The Dollmaker's Daughters (Bo Bradley Mysteries, Book Five) (13 page)

"Thank God," he whispered. "Oh, Mary, thank God."

What he hadn't said was that it wasn't over. He hadn't said that after thirteen years of secrecy and silence, it had just begun.

Two hundred yards away, the hawk plummeted behind a split boulder and rose again with a whiptail lizard wiggling in
its beak. Dan watched the bird climb the gray sky and vanish between two low hills. Nothing had changed for thousands of years, he thought. A sprawling city had grown up thanks to the old dam constructed here by Indian labor under the heel of the padres, but eventually the dam had crumbled and the city had never come closer than it was now. The rocky hills and twisting valley that once harbored a Kumeyaay village were as they had always been. And the spirits here were undisturbed. Free.

A scent of sage on the breeze alerted Dan to the place where the lizard had scampered its last. In the damp earth beneath a coastal sage bush were the marks of a scuffle. The hawk's beating wings would have bruised the sage enough to release its characteristic odor into the air. Breathing deeply, Dan knew the moment for what it was—a sign that he was on the right path, the path which would lead him to the Old Ones and a way to free Mary from the burden now haunting her. The sage smell made him light-headed for a moment, as if he were walking just above the surface of the ground. That was good. A good sign.

Nearing the highway, he dropped the pack, removed one of the canisters, and pumped it. Then he began spraying the rocks, the dusty path he believed was part of the bobcat's territory, all the way to the edge of the pavement. Then he walked a half mile in both directions beside the road, spraying the ground. Later he'd drive east on 52, park the car somewhere, and spray the eastbound shoulder.

"Kill them weeds, Injun!" a man in a western shirt yelled from a pickup truck, and threw a half-empty can of beer in Dan's general direction. The can bounced and spewed yellow foam on the road before coming to rest i
n the ditch. Dan thought of rattl
esnake venom and then forced himself to stop
thinking altogether. He could allow nothing to break his concentration. He had to be there for the cat entirely. That was how he would contact the Old Ones, by saving the cat and earning their respect. And they would find a way to tell him things never recorded because there was no written language when they lived here. They would find a way to tell him how the angry dead may be silenced, how the living may be allowed to forget

But it was going to take time. And there might not be very much time now. Something terrible had been released at last and he was sure a long-awaited chain of events had already begun. A chain of events that would almost certainly involve more pain. And almost certainly involve more death.

C
hapter 9

Mary Mandeer stood in ankle-high grass and thought about the construction of her shoes. They were ordinary black pumps with ordinary two-inch heels. But because of the way they were made, she couldn't shift her weight to the balls of her feet, couldn't stand on her toes. The shoes forced an even distribution of her weight, which meant that her heels sank into the damp ground with every step. She could actually feel the tearing of roots as her heels punctured the ea
rth's surface. She could feel th
e occasional pebble, the rotting twig. It was good to have something to think about as they watched the gray casket being lowered into the ground.

There was no graveside service. She and Madge had agreed that a few words at the funeral home would suffice. Now the only sound was the creaking of a small winch attached to some sort of tractor. The winch was lowering Kimberly Malcolm's body into what Mary hoped would be a final peace. God knew, the child deserved an eternity of peace. A billow of exhaust from the tr
actor scented the air unpleasantl
y.

"I think that will do," Madge Aldenhoven said as a breeze moved the black net veil covering the inch of thick silver hair visible between her forehead
and the edge of a small hat. “I
think we can go now."

Mary felt her heels digging again as she took five steps to
the yellow-orange mound of earth and reached for a handful. It felt sandy and wet.

"It's over now, Kimmy," she whispered. "Be at peace."

The dirt made a scratchy thunk on the casket lid when she threw it into the grave, but brought no sense of finality or closure. Mary hadn't really expected it to.

"I'm ready," she said then, and punctured a wavering line of small holes in the earth leading from Kimmy Malcolm's grave to Madge Aldenhoven's car. It was the kind of thing Dan would
noti
ce, she thought. The kind of thing Dan would say meant something.

As Madge started the car Mary waved to
the mortician standing beside th
e hearse. That the man knew absolutely nothing about what now lay six feet beneath San Diego's rocky soil made her feel grounded in reality. Not knowing was reality, she decided in that moment. Not knowing was healthy, was comfortable, was necessary. Some things shouldn't be known. So from now on, she wouldn't know them. The man nodded politely and raised three fingers of his white-gloved right hand in a small farewell. The gesture was a perfect dismissal, Mary t
hought. Good-bye. The end.
Fini
.

"How is Dan doing, now that he's retired?" Madge asked.

There had been no conversation about Kimmy Malcolm, no discussion of the case so many years ago that only now would close. Mary remembered when she'd taken the job with the Welfare Department after David's death, after Dan moved out. She'd thought she was going to be on her own and would need a job. But after she and Dan got back together she found she liked having somewhere to go every day, something to do. So she stayed on, and stayed up with the endless paperwork, kept her caseload clean. The cheaters couldn't get by Mary Mandeer, but she wasn't beyond stretching things a
payment or two for the ones who really needed help. And then, years later, the department had asked her to move into a new division called Child Protective Services. It would involve not only adoptions and foster care, but the investigation of child abuse as well. Mary had thought it over and finally agreed to the new job, where she was assigned to a supervisor only slightly older than herself named Madge Aldenhoven. The two had become friends, Mary remembered, almost immediately. And remained friends, until the Malcolm case. Almost fourteen years ago now. It felt like yesterday.

