Murder Bone by Bone

by Lora Roberts

  “Ma’am?” The man stared at me. Corky and Sam, sensing that they weren’t going to be yelled at, moved closer to the alluring machinery. “Hold on, fellas. No unauthorized personnel allowed in the Bobcat.” He relented a little at their disappointed faces. “But I will let you sit in it before the dump truck comes and I have to get to work.”

  “A dump truck is coming to our house?” Sam’s eyes got even bigger.

  “That’s right.” He swung Sam into the driver’s seat of the Bobcat. I came down to stand beside the mound of dirt.

  “Are you going to dig up the bones?” I wondered if Drake knew about this.

  He shrugged, lifting Sam down and helping Corky to climb up. “I got orders to come out and pick up this debris, so that’s what I’m doing.” Corky’s delighted manipulation of the levers that bristled out of the control panel made him smile. “The youngsters sure get a bang out of trucks and such, don’t they, ma’am?”

  “It’s kind of you to let them experience it.” I glanced back over my shoulder, wondering if Moira was crying inside. “Did you know that a police investigation is going on here?”

  “Don’t know anything about that,” he said. “Just got my orders, that’s all.” He glanced around. “Nowadays, this neighborhood doesn’t seem like it needs the police so much. People have sure fixed up the houses.”

  “I believe a lot of remodeling has gone on.” I didn’t mention Bridget’s house, which was still in an unremodeled state.

  The Public Works guy looked at it. I read the name patch on his shirt: STEWART. He was fortyish, stout around the middle but strong-looking. He took off his hard hat, giving me a look at his curly fringe of gray-black hair around a tanned, receding hairline.

  “Now that house,” Stewart continued, nodding behind me to Bridget’s place. “I see nobody’s fixed it up. Looks just the same as it used to.”

  “You know this house?”

  “I’ve been in it before, back in my salad days. Grew up in Palo Alto. Not here,” he said, his lip curling just a little. “This was the tough part of town when I was a kid. I grew up in Evergreen Park.” He said it as if Evergreen Park was a separate community several miles away, but it was another Palo Alto neighborhood not a mile away as the crow flies. “We didn’t come over here often, unless we was looking for a fight.”

  “I heard there were a lot of hippies and people like that living around here.”

  “That was later, about the time I knew this house.” He winked at me. “I didn’t go to Stanford, but I knew some of those students. We had us some parties. This was one big party house for a while.”

  A dump truck rumbled up and parked in front of the driveway. The driver jumped out and shambled toward Stewart. He was tall, with movements that seemed lanky and uncoordinated. He, too, wore a shirt with a name patch; his said DOUG. Something about his face disturbed me. Although he appeared to be in his early forties, like Stewart, his face seemed to lack the carvings of experience’s knife. The expression he turned to Stewart was anxious, exaggeratedly so. Sam, watching his brother hog the Bobcat, had almost the same expression.

  “Hey, Doug.” Stewart’s voice when he spoke to his coworker was gentle. “Just let this young man finish up, then we’ll get to work.”

  Doug nodded several times. “We’ll get to work. I’ll drive the dump truck.”

  “That’s right, buddy.”

  Doug looked at the dirt, at the shapes of the bones sticking out. His eyes widened.

  “Stewart, what’s that? That shouldn’t be there.”

  I called Corky down from the Bobcat, and he came reluctantly. “You and Sam go back inside now,” I said. I didn’t want them focusing more on the bones. “Let me know if Moira’s still asleep.”

  They went reluctantly, feet dragging, gazing over their shoulders at the object of their desire, the Bobcat.

  “It’s nothing, Doug,” Stewart said, soothingly. “You get on back to the dump truck now.” He turned to me. “‘Scuse me, ma’am. Gotta get started. We’re on overtime, and the city don’t want us to spend our time chatting.”

  I looked at Doug, climbing into the truck, and Stewart seemed to know what I was thinking.

  “He’s a very careful driver, ma’am. Just a little slow in taking stuff in sometimes.”

  “I’m sure he’s fine.” I felt a little ashamed of my knee-jerk reaction to Doug’s disability. “But you really should check your orders again.” Drake would have apoplexy when he knew that his bones were in danger from the city workers. “The police wanted someone to come and secure the site, not dig it up.”

