Cave of Bones

by Anne Hillerman

  Annie twisted a strand of hair between her thumb and forefinger and stopped talking.

  “Do you remember any landmarks out there that could help someone find that spot?”

  “Landmarks?”

  “Anything like a tree struck by lightning, an unusual rock formation, a broken fence?”

  “We were following the Karens, you know?” Annie sucked on her lower lip for a few moments. “Why did they name those piles of rocks after a girl?”

  Bernie smiled. “It sounds like the girl’s name, Karen, but it’s spelled differently. C-A-I-R-N-S. So was one of those rock piles unusual?”

  Annie nodded. “On one of the ones I saw right before I didn’t hear Mr. Cruz’s bell, there was a piece of lava on top with a hole you could see through.”

  Bernie held her notepad out to Annie. “Could you draw it for me?”

  Councilor Walker slammed her hands on the table. “Oh, for heaven’s sakes. This is ridiculous.”

  “It’s fine, Mom.” Annie looked at Bernie.

  “Go ahead.”

  The girl put pen to paper, then handed the little book back. “It was kind of like that, but about as big as, as . . .” She stretched out her fingers and moved her hands apart parallel to each other.

  “Like a volleyball?”

  “A flat one, maybe.”

  Bernie added some words to the base of the drawing.

  “Could you find the place where you think Mr. Cruz fell?”

  “I don’t want to go back there ever. No way.”

  Walker stood up behind Annie’s chair. “Can you shut up with the questions now? We have to go.”

  “No, Councilor. Please sit down. I have a few more things to ask her.”

  Bernie waited until Annie stopped crying. Walker glared at them both from her seat across the table.

  “You told me about seeing the bones in that cave. Now that you’ve had a while to think about it, do you have anything else to say about that?”

  The girl looked at her fingernails on the tabletop. Bernie hoped that meant she was framing the truth, not conjuring a lie.

  “I, well, I wasn’t as brave as I made myself sound. I was crying a lot.”

  Walker bolted up. “I never should have sent you on that trip.”

  “Mom, I knew I should have stayed at my solo site. I wasn’t supposed to be in that cave. I just wanted to get on the van and come home. I was so scared out there.”

  Walker’s face softened. “Scared of what?”

  “Everything. The noises, being by myself with no friends, without you and my brother. I thought Mr. Cruz could lose his job because I’d gone where I shouldn’t have, and so he had to go there, too. He told me not to worry. He said he knew I could get back to the base camp, but if I got confused he would help.”

  Bernie took a drink of her Coke, waiting to see if Annie had more to say.

  The girl looked toward the restaurant door and frowned. A curly-haired woman had come in, holding a briefcase. She made a beeline for their table. “Hi, Annie. Councilor Walker, I’m Rose Cooper, the director of Wings and Roots.” She stood behind the empty chair. “Hello, Officer. If you’re done with your interview, this lady and I have some issues to discuss.”

  24

  “Mom,” Annie Rainsong said, “Mrs. Cooper is the one who gave me that volunteer job. You know, the one I can do before school? She’s really nice, and—”

  “I know who she is. Giving you that job was the least she could do after what happened.” Walker turned toward Cooper. “You should have been taking better care of my daughter on that camping trip. She could have died from being lost and whatever drugs you let her get into. You—”

  Bernie put her hand up to stop the attack. “Save it.”

  She turned to Cooper. “I’m recording this interview with Annie for follow-up information on Mr. Cruz. I think we’re almost done.”

  Cooper took a few steps back. The other patrons in the restaurant had put their own conversations on hold and were taking in the show. Walker’s face became an angry mask, but at least she remained quiet.

  Bernie turned back to the girl. “Did you eat or drink anything with Mr. Cruz?”

  “No, but . . . no.”

  “But what?”

