The Bone Man

by Vicki Stiefel

  She nodded. “Wish it wasn’t so damned famous.”

  I moved closer and tried to peer around Didi to see the reconstruction. There wasn’t enough room. “Why the screen?”

  “It’s been hell,” she said without turning. “Goddamned hell. Press. Indians. Smithsonian boobies. The woman’s getting no peace.”

  “So it’s a woman. I’d like to see.”

  “Just one sec.” Her hands flew over the face molded with clay and resin and intuition, and she moved them lightly, tweaking here and massaging there.

  “God, I’m tired.” She swiped the back of her hand across her hair, leaving a streak of clay. The color blended perfectly. “I’m too old for this crap.”

  “No way. But what about that 3-D computer stuff? I hear it’s pretty good at reconstructing.”

  “I need my fingers,” she said. “I need to feel it, Tally. To see the individual come alive beneath my hands. I need to sense it, to find the face. I can’t do any of that with a computer. Not a bit.”

  “I understand, Didi. I do.”

  Her shoulders slumped. “Almost there. Try like hell, I can’t make an Indian out of this skull. You look.”

  Didi backed off, and the light beamed down onto a strikingly beautiful face.

  I squeezed the rock in my hand so tightly it hurt. I suddenly felt dizzy. I knew that face. “Ohmigod.”

  I walked closer to Didi’s clay reconstruction. It seemed to pulse beneath Didi’s single spotlight. I raised my hand, but didn’t touch. The hair was pulled back, tight, and she wore bangs. Her cheekbones were high, her whole face angular, right down to her jutting chin. Her lips were thin and sculpted and wore an almost-kiss. Her large eyes tilted up at the corners, just a bit. She was exquisite in every way, and I knew her.

  The lights blazed. Addy Morgridge and Didi Cravitz sat across from me. I sat on a tall lab stool as I sipped bourbon from a coffee mug and tried to steady my heart rate. It wasn’t working.

  “I know her, Addy,” I said. “I know her well.”

  She sighed. “You can’t possibly know a thousand-year-old woman.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I understand that. Believe me. That’s why what I’m seeing makes no sense. This woman, my friend, is our contemporary. She’s obviously not from A.D. 1100.”

  Didi turned to Addy. “I told you she didn’t look like an Indian!”

  Addy snorted. “Not your image of one. Of course she’s an American Indian, and she’s been dead for almost a thousand years.”

  “We don’t know that for certain,” Didi said. “There was a huge protest when we tried to carbon date the skull. The governor found the idea disrespectful. So we had to let it drop.”

  Addy brushed a hand across her clipped Afro. “I need some of that bourbon.” She sighed. “We’d better test it, no matter what the governor says. That this woman—”

  “We can’t test the skull,” Didi said. “It’s absolutely forbidden by the federal government.”

  I poured Addy two fingers of Wild Turkey, splashed it with water from Didi’s sink, and handed her the glass.

  “Remember,” Addy said. “The pot was broken during a Peabody installation. Salem’s Peabody has one of the best American Indian collections in the U.S. The pot is old. No doubt about it.”

  “Aren’t either of you listening to me?” I said. “This poor woman’s skull was somehow put into an ancient pot. I don’t know how or why. I recognize her, for heaven’s sake. I doubt she put her skull in there of her own free will.”

  Addy knocked back her bourbon. “No matter who she is, you’re right about that one, Tally.”

  Didi draped some moist cheesecloth over the reconstruction, then washed her hands. “I knew it. She was too good to be true. From the very first. She never felt right.”

  “Oh, come off it, Didi,” Addy said. “You can’t buy into Tally’s fiction. I’m telling you, this is the real deal. She just looks like someone Tally knows.”

  Addy made some sense. “It’s possible, I guess,” I said. “I remember an ancient skull they found out in Washington State.”

  “You mean the guy,” Addy said, “who looked like Star Trek’s . . . What’s his name?”

  “Patrick Stewart,” I said. “The reconstruction really did look like him. I remember.”

  Addy wrapped her hand around my arm. “The museum found her inside that damned pot.”

  Didi lifted a bony hand to the covered face. “Morgridge has a point, for once.”

  Addy snorted.

