Bone Deep

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “No, you shouldn’t. Nobody’s tried to attack me. It’s ridiculous to think—” She swallowed. Remembering, he suspected, the heavy door to the greenhouse bouncing on its hinges after she discovered the second bone.

  “You don’t think this is an attack?” He nodded to her desk.

  She shuddered and stayed where she was, her gaze on the desk rather than him.

  He circled it and saw the drawer half-open, as she must have left it. And, damn, all the bones in a hand laid out. Or, he amended, enough of the bones to make an effective tableau. A human hand had twenty-seven bones, some tiny, and he wouldn’t swear there were that many here. Grant leaned closer.

  “I’m going to get some pictures,” he said, opening the case of the camera he’d carried in. “We can try for fingerprints on the drawer handle—”

  “Why bother?” Kat said dully. “Do you really think whoever did this is that dumb?”

  “Criminals can be remarkably stupid.” He began snapping pictures. “That’s why most of them get caught. Haven’t you read about bank robbers who use one of their own deposit slips to write the holdup note on?”

  She was staring fixedly at the contents of the drawer and didn’t respond.

  God, he hated seeing her like this. Once again he did battle with the desire to take her in his arms and promise to keep her safe. He’d be an idiot not to realize that this didn’t look good for her. Someone was tormenting her, and there was a reason. He couldn’t think of a logical one if Kat had nothing to do with her husband’s disappearance.

  When he had enough photos to be satisfied, he pulled on thin latex gloves and gingerly edged the proximal phalange apart from the metacarpal on the ring finger—yes, he’d done his research on human bones since the first one had appeared in the compost—and picked up the simple gold band.

  Inside, in delicate script, was incised Hugh and Kathryn and a date that he presumed was their wedding day.

  “You saw the inscription?”

  She nodded jerkily. “Just a bit of it. Kath. But that was enough. What were the odds it really said Kathleen, or Katherine, or—” Another shudder silenced her.

  “Not good,” he admitted, his jaw tensing. “I’m going to need something stiff to move the bones onto, then I’ll get a fingerprint technician in here.”

  “I’m sure I have some cardboard somewhere.” She looked around vaguely, as if an appropriate piece would materialize. Then seemed to pull herself together. “A plant flat. We have piles of them.”

  “That’ll do,” he agreed.

  He let her go and used the time until she returned with the shallow-rimmed cardboard box to call for a fingerprint technician. Then he said, “Kat, I need to ask you some questions.”

  She waited, having stepped back until she’d bumped into a bookcase stuffed full of horticultural books and what looked like plant and tool catalogs. Her eyes were huge, the usual rich blue as dark as ocean waters scarcely touched by the sun.

  “When did you last open this drawer?”

  “Days,” she said. “Let me think. I don’t keep much in there but the checkbook. I don’t remember. If you want to look in it, you can see when I wrote the last check.”

  “All right. Let me get the bones out first.”

  She stayed by the door while he carefully shifted the entire assemblage onto the flat, trying not to separate bones that were still linked by cartilage or whatever the hell the gristle was. It might tell Arlene Erdahl something. Then he nudged open the checkbook, avoiding the flat surface of the cover in case their suspect had been careless enough to pick it up when moving it out of the way, and riffled the carbon copies until he reached the last one. It was made out to Northwest Wholesale Perennials and was dated four days before. Sunday?

  Kat frowned. “That delivery came Monday. We were closed on Sunday. I guess I got the date wrong. So three days ago.”

  “That’s going to make it a lot harder to pinpoint when someone could have put this in here.”

  “Yes.” Her teeth worried her lip. “To think it was lying here for days.”

  “Or was left here five minutes before you walked in the office.”

  “Oh, God,” she said again. “I was working outside most of the day. I came in here a couple of hours ago to do payroll.” The calculator, pile of time cards and notepaper with scribbled calculations all told of her labor. “I was ready to write the checks.”

  “You still have to. Do you have another book of them? I’d like to fingerprint this one.”

