River Bones (Sara Mason Mysteries Book 1)

by Mary Deal

  #

  So far, Sara had dodged the reporters. The Delta Gazette and all the Sacramento papers ran continual coverage of the unearthing of the remains on her property. The Bay Area newspapers also carried stories.

  Sara's vehicle was finally approved for release from her garage. She would not be allowed access to her property except to remove the SUV.

  As she and Buck approached Talbot House, cars and trucks were parked along both sides of the levee. People with binoculars watched investigators and forensic anthropologists work the backfield. Pear picking season would begin in about a week and the glut of parked cars left little room for trucks and other equipment to pass through as farmers scampered to prepare for the crop-picking season.

  Yellow banner had been hung between two wooden sawhorses that blocked the top of the driveway and warned:

  Sheriff's Line Do Not Cross.

  A guard sauntered nearby. “Just don't cross the yellow line,” he said as he shifted the toothpick in his mouth.

  Buck parked across the top of the driveway and they walked down to the garage.

  A strip of yellow hung from one of the trees near the driveway ramp to the corner of the house, and south to the front corner of the workshop.

  Migrant birds landed in the fields. Sara and Buck peered around the side of the garage. Several pheasants pecked at the ground. Others called from a distance. Overhead, riding the thermals with aerodynamic grace, cranes trumpeted. Below them, crime scene investigators photographed and dug and measured and packaged their findings.

  “Look over there,” Buck said, showing elation. “Canada geese.” A true Deltan, nature thrilled him.

  The flock flew low over the men and landed in the adjacent field near a low spot that held water.

  The investigators worked alongside a forensic team and their equipment. “Look, a backhoe,” Sara said.

  “Some of those rocks are huge,” Buck said.

  The smaller rocks were being removed by hand. More bodies may be buried in or under the rock pile. They wouldn't want to disturb anything by mechanically hoisting the rocks till they were sure.

  TV news crews had shown up. When someone caught sight of them beside the garage, one of the camera crews turned and headed back across the field.

  “Let's get out of here,” Buck said. He swung her garage door open.

  She hurried to climb into her SUV and noticed a table with coffee urns and food set up in the workshop.

  Two days later, Sara found herself passing time in Daphine's shop before she opened for the morning. All of Daphine's art on the back wall, except the paintings of Jade, had been changed. “You rotate your pieces frequently?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” Daphine said, smiling in a smug sort of way. “I sell my pieces to people while they stand at the counter. They can't help but see them.”

  “Not to mention your art is better than anything else in the store,” Sara said.

  “Different styles. We all have different styles.” She busied herself but called out from the far corner. “Fredrik came by the other day.”

  Hearing that aroused Sara's suspicions about who the killer might be. “What for?”

  Daphine returned to the counter. “What for? He came to see me.”

  As far as Sara was concerned, Fredrik was not in good standing. He could be coming around to casually glean information concerning the investigation. Sara feared for Daphine's safety if, in fact, Fredrik had something to hide. “You going to see him?”

  “Went out.”

  “You've already been on a date?”

  “Yep. He's an interesting guy.”

  “But, Daph.” Sara ran her fingers nervously through her hair. “No one knows who the killer is.”

  “Will you stop?”

  “Daph, I've had a chance to see another side of Fredrik's demeanor, with the dogs.”

  “You're too suspicious. He really came to see if I still had my painting.”

  “And you went to dinner?” Sara couldn't help being suspicious of everyone. “Daph, Esmerelda's ring was buried in the flower bed right outside Fredrik's door.”

  “No, it wasn't. It was outside the back door of the patient facility.” Daphine threw a glance that said to leave it alone. She opened the newspaper on the countertop and, again, they found themselves bent over it.

  The skeleton found at the back of the Talbot Estate is tied to other cases because the killer buried his victims with whatever they had on their person. The remains were identified as a missing fifteen-year-old girl named Laura Baines from Elk Grove. She was involved with an older man at the time of her disappearance.

