Her Perfect Bones: A totally addictive mystery and suspense novel

by Ellery A Kane

  “Flew off?” JB grimaced at the claw marks on the pullout sofa, which had already been claimed by several of Trish’s feline companions. Then muttered, just loud enough for Will to hear, “You sure he didn’t meet a bad end?”

  Will cut his eyes at JB as he made his way across the linoleum, almost invisible beneath the newspapers and discarded food wrappers.

  “Always been a dog man myself. But Detective Decker has an old tabby with one eye, believe it or not.”

  “Oh, I believe it. Cats always land on their feet and keep right on truckin’. Wish I could say the same.”

  Will understood exactly what she meant. Life could be as ruthless as a prize fighter. Dealing out blow after blow. He detested this part of the job. Delivering a knockout to someone who didn’t deserve it. To someone who’d already been backed against the ropes.

  “Tell me about the day Shelby ran away.” Will plucked out his notepad, his pen at the ready. Since he’d been the one to phone Trish, he’d take the lead here.

  “It was Monday, September sixteenth, 1985. Shelby was sixteen years old.” Trish closed her eyes as she spoke. Like she’d travelled right back there. “I worked as a janitor at SF General Hospital in the mornings. Three days a week, I cleaned houses in Pacific Heights. Sometimes Shelby went with me. We’d get the work done faster, and she got a kick out of seeing inside those fancy homes. Plus, she could stash a little money in her piggybank. She was saving up for a new Walkman.”

  “But she didn’t go with you that day?”

  Trish’s eyes filled with pain but no tears fell. “She told me she had to stay after school to take pictures at soccer practice for the Yearbook Club. But I think she just wanted to meet her boyfriend, Brandon. That kid was no good and way too old for her. I tried to tell her. Tried to make her listen, but Shelby was hardheaded. She kept sneaking around to see him. Like any teenager, I suppose. Even me. Way back when, I did the same. My mom warned me the kids’ dad was a deadbeat. I thought I knew better. Now, I’ve got no one, so I guess the joke’s on me.”

  “What about your son?” Will had found no online presence for Kristopher Mayfield, only an entry in Vital Records designating him Shelby’s older brother, born one year before her.

  Trish fell silent, and Will waited, dreading her answer. “He was a real good football player until he blew out his knee horseplaying with his buddies. Then, he got mixed up with drugs. Drove head on into a tree and turned himself into a vegetable. I couldn’t afford to take care of him myself, so I had to put him in a home. Both my babies, gone in the space of two years.”

  “I’m sorry.” Will wondered how the woman had managed to stay upright. “What time did you arrive home the night Shelby ran away?”

  “Probably around nine o’clock. To get from Pacific Heights back to Bayview usually took about forty-five minutes by bus. When I came in, I knew something was wrong. Kris had already found the note.”

  Will and JB exchanged a hopeful glance. “Do you remember what it said?”

  Trish laughed softly. “As long as I live, I’ll never forget it. ‘I’m sorry. Please don’t worry about me. You’ve been a great mom but I need to be on my own for a while. I’ll call when I can.’”

  “And did she? Call?”

  “Not once.”

  “Did she take anything with her?”

  Trish nodded. “There were a few of her things missing. Clothes. Her Walkman. Kris’s sports bag. A doll she kept on her bed.”

  Will withdrew the Mary Jane doll, held it up to Trish’s wide eyes. “Like this one?”

  She took it, clutched it to her. “Is it Shelby’s?”

  “No. I’m afraid not.” Will wished he had the heart to lie.

  “She was still a little girl, you know. She thought she was grown up, but…” The tears came now, freely tracking down her cheeks. Filling the well-worn grooves. “She slept with that doll in her bed every night.”

  “Any idea where she went? Or why?”

  A sleek black cat joined Trish on the recliner, pawing at her leg, while she rubbed its head and sniffled. “Detective Decker, I’ve racked my brain, wondering what I did wrong. Was I too hard on her, trying to be mom and dad? Did I work too much? What signs did I miss? Whatever happened to her, it’s my fault.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true.” Will knew the danger in blaming yourself. Guilt seeped into your heart like poison, souring everything it touched. “What else can you tell us about her boyfriend, Brandon…?”

