Dry Bones

by Carole Morden

  “Why do you remember that brother-and-sister combo so much?”

  “Mostly because Rella was so loyal to little Craig. He was four—just a scrap of a thing—and she was six going on sixteen. He never said a word the entire time he lived in the orphanage. Not to his sister, not to anyone. One day some folks came in and wanted to adopt Rella and Craig, but when they realized the psychological problems Craig had, they only wanted Rella. She wouldn’t go without him.”

  One more notch in the Craig-is-the-major-suspect belt.

  “When you speak of psychological problems, do you mean that he wouldn’t talk, or was there something else?”

  Miss Leeds looked through me, seeing something in the distant past that only her memory could view. “I had a parakeet once named Petey. He could say a few words, but mostly he just chirped away and kept me company. I thought if I brought him to Craig it might help him speak again.”

  “And?”

  Miss Leeds eyes filled with tears. “Not two days after the couple left without adopting Rella, I found Petey dead inside the cage. He had been strangled. I felt sick and sad all at the same time. But Petey was a bird after all, and Craig, a very hurting little boy, so I didn’t tell anyone. Just took the cage out of the room and never said a word.”

  My stomach twisted.

  “Two weeks later a couple came in and wanted to adopt Craig. We couldn’t get them to adopt Rella, although we tried. They felt like they wanted to see how well they did with one before they tried two. They weren’t concerned about his inability to speak, and I didn’t tell them about Petey. Craig wouldn’t talk to us. He wouldn’t say yes or no, so we let them adopt him. The light went out in that little girl after that. She was never adopted. She left the orphanage upon high school graduation. I’ve never heard from her since.”

  “What made her unadoptable?”

  “She did. Plenty of couples came by that would have taken her, but she consistently turned them down. Like I said, the light just went out of her when her brother left. I don’t think I ever heard that girl laugh after that. She was pleasant, got straight As in school, and worked hard. She helped all the other kids, especially the young ones who were new. She would read to them at night and hold them when they cried. She was better than most of the paid help. I guess she treated them just like she would have treated her brother if he had stayed. All of us loved her, but nobody could get close to her. She didn’t let anyone in after her Craig was gone. She didn’t have any best buddies. She just had Rella, and it appeared that was all she needed.”

  “Did she know who adopted her brother?”

  “She saw them the day they picked little Craig up. I don’t think she knew their names. She never asked, and we never told. She hugged him good-bye, turned, and went into her room. She didn’t come out of her room until the next morning. I tried to talk to her, but she acted like nothing happened. She never once mentioned his name again or asked about him. Rella was only seven at the time, but she grew up overnight.”

  “Do you have any idea of where she might have gone to college?”

  “Funny you should ask. She didn’t apply to any universities in the States. She applied for places out of the country and got accepted at major universities in England, Germany, Israel, Kenya, and Belgium. Maybe others I didn’t know about, but I have no way of knowing if she went to any of them. I don’t see how she could afford it.”

  “Scholarships?”

  “She was valedictorian of her class, so yes, she qualified for academic scholarships, but I don’t know about the rest of the costs. It isn’t cheap to get an education, you know. She worked her last two years in high school and could have saved some, but I wouldn’t think she had enough to go to college overseas.”

  Something tickled at the edges of my memory, but I couldn’t bring it to the surface. I couldn’t see how any of this would relate to the murder of Tim Manter. Still, I didn’t want to leave any questions unasked.

  “Do you have any idea how I could get my hands on her social security number? I might be able to trace her that way. It’s very important that I at least speak to her.”

  For the first time, Celia looked suspicious. “She was a wonderful girl whose childhood was filled with hard knocks. From the looks of your eye, you’ve experienced a few yourself, but I can’t just hand out information without knowing why. I don’t want Rella hurt any more than she already has been. Why, exactly, do you need this information?”