  The girl had been missing twenty years. Her older companion would now be sixty-eight years old and is, once again, being sought for questioning. Though he couldn't be tied to other murders, he had been in the Sacramento area when many of the victims went missing. He has long since left the state.

  Sara leaned closer over Daphine's shoulder. “Did more people go missing after he left?” Sara asked.

  Daphine straightened and thought a moment. “Considering that the Sacramento bodies were missing for shorter periods than this one, the answer is yes.”

  “I said it before. This is totally gruesome!”

  “Not what you moved home to be a part of, right?”

  Sara continued to read.

  Only the girl's skull, femurs, and fragments of the largest bones were found. The weight of cattle trampling over her remains crushed the rest as it lay beneath the surface. The hyoid bone from the throat was not located.

  The girl's mother identified silver jewelry buried with the skeleton, and provided police with photos of her daughter wearing it. Her mother also said that the girl had a cocker spaniel, also missing. A dog's partial skull and teeth were found under the human remains, making it likely that the teenager and her spaniel met the same end as other victims.

  “Do you know what they did last night?” Sara asked.

  Daphine kept reading. “What?”

  “They flew over my property with equipment that identifies hot spots, disturbed areas in the ground, like more graves.”

  “Even after years of cattle packing that soil?”

  “They made passes back and forth, probably all the way out to Stone Lake.”

  The end of the newspaper article said:

  A new scenario is developing. The Baines girl was missing longer than other skeletal remains identified to date. It was originally thought the killer worked the northern periphery of the greater Sacramento area. The remains recently found at Stone Lake South, and now this burial north of Courtland, were of people missing longer than any others. It is likely the killer used the Delta area to bury some of his earliest victims.

  Chapter 32

  Sara and Daphine visited Pierce each day. When they arrived, the charge nurse explained that they would have a long wait. Scientists from the university, who monitored his health since the lightning strike, were running more tests.

  They went to the hospital coffee shop for breakfast. “Wonder if Morgana's been to see him,” Sara said.

  Morgana was known to spread jealous rumors in high school, saying that she would end up with Pierce. But Pierce could attract any girl he wanted with his looks and personality.

  “Pierce eventually moved to Sacramento and got a Masters in Agriculture,” Daphine said. “Married a girl he met in college.”

  “So where's his wife now?”

  “Divorced him.” Daphine sounded sarcastic. “Probably soon as she knew he couldn't have sex again.”

  Pierce's life was forever changed. “Has Morgana shown him any attention since?”

  “Oh, no. Morgana's a high-maintenance kinda' gal. Likes to be seen with guys she thinks are perfect.” Daphine smiled as if pleased. “He never liked her anyway.”

  Pierce needed all the support he could get. His condition worsened. A week passed and he remained unconscious.

  The next morning, Sara's cell phone rang. Daphine was in a panic.
“You know what they've done?” She screamed and breathed hard into the phone.

  “Daph! Calm down. What's happened?”

  Background noise came through Daphine's end. She was outdoors. “They tore his house down!” Her voice jabbed like a knife through the phone.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Pierce's house. The cops took everything!” She sounded out of breath. “They suspect he tried to kill you!”

  Sara rushed over and found a parking space down the block from Pierce's house. She ran toward the main house and looked to the rear corner where Pierce's cottage stood in shambles. The floor sagged, caved in at the middle. A wall had collapsed. The roof had come loose from the rest of the house and hung lopsided. A crumpled corner rested on the ground. Bits of shattered glass lay scattered.

  Daphine came outside from the main house followed by an elderly Chinese woman. “I sue! I sue!” The woman's cackle could pierce an eardrum. “They take my house, they pay me!”

  Daphine pulled back and cringed at the sound of the woman's vocal power. “This is Mrs. Zheng, Pierce's landlady.”

