The Bone Man (8 page)

“You know where you’re going?” I asked Carmen.

“Sure.”

I sat back and relaxed. Carmen was incredibly competent, which impressed me from the day we became buddies in kindergarten in Maine. She turned left, and we bumped down an unpaved road. We soon saw the pond, a lovely body of water connected to Nantucket Sound. I could never pronounce its Indian name. Minutes later, I spotted my friends’ driveway.

“There,” I said.

“I know,” she answered, and turned left into their dirt driveway. The bursts of flowers that rimmed Belle and Dan’s fence and outlined their post-Modern home had
started to yellow. Some had already turned brown and died, and a few of the trees sported their bright autumn party colors.

New England’s fall always came later and stayed longer on the Vineyard, which held great appeal to me. But I could never stand her summer tourist crowds for very long.

We parked in front of their garage and walked down the path to their screened-in porch. Belle stood on the steps, beaming. I rushed forward, and she gave me a big hug.

“Hey, hon,” I said. “Thanks for having us on such short notice.”

Her Egyptian brown eyes gave me the once-over. “It’s been tough, yes?”

I compressed my lips, nodded. “Veda. Yes. And Didi, too. I’m okay, though.”

“Of course you are.” She smothered me in another Belle hug. “You two come on in. Cocktails await.”

We sat around their harvest table spooning chowder and sipping wine. All except for me, with my Diet Coke, of which Belle and Carmen heartily disapproved.

“How do you guys know each other?” I looked from Carmen to Belle to Dan.

Dan’s deep laugh bubbled up, and, as always, I saw him as the perfect Santa. A very cool one.

“We met years ago,” Belle said. “Long story. But when Hank called, we—”

“Pardon?” I said. “When
Hank
called?”

Belle’s chagrined smile told the tale.

“You weren’t supposed to tell,” Carmen said to her.

“Of course I wasn’t,” Belle said. “Ouch.”

Carmen looked at me. “Well, Hank, he suggested I come down to the Vineyard and keep an eye on you. He said you were upset about your friend’s murder, and he was worried.”

Anger squeezed my gut. I tightened my jaw, forced myself
not to explode when all I wanted to do was scream. I leaned forward, and the trio mirrored my movements as they recoiled in their chairs.

“Just like last time.” My voice was a whisper. A hiss. “Hank is doing his paternal thing again. Just. Like. Last. Time. And you, Carmen, are his minion!”

A collective sucking-in of breath.

“I do not need a father,” I said.

Carmen threw her balled up napkin, and it bonked me on the nose. I glared at her. “I’m in no mood, Car—”

“Get over it!” she said. “Just get over it. Hank means well. I wanted to come. I needed the break. So what? End of story.”

I turned away in a sulk. I was really sick of Hank and his control-freak attitude. “So your being on the island wasn’t a coincidence.”

“Duh,” Carmen said. “Of course not. But I have made some really good sales here.”

“You mean all the Pink Organic stuff is true?”

“Ya got that right,” Carmen said. A giggle.

“This isn’t funny, Carm.”

“Yo-uh chowda’s gettin’ cold,” Carmen said in her best Down East dialect. “Ayuh. Colda than a witch’s tit.”

Belle giggled.

I did, too. Ticked or not at Hank, I couldn’t stay mad at them for long.

Carmen, Dan, and I were washing dishes. Belle had gone to lie down. She was in the midst of a Lyme’s disease relapse, and I worried about her.

“Something’s not right,” I said.

“So you say.” Carmen handed me a freshly rinsed dish to dry.

“Sounds like,” Dan said. He took the dish I’d dried and put it away. “Mebbe.”

“Something’s off. You know what I mean, Dan. I’ve got
this really weird feeling, like the whole scene with Zoe was a performance. I’d like to go back up there now.”

“When didja say that girl was getting back?” Dan said.

“Three.” I folded the damp dishtowel and laid it on the counter. “I’m not going to wait. Mind if I take your car?”

“I’ll come with,” he said.

“You’re nuts,” Carmen said. “The both of you. I’m sure not going.”

Boy, it’d be nice to have Dan come along. But his son was a cop, which meant bad news for father and son and Belle if a misadventure occurred. I stretched on tiptoe and kissed his cheek, while I reached for the car keys on the table. “Thanks, but no. I’m just going to walk around, check a couple things out. Keep an eye on Penny, eh? And
no
surveillance, Carm. Got it?”

“Scout’s honor,” she said.

