The Bone Riddle, page 1
Also by Sara E. Johnson
The Alexa Glock Forensics Mysteries
Molten Mud Murder
The Bones Remember
The Bone Track
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Books. Change. Lives.
Copyright © 2023 by Sara E. Johnson
Cover and internal design © 2023 by Sourcebooks
Cover design by Stephanie Rocha/Sourcebooks
Cover images © design36/Shutterstock, vexturo/Shutterstock
Sourcebooks, Poisoned Pen Press, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Apart from well-known historical figures, any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published by Poisoned Pen Press, an imprint of Sourcebooks
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
(630) 961-3900
sourcebooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Johnson, Sara E., author.
Title: The bone riddle : an Alexa Glock forensics mystery / Sara E.
Johnson.
Description: Naperville, Illinois : Poisoned Pen Press, [2023] | Series:
Alexa Glock Forensics Mysteries ; book 4
Identifiers: LCCN 2022061934 (print) | LCCN 2022061935 (ebook) | (trade paperback) | (epub)
Subjects: LCGFT: Detective and mystery fiction. | Novels.
Classification: LCC PS3610.O37637 B664 2020 (print) | LCC PS3610.O37637
(ebook) | DDC 813/.6--dc23/eng/20230106
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022061934
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022061935
CONTENTS
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Thursday
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Friday
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Saturday
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Sunday
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Monday
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Tuesday
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Two Weeks Later
Chapter Fifty-Two
Acknowledgments
About The Author
Back Cover
For Beau
THURSDAY
Chapter One
Alexa Glock had the two things she needed: an Instagram selfie and an X-ray of a skull. She manipulated the two images on the computer screen. The young woman in the selfie—wide, pale eyes, bulbous cheeks, expectant smile—deserved her full concentration.
Three days ago, adult female skeletal remains had been found in a gully in Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park. Her death was probably the result of a rockslide. Alexa had X-rayed the skull yesterday at the morgue.
The selfie was of twenty-year-old Karin Johansson, who had last been active on social media six months ago. Her distraught parents, from the west coast of Sweden, had shared her social media accounts with the New Zealand police after their daughter stopped responding to texts and emails.
The onset of a nightmare.
Alexa ignored her coffee and positioned the two images atop each other as if they were on tracing paper. She moved the X-ray forward and backward, up and down, left and right, orienting the cheekbone without flesh to the cheekbone with flesh. When she had them aligned, the skull was consistent with the selfie face. Not that that was a clincher. Another skull of similar size and contours could be consistent too.
Smiling selfies were valuable postmortem investigative resources when dental records weren’t available. Alexa didn’t do Instagram, but Karin had been fond of posing and posting. Alexa imagined she was confident and boisterous—having an adventure in a foreign country, on the cusp of adulthood. She zoomed in on a space between the top incisors and clicked Adjust Image Transparency.
A sudden voice made her jiggle the adjustment.
“We have a bunker body.”
She looked up from the screen at her bespectacled boss. “A what?”
Dan Goddard, in his signature red Converse tennis shoes, was Alexa’s age, thirty-seven, and director of Auckland’s Forensic Service Center, where she worked. They had a running Converse versus Keds shtick.
“A bunker body. A dead man in a bolt-hole. Has probably been dead a few days.”
She studied Dan’s sober face, not grasping the situation.
“A lot of rich Americans have bought up Kiwi land and built compounds with bunkers, I guess for when the apocalypse comes,” he explained. “They’ll pop into their private jets, fly to the southern hemisphere, and hole up like hobbits.”
Alexa wasn’t a Tolkien fan.
“This bunker is in Cape Kidnappers,” he said.
Her eyes jumped to the map she had tacked to her cubicle wall to become familiar with her home away from home. “Where’s that?”
New Zealand is divided into two major islands and many smaller islands. Dan ran his finger along the east coast of the North Island and tapped a spot. “Four hours south.”
Alexa squinted; she wondered if she needed to have her eyes checked. The North Island was a bottom-heavy figure eight. Auckland is where the two ovals join together, as fragile a connection as the neck is to the spine. Dan tapped farther below, where the coast indented like a bite mark. “A Silicon Valley CEO named Harlan Quinn owns the estate,” Dan said.
She thought of Apple and Facebook and Google.
“The estate has a name: Black Reef.”
The name sounded ominous.
“There’s a big house and a cottage. Plus the bunker. The housekeeper cleans the bunker once a month. She showed up this morning and the bunker was locked from inside. Her husband, the caretaker, got in through a back door. He found a nasty surprise.”