  Mrs. Zheng wore traditional Chinese clothes and bright-embroidered turquoise slippers.

  Sara didn't need to ask what happened.

  “They bring search warrant,” Mrs. Zheng said, animated. “All men go inside. Six men. Floor collapse!” She had been crying and started again, withdrawing a tissue from her pocket. “That my income. Income gone. I need income—pay my bills.”

  Daphine put her arm around Mrs. Zheng as they walked toward the cottage. Pierce's belongings, or what was left, had fallen toward the middle of the collapsed floor. The glass aquarium lay shattered. Dead fish lay stuck to the wood, their brilliant colors now muted. The plants in the now pane-less, lopsided windows hung wilted.

  “Are they coming back?” Sara asked.

  “Mrs. Zheng says she saw them leave with Pierce's computer and some records and other stuff they bagged up.”

  “They say sorry about house. They go report to housing authority. Say I shouldn't have tenant because my house not suitable for living.”

  What a pathetic mess. Pierce had nothing to come home to. “Can we salvage anything after the yellow tape comes down?” Sara asked.

  “They no come back,” Mrs. Zheng said. “They tell me tear house down now. That my income. They take my income!”

  Still, Sara had second thoughts. “Let me find out what I can first.”

  She wouldn't have to wait long. In the Delta, like no place else, news had a way of spreading. She could remember her mom and dad saying it had always been that way. While word-of-mouth was a great way of keeping one's neighbors informed, it also meant information got distorted.

  On her way to the Alden's, she picked up a newspaper but found no news about Pierce.

  “Seems Pierce is a suspect,” Buck said later. “They've even questioned us about him.” He paused, looked at the floor, and then eyed her curiously.

  “The rumor mill has it the authorities believe he tried to do you in,” Linette said. “They're keeping it hush-hush till they can question Pierce.”

  “That's why they grilled me?” Sara asked. A detective had called days earlier, making it appear like casual conversation. Sara sensed him asking leading questions. “I was sure they wanted to learn about more than just his condition.”

  “They think he was taking the dogs out to kill them. Then he meant to get you.”

  “Aw, c'mon! And cart me away with him driving my van?”

  Buck only shrugged. “That's the word going around. The dogs got away from him,” he said. “Pierce must have mistakenly drunk some of the Rohypnol he slipped you. That's why the dogs got away and he ended up on the floor.”

  “No way. He's no killer.”

  “They're looking at every possible angle,” Linette said. “They need to find that maniac.”

  “Pierce kill people? Break a hyoid bone? He's too weak.”

  “Don't forget,” Linette said. “He may have gone outside with the dogs without needing his cane and then come back in. His cane was found back in your sitting room, wasn't it?”

  “What about the stuffed animal on the flagpole?” Sara asked. “If he was knocked out—”

  “He could have put that up there after you went unconscious,” Buck said. “Coulda' had it in his backpack all along.”

  “So they think he's faking his illness?”

  “Not necessarily,” Buck said. “But Rohypnol would make it easier to get his hands around your throat.”

  “I don't believe a word of it!”

  The Sheriff's yellow tape had been up at Pierce's house for two days. Since the investigators had taken it down their work must be finished. That afternoon, Sara drove to Isleton again, intending to see what she could salvage. She found Mrs. Zheng and several Chinese men removing items out of the shack. The roof and walls had been braced with two-by-fours. One man hammered, driving nails to put the cottage back together.

  “I keep,” Mrs. Zheng said of Pierce's belongings. She was calmer, even saddened. “I keep for Pierce, but maybe he die.”

  Sara was deeply troubled and refused to believe that Pierce could harm anyone. Still, she wondered exactly when Pierce's life had changed and did it coincide with the start of the long list of missing people.

  Chapter 33

  Unexpectedly, renovations at Talbot House were approved in total, untimely however, as the crime scene investigators had not released her property. Sara worried about living at Talbot House again. She wouldn't be alone during the daytime however, with construction laborers crawling over the place. Before she spent another solitary hour in that house at night, she decided to install a state-of-the-art burglar alarm system.

