The Bone Box

by Gregg Olsen

  She called off work.

  “Joe, you can handle the crash all right? I’m taking a personal day.”

  Birdy despised the “personal” day excuse, but it seemed more legitimate than lying and saying she was ill.

  “You under the weather or something?” the assistant asked.

  Birdy pressed the gas pedal and headed toward Highway 16 along Sinclair Inlet.

  “Or something,” she said, still refusing to out and out lie. “I should be in the office tomorrow.” She hung up her phone and started toward the highway for the long drive to the Makah Reservation near Neah Bay. Home. The scene of the crime. In her mind it was now both places, linked like that forever.

  Birdy had two things on her mind, one trivial and one overriding. She was grateful she drove a Prius—gutless as it was, she’d been racking up the miles and was grateful that she needed to fill up only twice in the past week. Forensic pathologists are on a budget too. She was also thinking about the right starting point to find out what she could about Anna Jo Bonner’s murder and what role her cousin had truly had in it. Blood doesn’t lie.

  Not usually.

  It came to her that the person to see was none other than Clallam County Sheriff Jim Derby. Twenty years ago, Jim had been the lead detective, albeit a young and inexperienced one, on the Bonners murder case. Since that time, he’d made a name for himself. A very big name. For the past ten years he’d served as the sheriff, an elected position he won by a landslide. At the moment he was preparing to run for Congress. His campaign motto had already been trademarked on his website: CONGRESSMAN DERBY: WINNER TAKES ALL.

  Jim Derby was a flinty-eyed man with angular features and Sharpie eyebrows that only added to the hard-liner-against-crime persona that he’d earned rather than manufactured over a decade of law enforcement. Property crimes and drug manufacturing had been his primary challenges in the county in the very northwest corner of Washington state. His thick wavy hair had receded a little, allowing his scalp to catch the light of the fluorescents, and his belly hung over his oversized belt buckle like a floating shelf. If he had any enemies in the community or in the sheriff ’s department, none were bold enough to speak out against him. Jim Derby didn’t suffer any fools, which was one of the reasons state Republican Party leaders thought he’d be the no-nonsense candidate to defeat Democrat Casey Laughton, who’d held the office for four terms.

  Derby’s office was completely impersonal save for a portrait of Mrs. Derby and their son, and a row of bobblehead sports figurines that commanded the majority of a shelf next to the window. The joke in the sheriff’s office was that when “the sheriff talks, you just nod.”

  Birdy had called ahead and Sheriff Derby had agreed to clear some time for her.

  “I’ve followed your career,” he’d said. “Glad to see you made something of yourself.” The words tumbled out a little patronizingly, but Birdy took them at face value.

  “Thanks,” she’d said, almost adding Glad you did too.

  “Not sure what I can tell you. Things change, time marches on, memories fade.”

  “That’s fine. To be honest,” she’d said—a phrase she hated because it signaled that everything else must have been a lie—“I’m not sure what I’m looking for.”

  It was true. She wasn’t. All she knew was that her cousin had compelled her to help him. She wondered if her own sense of guilt had driven her to. She’d never lied about what she’d seen, but her statement to the sheriff and at trial was crucial.

  She’d read the statement before heading up to Clallam County.

  I had been cutting wood for my family. It was around three p.m., but it could have been later. I don’t know the exact time because I don’t have a watch. I heard a noise of someone coming down the trail toward me. He was screaming. I didn’t know who it was at first. I was scared. I turned off my chain saw. I stared to run and then I heard my name. It was my cousin Tommy calling to me. I went to him. He was bloody. He was crying. He was saying that “she’s dead. It’s my fault. She’s dead.” I asked him who and he didn’t answer for a long time. Then he said it was Anna Jo Bonners. I started to cry and then I ran away. I was so afraid about what happened, I ran as fast as I could. I got home and my mom told me not to say anything. The next day the sheriff found my chain saw and questioned me. I agree that this is what happened and is true.

