The Blessed Bones

by Kathryn Casey

“The family would have been told their daughter died, and the girl would have gotten a proper burial,” I said, finishing his sentence. “Yes, I think you’re right. I can’t imagine it’s one of the docs either. Especially based on the amount of the drug Doc said the girl was given. But how did someone else get it? A drug like that must be regulated.”

  “Well, that’s kind of interesting,” he said. “When I hung up with Doc, I scouted around on the internet. Guess what?”

  “Pitocin is on Amazon, next-day delivery?”

  Max chuckled. “Not exactly. Supposedly you can’t buy it in the US without a prescription, but there are international importers that’ll ship it into the country. They only require that customers check a box agreeing that they won’t administer it to human beings.”

  “So what are they buying it for?”

  “Not a clue. But I’m writing subpoenas for the websites. The catch is that it may be hard to get cooperation. Since they’re not US companies, they aren’t required to comply. But I’ll have the paperwork on Judge Crockett’s desk within the hour. We’ll ask for information on anyone in Utah who’s purchased Pitocin in the past five years. That covers Doc’s estimate on how long the body was buried: at least one, no more than five years.”

  I thought about Max, his instincts, how well we meshed. “Is there a way to speed this up? What can we do?”

  “Not really, except that I’ll keep bugging them. Unfortunately, Ash’s influence doesn’t extend outside of Utah, so he can’t help us. Our only hope is that the drug companies cooperate.”

  I thought again about Ash Crawford and his resources. I felt a sense of envy and, for the first time, perhaps gratitude. Certain that we had a killer to find, with little in the way of concrete evidence, we needed all the help we could get.

  The ex-US marshal’s name having come up, I filled Max in on my encounter with Crawford, explaining that he’d agreed that Carrie Sue Carter looked enough like the sketch to be a potential match. Then I described how he used his laptop to compare Eden Young’s photo to the CT scan. Although it didn’t give a clear answer, Ash hadn’t eliminated her either. That led to what I’d planned for the afternoon. “While you work on the subpoenas, I’ll head out to Eden’s aunt’s place, find out what she knows about her niece’s disappearance. I’ll bring the sketch to show her. And I’ll get that DNA sample we talked about.”

  “Great. With the parents not cooperating, this may be our only option,” Max said. Then he asked, “What about tonight?”

  “Tonight? Do we have plans?”

  “No, but I’d like to make some. Assuming we’re not chasing leads, how about dinner at the house with Brooke? She was pretty disappointed about pizza night.”

  I thought about Brooke. I wondered what I was doing, and if she could end up being hurt if Max and I didn’t work out. We’d been careful to keep it light, but if I showed up too much, wouldn’t she guess? And then I thought about my mother. “Not tonight. I need to talk to Doc, to find out about Mother’s condition.”

  That was something Max had no argument to counter.

  Remembering my promise to Hannah, I stopped at Danny’s Diner on Main Street and ran inside to grab lunch. A few minutes later, I emerged with a turkey and swiss sandwich and a water. Hannah was right. I wasn’t paying enough attention to my health. Like Mother, I had a bad habit of letting stress get to me.

  As I followed the navigation program on my phone, I munched on the sandwich. The aunt’s name was Miranda Young Johns. The Johns were a fairly well-to-do family by Alber standards. They weren’t as prosperous as the Johanssons, who owned the bison farm where there’d been the mass killings the previous fall, but they were comfortable. The drive wasn’t a long one. I’d assumed the address would take me to the main house on their farm, but I passed it and kept driving until my phone announced: “You have arrived.”

  Off the road sat a neatly kept trailer. I parked on a gravel driveway and clambered out of the SUV.

  The place was in fairly good shape, as trailers in Alber go. Most of the ones in town, including the one my family lived in, were careworn. A single-wide, this one had bright white sides and black shutters. I scrambled up the stairs hoping to find Miranda Johns home.

