by Jan Burke
“She told someone.”
“Oh, she told someone, all right. In all my self-involvement, I had failed to ask Camille who her new boyfriend was, what he did for a living. I believe the phrase he used in the first television newscast — which took place on the front lawn outside of the home of one of the families — was, ‘Sources close to forensic anthropologists working on the case . . .’ He was a damned sight closer to the source than I was at that point.”
“Nasty thing for her to do to you — but ‘hell hath no fury’ and all of that. More than a little sloppy of him not to verify the information with someone other than your ex. But I can promise you, Ben, you are not the first man to leak something to the press by way of a girlfriend or spouse. Think of John Mitchell back in the Watergate days.”
He looked at me and sighed. “If that was all there was to it, Irene, I’d be thanking God and counting it as a lesson learned.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It was the wrong boy.”
“You mean—”
“Yes, I mean a man and a woman and their two younger children, people who had waited for five years to learn what had happened to their son, their brother — those people had a reporter on their front lawn, asking them on camera if they had heard the news from the police yet, that their boy’s remains had been found in the desert over a week ago, and that an announcement of positive identification was imminent.”
“Oh, God.”
“He also made statements about the condition of the remains that were almost word-for-word what I had told her.”
“Making you feel worse.”
“Not any worse than the family must have felt.”
“How did you find out about it?”
“The coroner called and said they’d been asked to verify that an identification was about to be made. Carlos Hernandez, you know him?”
“Yes.”
“He had seen it live on the five o’clock news, and told me to watch it at six.” He shook his head. “Their faces as that reporter told them! Jesus! I’ll never forget that as long as I live. By six o’clock, they had invited him into their living room and were showing him photos of the boy. Worst of all, I also knew that they would also feel a sense of relief and resolution after years of worry and wonder, and I’d have to tell them that it was all a mistake, that their son hadn’t been found at all.”
“And you figured you were the one who was torturing them, not that guy?”
“It was my responsibility! The coroner had trusted me with those remains. Trusted me to keep my mouth shut. Do you know where that trust comes from? From families like that boy’s. They give it to Carlos, he extends it to me, and I betrayed it — and over what? A need to brag to a former girlfriend? Pathetic!”
“Human. And Carlos is fair-minded, Ben. He must have—”
“Oh, he was more than fair to me. I told him what had happened, fully expecting it was my last case for his office. He tried to help me — to help me! He gave me advice on how to handle the inevitable media frenzy that would follow. And it did. I must have said ‘no comment’ about a million times. The campus police had to keep reporters away from the lab where I do my work. There are no windows in the lab itself, but we had to have someone guard the door after one of the photographers tried to get a shot of the bones. Eventually, the media gave up.”
“Ben, sometimes—”
“No, that isn’t the last of it. The media gave up, but that didn’t change anything for that family. They were naturally very angry. They asked to meet with Carlos and me. The press had told them their boy had been found, and we wouldn’t comment one way or the other. They thought we were torturing them. But all we could say was that we were not prepared to make any identification at this time, and then promise them that they would be the first to know if we had any news.”
“Which naturally made them think they were being given the brush-off.”
“I felt terrible the whole time, but Carlos had made me promise that I wouldn’t say more than that to them. They told Carlos that the reporter said I was the one that leaked the story. He told them, quite honestly, that neither of us had ever talked to that reporter, and no one that worked with either of us had ever mentioned the case to him. They weren’t entirely satisfied, and spoke of getting an attorney, but fortunately things never reached that point. Carlos deserves the credit for that.”
“What else did you do?”
“What?”
“I haven’t known you all that long, Ben, but I know you well enough to realize that you wouldn’t just say ‘no comment’ and wait for things to blow over.”
“I would have, if it weren’t for David. He got Ellen and some of the other graduate students together, hauled me out of bed in the middle of the night and said, ‘Bool and Bingle want to go looking for bones in the desert.’ We searched for six consecutive weekends. We found more of the first boy’s remains. We were just about to give up when Bingle finally found the second boy’s tibia — some distance from the first boy’s. After that, we made a more intensive search and recovered more.”
“Didn’t that make you feel better about it?”
“Not really. It was better for the family, but I still felt miserable about what I had done. The outcome isn’t the issue. Breaking that code of confidentiality was no more honorable on my part, just because we had found the second boy. It was just as likely that we could have searched and searched and never found him.”
We sat in silence for a while before he said, “Although the blame is mine, really, for behaving unethically in that situation—”
“Ben, aren’t you being a little hard on yourself?”
“Let me finish. I wanted to say — I do have a negative attitude toward the press. I was unfair to you. I apologize for that.”
“Apology accepted. We aren’t all as rotten as that idiot.”
“I know, I know — but one guy like that one is enough to make you wary for life. There was a little justice, though — he isn’t on the air anymore.”
“I’m not surprised. And Camille got what she deserved with him, I’m sure.”
