08-A Thousand Bones, page 4
The paper was filled with its usual fare: hopeful predictions for a good winter of skiing at Sugarloaf; the Sutton Bay Norsemen had trounced Benzie Central; the Yarn Barn down on Main was celebrating its fiftieth anniversary; the Ruffed Grouse Society was getting ready for its annual banquet. But the big story was about the cormorants nesting on South Manitou Island. Wildlife officials were considering letting hunters shoot the birds because their droppings were killing off all the native orchids and trillium.
Joe knew the bones would make tomorrow’s front page, bumping the cormorants inside. She set the paper aside, rubbing her eyes.
She didn’t realize she had dozed off until she heard the crunch of tires on gravel and the thud of a car door. She could tell from the slump of his shoulders that Brad was tired.
“Hey there, why so late?” she asked as he came onto the porch.
“Good Samaritan rescue,” Brad said. “They brought in a shepherd that had been hit by a car. Dog had no tags. There ought to be a law against some people having animals.”
Joe rose and wrapped her arms around his waist, giving him a kiss. She pulled back to see his face. Brad had the clean features of his Finnish ancestors, a wide smile, sandy blond hair, and pale brown eyes. But when he was tired or upset, an opaqueness could settle over his face like a November fog and he would look suddenly ten years older than his twenty-eight years. As he did now.
“Did you eat?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Wasn’t time. Didn’t stop all day.”
“Come on. I’ll fix you something.”
Brad followed her into the tiny kitchen, and she saw him stop and look down at the bulletins. She was about to reach over and close the folder, but he picked it up and set it over on a chair near the door, where they put things they didn’t want to forget to take back to work.
Joe turned back to the stove, gathering up the things needed to make bacon and eggs. Brad slid into the chair, welcoming Chips’s snout on his thigh with a stroke of the dog’s head. Joe glanced at Brad and then looked away, easily reading his silences. She knew what this one was about.
“Any progress on getting a new vet?” she asked as she poured the beaten eggs into the skillet.
Brad leaned back in the chair, spreading his long blue-jeaned legs out and shaking his head. “Tom says he can’t find anyone. I don’t think he’s even trying.”
Tom was Brad’s boss, the vet who owned the clinic in Traverse City. It was a big clinic, always busy. Brad was the only other vet, and he put in long hours, sometimes six days a week. They never seemed to have days off together anymore, not like it had been back in Marquette when she was just waitressing. But Joe knew that wasn’t the real source of Brad’s discontent.
Brad wanted his own clinic. And not here. She knew he missed the U.P. and wanted to go home. But she also knew he wouldn’t bring it up. He had been the one to say they would give Echo Bay one year’s try. Still, she wondered sometimes lately if he wasn’t marking off the months on his mind’s calendar.
Joe set the plate of bacon and eggs in front of Brad, and sat down. Neither of them spoke until Brad pushed the plate away.
“Brad,” Joe said softly, covering his hand with hers. “Ask Tom for some time off. Maybe we could go back to Marquette for a few days.”
His eyes came up to meet hers. For a second, she could see the man who had swept into her heart like a cyclone and left her ravaged with his sexual energy.
“I’ve been neglecting you lately,” he said softly.
“We’ve both been busy,” she said quickly.
He pulled his hand away, and she leaned back in the chair. She didn’t look up as Brad took his plate and went to the sink. He began to wash the dish and the skillet. Joe waited until he was almost done to speak again.
“My mother called today.”
“How is she?” Brad asked without turning.
“Fine, fine,” Joe said, picking at a paper napkin. “Actually, not so fine. She’s getting divorced.”
“Is this number six?”
“Five.” Joe hesitated. “She wants to come for a visit.”
Brad didn’t say anything as he stashed the skillet in the stove drawer. Then he turned to face her. “Joe, this isn’t a good time,” he said. “You just said—”
“I know, I know. She needs me right now, Brad.”
