Bone Deep

by Janice Kay Johnson

  At her request, Jason walked through the nursery with her, making sure no strays were left in greenhouses. Kat hated feeling so vulnerable she needed a skinny kid as a guard. When they returned to the main building, Joan was closing out the till.

  “Good day,” she said.

  “Everyone gone?” Kat asked.

  “Um…” Joan looked up distractedly. “I think so.”

  Jason went over and peered in the break room. “All clear.”

  “Dear God.” Kat sank onto a stool behind the counter. “The skull is hanging on the shed. Jason spotted it.” She focused on him. “You’ve been a life-saver today. I can’t thank you enough. This is such a nightmare, but it would have been worse if someone else had spotted it.”

  “Yeah. Jeez.” He still looked jittery, but also a little bit excited. “Who could have put it there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He told Joan when he’d noticed it, and they talked about whether it could have been there all day without reaching any conclusions. The sound of car tires crunching on gravel outside brought Kat’s head around, so she wasn’t surprised when Grant walked in a moment later. Jason once again told his story, and they recapped their conversation to that point.

  “I can call the other employees who worked today and find out if anyone had reason to go in the shed,” Kat offered.

  Joan said gently, “Why don’t I do that? You look a little rattled. Besides, it will sound less threatening coming from me. I can pretend we’re trying to track down a missing tool or something.”

  “Do it,” Grant agreed. “As soon as you think they’d be home.”

  Having agreed to keep this quiet for the moment, Jason finally left. Kat could tell he hated to go.

  “He’s a good kid,” Joan said, while dialing.

  She reached one of the day’s other two employees, James Cheung, spoke briefly, then reported, “He says he wasn’t near the shed today.”

  Tess Miller answered her cell phone. Nope, she hadn’t been in the vicinity, either. She’d spent most of the day helping people out front, or with perennials and annuals. Out of five people working today, not one of them could narrow down when the skull appeared.

  “All right.” Grant pushed himself away from the counter. “Let’s take a look.”

  “Do you want me to stay?” Joan asked, but Kat shook her head and managed a semiconvincing smile.

  “I’ll be okay. Bless you for coming in today. I don’t know what we’d have done without you.”

  “It was like the Indianapolis 500,” Joan muttered.

  “And we’re the car heading into the wall.”

  “But thanks to Jason, we’re not in flames.”

  “Yet,” Kat said, following Grant.

  When they got out there, he asked questions. Had the viburnum already been tucked right up against the shed like that? Yes. Was the nail the skull was suspended from already there, or did it have to be hammered in? Already there. What was kept in the shed? Kat showed him, then watched him prowl inside and around the exterior before he finally removed the gunnysack.

  She looked away, peripherally aware of him snapping pictures. Finally he put the camera in its case and reached for the skull, his big hands cradling it as he lifted it from the nail and contemplated it.

  “You know anything about this kind of wire?”

  “They’re garden ties,” she told him stiffly. “We sell them.”

  “Hmm.”

  “How soon before you can tell me…” She couldn’t finish.

  “Whether this is Hugh?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll have Dr. Espinosa take a look.”

  Dr. Espinosa had been Hugh’s dentist, and was hers, as well.

  “But I can tell you now, I’m ninety-nine percent sure, Kat.” Grant’s voice was low, gruff; like Joan, he was clearly trying to be gentle for her sake. “I have a copy of the dental records in my file. I took a look at them before I came out here. See that tooth missing? Hugh had a bridge there. Did you know that? And there’s a couple of fairly distinctive fillings on those back molars.” He paused. “I’m sorry, Kat. Sorrier than I can say.”

  Just like that, her stomach revolted. With a strangled sound, she bolted around the shed and fell to her knees, heaving. She retched over and over, grateful she’d skipped lunch and there wasn’t much to come up. At some point she became aware that Grant had followed her and crouched to one side, his big hand laid lightly on her back.

