08-A Thousand Bones, page 23
The last cop in the room was the same woman who had been downstairs earlier. She had been there in Inkster with the state investigator, too. And like the investigator, she looked tired. She was thin, with high, sharp cheekbones and shadowed gray eyes she tried hard to color with toughness. But there was a warmth beneath them, a depth to be plumbed, a weakness to be exploited. He didn’t know what it was. But he would find it.
She looked up unexpectedly.
Those weird eyes stayed on him, then went to the state investigator. The investigator felt the stare, and his gaze came up, first to her, then to Roland.
The two cops shared something that needed no words. Roland could tell she liked the investigator. But her affection was colored with respect and uncertainty. And, Roland realized, awe. She was a rookie. He knew how he would use that.
Roland looked back at the investigator. His eyes were like a lake frozen over in winter. On the surface, opaque and safe. But if you went too far, things cracked, and you fell through. This was his opponent.
The investigator stood slowly. “Can we ask you some questions, Mr. Trader?”
Roland held his gaze. It was difficult.
“What do you think you’re doing representing your own brother on a murder charge?” the investigator asked.
“It’s perfectly legal.”
“Legal but stupid,” the investigator said. “And it’s a conflict of interest since you were living in the Inkster house at the time of Ronnie Langford’s disappearance. You’re a potential witness. Or maybe an accomplice.”
Roland forced a small smile.
“The prosecutor is probably going to make a motion to remove you as counsel,” the investigator said.
Roland held his smile, but he let his eyes move away from the investigator, trying to find an answer the man would believe, because in the long run, it didn’t really matter what they did in court. It was never going to get that far.
He saw a newspaper lying on the desk, the headline striped across the top: SNIDER LINKED TO 2ND MISSING GIRL; TEEN DISAPPEARED FROM BOYNE SKI RESORT.
He stared at it, jarred by a sudden image that flashed like a streak of lightning in his head. Long blond hair. A screaming mouth and, in the frozen moonlight, the glint of silver off her teeth.
“Mr. Trader?” the investigator asked.
“Do what you have to do,” Roland said. He picked up the newspaper. There was another one beneath it with a different headline: a mother’s search for a lost daughter.
Roland held up the newspapers. “May I have these?” he asked the woman cop.
Her eyes shifted to the investigator, again, Roland noted, looking for confirmation. She finally nodded.
Roland tucked the newspapers under his arm and walked toward the door. He heard the investigator say something about a prosecutor named Adderly and an arraignment on Wednesday, but Roland ignored him, pushing open the front door and stepping out into the cold gray afternoon.
He scanned the newspapers as he walked. He should have had this information sooner, but there was no way to get it unless he had been willing to sit down with the prosecutor. But this was good enough. Maybe even more than the prosecutor would give him anyway.
Roland’s eyes slipped to the byline on the stories: Theo Toussaint, Editor-in-Chief.
He would go talk to this Toussaint. He’d bet there was a lot more he could learn. About this town, the mothers, the cops, and the man with the blue eyes.
33
It was near seven when Joe pulled up to the Riverside Inn. She was tired, dirty, and hungry. She glanced over at Rafsky sitting in the passenger seat. He was hunched down into the blue parka, his eyes closed, his nose red. However bad she felt, she knew he felt a hundred times worse.
“We’re here,” she said.
His eyes popped open. “Oh…yeah. Thanks.” He didn’t make a move to get out. Joe could tell he was bothered by something.
“You still angry about the brother?” Joe said.
Rafsky nodded. “Trader, Snider, whatever the hell he wants to call himself. He’s playing us.”
“He’s within the law,” Joe said.
Rafsky was shaking his head. “I don’t care. Something’s not right.” He sniffled and went for the door handle. “See you tomorrow,” he said.
“Rafsky, wait,” she said.
He looked back at her with watery eyes.
“What are you doing for food tonight?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said with a sigh. “I have some leftover pizza in my room.”