  “When he first found me, he offered me a cookie. He had some that somebody had given him in a little sack in his backpack. I took two, but I was too freaked out to be hungry.” Annie laughed, for the first time that afternoon. “Mr. Cruz always had cookies. We call him a cookie monster. These were little, so he put a handful in his mouth at once, like popcorn or something, and started chewing. He made a face. He said they tasted odd, bitter, and it was a good thing he was hungry. I knew he hadn’t had anything to eat for a while because he said he always fasted with the groups, you know, to stay in sync.”

  Bernie thought about it. “What did you do with the cookies he gave you?”

  “I put them in my coat pocket. I tried one when we were in the parking lot, you know, when Mrs. Cooper was passing out the phones. I only ate half. It tasted awful. I left the rest on the van.”

  “You said he gave you two. What happened to the other one?”

  “I guess it’s still in my coat pocket, unless it fell out or something.” Annie twisted a lock of hair as she talked. “I found something else out there by the cave, I remember now. A little silvery disk. I put the cookie in the same pocket as that.”

  “And where is the coat?”

  “It’s at home.”

  Bernie glanced at the notes she’d been taking as Annie talked.

  “Annie, do you remember when we first met, out on the Malpais?”

  She nodded.

  “You were scared. And you were exhausted. In those circumstances, people sometimes say things they don’t mean or forget to say something important. I want you to think about that for a moment, OK?”

  She nodded again. “Can I have some more Coke while I think?”

  Before Bernie could answer, Walker snatched up the cup and went to the dispenser. When she returned, Annie had thought of something. “I should have told you that he was a good guy who really cared about us kids, not a phony or a hater. I should have gone back to look for him.” Sadness and regret pooled in the girl’s dark eyes. “If I had, maybe I could have helped him. I said I didn’t want to go back there ever again. But I could do it if it would help find Mr. Cruz.”

  “Do you want to say anything else?”

  When she shook her head, a few tears fell on the table.

  Bernie picked up the recorder and spoke into it softly, indicating that the interview with Annie Rainsong was over and that the other voices were Annie’s mother, Councilor Elsbeth Walker, and Rose Cooper, the director of Wings and Roots, who had arrived near the end of the session. She clicked it off and put it in her backpack.

  Bernie sensed that Councilor Walker’s fuming had reached the explosive threshold. But Cooper spoke first. “Councilor, I apologize for what happened to Annie out there. As the program director, I take full responsibility.”

  “But I was—” Annie interrupted.

  Cooper silenced the girl with a look and focused on her mother, speaking quickly.

  “I assume you’ve looked at the budget information you requested. I am seizing this opportunity to go over the figures with you, like I have long wanted to do. If you have questions, I am prepared to stay as long as necessary to answer them.” She took charge of the empty chair and set a folder on the table.

  “You inject yourself into a private interview, impose on my time as if I owed it to you. You’ve got a lot of nerve.”

  “I do. I’m beyond angry at the way you’ve been trying to eliminate the program without any basis, without any facts, only your opinion. You haven’t even bothered to get the story straight before you start accusing us of misusing tribal funds. I have a lot of nerve because I am appalled that you would attack a good program that helps kids.”

  Cooper glanced at Annie, who looked as though she wan
ted to crawl under the table or run out the door. The director put her hand on Bernie’s arm. “There is something criminal going on, all right, but it’s not on our agency’s end of things. Dom had figured out the problem with the tribal grants, and if he hadn’t disappeared, all of that would have come out.”

  Walker bolted to her feet and lurched at Cooper. “You . . . you don’t know what you’re talking about. How dare you?”

  Cooper was standing now, too, eyebrows drawn together, lips narrowed. The other customers in the little restaurant were still staring at them, probably waiting to see who would throw the first punch. Bernie pushed between the women. “Stop it. You two need to act like adults. Especially in front of Annie.”

  “Mom. Please. Chill out.” The girl turned to Cooper. “Do you hate my mom? Is that why you were so tough on me?”

  “No, honey. You came into the program with a bad attitude. It had nothing to do with your mom.”

  “Leave Annie out of this. Manuelito, you set me up.” Walker reached for her daughter’s hand, but the girl pulled away.

  Bernie took a deep breath, exhaling to calm herself. “Listen to me. I didn’t know Cooper was coming.”