  “Simpkins.” She wiped her eyes on a handkerchief, pulled herself together. “As far as I remember, he never had a job. Unless you count selling weed on the corner. But he had a car and a chip on his shoulder, so naturally Shelby fell head over heels in love. Not too long after, her grades dropped, and she started acting a fool. She gave up her college ambitions and was hanging out over at the Double Rock Projects, where Brandon lived. We lived there too for a while.”

  “Did Brandon ever get violent with her?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him. A week or so before she ran away, they had a big fight. She didn’t tell me, of course. I was always the last to know. But I heard her on the phone with her so-called best friend, Drea. That same week, Shelby turned up after school with a shiner. Told me she got hit with a softball. She didn’t even play softball.”

  “So you didn’t believe her?”

  “Hell no. If you took one look at that punk, Brandon, you’d understand why.” Trish pointed to a yellowed album on the arm of the sofa. “I dug up an old picture of him, if you’re interested. Shelby had to beg him to take her to that school dance.”

  Will snagged the photo atop the binder, studying it. A too-cool-for-school Mohawked teen peered up at him from the photopaper. The kind of guy who would’ve chased him and his brothers home from school, threatening to beat their asses for being a cop’s kids. All talk and no follow-through, he would’ve played it off as a joke when the Decker boys had turned to him. Said, Let’s go then. Three on one.

  But Will felt himself drawn to Shelby. To her infectious smile that in no way foreshadowed her future. Whoever had snuffed out the light in her eyes deserved the same.

  “Any idea where Brandon is now?”

  “Last I heard, prison.”

  A fat tabby studied JB with suspicion while he paged through Trish’s photo album.

  Will had already plowed ahead through the hard parts, looking Trish right in the eye when he’d delivered the news blow by blow. He’d owed her that much.

  We found a body in Fog Harbor.

  A female, Shelby’s age.

  Pregnant.

  We have reason to believe it’s her. But we need confirmation.

  The dreadful part over, out came the swab. Trish dutifully opened her mouth, and he collected the cheek cells. Then he popped them in the sterile tube and nodded at her. Done.

  “How long will it take?” she asked.

  Will pondered that long wait, her question heavy on his chest. “We’ve got an in at the lab, so a few days at most. We’ll rush it. I’ll call as soon as I hear something.”

  “Would it help if you had her dental records?”

  JB froze, Will too. “Do you have them?”

  Trish nodded, grim. “A year or so after she left, a friend suggested I ask the dentist for a copy. Just in case. I didn’t want to do it, but… well, I never even opened that big manila envelope. I couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t stand to think that’s what it would come to. My girl, identified by her teeth. When you told me you were coming, I dug it out of the box where I buried it.”

  She reached beside her chair, producing a large envelope. “It’s her. I have a feeling. As soon as you called, told me who you were… a mother always knows. That shirt you asked about—1984 Summer Olympics—I bought it for her at the secondhand store. She and Drea were obsessed with Mary Lou Retton.”

  “Do you have any photos of Drea in here?” JB raised his eyes from the album. “It seems like she was a big part of Shelby’s life.”


  Trish let out a scornful laugh. “Look in the pocket in the back. I’d have burned every photo of that backstabbing snake if it weren’t for the fact that my Shelby is in them.”

  Drea was a foil for Shelby in every way. Raven-haired and pale-faced, she sported a pink skull tattoo on her forearm and stuck her tongue out at the camera, more subversive than playful. “What happened?” Will asked, returning the photo to JB.

  “Not two weeks after Shelby left, Kris spotted Drea making out with Brandon under the bleachers after the football game. Like either of those two had any interest in football. Or school. Drea had all but flunked out.”

  “Any idea why Shelby would run to Fog Harbor? Did you ever take a trip up the coast? Or have family in the area?”

  “Heck, I’d never even heard of the place until my friend’s boy got sent to prison up there after Shelby disappeared. I’m as shocked as could be that’s where you found her. But if she was knocked up, that would explain why she ran. I always told her if she got herself pregnant like I did, she’d be in big trouble. ’Course, I was just talkin’. We would’ve figured it out.”

