Murder Bone by Bone (22 page)

Richard was easier to correlate. He had the same jutting chin, although obscured with a beard in some pictures, the same hair pulled back in a ponytail, only with a hairline much closer to his eyebrows than it currently was.

“Who’s this?” Claudia put a finger on a man standing off to the side of the group on the steps of Bridget’s house, the man who’d looked familiar to me that afternoon.

“I don’t remember.” Melanie glanced at the face almost lost in enormous sideburns, the wealth of dark curls. “Although somehow I associate him with Mondale.”

“I’ve seen him somewhere.” Claudia studied the picture. “Yes, and that fellow beside him, too. The lanky one.”

“I thought the same earlier.” I looked again at the other man, who had a long chin and alert eyes that belied his sleepy smile.

“I read somewhere that ears don’t change. That’s how they identify people after a long time.” Melanie offered this tidbit. “Oh, there’s Nado.”

We turned our attention to a picture on the opposite page. After a moment, I realized it was the Baylands, with the interpretive center in the background, looking much newer, not yet covered with bird shit. Some people played Frisbee in the nearby parking lot, while a group closer to the camera watched a couple of men adjust homemade sailboards for launching. One of the sailboarders was Richard. The other one was the lanky man from the previous picture.

“Skipper,” Melanie said suddenly. “We called that guy Skipper because he loved the water. Richard and he used to be out at the Baylands often.” She put her finger on a grinning, shirtless man, a step back from the action at the boat ramp, who lifted a cigarette to his mouth. Not a cigarette—a joint.

“That’s Nado,” Melanie said, tapping her fingernail on the joint. “He always had whatever you wanted.” A slight note of regret sounded in her voice. “He wasn’t a very nice person, but he came to all our parties.”

“How can you remember so clearly when he disappeared?” Claudia was faintly skeptical.

Melanie caught that. She hesitated a moment. “I did look through my journal for that year after you left today, Liz. I didn’t want the police to know I had it.” She cast me a resentful look. “I guess there’s no chance of that now. I was looking for something about this incident—Richard mentioned it Sunday evening, after the fight.”

“It wasn’t a fight,” Claudia said. “Just ceremonial posturing by the males.”

Melanie threw her a look. “Whatever. My journal is very personal; it’s mostly about Richard. I wouldn’t want to show it to anyone. Hugh might not—understand.” Melanie was blushing. Like me, Claudia was probably seized with a strong desire to read that journal. “I did mention some of the other things that were going on. One of them was this incident.”

“What incident?” Claudia demanded.

Melanie took a deep breath. “Nado sold some PCP, or MDM, or one of those initial things—I don’t really remember because I never did that stuff. But a couple of the guys did it, and one of them ended up a vegetable. I mean, his brain was fried. Nado said it wasn’t his fault, but it turned out he’d cut the PCP, and whatever he cut it with caused this kid to have a stroke or something. He was mentally impaired for quite a while—I don’t know how long, or if he eventually died.” Melanie shivered. “I do remember some people cleaned up their act after that, though. And when we didn’t see Nado anymore, we just assumed he was ashamed of himself or had gotten busted or something.”

We looked at the pictures, quiet for a moment. “Which one is the boy who had his slate wiped clean?” Claudia said.

Melanie shrugged. “I hadn’t written down the name, and at this point I don’t remember. Richard was my main concern—and Aimee.” She pointed out a willowy, exotic-looking girl among the Frisbee players. “She’s the one he went off on the dig with, and then wouldn’t give up when he came back.” She looked at the picture with loathing. “Now if it had been her body under the sidewalk, you could write me down as a suspect.”

I sat back and had a sip of merlot, trying to put it together. Parts of the story seemed to overlap, like watching a movie I’d seen before, so long ago that I’d forgotten most of it.

Or else I was having déjà vu.

Claudia started to say something, then cocked an ear. “Is that one of the boys crying?”

We all listened to the roaring that grew gradually louder.

“It’s coming from outside,” Melanie said. It was pretty loud. I ran to shut the doors into the kids’ rooms, to keep it from waking them. Claudia and Melanie went to look out the window in the front door, and I joined them there.

“It’s the Public Works people,” Melanie said indignantly. “I’m going to complain about this. They can’t operate heavy machinery at this time of night. It’s against the noise ordinance.”

She marched over to her purse, pulled out a cell phone and a little black calculator-sized object, a personal digital assistant, then perched on the couch to punch its keyboard. Claudia kept looking out the window, her brows drawn together in thought.

