Bones (6 page)

"I can promise you," Parrish said with a cold smile, "that this is no 'wild goose chase.' "

There was a long moment of silence before another round of arguments began. Newly agreed to allow Parrish to lead them to the grave out of his presence. "Leading you to her saves his life," he gritted out, his face pale and drawn.

Thompson finally relented, and decided to let J.C. and Houghton take Newly back to the plane. "Houghton, you fly back with him, take him to a hospital, then get in touch with the D.A. as soon as possible. Let him know exactly what happened here, and that Newly agreed to these arrangements."

J.C. and Houghton divided up the contents of Newly's pack, then supported Newly between them. Newly, still white with pain, tried to give me the GPS, saying, "Mark the position of anything I need to know about, will you?"

"I'm sorry, I can't," I said, not wanting to be even vaguely involved with Parrish's defense.

He managed a small smile and said, "You'll be using your compass, then?"

"Yes, and although I don't think any sane judge will let you get your hands on my notes, we both know Bob Thompson is using a GPS, too."

He nodded, but seemed too distracted by the pain in his foot to keep talking.

J.C. asked Andy to keep an eye on things while he was gone. "Leave trail signs for me," he said, "and don't let them destroy too many acres of forest, if you can help it."

We all watched the trio move slowly away from us.

I had a few chances to talk to Andy when he stopped every so often to mark a turning with a strip of cloth on a bush or small rocks in the shape of an arrow.

"Do you think J.C. will ever catch up to us again?" I asked.

"Absolutely," Andy said. "He's in great shape. He can cover distances in a day that would have most of us looking as wiped out as Phil Newly was at lunch."

By late that afternoon, I began to wonder if we would make it to an area where we could set up camp, let alone to Julia Sayre's grave. We had wasted a lot of time, and the air was cooling rapidly. Clouds were gathering overhead--cirrus clouds. We might be in for a storm.

Thompson apparently had the same concerns. He stopped the procession. "We don't seem to be heading in the direction of the valley you indicated on the map," he complained to Parrish.

"I was wrong," Parrish said. "I know exactly where I'm going now."

Just then the breeze shifted a little. Bingle lifted his nose and made a chuffing sound, then began to whine, looking at David, ears pitched forward.

"Is he alerting?" Ben asked softly from behind me.

David was focused on the dog. "zQue te pasa?" he asked. "What's wrong?"

The dog started to move ahead, and David hurried to catch up with him. I followed, ignoring Thompson's "Get back here!"

The dog was moving rapidly now, and soon was out of sight. "Bingle! VAlto!" David called, but Bingle had already stopped. He was ahead of us, barking, then whining in distress.

We reached it at the same time, both giving a cry of revulsion at the same moment. Bingle was at the base of a pine tree that at first seemed draped in some strange, gray moss. But it was not moss. The objects dangling from its branches were animals. Coyotes. A dozen or so carcasses, hanging upside down, in varying states of decay, nailed to the lower branches, as if someone had started to decorate a macabre Christmas tree.

I put my hand over my mouth, fighting off the urge to be sick.

David was quieting Bingle, praising the dog, but I could hear the shakiness in his voice.

We heard the sound of the others, pushing their way through the woods behind us.

Nicholas Parrish looked up at the tree and smiled. "I told you we were headed in the right direction."

** CHAPTER 6

TUESDAY, LATE AFTERNOON, MAY 16

Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains

Flash took pictures. Merrick, arms held back by Manton, red-faced with anger, shouted at Parrish that he was "one sick fuck," while Manton did his best to keep his fellow guard from punching the prisoner. Parrish kept smiling.

I had watched the others arrive at the coyote tree; their faces had expressed first horror, then fury. Ben Sheridan, although briefly startled when he first saw the tree, now calmly studied it. He turned to Flash. "We'll need photographs of this, Mr. Burden."

Merrick, seeing Ben start to take notes, shouted, "That turn you on, Sheridan?"

"Shut up, Merrick," Bob Thompson said without heat, moving closer to the tree, studying it as well.

"From several angles, please, Mr. Burden," Ben said, then glancing at Merrick added, "if you videotape, please keep the sound off. David, perhaps it would be best to move Bingle away."

"There's a small clearing about fifty yards away--down that pathway, there," Parrish said, pointing. No one thanked him for his help.

I stayed for a while, but no one else was talking. I saw Thompson take out his GPS. I used my compass to note the position of the tree.

I wondered if Thompson would ask for additional charges to be brought against Parrish for this--maybe J.C. could bring them on behalf of the Forest Service. I forced myself to count the coyotes--there were twelve of them. They appeared to have some sort of coating on them. Much as I tried to mentally brace myself, the sight made my stomach churn. I turned to Parrish. "Why?"

He grinned and said, "Feeling a kinship with them? Perhaps you'd like me to hang you here among them. Let them sway against you in the breeze."

I felt a sudden surge of anger, but just as quickly saw that he enjoyed my reaction--so I clenched my teeth against a retort.

Quietly, Thompson asked me to leave, and for once, I was happy to comply with his request.

When I caught up with Andy and David, they were playing tug-of-war with Bingle, using a cotton rope toy that had the worn look of a favorite plaything. I joined in the game. The dog would shake the rope fiercely and then proudly prance around the clearing whenever he took it away from one of us, high-stepping as he let the others know who had won the encounter, looking slyly at each of us to dare the next comer. It was almost enough to take our minds off what was happening by the tree, but not quite.