“It didn’t last, either. She told David that the guy broke up with her when I refused to let him ‘cover’ our searches. I felt sorry for her, really.”
“Did you ever talk to her about it?”
“No. The only time I’ve seen her since then was when you were there, at the hospital. What would I say? ‘You betrayed me’? To her, that would have been something like saying, ‘Congratulations.’ Besides, I betrayed myself.”
“There’s only one question left, then,” I said. “When are you going to forgive yourself?”
He didn’t answer.
55
TUESDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 26
Las Piernas
I had gone back to bed and had about an hour’s sleep when the phone rang. I looked at the clock. A little before six.
Frank answered the call. “Hi, Pete,” he said to his partner, then listened for a while. He sat up and started taking notes. “Okay, I’ll be there as soon as I can. Coroner’s already been notified? Good . . . yes, I’ll see you in a few.”
He hung up, stretched, and started getting dressed.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
He hesitated, then said, “The skull in the refrigerator? Looks as if he decided to let us have the rest of the body.”
I shuddered. “Where?”
“Apparently, he’s been keeping it on ice. A group of figure skaters got a rude surprise when they showed up at the local rink for practice this morning.”
“He broke into the ice-skating rink?”
“Yep. First officer on the scene said it looks as if the body is frozen solid. No head.” He paused in the act of putting on his holster. “Hope it’s the one belonging to our skull. He’d probably think it was damned amusing to have more than one out there and mix and match them.”
“You should tell Ben. He’s been trying to do the identification
on the skull. Maybe he’ll be able to help out.”
Frank didn’t want to leave me alone, so he hesitated to ask Ben to go with him. So I promised not to write about events at the skating rink for the Express — whose editor-in-chief I was not much in charity with at the moment — and he decided I could come along and wait within the outer perimeter of the crime scene, where the heaviest level of police protection in Las Piernas would be available to keep his wife safe from Nick Parrish.
If the skating rink hadn’t been fairly close to the vet’s office, I’m not sure Ben would have followed Frank and me over there that morning. Sometimes, looking back on it, I’ve wished the two buildings had been farther apart.
There were several black-and-whites parked outside the rink; Frank went in first, while I talked to Ben in the parking lot. A few minutes later, Frank escorted me to what he had decided was a safe place to wait — safe for me, safe for the investigation.
This place turned out to be an overly warm glassed-in waiting area, complete with gas-log fireplace and a snack bar, a place where young skaters’ parents and hockey widows might hang out. Personally, that day or any other, I would have preferred a cold, hard bleacher closer to the action. I couldn’t see much from where I waited. The gargantuan officer Frank posted at the door didn’t improve the view.
I could see that strips of flat carpet — usually used for awards ceremonies, so that nonskating dignitaries can walk out onto the ice — led out to a huddle of men that included Frank, Pete, Carlos Hernandez, and others. I couldn’t see the body itself.
Ben was escorted in by a uniformed officer. When he saw where I was being kept, he gave me a little smile and waved.
He managed getting out to the huddle without any problems; the group parted a little, he went down on one knee to take a closer look at the body and suddenly started screaming.
He screamed words, but I’m not sure what they were, because the sound itself triggered a flood of memories, and made me think of him screaming in the mountains as he ran into the meadow — which made me try in vain to get past the behemoth in blue at the waiting area door.
The words didn’t matter. I just wanted to get to Ben. Before long, I got my wish — Frank was bringing him into the waiting area. He had stopped screaming; his face was drained of color. Frank asked me for Jo Robinson’s number as he set Ben down next to me.
Frank called and left a message with Jo’s service. I held on to Ben, who seemed to be in a state of shock.
“What is it?” I asked him. “What’s wrong?”
“Camille,” he said numbly. “It’s Camille. Out there on the ice.”
“Who’s Camille?” Pete asked, overhearing Ben as he walked into the room.
Ben didn’t answer, so I told them that she was Ben’s ex-girlfriend. “The woman he was living with until last January.”
“Her skull,” Ben said miserably, looking down at his hands as if they were foreign objects. “I’ve been handling her skull!”
Frank and Pete exchanged a look.
“How do you know it’s Camille?” I asked.
I didn’t think he’d answer; he looked as if he might faint. But he whispered, “Her birthmark. She has an unusual birthmark on her upper thigh.”
I could see that Frank and Pete didn’t entirely trust Ben’s identification of the body, but they spoke consolingly, told him just to wait with me, and brought him a cup of coffee. I understood their doubts; Ben had experienced one loss after another, had spent a nearly sleepless night, and perhaps his reaction to the corpse had been a result of the strain he was under lately.
Frank flipped through his notebook, found Camille’s address from his previous visit, and sent a unit to check on her home.
A little later, a uniformed officer leaned his head in the door and said, “They want you out there, Detective Harriman.”
Frank glanced at Pete, then they left together.
Frank was back a few minutes later. He beckoned me away from Ben. In a low voice, he said, “Call John and tell him you aren’t coming in.”
