The Devil's Bones

by Larry D. Sweazy

  Chavez waddled behind a long counter made of mahogany, and disappeared underneath it for a moment, searching for something, it seemed.

  Aidia was cussing under her breath. Tito had never seen her so angry and he feared what would come out of her mouth next. There were times when she would fly into a rage at the drop of a pin—if Tito chewed wrong, stood wrong, asked a question at the wrong time. Afterward, she would apologize and act as if the outburst never happened. But Tito had learned to see the anger coming, to know when to step back into the shadows and when to avoid it.

  Now was one of those times. Tito eased away from Aidia and stood next to a bronze statue of a conquistador.

  Chavez reappeared with some coins in his hand. Aidia's face flushed red.

  “How am I supposed to make any dinero, Chavez? You do not have any of my paintings on the walls.”

  “I only have so much space.”

  “That is what you always say,” Aidia said.

  “You should learn to paint like Kahlo.”

  “Usted es un cerdo gordo.”

  Tito moved behind the statue when Aidia called Chavez a fat pig.

  “Take your dinero and leave my shop, Senorita Marquez.” Chavez extended his hand with the coins in it. “And take your paintings with you. I do not have to put up with such treatment.”

  Aidia's shoulders tensed. She bit her lip, tears glistened in her eyes, and she took a long, deep breath. “Estoy apesadumbrado.” I'm sorry, she said. “I truly am, Chavez. It is just that money is thin and I cannot bear to give up my painting. It is my life. I know of no other way to live.”

  Chavez's beady eyes did not change. He looked bored—as if he had heard Aidia's story a million times. “Perhaps,” he said, rubbing his chin with his index finger, “we could make another arrangement,” wrapping a fist around the coins.

  It wasn't until Chavez licked his lips that Tito understood what the offer meant.

  Aidia swirled around to Tito, her eyes glaring. She picked up a small vase about the size of a football and threw it directly at Chavez's head. The plaster shattered into tiny pieces as it struck the wall, barely missing the man.

  “¡Fuera de! ¡Salga!” Chavez screamed. Out! Get out!

  He threw the coins at Aidia. They scattered across the floor and Tito ran to pick them up.

  Aidia found a larger vase and heaved it. Chavez ducked. Shards of the vase flew everywhere. Ceramic pieces the color of a rainbow fell at Tito's feet. He looked up and saw Chavez move from behind the counter with a walking cane in his hand, arched up ready to strike Aidia.

  Aidia's eyes were wild, searching for something else to throw. She did not see Chavez until it was too late. He swung the cane down and smacked Aidia's hand with great force. The sound of breaking bones echoed in the room, followed by a horrible shriek of pain.

  Chavez reared back again, readying the cane to strike Aidia again, all the time yelling, ordering them to leave. “¡Salga! ¡Salga! ¡Salga!”

  Tito was panicked, afraid of what would happen next. He picked up a shard of the vase at his feet, and without thinking, only seeing Aidia's dangling wrist and agony on her face, he lunged at Chavez, putting himself between them, and drove the sharp end of the vase directly into the fat man's throat.

  CHAPTER 26

  August 22, 2004, 6:29 P. M.

  The dispatch radio was silent and Jordan listened closely before moving another inch inside the police station. The ceiling fan whirled, spreading the smell of death and blood throughout the room. In the distance he could hear the air-conditioner droning. Warm, sticky air swirled around him. His skin felt clammy, and for a moment, he panicked at the sight of Louella.

  The fluorescent lights were still on, buzzing overhead, the light harsh and void of shadows. There were no other sounds indicating anyone else was in the main room, only Louella, who sat rigidly, silently in her chair, staring upward, her gaze fixed. Blood ran down the left side of her face from the bullet wound in her forehead. It had already congealed. One of the knitting picks from her hair had fallen to the floor. Long, wild gray strands dangled motionlessly over the back of the chair. A fly landed on her right eye.

  As soon as Jordan regained control, pushed his panic away, he realized he'd touched the door handle. He stuffed his hands in his pockets. His fingerprints would be everywhere—but after being scrutinized so closely by Sheriff Hogue, after being a suspect in multiple crimes over the last two days, keeping himself free of suspicion seemed very important to him. For about two seconds.

