by Jan Burke
“Charles Starkweather, right?” Ben said. “They made a movie about them.”
“Yes. There are others. Coleman and West, the Gallegos, the Neelleys—”
“Why do they do it?” I asked.
“The age-old question, right? Sexual obsession, greed, power — you name it. Sometimes these women are dominated by violent male partners, other times, they clearly participate willingly. It’s not just women — in addition to husband-and-wife teams, there are male partnerships, groups, and families that are serial killers.”
There was silence around the table, then Ben said, “We’re back to the question J.C. asked. Who would help a man like Nick Parrish?”
They threw out suggestions: debating the possibility of Phil Newly again; wondering if Parrish had a contact who also had an airplane or a helicopter; arguing over whether he was more likely to have a girlfriend or a boyfriend; speculating over the likelihood of a relative who was his Angelo Buono.
While this went on, I studied the small-scale topo map.
“We don’t have enough information to know who his partner is,” I said, which earned me a you’re-no-fun-at-all look from every single one of them. “Maybe the FBI guys can help out with their profilers. I don’t know. But I think I do know where his partner met Nick Parrish that day — it was at that other road.”
They focused their attention on the map.
“Yes,” Frank said. “It wasn’t a good route to get to the ranger station, but he wouldn’t have wanted to go anywhere near there once his partner had disabled the helicopters.”
“And it’s a downhill hike from the meadow,” J.C. said. “The airstrip would be the most convenient way out, but he probably expected that law enforcement might be using it by the time he hiked to it.”
“Right,” Ben said, sighing. “I wish we had come up with this sooner. The mud would have been perfect for casting any footprints or tire marks on the road and near the helicopters.”
J.C. shook his head. “If they didn’t take any casts at the time, they’re probably gone. Summer months are the busiest for Helitack. Our helicopters are primarily used for firefighting. There have been all kinds of people around there.”
They decided to call the lead investigator on the team that was coordinating the mountain cases. I went out to get some fresh air in the backyard, where Bingle was engaging in playful antics with Deke and Dunk.
Ben joined me after a while. Bingle checked in with him, then went back to the other dogs. “I think Bingle misses them,” he said. “Do you want to let them run on the beach together?”
I hesitated. I knew Ben could manage in lots of environments, but he hadn’t conquered walking in soft, deep sand with a prosthesis yet. His prosthetist had told him that many amputees found walking on a soft beach difficult. Ben was still working on it.
“Yes, I miss walking on the beach,” he said, reading my thoughts. “I miss lots of things. But the list is getting shorter, and the items that stay on the list, well, I’ll learn to live without them. But there’s no reason Bingle should have to forego his pleasures because of me.”
Frank stepped out as he was saying this, and hearing it, said, “Tell you what — if you don’t mind a public struggle to the boardwalk, we’ll get you over to it. It’s not far from the stairs at the end of the street, and it runs parallel to the water until you get to the pier. You and Irene can stroll along there while J.C. and I herd these four-legged hooligans.”
He thought about it for a moment, but apparently the desire to be closer to the water won out over potential embarrassment, because he agreed to the plan.
He went down the long set of stairs from the cliffs to the sand on his own. From there, the four of us put our arms across one another’s shoulders, in a line, so that no one person was left out — or singled out. J.C. started singing some silly camping song that made us laugh, so most people probably thought we were well into an evening party. Between Frank and J.C., Ben was able to get to the boardwalk without a fall.
Bingle kept running back and forth between us and the other dogs, but if Deke and Dunk followed him at high speed toward Ben, he herded them away from his new handler. “He won’t allow other dogs to bump into me,” Ben explained. “A service I sometimes miss when he’s not around. But I’m learning to keep my balance a little better these days.”
“How’s the Spanish coming along?”
“I’m getting better at the dog commands,” he said. “The rest still needs lots of work.”
“Why did David train Bingle in Spanish?”
“Two reasons. Bingle was originally owned by an old man who spoke only Spanish, and David had learned Spanish after we did some earthquake recovery work in South America. We’d been frustrated by the language barrier, and he thought it would be useful to be able to speak it for cases here in Southern California, too. Anyway, this old man loved the dog, but he was having trouble keeping up with Bingle. He told David that ‘Bocazo’ — that was his name for Bingle — deserved someone who was more energetic for a partner.”
“Bocazo?” I laughed. “That’s Spanish for ‘big mouth.’ ”
Ben smiled. “He established his rep early on, I guess.”
“So what was the second reason?”
“It wasn’t something people expected. I mean, here’s this Anglo college professor speaking Spanish. When he was doing search and rescue work or cadaver searches, it often won them over. They would be in these horrible situations — waiting for him to search a building that had collapsed in an earthquake in South America, for example — and even though Spanish has many dialects, they understood what he was saying to the dog, and so it took one level of anxiousness away. The two of them made great ambassadors for the rest of us.”
“It certainly helped that Parrish didn’t know Spanish.”
“Why?”
