08-A Thousand Bones, page 10
He moved her to the bed and took off her robe. He exposed her, opened her, filled her, and emptied her mind. He was licking, tasting, teasing her, making her forget about everything but his mouth and hands and how his hardness made her feel soft again.
He told her he loved her, and she believed him.
He told her she was beautiful, and she believed him.
When he moved her onto her back and slipped below her waist, she grabbed his hair, moving her hips in a rhythm with his tongue. When she came, she cried out.
“Joe?”
She opened her eyes.
He was sweating above her. His face was contorted, like the carving in the tree.
“Joe?”
His lips came down, and she could taste the mossy-sea taste of herself on them. He came in a thrusting torrent, and she wrapped her legs around his back, holding him until the convulsions stopped and he was quiet again.
She lay silent and still beneath him. Slowly, one sense at a time, the world came back to her. First the smell of the chili out in the kitchen. Then the weird call of the great horned owl in the tree just outside the window, a call that had always sounded so human to her.
How long was it that she lay there not moving? She felt a weight on her feet. When she moved her legs, Chips groaned and moved away.
Finally, Brad shifted to the side and rolled onto his back, eyes closed. She molded herself into his side, resting her head in the crook of his shoulder, and pulled the blanket up over their shoulders. She could see the candle burning low in the window out in the living room.
“All right, who is he?” Brad whispered.
“What?”
“Your hair smells like Brut.”
“I showered at the station. I had to use Mike’s shampoo.”
He laughed softly. A weary exhalation followed.
She waited a beat, then slowly extricated herself from Brad’s embrace.
“Where you going?” he asked.
“I’m hungry,” she said.
“I made some chili.” Sleep was heavy in his voice.
“I know. Thanks.” She found her robe and put it on. She pulled the blanket up over Brad’s shoulder and kissed his cheek. “I’ll be in soon.”
“I can’t fall asleep without you.”
“I know.”
She stopped to plug in the space heater. Brad’s breath had deepened into the beginnings of sleep by the time she made her way out of the bedroom. Chips followed her to the kitchen and sat at her feet while she ladled out a bowl of chili. Joe dropped a saltine cracker to the floor, and Chips sniffed in the dark trying to find it. He was still looking as she took the chili out to the living room.
The fire had burned down to a soft glow, and the cabin was cold, but she didn’t want to bother starting a new fire. Pulling a blanket around her, she curled her legs under her on the sofa. Chips jumped up and laid his snout on her ankles, staring up at her as she slowly ate the chili.
The owl called again. No, a different one this time, with the distinct sound of the barred owl. She had lived here in the woods only six months, and already she could tell the owls apart. Ma would get a kick out of that.
Her eyes drifted to the phone. She set the bowl aside, reached over and brought the phone to her lap, and dialed.
“Hello?”
“Ma?”
“Joe?” Her mother’s voice sounded raspy, but more from Salems than sleep. Joe knew her mother would be awake. She never went to bed before two.
“Something the matter?”
“No, why do you say that, Ma?”
“I dunno. You’re usually in bed by ten.”
“I just wanted to talk.”
Joe heard the crumple of cellophane and a sharp inhalation as her mother lit a cigarette. There was a TV on in the background.
“What you watching?” Joe asked.
“Now, Voyager. Hold on a minute…”
Joe stroked Chips’s head in the dark.
“Okay. It’s over. Damn, I love that movie.”
“I know, Ma. You made me watch it every time it came on.”
And they both recited the line at the same time: “Oh, Jerry, don’t let’s ask for the moon. We have the stars.”
Joe laughed softly.
A pause. “So where’s Brad?”
“In bed.”
“And you’re not?”
“I was, Ma. For the last hour.”
A deep chuckle. “He’s that good, huh?”
Joe hesitated, surprised at her mother’s boldness. They had never talked about sex before, at least not since that one awkward time after Joe had started her period. Joe smiled slightly.
“I didn’t call you to talk about Brad.”
There was a silence on the other end.
“What? No smart comeback, Ma?”
“I wasn’t going to say anything about him, Joe.”
“But you were thinking it.”
Another silence. Joe pulled the blanket tighter around her.
“Joe, what’s the matter?”
She let out a sigh. “I don’t know. I just feel…restless.”
“You sound tired.”
“I’m tired and restless.”
“Don’t bite my head off. I just want to know if things are okay between you two.”
“Yeah, Ma. Things are fine. It’s…this case, that’s all.”
“The bones thing?”
“Yeah.” She brought her mother up to date on the case, telling her about the carvings and even about Mack. “They’re still not letting me in on it, Ma,” she finished.
Her mother was quiet for a moment. “They get like that. You have to be smarter than them.”
“I’m trying, Ma. I’ve been trying to do things, but…”
“But what?”
“I think Mack is going in the wrong direction. I’ve…taken some shortcuts, and I’ve pissed him off. Maybe Sheriff Leach, too.”
“You can’t do it that way, honey,” her mother said.
“I know,” Joe said softly.