  Cooper said, “Captain Largo told me you were here.”

  Bernie motioned to the empty seats. “You’re together now. Cooper has the files, the information you’ve been saying proves misuse of tribal funds. She’s here to answer your questions. Get this worked out, ladies. Talk to each other. Any more fighting, and I’ll have to arrest you both for disturbing the peace.”

  Cooper looked embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to yell. But this program is, well, it’s my life.”

  Walker stared at the clock over the restaurant door and then back at Cooper. “I’ll give you twenty minutes.”

  “Mom, can I have some fries while I wait?”

  Before Walker could answer, Bernie said, “Annie, you mentioned that Mr. Cruz gave you a cookie and that it was still in your jacket. I want to have our lab look at it in case it made you sick.” She turned to Walker. “I’d like to take Annie home so she can get the cookie and give it to me for the lab to check.”

  “Go ahead. I’d like to know if that was how she got drugged. Leave her home with her brother.”

  Annie broke in. “But, Mom—”

  “Let’s go.” Bernie put her hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Don’t argue anymore, OK? Mr. Cruz wouldn’t want that.”

  Annie slid into the passenger seat and started asking about the equipment in the unit. Bernie welcomed the change of subject and lack of conflict.

  Annie and her mother lived slightly off US 491 in a manufactured house with a hogan next to it and a few sheep in a corral. A dog approached the car, barking energetically.

  “He’s friendly.” Annie smiled. “He always does that.”

  “Get out first and tell him to chill.”

  “Are you scared of dogs?”

  “Mostly, yes.”

  “I didn’t think you were scared of anything.”

  Annie opened the unit’s door, and as soon he saw her, the dog stopped barking and began wagging its tail.

  “Do you want to come on inside with me while I look for the cookie?”

  “I do, but wait a minute.” Bernie unzipped her backpack and found a plastic bag. “You can put the cookie in this for the lab.”

  Bernie climbed out of the unit slowly, keeping an eye on the black-and-brown mongrel and noticing that he kept an eye on her, too. She followed Annie to the house and waited while she climbed up a ramp and unlocked the door.

  “Dylan, Dylan.” Annie yelled louder the second time. “It’s me. I’ve got a lady with me, too.”

  Bernie heard a grunt from a back room. “Who’s Dylan?”

  “He’s my brother. He’s probably playing video games or something.”

  “Hi, Dylan. I’m Bernie. Hello back there.”

  A voice called back, “Hello out there. When is Mom coming?”

  Annie took the question. “I don’t know. She’s talking to Mrs. Cooper.”

  “Who?”

  “Oh, someone you don’t know.”

  “So will you fix us something to eat? Chili dogs?”

  “I’ll do it in a little while.”

  Annie opened the door to the closet by the front door. She stared at the coats crowded inside for a moment and then grabbed a blue one and pulled it off the hanger.

  Bernie put a hand on her arm. “Stick your hand inside this plastic bag like it’s a glove, grab the cookie, and then turn the bag inside out.”

  Annie’s face filled with questions.

  Bernie showed her what to do. “The cookie might be tied to what happened to Mr. Cruz or to why you had to go to the hospital.”

  Annie patted the big pocket on the right side of the jacket and then the one on the left. “It’s not here.”

  “Are there other pockets?”

  “Yeah. Wait a minute.” Annie slipped the coat on and ran her hands over the front, stopping to unzip zippers and pull open Velcro. She found some tissues, a quarter, a nickel, and a piece of candy. She frowned. “I guess I was wrong. Sorry.”

  “Are you sure this was the coat you wore?”

  “It’s my winter coat.” Then Bernie saw her face light up. “I remember. I used Mom’s old jacket because she was afraid this one might get ripped or something.”

  “Do you know where it is?”

  Annie pressed her lips together, thinking. “Yeah. It’s in the other closet, across from Dylan’s room.”

  Bernie walked with her a few steps to the back of the house, thinking about the difference between Merilee’s grand home and this small, practical space shared by three people.