I realized that I had never told him what happened after I left him to cross the stream.
When I first came home from the mountains, I had told Frank everything that had happened there, but no one else, and I had steadfastly avoided the subject since. Now I wondered if Frank, who had often urged me to talk things over with Ben, had gone ahead with the dogs and J.C., hoping I would do exactly that.
So make the effort, I told myself. It’s the perfect time to talk it out.
“Parrish didn’t understand Spanish, so when I told Bingle to go to you, to guard you, Parrish thought I was just commanding him to go away.”
A single sentence. I felt as if I couldn’t breathe.
“I don’t understand,” Ben said, stopping and staring at me. “Your story in the paper — you didn’t mention being so close to him again. You made it sound as if he tripped over that trap you made for him and ran off wounded. That you ran and hid after that, and just waited for the rescue.”
Panic struck. In my mind, Parrish was holding my face down in the mud; for a few seconds, it might as well have been happening again.
“Irene!” Ben said sharply. “Irene, what is it?”
“Another time, okay?” I said. I realized I had tears on my face, although I couldn’t remember when I had started crying.
There had been this easiness with tears between us for some time now. Frank and Jack and I had been allowed to see his. I don’t think many other people did.
When he had stayed with us, lots of people got to see “how brave Ben is” — although he absolutely despised any comments of this sort. Ben showed the world a determined face. It wasn’t an act — it just wasn’t the whole story.
There had been a nearly constant stream of visitors at first — friends from the university, colleagues who worked with him on the DMORT team and others. There was also a demanding schedule of recovery and rehab appointments, both at home and in other offices — doctors, nurses, his physical therapist, his prosthetist, Jo Robinson. There was work to be done learning how to balance and walk, to desensitize the residual limb, to strengthen Ben’s upper body, and more.
Ellen Raice
came by with projects and questions, sometimes bringing bones that had been brought to the lab for help with identification or other determinations. Ben seemed glad to have the work and distraction.
Sometimes Ben had been abrupt with Ellen or other visitors, who knowingly smiled at me as they left, saying, “He seems to be having a bad day.” But they didn’t know the meaning of a bad day with Ben.
At first, almost every day was a bad day at some point. Even Ellen didn’t get to see that side of Ben. Ben tired of appointments and exercises that seemed designed to torture him. Ben in agonizing pain, taking bruising falls. The irascible, impatient Ben. Ben discouraged and grieving. Ben who wondered if women would be repulsed by him, who feared that his sex life was at an end at thirty-two, that he was doomed to a life of loneliness. Ben trying to get used to what he saw when he looked in a full-length mirror.
During that summer, whatever waking hours I could spend away from work, I spent with Ben. Frank and Jack covered the hours I couldn’t. He allowed the three of us to see him at his most vulnerable, but we were also first on hand for the victories. He was one of the most blessedly stubborn people I knew, and if he had setbacks, he didn’t let them stop him.
It was that stubborn determination that I saw on his face now, as I tried to regain my composure.
“I think,” he said, “that I just might die happy if I can kill Nick Parrish with my bare hands before I go.”
“It wouldn’t be worth it,” I said. “Besides, if you go, who . . .”
“Who will you have to talk to about it?” he finished.
I nodded. “I’ve told Frank. I’ve told him everything, but you — you were there.”
“And yet, you haven’t really talked to me, have you? Shielding the poor cripple?”
“Screw you, Ben,” I said wearily. “You know that’s a crock.”
“Sorry. Just what you needed, right? More abuse. You’re right. A crock. God, no wonder you don’t talk to me — I should start a company, ‘Cranky Assholes, Inc.’ ”
“I know the CEO’s position is taken, but could I at least have a vice presidency? I’m good at throwing things. Any glass-paneled offices?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Oh,” I said guiltily, “I guess I haven’t filled you in on my news.”
“It seems to me that there’s a hell of a lot you haven’t filled me in on. What is this, Irene? I move out, and you think I stop caring about you and Frank and Jack?”
“You wanted to be out on your own. Why should I burden you with—”
“Burden me! You burden me! Christ, that’s a laugh.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Tell me what happened at work,” he said.
I told him about my monitor shot put into Wrigley’s office. I did so with trepidation, figuring that he was bound to start feeling a little wary about being left out on the beach with a madwoman. But that wasn’t how he reacted at all.
“My God,” he said, looking at me with such concern, my tears threatened again. “You’ve really been having a rough time of it, haven’t you?”
“A little,” I said.
He laughed.
“Yes, a rough time,” I admitted.
“I feel like such a selfish bastard!”
“Don’t,” I said fiercely.
He didn’t say more, but I could see that he was angry. At himself, at me — I wasn’t sure who else was on the list.
By then Frank and J.C. had rejoined us. Frank took one look at me and put an arm around me. I returned the favor. Ben steadfastly ignored me, and sensing the tension between us, Frank let Ben and J.C. move ahead with the dogs.
“You okay?” he asked me.
I nodded. “Long day, that’s all.”