“If you don’t follow the rules, you won’t survive.”
Joe stared hard at the dying fire.
“Joe?”
“Yeah, yeah…you’re right.”
“You have to trust your sheriff.”
“I know.”
“Can you?”
“I think so. He’s a good man. It’s just…” She shook her head slowly.
“Hard,” her mother said.
Joe gave a small laugh.
“Good. At least you’re laughing,” Florence said.
They were quiet. Joe could hear the owl call again.
“So, when can I come up and see you?” her mother asked.
Joe hesitated. “Ma, I think Brad and I need some time together right now. Work has been, you know…”
“I know,” Florence said. “I may not have done the job exactly as you do it, but I know the problems. I understand.”
Joe heard a twinge of loneliness in her mother’s voice. “I’ll make time soon, Ma. I promise.”
The fire was gone now, and the cabin was dark and growing colder. “I better go, I have to get up early,” Joe said softly.
“Okay.” A pause. “I love you, honey.”
“I love you, too, Ma.”
Joe hung up and set the phone back on the end table. She looked toward the bedroom. She could see the pulsing glow of the space heater. Chips got up slowly and gave a soft whine, looking to the door.
Joe rose with a sigh and went to the door, opening it. Chips trotted out into the yard, and she followed him.
The clouds had moved in, and the darkness was so solid it seemed to press against her. It was very cold. She shivered, pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders.
Chips had disappeared. She whistled softly. It took a few moments, but finally she saw him emerge from the shadows.
“Chips, get in here,” she said.
The dog followed her inside. Joe paused to look back out at the blackness. She closed the door and hesitated, looking at the lock. They never bothered with it usually. No one did in Echo Bay.
She turned the lock. The click of it seemed too loud in her ears.
13
He stood at the edge of the trees, watching the floating rectangles of yellow light. Everything else—the cabin, the shed, the car—was absorbed into the blackness of the night.
The people were still inside. They were always inside. There had not been one minute in the last few days when they had left the cabin. Not one chance for him to do what he needed to do.
He reached into his back pocket and withdrew the folded newspaper. He had read the story a hundred times, but he felt the sudden need to look at it again now. He turned his back to the cabin, stepped behind a tree, and flicked a match to life. somebody’s daughter.
The flame wavered and died in the cold air. He lit another match, but it, too, quickly died.
Fuck this.
A sound drew his eyes back to the cabin. There was a new rectangle of yellow, an open door. Someone had come outside.
A girl…
He had not seen her before. He had thought only the man and the woman lived inside. Where had she come from?
A man’s silhouette appeared at the door.
“Terry? You out there?”
“I just wanna look at the stars!” the girl said.
From his position behind the tree, he looked up. There were no stars tonight. She was lying. He respected her for that, lying to her father. That took guts.
She said something about coming back in a minute, and her father closed the door. The girl scampered to the shed, slipping behind it. She was close to him now, so close her sweet smell drifted to him in the cold air. She couldn’t see him. She was too busy searching for something in her pockets.
He moved to the other side of the tree, trying to get a better look. Wondered if maybe, just maybe, this opportunity was being offered to him as a replacement for the girl in the dunes.
This was as perfect as it could get.
This place. In these woods.
Suddenly, the girl’s face lit up in the glow of a match. Heart-shaped with mischievous eyes. A cigarette in her mouth. She drew nervous puffs, blowing the smoke out over her head and quickly waving at the air to dispel it.
He felt a small churning in his gut.
This was somebody’s daughter, too.
Somebody’s very lucky daughter.
He would not kill her. He’d been stupid once already in the dunes. He couldn’t let it happen here again. Christ, what was wrong with him? What was happening to him?
The bang of the screen door drew his head up. The girl was gone. It was time for him to be gone, too.
He started back through the woods to where he had left his car. It was almost a mile, and as he wove through the dark trees, he began to wonder what else could go wrong. What if the cops had found his car? What if they searched it?
He came back out onto the road and let out a breath as he saw the car. No cops waiting in ambush.
He could smell it even before he reached the car, smell the body in the truck. It was worse than it had been this morning.
He had wrapped her in a plastic sheet and bundled her up tight. All the bags of ice had kept her cool, but he wondered now if decomposing body fluids could eat through the plastic. It would be just his luck to be barreling down I-75 spraying this shit under the tires of some eager state trooper.
He kicked the bumper of the car.
Damn her. Damn those people in the cabin.
He needed to go home, but he couldn’t leave her here. The cops were already looking at the old bones, and if they found a fresh body, they’d make the connection easily. They’d start asking questions at the motels, and he couldn’t let that happen.
This girl could not be found here. Not ever.
He got into the car and started down the deserted dirt road. Soon he was back on the main road, passing only one car before he got to the M-22 turnoff. He waited at the stop sign for a motor home to pass, then he pulled out and headed south.
Two hours downstate, the car was thick with the smell of rotted flesh. He drove at a steady pace, his eyes on the speedometer, his heart kicking into a higher gear every time he saw headlights approaching in his rearview mirror.