  Stewart scratched his head. “Well—”

  “I’ll call the officer in charge. Can you wait until he comes? It won’t be long.”

  “I’ll talk to Doug about it.” He looked dubious. “We’re just doing what we’re told, ma’am.”

  I trotted up the walk, meeting Corky and Sam on the front porch.

  “Moira’s still sleeping.” Corky looked past me. “Can’t we stay out here and see what they do?”

  “Don’t leave the porch, then. And tell me the minute they start digging.”

  I dialed Drake’s number, and got his answering machine, but before I could leave a message he came on the line, panting.

  “Some men are here from the city,” I began.

  “You got me out of the shower for that?”

  “They have a Bobcat and a dump truck, and they’re going to take everything away.”

  Drake’s reaction was loud and colorful. I held the receiver away from my ear. “Don’t let them start,” he said feverishly. “I’ll be right there. Keep them from starting.”

  “You want me to throw my body in front of the Bobcat?” I spoke to the dial tone. Drake had hung up.

  Stewart was still conferring with Doug when I went back out. Sam and Corky were arguing about how the scoop on the Bobcat worked. Sam went inside and came back out with The Big Book of Trucks. They put their heads together over this impressive reference work.

  I went down to talk to the men. Shaking his head, Stewart climbed into the Bobcat’s seat. “Sorry, ma’am,” he said when I came closer. “Doug’s work order says the same as mine—all debris to be removed. Even got a dump permit.”

  “I’ve spoken to the detective in charge. He doesn’t want you to disturb the site.” I pointed to the pieces of bone that stuck out of the pile. “Those are human bones. He thinks someone was deliberately buried there years ago, and the police have to make sure there was no foul play involved.”

  “A body!” Stewart seemed disbelieving. “Nobody said anything about this to Doug and me. We’re just trying to do our jobs, ma’am. If you’d step aside?” He put on a pair of protective earmuffs and started up the Bobcat. The noise was terrific. The scoop clanked a warning.

  Drake’s battered car pulled up, nose-to-nose with the dump truck. He jumped out, waved me away, and charged around to Stewart’s side, shouting something. Stewart shrugged, indicating the noise protectors he wore. Drake took out his ID folder and waved it in Stewart’s face. I had rarely seen him in such a passion.

  The racket stopped. I went back and opened the front door, so I could hear any sounds of waking from inside. Corky, Sam, and I kept Barker on the front porch by the simple expedient of sitting along the top step. I read from The Big Book of Trucks, learning more about diesel engines in the process than I had room for in my brain.

  After intense negotiations, Drake pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and made a call, then gave the phone to Stewart, who talked for a while and then handed the phone back to Drake. The two men shook hands, then Stewart talked to Doug while Drake came toward the house. The dump truck rumbled away, much to Corky and Sam’s dismay.

  “Aren’t they going to dump anything?”

  “Aunt Liz, where’s that Bobcat guy going?”

  Stewart, ambling up the sidewalk toward the parked truck-trailer, waved at the boys. “Next time,” he called. Drake gave him a tight smile. He didn’t sit
down on the steps until Stewart had reinstalled the Bobcat on the trailer and driven away.

  Then he collapsed on the step below me. “Whew. Close call.”

  “What brought them out here, anyway?”

  “Somebody got the wires crossed and issued a demolition permit instead of the work order I asked for.” Drake smiled at me. “Thanks for being on top of it, Liz. I guess I’ll just camp out here until we get this sewed up.” He grinned at Corky and Sam. “I hear there are places around that bring Chinese food right to your house. How does that sound?”

  It sounded fine to the boys. “It’s not dinnertime yet, Drake.”

  “Believe me,” he said, squeezing my hand gently before heading for the phone, “before I’m through here, it will be.”

  Chapter 7

  Drake took over the kitchen. He took calls on his cell phone, made calls on Bridget’s phone, and covered the kitchen table with a blizzard of notes scribbled on every loose bit of paper he could find.

  I helped Corky and Sam in the living room. They were building a fort out of blankets draped over chairs and tables, reinforced with every pillow they could find.

