Murder Bone by Bone (7 page)

These thoughts were dangerous. I had all too often lately found myself analyzing Drake’s seeming attraction to me. It was a short step from there to analyzing my own attraction to him.

I looked into the living room, where Corky and Sam dove in and out of blanket-shrouded hidey-holes, and pulled myself back to the conversation. “Bridget certainly deserves this vacation. Anyone who lives full-time with children does. It would be awful if she had to come home early.”

“I guess.” Drake looked vague. “I just didn’t want her and Emery coming back and cluttering up my investigation.” He grinned at me. “I know I can keep you in order.”

“Why ever would you think so?” My exasperation wasn’t totally feigned.

“Because you love a mystery. Confess, Liz. Why else would you get mixed up in them so often?”

“How exactly did I get mixed up in this one?” I resisted the impulse to wipe that smug smile off his face. This is the reason why I can’t quite let myself be swept away by Drake. He can be so irritating. I think all men are, at least some of the time. Probably women are to men, too. I don’t need the aggravation.

“
You
stirred it up somehow. Just think, if you hadn’t let the boys dig, those bones would probably not have been discovered for decades longer.”

“Nonsense. The city’s been chewing up the sidewalks at an ever-increasing rate. Cable, storm drains, sewer replacements—seems like they’re digging everything up constantly. They’re digging up the middle of the street out there now, you may have noticed. They’d have run across the bones when they re-do the sidewalk again in six months or so.”

“You’re probably right.” Drake picked up the cellular phone again. “Don’t let me keep you.”

I took the juice out to the living room, feeling deprived of the last word. There are many things about trying to sustain a relationship with a man that make me uncomfortable. My very need of the last word showed up a kind of competition with Drake that I had noticed before. Perhaps I was only capable of cessation of hostilities in a relationship, not true love. I didn’t like seeing things between men and women as a war.

The boys had abandoned their fort and were standing on the window seat, their noses plastered against the glass. “He’s back!” Corky sounded ecstatic.

“There’s no Bobcat, though.”

I set the juice on top of the bookcase and joined them. Stewart, the Public Works guy, had returned, in a different truck with different accessories, which was double-parked in front of the driveway. We watched him rummage in the back of the truck and pull out a brilliant orange tarp. He flapped this toward the foot of the excavation, as if making a bed. After walking around to smooth it here and there, he put a portable barricade at each end and strung caution tape around. He stood off, surveying his work, and found it good. After a glance at the house, he drove away again.

Drake found us on the window seat, our noses still glued to the glass as we watched Stewart’s truck disappear. I pointed out how tidy it was—the bones nicely tucked in, the site barricaded. Drake just sniffed.

“Our people would do a much better job.” He flopped on the couch and closed his eyes, pressing his fingers into his forehead just above his eyebrows. “Trouble is, we’re spread so thin this weekend. Training exercise in Mountain View, and a murder-suicide in East Palo Alto that Bruno’s been detailed to help with. These bones have a very low priority, believe me.” He sat up. “Much as I hate to, I’ve called in the archaeologists.”

“Send in the clowns,” I murmured.

Drake grinned. “Richard Grolen is kind of a clown, if you ask me. One of those overgrown types that never grows up. Still digging in the dirt. He’s got to be over fifty.”

“Not that old. And he seemed to be in good shape. Digging will do that for you, I guess.”

Drake frowned. “I don’t like giving it over to him, but nobody in the department seems to feel these bones are of much interest, seeing how old they are. The county will send out a forensic anthropologist to date them, hopefully on Monday.”

“I thought that’s what Dinah Blakely was going to do.”

“She’ll want to sit in, probably, but it has to be official.” Drake rumpled his hair. “And I guess I’ll hang around over the weekend to keep tabs on the diggers. If I thought they wouldn’t miss some evidence, I’d just let Public Works go for it.” He sighed. “This looks like one enormous headache.”

I didn’t care for the way he looked at me when he said that. “Surely you don’t blame me. Or was I just supposed to ignore what the boys had done? After all, the work crews would have noticed the bones on Monday, or at least what was left after the boys stirred it all up, anyway.”

“No, no.” He didn’t sound convinced. “Of course, it’s worth investigating. It’ll just be so tedious to track down the ID at this late date, that’s all.”

