Murder Bone by Bone (4 page)

Claudia’s house, though she didn’t keep it in very good repair, would be worth probably twenty times what they’d paid thirty years ago. Even my tumbledown little shack was worth a lot of money. I’d often thought of selling it and moving somewhere cheap. It’s just that nowhere seems particularly cheap anymore.

“Do you remember anything about someone who disappeared and was never found?”

Claudia wrinkled her forehead and then, when it delighted Moira, made more faces. “Not really,” she said finally. “I wasn’t real involved in community things then. Just coping with kids and trying to do some research.” She sniffed, and sniffed again. “Speaking of coping—”

“I figured as much.” I stood up. “I’ll change her.”

“Let me,” Claudia suggested, heaving herself to her feet while holding Moira a little away. “I haven’t changed a diaper in a long time.”

“I won’t fight you for it.” I went to the back door and watched for a minute while the boys threw tennis balls for Barker, and he played keep-away with them, a game he much preferred to fetch. Then he started teaching them to fetch; after they threw the ball, he stood there, his head cocked, and they eventually ran to get it. It was as good a way as any I could have devised to tire them out. I left them to it.

Claudia came back, holding Moira’s hand while she toddled tippily along. “I still know how to put a diaper on,” she bragged. “Such knowledge is never really lost. Maybe I’m ready to be a grandmother now, if my kids would only cooperate.”

She’d used a cloth diaper, and it was snug, not drooping anywhere. "That’s great,” I said. “Can you show me?”

She spent a few minutes showing me how to fold and pin a diaper. Then the boys came in, bursting with high spirits and followed by an excited Barker.

They were glad to see Claudia, who must have seemed like an ocean liner of familiarity in a cast-adrift world, and showered her with fervent hugs.

“Say, I know.” She gathered the boys into a huddle. “How about I take you fellows down to the Peninsula Creamery for a milkshake?”

We were all enthusiastic about that. I just had one reservation. “Uh, Claudia—you will be walking, right? Not driving?”

“If you insist,” she said huffily. Claudia’s driving was famous for its wretchedness. Considering her plunging, absent-minded method of progression, her actual lack of accidents was thought by her friends to be positive proof for the concept of guardian angels. However, I didn’t want to risk that this expedition would be the time that Claudia had the accident she’d deserved for years.

I watched them down the street, Claudia puffing along pushing Mick in the stroller while Corky and Sam ranged ahead. Moira wept a little in a desultory way, but was placated by sitting in the high chair with Cheerios and apple slices on the tray. For a few minutes she ate happily while I swept a fresh accumulation of dirt off the faded linoleum, which was not much newer than my own ancient floor covering.

Bridget and Emery hadn’t remodeled their early-l900s bungalow, although she was always talking about doing it. Except for a newish refrigerator, the kitchen probably looked much as it had for the past fifty years, roughly the age of the Wedgewood stove. The cabinets and woodwork were from the same era as those in my place, a time when cabinets were made from solid wood, painted with thick white enamel, and placed scantily around wainscoting-clad walls. It was charming, if run-down, and at least Bridget had a walk-in pantry for actual storage. Despite its age and inconvenience, her kitchen was homey and welcoming.

Bridget had mentioned once that she and Emery had painted over a lot of Day-Glo colors before they moved in. I could imagine the marijuana brownie-baking sisters from the seventies in the kitchen, along with their long-haired, draft-dodger boyfriends, before cynicism and life brushed the bloom off them, listening to Hendrix and toking up. My sister, eight years older, had worn platform shoes and skirts as short as she could get away with; the arguments about her skirt length had made an impression on an eight-year-old. By the time I was old enough to rebel, the initial parental shock over bell bottoms and torn jeans had dissipated; impassioned discussion of the principles of peace and love had given way to uninterested acceptance of bizarre dress and provocative pronouncements.

I still held those times up in my mind as purer, less sullied than the era of greed that followed. However, my feelings probably had more to do with my own wide-eyed youth than with historical truth. And it’s been a long time since abstract virtues have had any impact on my life.