  It was signed with a signature that was half printed and half cursive, and dated. It was her signature, at least as she’d used to write it. Yet something didn’t seem quite right. Birdy remembered how a kind lady with short blond hair had sat in the small room while then-detective Derby urged her to “get it all down” and “don’t worry about the mistakes because Patricia can fix them later.”

  Patricia. The name played in her head, but she couldn’t come up with any more. Who was Patricia?

  When she walked into Derby’s office, she was instantly reminded of the days leading up to Tommy’s trial. It was strange. The sense of familiarity didn’t come from seeing him in person, or even hearing his voice on the phone. It was the odor that lingered in the air of the office. Birdy caught the distinct whiff of witch hazel, a scent that always led her back to the days she’d spent waiting to testify, being questioned, all of what came with being an eyewitness. At fourteen it had been almost too much to take in. All the adults telling her what to do, pretending they weren’t telling her what to say. The smell reminded her of all of that. Jim Derby used witch hazel as a skin bracer or aftershave. Apparently some things hadn’t changed so much after all.

  A secretary led her inside the bobbleheaded office and the pair exchanged a few remarks about the congressional race, the reservation, and the time that had passed. She told him that she’d seen Tommy and she’d promised to look into his case.

  “Not officially, of course, but as a family member.”

  “A little late to dig into that one,” he said. “It has been a long time.”

  “Not really,” Birdy said. “Not if he’s innocent.”

  Sheriff Derby motioned to his coffee cup and Birdy shook her head at the offer.

  “We got him dead to rights as I quite vividly recall,” he said, folding his big hands atop his pristine desk. “One of my first big investigations. Who says he’s innocent?”

  Birdy didn’t like his tone. Not at all. She’d come there to learn more about the case from the lead investigator. She hadn’t come with the intention of defending Tommy. It wasn’t about that. It was about finding out the truth for someone who really needed it. At that moment, she wasn’t sure if it was she or Tommy who needed the truth more.

  “He does,” she said. “Always has. That’s kind of the point. He has always said he was innocent, but once he was convicted, he just kind of stopped. He disappeared. There was no appeal.”

  Jim gave a knowing sigh; it was exaggerated like everything he did. “Maybe once he was convicted, he knew we had him and there was no point to fighting it anymore. Didn’t testify at trial either, as I recall.”

  “No, he didn’t,” Birdy said. “But you interviewed him.”

  “It wasn’t much of an interview.”

  “So I gathered,” she said, pulling out a slim manila folder. “I have a reference for it. Somewhere ...” She shuffled through the documents she’d brought from the Bone Box. She’d flagged one page with an incongruent rainbow Post-it note.

  “What’s all that?” he asked, as she rotated the file and set the page on his desk.

  “Material I collected,” she said, watching his every nuance and facial tic. Was there anything to be learned from his folded hands? His sigh? In the morgue the dead say nothing, but their stories were part of their bodies.

  “You probably have cases that haunt you too, don’t you, Sheriff?”

  He signed again. Impatient? Annoyed?

  “I can assure you, Freeland’s isn’t one of them,” he said, “but yes.”

  Birdy finished sifting through the folder. “Here it is,” she said, pointing he
r forefinger at a line in an old police interview report. She started to read:

  “... subject was polite, but evasive. Didn’t admit guilt, but attempted to deflect responsibility during the recorded session.”

  She pushed the paper at him, but he didn’t reach for it. His fingers still threaded his hands together. “Yes, for a killer, I guess he was polite. Is there a point here?”

  “The report makes mention of a recording, and yet as far as I can tell the recording was never played at trial. I’ve looked everywhere for a reference of it, but none.”

  The sheriff shrugged. “Maybe there wasn’t much on it worth playing. Not like he confessed or anything. Sure I can’t get you anything? Pop?”

  “I’m good. No thanks. Back to the report here—it is your report, right?”

  He nodded, his smile still in place, but his eyes no longer generating any kind of genuine warmth. He wasn’t irritated, maybe a little impatient. Birdy tried to avoid reading anything into his demeanor just then. She was after something very specific.

