Bone Rattle

by Marc Cameron

  “Bronnncoooohhhh,” she croaked – the air escaping a slashed tire.

  “Stay down!” Lola hissed. She sidestepped to cover Cutter. “What was it? I didn’t see a spider. You okay?” Her head moved as if on a swivel, searching the room, while the muzzle of her pistol covered the armoire.

  Cutter nodded at the crushed scorpion on the floor. “Got me a good one,” he said, then flung open the armoire door.

  Worse than empty, instead of Watts and McGrone, they found a four-foot hole cut out of the back of the armoire and completely through the wall into the next condo.

  “Sneaky bastards,” Lola whispered. “They made a Habitrail.”

  Cutter jerked the radio out of his pocket while Lola rolled the redhead onto her belly. She laughed maniacally as Lola zipped a pair of nylon restraints around her wrists.

  “Watts and McGrone have gone through the wall,” he said. “They’re in the adjacent condo.”

  Sean Blodgett answered, “The wall?”

  “Affirmative,” Cutter said. “Watch the windows. Nancy, if able, you or Brooks keep an eye on the front. The name Bronco ring a bell with anybody?”

  Blodgett spoke again. “Billy Gorman. He goes by Bronco. Five-nine, a buck eighty. Used to fight in the AFC octagon until he started running with McGrone.”

  “Copy,” Cutter said. “Nancy. Let’s get some more PD folks here and set up a perimeter before we—”

  The radio bonked, garbling Cutter’s message as one of the other units attempted to talk over him.

  Officer Slavich broke squelch as soon as Cutter released the transmit key. Blodgett could be heard shouting in the background.

  “Three just bailed out the back,” Slavich said, breathless, moving. “Gorman took out Blodgett’s knee, so I’m going after him. McGrone and Watts are running north, about to disappear into the woods.”

  Officer Brooks appeared at the bedroom door, announcing herself so she didn’t get shot.

  “Stay with her,” Cutter said, nodding toward the redhead before starting for the stairs.

  Lola followed tight on his heels. Almost giddy with the joy of a foot pursuit, she chuckled as they bounded down the stairs. Cold air hit them in the face as they burst out the back door – and ran toward the dark line of trees.

  Chapter 4

  Anchorage PD patrol officer Joe Bill Brackett’s primary field training officer once told him that every cop who stayed on the job for more than a few months would have at least one call that stuck with them. The haunting, he called it.

  Joe Brackett’s haunting came the first day he was by himself on patrol. He was on his own – that is, absent a field training officer critiquing his every move, for a grand total of two hours.

  He’d heard Brooks and Slavich dispatched to link up with Nancy Alvarez not far from Chester Creek – that meant the Marshals task force was hitting a house. Brackett loved working fugitives. He would have killed to help with a call like that.

  Instead, he got an 11-38. A mental subject.

  Brooks and Slavich got to arrest a wanted felon while Brackett had to deal with a crazy out on Point Woronzof. He’d probably have the opportunity to talk to some homeless guy who muttered about how aliens were scanning his brainwaves. Brooks and Slavich might get to boot a door.

  Lucky bastards.

  Brackett glanced down at the open laptop connected to the mobile data terminal in his patrol car. His designator turned red, joining the column of officers who were attached to calls. Officers who were free were in yellow. A long column of green designators indicated day shift, who were at this moment sitting in fallout at the new HQ downtown. It was a few minutes before seven in the morning, and they would hit the street shortly, providing overlap staffing with midshift. The sun would be up for real an hour after that. Brackett cracked his passenger window to jolt himself awake. The chilly odor of birch and melting snow was like the ozone smell after a rain, only more biting. He couldn’t help but smile.

  Even an 11-38 was better than his last two jobs, peddling supplements at GNC or loading money into ATMs. He’d wanted to be a cop since he was a little kid, and now here he was – on his own, the Alpha unit in his area. His city.

  In truth, this was to have been Brackett’s last day of field training, but Chip Robertson, his FTO for the first and final phases of his eighteen weeks of training, had pronounced him “ready enough” and cut him loose to patrol on his own for the last few hours of the shift.