“What?”
“Tell him you aren’t coming into work.”
“Why should I? Do you know how hard it was for me to get the few hours I do have?”
“Tell her,” Pete said, walking up to us. “She’s too damned stubborn for her own good.”
Frank glanced over at Ben, then said, “Parrish left a note for you.”
I felt my stomach clench, and my heart began to hammer against my ribs, as if it wanted somebody to let it out. But I looked at Pete’s smug face, and suddenly my heart slowed. “Really?” I said. “What did it say?”
Frank’s brows drew together. “Irene—”
“What did it say?”
He held out a plastic bag. There was another plastic bag within it; on this one, my name had been neatly written in black felt pen. Within it, a sheet of lined yellow paper from a legal pad contained a short message, written in very precisely printed letters:
No more presents, no more escapes.
You can’t hide from me, Irene.
You can’t go beyond my reach.
Next time, you’re the one who gets iced,
much more slowly than dear Camille.
And Camilles are notorious for dying slowly—
ha! ha! ha!
Please tell Ben Sheridan that I enjoyed her immensely.
He had signed it with a flourish.
“Nothing anonymous about this one, is there?” I said, not as steadily as before.
“He left it under the body,” Pete said. “Don’t be an idiot, Irene. Stay home.”
I glanced up at him.
Frank saw, a little too late, what was inspiring me.
“Irene—” he began.
“It doesn’t change anything. I am going to work, Frank.”
He started to argue, but I motioned toward Ben and said in a low voice, “For God’s sake, we have until ten o’clock tonight to settle this. Let’s not make it any worse for Ben by having a fight in here.”
“Okay,” he said, “okay. But we will talk about this!”
We were interrupted when Frank and Pete were called back out of the room. I could see Frank giving Pete hell as they went to meet the other detectives.
If Parrish’s note left any doubts, before long, few people questioned the identity of the body. Signs of a forcible entry through a rear bedroom window were found at Camille’s home; through that window, police saw overturned furniture and other indications of a struggle. Once inside, the officers also found a photo of Camille in a bathing suit; the photo showed the birthmark on her thigh.
While all of this was taking place, several of us tried to console Ben, but he barely acknowledged our presence. At a little after eight, the alarm on his watch went off. “Bingle,” he said suddenly. “I can’t leave him in that cage! I’ve got to go.”
“Let me go with you,” I said. “You’re not in any shape to drive.” Intentionally keeping any tone of challenge out of my voice, I turned to my husband and said, “Is that okay, Frank? I’ll wait with him back at the house. If Jo Robinson calls, she can reach us there.”
Frank frowned, but perhaps thinking he’d prove to me that he was going to be reasonable, too, gave in. “Okay, but I’m going to ask a unit to follow you — promise me you’ll let them keep you in sight. Parrish is obviously focusing on the two of you right now, and I don’t think it’s wise for you to be alone anywhere.”
No argument from me. There were certain givens, after all.
Bingle’s exuberance over seeing Ben again went a long way toward breaking the awful spell his owner had been under. Ben thanked the vet, paid the bill, and we were on our way. Except for an occasional attempt on Bingle’s part to ride in Ben’s lap, the drive back home was uneventful.
Jo Robinson had left a message, and when Ben called her back, he spent a long time talking to her while I went outside with the dogs and Cody. Cody lounged on my lap while Deke and Dunk, apparently fascinated with w
hatever scents Bingle’s coat had picked up from the vet’s office, gave the big shepherd a thorough sniffing over.
By the time Frank came back that afternoon, Ben was able to answer his questions fairly calmly. Ben had a few of his own.
“Has anyone called her parents?” he asked.
“We’ve got someone working on that.”
“Why hadn’t she been reported missing?”
“She seems to have been at loose ends lately,” Frank said, “and the truth is, there doesn’t seem to be anyone who had regular contact with her.”
“But she worked for an accounting firm—” Ben said.
“She left her job in June; apparently she’s been looking for a new one, because on her desk she had mail from several places where she had applied for work. She had been filling in applications and had copies of her résumé on her desk.”
“Since June?” he asked.
“Yes, we talked to her then.”
Ben looked away, frowning. “I had forgotten — you had the ridiculous suspicion that she had tried to rob my house and office.”
Frank didn’t allow himself to be baited.
After a moment Ben said, “Sorry. Of course you had to question her. And maybe I didn’t know her so well after all. I never thought she was thrilled with her work, but I’m surprised to hear she left the accounting firm.”
I remembered her visit to the hospital, and Ben’s final angry suggestion that she should be the one to think about finding another line of work. I wondered if that encounter had affected her more than any of us could have guessed. Having no desire to cause Ben further pain, I kept these thoughts to myself.
“People at her former office say she quit unexpectedly,” Frank said, “but she may have been planning to leave for some time. She seemed prepared to be out of work for a while. She still had quite a bit of money in her savings account.”