  “Yes. I can do that. This is…a nightmare. Oh, Hugh.” Softer now, seeming to ache, her voice told Grant that the reality of her husband’s death was crashing down on her.

  Yes, goddamn it, he’s dead. At the same time as a part of him rejoiced, pity tore at Grant. Had she really believed Hugh lived, or was it only difficult to mourn without having seen the corpse, his face empty of life?

  Or was she an Oscar-worthy actress?

  “You’re losing weight,” he said, studying her.

  She flushed and wrapped her arms around herself. She’d peeled off whatever sweatshirt or jacket she must have worn earlier, and had on only a thin, crew-necked T-shirt over jeans that, unlike her more usual overalls, were only a little loose. The unfamiliar gauntness was in her face, and her upper arms were too skinny, stick thin. He could see the sharp outline of her collarbone through the knit fabric. Damn it, had she quit eating the minute she found that first bone?

  Purplish bruises beneath her eyes suggested she wasn’t sleeping, either. She was being haunted, although whether by guilt or innocent grief, Grant couldn’t yet guess.

  He wanted her to be innocent more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life, except her. God help him.

  “I’ve been thinking and thinking,” she said. “Why would anyone want to kill Hugh? He was nice to everyone. Do you know, he wouldn’t even send bad checks to collections? He just, um, avoided unpleasantness rather than ever confronting it. I never saw anybody mad at him.” But her gaze slid away from Grant’s at the end, as if she’d realized suddenly that she was lying.

  “What about you?” he asked softly. “You lived with him. Did you ever get mad at him?”

  Her eyes met his again, and he felt drenched in the resurgence of color. “Yes! Yes, he made me mad. Is that what you want me to say?”

  “Damn straight.” He heard the harshness in his voice. “Everyone knew the son of a bitch cheated on you. You should have been mad then, and you should still be mad.”

  She blanched, and he hadn’t thought her skin could get any paler. She seemed to shrink, too, and he knew suddenly that he was the son of a bitch, as much or more than Hugh Riley. Oh, hell. She hadn’t known. Until he’d told her, bluntly and cruelly.

  “What?” she whispered.

  “I’m sorry. So sorry, Kat. Don’t listen to me.” He came around the desk toward her, and she flinched even more from him. Grant stopped, hating his sense of helplessness.

  She looked at him. “Is it true?”

  He hesitated. “Did I ever see him with another woman? No. I was told it was common knowledge.”

  “Oh, Lord.” She seemed not to be breathing. “That’s why…”

  “Why what?”

  “Everyone thought I must have killed him.” Kat focused on him. “Why you suspected me.”

  “I would have been obligated to take a hard look at you in any case.”

  “What about the other women, if there really were any?”

  “You don’t believe it?”

  She was silent, her gaze inward. It was a long time before she said, “Maybe. I…wondered.”

  “Did you ever ask him?”

  “Once.” Her mouth twisted into a sad excuse for a smile. “It seemed like the kind of thing there’s no going back from. You know? If he was faithful to me, he’d feel betrayed that I suspected him. Trust goes both ways, and I think it must be hard to regain once it’s lost.”

  Grant nodded. He suspected he’d lost her trust when h
e kissed her that night four years ago—kissed her although he was married and knew damn well she was, too. She must have thought he wanted to have an affair with her, both of them cheating on their respective spouses. He doubted she’d ever believe he wouldn’t have taken it that far, that he’d acted on an irresistible impulse that had shocked him as much as it had her. She’d never given him a chance to explain.

  “But…he used to lose interest in me for a few weeks, or even a few months at a time. You know.” Spots of color burned bright on her cheeks. “And so I did finally ask. He said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’”

  Grant looked at her incredulously. “That’s all? Was he angry?”

  “No.” Her lashes shielded her eyes. “Just…vaguely surprised at such a silly question. And then he changed the subject like I’d asked whether he needed any thing at the grocery store. Although…that was like Hugh. He didn’t get mad.”

  “So you believed him.”

  “I suppose I did.” She bowed her head and seemed to be staring fixedly at the hands she’d knotted together. “There wasn’t even a flash of guilt.”

