Bones Are Forever (13 page)

“Why not simply kick her out?”

“The lady refuses to budge.”

The implication struck home.

“Better than a warrant,” I said.

“Better than a warrant,” Ollie agreed.

I
N THE LATE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, SPURRED BY COMPETITION
in the fur trade, the Hudson’s Bay Company expanded westward into the Canadian interior, establishing a string of posts along the major rivers. One was built on the North Saskatchewan, at what is now Edmonton. E-town was also a player in the Klondike gold rush of the 1890s, and in the post–World War II oil boom.

Today Edmonton is the capital of Alberta province. She has an impressive legislature building, a university, a conservatory, a living-history museum, and a gazillion parks. These attractions draw thousands of tourists. But nothing can compete with the mall.

Encompassing over six million square feet and containing more than eight hundred stores, West Edmonton Mall is North America’s largest and the fifth largest in the world. And the big gorilla isn’t all about shopping. The complex also has a giant water park, a man-made lake, a skating rink, two mini-golf courses, twenty-one movie theaters, a casino, an amusement park, and countless other delights.

Susan Forex lived a stone’s throw away. A very short throw.

Ollie, Ryan, and I pulled into the neighborhood at seven-forty-five. Ollie had purchased coffee and donuts, and we’d breakfasted in the car. I dislike jelly-filled, which most of them were, so I shamelessly grabbed all three chocolate-glazed.

High on sugar and caffeine, I checked out the ’hood. The houses
were closely packed and all of a type, some fronted by large porches, others having little more than a stoop. Each had a flower bed or shrubbery hiding the foundation and a small patch of lawn running to the sidewalk. Here and there a bicycle or pull toy lay abandoned in the grass.

Ollie slid to the curb in front of a two-story number with gray siding and black shutters. The front steps were on the left. A covered porch ran sideways, across the front.

“Very Brady Bunch.”

I couldn’t disagree with Ollie’s take. The setting wasn’t what I’d expected.

“Pretty lady likes to get away from the job,” Ollie added.

“Most of us do,” Ryan said.

“Bet the neighbors are clueless about her line of work.”

“You talk cop shop over the backyard fence?” Ryan’s tone was totally flat.

“I live in a condo.”

“You get my meaning.”

“My job isn’t sucking off johns in an alley.”

“
Mon Dieu
, we’re judgmental.”

“My bad. Forex probably organizes the annual homeowners’ picnic.”

“She might.”

“Only if it’s held during daylight.”

“The beauty of self-employment. You control your own hours.”

“Nice image. Forex and the prossie posse serving up coleslaw.”

I’d had my fill of the hostile repartee. “What do you know about this boarder?”

“Her name’s Aurora Devereaux. She’s new in town and so far has managed to stay under the radar.”

“Did you run the name?” Ryan asked.

Ollie palm-smacked his forehead. “Wish I’d thought of that.”

“You’re a real asshat.” Ryan’s words were ice.

That did it.

“We’re treading on the edge of my patience here.” I glared from Ollie to Ryan in the backseat. “I don’t know what the problem is, but you both need to dial down the attitude.”

Ollie mouthed the word “hormones.”

“Devereaux?” Resisting the urge to smack him.

“It’s a shiny new alias, one of several. The lady’s real name is Norma Devlin. She’s twenty-two, from Calgary, landed in Edmonton four months back. Calgary PD says her jacket’s pretty crowded, most of it juvie, so it’s unavailable without a warrant. Mostly petty shit, shoplifting, soliciting, disorderly. Lot of probation, no jail time.”

“Whatever Devereaux did to anger Forex, it wasn’t prostitution,” I said.

“Nope.” Ollie disengaged his seat belt. “Let’s do us some evicting.”

Forex answered the bell in seconds. She was dressed in jeans and an untucked blue cotton shirt. With her hair pulled back and sans makeup, she looked years older than she had in the Cowboy. And tired. She also looked like she’d just dropped her kid off for soccer.

“It took you long enough.” In a loud whisper.

“Good morning, Foxy. We’re good. And yourself?”

Forex’s eyes flicked past Ollie and did a quick scan of the street. Holding the door wide, she stepped back.

“You’re asking us in?” Ollie wanted an explicit invitation.

“Yes.” Hissed.

“All of us?”

“Yes.” She made a fast scooping gesture with one hand.

Ollie entered. Ryan. Yours truly. Forex quickly closed the door behind us.

I looked around. We were standing in an overfurnished parlor that L’ed into an overfurnished dining room. Dark, heavy carved stuff like my grandmother had. The carpet was moss, the sofa aqua and green stripes, the wing chairs a shade of turquoise that didn’t really blend.

A staircase rose on our left, two steps to a landing, then a right turn and up. The usual framed pictures of babies and graduates and brides angled up the wall above the banister.

Straight ahead was a kitchen. In an alcove I could see a Mac computer, its screen filled with a spreadsheet. Ledgers and printouts filled the countertop to either side. Black loose-leaf binders crammed a shelf above.

I noticed that Ollie was also eyeballing the workstation.

“Doing a little payroll?” he asked.

“I keep the books for a couple of businesses. It’s perfectly legal.”

“That what you tell the neighbors? You’re an accountant?”

“What I tell the neighbors is none of your business.”

“You’ve got skills. Why turn tricks?” Ollie sounded sincerely curious.

“Because I like it.” Defensive. “Now. Are you going to get that bitch out of my house?”

“Tell me why you want her gone.”

“Why? I’ll tell you why. I took her in, and she violated my trust.”

“Aurora Devereaux.”

“Yes. I opened my home. Charged her next to nothing.”

“She’s not paying the rent?”