  I figured with Celia’s experience around children she could spot a lie a mile away, so I gave her the truth in its condensed version. “I think it’s possible that Craig killed someone, possibly more than one. Right now he’s out with a friend of mine who’s confined to a wheelchair. I’m afraid he might kill Scott if I can’t find him, but I have no idea where he is. I thought if Rella is still around, he might have contacted her.”

  “Do you actually think little Craig could have killed someone?”

  “I not only think it’s possible, I think it’s probable.”

  Celia searched my face for signs of falsehood. Finding none she went to the phone and dialed a number. She wrote on a pad and gave the sheet to me. “The school still had her social security number on file. Here it is. I hope you find her.”

  “Thank you, Miss Leeds, I hope so too.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Cars lined the street on Fentmore Avenue where the Kings lived. I pulled up behind the Channel 8 news van. Good old Billy Fisher. He might sound gruff, but he was a real softie. He loved every one of the Cliffhangers, and groundbreaking story or no, he would stand by Rachel in a time of crisis.

  I gathered Rachel’s suitcase and laptop from the backseat and walked up the cracked sidewalk to the small, three-bedroom house I remembered from high school. Lemon-yellow paint peeled away from the wood siding like shavings on kindling. The roof sagged with the weight of ten years of neglect and not enough funds to hire help. My heart lurched to think what Rachel felt as she walked her last few steps up to the front door.

  Mom opened the door with a smile that turned to shock when she saw my eye. “Where have you been? What happened to your eye? What is going on?” she demanded.

  “Mom, now’s not the time. I’ll explain it all later. I’m sorry about not being here right away, but I had an errand to run before coming over. How’s Mrs. King?”

  Mom still frowned despite my attempted cavalier attitude. “She’ll be okay,” she said. “Right now her world is spinning out of control, but she has a good network of people who will help out. I’ll talk to my pastor about getting her into some grief counseling. He’s got several good contacts. Rachel has decided to stay here for the rest of the summer, maybe for good. That will give her mom some time to adjust to life alone before she has to make any major decisions. It’s not easy to lose a lifetime partner, no matter the circumstances.”

  I knew Mom was thinking of living with a stroke victim or an Alzheimer’s patient, not a child-molesting creep, but now wasn’t the time to set her straight. There probably wasn’t ever a good time to set her straight. I knew from experience Mom’s wisdom was usually right on target, even if she didn’t understand all the circumstances.

  I gave her a hard, tight hug. “I’m so glad you’re here, Mom, but I’ve got to run over and say hi to Billy. Will you excuse me for a minute?”

  Mom nodded but brought her hand up to my purpled eye and softly touched the swelling. “I love you, baby. If you need my help, I’m here.”

  I wondered why so many daughters had problems getting along with their mothers. I couldn’t think of a deeper, more satisfying relationship than the one Mom and I experienced. It was freedom wrapped in love. Trust covered with a coating of pure admiration. Mutual friends wrapped together by the bond of mother/daughter loyalty. I hoped that someday I would impart that same relational freedom to the boys.

  But I had a murder to solve, and here I was waxing poetic.

  Setting the suitcase and laptop down in an unoccupied cor
ner, I eased between grieving visitors to get to Billy and Rachel. Billy was just leaving. Hugging Rachel tightly, he said, “If there’s anything I can do, anything at all, just call me.”

  “I will,” Rachel said.

  It was a lie, I was sure. When people are grieving, you need to call them, not expect them to call you. And I would tell Billy that very thing when I got a chance.

  “Rache, I’ll be right back,” I said. “I want to talk to Billy.”

  We walked out into the sunshine. Billy took one glance at my face and quipped, “You might want to use a mirror the next time you apply mascara. Your one eye looks a little overdone.”

  Ignoring his wit or lack thereof, I said, “I’m so glad you came. Rachel needs us now more than ever. And I need you too. Can you pop this social security number in your computer and see what surfaces? I have a name too.”

  Without waiting for an answer, I jumped into the passenger side of the van. The back was equipped with video equipment, computers, and still cameras—everything a self-respecting journalist needed and more, including wi-fi. He typed in the name Rella Blanchard, added the nine-digit number that I had given him, and hit enter.

