The Bone Man (10 page)

“Huh.” She took Aaron’s fetish from my hand. “Really primitive looking. I like it.”

“It’s based on old fetishes, ones used in Zuni religious ceremonies, not for trade.”

She nodded, but kept staring at the carving. “It’s mesmerizing.”

I smiled. “Yes. Many carvers believe it’s the owner who brings life to the fetish. So a fetish carved for sale, for art, can still be transformed into something more . . . magical.”

She looked at the price tag on the bottom of the carving, reached into her purse, and drew out her wallet.

“What are you doing?”

She cradled the carving in one hand. “I’m buying him.” She left a hundred-dollar bill and a scrawled a note to Delphine. I understood. Completely.

“Get him some cornmeal,” I said. “They like to be fed.”

We finished removing the carvings from the broken case. Regarding the fetishes carved by Zunis unknown to me, I took photos. I would e-mail these unknowns to Harry Theobald of Zuni Mountain Trading, Kent McMannis
of Grey Dog Trading, and Corilee Sanders and Melissa Casagrande. At least one of them would know with a certainty who had carved each piece.

Next, we examined the seven older carvings in the artifact room. These were under lock and key. Again, I recognized four as being carved by midtwentieth-century carvers. A tiny Leekya Deyuse wolf, a Leo Poblano bear, a Theodore Kucate bobcat, and a Teddy Weahkee frog.

“Are any of those the carving you’re looking for?” Carmen asked.

“No.” Each was worth thousands, but none was a ritual fetish. All had been carved for trade. The three I didn’t recognize, I again photographed and would send to the traders. I also would ask them to take the photos of carvings they didn’t know to Zuni. Someone would know the answers. All we could do was wait.

“I’ve read a lot about Zuni fetishes, you know,” I said to Carmen. “But there’s something strange going on. I’ve never heard of a blood fetish. It could be ritual. Still . . .”

We looked in nooks and crannies and on shelves and in closets, but nowhere did I find any kind of ritual fetish. I wasn’t surprised, as I didn’t believe Delphine would sell one. Ritual fetishes were carved for an individual’s use or for the tribe, and not meant to be sold. She respected the Zuni too much and wouldn’t break that taboo.

Yet that was what Izod man had been looking for. It had to be. I ran my fingers along the slash in my face, now stitched by the Vineyard hospital and covered with a bandage. Had he really wanted something else? We’d found nothing suspicious in Delphine’s shop.

I climbed the center-hall stairs. Zoe had left. Why? Probably out of fear. Had she known Izod man was coming? Maybe. But if not, then why did she run? Could someone else have gotten to her? Sure. There could have been more than one man. That was always a possibility.

Earlier, Kranak had said there was no progress in finding
Didi’s killer. A ton of people not normally seen at OCME had visited Didi since the skull had arrived. A million prints and no suspect. Except I didn’t quite believe his story about no progress.

I wished I could stop seeing Didi in the sea of blood, her blood. My steps slowed. She hadn’t been a young woman. She should have lived out her life happily putting old bones together, not dying on a linoleum floor.

The old maple banister beneath my hand felt warm and smooth, cared for, loved. I was about to enter the bedroom of a woman I believed to be dead.

My foot hit the landing’s wide pine boards, and I moved forward, down the hall.

Up here, out of customers’ sight, Delphine had decorated in modern and clean Southwestern style. Tony Abeyta and R.C. Gorman and Greg Lomayesva paintings hung on the terra cotta–painted walls. A Navajo runner lay beneath my feet. It led me to Delphine’s large and airy bedroom filled with Southwestern-style furniture, old Spanish icons, and a gorgeous clay mask by Roxanne Swentzell.

I peeked in and was surrounded by the soft scent of chamomile. I stepped into the room. Nothing looked odd or out of place. Photos of Delphine’s daughter, Amélie, lined the walls and sat on her dresser. I smiled. Most of them pictured a happy kid, then a serious student. I guessed she was in college now. I walked over to one that showed mother and daughter hugging. The little girl was around three.

With my sleeve, I brushed the dust off the glass and frame. I thought of old cases and long-gone girls; of having my own child and wondering if she’d resemble me, the way Delphine’s daughter looked just like her mom. I returned the photo to its home on the dresser.

A pair of gloves sat on the dresser—hand knit, they felt like silk. I slipped them into my pocket. If I needed Penny to hunt for Delphine’s remains, they would come in handy.