  The sun was high in the sky, and it beat down on the back of my neck. The smell of overturned earth surrounded me, and plow lines in a corn field behind the trailer stretched out from the road toward the horizon. The grass around the trailer—most of it cut weeds—was just beginning to green. Standing on the stoop, I banged on the metal door, which rattled and sent off a tinny sound that reverberated around me.

  “Mrs. Johns, it’s Chief Clara Jefferies from the Alber Police Department. I just have a few questions for you.”

  No answer.

  I knocked again. “Mrs. Johns. I’m Chief Jefferies. I’d like to talk to you about your niece Eden and the website you made about her disappearance.”

  Again, no answer.

  I heard sounds inside, shuffling like someone was walking to the door. “Is anyone home? Please open up.”

  At that, someone with a faint, high voice said, “My mom says I can’t open the door. Not for anyone. So go away.”

  She sounded like a young girl, and I answered, “That’s good that you’re listening to your mom. I bet she’d be proud of you.”

  “Yeah, she says never open it. Not for anyone.”

  “Okay. I understand. Where is your mother? Will she be home soon?”

  The child hesitated. “Momma drove off after the man showed her a picture. She got real mad, told me to stay here, and she got in her truck and left. The man followed her. If you’re police, will you make sure he doesn’t hurt my mom?”

  “What man?”

  “A tall man. Do you know him?”

  I wished she’d open the door so we could talk face to face, but she was doing the right thing. I didn’t want to imply otherwise. “I might. What does he look like?”

  “He’s super tall, like a tree. And he had on a big hat. And he showed Mom the picture, and she got upset. Madder than she used to get at my dad before she threw plates at him and we left him.”

  I knew, but I asked to be sure. “What kind of hat did the man have on?”

  From behind the door a pause, then, “Like the ones in the cowboy shows on television.”

  Ash Crawford had beat me to the trailer, ignoring his promise to stay out of it. I’d trusted him enough to let him see the file, and he’d gone around me. He’d have hell to pay for this, I told myself as I bid the kid goodbye and headed toward my SUV. As I climbed inside, my phone rang.

  “Chief?” Kellie asked. “We’ve got a situation.”

  “What kind?”

  “It’s at the Young ranch, where you were yesterday. One of the wives called nine-one-one to report it, said her husband is outside shouting at some people. She says there’s a guy there who claims that he’s a US marshal. Her husband’s sister is there, too, and everyone’s upset. The husband has a rifle.”

  “Hell,” I muttered.

  “Chief Deputy Anderson is on his way. He’ll meet you there.”

  I thought about the kid in the trailer who didn’t sound anywhere near old enough to be left alone. “Kellie, send Stef out to watch over this kid until her mother gets home.” I rattled off the address. “Stef doesn’t have to go in, just sit outside in her car. Tell her to let the kid know she’s out there, so she doesn’t get scared.”

  “Sure thing, Chief,” Kellie said. “I’ll tell her ASAP.”

  “Damn, when I get a hold of Crawford…”

  “Did you say something, Chief?”

  “No. Just tell Max I’m on my way.”

  Twenty-Six

  I had a longer drive, so by the time I pulled up, Max was already there. Two pickups, Crawford’s and one I didn’t recognize, were parked in the driveway with Max’s squad beside them. Sam Young had handed his rifle over to Max, who had it pointed at the ground, but a woman standing beside Crawford was shouting wi
th every ounce of oxygen in her lungs at Young.

  “I told you that Eden was in trouble,” the woman I assumed must have been his sister, Miranda, screamed. “And they come here with a sketch that could be her, and you tell them to go away. Don’t you care about your own daughter?”

  “Miranda, just leave us the hell alone,” Young shouted back. “It’s no one’s business but mine and my family’s what happened to Eden. Not yours, for sure. Mother always said you were a gossip and a busybody!”

  I took a position next to Max to try to figure out how to help, as I shot Crawford a contemptuous glance to let him know that he had a lot to answer for.

  “Mr. Young, we really need to talk to you about Eden. If something has happened to her—” Max didn’t get to finish the thought because Miranda walked up to her brother and punched him in the chest, harder than I thought such a tiny woman, little more than five feet and maybe a 110 pounds, could muster. I remembered what her young daughter had said, that Miranda had left her husband after throwing plates at him. This woman had a hell of a temper, and I thought I kind of liked her. That to the side, I needed her to shut up. We weren’t getting anywhere with all the yelling.

