The Thirteenth Skull

by Bonnie Ramthun

  On the third floor were Richard’s parents and sisters, in the family waiting room. They’d already gotten the news that this doctor was going to tell them, and Eileen felt her heart sink as she saw his set, grim face.

  “We lost him twenty minutes ago,” the doctor announced. “I’m very sorry.”

  There was silence. Eileen swallowed hard and bowed her head. She couldn’t bear it if she started crying again.

  “Sir,” Paul Reed said. “Doctor? If he’d gotten to the hospital sooner? If we’d found him earlier?”

  “I doubt it,” the doctor said. He was tall and imposing, an older man who looked as though he was used to telling people bad news. “The injury was extreme. We did everything we could. Thank you folks, for being here for him. He knew you were here, and I think that was a comfort to him. Thank you.”

  “Thank you, doctor,” Paul said. Tracy turned to him and they held each other. The doctor turned and left the room and quietly shut the door behind him.

  Rapid City Regional Hospital

  “He’s going,” the nurse said to them. “You want to visit him? He hasn’t had any family in.”

  “He doesn’t have any family,” Lucy said. They stood like a panel of judges behind the intensive care unit glass: Lucy, Joe, and Eileen. Lucy wondered if Joe or Eileen had thought about what Rene Dubois meant to them. His hobby of killing missile defense scientists had brought the three of them together. Lucy was investigating the murders when she came across Eileen and Joe.

  Lucy couldn’t help but feel a surge of excitement when she realized she could close an open file that had existed for decades, close it with damning evidence from the killer’s own mouth. She’d already made two copies of her digital tape, even though it made her sick and faint to listen. She couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to listen to Rene tell of his killings while leaning over his roasted body.

  He looked peaceful through the glass. They’d given him enough painkillers to float him away as his burned body shut down. The intensive care unit nurses had wrapped his crisped flesh in special bandages that would help him if he was going to live, and that should at least deaden some of the pain. Lucy thought of the couple he’d talked about drowning in fresh cement and felt her stomach do a slow, unpleasant flip. She didn’t want to deny Rene pain medication, though he hadn’t bothered with his own victims. Even Sully, Joe’s girlfriend, had her neck broken and then was left to die, alone and paralyzed, on a dark country road. Sully died without anyone to care for her, to comfort her as her body shut down and she died.

  Lucy realized her nose was pressed against the glass and the nurse was giving her a strange look. She stopped and looked at Eileen guiltily. Eileen looked through the glass silently, her profile proud and disdainful. Joe looked miserable, his body drooping with weariness.

  “What a waste,” he said. “What a waste.”

  “Excuse me,” the nurse said abruptly. She left them and there was a brief consultation behind the glass. Lucy watched as the bulk in the bed twitched, and the monitors started beeping and hooting. Someone touched her hand and she realized it was Joe. She held his hand, hard, knowing Eileen was holding his other hand and feeling a circle closed and complete and strong.

  “He’s going,” Joe whispered, as the nurses calmly disconnected the monitors and pressed buttons to stop the beeping. A doctor came in leisurely and pressed a stethoscope to the bandages that covered the man on the bed. He spoke briefly to the nurse and they made notes on a clipboard. This all took place behind the glass like a play performed for them, a death play without words.

  “He’s gone,” Lucy breathed.

  They watched as the nurses pulled the sheet up to cover Rene’s face. Joe squeezed Lucy’s hand and let it go. She looked up at him.

  “Enough of death,” Joe said, with a ghost of his old smile on his face. “Beryl saved the Mustang. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “You got it,” Eileen said.

  “First one to the car gets to drive it,” Lucy said, and as they headed for the elevator she wiped unexpected tears from her eyes. Tears, she supposed, for the little boy who loved his father. Tears for everyone that he’d ever hurt. And happy tears, too, because what she felt deepest in her heart was relief. He was dead, the wicked monster was dead, and would hurt people no more.