  “I see your point,” I said. “But what’s unnerving is that I know the woman. I recognized her. She’s a friend.”

  “There easily could be a resemblance between the two women, that’s all,” Addy said. “You’re mistaken, Tally. The pot’s almost a thousand years old. Think about it.”

  I slid my glass onto the counter and stood. “You’re right. Of course you’re right. Seeing it . . . her . . . just spooked me. Sure. I’ll call her. She owns a shop on the Vineyard. We’ll chat, and I’ll feel about a million times better.”

  Shouts from outside in the hall. “What the hell . . .”

  Gert appeared at the door. “Hey! National Geographic’s here. And they’re makin’ a big brouhaha.”

  “Shit!” Addy said. “I forgot the Geographic people were coming today to look at her. They planned to do some filming.”

  “The governor said that was a bad idea,” Didi said.

  “His problem.” Addy waved at the cheeseclothed head. “Now they can’t anyway. They absolutely must not see her until we’re sure she an old Indian. I mean, I know she is, but I’ll feel better once Tally has talked to her friend. The magazine’s doing a piece on the skull, The Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Didi, me, the Ancient Ones. Cripes.”

  “I won’t talk to those people,” Didi barked.

  I slid off the stool. “I’ll go call my friend right now.”

  “Hurry up,” Addy shouted.

  I varoomed to my old office. Gert followed, and we closed the door. I began to shake.

  “Tal?” Gert rested her hand on my shoulder.

  “Nothing. It’s just settling in. A friend’s head is on Didi’s table. God, that head could be her twin. I swear.” I dialed The Native Arts on Martha’s Vineyard. A woman answered on the third ring, and I asked for Delphine.

  The voice was young yet authoritative. “I’m afraid Ms. Delphine isn’t here.”

  “This is Tally Whyte,” I said. “Are you Delphine’s daughter, Amélie, by any chance?”

  “No. Sorry. But I’m sure I can help you.”

  I looked at Gert and shook my head. “I’ve bought some pieces from your shop, and I’m a big fan of Delphine’s. She knows just what I love. Not that you’re not wonderful, but I really need to speak with Delphine.”

  “She’s on a buying trip out West. She left before Indian Market in August, and we don’t expect her back until November first.”

  “How about her cell?”

  “I’m sorry. We’re not allowed to give out private information.”

  November—a month and a half away. I remembered Delphine went on big buying trips in the fall. I wanted to scream. “November’s too late, I’m afraid. Um. How about you call her, tell her who called, and have her give me a ring?”

  A pause. Then, “I can do that. Sure.”

  I gave her my numbers—my cell, my home, and even Gert’s office. “This really is urgent,” I said.

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “I’m sure you will . . . ?”

  “Zoe.”

  “Thanks, Zoe. So when should I expect to hear?”

  “Later this afternoon or tomorrow morning at the latest.”

  “No sooner, huh?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “But no. Like I said, I’ll try. But the coverage out there stinks. Sometimes Mrs. LeClerc is out of range until late at night. You know, the time difference.”

  I knew. The waiting would drive me batso.

  Time. Time. Time. It�
��s a river that flows north to south, yet parallel, too. At different speeds, no less. We were all sort of bobbing heads in the river. Dear God.

  Was that skull Delphine’s? Or was I crazy? It was only Didi’s construct, after all. Tweak it and the woman would be transformed.

  “Tal? Tally!”

  I looked up to see Gert frowning at me.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  She handed me a Diet Coke. “This should help.”

  “The only thing that’ll help is a phone call.” Shouting screeched through my former office door. “What the hell?”

  We flew down the hall to find Addy in the lobby getting screamed at by a man with wild hair, a blue hoodie, and an unfashionable mustache. Addy’s arms were crossed, and she remained patiently silent while Mr. Mustache gesticulated wildly with his arms.

  “Excuse me busting in?” I said.

  Mustache-man’s head swiveled, snakelike, and I bit my lip so I wouldn’t laugh.

  “The dead live here, mister,” I said. “Have some respect.”

  “Oy,” Gert hissed.

  A sandy-haired guy in a pressed denim shirt stepped forward. He could have been an outdoor model. Or maybe a news anchor. Or maybe Thor, what with those lightning bolts embroidered on the tips of his collar. “Ma’am.”