  Finally—finally—she was done, and sank backward onto her butt, head hanging between her knees. Her mouth tasted vile, her throat burned and her stomach hurt.

  Better than her heart hurting, she thought blearily.

  “Honey, I’m sorry.” Still squatting on his haunches so he’d be at her level, Grant watched her with compassion.

  “I could have put it there.” She wouldn’t have known her own voice.

  “You could have.” His hand had slid up to her nape and kneaded. “Did you?”

  “No!”

  “Then why did you say that?”

  Something like hysteria gripped her. And why not? She was entitled, wasn’t she?

  “You think I killed him, don’t you? Let’s not pretend.”

  The hand on her neck went still. After a moment he said levelly, “Don’t goad me, Kat. You know damn well I want to believe you didn’t have anything to do with it. I’m hanging on to some semblance of impartiality by my fingertips. If I can’t do my job, I’ll have to ask someone else to take it over. Is that what you want?”

  She sagged and whispered, “No. I’m being a bitch, and I don’t even know why.”

  “Sure you do. Get mad at me if that’s what you have to do to survive.”

  There he went again, so tender and nice she could hardly bear it. Kat squeezed her eyes shut on the terrible longing to throw herself in his arms and beg him never to let go. She couldn’t. He couldn’t.

  “No,” she said at last, dully. “I don’t have to do that. I’m okay now. I let it get to me for a minute.”

  “Stomach better?”

  “Yes.” Feeling as steady as a newborn calf, Kat got to her feet, resenting the ease with which Grant rose, his muscles fluid. “Are you going to dust for fingerprints or anything?”

  “No. The shed side is too rough to hold one, and it’s unlikely whoever hung this up there touched anything else. I’ll use that gunnysack to carry it in,” he told her.

  “Fine.” Thankful he’d already wrapped the skull so she didn’t have to see it again, she stopped long enough for him to pick up the bundle. He waited in turn while she grabbed her purse and locked buildings. His official car and her pickup were the only two vehicles left.

  Stopping with her driver’s side door open, Kat said, “It’s probably not worth putting in the security cameras now, is it?”

  “There are still plenty of body parts left.”

  She shuddered. “This feels like the finale.”

  “I doubt it,” Grant said. “Especially since I’d guess the plan was for a customer to see the skull. Keeping it quiet the way you did, that may be real frustrating.”

  How could she come to work tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, knowing what kind of surprise still could be sprung on her?

  “At least I know…” She couldn’t finish.

  “That Hugh is dead? Let me get confirmation from Espinosa.”

  Kat just looked at him over the roof of his car.

  “I can’t let this go anymore,” he said quietly. “You know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes.” She wanted him to leave, let her drive home before she fell apart.

  Grant’s forehead creased. “Kat…”

  “Not now. Please.”

  His expression didn’t ease, but he said, “All right. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  Kat got in, started the truck and backed out, leaving Grant standing beside his car, watching her go. When she turned onto the highway, she saw in her rearview mirror that he still hadn�
��t moved.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CONFIRMATION THAT THE BONES were Hugh Riley’s came quickly; Dr. Espinosa hung the dental X-rays on the light box on the wall in his office, glanced from the skull he held to the X-rays and said, “No question.” He gingerly handed the skull back to Grant. “Do you, er, have the rest of his skeletonized remains?”

  “Some of the other bones,” Grant said evasively. “This at least answers the question of whether Riley is dead.”“Tough on his wife.”

  Grant remembered her on her knees puking in the weeds and thought, You have no idea. He didn’t see how she could have faked that demonstration of shock. Her skin had been bleached white, her eyes wild, the tremor in her hands impossible to hide. She’d been shaken to her core, both by the gruesome appearance of the skull and by Grant’s certainty that it was Hugh’s.

  If it was the last thing he did, Grant vowed, he was going to find out who was doing this to Kat.

  “You ever shop at the nursery?” he asked casually.