He was just standing there, looking at her. The guilt was there again, tugging at her insides. He came over and squatted down in front of her, taking her hands and holding them together in his as if he were saying a prayer for both of them.
“Tomorrow I am going to ask Tom for some time off,” he said. “And then you and I are going up to Mackinac Island.”
Before she could say anything, he leaned in and kissed her, a deep kiss, the kind of kiss that neither of them seemed to have time for lately.
When he pulled back to look at her, he was smiling. “Mackinac Island? Breakfast in bed? At the Grand Hotel? All the fudge you can eat?”
“We can’t afford the Grand Hotel,” she said.
“We can afford fudge.”
He kissed her again, and this time she felt herself responding. “All right,” she said.
“Great. Now I am going in and wash all this dog smell off.”
Brad left the kitchen. Chips was whimpering by the door, so she rose and let him out. She followed him onto the porch.
The yard was washed with a silver light. She watched Chips rolling in the grass, watched the tops of the trees dancing in the wind. A voice floated to her, Brad singing “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” off-key in the shower.
She smiled with the sudden recognition that in such a short time, she had grown to love this place, love its beauty, love the fact that they never bothered to lock their doors at night. No one in Echo Bay ever did.
She looked up at the half-moon. It hung above her, waning and white, like a shard of bone in the black sky.
4
He was up high, and he could see everything. Above, the pearly glow of the bone-colored half-moon. Below, the endless black expanse of the lake, moving like oil. And all around him, the rolling mounds of sand that glittered in the moon’s light.
The soft pounding of the waves blended with the pounding in his head. This was not where he wanted to be. But it was the only place he could think of that was without people. This time of year, the woods—his woods—had too many hunters and hikers, so he would not have the privacy he needed. This place would have to do this time.
He looked around him. The footprints left in the sand by the tourists were gone now, erased by the shifting winds of Lake Michigan. His own prints would be gone by dawn. Erased here, just as they had always been erased in other places, and other months, by snow.
No snow here. That was wrong, too. And no hunger in the air either.
The hunger…it had been with him this morning. It had started as a sour-meat taste rising in his throat as soon as he saw that stupid girl. She had been standing there by his car at the gas pump when he walked up to it. Stupid girl, asking him if he was heading up north. Asking him to do this to her. Stupid, stupid girl.
He closed his eyes, willing the hunger to come back. But it was gone, and he knew why. It was because everything was wrong right now, this time, this place. He had made a mistake this time, and now he had to fix it.
He walked down the sandy slope to his car, his ears alert for human sounds. When he heard none, he unlocked the trunk and threw it open. The moonlight offered him an image of bare skin, tangled rope, and two dark eyes swimming with fear.
Her mouth was covered with a strip of duct tape. He would have liked to remove it so he could hear her beg, but he didn’t dare. This place might be patrolled after dark, and it was already risky being here. And despite the sudden hardness in his body as he looked down at her, it still didn’t feel right.
She was light as he lifted her from the trunk, balancing her bound body upright against the rear fender. He grabbed the bulky canvas bag and closed the trunk.
She began to whimper, but the cries were absorbed into the tear-soaked duct tape. He glanced toward the dunes, then in the other direction, into the darkness of the footpath that led down into the trees. He needed the trees, but he didn’t know how far they went or if there were other parking areas here or if there might even be a ranger station nearby.
Indecision. Ignorance. Stupidity. This was so wrong.
He looked to her, realizing that he could not carry her and the heavy bag that deep into the trees. He would have to cut the ropes on her ankles and make her walk. He set the bag down and unzipped it. When he pulled out his hunting knife, she cried out again and twisted away, falling against the car, then smacking to the sandy asphalt.
He flipped her over. Her skin was damp and gritty, the sliver-moon reflected back at him in her wide, dark eyes. She had been a bitch all day, kicking and screaming, and sometimes when she got mad enough, calling him names, reminding him a little of Ronnie. He had already cut her once on the arm to get her in the trunk. And he thought about cutting her calf now so she couldn’t run, but if he didn’t do it just right, she wouldn’t be able to walk.