He gave a little snort of disbelief but didn’t push me to unburden my soul right at that moment. I was grateful.
At the end of the boardwalk, we again helped Ben across the sand to the stairs, but this time, he seemed embarrassed. We let the dogs go up first, then J.C. and Ben. When we reached the top of the stairs, J.C. and Ben were watching Bingle, who was lifting his head, making chuffing noises. The other dogs tried to follow his lead. He looked back at Ben, ears swiveled forward, and barked.
“Jesus,” Ben said, “he’s alerting.”
“Talk to him,” I said, tightening my hold on Frank.
I was impressed. Ben flawlessly spoke a series of encouragements in Spanish. Then, giving a hand signal, he said, “¡Búscalo!” Bingle focused on Ben much as I had seen him focus on David, and then hurried down the street, head high and sniffing, moving in a fairly straight line.
Within a few houses of our own, Bingle started barking again. He waited for Ben, then, crooning, he veered close to the van, then passed it by and hurried toward our porch.
“Oh no,” I said. “Please no.”
J.C. was saying, “It looks as if someone sent you roses.”
“Late in the day for a flower delivery,” Frank said.
But there was indeed a long golden box with a red bow on it, waiting on the steps.
“Everybody get back,” Frank said suddenly. “Ben, call the dog—!”
But Bingle had already pawed at the box, and it rolled down the steps and spilled open — ten, long-stem roses tumbled out, as did two long, dark bones.
We all stood frozen — until Frank shouted at our dogs, who obviously thought Bingle had made a capital find and were venturing closer to see if he’d share it with them. Hearing the unexpected sharp note in Frank’s voice, they immediately came to his side.
Ben called to Bingle and remembered to praise him in Spanish, then without needing to step nearer to the bones said to us, “Femurs.”
“Leg bones?” I asked weakly, but I already knew the answer. I suddenly didn’t feel as if I could rely on my own.
43
WEDNESDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 13
Las Piernas
“The bones were those of the receptionist?” Jo Robinson asked during my appointment the next morning.
“It seems likely, but the bones were . . . altered. Parts of her legs are still missing, and these bones weren’t even whole femurs. Someone had cut them. Ben knows someone who specializes in identifying toolmarks on bones who’ll be studying them, but for now, Ben thinks it might have been a power saw. They’re going to run DNA tests to be sure the bones belong to the receptionist. Those tests take a while.”
“You seem quite calm about this now.”
“It’s an act.”
She smiled.
“I guess you knew that.”
She kept smiling, but said, “I’m not a mind reader. So tell me, what’s your real reaction?”
“At first, fear. But now I’m just angry. No, that’s not true. I’m both angry and afraid.”
“What do you suppose he was trying to do?”
“To scare me. To let me know that he knows where I live, to tell me that he’s around. He succeeded — I am afraid. More afraid.”
I considered telling her more, but I wanted to go back to work, and I was convinced she’d never give me the release if I told her everything. If I could go back to work and stay busy, I wouldn’t have so much time to dwell on memories of people in little pieces in a meadow or photographs in graves.
“I think most people would be afraid if they found leg bones in a box on their front porch,” she was saying. “What are you doing in response?”
“Doing?”
“About your personal safety.”
“Oh. That’s the other problem. Frank has worked it out so that I’m never alone. If he can’t be with me, then someone else is. Our friend Jack is in your waiting room as we speak.”
“Does that seem unreasonable under the circumstances?”
“No, but I saw Parrish take out seven men in about three minutes flat, so I’m not comforted, either.”
“Is that what bothers you about it?”
I didn’t have to think long about that question. “No. It both
ers me because it’s confining.”
I have to admit that she was very slick. She managed to get me to talk about my fear of confined places, and somehow that led to talking about being in a tent, which led to talking about the expedition and what had happened on it.
Jack had a long wait.
After a while, she asked, “Before you left for this journey, you were uneasy being in the mountains. You struggle with claustrophobia, yet you agreed to be part of a group that would be sleeping inside tents for several days. Detective — Thompson, was it?”
“Yes.”
“Detective Thompson had been unpleasant to you on a number of other occasions, yet you decided to become a member of the expedition he was leading.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t have any say over who would lead it.”
“Why did you agree to go on this journey to the mountains?”
I shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a glutton for punishment.”
She waited.
“I went for work,” I said testily. “It was a good opportunity for the paper.”
She kept waiting.
“My hour was up a long time ago,” I said, picking up my purse.
“Why did you go?” she persisted.
“Julia Sayre!” I snapped.
She didn’t respond.
I set my purse down. “No, not Julia, really. Her daughter, and her husband and son. For years, they’ve wondered what happened to her. I was trying to help them resolve their questions about her disappearance.”
“A good purpose.”
“At a damned high cost.”
“Yes, but you didn’t set that price, did you?”
“No.”
“In fact, it cost you much more than you bargained for.”
I shook my head. “Other people paid much more.”
“What can you do about that?”