The Bone Man (39 page)

Aric looked up from his paperwork. “You were dead on, Tal, about how they were reconstituting pots. They were making nice money at it. They should have stuck with that.”

I leaned back on the sofa and watched Aric and Hank write. Hank was hunched over on the new red leather club chair he’d given me that he’d somehow appropriated for his own.

I shook my head. Hank and I seemed to be one cozy couple. Oh, dear.

The phone rang, and I grabbed it. I sighed. “It’s for you.” I handed it to Hank. He nodded several times, smiled, said, “Thank you,” and, “Great news,” and hung up.

He looked at me, all serious, yet smiling. “I thought you’d want to know, so I placed a call.”

I tilted my head. “What?”

“Coyote’s doing well. They doubt he’s rabid, even though, yes, you must complete your shots. And he’s got months more of quarantine. But the vet’s become attached to him, and so Coyote’s found a home.”

I laughed, maybe for the first time in what felt like forever. “That’s great. And I know I have to finish the shots, just in case.”

He went back to writing. I’d told the two men exactly what I’d seen happen to Delphine. Much grunting went on during my recitation, but I doubted they believed me.

Addy had supervised the autopsy, and unless the blood tests changed things, Delphine had apparently died from a heart attack.

I knew better.

Amélie was doing well in the care of an aunt who lived on the Vineyard. She’d inherited the shop, and no one saw any reason to tell her about her mother’s horrible doings.

Penny, curled up next to me on the sofa, hadn’t suffered, either. We were all lucky.

Too soon, it was time for Aric to leave. Hank went into the kitchen to get him a snack for the plane.

A light shined in Aric’s eyes, one that I hadn’t seen there before. A joy.

“You’re returning to her, aren’t you, Aric?” I said.

He nodded. “Yes. I never talk of her while I’m on a case.”

“I understand.” I hugged him. “I’m happy for you, but sad that you’re leaving. I have a question.”

“Yes.”

I leaned toward him. “Why me, Aric? Why did I see Delphine’s face on Didi’s reconstruction? The ancient man and woman in Chaco? The stairway? The blood fetish? Why me?”

He looked at me for a long time. Then he shrugged. “Why not?”

“Aric!” I stood. “That is not an answer.”

Aric chuckled. “You’re always so easy to get going, Tally. My father entrusted you with more than a piece of red rock.”

Hank walked back in the room. He looked from Aric to me. “You two having a powwow?”

I looked from one man to the other. I laughed. “I guess we are.”

I walked to the mantel where all my precious fetish carvings sat once again. I reached for the oval rock, the blood fetish, I’d brought home from Chaco. I hated parting with it, but I felt I should return it to its people.

I lifted the simple oval rock from the mantel. As always, it warmed my hand. “Here, Aric. The blood fetish.”

He stared at the rock, shook his head. “You’re really willing to give it up?”

“Of course.”

“But, you see, Tally, that’s not the blood fetish. This is.” He pointed to the red rock given to me by Governor Bowannie.

“
That
is the blood fetish.” I held my Chaco rock in one hand and, in my other hand, lifted the red rock. “I feel . . . nothing but two lovely rocks.”

He nodded, smiled. “As it should be.”

“Here.” I handed him the blood fetish, the real one. “Delphine thought it was a ruby.”

Aric shook his head. “Foolish.” He closed his hand around the blood fetish, and I was suddenly in Chaco with the young couple as the young man promised to return. And he had, of course, and married the young girl and had many children and grandchildren. He’d become a shaman, like his descendent, Governor Bowannie, and he had written the manuscript.

He was The Bone Man, and his face was Aric’s and Aric’s was his.

I shook my head and all was normal again. Thank heavens.

We said our good-byes, and I knew I’d see Aric again, and that felt good. After he left, I cuddled with Hank on the sofa.

“So what are you going to do about MGAP,” Hank said.

“Oh, not tonight, Hank. I don’t even want to think about that place. I don’t want to think about anything.”

He’d switched to beer, and took a long pull on his Bud. “Well and good, but you better decide soon, especially with Gert pregnant.”

I sat up fast. “What?”

“You didn’t know?”

“No, I didn’t know, dammit.”

“It gets worse,” he said. “She told me it’s Fogarty’s kid.”

“Oh, hell.”