  “Hey, brother, company coming your way.”

  Bernie heard a squeaky sound and then saw a thin young man in a wheelchair.

  “Whoa. You’re a cop. What did my sister do now?”

  Bernie squatted down so she could talk to the man at eye level. “Nothing. In fact, she’s helping me get to the bottom of a big puzzle.”

  “That’s good. Are you a friend of Mom’s?”

  “I respect your mom and her commitment to the people.” Bernie guessed that the young man was about her sister’s age. “Dylan, are you going to school?”

  “Some online courses. We have to get a van that can handle the wheelchair.”

  Behind her Bernie heard the sound of hangers moving over metal, and then Annie was back, empty-handed.

  “I can’t find it.”

  Dylan rolled to face her. “What are you looking for?”

  “That old green jacket of Mom’s that I wore to camp.”

  “Look in the dirty clothes pile, silly.”

  Annie’s grin brightened the hallway. “Good idea. I’ll get it. Come on.”

  Annie led Bernie back to the front closet. On the floor in a plastic hamper, the girl found a green parka. Bernie remembered Annie wearing it, remembered thinking it was too big for her and probably let in the cold.

  Annie lightly patted the front pockets. “I found the cookie.” She used the bag to pick it up, sealed it, and handed it to Bernie. “There’s something else, too.” And before Bernie could caution the girl, Annie reached her bare hand into the pocket.

  “I forgot about this. I found it right outside the cave with the . . . you know.” Anne opened her hand, and Bernie saw a small oval disc with a figure on it and a ring of metal at the top for hanging it from a chain. “Officer Bernie, would you like it?”

  Bernie looked at it more closely. Writing around the edge of the medallion read “St. Christopher Protect Us.” It stirred a memory. “Let me borrow it.” She slipped the medal into her pocket.

  “Did someone say cookie? Do we have cookies?” The voice from the back room had a comic lilt to it. “You better save me one.”

  “No cookies. Sorry, bro.”

  “I heard you say cookie.”

  “I was teasing.” Bernie gave Annie a look. “It was an old thing leftover from camping.
It might be why I had to go to the hospital.”

  “Then, no thank you. Can you help me change my shirt?”

  Bernie looked down the hallway toward the sound of the voice and back at Annie. “Are you two all right here until your mother comes home?”

  “Sure. Mom leaves me in charge in the evenings, on the weekends, when she has to go to meetings, stuff like that. Dylan helps me with my homework. He reads me recipes when I cook.”

  “I can get dressed by myself,” the voice said, “but it’s easier if somebody does the buttons for me.”

  Bernie raised her voice a little. “Dylan, I have some brownies in my car. Would your mom mind if you and Annie had some?”

  “As long as it doesn’t have nuts. I don’t like those.”

  “No nuts. They’re chocolate.”

  “Great.”

  Bernie closed the door, and she and the girl walked down the ramp and to her car. “How old is your brother?”

  “He’s twenty.” Annie looked down at her polished fingernails. “He got screwed up in a motorcycle wreck. But he’s still pretty cool.”

  Bernie unwired the trunk and gave Annie the box of brownies she’d planned to take to Mama, and the girl went back inside. Bernie watched the front door shut behind her, and then labeled the bag with Cruz’s cookie in it, looking at the cookie more closely. It was small and dotted with little bits of brown that looked like chocolate.

  She started back to the office and put her phone on speaker. Time to call Darleen and tell her she was proud of her.

  But before she could do that, Sandra came on the radio.

  “The captain needs you.”

  Largo’s gruff voice filled the unit. “Manuelito, are you done at the restaurant?”

  “Yes, sir. I left Cooper and Walker talking. It looked like they might work it out.” She told him about Annie and the cookie.

  “Good work.”

  “There’s something else.” Bernie told Largo about the information from Annie concerning Cruz’s last whereabouts.

  “I’ll pass it on to SAR.”

  “Sir, Annie said she thought she could find the place.”

  “I doubt that they’d want her out there, but I’ll mention it.”