“Jeez. The CEO locked himself in his bunker? You suspect suicide?”
“We don’t even know if it’s him.”
“Has he been reported missing?”
“That hasn’t been confirmed.” Dan bent over to tie his shoelace. “Facial recognition isn’t possible. All that’s known is the deceased is an adult male. If it’s the billionaire, this will be big international news. We don’t want to spare any expense in identifying the deceased.”
Alexa’s mind cartwheeled. “Are there signs of foul play?”
“I don’t know. I told the police you’d be there this afternoon.”
She nodded. In suspicious circumstances, a forensic examiner should visit the death scene before the body is removed. This is a critical component in the success of an investigation, and this scene sounded plenty suspicious.
Dan straightened. “The closest police station is thirty minutes away. Hastings is a city of maybe fifty thousand. The DI is Mic Steele. Follow all orders, right? No coloring outside the lines?”
Alexa stiffened. There had been a time or two recently when she’d had to think for herself and do what needed to be done—for the good of the case. Some sergeant or constable must have complained. Not DI Bruce Horne, with whom she occasionally worked and was seeing regularly. She thought of his steady gaze, his honesty, his imperturbability. He would never betray her. She was about to defend herself but bit her tongue. Keeping her job as a traveling forensic investigator allowed her to sta
“No scribbling, I promise. Should I drive the Batmobile?”
“No need. The Hastings Police Department has a good lab.”
Alexa hid her disappointment. The forensic van had all kinds of cool gadgets she wanted to play with.
When Dan left, she realigned the images and zoomed in on the teeth. Her specialty was odontology, and it was the rotated incisor on both the selfie and X-ray that clenched—well, clinched—the ID. The computer would use objective and numerical data for evaluating matches and confirm Alexa’s finding.
Karin’s parents’ nightmare exploded into reality.
That was the dichotomy of her work. Results could cause heartbreak. Knowing is better than not knowing, she reminded herself. She grabbed the phone to report her findings.
When one riddle was solved, another opened wide.
Chapter Two
Alexa sprinted up three flights of stairs, added a side kick at the top—she had started kickboxing classes recently—and entered her apartment. Her cop roommate, Natalie, was folding clothes from a pile on the kitchen table. “I thought you’d be gone by now,” Alexa said.
“Yeah nah.” She stuffed navy cargo pants into her duffel bag. “You didn’t come home last night.”
Alexa flushed; she’d spent the night with Bruce. For the first time.
“Didn’t think I’d see you before I left,” Natalie said.
She was leaving for a six-week orientation at the Police Dog Training Center near Wellington and would return with a German shepherd. Alexa skirted a giant dog crate and filled the electric kettle with water for a second cup of coffee. One for the road. She was uneasy around dogs—never having had one—but since her name wasn’t on the lease, she kept her mouth shut. The apartment was close to work, and the rent was reasonable.
While she waited for the water to boil, she fetched her to-go bag, prepacked with three days’ worth of work outfits and running gear. She stuck her latest copy of Forensic Science International and the romance novel she was reading into the outer compartment. Her crime kit was already stowed in her ten-year-old Toyota Vitz hatchback.
Back in the kitchen, she said, “I’m going out of town, too. I’ve got a new case in Cape Kidnappers.”
Natalie tightened the sash on her kimono robe. “Cape Kidnappers is not the original name.” She stepped to the dryer wedged next to the refrigerator and reached in. “I grew up near there. Te Matau-a-Māui is the Māori name.”
Alexa poured boiling water into the French press, antsy to get going. She practiced a few jabs and crosses; Natalie was the one who got her hooked on kickboxing.
“It translates to Māui’s fishhook.” Natalie, un-coplike in a shortie robe and pink slippers, shook wrinkles out of a gray polo. “There’s a gannet colony there.”
“A what colony?”
“Gannet colony. Massive white seabirds with golden heads. Thousands of them around Hawke’s Bay. Smell ’em before you see ’em. We used to stand on the cliffs—my cuz, my little sister, and me—and watch them plunge dive. Like missiles, they are.” She fished a couple black crew socks out of the laundry basket at her feet, balled them, and stuffed them in the duffel. Alexa suspected they were dirty.
“Captain James Cook sailed into the bay back in 1769, yeah, I think? We studied it in school. The Māori paddled out from shore in wakas to do trading.”
