Bone Thief (20 page)

When Moira came to, her palms and ankles were nailed to a pine chair. The slightest stir delivered infinite suffering. Perfect stillness temporarily kept the agony at bay. The nails had lacerated cartilage and tendons, perforated muscle tissue, and pulverized her bones. She had ceased screaming long ago. Now, no sounds could escape her mouth, sealed as it was with plumbing tape. No tears could secrete from her eyelids—they were clamped together with globs of Krazy Glue.

“I knew you'd come,” the voice lumbered. “The certainty never wavered. Curiosity is such a stimulating elixir, don't you think? I also knew you'd be naive. It's quite amazing how both traits coexist so comfortably within one's mind.”

He had an educated voice. The realization struck Moira as odd.

Someone moved what she thought to be a metal chair. She imagined her torturer shifting his weight as he sat there, watching her.

“I knew you had to be young. And my guess was right. Only a youthful mind would waste its precious resources trying to catch a demon like me. That's because the young believe in Satan and all his minions and the power of the magician's wand. Therein lies my realm, dear one. My element. It's funny. But, somehow I knew sooner or later a heroine dressed in Buster Browns and a double A bra, barely past the onset of menstruation, would come traipsing into my lair. Yes, curiosity is a dreadful yet divine commodity, don't you think? I had a hunch it was you when I saw you approach that group of detectives. I was at a safe distance, watching your every move through my field glasses. And such a legion of policemen they had brought with them. My, oh my! Of course, I wasn't playing by the rules. Not being there in aisle three wasn't quite fair, but sometimes we demons lie. But then, so did you. Your Donny was a fraud. Remember?”

She heard the creaking sound. He had moved again.

“At first, I thought your makeup a bit excessive for your seraphic face. I wondered about that. And that brown suede miniskirt? ‘Heavens,' I cried. ‘That's how she's dressed for our date?' In case you were wondering, my plan was a simple one. I simply followed as the policemen took you home. They left. You eventually came out. And now you're here.”

The chair creaked again. She heard the sound of his footsteps.

The decoy police sedan worked very well, parked beside the row of hedges lining the shoulder of the Palisades Interstate Parkway. Inspector Tom Mueller at Highway Patrol 17 may have been short staffed, but he believed it was senseless to let an extra police vehicle sit dormant in the precinct's garage. He ordered the marked cruiser to be situated at a strategic location along the Parkway. It was unmanned, but a speeding motorist wouldn't be able to tell; the motorist would slow down at the first sighting of the highly visible dark blue vehicle with its colorful array of emergency lights.

It was nearing 10:00
P.M
., time to retrieve the decoy, when Highway Patrol Officer Bill Simmon's patrol car #643 pulled in behind the parked cruiser. Officer John Masterson, his partner, stepped out onto the shoulder of the road. Three steps from the decoy's door, he unfastened the safety on his 9-mm automatic. He had realized the vehicle was occupied.

A girl's body leaned against the passenger door. The smell of regurgitation and human excrement singed Officer Masterson's sinuses. His flashlight illuminated blotches of dried blood staining the girl's blouse and miniskirt.

“You'd better forget the card game, partner,” he grumbled. “We're gonna have one helluva night.”

Colm had never boned dead virginal flesh before. The audacity of the feat intoxicated him. To celebrate Clarissa's desecration, he visited his wine cellar and lingered before the bins. He finally selected a 1975 Chateau Latour.

Whispers of adulation, murmurs of delight oozed through the concrete flooring. Soon he would join the cheering party gathered beneath him with his prize. He would rattle Clarissa in the face of his parents. How dare they think she would have gotten away? But for now, he would savor his trophy in seclusion.

When he had had his fill of the wine, he descended to the lower level to meet with his tenants. At first, they could not contain their exaltation. But at the sight of the new skeleton, the assembly became silent, resenting that their cramped quarters would be shared by yet another.

Clutching the child's bones, Colm eyed the shelves for a suitable place to deposit them. He would need time to build her showcase. The residents groaned in unison. He understood their grievance. It was crowded enough already without another relic. He would renovate the atelier, he thought. It would add another one thousand square feet to their catacomb. It meant he would have to cease his killings, for the time being, but he could resume his sport once the expansion was underway.