“You call yourself a detective,” I scoffed, helping Sam down from the window seat. “You have records, don’t you? Who lived here, who was missing—”

“Liz.” Drake was patient. “Those records are useful if you have a date. The forensic guys aren’t going to say, ‘This man was killed in August of 1975.’ Without a benchmark in time of some kind, it’s going to be damned difficult, even with our databases.”

Moira woke just then, and by the time I’d tended her, Mick was awake. Drake ordered Chinese delivered, since he was expecting the archaeologists any time. I put
The Little Mermaid
in the VCR, reflecting that I’d allowed Bridget’s children to watch far more TV that day than I really approved of. It was easy to see how moms got into letting the kids veg out in front of the tube.

Richard Grolen and his crew showed up at the same time as the Chinese food. He and Drake held a brief discussion, standing by the sidewalk. They shook hands like prizefighting opponents.

I cut some potstickers into tiny bites and let Moira sit on the floor with the boys in front of the TV while eating. Barker, especially, thought this was a fine idea.

Drake and I took our chopsticks and mu shu onto the front porch. We sat on the steps with the front door open behind us. I could hear the kids shrieking with laughter as Louie the Crab conducted an undersea orchestra. In front of us, the students lifted away the barricades and tarp, following Richard’s directions.

“This better not be a mistake,” Drake said around a bite. He caught a noodle that slithered off. “It could cost me in the department. The captain really wanted to wait until the county team has time to deal with it, but that could be weeks. I want this cleaned up.”

“So do I.” I thought of Bridget coming back to a full-scale excavation of dubious bones in her front yard. It was enough to destroy the benefit of any vacation.

Drake knew what I was thinking about. “It may not be done in a week. Depends on how fast these people move, and they don’t usually move very fast. Grolen said they’d skimp a bit on the preliminaries, seeing that the layers have already been disturbed.”

We sat there until we were finished eating, watching the students impose a grid on the site, then take pictures, then finally begin to dig, or rather, to remove dirt with hand trowels and buckets. I checked occasionally on the kids. Moira ate quite a bit of potsticker and beef with broccoli; nobody admitted feeding Barker, but he had the look of a satisfied dog. Twilight came, and deepening dusk.

Finally Richard Grolen came over to the steps to fill Drake in on the progress so far, leaving his crew to pack up the bones they’d unearthed. I could see that I wasn’t wanted in the official consultation, so I wandered down to the sidewalk. It occurred to me that no one had offered the students anything to drink. “Say, if you guys are thirsty—”

“I wouldn’t say no to a Coke,” one of the men said. He was short, with a round face reddened by the work he’d been doing. His baseball cap was turned backwards, shading his neck, and his eyes were magnified by thick-lensed glasses.

“Geez, Nelson,” said the female member of the crew, pushing her hat farther back on her head. “You brought a cooler full of drinks. You already empty that?”

“I don’t have any Coke,” I said, hoping to cool the altercation. “But I could get you some ice water.”

“That’s nice,” the girl said, wiping her grimy hand on her jeans and extending it to me. “I’m Kathy Swenson, by the way.” Despite the hat, her nose was going to peel. Her pale blue eyes were ringed by pale blond lashes. "This is Hobart Pena, and that bottomless pit over there is Nelson Drabble. We’ll be going soon anyway. Thanks for your offer, though.”

Nelson looked like he wanted to argue with her, but Hobart gave me a languid nod and turned away. He was a handsome young fellow, with jet-black hair and bronzed skin. His brief T-shirt displayed muscles worth looking at.

Certainly Kathy looked at them, although with what appeared to be abstract appreciation. She was tall, skinny to the point of boniness, and her pale skin wasn’t taking the sun well.

“Well, let me know if you need a drink. And you’re welcome to take your breaks on the front porch where it’s shady, as long as you’re quiet at naptime.” I smiled at Kathy, sure that she at least would understand this.

"That’s very nice. We don’t usually get any perks on the dig,” Kathy said frankly, glancing at the front porch where Drake and Richard Grolen still conferred. Grolen looked over at the same time, and she got back to work.

I went back to the porch. Grolen gave me a smile, but without the extra charm he’d turned on for Melanie, and walked down the steps toward the crew. They heaved the last couple of tools into their van and drove away.