  Brackett turned on Northern Lights heading past Earthquake Park toward Cook Inlet and his waiting 11-38. Mental subjects could be tricky, but Officer Robertson had taught him well. He had this. Elated at his newfound freedom one moment, his heart sank when he heard who his backup was going to be.

  Officer Fluke’s designator blinked to red on the MDT.

  Reed Fluke… The one guy on the department Brackett would like to smack with a brick.

  In many ways, the field training process was meant to be a gut-check, a way to see if would-be recruits were ready for this law enforcement job. The first four weeks were overwhelming – nothing was like they taught at the academy. Robertson was stern, but fair, making the time bearable. Fluke, Brackett’s second-phase FTO, was a pudgy nine-year veteran who seemed more interested in getting Brackett to quit than teaching him anything. Every night for the entire month, Fluke ordered Brackett to drive to the McDonald’s on Muldoon and pick up an application. It was clear, he said, that Brackett was never going to make it as a police officer. The senior officer had chalked it up to training – all in good fun – but Brackett imagined slashing the dipshit’s tires or, better yet, knocking out a couple of teeth. Fluke also happened to be on midshift, which meant that Brackett now had to work with the guy.

  He groaned, rolled up his window, and shook off the momentary pity party as he turned right, into the Point Woronzof parking lot. Notoriously slow to respond to calls, Fluke was over five minutes away if he drove the speed limit. Brackett hoped to take care of everything before he even arrived.

  Brackett slowed, scanning the area for his 11-38. The headlights of his patrol car played across two Subarus in the otherwise deserted lot. Two women, both of whom looked to be in their late twenties or early thirties – older than Brackett anyway – stood next to the hood of a green Outback. One wore blue sweats. Her face flushed, arms folded tightly across her chest, she rocked forward and back. Yep. An 11-38 all right. The other woman was also dressed in running clothes. She looked normal enough from the get-go, had an arm around the one in blue, attempting to console her. Brackett parked so he got some overflow from his headlights but he didn’t blind the ladies.

  “It’s horrible,” the woman in blue said as soon as Brackett approached. It was the sort of blurted admission that a kid gave when caught red-handed at something. She continued to rock, eyes dazed and unfocused.

  Brackett took a half step closer. He could see both women’s hands. No weapons. Still, weapons had a way of materializing out of nowhere. Maybe he should wait for backup… except that backup was Fluke, and gaining Fluke was like losing two good officers.

  The second woman wore a wool beanie against the chill. She was tall, a few years older, and calm enough that Brackett assumed she hadn’t seen the same thing the other one had. She nodded to the rocking woman.

  “She was here when I drove up. I could tell something was wrong, but she wouldn’t tell me what until just a second ago.”

  “Can I get your name?” Brackett asked the woman in the hat.

  “Liz,” she said. “Elizabeth Rains. She told me her name is Toni. I’m sorry I didn’t let them know when I called nine-one-one… but she hadn’t told me yet—”

  The rocking woman became more animated. “Don’t you understand?” She stared a thousand yards away into the darkness. “This is… awful… the worst…” She spoke in a half whisper, as if to lure Brackett in closer.

  Liz Rains gave a visible shiver. She shot a look over her shoulder, toward the bluff and the trail Brackett knew led
down to the lonesome gravel beach forty feet below.

  Brackett raised a hand, keeping his voice firm but calm. Fear was contagious, and these ladies were scaring the shit out of him. He needed to get a grip on himself and the situation.

  “What is it?” he asked. “What did you see?”

  Toni shook her head, continuing to rock.

  “A body,” Liz said. “I didn’t go down, but she says it’s a girl.”

  “A dead girl?” Brackett said.

  “Very dead girl,” Toni gasped, as if suddenly relieved that the burden of her find was now transferred to the authorities.

  Brackett used the mic clipped to his vest to apprise dispatch of this new development and get an ambulance on the way, just in case. “And you’re certain she’s dead?”

  Toni’s head snapped up and she began to laugh hysterically. “Oh yeah.”