  “Says right here.” She tapped her fingertip on the page and glanced at him. “Says ‘suspect deflected blame.’ What does that mean? If you remember, that is. I know it has been a very long time.”

  “It has been, I’m sorry. I wish I could help you. I can see you have a lot of passion in your eyes for this matter. I understand the family connection, and the importance of family on the reservation.”

  Again, he said all the right words. At least mostly. He had the badge of a law enforcement officer, but no doubt politics had been Derby’s true calling. The last word was meant as kind of zinger, Birdy was sure, though she didn’t let on. Law enforcement who worked the reservation never did so because it was a plum assignment. It was a stepping-stone. The people who lived there were never seen as they should have been—as mothers, fathers, and children. Just as big, messy family units, a mass of souls coiled together tightly in troubles that never ceased.

  “Do you know what became of the tape?” she asked.

  “Evidence locker at the county. Always thought the kid would appeal, but knowing that he’s guilty as sin, probably did us all a favor by accepting his sentence. In my mind, that’s the same as owning up to the crime.”

  “He didn’t own up to anything,” she said.

  “No answer is sometimes the same thing as saying that you’re guilty.”

  “That isn’t how our legal system works, Sheriff Derby.”

  His eyes stayed on her. The bobbleheads moved slightly behind them, a Greek chorus of plastic and spring necks. “Look, I understand where you’re coming from. I wish I could help you and your people. I wish there was something that I could tell you that would make the world a better place, a place where the sun always shines, where no kids are hungry, and your cousin wasn’t a killer.”

  Annoyance had clearly given way to genuine irritation.

  “It is nice to dream, isn’t it, Sheriff?” she said, getting up and reaching for her coat. “Thanks for your time. Thanks for all you’ve done for my ... my people.” She paused and turned, a smile on her face.

  “I have often thought of the nice woman, Patricia, who was so kind to me during the trial,” she said as they passed by a record’s clerk outside his office.

  A look of recognition came over the sheriff’s face, but it was fleeting. “Yes, Patricia Stanford,” he said. “Nice and smart. Retired from the department years ago.”

  “Do you happen to know where she is?” Birdy asked.

  Jim Derby, witch hazel balm oozing from every oversized pore, looked upward and then shook his head. “Sorry, but I lost track of her. I think, yeah, I think she passed away.”

  As Birdy climbed into her bright red Prius, a finger tapped at the window.

  It was the records clerk, who’d overheard Birdy’s conversation with the sheriff.

  “Hey, don’t know why he said that. I can only guess. He never liked Pat much. Not that I could tell anyway. As far as her being dead, that’s a complete crock. I chatted with Pat-Stan last month at the Antiques Mall in Port Angeles. She runs the place.”

  “He must have made a mistake,” Birdy said, purposely a little unconvincingly. She didn’t like Jim Derby at all. She was glad she didn’t live in his congressional district. She would probably doorbell for any other candidate no matter what their qualifications.

  “It wouldn’t be the first time,” said the clerk, a middle-aged woman whose county-issue name badge identified her as Consuelo Maria Diego. “But I don’t think so. He just hated Pat. She quit here because of him. I don’t know what the beef was, but Sheriff said, ‘Pat didn’t have a leg to stand on.’ He could be mean like that, you know.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Wicker Avenue Antiques Mall was a gritty warren of old, musty collectibles of debatable value. Customers entered the tight rows of vendor cubicles with their questionable arrays of Strawberry Shortcake lunchboxes, milk jugs from defunct Northwest dairies, or the occasional 1970s-era kitchen set and were immediately skeptical that they’d find anything there that they couldn’t get from the closeout section of the local Goodwill. In fact, the Port Angeles Goodwill had a better record for delivering the occasional treasure.

  Patricia Stanford had snowy white hair that she wore down to her waist. She also had one more distinguishing feature. Pat-Stan was missing her right leg, having lost it in a meth lab shootout the year after she’d made it to the detective’s rank.