“They do sometimes move the equipment around at night, to avoid heavy traffic,” she said. “but that’s not what this guy’s doing.”

“What do you mean?” I craned to see better out of the front door window. The machine was one of the dinosaurlike backhoes, with a fanged head on a long neck which could be pointed down for chomping through asphalt. This particular backhoe carried its head high, nodding like an agreeable monster in time with its body’s clanking pace. Having brought it down the middle of the street, the driver was putting it through its paces right in front of Bridget’s house, backing and turning, beep-beep-beeping, until its head was aimed at the chain-link fence that surrounded the scene of the crime.

“It looks like he’s going to drive that thing right through Drake’s chain-link fence,” Claudia said. “Public Works wouldn’t do that. Maybe this is someone stealing their equipment.”

“For a prank, you mean?” I shielded my eyes with my hand to see better out of the window. The backhoe pivoted, backed, pivoted again. Its scrawny neck began to move, the toothy scoop wobbling. “Drake will be furious if that’s disturbed.”

“Call him,” Claudia urged. "I'm going to see if I can stop this.”

“Claudia—” She was out the door, stomping down the steps, at her most majestic.

Melanie was still wrestling with her cell phone on the couch. I ran into the kitchen to dial Drake’s number. “Come right away. Bring Bruno, something weird is happening,” I gasped, then hung up and raced outside.

Claudia had positioned herself in front of the chain-link fence. She had her mouth open, trying to yell up to the backhoe’s cab over the engine racket. I couldn’t hear her. The driver probably couldn’t, either.

She was an idiot. A brave idiot, true. And I was a coward. I dithered on the porch, wondering whether to join her in front of the chain-link fence or wait around to pick up the pieces.

The backhoe’s engine rumbled down to a low growl.

"That’s better,” Claudia said graciously at the top of her lungs. “You know, the children are trying to sleep. Why don’t you come back tomorrow for your work?”

I ran down the front steps, pausing on the walk. “Claudia, move. The police are coming.”

"There’s no danger, Liz. It’s the Public Works—I can see the emblem on the man’s shirt.” Shielding her eyes with one hand, she peered into the gloom of the backhoe’s cab. “Can’t this work wait until tomorrow?”

As if in answer, the engine revved, the scoop reared. In the backhoe’s weak headlights, Claudia’s face was white. She stood, frozen, against the metal links.

From across the street, a man screamed, “No!” and ran forward. For a nanosecond, I thought it might be Drake. Shock held me powerless. Then he ran through the streetlight before swinging up into the backhoe’s cab. It was Stewart.

I moved then. The scoop swung at the end of its long neck in choppy, erratic arcs. I ducked low to get to Claudia and grabbed her hand. “Come on. Get out of the way!”

Someone else came around the chain-link fence from Claudia’s other side and gave her a push. I assumed it was Melanie, but when I looked over my shoulder, I saw Nelson’s round, blank face. He held Claudia’s other arm, but he was looking at that wildly swinging scoop. Claudia watched it, too, like one mesmerized.

Between Nelson and me, we got her going, and then she made two great strides and gained the safety of Bridget’s front walk.

“What the hell were you doing?” I shook her arm, then hugged her. “You could have been killed.”

“It worked in Tiananmen Square,” Claudia muttered.

“Man,” said Nelson, his thick lenses glittering in the streetlight. “She was nearly toast. Who’s driving that thing?”

“That’s the question.” I would find out later why Nelson was there. Just then the major problem seemed to be the power struggle going on in the cab of the backhoe. The cab was unlit. We could see only movement, shadows. Suddenly the engine shut down. In the relative quiet, we heard an argument.

“This isn’t the way.” Stewart’s voice, loud and urgent. The reply was inaudible.

Bruno’s car squealed to a stop, just out of range of the backhoe. Headlights illuminated the scene. The car doors flew open. Keeping low, Drake bulleted out of the passenger seat. He must have seen us spectators, grouped on the lawn, gawking at the entertainment. But he kept his attention, and his gun, trained on the backhoe.

“Don’t shoot,” Stewart called. “This is all a mistake.”

Bruno activated a searchlight on his car, and the interior of the backhoe sprang into light: white shapes thickly edged with black shadows. The two men in the cab threw their hands up to protect their eyes against the blinding light. Then the bigger of the two switched on the engine again, and the backhoe began to move.