  “Show me,” Brackett said, trying to shake off the chill that ran down his spine. He pointed toward the shadow at the far corner of the parking lot that was the trailhead.

  Toni hugged herself tighter and stared at him. “Not in a million years.”

  A massive commercial airliner roared overhead, lifting off from Anchorage International directly across the road. It looked close enough to touch.

  Brackett looked toward the parking lot entrance, surprisingly enough, wishing Fluke would roll up. He was plenty brave when it came to shootouts and fights, but he didn’t relish the idea of going down the trail all by himself. “A girl, you say?”

  “I… I think,” Toni said. “I mean, there’s not much left of her.”

  Sergeant Hopper pulled into the parking lot just ahead of Fluke. Hopper was a squat man, thick at the shoulders, big armed, but big legged to match, not like so many guys who focused on biceps and forgot leg day. Originally from Texas, he’d retained his thick accent and a dark, drooping mustache that completely obscured his mouth. It was outside policy, but was such a part of him none of the brass said anything about it.

  Fluke sauntered over behind the sergeant, waddling ever so slightly, like he had bad knees.

  Brackett groaned, ready to hang back and play rookie now that two senior officers were on scene. He gave the sergeant what he knew, which wasn’t much, and turned to find what else he could learn from Liz and Toni.

  “You’re with me, Brackett,” Hopper said, hooking a thumb over his shoulder toward the bluff. “You were first on scene. Fluke, you stand by here.”

  The senior officer sputtered. “Come on, Sarge…”

  “We all want action, Reed,” Hopper said in his all-knowing Texas drawl. “But somebody has to hold the horses… or hang back with the witnesses.”

  Brackett avoided his old FTO’s glare and followed the sergeant to the trailhead. The Alaska sun was still sluggish this time of year, and the morning twilight was just reflecting off the few chunks of muddy pad ice in the chocolate-colored water below. Mount Susitna lay across the Cook Inlet to the west, like a sleeping lady cloaked in white. She’d be covered in snow for at least another month.

  The path down was essentially a cutbank carved along the side of the bluff for fifty yards at a steep angle until it reached the beach. Brackett felt the stiff wind off the ocean as soon as he stepped to the edge. Patches of filthy snow adorned the side of the trail beneath the budding poplar trees. It had rained hard the day before and water dripped and oozed down the path. The officers stayed to the side, using their flashlights to be sure they didn’t obliterate any obvious tracks with their own boots. The wind gave way to the sound of breaking surf. A raven ker-lucked in the trees to the right. Of course there would be ravens here, Brackett thought. They were scavengers, and this looked like a place you might find something to scavenge.

  Sergeant Hopper’s voice shook Brackett from his thoughts as they walked.

  “Probably wondering why I left Fluke up there instead of you.”

  “Not really,” Brackett lied.

  Hopper looked sideways in the scant light, rubbing a bit of moisture off the tip of his nose with the back of his Mechanix glove. “I guess the bigger question is why a guy with one year of experience nine times in a row is a field training officer at all.”

  Brackett found himself glad for the shadows. “If I’m honest,” he said, “I have to admit that has crossed my mind.”

  “You were with him for a month,” Hopper said.

  “Correct.”

  “How far are you on the search warrant?”

  Brackett blanched. Had he forgotten something important? “Search warrant?”

  Hopper chuckled. “For the bodies in Fluke’s basement. You should be on line J of the probable cause affidavit after a single week with that guy. He is one weird motor scooter.”

  Brackett gave a nervous smile, relieved, and more than a little flattered to be let inside the sergeant’s inner musings this early in his career.

  Hopper stopped at the bottom of the hill, where gravel path became gravel beach. He turned his back to the ocean and the gray lump that had to be the body, as if he wanted to take just a second longer to steel himself before going forward.

  “I’ll deny every word of this if you repeat me, but the thing is, I’m not in charge of training. And anyway, I guess a smart person can learn some little something from pretty near everyone, even if it’s what not to do in a given situation.”

  “Yes, sir,” Brackett said, because Sergeant Hopper seemed like the kind of guy who wanted a two-sided conversation.