  Sam smoothed an afghan over the coffee table. “Under here is where the bones are,” he told Corky.

  Not being a card-carrying parent, I didn’t know how to handle this. Would finding a skeleton do irreparable damage to their tender young minds? Should I engage them in thoughtful exploration of their feelings? Should I treat it all as some kind of Mister Rogers adventure? “Let’s go visit Mr. Skeleton. Do you know how many bones are in your body?” I took the easy path and pretended I didn’t hear any remarks not addressed to me.

  While I was in the kitchen getting juice, the phone rang. Drake was talking away on his cell phone, so I answered.

  “Liz!” It was Bridget. She sounded as if she were calling from right next door instead of across a wide expanse of ocean. “How is everything going?”

  “Fine, Biddy. It’s going fine.” Drake lifted his head when I said her name. “How are you guys? Flight okay?”

  “It was crowded,” Bridget said, “and the cattle-car thing definitely came to mind. But it’s so beautiful here! We’ve already been for a walk on the beach, and we’re going to have lunch pretty soon. This is a fabulous hotel. How are the kids?”

  “They’re fine.” I turned my back on Drake, who was signaling something I couldn’t interpret. “Moira and Mick are still napping. Corky and Sam and I are building a fort in the living room. Do you mind if they use the sofa cushions?”

  “No, they can use whatever they want, so long as it isn’t breakable and they put it back.” Bridget’s rich, warm laughter floated into the room, making me smile. “Say, the phone’s been busy for a while. I was just about to give up until after lunch. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.” I gulped. “People are calling for you, mostly. And a couple of calls for the kids. It’s hectic around here.”

  “This isn’t going to be too much for you, is it, Liz?” Bridget sounded anxious. “I feel like I pretty much forced you to do it, but you’ll be all right, won’t you?”

  “Sure I will.” I tried to be soothing, something that’s not natural for me. “And I have lots of help. Claudia took the boys downtown for milkshakes, and Melanie’s already stopped over to make sure I’m not blowing it.”

  Bridget laughed again. “Melanie always thinks she’s the only one who can do anything right. But if you need help, she’s promised to stand by. In fact, she said she would take Moira on Tuesday and Thursday while the boys are in school. That should give you some time for yourself.”

  I was a little ashamed of my impatience toward Melanie, but not much. “And Drake’s treating us to Chinese food tonight.”

  After a silence, Bridget said, “Drake’s helping out, too? That’s great.” Her voice, almost as expressive as her face, was easy to read. Enthusiasm and speculation, blended about 60—40. She paused again. “Will he spend the night?”

  “Of course not.” I kept my back turned to Drake, knowing my face was flaming. “But Barker will.”

  “Oh, that’s comparable.”

  I ignored this gentle sarcasm. “Anyway, everyone’s fine here. Although,” I added, to gratify a fond mother, “we had a little choking up after you left. They miss you, of course.”

  “I don’t worry about the boys,” Bridget said. “But Moira’s been so clingy lately—”

  “She’s reveling in independence.” I made my voice brisk because Bridget sounded shaky. Hard though it might be to believe, many parents seem to miss their small children when they’re not around. “Have you been in that warm, wonderful ocean yet?”

  “Not yet, but Emery’s already checked out the scuba and sailboard rentals and booked us for a sunset cruise on the catamaran.” Bridget was cheerful again. “I can’t believe this is frugal us, just tossing our money around like plutocrats.”

  “Enjoy it. Take lots of pictures.”

  “I am.” Another pause. “Well, do the boys want to speak to me?”

  The boys would undoubtedly mention the bones if they spoke. “They’re pretty busy now. How about we call you around bedtime? Will you be in?”

  “I’ll be in,” Bridget vowed. She gave me their room number to add to the three pages of neatly typed instructions she’d left, and hung up.

  “Good,” Drake said. “You didn’t tell her about the body.” He put his cell phone on the table and stretched, yawning. “She might have cut short her vacation.”