"David," Andy said, "you've been around this type of guy before. Why do you think Parrish did that?"

"There could be any number of explanations," David said, "but if you're trying to make any real sense of it, well, that's something for a forensic psychologist to tackle."

"He's insane," Andy said.

"Not by the legal definition," David said. "He was found competent to stand trial."

"According to Newly, Parrish was a severely abused child," I said.

"Oh?" David said. "Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. His mother is dead and his sister has mysteriously disappeared, so we only have Parrish's word about the abuse. In fact, he's probably the only person on earth who knows where his sister is--either one of you believe she's still breathing?"

Silence.

"Did he kill his mother?" Andy asked.

"No," I said. "She died of natural causes. But one of the psychologists who interviewed him thought her death may have set him off."

David shook his head. "I guess psychologists have to try to understand him. Me, in most ways, I don't think I'll ever really understand a man like Nick Parrish. Other people survive abuse and go on to lead productive lives--they don't torture women and animals. Parrish is beyond explanation. Bingle's actions make more sense to me."

"So why is Ben back there studying that--that tree?" Andy asked.

"So that when the next Nick Parrish comes along, you catch him on his first coyote. Ben has done a lot more of this kind of work than I have. Maybe too much." He glanced over at me. "He's had a lot of tough cases lately. And a couple of back-to-back MFIs--he's on the DMORT team for the region."

"What's an MFI?" I asked.

"Sorry. Mass fatality incident--anything that takes the lives of a large number of people. Natural or otherwise--earthquakes, riots, bombings--"

"Airplane crashes?"

"Yes. Ben was called out to one of those in Oregon a few weeks ago."

"The commuter jet that crashed in the Cascades?"

"Yes. Eighty-seven dead. And we had just come home from working the flood up in Sacramento when the DMORT team got called to that one."

"What's a DMORT team?" I asked, pulling at the rope as Bingle nudged me with it.

"Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team--it's a federal program. Let's suppose you're a coroner or a mortician in a rural area, coping with--oh, at the most, a few bodies a week. A plane crashes in the local woods, and suddenly you've got two hundred bodies to deal with. Usually, in a mass disaster, the local coroner and mortuary facilities can't handle it. If the coroner needs help with victim identification and mortuary services, the DMORT team can bring in a mobile morgue and the specialists to go with it. There are ten DMORTs, organized by region. Ben's on the one for this region."

"But this is different," Andy said. "Even working on criminal cases, I'll bet this is the first time he's seen something like that coyote tree."

David shrugged. "Maybe. You might be surprised at some of the things we've seen, Andy. Things that . . ." His voice trailed off. He shook his head, then called to Bingle. After a moment he said, "Ben wouldn't take the time back there if he didn't think he could learn something from it."

"Like what?" Andy asked.

"Maybe they're a way of keeping score," I said.

"The number of victims?" David asked. "Maybe. Or maybe the coyotes are part of some warm-up ritual, a preparation for a kill. Or maybe when he couldn't find the kind of victim he was looking for, he killed a coyote."

"But that would mean they've been there a long time," I said. "They would have been in worse shape."

David nodded. "Unless he's treated them with some sort of chemical to help preserve them--that's the sort of thing Ben is probably trying to determine."

Bingle's ears suddenly went up, his posture rigid. He sniffed the air, then moved into a protective position near David, hackles raised. "Tranquilo. I'm okay, Bingle," David said. The dog looked up at him, then sat at his feet.

Soon we saw what Bingle had heard and scented; the four guards and Parrish joined us, and not much later, Flash and Bob Thompson. Ben Sheridan came strolling along last of all, not greeting any of us, lost in thought.

Thompson looked at his watch and gave an exasperated sigh. "We've only got a couple of hours of daylight left. Can we make it to where the grave is before sunset?"

"Certainly," Parrish answered.

He led us down a steep path through dense woods, to a small pond. Thompson was marking it on his GPS when Parrish said, "No, no, not here." He moved off in another direction, back through the trees, crossing a stream, and after wandering through the forest, brought us to a long meadow.

"Not here, either," he said, and led us off again.

I asked Thompson what position he was reading on his GPS and doublechecked it against readings I had taken with my compass. I was about to tell him what I had learned, when David called to him.

"Bingle is showing some interest in that last meadow," he said. "It's worth spending more time there--"

"We've marked it on the GPS," Thompson interrupted. "I'm giving Parrish one more chance. We can go back to the meadow if he misses on this last try."

"Look at the map," I said, showing him the markings I had made. "He's taking us in circles. That ridge he's walking toward is the one with the coyote tree on it."

"Yes, he's had his little fun and games," Thompson said. "I've told him this next place had better be it, or the whole deal is off."

We crossed the ridge again, on a narrow path some distance from the coyote tree, and moving downhill again we found ourselves in another long, narrow meadow. It was nearly dark by then; the air was cold, but still.

"This place gives me the creeps," Manton said.

"Never mind that," Thompson said. He turned to David. "What does the dog say?"

"Conditions aren't good to work him," David answered. "If we get a breeze, I can tell you more."