  Epilogue

  The Reed Ranch, Wyoming

  They sat on the porch, feet up on the railing, two pitchers of Margaritas on the table. The empty first pitcher had attracted several bees, which were now flying erratic patterns around the columns of the porch. Eileen snorted, watching them. She would loop around just like the bees if she stood up, which she had no intention of doing. Joe sat with her, his leg draped so that it touched hers. He was sipping his Margarita with his eyes half closed in pleasure. He was very drunk.

  “Good thing Tracy promised to put Hank down for his nap,” Lucy said slowly. She pronounced each word very carefully, as though by speaking precisely she could deny that she was absolutely plowed. “I don’t think I could walk very well right now.” She smiled at Ted, who still hadn’t shaved. He was sitting with his feet propped on the railing and a full glass in his hand. He wasn’t wearing cowboy boots, but Eileen could see them in his future. She might even get him a pair for Christmas.

  The memorial service for Rick King, the county’s fallen hero, had gone on well after midnight the night before. Everyone for a hundred miles had shown up, it seemed, all of them bearing food and drink. Rick’s parents and sister, having driven in from Gillette, accepted the Reed’s offer and had used the ranch for the service. Eileen bore the wake as her own private penance for Rick. She carried endless cups of coffee and bottles of beer. She served casserole and cake and cleaned up hundreds of paper plates and plastic forks.

  She spoke to Rick’s parents, feeling their bewildered pain like fishhooks in her skin. She was carefully honest with them, explaining that the men who’d murdered their son were experienced killers. The Rapid City Journal had already drawn the connection between the terrorized elderly couple and the motel guest whose car had been stolen and the killings at Devils Tower. The last picture they’d printed was a shot of Rene’s burned body wrapped like a mummy in the intensive care unit at the hospital. Rick’s parents at least had the small satisfaction of knowing that their son’s killer was caught, punished, and dead.

  At midnight Joe had found Eileen in the kitchen, scrubbing glasses with a dazed, abstracted urgency, her face wet with tears. Joe took her by the hand and led her to bed, tucked her in like a child and kissed her cheek. He sat in the rocker until she let go and fell asleep. She slept like a stone for over twelve hours. When she awoke the rocker was empty but a blanket lay crumpled on the floor. They’d broken her parents’ rule about sleeping in the same room, but Eileen didn’t think her mom and dad would mind, this time.

  Now, with a quarter of a pitcher of Margaritas in her, she felt better. She figured she’d pay with a crushing hangover tomorrow, but that was acceptable. She was glad Lucy felt the same way she did, that a good soaking in tequila would go a long way towards helping them all cope. There was certainly enough beer and liquor consumed at the wake last night to float at least a small rowboat. Now the King family and the other mourners were long gone, Howie and the other hunters were napping and a peaceful, sleepy silence hung over the ranch. Even the horses were dozing, heads drooping and tails swishing lazily.

  In the shady front yard Hank and Zilla were playing a complicated game of chase, using a blue rubber ball and a couple of reluctant butterflies. Every once in a while Hank would dash up to the porch and jump into Lucy or Ted’s lap, looking as though he had every intention of staying there all day. Then a few minutes later, reassured, he would be gone again, and he would chase Zilla and her blue rubber ball around the yard.

  “So we all have headaches tomorrow,” Joe said, and gestured with the glass. “So what? Now that I’m drinking heavily, I can think of good things. We’re alive. And I get to retu
rn ’Berto’s Mustang to him, unharmed.”

  “Thank goodness for that,” Eileen said. She realized her glass was once again empty. “You think he’d lend it to us for the honeymoon?”

  “He’d better,” Joe said. “I attract people who want to kill me, it seems. We need a fast car to survive our honeymoon.”

  “And lots of guns,” Lucy said.

  “You know, I should just quit my damn job.”

  “You must be drunk,” Eileen said archly. She knew Joe loved his work.

  “I mention one thing,” Ted said in a professorial tone. He wagged his finger at Joe. He looked almost, but not quite, sober. “You saved the entire Chicago Bulls professional basketball team.”

  “As well as Chicago,” Lucy laughed. “And I helped.”