When the green reflective sign for the Houghton Lake exit came into view, he swung off the freeway. He had to find a place to finish this.
He pulled into the gravel lot of a boarded-up Dairy Queen and thrust the car into park. He rolled down the window and took a gulp of clean air. He studied the motel across the highway. Some kids were playing shuffleboard under the mosquito-clouded floodlights. And further on, he could see the lights of a miniature golf place, and he could hear the putter of go-karts.
This place was for families. He didn’t like it here.
He drove away, turning back the way he had come. But before he got back to the freeway, he spotted a side road heading south, away from town, and took it. Soon the road turned from asphalt to dirt and the comforting darkness of the woods surrounded him.
Miles of black. Then suddenly, something drew his foot from the accelerator. The eerie glint of eyes floating in the trees.
He stopped the car.
A deer. Standing in the trees by the side of the road. It was staring straight at him.
Shoot it! Shoot it! What’s the matter with you? Shoot it, you little pansy!
He shut his eyes tight against the voice in his head, against the images coming. His nostrils burned with the smell of rotting flesh. He turned off the engine, yanked open the door, and stumbled from the car.
The deer was still there, watching him.
He wiped his face and sucked the pine-scented air deep into his lungs. Finally, he walked slowly back to the trunk and popped it open.
The smell made him work quickly. He pulled the plastic lump out, careful not to let it touch any part of him. He looked around at the darkness and then dragged the body toward the trees.
He pulled out his knife and he sliced the ropes. Then, grabbing the plastic, he gave it a hard jerk. The body rolled onto the grass. He couldn’t see it clearly, didn’t even want to anymore. But he had to check one last thing, because he wasn’t sure anymore if he had even done this part right back in the dunes.
He came closer, holding a hand to his nose, and looked down. Yes, yes…the hand was gone. He had not fucked that up, at least. He grabbed the plastic and started for the car.
He sensed something, someone watching him, and looked up in panic. He let out a long, shaking breath.
Eyes in the dark. Just the deer? Or maybe some other animal?
He allowed himself a small smile, the first one in a long time, because at least this part was right. He nodded at the animal in silent acknowledgment. Then he backed slowly away, inching out of the woods.
He stowed the plastic in the trunk, got back into the car, and started the engine. The headlights split the darkness, lighting the road south. He put the car in gear and started home.
14
Joe crossed the street, dipping her head against the sharp wind coming off the lake. There had been hopeful talk in the station that morning of an Indian summer that might let them prolong the search for more bones before the snows came and put an end to everything. But the cold that had moved in yesterday had deepened during the night. And suddenly, small talk in the Early Bird had turned from fishing and Octoberfests to storm windows and the stocking of woodpiles.
Earlier, Theo had called to tell her he had developed the film from her Instamatic. She left Mike waiting for a call back from a dentist in Chicago. Annabelle Chapel’s dentist had died four years ago, and the man who had bought his practice was having trouble locating the old records. Mack had already contacted Annabelle’s parents to prepare them.
When she stepped inside the Banner office, there was no one manning the counter. “Theo?” she called out.
“Be right there.” His voice came from behind a door.
She leaned on the counter, pulling over that morning’s Banner to read as she waited. Theo had run a story about the finding of the jawbone, even mentioning the braces. She wondered who had told him that. Augie, probably. The sheriff was going to be pissed when he saw it.
Theo appeared, carrying some prints and her camera.
“Did they come out okay?” she asked.
“Very good, considering the cheap camera,” Theo said, handing over a small stack of prints. The four shots of the two carvings were on top.
“So where did you take these?” Theo asked.
“Can’t tell you yet, Theo.”
“But you will.”
She looked up and realized he was asking her to strike a bargain. “As soon as I can talk about it, Theo, you’ll be the first to know. To be honest, I’m not sure they mean a thing.”
“They look like they might be Indian to me,” Theo said.
“Indian? Why do you say that?”
Theo shrugged. “Just a guess. But about the exact symbolism, I would have no idea. The library in Traverse City has a good collection on local tribes.”
A phone rang, and Theo left. Joe labeled the backs of the photos with the names of the trees on which she had found them, the first two “Prayer Tree” and the other two “Oak Tree.”
She sifted quickly through the other photos of routine accidents, separating them so she could take them back to the station. But when she got to the final one, she drew back. It was a photo of a teenager sitting on the trunk of a department cruiser. Skimpy white top, cutoff denim shorts, long bare legs, head thrown back with a sexy smile. It was not Mindy and was too old to be Mike’s daughter Jenny.
“Was this one on the roll, too?” Joe asked, holding it up.
Theo was coming back to her, carrying a manila envelope and the Instamatic. “Yes,” he said. “I don’t know her? Do you?”
Joe shook her head, looking again at the photo. The background was green and leafy, so the snapshot probably had been taken sometime last summer. The fact that Theo didn’t recognize her meant she wasn’t a local.