  Sweat ran down his back as he pulled the .38 from the holster and checked the chamber, making sure a bullet was ready to fire.

  There was no question that Louella was dead. But he could not bring himself to move toward her.

  He took a deep breath, pushed away the conversation he'd just had with Spider—for the moment—and felt a shock of terror rise from the bottom of his feet to the top of his head as a single question formed in his mind: Where's Dylan?

  The shock of the question, the instant image arising from his memory, put him in the backseat of the family station wagon. He could taste the blood, feel the glass stuck in his face, the intense pain in his legs, a cold wind pushing in the open door as he saw Spider laying in the middle of the road, broken and feared dead. He wasn't sure he could bear to find the little boy dead, too . . . but he knew he had to look, to try and find him.

  Jordan bolted to the door of his office, ignoring Louella. Dylan's toy cars were strewn across the floor. Nothing was out of place—no one was there.

  His thoughts were a jumble. He checked the janitor's closet. Nothing. The door that exited to the front half of the building, the Town Hall, was locked. From there he checked the door that led upstairs to the storage room. It was locked, too. He scanned the room again, and his gaze fell back on Louella. Slowly, cautiously, he made his way to the dispatch desk, searching the floor, looking for shadows, hoping to see movement under the desk.

  He glanced quickly under the desk, hoping the little boy had sought refuge there. But he found nothing. From there he forced himself to touch Louella. Images of Grandpa George and his mother lying in a casket briefly flashed in his mind's eye.

  Louella's skin was cool but not cold. He touched her neck, her carotid artery, with his left hand, still keeping the .38 ready in his right hand, and could find no pulse. She hadn't been dead long. There was no sign of any residue on her head—and he figured she was shot from a distance, figured the shooter walked in the front door and fired without warning. He felt incredibly sad, recoiled from the cold touch. Even though he'd never liked Louella, she had been a stable presence in his everyday life. He could depend on her to be behind the desk, to be snippy, bossy, and judgmental. And now she was gone, too.

  The console was shut off. Her purse was at her feet—she was obviously getting ready to go home when the shooter came in. He couldn't be sure, but that's how it looked to him. There was nothing left for him to do—he couldn't save Louella, it was too late for that. It may be too late to save anybody, Ginny, Dylan, himself . . . but he had to do something.

  The beating of his heart overwhelmed all of the other noises in the room as he made his way to Holister's office. He peered around the doorjamb, hoping, praying, that Dylan was there. His hopes were futile. The office was empty, too.

  But the door to the gun cabinet was standing wide open. The padlock was laying in the middle of the floor. Four Remington Model 700 rifles stood securely in a line, untouched. Several cases of ammunition were butted against the back wall of the gray metal cabinet; magazines for the rifles, bullets for the Glocks they all carried. A sign-out sheet hung on the open door. Everything looked in order.

  Jordan inched into the office, ignored the picture of Elvis in his karate uniform on the bulletin board, and kneeled down to take a closer look inside the cabinet. Dread filled him as he searched for the one thing he couldn't see from outside the office.

  As he suspected, Holister's briefcase was missing.

&n
bsp; He stood straight up and began to put everything together he was seeing, piece together the crime scene he was standing in the middle of. He slid the .38 back in the holster.

  Someone had come into the office and shot Louella. There was no sign of a struggle, so Louella must have known the shooter—or they surprised her. The shooter obviously knew what he was after—the Cordova file. But did the shooter know Dylan was there? Did he find the boy before or after Louella was shot? Did he find him at all—or did the little boy escape, run away, and let somebody know what was happening? There was no way for Jordan to tell exactly what had happened, not in the span of time he had to consider it.

  If Dylan did get away, did alert someone to the shooting, then Jordan knew full well that he needed to get his ass out of there—get as far away from the police station as possible. But he was like a dragonfly caught in a bird's beak. He couldn't bring himself to pull away, find the strength to break away and escape without losing a wing. He obviously had been minutes behind the shooter, seconds away from finding out who the shooter was, a heartbeat away from facing a demon.