  Ick. I smelled bullshit ten feet away. “Yes?”

  “We have an appointment with Dr. Cravitz. Our time is valuable.” He hitched his thumbs over his belt. “We are, after all, with National Geographic.”

  I smiled my most obsequious smile. “And I, after all, am representing all the dead folks here. Got it?” I girded myself for a diatribe when Sergeant Rob Kranak stormed out of the CSS offices, his face a mask of fury.

  “One more word, motherfucker,” Kranak said, “and I haul your ass behind bars.”

  The string bean with the wild hair rolled his eyes. “Do you know who I am?”

  On that note, Kranak hollered for backup, whipped out his cuffs, slammed them on Mr. Mustache.

  All hell ensued, and by the time Dr. Addy Morgridge sorted it all out, the National Geographic people were grateful to postpone for a week their story on the finding of an ancient skull inside an Anasazi pot.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Hours later, I dropped my water bottle into the sink in my kitchen and splashed my face with tap water. I leaned on the edge of the sink, gasping. One glance at Penny, and I felt even worse. She wasn’t even breathing hard. I freshened her water dish, and she drank deeply.

  In the living room, I looked at my collection of Zuni fetishes. Most had been carved in the past ten years. I had wolves and mountain lions and bears and moles and eagles and badgers. A few of my carvings were old, from the sixties and seventies. I picked up the Edna Leki I loved. The coyote was a beautiful piece from the seventies that was more than three inches long and made of travertine marble, with an Edna face—rounded and distinctive—and a coyote’s jutting tail. Though simple in line, it was far more descriptive than the red rock I’d held that morning.

  Yet both made me shiver.

  Or maybe I was just chilled. I laughed, put the Edna back in its place, and plucked a towel from the rack. I pulled a Southwestern pottery book from my collection, grabbed the phone from its cradle, and walked out onto the deck. I sat on my tattered wing chair, slung the towel around my neck, crossed my ankles on the deck railing, and sighed.

  Our run had been good, but I was still out of shape. Penny appeared, and I scratched her behind her ears. My three-legged dog would always beat me on a run. She just humored me by keeping pace.

  “Good girl.” I opened the book, hoping to find examples of that afternoon’s pot markings in the catalog.

  And there they were. Huh. No word from Zoe. It was still afternoon in New Mexico, and if Delphine were on some buying excursion, she’d most likely still be out of range.

  Except I could only picture her as dead.

  Ridiculous. I understood the physical impossibility of a contemporary skull being found inside a thousand-year-old pot. But, cripes, I couldn’t get the image of a dead Delphine out of my head.

  I jumped three feet when the phone bleeped. I scooped it up from the deck floor and pressed it on.

  “Yes?”

  “You’re breathless tonight.”

  “Hank!” I said. “I, um, I was expecting an urgent call.” I shivered. Dusk had fallen, and my damp shirt gave me goose bumps. I walked inside and shut the French doors behind me while Hank filled me in on a case he’d been working in Winsworth.

  “So you see,” he said, “it was that damned Percy after all.”

  “I’m not surprised. He’s one sad case with real mother issues.”

  Hank snorted.

  I wanted to ask him about the job with Massachusetts State PD, but I hesitated. He should tell me. I shouldn’t have to ask. So I switched gears. “Something strange happened today.”

  He chuckled. “Tal, with you, I expect strange.”

  “Very funny. Now listen.” I told him about the smashed pot and the skull and my thinking it was shop owner Delphine. “At first, I was sure. Now? Not so much.”

  He grew quiet on the other end. I heard his breathing, then a hiss. “You know, Tal, I usually tell you to go with your gut.”

  “I know. I agree. But it makes no sense.”

  “No, it doesn’t. It sounds highly unlikely, in fact. So why don’t we go to the Peabody this weekend, if I’m still invited for the overnight. We’ll find out just where those pots came from.”

  “Of course you’re invited.” Just the thought of Hank here, in my bed, made me lust. “But we won’t need to go to the Peabody. I’ll be talking to Delphine, at the latest, tomorrow.”

  “Plan on a field trip, hon.”

  “But, Hank, I . . .”

  “I know you,” he said. “I doubt talking to the woman on the phone will satisfy you.”