Moira contributed some Cheerios and an apple slice to the dirt I was sweeping, so I took her down from the high chair, washing her face again. We settled in the living room with a basket of bristle blocks. It was nearly lunchtime; I wondered if the boys would still be hungry after milkshakes. I also wondered if Claudia would survive. I should have taken Moira in the stroller and gone with her, but the notion of having just one child to tend for a while had been too enticing. I stuck some bristle blocks together to form a frame and prayed to survive the week.

Barker roused from the blissed-out sleep of a well-exercised dog and began living up to his name. Startled, Moira turned a worried face to me. I picked her up and went to the door, expecting the mail carrier.

A battered white van with the Stanford emblem on the side panel had pulled up in the driveway. Several people were milling around, directed by a tall, slim man whose long, graying hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

Moira and I went out on the porch. I let Barker out, too, but I kept a hand in his collar.

“Excuse me,” I said politely. “What are you doing?”

No one paid any attention. Besides the ponytailed man in charge, three other jeans-clad people hauled shovels and other equipment out of the van. All of them wore baseball caps. One was a woman in her early twenties, I judged. The other two were men about the same age.

I raised my voice. “Hey!”

The older man looked at me and held up his hand in a laconic wave. Barker began growling. He doesn’t like men much until he gets to know them. Sometimes not then.

“Hey! What are you doing!”

The older man came over, stopping at the front of the porch steps when he heard Barker’s growl. His three companions quit working and watched.

“Hi. You the home owner?” The ponytailed man smiled. His face was lean, with leathery skin and pale, almost silvery blue eyes. The charming smile revealed a flash of gold tooth back among his molars. His sleeveless T-shirt emphasized a limber, attractively muscled build, showing a bit of curling grayish chest hair. A red bandanna was tied jauntily around his neck.

“I’m living here. Who are you?”

His grin widened. “You get to the point, don’t you. Will your dog bite?”

“Probably.” I kept my finger in Barker’s collar. He still had his fur raised, though it wouldn’t take much friendliness from the man to make Barker his buddy for life. He’s a good watchdog for five minutes, then he wants to play.

The man laughed, gold tooth flashing. “Well, I hope he doesn’t. I’m Richard Grolen, from the archaeology department. At Stanford,” he added when I frowned.

“That’s nice. Why are you here?”

He shook his head, still smiling. “Man, I guess Dinah didn’t tell you. We’re the excavation team.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, indicating the group of students who leaned against the van.

“Dinah told you to come?”

He settled his thumbs in the belt loops of his worn jeans. They fit him, I noticed, very well. “She said you had some bones to dig up.” He looked at the pile of dirt where the sidewalk used to be. One of the rib bones still stuck out. “I see what she means. This will be great lab work.”

He moved as if to turn away. I tightened my grip on Barker’s collar, and he growled again. “Did she also tell you,” I said, “that the police don’t want you to dig them up?”

"They don’t?” Richard Grolen's face registered shocked surprise. “No, she didn’t mention that. Truth to tell, I haven’t actually spoken with her. She left a message with this address, said she was looking into it as a lab site.”

“She looked. It isn’t.”

He took off his baseball cap and brushed one hand over the top of his head, where the straight, gray-blond hair was thinning. “Thing is,” he said confidentially, “we were heading for a site up near Jasper Ridge and we got kicked out. There’s a big butterfly count going on or something, and they were afraid we’d disturb the bugs.” He smiled disarmingly. “So when I got her message we were already loaded up looking for a place to dig. So . . ." He shrugged, moving those nice chest muscles in an interesting way. “Here we are. Rarin’ to go.”

Moira started squirming to get down. Barker pulled at his collar. One of the students called plaintively. “Should we get the stakes out, Dr. Grolen?”

A doctor, yet. “Look,” I said, starting to lose my grip on child, dog, and temper. "The police want to do their own investigation here. You’ll have to talk to them before you can lift so much as one shovelful of dirt.”

Richard Grolen frowned. His voice was a little crisper. “You know, the sidewalk isn’t on your property or anything. I’ll take care of the police. You don’t have to worry about this at all.”

"That's what you think.” I knew how Drake would feel about the archaeology department moving in on his bones, no matter how charming their representatives. “I can’t control the dog anymore.”