  “Oh, Joe,” Eileen said. “You can’t quit your job. America is like a damn cheerleader at Serial Killer High School. Every crazy, person or country, is after us. You’ll just have to put up with it.”

  “And Eileen will save us all, like she always does,” Lucy said, with a very exaggerated wink at Eileen.

  “With your help, of course,” Eileen said, and raised her glass in a toast to Lucy. Mysteriously, it was full again. “Did you like my anan – analogy? Serial Killer High? Huh?”

  “Absolutely brilliant,” Ted said. “I give it an A. As for—”

  “Hush!” Lucy cried. “Listen.”

  There were voices coming around the corner of the house, voices raised in argument. Eileen listened as the others fell silent. The people around the corner of the house must have stopped, because their voices were clear and loud.

  “Why not? I love you,” Nolan said cheerfully.

  “I don’t know that I love you,” Jorie said.

  “Your kiss told me that you do. Look, it takes people a lifetime to get to that kind of understanding that we came to on that Tower. We can skip all the bullshit and get right to the happy ending.”

  “What happy ending? Marriage?”

  “Yeah, I’m an old fashioned guy. I want to marry you, Marjorie Rothman. I love you. Did I tell you, I love you?”

  “You told me,” Jorie said in a low voice.

  Eileen glanced at Joe and saw his delighted expression. Lucy and Ted, too, were sitting alertly, heads cocked to the side and eyebrows raised, smiling identical smiles.

  “So I’ll take you to Egypt on our honeymoon. Didn’t you say you wanted to go to Egypt?”

  “Egypt?” Jorie said, and her voice sounded a bit breathless. “How can we – I mean, I’ve always wanted –”

  “We’ll reserve Egypt for the honeymoon. How about Paris for our engagement? Have you ever been to Paris? I’ll buy you a diamond in Paris and ask you to marry me at the Eiffel Tower.”

  Eileen leaned towards Lucy as Lucy tapped on her arm.

  “Girls like Jorie always get the romance,” Lucy grumbled in a loud whisper. “Did Joe ever offer to take you to Paris and propose at the Eiffel Tower?”

  “Shhh, don’t make me start laughing,” Eileen whispered back. “Listen!”

  “I’ll think about it,” Jorie said, but she sounded out of breath and dizzy.

  “Think about this,” Nolan said, and there was silence.

  Joe put his arm around Eileen. “I’m inspired,” he whispered. He turned her chin and kissed her, his mouth cold and salty from the Margarita, and she drowned in sensation.

  “I think they’re kissing,” Ted announced loudly, eyes sparkling.

  “I think they are too,” Lucy chimed in. “Stop it, you two! Get a room!”

  A moment later Nolan and Jorie stepped around the corner of the house. Jorie looked flushed and mortified and Nolan looked flushed and happy.

  “We’ve got a pitcher of Margaritas here that we are too drunk to drink,” Joe said, waving his hand at the table. “This is our own personal wake and celebration and I think you two doves should get over here.”

  “No meat in these Margaritas,” Eileen added, taking a sip of hers.

  “Well, at least you’re not going to turn me away from vegetarianism,” Jorie said, as Nolan brought two chairs around and picked up fresh glasses from the table. Then she stopped still, face reddening, as she realized what she’d said.

  Lucy burst into giggles and so did Eileen, and then they were all laughing together.

  Out in the grass before them Hank and Zilla danced happily, chasing a blue rubber ball. There would be much to do tomorrow, Eileen thought, watching the little boy and the dog. There was her wedding to plan, and a marriage to start. Joe’s leg shifted against hers and she took his hand without looking. Jorie would be talking to the Lakota tribes about their crystal skull and Nolan would be romancing Jorie. Lucy would be covering herself with glory at the Central Intelligence Agency, closing her unsolved murder file. Howie and his friends would be leaving tomorrow. They’d be back in the fall, Howie assured Tracy and Paul, if only to see what interesting adventures the Reed Ranch could come up with next.

