Old School Bones (12 page)

THE cop told her, “You want to talk, you got to meet me over chowder. I’m a sucker for chowder … and pretty girls!”

So … So she has canceled her appointments, split from Tolchester, school, Boston. Left Michael in the hands of his nurses. Now she’s driving down South County Road on the Upper Cape. Wimpy’s, a local seafood place in Osterville, seems like an odd place to meet this man who Michael calls,
o padrinho,
the godfather. Lou Votolatto.

And, Jesus, she could use a godfather right now. If he’s not just an old lech.

“Hey, Pocahontas. Over here,” a guy shouts at her from across the street as she exits her parked Saab.

“Excuse me!”

“We going to have a chowder fest, sweetheart?”

“Detective?” She squints into the sunlight at the shaggy figure leaning against the blue Ford.

Michael has described the
padrinho
as a sort of Dirty Harry type, but the man she sees reminds her more of a vacuum cleaner salesman: thick salt-and-pepper hair bushing out in about five directions, shadow of a beard.

“Minga!
You’re a knockout. I mean the way Rambo talks about you I got the impression you were easy on the eyes, but, honey …”

For a moment she feels like getting back into her car, just driving for about a hundred hours.
Who the hell does this guy think he is calling her
“
Pocahontas,” a knockout?
Is this how Michael sees her too?

“Hey, good lookin’, how about putting a little smile on your face for Uncle Lou.”

He’s crossing the street to her. Weird guy in the Sears suit and topcoat. Before she knows it, he holds her hands in his bony fingers, kisses her on both cheeks.
Crazy damn Italian!

“Yo …! Detective!”

“Yo? What’s with this yo? Am I making you nervous,
princesa?”

She steps back, her eyes darting off, seizing on the only cloud in the sky to carry her away from this creep. Maybe all the way to Aquinnah.

“I’ve got to go. This is a mistake.”

“No, this is an obligation. A mistake is finding a can of Red Bull laced with GHB at a crime site and not telling the police. A mistake is conspiring to impersonate a police officer. A mistake is protecting the killers of children.”

“I didn’t.” Her cheeks color. “You know what? I don’t care if you’re Michael’s friend. Fuck you, asshole!”

He bows deeply. A stage bow, from the waist. In the bright sun of a March morning, on the main street of Osterville.

“I’m sorry. I deserved that. And more … But …”

“What?” She turns her back on him.

“I had to press your buttons. I had to know, Awasha Patterson.”

“Know what?”

“Whether you can be trusted. Whether you have any self-respect. Whether you have the courage to spit in the Devil’s face … Or whether you’re as strung out as you brother.”

“You know Ronnie?”

She takes her soup spoon, scours the bottom of her bowel to capture the last of the chowder, licks the spoon clean.

“Pretty good stuff, huh?” The detective smiles at her across the table. They are in a booth in the darkest corner of the restaurant. The light in Wimpie’s today more of a brassy haze than anything else.

“I forgot how much I missed Cape cooking. My mother used to always keep a pot of fish chowder simmering on the stove during the winter when Ronnie and I were kids.”

“Can I ask you what went wrong for your brother?”

“Ronnie’s my twin. My little brother by ten minutes.”

He rubs his eyes. “I’ve sat in a couple of his bail hearings. He seems like a decent guy. A sweet guy. But he’s way into the system. DUI, disturbing the peace, assault … Should I continue?”

“No.”

“What happened?”

“First it was always being the odd kid in school, the Indian, and moving around the Cape and the islands a lot. Then it was the Army and Iraq. After that …”

“Alcohol, pharmaceuticals, violence.”

She stares at the specks of pepper stuck on the bottom of her chowder bowl.

“Sounds like a good candidate for a rehab program. I could maybe help if you …”

She shakes her head no, feels tears flooding her eyes. “He won’t listen to me. Only our mother. Now with her gone … Do you know how I’ve tried to …?”

“It must tear you up.”

“You have no idea. Liberty Baker killed. And poor Michael. That jeep wreck. I must have really done something terrible in another life to bring on all of this. You know, Detective?”

“Lou.”

“Michael thinks the world of you.”

“The boy’s lost his marbles.”

“No … Someone just ran him into the woods.”

“I think he’s probably lucky to be alive.”