On the window seat in her bedroom, she’d placed three gorgeous pots, one of which was much like the one broken at the Peabody. The terra cotta color remained deep and rich, even after nearly a millennium. It was decorated with triangles and spirals and some white squares.

Silly, but I fetched a yardstick from downstairs and carefully poked it inside the pot’s narrow mouth. Empty.

How could a contemporary skull have gotten inside an ancient pot? Impossible. Yet I imagined it, even though it made no sense.

I lifted all the pots. Checked inside each one. All fine, all empty. Nonetheless, I photographed them, as I’d photographed everything downstairs in the shop. If in good condition, they’d be worth thousands, but I suspected Delphine had them up here because each was blemished in some way, which diminished their attractiveness to collectors. I had no idea about their imperfections, but I’d show the photos to the expert at the Peabody, and I knew I’d get answers.

I heard Penny’s nails clack on the wood floor. I was about to hold her off, when I realized it would be good to have her check up here, too.

She put her moist, clever nose into niches and beneath the bed and in front of closed drawers. I opened a low door and found a long, narrow, and empty closet. I pulled on the light, just a bulb, and Penny and I walked to the end. There sat a cardboard box stamped Jimmy Choo. I crouched down and saw it was posted from Albuquerque. I didn’t like it. Not one bit.

No way would the stylish Delphine put a box of Jimmy Choo shoes, at $600 a pair, at the back of an empty closet.

So what was it? Should I move it? Open it? What the
hell to do? I could holler for Kranak, but what if it was just some old Christmas wrap? He’d think it was pretty funny.

I knew it wasn’t Christmas wrap.

Damn.

“Pens?” I said.

Nope, she didn’t answer. But she did poke her nose at the box.

Whatever was inside wasn’t human. Penny would have reacted more strongly. It wasn’t food or drugs, either. I waggled it. It was heavy. And it made a strange noise.

Crap.

I put the box down, flipped off the top, and screamed.

“It’s dead,” I said. “I know, I know, I know. But it scared the living hell out of me.”

The box, with the dead and taxidermied rattlesnake in it sat on Delphine’s kitchen table. Kranak, Carmen, and I sat around that same table, staring at the covered box.

Carmen reached for it.

“Do
not
open the frikken’ box,” I said.

“It’s
dead
, Tally,” Carmen said.

“I don’t give a fagarwie. It’s way too alive for my taste. Cripes, the thing is all coiled up, with its mouth open, ready to strike. I’d swear it was six feet or more. Horrible. I bet Delphine found it horrible, too.”

Kranak scratched his chin, which bristled with hours-old growth.

“This Delphine woman,” Kranak said. “She was as scared as you are, Tal?”

I ran my gloved fingers across the box top littered with black fingerprint powder. “Maybe. Possibly.”

He notched his head. “A message. That’s what this little baby was.”

“I guess,” I said. “Yes. But messages often insist we do things, or they’re a promise of things that will be done to
us. What was the message here? One of terror, for sure. But something else, too.”

“Like what?” Carmen asked. She laid the pizza she’d gone to fetch, along with Diet Cokes and juice for herself in front of us.

“Yuck,” I said. “Don’t put them by the snake.”

Kranak closed the box with the stuffed rattler and set it on the counter beside his CSS kit.

I snagged a slice of pizza and chomped. “Zoe was either afraid of Izod man or maybe she was involved with him. Either way, she’s disappeared. Vanished.” I ran scenarios around my head.

“I don’t like that look, Tal,” Kranak said.

Carmen grinned. “I do. So what’s up?”

I took a swig of Diet Coke. “I’m not sure.”

“Ayuh,” she said. “You are. Better tell us.”

“No, really,” I said. “Something Izod man said reminded me of . . . well, that’s the problem. I don’t know. He triggered a memory, except now it’s gone. I hate when that happens.”

Kranak began to pack up his kit. “We’re done here.”

I stood. “How can you say that, Rob? Delphine’s missing. So is Zoe. Izod man broke in and would have killed us.”

“I got what I needed.” He snapped his kit closed. “Izod man? Speaking of the bastard who cut you, so far we got nothing on him. He’s a mystery man.”

“Swell,” I said. “I was hoping he’d come up in one of your databases.”

“He didn’t.”

I filled a glass of water at the sink and sipped it slowly. When I was finished, I said, “They’re connected.”