Maybe he would apply to the New York State Council for the Arts for a grant to back the project. After all, these were former residents of New York City, now inhabiting Nassau County. It would be a form of income-maintenance subsidy to guarantee proper lodging for these former taxpaying members of the community. He filed the thought for consideration at a later date.

The ground suddenly shimmied, followed by stillness. A second tremor was more pronounced. It displaced a clavicle, which tumbled from its shelf and shattered on the terra-cotta-tiled floor.

Earthquake!
he thought. He wedged himself into the lift.

Reaching the ground floor, he bolted out of the house, expecting an apocalyptic landscape of shattered houses and burning cars. But the street was intact. A diesel breeze fumigated the thoroughfare; smoke billowed from a bulldozer with a spider arm, its jackhammer pulverizing the asphalt. Huge steel pipes lay nearby, awaiting installation.

Colm envisioned the bulldozer causing the walls of his precious trophy room to cave in, entombing his possessions in mountains of rubble. Then a worse fear crept into his consciousness. What if the vibrations didn't bury his guests? What if it unearthed them?

A grief-stricken Eileen Tiernan straddled the chair, hugging her son, Timothy, close to her bosom. Ryan was clamped to her leg. Her husband sat at her side. They all glanced up as Driscoll and Margaret stepped into the pediatric ward's corridor.

“They won't let us see our daughter,” said Seamus Tiernan.

Driscoll walked over to the policeman stationed at the door to room 732. “What gives, officer?”

“I got my orders from Captain Hollis, Lieutenant. No one's to be let inside. And he means no one.”

“They'll be with me.”

“I'd like to accommodate you—”

“Then let us in.”

“But I've got my orders.”

“You just got new ones.”

The officer stared hopelessly at Driscoll. “I'll have to check. Give me a minute.”

Driscoll shrugged, and the officer walked down the corridor to a wall phone.

“Margaret, why don't you accompany these folks to the cafeteria?” Driscoll suggested. “It may take a few minutes to reconcile the situation.”

“We're not going anywhere until we see our daughter,” said Mr. Tiernan.

“How about I take the kids for a soda?” said Margaret.

“I wanna see Moira,” said Timothy, red faced.

“They'll wait right here with us,” said Mrs. Tiernan.

The policeman returned and spoke to Driscoll. “I'm sorry sir, the Captain's orders don't apply to you.” He opened the door to let the Lieutanant in.

“They're coming with me,” Driscoll announced as he ushered the family inside. Then the Lieutenant's eyes widened. Moira's body was completely encased in plaster, the shell strategically punctured by catheters and tubes to allow for respiration and feeding. There were two slits for the eyes and two apertures for the nostrils.

All heads turned as Doctor Stephen Astin came into the room to check on his young patient. “Her bones were fragmented, some of them pulverized,” he reported.

Mrs. Tiernan's face drained of all color. She stood frozen, staring at the plaster cocoon that contained Moira.

“How could someone do such a thing to our little girl?” Mr. Tiernan asked. “He's crushed our Moira. Do you know what it feels like to see your only daughter shattered, Lieutenant?”

“More than you know.”

The Lieutenant's eyes were brimming with tears. Not since Nicole's death had he felt so heartbroken. And why not? Hadn't Moira become his daughter in Nicole's absence? He cast a look at the girl, this madman's latest victim. And as his eyes took in the living and breathing plaster mummy that Moira had become, his rage was set aflame. The son of a bitch had made it personal. And by doing so, he had signed his own death certificate.

As Driscoll stepped away from Moira's bedside, his eyes met those of the Tiernan family. It pained him to witness the emotional damage that had been inflicted upon them.

Their daughter had been savagely brutalized, and Driscoll knew why. This heartless assault was a message. The killer could have murdered the girl and boned her like all the others. But he didn't. He chose to let Moira live, a cripple for life. She would be an ever-present reminder to Driscoll of his meddling. He was telling the Lieutenant to back off. Like hell he would! If it took assigning legions of policemen, Driscoll would track down this bastard and dole out vengeance.

As Driscoll scanned the room, a feeling of claustrophobia overtook him. He fought the urge to pound the walls, send a quake throughout the building, wake up the dying, call attention to the living. For he knew Moira lay somewhere between the two. Why, he asked himself, had the women closest to his soul met with tragedy at such an early age? His mind began to race. He found himself inside the Plymouth Voyager that carried Colette and his daughter on that ill-fated day in May. He imagined throwing his body over Nicole's as the gasoline tanker collided with the family van. Was that some sort of silent death wish? Was that what was going on inside his guilt-ridden head? Here, now, was Moira, another daughter in his charge. He should have stopped her from the start. What was he thinking? How could he have allowed her to step into the path of a murderer? It was because of him that Moira was so horribly victimized. He was certain of that. That reality would follow him to his grave.