Alexa knew wakas were canoes. She’d been living in New Zealand for ten months now; her Māori and Kiwi vocabulary was accumulating. She poured the coffee into her travel mug, added milk, and secured the lid. She wanted to leave, but Natalie prattled on.
“The crew used a Tahitian cabin boy to hand over the goods. One of the Māori grabbed the boy and paddled back toward shore, the boy packing a sad.”
Alexa surmised “packing a sad” meant pitching a fit. She’d add it to her dictionary.
“Captain Cook ordered his sailors to fire their muskets.” She tucked strands of brown hair behind her ear and made a gun with her hand. “Pop.”
“I have to…”
“One of the paddlers was hit. The boy dove into the water and swam back to the ship. That’s why Cook named it Cape Kidnappers.” She zipped up the duffel. “Not that it was his to name. The Māori…”
“I have to go.”
Natalie flushed as pink as her robe.
Alexa felt bad to interrupt, but the bunker body was waiting. In minutes she had loaded the car and pulled onto Queen Street.
Her driving route would bisect the North Island and take her through Rotorua, where she’d wormed her way into her first New Zealand case. She smiled. It’s where she met Bruce. He was living there at the time but had now transferred to Auckland to work in the serious crimes department at Auckland Central Police Department.
And maybe to be closer to her. She fought traffic for several blocks and then merged onto the highway. Bruce was spending this coming weekend in Rotorua with his daughters, Denise and Sammie. Last night, while he was frying steaks, he suggested she come with him. She choked on her beer. Meeting Bruce’s daughters reminded her of meeting Rita, her stepmother. She’d been about the same age as Bruce’s youngest, thirteen. Alexa hadn’t spoken, smiled, or made eye contact with Rita. “Your daughters don’t want to meet me.”
“Sure they do,” he said. “Sammie loves CSI.”
“That show gets it all wrong,” she said.
There was a difference. Bruce’s daughters hadn’t lost their mom to a brain tumor; they lived with Sharla except for two weekends a month with Bruce. Sharla. What kind of name was that? The invitation fluttered unresolved. She’d call Bruce from the road and tell him she was sorry, but duty prevailed.
She reached for her coffee.
Dammit.
She’d left it on the kitchen counter. Once she was free of Auckland’s clutches, she spared five minutes to buy a flat white and a pastry at a roadside café. A few heavenly bites and sips in—the road ahead devoid of traffic—she called Bruce. He answered on the first ring. “DI Bruce Horne.”
“Hi. It’s me.”
“What’s up? I’m on my way to a meeting.”
Jeez. She wasn’t calling to tell him she was glad he had pulled her back under the covers this morning. “I have a new travel case. I’m on the way.”
“The bunker body?”
No surprise that he had already heard. “Yes.”
“Steele just got promoted.”
Why was he talking about steel? Then she remembered Steele was the Hastings detective inspector’s name.
“I’ll check in with you later,” he said and disconnected.
Alexa stuffed the phone in the cup holder. Had she overstepped by thinking Bruce would want to know where she was going? Probably. She always messed up relationships, usually by bailing. She fingered the pounamu pendant hanging around her neck on a soft leather cord. The spiral shape symbolized new beginnings and tranquility. Rubbing the greenstone calmed her down.
Heat sometimes radiated from the greenstone. When that happened, she figured it was communicating with her. Trying to tell her something or guide her.
She zipped past the turnoff for Rotorua and focused her thoughts on the body. Dan had said a caretaker discovered it, and that the door was locked from the inside. Suicide? If not suicide, had the dead man locked the door to prevent someone from getting in? What if he had accidentally locked himself in and couldn’t get out?
She didn’t know boo about bunkers.
Anticipating the smell of a decomposing body made her think of the country farmhouse case she had worked a couple years ago. It had been August, in North Carolina, and odor mortis hit her as soon as she opened her car door. She rolled her window down at the memory. The woman was sprawled on the kitchen floor. Maggots poured out of what was left of her nose and mouth. The same greeting might await her in the bunker. She panicked until she remembered her tube of StinkBalm Odor Blocker. She would smear it under her nose before she masked up. She hadn’t ordered the coffee scent, though. She was afraid it would turn her off from her favorite brew. She had settled on evergreen.
A sign announced Cape Kidnappers was twenty-two kilometers away. Alexa converted the distance into miles: thirteen. In the one-horse town of Clifton, she slowed for a parade of four red tractors, each towing an empty trailer. On the side of the trailers, in blue letters, was GANNET TRACTOR TOURS. A black dog rode shotgun in the last tractor.