  “Mrs. Johns, please, be still!” I shouted.

  “Who the heck are you and why should I—” she started.

  I grabbed the cuffs off my belt and held them up. “I’m the one who is going to take you in and book you if you don’t shut up and stand down so we can get to the bottom of this.”

  At that, Miranda huffed, scrunched her mouth shut, and stepped back. “Do what you want with him. Mother always said that Sam didn’t have a lick of sense in his head. I’m surprised they let him stay in Alber. They forced out a lot of good boys and kept him for some reason I’ve never been able to understand.”

  The tension crackled as I turned to Crawford. “Wait for us in your truck.” He didn’t immediately move, but eyed me, noticeably unhappy. I wasn’t buying it. He had no room to complain. “Now!”

  While the former marshal shuffled off, Max and I separated the sister and brother. He took Miranda over to her truck, stood off to the side and talked to her, which left me with a very angry Sam Young.

  Rubbing his chest, he demanded, “You going to take her in and book her for assault? She hit me. You all saw it.”

  “I could. I could also take you in and charge you with lying to a cop and impeding an investigation.”

  “I don’t have to tell you anything.” A flush covered his face and his cheeks rose in indignation. “And I’m not telling you anything. Not a chance.”

  “You will, or I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.” I still had those handcuffs in my hand, and I again held them up. “I’m going to take you in to the station and book you on everything I can think of, keep you there until you open up and talk.”

  “I don’t have to talk to you. The prophet says that when there’s an apostate—”

  I tried to calm down, to slow my breathing. I’d been trained not to overreact, but this guy pushed all my buttons. I’d had it, and I wasn’t backing down. “The prophet is in prison, rotting away, without any way to help you. He’s not in charge of the police anymore. I am. And you better tell me what you know, or this isn’t going to end well for you.”

  Young sucked on his cheek, gave me a withering stare and shook his head. “When women forget who they are, their place in the world—”

  I hadn’t been this angry in a long time. “I know who I am. I’m the one wearing the badge. And I know what I can do to you if you don’t cooperate.” In truth, refusing to answer a cop’s questions wasn’t a crime, but I was banking on the fact that he didn’t know that.

  Time passed, his eyes boring into mine, and I could feel the hate. I didn’t wait for permission. I started pushing for answers. “Mr. Young, does that sketch look like your daughter Eden?”

  He reared up and stared down at me. “That couldn’t be my daughter. Eden wouldn’t be pregnant. To insinuate that insults the entire family, that a daughter of mine would…”

  I couldn’t tell if he’d stopped talking because he was unsure what to say, or that his anger, so visible on his face, choked off the words. Not to be quieted, I pushed again. “Does that sketch look like your daughter?”

  Nothing. No answer. But then he looked back at the house, where his two wives were on the front porch. One, the older of the two women, was sobbing, her hands across her eyes and her chest heaving. At that, something changed, and he turned toward me. While it wasn’t a welcoming glance, he no longer sized me up as if the devil stood before him.

  “I… the truth is, I don’t know,” he stammered. “It does look a little like her, but I’m not sure.”

  “Do your wives believe it’s Eden?”

  This time, he shrugged. “None of us are sure. It kind of looks like her, but not really.”

  “Call them down here. I want to talk to them.”

  He waved his hand and the younger wife wrapped an arm around the sobbing woman and escorted her toward us. As she did, I glanced over at Max. He had one of the DNA kits I’d brought with me in his hand. He held it up to me, all the while talking to Miranda Johns, I guessed about her missing niece. I plodded over, grabbed the kit from Max, then returned to my station. Soon I had Sam Young leaning against an oak tree alongside both of his wives. They were arguing, taking swipes at one another, disagreeing about if the sketch looked like their daughter.