  It took less than thirty seconds to get an address, telephone number, and interestingly enough, a Web site.

  Billy looked at me. “I doubt this will help you much. She lives in Jerusalem. It’s an overseas number, and the Web site is posted in Hebrew or something.”

  Again something tingled at the edges of my memory, but nothing concrete came into focus.

  “Let me try something else,” Billy said. He typed in *Jerusalem* *Rella Blanchard* in Google under advanced search.

  “Woo-hoo!” he shouted. “We hit the jackpot: 6,572 hits. Let’s just take a peek. Ugh. She must be a brainiac. Looks like she has several articles posted in the high-IQ science magazines. She has a doctorate in chemical engineering, teaches at the university in Jerusalem, and has more than one patent on pharmaceuticals that are responsible for combating the HIV virus. Craig’s sister, huh? I could get interested in brains like that.”

  “I doubt it’s the brains that interest you—more like the cash behind the brains.”

  “Ouch, that hurts.”

  “Is there a picture of her?”

  “I’m not going to look through all these sites to find a picture. Sorry, Black-eye, I gotta go. Child support won’t pay itself. Why don’t you talk to Shawn? She looks really well-known over there. I think you can safely take her off your list of suspects, living in Israel and all.”

  “She isn’t on my list. Her brother Craig is, and he has Scott. I hoped she would be able to help me find him.”

  “What do you mean, he has Scott?”

  “Supposedly, they’re fishing together, but the more I look into Craig’s past, the more skeletons pop up. And I mean skeletons in the literal sense. Bones and more bones.”

  “I think you underestimate our policeman friend. He’s not without resources just because his legs don’t work. Why don’t you call this Rella person in Jerusalem? It might ease your mind.” And in the manner of all good reporters, he handed her his satellite phone after punching in the collection of numbers listed as Rella Blanchard’s phone number.

  The recording said, “This is Dr. Blanchard. I will be out of the office until July 15. Please leave your name and number, the reason for the call, and I will get back to you as soon as I can. If this is an emergency, please call my service at 011-1000-2323-011. Thank you.”

  I called the service number to find out that Dr. Rella Blanchard was in the States on a teaching sabbatical. She was speaking at several conferences nationwide on the prevention of AIDS and the role of research in the fight against the disease. This particular weekend would find her in Chicago at the Hyatt Regency. Probing further, I got the operator to give me Dr. Blanchard’s room number. I handed the phone back to Billy and gave him a big bear hug.

  “You’re the best. I’ll see you tonight at the dinner.” I jumped out of the van and sprinted back to the King house. Billy grinned and waved.

  Weaving my way through the throng of mourners, I gave Mom a quick hug and told her I had a couple more errands to run before the reunion dinner.

  I caught Rachel’s eye and noticed that at that very moment a large, robust gentleman with a handlebar mustache was hugging her. “Yes, siree, I knew Jack back when he as just a young pup. He and I played football together in high school. He quarterbacked, and I was the center. We were quite the team. Anyway, a better man there never was. The world is a sadder place today. I remember one game, this was back when he was a senior and I was junior, we were playing for the championship and—”

  “Excuse me,” I butted in without remorse. “I need to speak to Rachel a minute if you don’t mind. Actually, I need to speak to Rachel whether you mind or not.” I smiled with those last words, hoping to take the sting out of them. Handlebar Mustache didn’t even notice. He just turned and continued reliving his high school glory days with the next unsuspecting victim.

  Rachel gave me a grateful hug. “I need to get out of here. I thought I could stay, but if I have to hear one more word about how wonderful he is, I mean was, I’m going to puke.”

  “That’s why Mom’s here. Don’t worry about leaving. No one will notice. I need to check on a couple of things before the reunion dinner, so grab your computer and let’s go. We’ll come back here to change for dinner and make sure your mother’s okay.”

  Conversation resumed after I called for a cab and we went outside to the curb to wait.