“Maybe he should have just gone fishing with his father and his uncle. It sounds like he loves to fish.”

The problem is, says the cop, Michael hates injustice like a bull hates red. He’s also a sucker for long shots. And damsels in distress. The kid’s got an Indiana Jones complex that’s going to get him killed someday if someone like her doesn’t take him out of the game.

“What are you saying?”

“You don’t think the boy has feelings? You don’t have a crush on him?”

“You don’t even know me.”

“But I know him. And he’s forgotten almost everything he knew about the law since he met you. He’s a complete loose cannon.”

“Then thank the heavens he has you for an angel.”

“I’m no angel. I can’t save him. Can’t you see that? Look what’s happened to him now!”

“Someone killed one of my girls. And now we’ve found another dead kid.”

“You can’t help them.”

“There’s something evil at work in my school, Detective. It needs to be stopped. And the school seems to want to push the whole thing under the rug.”

“Maybe you’re right. But I’d say you’ve stumbled into something toxic. You need to leave what happened to Liberty Baker, and that bag of bones, for professionals. Or you, Rambo, and this teenager—Gracie Whoever—are going to end up in the morgue.”

“Are you saying you can take it from here?”

“No! Jesus. Word gets around I’m connected with this scheme, I may as well just march myself before the judge, get down on my knees and plead for mercy.”

“Last night a friend told me to close up those bones in the floor, seal the attic and avoid the police in Tolchester. Said they were no doubt tied in with the school and the cover-up around Liberty’s death. Like someone is probably paying them off.”

He shrugs. “It happens. Don’t take this the wrong way. I’m not saying I’m in favor of letting a killer, or killers, go free. I can’t tell you what to do. But if you value your job, your life—and the lives of Michael and that Chinese girl, the student—maybe you should listen to your friend and try to let go of your suspicions. For everyone’s sake. If you drop it, Michael will have to find a healthier outlet for his passions. Know what I mean?”

She feels a fit of the jitters starting in her thighs and upper arms, spreading to her fingers, toes. “I’m scared. I have this feeling something really bad is about to happen, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

“I know, sweetheart … But wouldn’t it be useful to know what kind and color of car Kevin Singleton drives?”

WHEN he opens his eyes, there is a soaking wet Chinese girl standing over his bed. Her bobbed hair plastered to her cheeks, the purple streaks brighter with the gloss of water. Her Red Army overcoat steaming in the hospital heat.

“In case you’re wondering, it’s fucking raining again.”

“So I shouldn’t be in any hurry to get out of this place?”

“What’s the point, right?” She forces a smile. Sets a little potted jade plant on his solar plexis. “I almost forgot. Here’s something to remind you that spring is coming.”

He can see her trying not to wince as she looks at his battered, bandaged face.

“It’s good to see you, Gracie. Take off your coat. There must be towels in the bath. You can—”

“Michael …” She doesn’t move. Just stands there, dripping, holding the jade plant on his belly. Looking down at him. Her lower lip starting to quiver. “I’m sooooo sorry. This is all my fault. I should have never—”

“Hey. It’s OK.”

“If I hadn’t begged you to help us, none of this …”

He puts his good hand on one of hers. “I’m an adult. I make my own choices. It’s your job to take care of Gracie, earn good grades. Write smart essays. Get ready for your swimming championships. And spring break. Isn’t that soon?”

She wipes her eyes on the sleeve of her coat. “Next weekend. Swimming interschols are up at Andover. And then the break.”

“It will be good for you to get away from here for a while.”

“Tory and I were going to visit Justine in California. But now … I don’t know. I mean what with your accident, the Club Tropical and …”

“And what?”

She puts the jade plant on his nightstand, wipes her eyes and nose on her coat sleeve again. “I went back up there, Michael. Like after I heard about your wreck.”

“Back to the attic?”

“I saw the bones.”

He tries to rise off the bed. “
Jesus Cristo!
Why in the name of God?!”

“I had this feeling. Like something was going really wrong and so I—”

“You have to stay away from that place.”

“But—”

“No buts. Will you sit down? Promise me you will stay away from Hibernia House.”

Suddenly she feels like that girl June Woo in
The Joy Luck Club.
Like dumb, inadequate, not Ninja Girl at all. “I had to go up there and see what … Before … Please don’t be mad at me.”