"Dan's reclaiming his Indian heritage, working as a volunteer at Mission Trails Regional Park," she answered Madge's question. "He spells 'Man Deer' as two words now, and spends half his life at libraries researching Kumeyaay history. It's quite interesting. How about Tom and the boys?"

“
Tom's opened a fa
ncy plumbing fixtures Internet
business with a friend of his," Madge said brightly after a pause in which her neck flushed in streaks above the black fabric of her suit. "The business is sort of a retirement thing. And both Tom, Jr., and Randall live outside California now. Tom, Jr.'s career Navy, moves around a lot, and Randall married a nice girl from Virginia he met at a youth hostel in Austria, of all things. He has a good job with her father's company. They have two children, seem happy."

They weren't even out of the cemetery, Mary Mandeer realized, and there was nothing left to say. Nothing, that is, unless the forbidden topic was broached. The topic which had brought them together again after thirteen years of silence.

"Do you really think all the secrecy was necessary?" she asked Madge. "Do the police know? Do you think there will be any follow-up?"

Madge guided the small car through a patch of dry leaves
as though she were being judged on the maneuver. In the rearview minor Mary saw the mortician push his cap to the back of his head and light a cigarette. Then a curve in the cemetery road obscured what lay behind them.

"There was no announcement in the paper, Mary, so there's no way the press could have learned about this easily. I don't know if the Kelton Institut
e informed the police when Kim
berly died. As far as I can ascertain, they would have had no reason to. We have been legally responsible for Kimberly since... since before it happened. When she died they phoned the hotline and asked for me. The hotline gave them my home number, they called, I called you. All of these communications have been discreet. There's only one potential source of trouble."

"What's that?" Mary Mandeer asked as they exited the cemetery. The hum of cars on the street was pleasant, she thought
.
It was pleasant to have this old obligation completed, to be leaving it behind.

"Janny," Madge said.

"Oh, my God, is she still—"

"She's still here, still in the foster care system. There was no way, well, you know there was just no way for ... for anybody to claim her. But two nights ago, the night Kim died, Janny had some kind of seizure at a nightclub. They thought she was dead and called the police, who phoned one of my workers to investigate since it was quite foggy and she lives near the club. Janny was hospitalized and still isn't doing very well. It's quite possible that she's mentally ill, which wouldn't be surpri
sing under the circumstances. Th
e worker, Bo Bradley, is something of a troublemaker, but she isn't stupid and she's likely to develop an attachment for the girl."

"Just take her off the case, Madge. What's the point in letting somebody dig all this up now? And by the way," Mary said, pretending interest in a used car lot out the passenger's side window, "did you let, um,
him
know that Kim was gone at last?"

"Yes," Madge answered softly. "I phoned him before I phoned you."

"Good."

"Mary, there's something else about Janny," M
adge went on, biting her lower li
p. "She carries an old doll around with her. And she calls it Kimmy."

Mary Mandeer felt something cold catch in the back of her throat.

"She was only two! She can't possibly remember."

"No, she can't," Madge Aldenhoven sighed, "but apparently she does. Probably just the name, which she's connected to the doll. It's dangerous, Mary. I'm worried."

"It was a long time ago, Madge. And we didn't really do anything wrong."

"
You
didn't really do anything wrong," Madge replied through clenched teeth. "But I did and now it's come back to haunt me."

Mary said nothing more. Not talking, she thought, might be the gateway to not knowing. It was worth a try.

Chapter l
0

“
Murder," Dar Reinert said for the second time as Bo stood in her empty office staring into an equally empty hall. He'd called as soon as she got back. "It's officially a murder now."

"What do you mean, 'now'?" she asked, cradling the phone against her shoulder as she tried to extricate herself from the bulky sweater. "Do you mean Kimberly Malcolm was murdered? When? Where? And who was Kimberly Malcolm?"

A familiar rattl
e of keys at the side door presaged Madge's return. Bo stretched a leg to the edge of her office door, tryin
g to nudge it closed. No dice. But w
hatever Dar was saying could not be heard over the purposeful entrance of the supervisor, clasping a new case file firmly in her right hand.

"I think I've
got a new case, Es," Bo told th
e detective as if he were Estrella. "Let me call you later, okay?"

"The history on this thing'll make you puke,
" Reinert went on. "I'm gonna ru
n a copy of the file and bring it over. Leave your truck unlocked. I'll put it on the front seat."

"It's not a tru
ck," Bo answered. "But no problem. Talk to you later."

In the shadows cast by the desk lamp Madge looked like something out of Dickens, Bo thought
.
The Ghost of Christmas Future, maybe. That sepulchral darkness. It occurred to
her that in four years of daily, usually hostile contact with the older woman, she'd never actually been afraid of Madge Aldenhoven. Until now.