  “Amoral people don’t feel guilt.”

  “Hugh was a good man.”

  “Perhaps not sexually.” Grant didn’t even know why he was arguing. Maybe the rumors were wrong. If not…Grant was going to have to find out the truth, now that it was clear Hugh Riley had died under suspicious circumstances, but it didn’t follow that Kat ever had to learn the truth about her husband. She might be better off holding on to illusions.

  But Grant didn’t want her to. He hated the idea of her continuing to hug the memory of her lazy, charming, faithless husband to her as if she intended to take it to the grave when her time came. Frustration chafed at Grant. Damn it, Kat had been attracted to him. He knew she was. Why couldn’t she let herself see him now?

  “Rumors sometimes lie,” Kat said quietly, lifting her chin proudly. “Cops don’t always believe everything they hear, do they?”

  “No,” he admitted.

  “Then?”

  “I’m going to find out,” he warned her. He gestured toward the plant flat containing the bones. “I have to now.”

  After a moment she pressed her lips tightly together and nodded.

  “Kat,” he heard himself say roughly.

  She didn’t seem to want to look at him anymore. When he hesitated, a knock came on the door.

  Scowling, Grant called, “Come in,” and Jen Wisniewski, his fingerprint tech, entered.

  “If I can grab a checkbook out of the file cabinet,” Kat said, “I’ll get out of your way.”

  Grant had no choice but to let her go. “I’ll be in touch,” he said brusquely, just before she left the office. Kat barely paused, then kept going.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  KAT GENERALLY ENJOYED the garden club meetings. Members varied from the few with glorious gardens they’d created themselves to some who put out rows of bedding plants every year and merely enjoyed the camaraderie—and had some desire to improve the appeal of their hometown. Her own participation was good for business, but after marrying Hugh she’d developed a genuine passion for plants and their artful placement, and it was also fun to spend time with other people who felt the same.

  But this month, it was all she could do not to plead sickness and miss the meeting. If talk was spreading at all, everyone here would have heard it.They met this month in the community room at the library. She slipped in at seven on the nose, so she didn’t have to make conversation beforehand. Annika Lindstrom was already at the front of the room, clapping her hands to call for silence. She smiled upon seeing Kat, then swept her gaze over the group.

  “Good to see you all here tonight. We have some minor business to discuss, and then as you all know the principal item on our agenda is to make decisions about the flower baskets for downtown and the island planters that will greet visitors to Fern Bluff.”

  Annika was somewhat older than Kat, perhaps forty, only the fine lines beside her eyes giving away the years. Kat had heard secondhand that her husband was considerably older than her and had died of an unexpected heart attack a good ten years ago. Annika had never remarried.

  Except when working in her yard, she always wore her Scandinavian pale hair in a classic chignon. She was tall for a woman, nearly six feet, Kat guessed, model slim but stronger than she looked. Kat had once helped her dig out a new flowerbed by city hall, and they’d both worked hard for eight hours, shoveling, dumping the wheelbarrow, hauling heavy plant pots. Annika hadn’t flagged any more than Kat had. Kat wasn’t surprised; Annika had a glorious, English cottage-style garden that had been featured in the Herald garden section in September, and she did all the work herself. She wasn’t exactly pretty—her face was too long for that. Elegant might be a better word for her appearance. Kat liked her and appreciated her patronage at the nursery, but their relationship had never moved toward real friendship. Kat always figured it was her fault; she didn’t make friends easily or often.

  The approval of the minutes and the usual discussion of budget and upcoming elections went quickly under Annika’s deft guidance. Kat glanced around to see who else was here tonight. Everyone, she realized immediately. Which was maybe natural, because the projects to be decided on were the garden club’s raison d’être. Debate was likely to be spirited, with the bedding plant advocates on one side and the fans of perennial and shrub beds on the other.