  There were answers in front of him, all around him, and even though he knew he was putting himself in more jeopardy, he had to take the risk to ask more questions, to hopefully find some answers, so he could figure out where to go next.

  He leaned down and examined the padlock on the floor without touching it. It was open, and uncut. The shooter had the key. Or knew where the key was.

  Jordan grabbed a piece of paper off the top of the desk and slid open the bottom drawer. He felt for the key—knew where it was hidden—and found nothing. The key was gone. He slid the desk drawer door closed and looked around the room again. Did the shooter drop something? Leave something behind? Nothing jumped out at him—everything looked pretty much the same as it had the last time he was in the office.

  So, after the shooter grabbed the briefcase, what then? Jordan asked himself. Where was Dylan while all this was going on? What did the shooter do to him? He shuddered at the thought, shuddered at the possibilities of another child in Dukaine being abducted. Being killed.

  After his discussion with Spider, there was no way he could not suspect Ed Kirsch. But why would Ed shoot Louella?

  To get the briefcase, Jordan answered himself. That made sense. But how did Ed know where the file was—that it even existed? Or where the key was? And, what was in the file that was important enough to kill Louella for? Did Holister know Ed was involved in the abduction? If so, he had never mentioned anything to Jordan about it. That was one piece of the case Holister wouldn't have kept from Jordan. He knew that in his bones.

  It has to be Ed, he thought to himself. Ed took Tito Cordova. And Ginny was nowhere to be found—did she know about the file? Did she tell Ed where it was? It was possible. If Ed had convinced her to take the bullets from his Glock, then telling Ed about the briefcase didn't seem like much of a stretch—if Holister had ever told her about the file, if she had ever seen it.

  God, he wanted to talk to Holister . . . but that was impossible. Just like talking to Kitty was impossible. He began to get angry again—furious that people made a mess of things and left them for other people to clean up, to pay for.

  No, stop, Jordan told himself. Keep your head about you . . . Why would Ed Kirsch want the Cordova file? Louella wouldn't have given it to him—so he shot her, and then took Dylan. If Ed was planning on making a run for it he would want to take the boy, too.

  Jordan took a deep breath. There was no question he had to find Ed Kirsch. But could he trust Spider to help him? Did Spider tell him everything? Was what he had told him in the van the entire truth?

  But what if the shooter wasn't Ed? The question kept coming back into his mind. Each time it did, Jordan pushed it away, thoroughly convinced, at the moment, that Ed was responsible for killing Louella. Nothing else added up. Even if Spider hadn't told him everything.

  He reached into the cabinet and grabbed one of the Remingtons. The rifle weighed nine pounds and had a twenty-six-inch barrel. On a normal day, picking up the rifle didn't even draw a flinch, but a twinge of pain shot through his shoulder as he slung the rifle over his arm. He ignored the pain the best he could. A rush of adrenaline was coming from somewhere deep inside him. He was afraid for Dylan, for Ginny, and angry as hell at Spider.

  A spare radio sat next to the boxes of ammunition. Having a radio would keep him apprised of what was going on—give him the option to call Hogue or Johnny Ray if he needed them. He grabbed the radio, attached it to his belt, and started to walk out of the office. He stopped at the entry door and checked the battery. It was dead.

  Jordan shifted the weight of the rifle, skirted the desk, and eased around Louella as carefully as possible.

  A fresh battery sat in the charger next to the microphone. He thought about closing her eyes, honoring her death. But he knew better. Instead, he snatched up the battery, exchanged it with the dead one, and flipped on the radio. Static hissed and echoed throughout the room.

  “Copy. 1187 out,” a male voice said.

  “Huckle Road entrance is secure. 1218 clear,” another male voice said.

  The radio hissed and crackled again.

  “10-1. Could you repeat 1218?” a female dispatcher.

  “Huckle Road entrance is secure.”

  “10-4.”