  The middle-aged dentist grinned. “I mow the lawn. Under duress. Any flowers that get planted, my wife puts in. She came home with a few flats a week or so ago. Pretty sure that’s where she bought them.”

  “Good selection.”

  “Good service, is what she says. She’s strictly a weekend gardener, and she likes having someone tell her what she should buy and how to take care of it.”

  “That’s their reputation,” Grant agreed. “Kat Riley has built quite a business there.”

  “So I hear.” There was some reserve in Espinosa’s voice.

  “Yeah, she’s done wonders at the nursery since Hugh disappeared.” Grant paused. “I suspect some people think she’s better off without him.”

  The dentist gave him a quick, sharp glance. “I’m one of those people. I believe he was seeing one of my dental technicians at one time.” His mouth was tight with disapproval. “She and her husband were having problems.”

  “Hugh had something of a reputation,” Grant said carefully. “Tell me, is the technician still with you?”

  “No. She became unreliable. I believe she’s divorced now, but one of the girls mentioned her the other day. If you want to track her down…?”

  “Yes.”

  He walked Grant out, where one of the office workers said that yes, Corinna had moved to Stanwood and worked for Dr. Tuller there now.

  “She went back to her maiden name. Pantley…no. Pankey.” She smiled in satisfaction. “That was it. Stuck in my mind because her married name was Jones, you know. From never having to spell her name to always having to.”

  In his car, Grant called Dr. Tuller’s office and, without needing to identify himself, found that, indeed, Corinna Pankey worked there and was in today. He made the twenty-minute drive, presented his badge to the receptionist, and a minute later a visibly nervous young woman in a white lab coat came to the waiting room.

  “Chief Haller? I understand you wanted to see me?”

  “Is there someplace private we can talk for a minute?”

  The whites of her eyes flashed. “I…yes. I’m between appointments. Um…we can go out in back. There’s a bench there where we take breaks sometimes.”

  She led him through the office, down a short hall and outside, where the bench sat against the stucco wall and looked out at a vacant lot of tall, brown grass.

  After they’d sat, Grant said, “I understand you once had a relationship with Hugh Riley.”

  She stiffened. “Who told you that? It was years ago. Does this have something to do with him going missing? I hadn’t seen him for, like, a year before that.”

  “I’ll be blunt,” Grant said. “I’d heard rumors that Hugh had a number of affairs, and I’m looking for confirmation that it’s true. And perhaps a better sense of his personality, if you’re willing to talk to me about him.”

  “Why do you want to know?” She gazed at him in obvious perplexity. “I don’t understand.”

  Damn. He couldn’t wrap his mind around the idea that a man married to Kat would cheat on her with this woman. Corinna was pretty enough, he guessed, but ordinary. Late twenties, maybe, buxom but plump, her hair an obviously dyed blond, starting to look a little strawlike. Faint traces of acne scars peeked from beneath her makeup.

  “We believe that he’s dead,” Grant said, “and are trying to get a better handle on who he was spending time with.”

  “Well, it wasn’t me.” Despite the heavy foundation, color stood out on her cheeks as if painted there with a heavy hand. “We—I thought we were in love.” She stared at the vacant lot. “Eli—he was my husband—and I weren’t getting on so good. He was drinking too much, and Hugh—” Her shoulders moved. “He was really sweet to me. I knew he was married, but he said it was like my marriage. Lots of yelling and not much good left. You know?”

  “Yeah.” That pretty much summed up the last months of his own marriage.

  “We had coffee a couple of times, and then he showed me around the nursery. It was a Sunday, so it was closed. In one of the greenhouses we…” She stole a look at Grant.

  It would sicken Kat to know that her husband had brought women to the nursery to screw them. Goddamn it. He was even more of a scumbag than Grant had thought.

  “After that?” he asked, keeping his voice neutral.

  “A couple of times we went away for a Friday night or something. By that time Eli and I were about done. He thought I was going to Mom’s. Hugh kept saying Kathryn and he were arguing about the nursery and whether he was going to have to pay alimony. Stuff like that. But after, like, six weeks, I started to wonder.”