“Good.” I looked at my watch. “One-thirty. Back in a flash.”

I parked down the street and walked to the back of the shop. I’d brought my Leatherman and crowbar, just in case some tool might come in handy. Behind the house, a huge screen of trees, planted millennia ago, blocked prying eyes. What I was about to do was wrong. But then I imagined Didi lying in her own blood, throat slashed, gasping for breath, and I couldn’t seem to help myself. A large rock off to my left invited sitting. I put the Leatherman in my pocket and sat.

What I planned was plain stupid. I heard Hank’s voice. And Kranak’s. And Veda’s.

But Veda also always told me to listen to my gut. That same gut was telling me something was very wrong with Delphine. Okay, so I’d heard her voice on the phone. Maybe. Be easy enough to fake.

Except it, the voice, whatever was off. Only as Carmen
and I had driven around the island did I realize how wrong. The words, the tone almost sounded canned.

No, I had to learn more. Had to.

I picked up my Leatherman and worked at jimmying one of the back windows open. Vintage windows looked great, but were lousy at keeping out drafts and people. A dog yipped, and I jumped.

I looked around, saw nothing. I was cool. Of course the place was alarmed. I wanted the cops to come, just not too soon. If I bumbled much more, they’d be here before I’d made it inside.

“Damn!” I sucked my bloodied finger. I wasn’t so hot at this. Plus, my jimmying efforts weren’t working. All I’d achieved, besides stabbing my finger, was wrecking the poorly painted white window trim which, sadly, was the thing keeping the window from opening. The paint was like glue. I reached for the crowbar.

“Idiot!” hissed a voice.

I dropped the crowbar on my toe. “Shit!”

“Stop with the noise and the cursing,” Carmen said as she crouched toward me across the back lawn.

“I’d like to bop you with the damned crowbar. What happened to Scout’s honor?”

She grinned. “Who said I was ever a Scout?”

I stood and stared. She’d doffed her Mary Kay kerchief for her iconic red bandana and overalls. Carmen in full granola mode was Valkyrie-esque and a welcome sight.

“Babe,” I said.

“Don’t ‘babe’ me, Tal. You couldn’t break into a laundry basket. You really suck at this.” She walked up to the shop’s back door, looked around once, and pulled out her picks. “I just hope you haven’t triggered the alarm yet.”

Insulting. “Of course I haven’t.” Talk about memories. We’d done this before, with teeter-totter results. “I thought there was no way.”

“
Way!
I just didn’t want Dan to know I was an expert lock picker.”

“So what’s taking you so long?” I was thrilled to see her, but the last thing I wanted to do was admit it. “You’ve gotten slow in your dotage.”

“My ass.” I watched with fascination as she tugged on a pair of latex gloves and went at the doorknob with the care and gentleness of a lover. She inserted one pick, moved it around, withdrew it, then glided another pick into the lock. She appeared to have all the time in the world.

“There,” she said as she twisted the knob. “We’re in.”

I heard the silent alarm in my head shrieking
Break in
.

She closed the door behind us, and we walked down a short passage lined with treasure-stuffed shelves. The pieces were contemporary, and none warranted a second look. We spilled out into a room we hadn’t seen earlier that day. It was filled with cases and shelves that held vintage and new baskets and Inuit carvings.

Carmen walked toward the right, where we’d been earlier that morning. I went straight ahead in search of the artifact room. A board creaked, and I jumped. We had minutes. That was it.

I passed beneath an arch that once must have divided front and back parlors and entered the room. In that instant, I knew what I feared, and there it was—a large photograph of Delphine holding an Old Ones pot.

It was she. Didi’s reconstruction. Delphine’s face had been on that bust. And it felt as if I were face-to-face with her.

I’d been trying all week to believe Delphine was alive, but all it took was one look at that photograph. My doubt vanished.

Delphine was dead, her skull somehow impossibly planted in an old Anasazi pot.

And right in front of me, beneath the photograph, a similar pot sat on a plinth. Naked. Not under glass. Nothing but air protecting it.

“Shouldn’t they be under glass?” I had asked Delphine nearly a year ago
.

“These ancient artifacts need to breathe, Tally,” she answered. “Some are beneath glass, but some need to be free. You know?”

“I’d hate to see one broken, Del.”

She shrugged in her Gallic way
. “C’est la vie.
Meant to be.”

I sighed. “Oh, Delphine.”

“Don’t be sad, sugar.”