  Didn’t have a leg to stand on.... What a jerk!

  “Patricia Stanford?” Birdy asked, approaching Pat as she fanned out the items in a jewelry case around a handwritten sign that said BAKELITE SOMEONE HAPPY.

  Pat turned on her good leg. “That’s me. Can I help you find something?”

  “I’ve found what I’m looking for,” Birdy said. “That would be you.”

  Pat appeared surprised. “Me?”

  Birdy nodded and introduced herself, and the flicker of recognition—at least of her name—came over Pat-Stan in the most pleasant of ways. The woman, who leaned a little because she didn’t like the way the prosthetic leg felt on the stub of her thigh, managed a warm smile.

  “You’re grown up,” she said. “You look the same in the eyes, but, well, well, you have grown up.”

  Birdy returned the smile. “I remember how kind you were to me back then.”

  “And you’ve come here to tell me that?” she asked.

  “Not exactly,” Birdy said. “I came for help.”

  Pat-Stan narrowed her focus, ignoring a couple of women haggling over a stack of vintage hankies. “What kind of help?”

  “I came here for my cousin Tommy.”

  Pat-Stan shifted her weight and winced. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Of course not,” Birdy said, explaining that Tommy was ill and she wanted to help clear his name before it was too late.

  “Where’s he living?” she asked.

  Birdy paused a beat. She wondered why Pat-Stan asked that. “Walla Walla. He never got out of prison.”

  The shop manager looked genuinely surprised. “But that was more than twenty years ago. I thought he’d be out long ago,” she said.

  “He won’t admit to something he didn’t do. And that’s the only way he could have been paroled.”

  “I wish I could help you,” she said, stepping away to twist the small padlock on the jewelry case door.

  Birdy touched her shoulder. “You can. You don’t have to wish.”

  Patricia took a small step backward, both hips now resting against the cabinet. “I don’t remember anything,” she said. “I was a secretary studying to try to get the god-awful job that cost me my leg. The pension is good. But I’d rather have my leg.”

  It was a joke, an attempt to defuse the tension between them.

  “Actually, I’m a little surprised that you’re alive. I spent a half hour with Sheriff Derby and he told me that you were dead.”

  “Interesting. He probably wishes I were dead. The
man’s a complete ass. He was a terrible boss, he’s estranged from his only kid, his wife only comes out to pose for campaign photos. Messed up. I hate him.”

  Some common ground, good.

  “You’re not one to hold back,” Birdy said, trying to keep the disclosures coming. “But why would he wish you were dead? I don’t get that.”

  Again, nervousness took over and Pat-Stan called to the women fighting over the hankies that she’d be right over. She looked back at her visitor.

  “I really don’t want to get into it,” she said.

  Birdy pushed harder. “Does it have anything to do with Tommy’s case?”

  Pat-Stan waited a long time. Uncomfortably long. It was one of those awkward pauses that usually invites an exit from an uncomfortable conversation.

  “Probably,” she said. “No. Yes. I mean, I don’t know. Jim was not just a jerk yesterday. His jerkdom has been a long time coming.”

  “What about Tommy?” Birdy asked.

  Pat-Stan pretended to search her memory. “I can’t say. Really. I don’t exactly remember.”

  “Please,” she said.

  “I’ve said all I should. I really do wish you luck. Don’t know how it can help Tommy. He’s served more than his time, that’s for sure. Can’t give back all those years.”

  “Do you think they should be given back?” Birdy asked.

  Again, a long pause. Pat-Stan clearly wanted to spill her guts right over that tacky display case, but she held back the best she could.

  “I will say this and it’s against my better judgment. I transcribed his tape and I can tell you this.... When I saw his statement at trial I noticed that it was slightly different. Some parts were omitted.”

  “I have his statement here,” Birdy said, pulling out the file.

  “I don’t have my glasses and I wouldn’t remember exactly. Just something kind of bugged me. I told Detective Derby about it, but he dismissed it as a clerical error. That really angered me because, well, I was the clerk.”