“So far they’ve found just a few bones,” Drake said with gloomy satisfaction. “Our guys would have gotten all the bones by now.”

“Did they find any bullets or anything?”

He showed me the little cardboard box Richard had given him. In it were some rusty Matchbox cars and a few bits of broken glass. “That’s it,” he said. “Doesn’t look too lethal.” He carried the box down to his car anyway. “Is there any more of that mu shu?”

After we cleared away the dinner, Drake read to the boys while I got Moira cleaned up. She asked for Mommy a couple of times, but at least she didn’t cry when I told her Mommy was visiting and would be home later. Despite her long nap, she was asleep soon after I started rocking her.

Feeling like a manipulator, I told the boys we were going to call their parents. “It’s expensive,” I said. “We can't talk long. What should we tell them?”

“About the Bobcat!” Corky was firm.

“And the dump truck,” Sam added.

“Okay, we can talk about the road construction. What about your trip to the Peninsula Creamery?”

“Yes, we had beer!” Sam licked his lips, remembering.

We made the call, and between the boys both talking at once on separate extensions and Bridget getting so excited to hear from them, the bones weren’t mentioned. Emery did ask about the dump truck, and Sam told him, with great disappointment, that the men hadn’t dumped the bones in it. But Corky was off on a tangent immediately, and Emery didn’t follow up on it.

When we hung up, I was limp with relief.

Drake tucked the boys in, then came out to the living room. “That was fun,” he said. “Haven’t read
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel
in several decades.”

I dropped into a chair. “I’m exhausted.”

“No wonder.” He stood behind me and rubbed my neck and shoulders. It felt good. “You’ve had a very hard day.”

“Tomorrow has to be better, though.” I let my head fall forward. “Unless the kids discover a toxic waste site or something. And Monday they go to school all day.”

“Poor Liz.” His hands rotating over my shoulders did amazing things to my insides. “At least I’ll be around tomorrow.”

“I may not.” He stopped rubbing, and I sat up. “I was thinking about taking the kids somewhere. Then you and Richard could dig to your hearts’ content.”

“Might be a good idea.”

“But only if you’re going to be here. I can’t abandon Biddy’s house to those archaeologists.”

“I’ll be here.” He began to smile. “So you’re going to take four kids on an excursion single-handed? That’s brave.”

“Claudia might go with me.” I stood up. “And I’ll need my rest.”

Drake took the hint. I walked him to the door, and he kissed me before he left. He’d been doing that for a little while now. It was getting harder and harder to pretend these were just California kisses between friends.

Nevertheless, after he’d gone, I did pretend that. I phoned Claudia, who agreed to go with us on an expedition the next day. Then I walked around the house, accompanied by Barker, locking all the doors and turning out lights.

I was keyed up, not ready to sleep. Bridget and Emery had bookcases everywhere, bulging with books. Emery’s books on solid-state-this and algorithm-that didn’t interest me. But Bridget’s books were like a smorgasbord to a dieter. I chose
Villette
to take into bed with me, and only for a minute or two did I think about a different choice I could have made.

Chapter 8

I got up early to pack everything I could find to eat into a knapsack, along with Bridget’s family membership card for the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park, thoughtfully included with her pages of instructions.

I made pancakes for breakfast, not quite up to Bridget’s standards, but the boys didn’t seem to notice. Halfway through the second batch, Barker left his post under the kitchen table and raced to the front door, ears alert. Corky ran into the living room and climbed on the window seat. “Those arkenologists are back!”

Sam abandoned his pancakes to climb up beside his brother. “They’re digging up our bones again!”

I stood behind them, looking at the battered white van. "They're down to the sidewalk level already. Probably removing what you guys did was the easy part.” Drake’s car pulled up. He hopped out, gave Richard a curt nod, and headed up the front walk.

“I don’t wanna go to the museum,” Corky whined with his nose plastered to the window. “I wanna stay and help them dig.”

Drake walked in in time to hear this. "That’s all I need,” he said.

“Relax. We’re leaving.” I crammed a bottle of juice and a stack of little paper cups into the knapsack. “But Barker’s staying. Can you keep an eye on him? He likes to dig, too.”