I flew around and stared into the grinning face of a Gene Hackman look-alike, a guy with a day-old beard and green Izod-style shirt. He stared back me. His sweet smile matched his thick Southern drawl. Too bad all that contrasted with the chill pulsing from his eyes. This man was a predator. All else was a costume donned for show.

“I . . . I . . . oh, um. I’m not sad. Not really.” I shoved my hand into my pockets. The cops would be here any minute. I could stall him. I’d be fine. “How can I help you?”

His brilliant smile widened, revealing a gold canine engraved with a
Z
. “I’m here to meet Miss Zoe, of course.”

Here to meet Zoe . . . what was he doing . . . what did he want . . . cripes. “Of course!” I repeated. I smiled, breathed deeply, tried to slow my racing heart. I had to ignore the evil I felt from this man, or he would hurt me. Somehow I knew that. “Here I am. So how can I help you?”

“Whelp me? What are you talking about?”

“Help. I said help, not whelp.”

He pressed a finger to his left ear and turned. He chuckled, shook his head. “Damn hearing aids. Way too much rock n’ roll as a kid. Better.” He lifted my shaking hand and kissed the palm.

I forced myself not to pull it away. Not yet. I hoped it didn’t shake too much. “Me, too. Now—”

“M’dear, you know just how to help me.”

He tried that charmer smile on me again, but his eyes remained flat and dead. Killer eyes. I batted my eyelashes, gave a sly smile. “Sir, perhaps I’ve forgotten.” I straightened my spine, threw back my shoulders so he’d notice my boobs, and tossed my blond curls.

The police. Any minute. Carmen? Where was Carmen?

A knife flashed. He grabbed my arm, flipped me around. A movement, swift, then pressure, then pain and . . .

I shrieked.

He pushed me away.

I pressed my hand to my face and felt a warm wetness, lowered my hand and saw . . . my palm smeared with blood that glistened and dripped. My blood. I bit my inner cheek, fighting the pain. Couldn’t let him see it or my terrible fear. I spit at him. “Creep.”

“Now you listen, little Miss Zoe,” he said. “I don’t mess around, m’dear. You should know better than to play coy with me. Now, do tell, where is the fetish? The one they used. I’m sent to get it.”

He held on to my forearm while he bent and wiped his knife on my jeans. He didn’t lower his head, and his lizard eyes held mine. I had to control the fear. The fury, too. Bastard. I wouldn’t let him get the upper hand, not completely, or he’d kill me. He’d enjoy it, too.

He ran a finger down my cheek, where he’d cut it. His touching it burned. My eyes watered in pain, but I didn’t cry. He raised the finger to his lips and licked off my blood.

His grin was lipstick-pretty from the blood on his lips. Christmas. I forced a wink. “So cool you don’t mind HIV.”

His wide smile faltered, just a touch. I wasn’t dead yet. But the fetish? I had no clue. And I had to control the situation. Somehow. Had to. Calm. He wanted something from me. I’d try to give it to him. “Follow me.” My voice rasped with pain.

I led him to the back room, where I’d seen the Zuni fetishes. No sign of Carmen. The smell of my own blood
dripping down my neck sickened me. I shook my head. I’d keep it together, dammit. I had to. I tugged my shirttail out and dabbed at my face. He didn’t say a word, just followed behind me.

Delphine had lined the terra cotta room with her modern American Indian treasures. I glanced at a pot, a huge one. It sat on the nearest glass counter. Good. Okay.

Now to find the fetishes. I skirted a display of Katsinas and one of small seed pots. Finally . . . “Here.” I pointed toward the case that held dozens and dozens of Zuni fetishes. Wolves and mountain lions and bears and moles and corn maidens and many, many more.

He stood behind me, close, tight, his breath fetid and warm on my neck. His hands wrapped around me and pressed my breasts. He squeezed, gently massaged them, just like a lover.

I grew dizzy with hate.

I lowered my head. His hands were long and slim. Pianist’s hands. I opened my mouth to bite one.

He squeezed tighter and tighter and the pain, blinding. I struggled, tried to bite, elbowed him, clawed at those torturous hands. But he was too close, pressed too tight against me.

My legs trembled from pain, and I reached up behind me, found his face with my fingers and ripped.

He pushed me away, and I smashed into the case, and it toppled backward.

“Bitch!” he said.

I gasped for air, bent almost in half, arms crossed over my breasts, which pulsed with pain.

“I want that blood fetish, and I want it
now
. Y’all hear? If I don’t get it, sweet peaches, I’m gonna cut you into little slivers and feed you to my carp.”