“It’s Stewart,” I told Claudia. “The Public Works guy.” Then I recognized the other man. “And his friend, Doug.”

Claudia had recovered from her funk. She was scanning the scene coolly. “He appears to have lost control of Doug.”

Stewart pulled on Doug’s arm, trying to get to the controls. Doug’s eyes were screwed up against the light. He backed and turned the backhoe deliberately, until it faced Bruno’s car.

And Paul Drake, standing in front of it. Just as Claudia had.

Only Drake had a gun.

Stewart lunged at Doug, pushing him out of the driver’s seat, and once more the backhoe clanked into quiet. In the silence, Barker’s frenzied yelping sounded clearly. I hoped Melanie was making sure the kids were safe. Like Claudia and Nelson, I was immobilized by the sheer drama of the encounter.

Doug didn’t try to start the engine again. Instead, he reached into the pocket of his Public Works shirt and pulled out a gun of his own.

He didn’t aim it at Drake. He pointed it at Stewart.

I could hear Drake’s indrawn breath, see the way his face hardened. He sharpened his stance, looking for a clear shot at Doug. Drake might have to kill Doug to keep him from hurting Stewart. Drake, too, could be killed. Until that moment, I hadn’t actively processed those realities.

Stewart was in front of Doug, preventing a clear shot. Drake circled around. He looked terribly exposed. Crouching behind the car door, Bruno also had a gun out, but his attention was split between the scene in front of him and the cell phone he spoke into in a low, urgent voice. It wasn’t clear that Drake could incapacitate Doug before Doug could shoot Stewart.

I began to shake.

Claudia put her arm around me. “It’ll be okay,” she murmured. Nelson, mouth open, watched as if it were a 3-D action movie on the big screen.

Barker yelped again, and I spared some of my worry for the children. Melanie would keep them safe in my absence. And if I went into the house now, it might draw Doug’s attention to the vulnerability of its occupants. There was no way I could risk Bridget’s children becoming involved.

Stewart’s face was white in the spotlight’s glare, but he seemed calm, talking to his friend, directing all his concentration at Doug.

Drake moved a little farther over and found a clear shot. I wondered if he could just shoot the gun out of Doug’s hand, as they did in old Westerns. He waited.

Stewart said something more—we couldn’t hear it. Doug wavered, lowering the gun, and Stewart reached toward it. Doug’s mouth twisted. The harsh light threw the indecision-sculpted planes of his face into sharp relief.

Then Doug raised the gun again. Swiftly, without pause, he put the barrel against his own head and pulled the trigger.

Chapter 26

It was over before we could take it in. One minute, Doug was spotlighted in the backhoe’s cab like an old-time vaudeville performer. The next moment, he’d slumped forward. Stewart sat beside him still, his face frozen in horror. The front of his shirt glistened where bits of Doug’s brain and blood had ended up.

Drake holstered his gun, ran to the backhoe, followed by Bruno. Stewart leaned over the side of the cab. We could hear him retching.

“My God,” Claudia breathed. “My God, my God.”

I shut my eyes tight, just ten seconds too late. The picture on the insides of my eyelids wouldn’t go away.

“Liz,” Claudia said sharply. “Help me with Nelson. He’s going to faint.”

Nelson swayed, his eyes rolling back in his head. We managed to break his fall, anyway. Between us we dragged him over to the front steps of the house. Claudia yanked him into a sitting position, propped up his knees, and shoved his head between them, as if he were a recalcitrant Raggedy Andy.

“I’m going to make sure the kids are all right.” I took one last look at the backhoe. Drake had climbed on the big tires to reach into the cab. Stewart’s heaving sounded clearly through the night.

When I opened the front door, Melanie stood just inside, her sickened gaze fixed on the backhoe. She was swallowing rapidly. “What—did he—really—?”

“Yes, he really did.” I brushed past her and was almost knocked down by Barker, who whined and wagged so hard there seemed to be two of him. “Are the kids okay?”

“Moira and Mick never woke up. Corky did, but I told him it was some roadwork. Then I heard the shot and came out here—”

“Thanks, Melanie. Thanks for keeping them inside.” I stood in the doorway of the boys’ bedroom. Corky said something in a sleepy voice, so I pulled the covers up around his shoulders, and he sighed and went back to sleep. Sam in the bottom bunk and Mick in the trundle bed both slept on, undisturbed. From Moira’s room came the light whisper of her even breathing.