Bones

by Jonathan Kellerman

  “Oh. Starting when?”

  “After dark.”

  “Let’s eat early.”

  “You feeling okay?”

  “What?”

  “Acute attack of sociability.”

  “I’ve been too isolated, darling. You get to go out, meet people. I talk to Blanche and pieces of wood.”

  “I’ll call Milo.”

  “I’ll call. He has trouble refusing me.”

  Pleasant surprise for both invitees.

  Dr. Rick Silverman was off shift at the E.R.

  Milo said, “Red meat. Public safety will just have to cool its goddamn heels.”

  Rick arrived first, wearing a maroon silk shirt, pressed jeans, and mesh loafers, bearing an enormous orchid arrangement for Robin. His silver hair was longer than usual, his mustache boasted of surgical skills. Robin took the flowers and kissed him. Blanche rubbed her head against his cuffs.

  He kneeled, petted. “Gorgeous. Can I take her home as a party favor?”

  “Love you, Richard,” said Robin. “But not that much.”

  He played with the dog some more, eyed the roast, sizzling as it rested. “Smells fantastic, glad I took an extra dose of Lipitor. Can I help with anything?”

  “Nothing to help with. Manhattan on the rocks, Maker’s Mark, capful of red vermouth, dash of orange bitters, no cherry?”

  “Impressive,” said Rick. “Not that I ever stray from the familiar.” He sat. Blanche settled at his feet. A long arm dangled; adroit fingers kneaded her flews. “Big Guy should be here any minute.”

  Robin said, “He phoned half an hour ago, said he got beeped by Downtown, would let me know if he couldn’t make it. I haven’t heard from him since.”

  “Downtown. That again.”

  “What again?”

  “New chief’s a hands-on administrator. Milo’s never had to deal with anything like it. It’s probably better than the old days—Siberia. But the personal attention cuts both ways. Right, Alex?”

  I said, “Pressure to perform.”

  “Exactly.”

  Rick tried Milo’s cell, got voice mail, didn’t bother to leave a message.

  Robin brought his drink, turned to me. “Chivas, baby?”

  “Thanks.”

  As she poured, Rick carried his Manhattan to the kitchen window, looked out at trees and sky. “I forget how pretty it is.” He sipped. “Sounds like this marsh mess won’t resolve soon, Alex.”

  I nodded.

  “Terrible,” he said. “Those poor women. Though I’m thinking selfishly. Disgustingly narcissistic, in fact. I got invited to give a speech at an alumni meeting. Thought we both might make it. Do a New England thing afterward. Milo’s never been.”

  Robin said, “Undergrad at Brown or med school at Yale?”

  “Yale.” He laughed. “No big whup, those things are always mind-numbing.”

  The front door shut. A voice roared: “I smell carcass!”

  Milo stomped into the kitchen, hugged everyone, sucked up all the oxygen in the room. The look on Rick’s face was pure relief.

  Within three minutes, Milo had guzzled juice from the fridge, downed a beer, inspected the roast as if it were evidence, dipped a finger into a gravy spot on the counter and tasted. “Oh, this is going to be good. Where we going in terms of wine?”

  The four of us ate lustily and polished off a bottle of New Zealand Pinot.

  When Robin asked how Milo was doing, he took the question literally and reviewed the basics of the marsh murders.

  Rick said, “Appetizing.”

  Milo ran a finger over his lips.

  Robin said, “No, I’m interested.”

  Milo said, “You might be, but Dr. Rick is repelled and Dr. Alex is bored out of his skull. Whoever has custody of the potatoes, please pass.”

  Small talk commenced. Milo didn’t contribute much, continued to shovel food like a combine. Rick worked hard at ignoring the rate of ingestion; he’s still trying to get Milo in for a checkup.

  Blanche toddled in from her nap. She’s the only dog Milo’s ever admitted liking, but when she brushed against his leg, he ignored her. Rick lifted Blanche onto his lap, worked her ears.

  Milo said, “Arf,” and stared into space.

  Robin said, “Dessert?”

  “I’m full, thanks,” said Rick.

  “Congrats,” said Milo.

  “For what?”

  “Speaking for yourself.”

  We moved outside, to the pond, ate fruit, drank coffee, watched the fish, tried to identify constellations in the moonless sky.

  Milo said, “Twinkle, twinkle,” and lit up a cigar.

  Rick said, “At least it’s outside, you won’t be poisoning the hosts.”

  Milo tousled his hair. “How thoughtful of me.”

  “What you’re doing to your own lungs we won’t talk about.”

  Milo cupped a hand near his ear. “Ey, what’s that, sonny?”

