe this time . . .”

“I will if you’d like. If it’ll make you happy.”

I kissed the tip of his nose and rubbed his slight Buddha belly. “No, hon, it wouldn’t. Because you’d hate it. I’ll go it alone.”

I was still cursing my lies as I boarded the plane for Albuquerque.

On the flight, I tried to recall all that I’d seen and heard over the past month.

Delphine’s head and Didi’s homicide. The governor and his aide’s death. And Enoch. I couldn’t forget him. What a waste. For what? That’s what I didn’t get.

Virgil Izod man and his search for the blood fetish. The one they used. I wished I understood what he’d meant. The governor’s son did. Or so Governor Bowannie had said. I wished that wonderful man was still alive.

And what about the stuffed rattler? Threatening Delphine? Why? What was the deal there?

And who’d blown out my window?

It was all connected, and it all had begun out West. The source, which was exactly where I was headed.

I deplaned feeling groggy. Beneath the bandage on my face, my cheek throbbed where Izod had cut me. I guessed I’d slept on it.

I walked toward baggage claim, past shops and sculptures and the buzz of humanity going somewhere, anywhere. The clack of cowboy boots surrounded me. The West was different—tall Stetsons and concha belts and rattler earrings for sale.

I loved it out here—the people and the food and the art and land and the Southwestern seas of sand. I bought some Tic Tacs and water at a news store. I was parched and itchy. Hungry, too. But for what?

What I was doing was a little bit crazy, flying cross-country for a position I didn’t intend to take with New Mexico’s ME’s office. At least I didn’t think I intended to take it. Okay, it had appeal. A new start. A new life. Newborn.

I was hungry with interest.

Except I loved Hank, and he’d just moved to Boston. I hadn’t asked him to move. I felt trapped in a tangle.

Carmen hadn’t liked it when I’d told her where I was going. To Hank, Gert, Kranak, and Addy, I’d said nothing. They’d be less pleased than Carm.

I handed the pretty brunette cash for my purchases, picked up a paper and added that, too. “Thanks,” I said.

She smiled. “Sure. You look happy.”

I tilted my head. “I . . . I guess I am.”