He slipped the knife between her ankles and, in one upward jerk, severed the ropes.
“You remember how sharp this knife is,” he said, pulling her to her feet. “Now walk.”
She stumbled, and he stopped, again trying to find the patience not to slice her up right now and just abandon this whole fucking night.
He gave her a shove toward the trees.
She began to move forward, her head swiveling to scan the darkness around them. Then suddenly she stopped again, spinning to the lake behind her. She couldn’t see it, he knew. But she could hear it, maybe even smell it.
He turned, too, a strange idea crossing his mind. Maybe it would be better to do the first part of this out there on the sand, where the moonlight would illuminate her face. It might be interesting, different from the others, who had been in the snow, numbed by the frozen ground. Would she feel different to him if her body was warmer? Would it give him more power to take her that way?
He heard the sudden slap of bare feet and turned back to her. She was gone, running blindly across the parking lot, struggling to keep her balance as she worked furiously to free her hands from the rope.
He threw down the canvas bag and ran after her. She was easy to see, bare skin gleaming in the moonlight, and as he ran, he was washed with an excitement he hadn’t felt yet today. Something primitive and savage that came from chasing a woman who was just as naked and untamed as the wilderness in which she sought escape.
She struggled up the dunes, her arms free now, her hands ripping at the tape over her mouth. Her screams fractured the night.
He had to stop her. Now.
But she shocked him by stopping herself. Then he realized she was trapped at the edge of the bluff, nothing below her but darkness and the blind rush of waves against the beach. She spun to him, eyes wide in horror. Her body was so white it already looked dead. His erection pressed painfully against his pants, thickening the taste in his mouth.
He teased her with the knife, flashing in the moonlight. “Here, little girl,” he said, holding out his hand. “Come on.”
A tiny cry. A look over her shoulder. Then she disappeared.
He ran forward. She hadn’t thrown herself over. She was trying to crawl down the steep, sandy slope. Her skin was the same color as the sand, making her almost invisible except for her brown hair.
No. He couldn’t let her get down there. He would never get her back up here to the trees.
He stepped off the edge, digging each footstep into the deep sand so he wouldn’t slip, quick but careful to keep himself balanced as he started groping for her arms, knowing that at any second, she could lose her balance and tumble to the beach below.
He finally caught her wrist. She screamed and slapped at him, but she was on her stomach and had no leverage or strength.
“Don’t!” she cried. “Let me go! Let me go!”
He twisted her palm upward and slashed her forearm.
She screamed. He stabbed at her shoulder, spewing blood onto her back, his hands, and the sand.
“Stop! Oh, God…please…please…”
She was becoming dead weight, and he dropped to his knee to keep his balance on the shifting sand. She was sobbing, her legs flailing, still fighting him. Blood was everywhere, slicking her arms and his hands. He couldn’t hold on to her much longer.
He slashed at her, each stab taking more air from her lungs and weakening her screams. Then a hard plunge that went all the way through her, thudding into the sand.
She stopped moving. It was quiet again, the sound of the surf coming back in to fill the night.
He pulled back, jerking out the knife. Panting, he stared down at her.
“It wasn’t time!” he said. “It wasn’t the fucking right time!”
He looked at the moon. A huge sob convulsed his body, and he fell to his knees beside her on the blood-wet sand.
5
Joe had expected the powwow on the bones to be held in Leach’s office. But Augie pointed her down the hall to a closed door. There was a sign taped to it in Augie’s careful printing: CONFERENCE ROOM.
A table and six chairs had been crowded into the windowless room. A bulletin board and a clock had been hung on the wall, a phone installed on the table. It took Joe a minute to realize this was the room Augie had been using to stow old files and his boxes of Christmas decorations.
There had been no need for a true conference room before. She guessed that Leach had ordered the room prepared only because of the bones.
Joe claimed a chair by the door, setting her pad and folder in front of her. Mack came in five minutes later, giving her a grunt of acknowledgment before dropping into a chair as far away from her as possible.