  Rick sighed.

  Milo said, “I am beyond mere chemistry.”

  “Ah, the theory. Call the Nobel committee.”

  “What theory?” said Robin.

  “He’s been so long on the job that his internal organs are petrified and immune to toxins.”

  “Man of Granite,” said Milo, smoking hungrily. Holding his Timex to a low-voltage spot bulb, he said, “Oops, it’s that time,” got up, stubbed the cigar on stone, hugged everyone, and left.

  Rick picked up the butt, held it between thumb and index finger. “Where should I toss this?”

  By midnight, Robin and I were in bed, under crisp, clean covers.

  She fell asleep quickly. I dragged myself through the usual brain-sweep, working to quiet my mind. Was back in Missouri, mastering my father’s Remington, feeling bigger than Dad—bigger than a bear—when the phone rang.

  Dad said, “Hey, Al, you really caught on.”

  Ring ring ring ring ring.

  Stupid; no phones in the forest. I pulled the covers over my head.

  Stayed gigantic.

  CHAPTER 18

  Robin was up by six, working in her studio soon after.

  I found her sliding a razor-sharp mini-plane over a pristine rectangle of spruce. From the size and thickness of the wood, the future soundboard of an archtop guitar.

  “Stromberg copy. Going to try the diagonal brace, see if I can tweak it for some interesting nuances.”

  “Brought you coffee,” I said.

  “Thanks—you’ve got crust in your eye—there we go, gone. Feel rested?”

  “I tossed?”

  “A bit. Get the message from your service?”

  “Haven’t checked yet.” I yawned. “When did it come in?”

  “Two calls, actually. Twelve forty and then at five, both from Milo.”

  I reached him at his desk. “Huck did something?”

  “Huck did the usual nothing. But there’s another body in the marsh.”

  “Oh, no. Poor woman.”

  “Not exactly.”

  From seven thirty to nine p.m. the previous night, Silford Duboff and his girlfriend, Alma Reynolds, had enjoyed a vegan dinner at Real Food Daily on La Cienega.

  “More accurately, I enjoyed it,” said Reynolds, on the other side of the one-way glass. “Sil was grumpy the entire time. Preoccupied. With what, I couldn’t pry out. I found the evening frustrating, but held my peace. Sil ordered his favorite item on their menu: the TV Dinner. Normally, that’s palliative. This time, it wasn’t. He closed up completely. So after a while I stopped trying, and we both simply consumed.”

  Telling the story to Milo with authority but curious detachment, as if teaching a class.

  A tall, solid woman in her fifties, Reynolds had an eagle nose, a heavy jaw, piercing blue eyes, and waist-length gray hair plaited tightly. The lecturer’s tone came honestly: For fifteen years, she’d worked as a junior college instructor in Oregon, teaching political science and economic history before retiring due to “budget cuts and apathetic stude
nts and fascist bureaucracy.”

  Now she sat across from Milo, straight-backed, dry-eyed, wearing last night’s blue work shirt tucked into gray flannel trousers, hemp sandals. Tortoiseshell reading glasses hung from a chain. Turquoise-and-silver earrings livened her ears.

  Milo said, “No idea what was on his mind?”

  “Not a clue. He gets like that. Uncommunicative, like most men.”

  Milo didn’t argue. Alma Reynolds wouldn’t have cared if he had.

  She said, “We had our dessert and left. After the way Sil had behaved, I decided to cut my losses with a good book. I asked him to drive me to my apartment, made it clear he was to proceed to his.”

  “Both of you live in Santa Monica.”

  “Two blocks apart, but any space can be a universe if one wants it to. This was one of the times I wanted it to.”

  “Were there lots of those times in your relationship?”

  “Not lots,” said Alma Reynolds, “but not a rarity. Sil could be difficult.”

  “Like most men.”

  “I put up with it because he was a fine man. If there’s anything that emerges from this conversation, Lieutenant, that should be it.”

  She took a deep breath through her mouth.

  “Oh, well,” she said. “No sense fighting it.”

  “Fighting what, ma’am?”

  “This.”

  Tears streamed down her cheeks. Embedding her hands in her thick, gray hair, she wailed.

  Milo took his time, got her to repeat the story.

  Rather than drive Alma home, Duboff had veered south to the Bird Marsh. She’d protested, he’d ignored her. A “dispute” ensued, during which she told him to stop obsessing about the marsh. He said the place was his responsibility. She said the damn place was fine. He said don’t refer to it like that. She said, you’re being irrational, nothing the police did caused any serious disturbance, time to move on, Sil.

  He ignored her.

  Last straw; she blew.