  Hogue was still keeping the pond secure. That was good to know. The work on the graves—digging up all of the skeletons out of the muck, would take some time. Gawkers would be everywhere now. Driving up and down the road, hoping they could catch a glimpse of a bone, a body. Some would park as close as possible to the pond, congregate in small groups like they were at a summer picnic, waiting to hear the latest rumor, the latest tidbit of news over the radio, or from a friend of a friend whose brother-in-law was a sheriff's deputy. Jordan could just about name the people who would be standing there. Maybe they watched so they would feel better about their own lives—safer, happy that tragedy had passed them by one more time. Whatever the reason, it pissed Jordan off that people stood along the sidelines, watching death and destruction as if it were a Friday night football game.

  Until that moment, he had no idea what was going on with the investigation—other than what Hogue had told him: He was still under suspicion, still considered a “person of interest” in the shooting.

  Holister had died since he'd talked to the sheriff at the pond. Ginny had gone missing—at least unofficially—and her trailer had been trashed. Was Ed looking for the file, the briefcase, there? It was something to think about.

  Beyond the unanswered questions about Ginny, Louella was officially dead—and Dylan was nowhere to be found.

  And to top it all off, Jordan thought as he moved from the dispatch desk, Spider had confessed to him that he'd been there when Tito Cordova had been abducted. Which not only had pointed the light of suspicion directly on Ed Kirsch, but he had to rethink his own footsteps over the last couple of days. Revisit everything Spider had said and done. Did Hogue have a good reason for suspecting Spider, for issuing a search warrant for the tavern? Had it been served yet?

  He had no idea, no answers to the questions that kept screaming in his mind about his brother, about what was going on. But having the radio in his possession would help level the playing field—at least when it came to Sheriff Hogue.

  “1187,” the female dispatcher said. “Unit 01 is requesting you meet him in Dukaine at the corner of Jefferson and Main. Code 2.”

  “01 is en route. ETA is five minutes.”

  “Copy 01. Did you get that 1187?”

  “10-4.”

  “01 clear.”

  The radio hissed and crackled again. Jordan froze. Unit 01 was Hogue. Code 2 was no lights or siren. Fuck . . . Hogue was heading his way. He needed to get the hell out of there . . . he should have left as soon as he walked in and found Louella dead.

  He couldn't very well walk out the front door with the Remington on his shoulder and an armload of ammuni
tion. The only other way out was the door that led upstairs and then down the rickety metal fire escape on the back of the building. But the door was locked. He'd already checked it.

  “I'm heading that way now,” unit 1187 said.

  The radio went silent. Jordan thought about switching channels, checking to see where Johnny Ray was—he didn't know what the shift schedule was or what Johnny Ray's duties were since becoming the acting marshal—but he decided not to. For all he knew, Johnny Ray had hung up his gunbelt for the day, and donned his Elvis garb for a gig at the Super Six motel.

  A sign on the stairway door said to keep it locked at all times. Jordan jiggled the doorknob and pulled on it again to make sure it was fully locked. It was.

  The lock was old, tarnished brass, and took a skeleton key to open. He had picked the lock before—last month, just before Holister's birthday party, to hide his gift in the landing. After a quick tour around the room, he picked up Louella's needle from her hair off the floor.

  His hands shook as he jimmied the lock and pulled on the door. Sweat ran down his nose. The radio remained quiet. After a few minutes of struggling, the door finally popped open.

  The staircase was narrow and dark, and the musty smell was even worse inside than it was outside. Jordan flipped on the light, closed the door behind him, and made his way up the creaky stairs. Another door stood before him at the top of the stairs. He pushed it open slowly.

  Soft gray light filtered into the room from the window over the fire escape. A five-by-five-foot plastic Santa Claus was propped up against the far wall, staring at him with a wide smile. Boxes of garland, files, and old law books littered the floor. A mousetrap sat underneath an old office chair, a mouse's remains half decayed, the flesh rotted off its head, exposing a perfect skeleton.

  Jordan tried to ignore the familiar aroma as much as he could, adjusted the rifle over his shoulder, and looked away from the mouse, to the floor, to see if there were any fresh footprints in the dust.