  “Did you file a missing person’s report?”

  Trish hung her head, no doubt blaming herself again. “The cops told me there was no need. They didn’t even bother to talk to Brandon or Drea. They said they considered her a runaway since she left of her own accord.”

  “But she was only sixteen.”

  “That’s what I told them. Back then, things were different. Nobody paid too much attention to us poor folks. Come to think of it, I guess it’s not so different now. After I got the letter, I gave up trying. Figured maybe they were right. She didn’t want to be found. But it never really made sense to me that she misspelled her brother’s name. Plus, Shelby never learned to type.”

  JB perked up, shutting the album with a thwack. The cat darted down the hallway and into the shadows, as they both spoke at once.

  “Letter?”

  Trish stood up and moved toward the back of the trailer, motioning them to follow. As they followed her through the refuse and the clutter, JB nudged Will with a sharp elbow and a pointed gaze at a few green feathers and a tiny rib cage half-hidden beneath a paper bag. Will poked at the bones with his dress shoe, concealing them entirely. Though he couldn’t change the past, that much he could do for her.

  Oblivious, Trish led them to a cabinet near the bathroom, where she kept a small safe.

  Will watched her fingers make slow work of the knob. When it clicked open, his heart thumped faster. She handed him another envelope, the paper soft and yellowed with age.

  He read the postmark. May 7 Pistol River, CA. And now he understood.

  “That’s why you moved here. Why you’ve stayed here all this time.”

  Her eyes gone faraway, she nodded.

  Dear Mother,

  I am finally happy. I met a nice boy with a rich family to take care of me. We’ve been traveling the country together, and I’ve had the opportunity to see all the places I dreamed of. Please don’t try to find me. I want to be left alone. Tell Chris goodbye for me.

  Your loving daughter,

  Shelby

  Trish insisted on walking them to the corner. When Will protested, she told him she needed to check the mail anyway. His legs felt leaden on the walk out, his heart heavier. But he smiled at Trish when she shook his hand and thanked him for coming.

  “Shelby deserves justice. And so do you. I promise we’ll find the bastard who did this and make him pay.”

  Trish’s eyes welled. She watched them for a moment before she turned and disappeared into the redwood grove. The mail, completely forgotten.

  Will checked his watch and took a soul-cleansing breath. He needed a hard reset if he was going to make it through Martin Reilly’s funeral. There’s a limit to how much death one man can take.

  “I say we divide and conquer.” JB leaned out the window of his Camaro. While Will talked to Trish, he’d retreated there, hiding his own somber eyes behind his sunglasses. Maybe he had a soft side after all. “I’ll take the letter down to the lab. Let them get started on the prints. After the funeral, you can meet the crime scene tech at the cabin. We’ll regroup at the station afterward.”

  “You just want to see Tammy, don’t you?” Will tried to cheer himself up.

  “If I happen to run into her and we happen to bump lips, so be it.” JB puckered up, checked himself in the rearview. “It just might be her lucky day.”

  “Do you ever stop?”

  “I’ll assume that was rhetorical.” JB lowered his shades, peering up over them with concern. “But it looked like you needed a laugh.”

  Will gave a weary nod. “What about Simpkins? We need to find out where he’s locked up.”

  JB grinned. “One step ahead of you, City Boy. While you were talking to Trish, I phoned the station and got the intel from Lieutenant Wheeler.”

  “And?”

  “I’ll give you three guesses, and the first two don’t count.”

  Twenty-Seven

  The black dress from Neiman’s still fit. It had been so long since Olivia had worn it—over two years now—it felt like a costume for a different person. Uncomfortable, she pulled at the hem as she took her seat in the white folding chair beside Emily. The sun as cruel and bright as the day they buried their mother. The whole scene, like a dream. A strange déjà vu.

  Two days had passed in a blur since she and Em had made the five-hour drive back to Fog Harbor and agreed on a small graveside service for their father at the cemetery behind Grateful Heart Chapel. Afterward, he would be lowered into a hole in the ground and covered with a mound of dirt. His date of death would be chiseled into a gravestone next to their mother’s. The mound would grow smaller over time; the grass would return. The earth would settle back into itself. Dust to dust.