  The mother of sixteen-year-old Billy with the tattoos and—most recently—an eyebrow piercing, Becca Montgomery caught Kat’s eye and gave her a friendly smile. Lisa Llewellyn was here, and Greg Buckmeier, sitting as always at an end of one row with his chair deliberately scooted a few feet from the next, so as to set himself apart from the group. Carol Scammell, school board member and mother of four. Mike Hedin, scribbling notes for the newspaper. Amanda Hinds, whose husband owned the pharmacy, met Kat’s gaze and then turned her face away with no expression whatsoever. Kat felt a chill; she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Amanda, formerly a good customer, at the nursery.

  Something like fear rose in her. She scanned the rows quickly. There was Dorothy Glenn, plump, sixtyish, and famous for her massed tulips in the spring and the dozen or more spectacular flower baskets that would hang from the eaves of the Glenns’ faux Tudor home. Jim and Tracy Baldwin—Jim was the vice principal at the middle school, and his wife worked with homeschool parents. None of them had been to the nursery lately, either. Neither had Fay Cabot, or Nancy McKee or Bridget Moretti.

  Panic made it hard for Kat to draw a full breath. She forced herself to stare straight ahead and keep her hands quiet on her lap as if she were entirely caught up in the discussion that had begun. She didn’t hear a word.

  Receipts had been down these past two weeks. She had assumed it was the weather, insofar as she’d thought about it at all. But now…now she couldn’t help thinking about how these were her core customers. Some spent thousands of dollars a year at Sauk River Nursery, others at least a few hundred. If they abandoned her…

  She’d dismissed the idea earlier, but…was someone trying to destroy her business? Was Hugh’s death not personal at all, but rather intended to put the nursery out of business? Maybe no one had thought she’d want, or be able, to keep it going, much less make a success of it once Hugh was gone.

  But if that was so…why wait so long to make the next move?

  And who would benefit from the nursery going under? She’d speculated already, and had no better answer this time. There was no other general nursery in Fern Bluff; there used to be an excellent nursery in nearby Marysville, but the owner had passed away and it had closed a few years ago. The nurseries in Lake Stevens and Everett were each a half hour drive away. They weren’t competitors. And the closer nurseries were all specialty ones, from A Rainbow of Iris and Mountain Rhodies to Old Thyme Roses. Her business benefited theirs, and theirs hers.

  She tuned in to hear Amanda arguing that perennial beds took virtually year-around mai
ntenance without the return of displays of annuals that could be replaced to offer spectacular color nonstop until late in the fall.

  Rather mildly, Annika said, “Planting, deadheading and replacing annuals is hardly low maintenance.”

  “Roses—” somebody began, to be interrupted by someone else who thought they ought to fill the space with low-growing, nearly maintenance-free shrubs.

  “There are plenty of them that flower, if we have to have blooms.”

  “Kat?” Annika said eventually, after argument had raged for another fifteen minutes.

  “There are advantages and disadvantages to all the alternatives,” she said. “Shrubs often outgrow their space. If they aren’t skillfully pruned, they can become leggy and unkempt. We’d either need to use landscape fabric and bark beneath—and replace it yearly—or plan on regular weeding parties. In some ways, a selection of old roses—perhaps rugosas or musk roses—would be the easiest to care for, but we wouldn’t have a long bloom season.”

  “The hips give fall color,” Lisa Llewellyn chimed in. “That’s true,” Kat agreed. “But let’s keep in mind that a massing of shrubs could block visibility for drivers on the roundabouts. We could have full season color with a mixed bed—a couple of spring blooming shrubs in the very center with leaves that are spectacular in the fall, summer and fall blooming perennials, perhaps annuals mixed in. And there’s no denying the beauty of a profusion of annuals. We do,” she pointed out, “have two roundabouts and two center dividers to fill. We could compromise by doing perennials, mixed bed or roses in the roundabouts, which are larger anyway, and annuals in the dividers.”

  While she swept her gaze over the group as she talked, she met no one’s eyes. She dreaded the idea of seeing open contempt or dislike on the face of someone she’d known for years. Liked.

  Talk immediately broke out again. Eventually, to her surprise, her suggestion was followed. A committee was assigned to choose the planting for the roundabouts, another one for the dividers. A third committee would plan the flower baskets.