“It’s not that. I made my rules clear. You live in my house, you’re frickin’ Doris Day. No men. No booze. No drugs.” Forex’s face was going deeper red with every word. “How does she thank me? She gets coked to the eyeballs night after night. Once maybe I can overlook. We all make mistakes. But this little miss is a hard-core junkie. Here, under my roof, she’s shooting up or snorting or tweaking or whatever the hell she does.”

Ollie tried to ask a question, but Forex was rolling.

“I get home from the Cowboy, you know what she’s doing? Sitting bare-ass naked in my backyard.” A palm smacked the blue cotton. “Singing! It’s goddamn two in the morning, and she’s doing strip karaoke outside my house!”

“Singing what?” Ollie asked.

“What?” Exhaustion and frustration were turning Forex’s voice shrill.

“Just wondering about her musical selection.”

Forex’s head thrust forward, causing the tendons in her neck to go taut. “What the flip does it matter?”

“I always do ‘Fat Bottom Girls.’”

Forex threw up both hands. “She fucking hates me!” Hitting hard on the verb and elongating the
e
.

Ollie didn’t get the reference. “You gotta grow thicker skin, Foxy.”

“Puddle of Mudd,” I said.

Three faces swiveled my way.

“They’re out of Kansas City. The song may actually be titled ‘She Hates Me.’ With the expletive implied.”

“Are you three for real?” Forex dropped her arms. “I’ve got a headcase doing blow au naturel on my lawn, and you morons are playing
Name That Tune
?”

I glanced at Ryan. Though he turned away, the ghost of a smile played on his lips.

“Did you ask Devereaux to leave?” Now Ollie was all business.

“Right after I ordered her to cover her puffy white ass. She cussed me out, slammed into her room, and locked the door. That’s why I called you.”

“Is she still in there?”

“The door’s still locked.”

“You don’t have a key?”

“I like my face arranged as it is.”

“OK. Here’s what’s going to happen. While we roust Devereaux, you’re going to disappear. No commentary. No interference. No input of any kind.”

“That ungrateful—”

“We’re outta here.” Ollie turned toward the door.

“OK. OK.” Forex snagged his arm. “Her room’s in back, above the garage.”

“Same crib Annaliese Ruben used?”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. Never a free lunch.” Forex removed a key from an end-table drawer and tossed it to Ollie. “No need to mess the place up. Anything Annaliese left is in a duffel in the closet.”

Forex led us to into the kitchen to a back door that opened onto a small patio overlooking a nicely kept lawn.

“Devereaux own a firearm?” These were the first words Ryan had spoken since entering the house.

“Not that I know of. It’s against my rules. But what the hell? Her Highness ignores them.”

As we filed out, Forex called to our backs, “Watch yourselves. Coming off the junk, she’ll be mean as a snake.”

Cars entered the garage from an alleyway in back, people from a door in the side facing the house. We followed a trail of concrete pavers to the latter.

The door was unlocked, so we went in. The interior smelled of oil, gasoline, and a hint of rotting garbage. A silver Honda Civic occupied most of the space. The usual garden tools, recycling tubs, and rollout trash bins lined the walls. Directly ahead, through a tiny storage room, a set of stairs ascended to a second story. We quietly climbed them. At the top, we assumed our back-to-the-wall formation, then Ollie knuckle-rapped the door.

“Ms. Devereaux?”

No answer.

“Aurora Devereaux.”

“Kiss off.” Muffled and slurry.

“It’s the police. Open up.”

“Go away.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“I’m not dressed.”

“We’ll wait.”

“You want to peep my tits, it’ll cost twenty.”

“Put on some clothes.”

“You got a warrant?”

“I’d like to keep this friendly.”

“If you’ve got no warrant, you can kiss my patootie.”

“Your call. We talk here or downtown.”

“Screw you.”

“Actually, you’re the one who’ll be screwed. I’ve got witnesses say you’ve been turning tricks.”

“Big fucking—”

“—deal,” Ollie finished. “That’s not why we’re here.”

“Yeah? Then how’d I get so lucky?”

“Buddy heard you singing, asked me to drop off a recording contract.”

An object smacked the door, then ricocheted onto the floor. Glass shattered.

Ollie looked at us, one brow cocked. “I’m coming in now,” he said.

“Suit yourself. I’ve got plenty more lamps.”

Ollie inserted and turned the key.

Nothing hit the door. No footsteps pounded the floor.

Turning his body, Ollie palmed the door open and stepped sideways as far as he could. Ryan and I drew farther back against our wall.

Aurora Devereaux sat propped among pillows and a chaos of bedding.

I fought to keep the shock from my face.

D
EVEREAUX HAD ASTONISHING BLUE EYES AND BOTTLE-BLOND
hair that started low on her forehead. Her dark brows arched high, then plunged to form a hairy patch over the bridge of a nose that was short and ended in upturned nostrils. Her thin lips were parted, revealing wide-spaced and very crooked teeth.

I recognized the combination of traits. Cornelia de Lange Syndrome, or CdLS, a genetic condition caused by a gene alteration on the fifth chromosome.

Inexplicably, I flashed on a name I hadn’t thought of in almost four decades. Born six days apart to women living in Beverly on Chicago’s South Side, Dorothy Herrmann and I were inseparable from the time we could walk until my relocation to North Carolina at age eight. We called each other Rip and Rap. Dorothy peoples all of my earliest childhood memories.

Dorothy’s younger sister, Barbara, had CdLS. In the old snapshots, Barbara is among us neighborhood kids, wearing a Christmas sweater too long for her arms, dressed as Bo Peep for Halloween. Always her face is split by a smile, shame over her odd features and her jack-o’-lantern teeth far in the future.