  Adjacent to her father’s casket, a small crowd of Olivia’s friends and colleagues had gathered. Her best friend, Leah, and her husband, Jake, with their newborn baby, Liam. The interns she supervised at the prison. Even Warden Blevins had come.

  Thankful as she was that she and Em didn’t have to go it alone today, it made Olivia impossibly sad that no one here had ever even met their father. But she knew it wouldn’t have come as a surprise to Martin Reilly. Most of his old friends were doing time in prison or six feet under themselves. Gang members have a short shelf-life, her mother had told her more than once. Her dad had lasted longer than most.

  Olivia waved to Leah, who smiled at her after she kissed Liam’s tiny head. He’d been born with a full head of his daddy’s dark hair. Already a heartbreaker. Light-years had passed since last Wednesday when they’d met for a walk during his naptime. Leah had always managed to lift her spirits, and since she’d gone on maternity leave, the whole world seemed a little darker. Olivia tried to take solace in a single daisy blooming near her feet when a pair of polished dress shoes appeared on the grass beside them. Emily nudged her with an elbow.

  Olivia lifted her gaze and traced Deck’s long, lean silhouette. The pressed gray slacks, the navy tie. The freshly shaven face. The usually disheveled chestnut hair that had, regrettably, been tamed. And finally, those eyes.

  “You made it.” She smiled, stupidly, feeling a sudden surge of relief.

  “Of course. I wanted to be here. To pay my respects.”

  Another elbow from Em brought Olivia to her feet and into Deck’s waiting arms. A perfunctory hug, she told herself. Perfectly safe. But with the hard muscle of his heart beating against her ear, it didn’t feel that way. Every time she got this close to him, it felt dangerous.

  Still, she wished he wouldn’t let her go.

  Deck turned to Emily, clasped her hands. “I’m sorry about your dad. ”

  “What about your meeting with Shelby’s mother?” Olivia asked.

  “Already done. JB and I stopped by first thing this morning.”

  “How’d she react?”

  His dreary expression told the story. “Abo
ut as well as you’d expect. It’s hard to say what’s worse. The knowing, or the not knowing.”

  Olivia spotted Father Frank approaching from the chapel’s rectory, gliding across the lawn in his white robe. Behind him, a lone figure who made Olivia’s stomach clench on sight.

  “I had plans to grab dinner at the Pit later. Maybe go a few rounds on the heavy bag. If you feel up to it, you’re welcome to—”

  Olivia silenced Deck, pushing past him as she stomped up the grassy hill, the heels of her shoes spiking the soft ground, until she stood Manolo to motorcycle boot with Termite. He’d already stripped off his helmet revealing his wiry red beard, with a shock of hair to match. His blue eyes, cold as ice water, aimed straight at Olivia.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” She glared at the Oaktown tattoo, visible on his bicep, beneath his leather cut. “You’re not welcome.”

  “Oh, c’mon. Is this how you treat family? Scott told me the cat’s out of the bag. I just assumed Mad Dog had told you years ago.”

  “He didn’t want to claim you. And can you blame him? You’ve got no right to show your face. Not after what you did.”

  Termite moved in closer until she could smell the tobacco on his breath, the sweat that had beaded in his hair underneath the helmet he’d left hanging on the mirror of his Harley. “The way I see it, I’ve got as much right as you do. I’m fifty percent Reilly. No different than you or your sister.”

  “You had your own father killed. That’s unforgivable.”

  Termite snapped his head back. Like he’d been slapped. Under the thick cover of his beard, his lip curled in disgust. “Is that what you think? That I killed him? After all he’d done for me? You’re wrong. Dead wrong.”

  “We both know he’d kept your secret for too long.” Olivia glanced back down the hill. At her sister, mortified. At the warden, curious. At Fr. Frank, who’d stopped midway on the grassy knoll, perplexed. At Deck, walking determinedly toward her. “You thought he was going to expose you. That he’d tell the parole board what you’d done.”