She looked out the windshield of the cruiser. The snow that had started at the cabin earlier had turned to a sleety rain. “I have a better idea.” She put the cruiser in gear and pulled away from the inn.
Ten minutes later, she pulled into the drive of her cottage. Brad’s truck wasn’t there, but she knew he wasn’t due home from Marquette until tomorrow. Rafsky didn’t say a word as he got out and followed her up onto the porch, waiting as she unlocked the door.
He followed her into the dark living room. Joe went to turn on a lamp.
“Jesus!” he said.
“What’s the matter?”
“I stepped in something.”
The lamp came on. Joe looked back at the door where Rafsky stood, holding up his foot. Chips sat nearby, looking up at them.
“Take off your shoes and leave them there,” Joe said. She let Chips outside. When she came back, Rafsky was standing there in the parka and stocking feet, coughing.
“Oh, for God’s sake, get in here,” Joe said.
Rafsky came in, slipping out of the parka. Joe took it and her red scarf and draped them on the hook on the back of the door.
“Where’s your bathroom?” Rafsky asked softly.
“That way,” she said, pointing. “There’s some cough syrup in the medicine chest.”
He disappeared. From behind the closed door, she could hear honks, sniffles, and running water. She cleaned up Chips’s mess and Rafsky’s shoe and then went to the kitchen, pulling out the egg tray, a package of bacon, and some bread. Rafsky still hadn’t emerged by the time she had the bacon frying, the coffee brewing, toast going, and the eggs whipped in a bowl. She had time to toss some kibble into the dog bowl and start a fire before Chips scratched at the front door and she let him in. The wet dog went straight to his bowl, scarfed his food, and then trotted to the hearth and plopped down in front of the fire.
Joe was working on the scrambled eggs when Rafsky came into the kitchen.
“Smells good,” he said.
“Go sit down,” she said. “I’ll bring it in.”
She wasn’t a good cook—Brad had always been the one to make any real meals they ate—but she had a way with eggs. A little chopped onion, some cheddar, and a dash of Tabasco. She made two plates, taking care to arrange the buttered toast, bacon, and a wedge of orange on each. When she brought the plates into the big main room where the table was, she drew up short.
Rafsky was sitting at the table, head down on his folded arms. There was a bottle of Robitussin on the table, and the paper napkins she had set out were wadded at his elbow. The poor guy looked like a drunk after a bender.
“Hey,” she said softly.
He sat up slowly and focused red eyes on her face. “An angel of mercy,” he said.
She set the plates on the mats and sat down across from him. Joe watched as he carefully stacked some eggs on a slice of toast, layered some bacon on the eggs, and topped it off with a second toast slice. He picked it up and took a bite. He closed his eyes in pleasure. He took another bite and another.
“Good,” he murmured.
She smiled. “Your speech is steadily deteriorating. Next you’re going to be grunting.”
“Men devolve to a primitive state when they are sick.”
“More like a pathetic state.”
“It’s all an act to get sympathy. At least, that’s what my wife says.”
Joe ate some eggs and drank some coffee. The sleet pinged off the window near the table. But the room was slowly warming from the fire now blazing in the hearth. Joe watched Rafsky as he lifted a mug of coffee to drink. His color seemed a little less gray. She found herself focusing on his wedding ring.
“Does your wife get upset with you being away so much?” she asked.
Rafsky set the mug down. “She was an Army brat, so she moved around a lot.” He took another bite of his makeshift sandwich. “What about you? What about…”
“Brad,” she finished for him. “How’d you know—?”
“Saw his stuff in the bathroom. Very neat fellow, isn’t he?”
Joe laughed. “He arranges his vitamins alphabetically.”
“And always puts the seat down, right?”
Joe laughed again and nodded.
Rafsky shook his head. “He’s giving the rest of us a bad name. I might have to run him in.”
“On what charge?” She was smiling.