  “Okay then,” Hopper said, ready to move on. He turned to play his flashlight slowly across the beach. Brackett caught his breath when the powerful beam stopped on a gray-white lump lodged at the edge of the gravel in the glistening mud thirty feet above the incoming surf.

  The two men approached slowly, staying above the line of flotsam that signified the last high-water mark. Hopper raised his hand when they were still five feet uphill from the torso, signifying it was time to stop.

  “Tell me what you see,” he said, holding his light steady. Brackett took a breath, happy there was no smell to go along with the image of butchery and rot before him. “Head’s gone,” he said. “Both legs cut off at mid-calf. Arms missing below the elbows. No clothing but for a bra…”

  “That looks like a bra to you?” Hopper asked, moving the beam around the lump of flesh. For the first time, Brackett realized it was moving, alive with creatures that had ridden in with it from the water.

  “Maybe a rolled T-shirt,” Brackett said, gulping, wondering if this was a test. “Hard to say. I think…” He swallowed again. “I believe it’s a female.”

  He closed his eyes for a short mental break. The bright beams of their flashlights revealed tens of thousands of tiny creatures. Collectively known to fishermen as sand fleas, they’d taken up residence in their newfound food source. Saltwater had pickled the tattered flesh, leaving bits of white bone to contrast starkly against the shiny brown mud.

  “You think maybe a boat motor did this?” Brackett mused, half to himself.

  Sergeant Hopper took his phone out of his vest pocket and held it to his ear. “No,” he said, giving a sigh of the inevitable. “I’m pretty certain this was done with an axe.”

  * * *

  Mutilated bodies tended to activate the ass-magnet in every officer on shift, drawing in the curious like flies – and sand fleas. It was raining cops by the time the sun peeked over the Chugach Mountains to the east. The mud and gravel surrounding the body was protected by the bluff, leaving it in chilly shadow for another several hours.

  Sergeant Hopper sent everyone from shift back to work except for Sandra Jackson, the roving officer assigned as uniformed investigator for this particular shift. The tide was rolling in and he wanted her to grab some photos in case it took the Crime Scene Unit too long to arrive. Assigned to regular patrol areas most nights, UIs got an extra week of training and an expensive camera to document crime scenes for detectives in cases that didn’t warrant calling out a full-time technician.


  The waves lapped at the mud just ten feet from the body now, but the bank was relatively flat, which meant the water wouldn’t have to rise much to cover it completely. Officer Jackson kicked around the beach until she found a suitable piece of driftwood and then drove it into the gravel like a stake, five feet below the torso.

  “Do me a favor, Brackett,” she said. “Keep an eye on that stick. Let me know when the tide gets to it. I don’t want to move the body before the crime scene guys get here, but we may have no choice.”

  “Copy that,” Brackett said, and planted himself on a spot in the gravel overlooking the corpse. A previous tide had surely deposited the torso here, but they had to investigate the slim chance, however small, that there was other evidence around the body.

  Jackson took photos from every angle and then went to talk to the sergeant, who stood down the beach trying to get better cell reception.

  Though just three years ahead of Brackett, Sandra Jackson was known as sort of rabbi to younger officers. Some of the more senior guys called her Ma because of the way she mother-henned the newbies. She didn’t seem to mind. Easy to talk to, Jackson often took recruits aside to give them pointers during training. These moments of “rescue” made her a go-to person for anyone who had questions but didn’t want to incur the wrath and judgment of their FTO. Brackett suspected the training officers were all in on it too, but he didn’t care. Officer Jackson was smart, and Brackett found himself relieved that she and the sergeant were there to do the thinking until detectives arrived.

  His relief was short-lived when he heard a crunch of gravel behind him and looked up to see Fluke sauntering down the trail from the parking lot in the silver-gray light.

  “I get to help you babysit the corpse,” Fluke said. His eyes locked on the torso as he came to a stop beside Brackett. “Shit. I’d say she was faceup if she had a face…”

  Hopper was right. This guy was a weirdo.

  “She’s been in the water a while,” Fluke said, pronouncing his judgment of the circumstance just seconds after coming on scene.