  “Since none of you are sure, we can determine if it is Eden with a DNA test.” I turned to the older woman. “Mrs. Young, you’re her mother?” She nodded and I opened up the kit and handed her the swab, explaining how to run it along the inside of her cheek. Still crying, she did and handed it back to me. I put it in the storage tube and closed it up in the bag, wrote the woman’s name on it and the date. Then I asked them to tell me about the day Eden vanished. It turned out that she’d disappeared four months earlier. As soon as they gave me a timeline, I knew Eden wasn’t the girl we’d found on the mountainside. I’d eventually tell them that, but not until I had every bit of information I wanted. They had a missing daughter, and I wanted to understand what had happened.

  “What was the argument about the day Eden left? The one that started all this?”

  Sam again shot his wives the kind of arrogant glance that ordered silence; he still wasn’t completely cooperating. But Eden’s mom had apparently had enough. She turned from him and said, “My husband found out that she was seeing a boy, sneaking off with him. Sam was furious. He told her she had disgraced the family. He took her with him to town, grocery shopping, so they could talk, and when he returned home, he was alone.”

  “What happened?” I asked him.

  “Eden took off,” he said. “Slunk away like the guilty child she was. We argued on the way there, and I had her sit in the car while I shopped. When I walked back out, she wasn’t there.”

  “Do you have any idea where she would go?” Max asked.

  “No,” Eden’s mother said. “I wanted Sam to drive around and look for her, but he refused.”

  “It wasn’t to be tolerated,” her husband seethed. “The boy she was seeing is a bad seed, not one who will be allowed to remain. Not one the prophet will assign wives to under the law of placement. Eden spending time with such a boy out of wedlock? It would have caused a scandal. Our family would have been ostracized by the entire community.”

  Once the questioning stopped, I explained that, based on the timeline, the girl on the mountainside couldn’t be their daughter. Eden’s father showed no emotion, but her mother threw her arms around my neck and hugged me. I asked them to go to the sheriff’s department and file an official report on Eden’s disappearance. The women looked hopefully at their husband, but he made no commitment, saying only, “I’ll pray on it.”

  At that, the family turned and left. As angry as Sam and Miranda had been with each other, she went with them. Max and I watched until they disappeared inside the house.

  “What did you
find out from Sam’s sister?” I asked him.

  “Miranda’s madder than a wet hen at her brother. When he told her Eden had run away, he refused to take any action, and she put up that website without his blessing. He didn’t want anyone to know.”

  That made sense, given how sensitive Sam Young was to gossip about the family. I then explained the situation to Max, that Eden hadn’t been missing long enough to be our victim. He thought about that. “But she was seeing a boy. What if she were pregnant? Her parents might not even know. My wife didn’t show for a long time with Brooke. Sometimes, especially with a first pregnancy, women hide it well. In a long prairie dress? Couldn’t she have been pretty far along?”

  I shook my head. “Even if she was, there wasn’t time for her body to decay like the bones we found.”

  Max instantly recognized the problem. “Of course.”

  “I keep thinking, Max, like I said before…” I paused, and he gave me a worried look. “What if whoever did this is preying on other young girls? What if Eden, Carrie Sue, others are at risk? Girls whose photos I have in that file at the office, off the NCIC website. Maybe some of these cases are related.”

  Max’s brow furrowed. “I, well, Clara, it could be… but, there’s no evidence. We have no reports, no other bodies. As far as we know both Carrie Sue and Eden are runaways, like their parents said.”

  I couldn’t argue with that, but I still asked, “But what if I’m right?”

  Worry pinched his eyes together and bent the corners of his mouth down. “Clara, all we can do is work the case, follow the leads, find out who’s behind this. If there are more, that’s the way we’ll stop whoever is responsible.”

  “But if they’re out there…” I let the sentence dwindle away, and Max’s frown deepened. I’d brought up a possibility that neither one of us truly wanted to believe, but also one that I couldn’t shake.

  “What do we do about him?” Max asked, motioning toward Crawford. He had his cowboy hat back on, and he was leaning against his pickup, arms folded, staring at us as if we embodied every problem he had in the world.