“Decent exposure.”
“But that’s just a misdemeanor.”
“I could get him on male fraud.”
She laughed. “But he’d get a trial by his male peers.”
“Ah, yes, a hung jury.”
“Nah, he’d probably just pee-bargain.”
Rafsky stared at her for a second, then burst out laughing. He was coughing and laughing, his face reddening. He picked up his napkin and tossed it at her, hitting her in the face.
She sat up straight with a look of mock horror, holding her fork of scrambled eggs. She didn’t think; it just happened. She flicked the egg at Rafsky.
It stuck on his wrinkled white shirt. He looked down at it slowly, then up at her. He calmly picked up his toast, ripped off a piece, and flung it back at her.
The giggles started—her laughing, him coughing—in a furious cross fire of eggs, bits of bacon, and shredded toast. Chips was jumping and barking, scarfing up every crumb of food that hit the floor.
They were both laughing so hard they didn’t hear the door open. Then Rafsky’s eyes went past Joe’s head. She turned.
Brad was standing at the front door, staring at them.
“Brad,” Joe said, getting up and going to him.
He dropped his duffle on the floor, his eyes going from her to Rafsky and back to her. He pulled her to him and gave her a quick kiss. But his eyes went right back to Rafsky, who was just sitting there, wiping his face with a napkin.
“You’re home early,” Joe said.
“Yeah, the roads were bad at home, and I didn’t want to get stuck.” Brad was still looking at Rafsky.
“Brad, this is Detective Rafsky,” Joe said, gesturing.
Rafsky rose, a bit unsteadily, and held out his hand. Brad shook it and stepped back. An uncomfortable silence filled the small room. Chips whined and nuzzled his snout into Brad’s hand. Brad petted him, but his eyes stayed on Rafsky.
“Well,” Rafsky said softly. “I think I should get going. But I need to use your bathroom one more time.”
When Rafsky had left the room, Brad took off his anorak. He started to hang it on the hook on the door, but Rafsky’s state police parka was there, so he draped it carefully across a chair.
“So that’s the famous Rafsky,” he said, smiling.
“I don’t think I ever called him famous, Brad,” Joe said.
He came to her, still smiling. He gently wiped a bit of egg off her face and kissed her again.
“I missed you,” he said.
“I missed you, too,” Joe said.
“You look tired.”
She knew he meant bedraggled. “It was a long day,” she said. She was about to tell him about the search at the Collier cabin when Rafsky emerged from the bathroom, a fresh wad of blue Kleenex clutched in his hand.
Joe got her coat off the door hook and reached for her keys. Brad’s eyes swung to her questioningly.
“I have to drive him back to his hotel,” Joe said.
Rafsky came forward to Brad. “I just realized I shouldn’t have shaken your hand. I have a bad cold.”
“That’s okay,” Brad said with an easy smile. “I’ll take an extra vitamin C tonight.”
Rafsky’s eyes slid to Joe, and she had to look away to keep from smiling. He put on his parka, paused, then wrapped Joe’s red scarf around his neck. He turned back to Brad. “Good to meet you.”
“Likewise,” Brad said with a nod.
“I’ll be right back,” Joe said to Brad.
They rode the ten minutes back to the Riverside in silence. When Joe pulled up to the curb, Rafsky turned in the seat to face her. In the reflected light of the dash, she could see something in his eyes that told her he had something to say.
“What is it?” she asked.
He hesitated, then shook his head. He unwrapped her scarf from his neck, folded it, and set it on the seat. He opened the door and got out, then stooped down to look in at her. That same odd look was there in his expression, but he smiled and it was gone.
“See you tomorrow,” he said.
“Feel better,” she said.
She watched him hurry through the sleet and disappear into the inn.
When she got home, the fire was burning low, and Chips was snoring in his dog bed. Brad had cleaned up the food mess and was finishing up the dishes. He came into the living room as she was pulling off her boots.