“Who?” Carmen asked.

“Didi and Izod man.” I rinsed the empty glass and put it in the drainer.

Kranak shook his head. “How? And, yeah, even more important, how come?”

“The pot, the skull, the break-in, Didi’s murder.” Outside, clouds rumbled in, threatening rain. “They have to be. You know I’m not much for random.”

Carmen nodded. “I agree.”

Kranak poked a finger at her. “You, missy, are not a professional.”

She bellowed a laugh. “You’d be surprised.”

“I’m going,” he said.

“I’m coming with,” I said. “I need to hammer you some more.”

Saturday morning, we said our farewells to the Vineyard. Good-byes were hard with Carmen, they always were, but she was staying on the island for a few more days. I hated saying farewell to Belle and Dan, too, but I’d see them again soon. Kranak and I took the Steamship Authority ferry from Vineyard Haven. This, the height of leaf-peeper season farther north in New England, and still the Vineyard was crowded with travelers embarking and disembarking from America, as the Vineyardites liked to call the mainland.

“Maybe I should get a boat,” I said to Kranak. No matter how gloomy I felt, I stepped on a boat and instantly relaxed.

We climbed the metal steps to the top deck, even though Kranak was lugging his heavy CSS kit and I my rollie pack. Penny’s nails
clack-clack
ed on the steps, their uneven cadence somehow a comfort. We walked to the rail. Blue canopied our heads where only hours earlier, the sky had threatened rain. The ever-hungry gulls wheeled and careened, and passengers tossed tidbits of whatever was handy to see them perform their stunts.

A touch of melancholy drifted across the deck, most likely from folks regretting their leave-takings and the thought of going back to the real world once they left the ferry.

Now that I was off-island, I was eager to get home. It
was all about Hank, of course. No matter how he frustrated me, I couldn’t wait to feel his arms around me, to smell his scent and see his grin beneath the retro-mustache he refused to shave. We had issues, sure, but he’d be driving down from Maine right now. I felt excited as a teenager.

“Tell me again about Didi,” I said. “You’re keeping something from me, and I wish you’d tell me what it is.”

“We’ve got nada. That place had a revolving door, especially after that stupid TV report. A helluva lot of people visited her office to see that damned head. A million prints worth of people. They saw that Zuni governor leaving. I think he’s prime for it.”

“I don’t see it, Rob,” I said. “Him killing her.”

“He wanted that damned skull and pot really bad. Really bad.”

“Yes, of course. He believed they belonged to his people. That the skull was one of his ancestors. But I don’t—”

“You don’t buy that spiritual native voodoo crap, do you?” Kranak’s bushy eyebrows beetled.

“Maybe . . . in a way, I do. The governor is a hard man, but a good one. I felt that strongly in him. As desperate as he was for the return of what he saw as one of his people, he wouldn’t have stolen it, and he sure wouldn’t have killed for it. Talk about bad joss.”

Kranak shook his head. “Sometimes you lose reason, Tal. He’s one tough dude. I could see him killing Doc Cravitz in a flash. See, I got him going back home a hero. Him going back to his tribe with the skull and the broken pot, and becoming a BMOC. Power. That’s a huge motivator.”

I shook my head. “I know it can be. But just not with that man, not with the governor. So what is it you’re not telling me?”

He held out his hands, palm up. “I got nothing, except we found two of the pot shards under a counter. That’s somethin’, huh?”

I smiled. He’d closed up for the day, but I knew he had something more than two potsherds. So how come he wouldn’t tell me? That worried me.

We grew quiet, and I lost myself in the elegant gray waves that cradled the huge steel ferry. A breeze chilled my face.

I brushed a finger across the gauze that covered my left cheek. The island surgeon who’d stitched me together had said I’d need plastic surgery to erase the scar. Hank would not react well to this injury. Not one bit.

The gauze felt funny. Kranak had a long scar on his face that I loved. But, honestly, he was a guy. I stroked the line where I’d been cut. It would uglify me. I could handle that, except it would also define me.
That
I didn’t like.

“I love it, ya know,” Kranak said.

Startled, I turned. For a moment, I’d forgotten about Kranak. “The sea, you mean? I know you do, Rob. Me too.”

He clasped his hands. “Yeah, ya do. But not like me. With me, she’s an ache, day in, day out. I need her to breathe. I need her close by, or I suffocate.”