“Before what, Gracie?”

“Michael, I’m sorry. The day of your wreck, I came back to Beedle Cottage to get a book I forgot for class. Doc P, Dean Pasteur and the headmaster were having some kind of like really heavy talk in the living room.”

“I don’t understand.”

She tells him about Bumbledork’s coercion tactics. About how Denise Pasteur was quick to close ranks. How Awasha seemed to buckle under the pressure, but angled for her old apartment back in Hibernia House.

“That’s it?”

“Except that after seventh period I got called into the dean’s office. She told me I am being moved into a room with a new girl in Briarcroft Hall. And Doc P is going to an off-campus apartment.”

“Is that OK with you? With her?”

“Shit, I don’t know, Michael. I’m sick of living with the dean. It’s like being in a fishbowl. But I feel like Bumbledork is trying to separate Doc P and me, you know? It’s like he’s up to something. And he’s got something on Doc P.”

“You don’t trust her anymore?”

She shrugs, says that right after she heard about moving to Briarcroft, Doc P told her about his wreck. She was fucking freaking. So was Doc P. Then she wondered if maybe someone was going to clean up the Club Tropical the way they cleaned up Liberty’s room. Like make a clean sweep of the place. And wipe out her and Doc P too. Shit, look what happened to him. It’s like the clan wars back in Hong Kong. Freaking Chinatown!

“So you went back to Hibernia House? To the attic?”

“Yeah. With my camera. I shot about two hundred pictures, put them on a CD and sent them to Tory for safe keeping. And I got this—like maybe we’re going to need some DNA.”

She hands him something wrapped in a paper napkin.

He hits the button that raises up the back of his hospital bed, peels back the napkin.

There’s a bone about the size of a pencil tip. A bit of fingernail attached.

“What’s …?”

“Pinky. Right hand. It could maybe tell us something about who killed Liberty, right?”

As soon as he’s alone again with the beep of the heart monitor, the hum of the morphine jamming his veins, he turns off the lights in his room, bathes in the darkness until his mind starts to flow in long, rolling ocean swells. Then he fishes for the phone on the nightstand. Punches in Lou Votolatto’s number.

He gets a voice mail box, tells the detective to give him a call. He’s afraid he’s got to ask him for another favor. There’s this funky little bone …

THE steam is just starting to make the skin on her arms glow when the door opens. Gracie steps in, wrapped in a rainbow beach towel.

“This is kind of weird, Doc. Are you sure we should be meeting like this? I mean here?”

“You have a better idea, Gracie? The walls in this school have ears. And yesterday Dr. Sufridge came down pretty hard on me. I can’t afford—”

“I heard.” She sits down on the bench.

“What?”

“Well, I heard some of it. I was back at Beedle Cottage looking for a book and—”

“So then maybe you know I wanted to move out of there. Get us both back to Hibernia House. Now look what’s happened.”

“I already hate my new dorm … How’s your apartment?”

“Modern, sterile. And now I have to drive over here to work.”

“So Bumbledork is trying to divide and conquer us. You think the dean is on his team too?”

“I don’t know. I mean no. Denise Pasteur is her own woman.”

“If you say so.”

“Trust me.”

“Anyway. Fuck ‘em all, right?!”

“Why did you want to talk. What’s bothering you?”

“I went back up into the attic yesterday after I heard about Michael’s wreck.”

“Accident.”

“You really believe that?”

“No. Not really.”

“I saw the body.”

“Oh … Gracie!”

“It’s OK. After finding Liberty, nothing seems to shock me. I just don’t sleep much these days.”

“I’m sorry.” The steam vent spews. She feels waves of heat searing her.

“Is it baking in here or what? Christ!”

“Maybe we need to dial down the temp. But, come on, talk to me …”

She gets up. Leaves her towel on the bench where she’s been lying. Walks naked across the tiled cubicle, opens the glass door, turns down the thermostat. The steam jets sputter off. But the room feels just as hot. She lies back down, folds the huge towel over her tight, trim body.

“The Club Tropical must really be evil.”

“First, Liberty … and now that poor boy.”

“We don’t know the Club Tropical has anything to do with these deaths.”