“I was going to have a beer,” he said. “You want one?”
She shook her head. “I’m too tired. I’m going to shower and fall into bed.”
She could feel Brad’s eyes on her as she went into the bedroom. Undressing quickly in the cold room, she went to the bathroom and ran the shower until the water heated. She stepped in and closed her eyes, turning her face up into the spray. She washed, scrubbing her skin hard, shampooing her hair twice. Slowly, very slowly, she could feel the knots in her neck loosening. The image of those tiny bones spilling from the red glove kept pushing its way to the front of her mind, and she had to fight to push it back.
The door to the bathroom opened. Through the plastic of the shower curtain she could see Brad’s blurred naked body. He drew back the curtain and got into the shower.
She turned to him, surprised. He never liked to share a shower or bath.
He turned her around so her back was to him, and his arms encircled her waist. His mouth was at her neck, and she could feel him growing hard, pressing against her with an urgency she had never felt from him before. It felt suddenly strange. They had never made love in the shower before. Everything felt strange—the streaming water, his hands almost rough on her breasts, not being able to see his face—so strange, as if it weren’t Brad at all.
She closed her eyes, giving in to it.
The water started to turn cold.
“Come on.” Brad’s voice was husky in her ear. “Let’s finish this right.”
He got out first, grabbing a towel. His face was flushed, his eyes intense as he looked back at her, waiting.
“I have to take my pill,” she said. “I forgot to this morning.”
“Make it quick, babe,” he said. He left the door open, letting out the steam.
Joe reached for a towel and wrapped it around herself. She could hear Brad in the bedroom. She opened the medicine chest and pulled out the pink container that held her birth-control pills. She took one and was about to put the container back when something caught her eye.
The row of vitamins on Brad’s shelf above hers. The bottle of zinc was in the first position, the bottle of vitamin A in the last.
Joe stared at them for a long time, frowning. Then a slow smile tipped her lips. Rafsky. She closed the medicine chest and went into the bedroom.
34
The dunes stretched four hundred feet high, hundreds of miles long, and back in time more than two thousand years. To some, they looked like a woman lying seductively on her side at the water’s edge. But most liked the image that had given them their name: Sleeping Bear. A mother bear and her two cubs were driven into the lake to escape a forest fire, the Ojibwa legend said, and the cubs grew tired and drowned. The mother bear reached the shore, climbed to the top, and lay down to wait forever for her doomed offspring.
Joe stood on a bluff, looking out at Lake Michigan. The sun was high in a cornflower sky, and the air was so cold and clear that in the distance, she could see the green mounds of North and South Manitou Islands.
“What are you looking at?” Rafsky said, coming up beside her.
“The two dead cubs,” she said.
“What?”
She turned and gave him a small smile. “Nothing. God, you look terrible.”
“I think it’s the flu. I was up all night.”
“You should see a doctor. Doc Lyle in town—”
“No time for that now,” Rafsky interrupted. “And don’t tell anyone, please.”
Joe was going to press it, but she knew he wouldn’t go. Not today, at least. Not with the news they had just gotten.
The call had come in just after dawn. A park ranger on routine patrol had found a carving on a tree that he thought matched the flyer he had been carrying in his truck.
The Sleeping Bear Dunes were about thirty miles south of the original search areas, but nothing could be discounted at this point. Joe knew that if the carving could be linked to their case, everything would change once again. The dunes had been designated a national lakeshore park five years ago. That might mean FBI involvement.
“Is the sheriff here yet?” Joe asked.
“Just pulled in. He asked me to come up and get you.”
Joe followed Rafsky down to the road. He led her to where Leach and a park ranger waited. There was another man in an overcoat she didn’t recognize, but she suspected he was another state investigator.
“You see it yet?” Leach asked, falling in step with Joe and Rafsky. They were following the ranger down the slope of beach grass and sand cherry plants.
“No, we just got here,” Joe said.