  My gut tightened, and I gnawed a nail. “I hope you’re wrong.”

  “Gotta run,” he said. “See you Friday, sweet cheeks.”

  “Um, Hank?”

  “Right here.”

  I sat on the couch and dragged the afghan onto my bare goose-bumped legs. “Sure. Of course. I, um, I heard a rumor today. Pretty interesting one.”

  “Ayuh,” he said, sliding into the Maine-ese he used to muddy a situation.

  “Aren’t you curious what it was?” Here he went again.

  “Nope-suh. You know how I feel about rumahs.”

  “God, you’re a frustrating man,” I said.

  He chuckled. “Yup-suh.”

  “Cut the Maine crap, Hank. It was about you.”

  “Like I said, gotta run, Tal.”

  “Don’t you dare—”

  Click.

  The bastard had rung off.

  That night I watched a BBC mystery. I clutched a pillow to my gut, was lazily scratching Penny, and failed to find distraction in a most compelling Waking the Dead.

  Every so often, I stared at the phone, willing it to ring, urging it to have Delphine’s voice on the other end.

  No such luck.

  Before I tucked myself in for the night, I checked my cell phone and made sure it was charging. I dropped a pair of special glasses and a wig I’d used on a years-ago dance with death into a L.L. Bean bag, so I’d be all set for the morning. I gave the night sky one last look, then slid into bed.

  That night I dreamt of Delphine and saw her face melt from her skull. I snapped awake, smelling of sweat and fear, and decided that a dreamless five-thirty was better than a sleeping alternative.

  “Didi, just give it a try.” I stood in Didi’s office beside the uncovered bust of the mystery woman. In less than thirty minutes, retired Zuni tribal governor Ben Bowannie was to arrive and give the real skull, along with Didi’s construct, a cleansing ceremony. I needed to be done before then.

  Didi ruffled her hands through her wild gray hair, making it even wilder than usual. “I cannot put that old ratty wig on this head. Nope. Can’t d
o it. Can’t slip on those ridiculous glasses, either.”

  I held the glasses up to the reconstruction’s face. “C’mon. Delphine wears reading glasses similar to these!”

  “I don’t care if she wears Fig Newtons on her eyes,” Didi said. “I promised the governor the head would be untainted with Anglo anything. It must be pure, according to him. I’m trying to accommodate. Get it?”

  “I respect that,” I said. “I do. But I told you, she looks so much like this woman I know. The wig will help. It’s how she sometimes wears her hair. And the glasses will—”

  “No.” She pursed her lips as she sat at her desk. “No. I am sorry, Tally. Perhaps after the governor leaves. Yes, that might work. Believe me, this guy’s sharp. He’d know if we put something like that on her. Whether the skull is American Indian or not, I feel it’s appropriate to go along with this guy for now. Have to, Tally. They say he’s high in the Bow priesthood, the most secret and sacred of Zuni clans, or whatever they call them. I believe that. He’s got power, and he knows it. So just don’t keep pushing me.”

  I understood I had to respect Didi on this, I just didn’t want to. I knew about the Zuni Bow priesthood from my Zuni fetish collecting. She was right. It was a powerful entity. I pulled out my cell phone and started taking photographs.

  She plucked the phone from my hands. “That’s not allowed, either!”

  “Christmas, Didi!” I snatched back the phone. “What’s wrong with you? You’re always more than willing to share—”

  “Not today. Not her. I will not be accused of profaning a holy American Indian person.”

  “Fine.” I slapped the phone shut.

  “Delete them.” Didi’s pale eyes, aged and tired with overwork, burned. She wasn’t kidding.

  I’d known Didi for years. A curmudgeon, yes. But this was different. And strange.

  “Did you hear me?” she repeated. “Delete them.”

  “Sure.” I flicked some buttons and moved my fingers across the phone.

  Two knocks, then, “Delete what, ladies?”

  Fogarty. “Don’t sneak up on people like that,” I said. “It’s creepy.”

  He frowned. “You. I truly believed we were well rid of you.”

  “Gee, Tom,” I said. “You’re always such a welcoming fellow. And here I was going to congratulate you on your appointment as assistant chief medical examiner. Shucks. So are you butting in on this, too?”