  Jorie and Nolan sat down and Eileen grinned at the other girl. Jorie had changed. She was still beautiful, still annoying, but there was simplicity to her face, a relaxed line to her shoulders, that spoke of bridges crossed and decisions made. After Nolan got through romancing her, Eileen thought she might end up liking the other woman. Maybe.

  “I propose a toast,” Joe said, “now that Jorie and Nolan have joined us.”

  “Okay,” Eileen said doubtfully. But Joe’s toast was not, as she feared, to Sheriff King.

  “Here’s to our deliverymen. Here’s to Doug, who warned us, and here’s to our Aztec warrior, who finally got his package delivered. I hope he’s up there with Sully, and I hope they’re watching us right now and they’re laughing with us.”

  “Here’s to both of them,” Eileen said.

  They all raised glasses, and clinked them, and the sun seemed to darken as they drank. Eileen looked around, puzzled, as the day around them turned from bright to dim.

  “What’s going on?” Lucy asked. “Hank, come here, honey.”

  “I know,” Ted said, with a big smile. “You guys have been here in Wyoming too long. It’s just a rain cloud.”

  “A rain cloud?” Eileen gasped. She stood unsteadily, then gathered herself and walked out into the yard. Joe followed, looking skyward. Lucy and Hank followed, along with Jorie and Nolan. They looked to the west, where the sun was starting its long afternoon descent, and there was a bank of heavy dark clouds.

  “Rain,” Joe said.

  “I can smell it,” Eileen said reverently. There was a tang in the air already, a scent that made her want to run and jump in the air like Hank, like the butterflies. “I can smell the rain coming.”

  Lightning flashed from the clouds and a few seconds later they heard the first rumble of the approaching thunderstorm.

  “We better get back on the porch,” Jorie said. “We’re going to get soaked if we don’t.”

  None of them moved. They stood and watched the clouds build and the heavy sheets of rain come sweeping down over the ridges and valleys to the north, where Rene’s fire still smoldered and smoked. They watched as the curtain of rain and clouds moved closer, as the temperature dropped and the wind started to gust. Eileen let the first drops lash her skin. She tilted her face back and let the rain fall on her.

  “Come on,” Joe said finally, tugging on her arm. She ran with him and joined the others on the porch and they watched the rain pound the thirsty earth. Streams of water ran from the gutters and fell in sheets to the ground, washing the whole world clean.

  The End

  Read Bonnie's other mysteries:

  Ground Zero

  Earthquake Games

  The White Gates (a Torin Sinclair YA mystery)

  The Night Queen

  Blood Print, A Templeton Stone Short Story

  Available in all e-formats now.

  About the author:

  Bonnie Ramthun is a Colorado wife, mother, and mystery novelist. Her novels for adults include Ground
Zero, a thriller published by G.P. Putnam, Earthquake Games, a 2000 Colorado Book of the Year nominee, and The Thirteenth Skull. The White Gates, her middle grade mystery published by Random House in 2008, is a Junior Library Guild Premiere selection and was a finalist for the Missouri Truman Award. She is a former chapter president of Mystery Writers of America, a member of Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, and former war gamer for the Department of Defense.

  There are two cherished compliments that Bonnie Ramthun has received for her writing.

  A reader wanted to know if the childhood events that happened to Eileen Reed in Earthquake Games had actually happened to Bonnie as a child. She considers this a high compliment - she made a lonely Wyoming car crash and an abandoned child so real that her reader thought it actually happened.

  The second compliment was when a reader wrote her a letter and praised The Thirteenth Skull, Bonnie's third Eileen Reed book. The reader loved the novel and hated the villain so much that she thought he should have died more slowly. Bonnie will never forget this compliment either, for it means that she created a character so evil and so hateful that the reader wanted him to die...harder.

  Bonnie's favorite stories are the ones where ordinary people are placed in world-changing events. The people who live in her stories are fictional, but she tries to make them so real you want to have coffee with them. Or kill them...

  Connect with the author:

  www.bonnieramthun.com

  Facebook: Bonnie Ramthun