“Come on, Doc. The note in Lib’s book. The secret room. That dead boy up there in the attic.”

“How do you know it was a boy?”

The Tolchie blazer, the shirt, the tie. The school uniform from about thirty years ago before the merger and the school got rid of the dress code.

“You think this stuff is going to lead us to Lib’s killer?”

“I think we should leave it all alone, Gracie!”

“What? Hey … did somebody threaten you?”

“No. Not exactly. I talked to a police friend of Michael’s. He thinks we’re dealing with something really evil. And who knows how many people it involves? He said we should just back off, OK?”

“Did you see all the empty beer cans and booze? The sex mags and the mattresses and condoms? You think that place was some kind of love shack for the members? You think they had girls up there? Like what the hell was going on?”

“Just listen, sister. Awasha, OK? Her name was Aaserah. She was Sunni. She lived near Talil Square … I was on patrol, going door-to-door in an apartment building looking for armed insurgents and locals who could use some attention from our medics. Looking for people who had gotten caught in the middle of a rough fire fight that had gone down the day before with some of the bad guys on Haifa St….”

She pictures it all.

Ronnie’s face, sunburnt beneath his helmet. He is tall. Slender. Ever the Indian warrior. Assault rifle at the ready as he pushes open the unlocked door. A soldier beginning to unravel where no one can see beneath the desert camouflage fatigues. Even as he bulls his way into the little apartment.

And her, Aaserah, sitting on the pale green bedspread in her black
abaya.
Fumbling to pull the golden
hijab
over her long, braided, brown hair as she sees him, trying to hide herself from the soldier. From the man. Brown eyes flashing.

“You want to kill me? Kill us all? Kill the rag heads, American?”

He looks around the room, wide-eyed for his wingman, the rest of his squad, the guys backing him up. Wants to say, “Hey, Scooter, this one speaks English!” But he’s alone. The only witness. The only one to absorb her anger.

“Shoot me. Just shoot me now!” She’s on her feet, giving up on the
hijab,
the modesty. To hell with it. Balling the golden head scarf in her hands. Maybe to cover something else. Maybe a bomb.

“Stand your ground. Don’t come any closer!”

She staggers toward him. Limping. Her right leg dragging. Still balling the
hijab,
working her hands. Not hesitating. A gray Persian cat scoots out of the way.

He raises his weapon, tilts the barrel toward her. “Stop!”

“Go ahead, kill me, shoot the Sunni bitch.”

Now he sees the blood on her
abaya.
Slick, wet. A dark stain, almost as wide as the leg beneath, running from above the arc of her hip to the hem. Red droplets falling on the floor, smearing under her slippers as she presses closer.

“You’re hurt.”

She keeps coming, just three or four steps away now. Raising the gold ball of cloth in her hand … as if she intends to throw it. To blow him to bits with an IED. Destroy herself too.

He looks around for his buddies. Like what the hell. Is this how he dies?

“Fuck you, American. Shoot me. Don’t you have any balls? Come on, shoot the soldier’s wife. Shoot! The way you killed him. Kill me.”

She lunges at him, throws the golden ball of cloth.

His ears, eyes, are suddenly boiling. His right hand tightens on the grip of the assault rifle, index finger feeling for the trigger.

Just as the
hijab
hits him square in the nose, blossoms. A veil of wrinkled gold.

It falls. Shrouding his forearms, his weapon. And she falls too.

Right against the veil, the gun. Him. Knocking him backward a step.

Even as he releases the weapon, catches her. His hands somehow now in the pits of her arms. Her head hitting hard against his thigh. As he waits for the explosion to shred them both.

But it never comes. There is no bomb. Only a woman, unconscious in his hands. Bleeding the blood of ancient Babylon on his boots. A day-old bullet wound in her flank.

And a Wampanoag brave screaming for the medic. His lower lip quivering. A southwest wind, the breath of Maushop, blowing tears across his cheeks.

“Something’s wrong with the heat in here, Doc. Let’s get out of—”

“Just one last thing, Gracie. Do you know what kind of car Kevin Singleton drives?”

Gracie rises off her bench. Heads for the exit.

“His dad has a silver Murano.”

“Is that a truck?”

“I don’t know what you call it, but I’m fucking baking. And the door is jammed!”