They sat in silence for several minutes before the door banged open and Mike burst in. He held his leather utility belt in one hand and his hat in the other. His uniform shirt hung open. “Sheriff not here yet?” he asked.
When she shook her head, Mike tossed his belt onto the table and hurriedly started tucking in his shirt, mumbling something about the school bus being late. Behind him, Holt squeezed by and quietly took a chair. After a few seconds, he realized he hadn’t brought anything to write on, and he left quickly.
Mike was buckling his belt when Leach came in. Leach walked to the head of the table and set down two folders. Before he could say anything, the door banged open again and Holt slid into a chair.
Leach let the silence hang for a moment. “You don’t know what great comfort I get from knowing how prepared we are this morning.”
No one said a word. Leach gave a small shake of his head and opened the top folder. “Okay,” he said. “First off, I want to make it clear that under no circumstances will we refer to this as a homicide until we know for sure that it is one.”
“What else could it be?” Mack asked.
Leach threw him a sharp look, but before he could say a word, Mack slapped open his own folder, grabbed an eight-by-ten glossy, and shoved it down the table toward Leach. Joe caught only a glimpse of it, but she could see it was of a teenage girl with long blond hair.
“It’s a homicide, and that’s our victim,” Mack said, pointing at the photograph. “Annabelle Chapel.”
Leach picked up the photo. “For those of you who do not know,” he said, “Annabelle Chapel was a sixteen-year-old girl who disappeared from the Petoskey area about seven years ago.”
“Six years ago,” Mack said. “And when she disappeared, she was wearing a necklace. A crucifix. Her mother told me she never took it off.”
Everyone was staring at Mack, except for Leach who was studying the photo. “Mack used to be with the Petoskey PD,” Leach said, looking up. “He was the investigator assigned to the Chapel case.”
Joe couldn’t hide her surprise. She had always thought Mack’s crustiness came from walking the streets in a city like Detroit or Flint. Petoskey was a small resort town northeast of Echo Bay. It was a popular second-home spot for moneyed downstaters and Chicagoans. She thought back to Mike’s comment about how Mack’s big-city dreams had passed him by.
“The Chapels are from Chicago but had a second home in Petoskey,” Leach said, drawing her attention back. “The family was up here on vacation in February 1969. Annabelle left the family home with friends to go skiing at Boyne Mountain, about thirty miles away. She never made it home. Her disappearance remains unsolved.”
Leach set the photograph of Annabelle Chapel on the table. “Mack,” he said, “I assume that sometime between yesterday and this morning, you verified that Annabelle Chapel has never been found, dead or alive?”
“I have,” Mack said. “She’s still missing.”
“And how did you determine that?” Leach asked.
“I called her parents,” he said.
Leach looked to the ceiling, furious. “Good Lord, man, we haven’t even confirmed we are dealing with a homicide here.”
“We are,” Mack said.
“Not until the medical examiner signs his name to it,” Leach said. “And until he does, we have to consider any and all possibilities. Like, the victim may have gotten lost and died of exposure. Or was attacked by a bear. Or was shot in a hunting accident.”
“We found a crucifix,” Mack said. “Annabelle wore one. It’s her.”
Leach leaned down on the table. “Even if you are right, we don’t know how she died or if she was murdered. We don’t know who killed her. And we won’t ever know without real evidence. We still have an investigation to do.”
Mack sat back in his chair, crossing his arms.
“And in the meantime, we keep all other possibilities open,” Leach said, raising his voice. “Is that understood?”
Mack stared at his folder. Holt looked as if a bomb had gone off, and Mike was looking up at the blank bulletin board. Joe reached across the table and pulled the photograph of Annabelle Chapel close. It was a portrait, and from the white formal gown, Joe guessed it might be a school dance or a debutante type of thing. Annabelle Chapel was gorgeous, long blond hair, a hint of a smile, and wide pale eyes. A delicate crucifix encircled her neck.