  She detested feeling threatened. If Pierce were the serial killer and arrested, she would be safe. In her heart, she knew he was innocent. With news spreading as fast as it did in the Delta, locals would know when they completed the investigation at Talbot House. It would be a perfect cover-up for the real killer to come back and find her alone.

  Sara didn't want to wear out her welcome with Buck and Linette. The next morning, she located two houses for rent.

  One was an old single story farmhouse off Hwy. 160 on Grand Island near Steamboat Slough. While the farmhouse was the larger of the two, it sat back at the end of a gravel road in the middle of a cornfield. Her intuition told her she shouldn't be isolated.

  The other rental was in Clampett Tract, also on the west side of the river, but in the heart of Walnut Grove. Older homes with manicured lawns and tall trees sat side by side in the small Tract surrounded by newer, lavish homes. The kitchen and dining areas were up front and it had three small bedrooms, one separate from the others, with a wide hallway from the living room continuing through to the back yard. Ample sunlight fell into the rear yard. Shrubs were overgrown but could be pruned. A gate inside a trellis laden with honeysuckle and busy honeybees connected to the neighbor's property at the rear.

  Sara saw herself living there throughout the renovations at Talbot House. Still, something didn't feel right.

  Her cell phone rang.

  “Hey,” Johanna said. “Isidoro wanted to ask you something.”

  “Have him call me.”

  “I know what he wants. It's those rocks on your property. Can he have 'em?”

  “Sure, why not?” Sara said as she shrugged. “Eventually, I'll clear that whole field.”

  “How much would you get for 'em?”

  “Why would he want rocks that covered some poor victim all those years?”

  “Tell me the truth,” Johanna said. “That house isn't really haunted, is it?”

  “Sorry,” Sara said. “There really is a ghost.” Sara wasn't sure but meant to tease Johanna a bit.

  “I was afraid you'd say that.” Johanna was quiet momentarily. “Well, Isidoro wants those rocks. He does landscaping when he's off duty. How much would you get for 'em?”

  Maybe Isidoro's customers didn't
need to know where the rocks had been. “He can haul them away for free. Have him call me first.”

  Isidoro called the next day.

  “I need someone to take charge of my landscaping,” Sara said. “If you're interested, get with me when you can and I'll tell you what to include on the back lot.”

  Sara mulled over plans for the Clampett Tract house after leasing it. Finally, she headed over to give Esmerelda a few hours reprieve from the pups.

  Tripp sauntered over when they were loading the carriers. “Can I help you with that, Miss Sara?” he asked. He removed the knit cap he always wore and knotted it in his hands. His bald and shaved head was pasty white, unlike his hands and face, which were darkly tanned. For once, he didn't seem offensive but Sara saw through his disguise. He was still hitting on her by being as nice as he could be.

  “How are you, Tripp?” She could at least be polite.

  “Top o' the world. Things just go your way when you least expect it.” He acted like he had news or a joke and was bursting to tell. The sparkle in his eyes danced. He was giddy as he bent down and tried to be friendly with the pups. They growled in short bursts and kept their distance and stared warily at him. Tripp seemed embarrassed. After the way he treated them, what did he expect? He continued to fidget in his strange way.

  “Give the pups a chance. They'll come around,” Esmerelda said. She stepped over beside Tripp and patted his shoulder as he remained crouched, trying to get the dogs to come to him. Esmerelda could be such a mother hen.

  Fredrik arrived driving Esmerelda's Jaguar. He stopped when he saw them with the dogs. Stopped and stared. When they pulled the dogs aside, he drove into the garage. He gave a small wave of a hand as he walked toward the patient building, seeming too distracted to be friendly. When Sara looked again, he stood inside the door staring back, then turned quickly, and disappeared inside the building.