Luckily a bigger force of nature was unleashed, before Barker could bound down the stairs and kill the students with big, wet, dog kisses. Melanie Dixon’s BMW drew up to the curb. She climbed out, tightening her mouth in disapproval when she saw the pile of dirt. She scanned and dismissed the students before lighting on Richard Grolen at the foot of the stairs. Her eyes widened.

“Why, Richard!” She hurried up the sidewalk and took his hands, laughing. “Richard Grolen! How nice to see you again, after all this time!”

Richard’s face wore that charming smile again. “Melanie! Good God, this takes me back. As if this neighborhood wasn’t enough, now you’re here!”

“It’s been so long.” She gave him a dainty hug and stepped back. “You look just the same, you old pirate. What have you been up to? Why are you at Bridget’s house?”

Richard gave me the tail end of the smile. “Is this Bridget? You’re Melanie’s friend? Small world, isn’t it?”

“Don’t be silly.” Melanie scowled at me as if I had been guilty of impersonation. “This is Liz. What in the world is happening here, Liz? What’s that?” A toss of her head, which hardly disturbed her shiny, perfectly cut brown hair, indicated the dirt pile. “Why are you keeping Richard standing in the yard?”

“I’m not keeping him at all. He can leave now.” Melanie and Bridget are both part of a poet’s group that meets regularly in Palo Alto, and they both have young children. Aside from those points in common, they are an ill-assorted pair to be friends. Bridget has a warmth and common sense valued by everyone she knows; Melanie comes from a well-connected Palo Alto family and knows something, usually something detrimental, about everyone who’s anyone in this town. She is not much taller than I am, always perfectly groomed, and always seems skeptical of my right to live in the same town that she does.

Richard took Melanie aside for a low-voiced conversation. I told Barker to sit, and for a wonder he did. I gave Moira the bristle blocks I still had in my hand, and she amused herself by throwing them at Richard.

A dull roar came from somewhere down the street, growing louder and louder. The students craned their necks, peering down the sidewalk. Even Richard broke off to listen.

Claudia and the three boys lurched into view. They might have been drunks coming home from a carouse, especially since they were singing, at the top of their lungs, “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall.” Actually, they had reached eighty-three. Claudia sang, too, providing a bass note.

Melanie sighed in disgust. Claudia and the boys, pausing in front of the driveway for a grand finale, attempted some harmony. “Eighty-two bottles of beer on the wall,” they howled happily.

“Really, Claudia.” Melanie spoke as soon as she could make herself heard.

The boys flung themselves at the steps to hug Barker, and he writhed happily. “We had beer!” Corky shrieked. "Lots of beer!”

“Root beer,” Claudia amended. “Hello, Melanie. Who’s this?” She gave Richard Grolen an interested stare.

Before Melanie could reply, Drake’s car pulled up and he charged up the front walk. He had noticed the Stanford van, and he didn’t look happy.

I sat down on the porch step, deafened by the kids’ screams and Barker’s answering yowls. Moira took careful aim and hurled the last of the bristle blocks, bouncing it with great accuracy off the center of Drake’s forehead.

It was going to be a long afternoon.

Chapter 5

Despite those intoxicating root beer floats, the boys demanded lunch. I was happy to slink away from the melee in the front yard. Melanie had assumed hostess duties and was introducing a glowering Drake to Richard Grolen, while Claudia gave Richard the frank, approving once-over she reserves for sexy younger (to her, anyway) men.

Moira and I ushered the boys into the house. I checked the list of acceptable food items Bridget had posted on the refrigerator, and got out the peanut butter. In just seven hours they would all go to bed (“Eight P.M. firm for bedtime,” Bridget had written. “Seven-thirty for Mick if he’s getting cranky.") and I would be free to collapse.

Corky helped himself to juice and splashed it on the floor. Sam protested the waste and got his own mug out. I took control of the juice pitcher but lost the peanut butter knife to Mick, who pushed a chair up to the counter and loaded the knife up before looking around for a target. The front door opened, and Barker took the role of doorbell.

I finished pouring juice and regained control of the peanut butter knife. Melanie Dixon appeared at the kitchen door.

“Do you think we could get some tea or coffee or something?” Melanie's hair was mussed and her eye makeup smudged. Given her usual impeccable appearance, this was a sure sign that something had her ruffled.