He approached Moira and gently placed his hand on her plaster-encased shoulder. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I hope you'll forgive me. I know I'll never forgive myself.”

“What'd he do?” the rookie patrolman asked.

Richie Winslow, the veteran detective, shot a disdainful glance at the prisoner in the holding cell.

“This here's a vandal,” said Winslow.

“He looks a little old to be a graffiti artist. What'd he vandalize?”

“Our friend here got a yen for earth-moving equipment. He poured a pint of maple syrup into the diesel fuel tank of a bulldozer. Speaking directly to the prisoner, he asked, “Now whad'ya go and do that for?”

Colm winced. He felt caged, ensnared inside the Old Brookville Police Department's holding cell. “How long will I be held here?”

“As long as it takes!”

The phone purred on Winslow's desk. He spoke briefly, then turned to his prisoner.

“Your medical degree just bought you a desk appearance ticket.”

“Does that mean you're letting me go?”

“For now. Tomorrow, you've got an 8:00
A.M
. appointment with a man in a black gown. And you'd better have lost your taste for pancakes.”

Driscoll kept being hammered by the DA, the Mayor, and the Police Commissioner. He felt as though his head were a drum and everyone from the Mayor on down were pounding away with their drumsticks. He couldn't stop his mind from racing. Moira's circumstances kept coming to the forefront of his thoughts. Burdened with guilt, he summoned Margaret and Thomlinson to his office for a brainstorming session. He needed to get his mind back on the case and to restore his sanity.

“Cedric, are you all right? You look a little pale.”

Driscoll knew. Thomlinson was sure of it. He'd wait until the case was resolved to deal with it. “A little touch of the flu,” he said.

Driscoll shot him a look. A look that said “we should talk.” The moment passed in silence. It was Driscoll who broke it. “Have the tech wizards figured out the password to Moira's hard drive yet?”

“Fraid not,” said Margaret.

“They're being overpaid.”

“What is it with the bones?” she asked.

“That's the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.”

“And our guy takes the whole lot. What the hell does he do with them?”

“Maybe he's rebuilding his ladies from the inside out,” said Thomlinson. “Sorta like the serial killer in
Silence of the Lambs.
Remember? The guy was sewing together pieces of flesh he had carved from the bodies of his victims.”

Margaret poured herself a cup of coffee. “Flesh on top of bone. Now there's a thought. Maybe our guy reads the Old Testament.”

“I'm listening,” said Driscoll.

“‘And I will lay sinews upon you and will bring up flesh upon you and cover you with skin.' Ezekiel. Chapter 37, verse 6,” she said.

Driscoll was astounded that Margaret was so familiar with liturgical verse. He looked at her and smiled. “Lord knows he wouldn't be the first Bible-savvy predator.”

“In Kings, they actually talk about bones being stolen,” said Thomlinson.

Driscoll was impressed. “You guys might really be on to something.”

“So, we'll add that to the profile. Our guy may be driven by particular scenes from the Bible,” said Thomlinson.

“We could use a bone specialist,” said Driscoll. “Margaret, aren't you dating a bone man?”

“One date. Lunch in a hospital cafeteria. I'd hardly call that dating.”

“But you did say he had suggested dessert somewhere else. He's opened the door for you. Why don't you give the good doctor a call and ask him out to dinner. That wouldn't be out of the ordinary. This is the twenty-first century, remember?”

“But, he's no osteopath. His specialty is X-rays.”

“Close enough.”

“Does that give me a green light to discuss the case?” she asked.

“Not in any great detail. Just pick his brain a little. Keep in mind that this man, a radiologist, was in St. Vincent's pediatric ICU using defibrillator paddles on the DA's daughter. That's got odd written all over it. I say we keep a watchful eye on the guy.”

“Will do,” said Margaret as she swept passed Driscoll and made her exit. Thomlinson lingered behind.

“You think it's coincidence that brought Doctor Pierce and Margaret together, Cedric?” Driscoll asked.

“As opposed to—?”

“Suppose the guy's got his own reasons for staying close to a police investigation.”