  Grant nodded encouragement.

  The vivid color in Corinna’s cheeks hadn’t dimmed any. “I left Eli, and when I told Hugh I didn’t like knowing he was still living with his wife, he said to be fair he had to give his marriage a chance, and he realized he hadn’t been fair, seeing me the way he was. And he loved me, so this was really hard, but—” She shrugged. “Me, I figured out he was another creep. Except—” a wistful note crept into her voice “—he was nice and funny and, just, sweet. So I didn’t know for sure. Except I ran into him at Safe-way, like, a couple months later, and he acted as if he didn’t even recognize me. That’s when I knew for sure I’d been really dumb.” She straightened, looking at Grant with a dignity that made him sorry he’d put her through this. “Is that all you wanted to know?”

  “Unless you saw him with any other women later…?”

  She shook her head. “Eli and I were done, like I said, and I went to stay with my mom in Lynnwood for a while. The only other time I ever saw Hugh was that time at the store. Except on the news about him disappearing, and I thought maybe his wife had caught him with another woman. And you know what? If I wasn’t the only one, he deserved whatever she did to him.” She rose to her feet. “I need to go back to work.”

  Grant stood, too. “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.”

  Corinna gave a shamed nod and hurried into the clinic. Grant walked around the outside of the building to the parking lot and his car.

  So now he knew. Gossip had it right. Hugh Riley hadn’t just had trouble keeping his pants zipped, he’d been a predator. He’d seen the vulnerability in Corinna Jones and used it, feeding her what she needed to hear until she got suspicious and became too much trouble. He’d ditched her, then, with a story that sounded well used.

  Grant muttered a couple of vicious words that fit the son of a bitch well, then mulled over his next steps.

  Find Hugh Riley’s other women. In particular the ones who came after Corinna Jones née Pankey.

  How many would there be? Kat had said she’d wondered, because he would lose interest in her for a few weeks to a few months at a time. So there was a pattern; probably that was how long it took most women to see through his lies. Or maybe how long it took him to tire of each new conquest. What Kat hadn’t said was how far apart those periods of disinterest in her were.

  He could ask her.

/>   Grant grunted. No. Not happening.

  All right. Assume it also took that shit weeks to months to find and seduce another woman. So…maybe two or three affairs the last year.

  If he’d kept up that pace, there were a hell of a lot of women out there who might have reason to hate Hugh’s guts. Kat wasn’t alone in having a motive, not when Hugh had likely left other women’s marriages strewn like so much garbage under his feet.

  How could Kat not have known, rather than merely suspected? Grant knew he was going to have to ask that question. He wouldn’t be doing his job if he didn’t.

  He knew where to start his inquiries. Shelly Gill, a dispatcher, was married to the one and only mortician in West Fork. Somehow, she always seemed to know everything about everybody. Grant respected the fact that she was also remarkably closemouthed about what she knew, perhaps because much of it came from Bert, her husband. But when Grant had needed to know something before, she’d been a gold mine.

  He asked her into his office as soon as he arrived at the station. A petite, freckled redhead in her forties, she raised carefully plucked eyebrows and asked if she could bring her coffee.

  “Yeah, let me pour a cup, too,” he agreed.

  Once she was settled across the desk from him, he said, “Bert’s storing some bones for me. They’re Hugh Riley’s.”

  “I heard rumors.”

  He shook his head in amazement. “We didn’t know for sure until today.”

  “A couple of Mrs. Riley’s employees aren’t real discreet. Everyone knows some bones have turned up out at the nursery.”

  “Good God,” he muttered, and she grinned at his naivety.

  “Small town.”

  “I’m reminded every day.” He sat back in his chair and studied her. “Shelly, I’m told Hugh couldn’t keep it zipped. I want to find out who he was seeing before he disappeared.”