  Drake has had a soft spot for Bridget ever since I met him. That didn’t bother me. A lot of people felt the same, men and women. She brought out people’s protective instincts, whether she needed to or not. I suppose it’s nice that Drake gets crushes on regular women like Bridget and myself, who are far, very far, from being fashionably scrawny young twigs. In my own case, the beauty is pretty much internal, so whatever Drake was seeing was in the eye of the beholder.

  These thoughts were dangerous. I had all too often lately found myself analyzing Drake’s seeming attraction to me. It was a short step from there to analyzing my own attraction to him.

  I looked into the living room, where Corky and Sam dove in and out of blanket-shrouded hidey-holes, and pulled myself back to the conversation. “Bridget certainly deserves this vacation. Anyone who lives full-time with children does. It would be awful if she had to come home early.”

  “I guess.” Drake looked vague. “I just didn’t want her and Emery coming back and cluttering up my investigation.” He grinned at me. “I know I can keep you in order.”

  “Why ever would you think so?” My exasperation wasn’t totally feigned.

  “Because you love a mystery. Confess, Liz. Why else would you get mixed up in them so often?”

  “How exactly did I get mixed up in this one?” I resisted the impulse to wipe that smug smile off his face. This is the reason why I can’t quite let myself be swept away by Drake. He can be so irritating. I think all men are, at least some of the time. Probably women are to men, too. I don’t need the aggravation.

  “You stirred it up somehow. Just think, if you hadn’t let the boys dig, those bones would probably not have been discovered for decades longer.”

  “Nonsense. The city’s been chewing up the sidewalks at an ever-increasing rate. Cable, storm drains, sewer replacements—seems like they’re digging everything up constantly. They’re digging up the middle of the street out there now, you may have noticed. They’d have run across the bones when they re-do the sidewalk again in six months or so.”

  “You’re probably right.” Drake picked up the cellular phone again. “Don’t let me keep you.”

  I took the juice out to the living room, feeling deprived of the last word. There are many things about trying to sustain a relationship with a man that make me uncomfortable. My very need of the last word showed up a kind of competition with Drake that I had noticed before. Perhaps I was only capable of cessation of hostilities in a relationship, not true lov
e. I didn’t like seeing things between men and women as a war.

  The boys had abandoned their fort and were standing on the window seat, their noses plastered against the glass. “He’s back!” Corky sounded ecstatic.

  “There’s no Bobcat, though.”

  I set the juice on top of the bookcase and joined them. Stewart, the Public Works guy, had returned, in a different truck with different accessories, which was double-parked in front of the driveway. We watched him rummage in the back of the truck and pull out a brilliant orange tarp. He flapped this toward the foot of the excavation, as if making a bed. After walking around to smooth it here and there, he put a portable barricade at each end and strung caution tape around. He stood off, surveying his work, and found it good. After a glance at the house, he drove away again.

  Drake found us on the window seat, our noses still glued to the glass as we watched Stewart’s truck disappear. I pointed out how tidy it was—the bones nicely tucked in, the site barricaded. Drake just sniffed.

  “Our people would do a much better job.” He flopped on the couch and closed his eyes, pressing his fingers into his forehead just above his eyebrows. “Trouble is, we’re spread so thin this weekend. Training exercise in Mountain View, and a murder-suicide in East Palo Alto that Bruno’s been detailed to help with. These bones have a very low priority, believe me.” He sat up. “Much as I hate to, I’ve called in the archaeologists.”

  “Send in the clowns,” I murmured.

  Drake grinned. “Richard Grolen is kind of a clown, if you ask me. One of those overgrown types that never grows up. Still digging in the dirt. He’s got to be over fifty.”

  “Not that old. And he seemed to be in good shape. Digging will do that for you, I guess.”

  Drake frowned. “I don’t like giving it over to him, but nobody in the department seems to feel these bones are of much interest, seeing how old they are. The county will send out a forensic anthropologist to date them, hopefully on Monday.”

  “I thought that’s what Dinah Blakely was going to do.”

  “She’ll want to sit in, probably, but it has to be official.” Drake rumpled his hair. “And I guess I’ll hang around over the weekend to keep tabs on the diggers. If I thought they wouldn’t miss some evidence, I’d just let Public Works go for it.” He sighed. “This looks like one enormous headache.”