  “I thought I could handle this,” she said, “but I’m not doing very well. I want to scream at everyone—where were you? Where were you when I was being destroyed bit by little bit? I can’t think straight. He’s dead. He can’t hurt me now, but I’m so angry. Why, why, why?”

  I knew Rachel wasn’t asking for an answer. She just needed to rage. I let silence fill the air. It covered us like the pall that would cover Jack King during his funeral next week. We were both relieved at the sight of the yellow taxi pulling up beside us.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The silence in the cab only lasted a few seconds before the driver started humming and then singing along with his radio. He wasn’t good, but what he lacked in tone he made up for in volume. I recognized the song as I Am Mine from an old 2002 release of Pearl Jam’s. Not that I’m up on rock and roll, but the bass player came from a little town north of Great Falls, and Montana embraced the band like it had birthed it from its own womb.

  Over the cover of hideously flat notes, Rachel said, “There’s one more detail I want to check out about Cynthia Gilmore. Remember her sparse social security filings? I’m going to check with Ancestry.com and see if I can find a death certificate with a matching social.”

  “Why? We know she’s alive. She’s Volvo Lady, remember?”

  “But is Cynthia Gilmore really Cynthia Gilmore? Maybe she took on a dead person’s social. Why did she show up now? Why is she tailing you? There’s more to her than meets the eye, and even though you’re more convinced than ever that Craig is guilty, I think we need to check out all possibilities.”

  “You can check on that while I try to reach Rella Blanchard in Chicago. I need to know if she and Craig have even talked to each other over the years. She might have some clue where Craig is right now.”

  The cab driver stopped singing with Pearl Jam long enough to take my money before he drove away, singing off-key to his heart’s delight. Not a soundscape I would miss.

  Rachel went to work with the laptop while I used the phone. It only rang once before a soft-spoken woman answered, “Hello?”

  I could feel my pulse pick up speed. I needed to be careful. I didn’t want her covering for Craig. With a quick introduction about me, I explained that I met Craig after coming to Anderson for a class reunion, that an emergency had come up concerning one of my friends who was out fishing with him, and I tracked her down via Miss Celia Leeds and then her Web site.

  “I
really need to find Scott. Would you know of any place that Craig fishes on a regular basis?”

  The line was silent for a moment. “You went to a lot of trouble to find me, Mrs. Storm. This must be a pretty serious emergency.”

  “More serious than I can say,” I said without a speck of lying.

  “He loves to fish at Geist Reservoir near Indianapolis—good bass fishing. Why don’t you try looking for him there? If you don’t find him, I’m driving down from Chicago this evening and we’re meeting at Grindstone Charley’s for a drink. Come and join us.”

  “I might just do that if I don’t catch up to him at the reservoir. Thanks.”

  I couldn’t believe I just agreed to go to a bar for a drink with someone I’d never met. It was a good thing David was in Alaska fishing, or he’d be absolutely opposed to the idea. I’m not sure he’d be more opposed to the drink or me meeting up with someone I knew nothing about. The longer he was in the pastoral ministry, the more overprotective he became. He didn’t invite me to the jails with him, or down by the riverfront where the homeless were, or even on most of the domestic violence calls he handled. I know bars and pubs would be on his list of “places Jamie doesn’t need to go.” But it was all for a good cause, I rationalized, and besides David wasn’t here to go with me so what else could I do?

  Before I could tamp down the memories, I thought back to the first years of our marriage. We were going to change the world. No fears then, only the excitement of following Christ into every nook and cranny. We would feed the hungry, clothe the poor, change the world one person at a time with love and more love. And when we were done we would sit on our front porch, put our feet up, and talk about all the wonderful things God did in our lifetime.

  Then reality set in, and we took a church. David put in long hours, I birthed boy babies that got into every imaginable bit of trouble they could, and my hands were full with family and church work, leaving the world to take care of itself.

  Still, it was up to me to help Scott. I hadn’t been there for Tim or Rachel, but I would do my best for Scott.