  Raising her voice in a way she hadn’t done since her divorce. Letting him know her green credentials were every bit as good as his, he was confusing ecological consciousness with obsessive-compulsive neurosis.

  He ignored her.

  She ordered him to stop the car.

  He kept driving.

  If she’d had a cell phone, she would’ve used it, but she didn’t, neither did he. Those towers, no matter what they wanted you to believe, were carcinogenic and disastrous for birds and insects and she’d rather be stranded in Timbuktu than capitulate to a toxic lifestyle.

  She insisted he stop.

  He drove faster.

  “What’s gotten into you?”

  Pretending she wasn’t there.

  “Damn you, Sil! Talk to—”

  “There’s something I need to see.”

  “What?”

  “Something.”

  “That’s no answer!”

  “It won’t take long, baby—”

  “Don’t baby me, you know I despise tha—”

  “Afterward we’ll go home and brew some tea—”

  “You’ll go to your home and I’ll go to my home, and any tea I drink will be my own damn tea.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  “You don’t care what I want, do you?”

  “Cool the drama, Alma. There’s something I need to see.”

  “You’re imprisoning me—that’s psychologically toxic behav—”

  “It won’t take long.”

  “What won’t?”

  “Not important.”

  “Then why do you need to see it?”

  “Not important to you.”

  “What the hell are you talki—”

  “Someone called me. Told me the answer was there.”

  “The answer to what?”

  “What happened.”

  “To who?”

  “Those women.”

  “The women in the—”

  “Yes.”

  “Who? Who called?”

  Silence.

  “Who, Sil?”

  “They didn’t say.”

  “You’re lying, I can always tell.”

  Silence.

  “Someone calls you out of the clear blue and you comply like a droid?”

  Silence.

  “This is absurd, Sil, I insist—”

  Silence.

  “Blind obedience kills the soul—”

  “The marsh is what matters.”

  “The damn marsh is fine, can’t you get that through your thick skull?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “Unbelievable. Someone calls, you pant like a lapdog.”

  “Maybe that’s what it takes, Alma.”

  “What?”

  “A dog. That’s how they found the women.”

  “Oh, so now you’re a detective. Is that what you want to be, Sil? A uniformed droid?”

  “It won’t take long.”

  “What am I supposed to do while you nose around?”

  “Just sit for a moment. It won’t take long.”

  But it did.

  Sitting parked on Jefferson, near the east-side entrance, she grew nervous, then scared. Wasn’t ashamed to admit it. Because to be truthful, the place always spooked her, especially at night, and it was spooky on this night, a moonless night, the sky thick and tarry and black.

  No one around. No one.

  Those stupid condos, abominations of human-centric narcissism, looming down, some of their lights on, but little good did they do, so distant, could well have been on another planet.

  Waiting for Sil.

  Five minutes. Six, seven, ten, fifteen eighteen.

  Where the hell was he?

  Fighting her nervousness with anger, she’d learned the technique from a faculty buddy in Oregon who taught cognitive psych. Substitute an empowering emotion for a helpless one.

  It worked. She grew hotter and hotter under the collar, thinking about Sil, so rude arrogant compulsive goddamn thoughtless.

  Leaving her stuck in the damn car.

  When he got back, there’d be hell to pay.

  Twenty-five minutes and still no sign of him and the anger began morphing back to nervousness.

  Worse than nervousness. Fear, she wasn’t ashamed to admit it.

  Time for another strategy. Confront the helplessness with action.

  She got out of the car, walked toward the marsh.

  Encountered pure darkness and stopped.

  Calling his name.

  No answer.

  Calling louder.

  Nothing.

  She took a step forward, encountered way too much darkness and stopped—where was Sil’s penlight?—said, “You get your ass over here and take me the hell home and don’t call me until I call you.”

  The impact sent her flying.

  Hard, vicious fist in her belly, so much force it felt as if the hand were penetrating her innards.

  Electric pain sparked through her body, captured her breath.

  The second blow caught her on the side of the head and she went down.

  A foot kicked the small of her back.

  She curled herself tiny, prayed no more punishment would come.

  Just as quickly as the attack had begun, it ended.

  Footsteps fading into the night.

  No sound of a car engine so she lay there thinking, He’s watching. Waited for a long time, before being able to entertain the big question:

  Was that Sil?

  If not, where was Sil?

  Duboff had been knifed on the pathway. Bloodstains splotched the dirt twelve feet past Selena Bass’s dump site. Care had been taken to brush the surrounding soil all the way to the sidewalk, obscuring footprints. No errant hairs or body fluids that weren’t Duboff’s, no tire tracks along either side of the street.