by Jeff Abbott
Instead, he kept glancing at the old, worn bones.
*
The forensic anthropologist – a banty rooster of a man named Parker, a fortyish fellow with a shaved bald head and sporting a Yankees cap – arrived by DPS chopper within an hour, accompanied by a team of graduate students armed with dental picks, brushes, trowels, string and stakes.
Whit left them to their work, spoke words of comfort to Lucy and her cousin Suzanne and the Tran family, all waiting up at Patch’s house. He came back down as the afternoon began to melt into night. The Port Leo fire department set up lights so the work could continue. Parker and David talked a lot, David losing patience and getting it back. The team sifted dirt from the site, carefully, and found more bone fragments, little pebbles of teeth. When Parker got up from his digging to gulp a cup of water, Whit cornered him at the jug on the back of a DPS truck.
‘So what is this looking like, Dr Parker?'
‘Off the record, Judge?'
‘Yeah.’
‘Because I don’t like to commit before all the data’s gathered.’
‘So don’t commit.’
‘We haven’t removed bones yet but there’s at least two skeletons in there, more likely three. They’re badly disarticulated – they’re not laid out as if they were buried and then not disturbed again.’
‘Why would the new bodies be on top of them?’
‘I think these old bones were dug up, dumped back in the dirt, and your murder victims dumped on top of them. The whole site’s a jumble. I mean, bones that look that old, you expect it. Ground settles over time, bodies sink. But these seem, well, shuffled.’
‘Anything other than the bones?’
‘Latches. Nails. Locks. A few slivers of wood.’
‘Locks?’
‘Locks.’
That was freaky, Whit thought. Why would you put a lock on a coffin? ‘You said wood. From a casket?’
‘Possibly.’
‘Wouldn’t a casket have kept the bones better organized?’
‘Apparently not these.’ Parker finished his water. ‘Don’t think they were buried in caskets. Coffins would have mostly rotted away by now, anyway.’
‘These bones… how old are they?’
‘The wetter the soil, the browner the bones get over time. These are pretty brown. We’ll assemble the skeletons as much as we can tonight and tomorrow. We’ll probably remove the bones in the next few hours, once we’ve cleaned away the dirt, gotten samples, sifted, photographed and mapped the site. If we can identify the make of the nails and latches, that can help us date the bones.’
‘The family of the murder victims are friends of mine,’ Whit said. ‘We’d like to get Mr Gilbert’s and Mrs Tran’s bodies out of there as soon as possible.’
‘We’ll hurry,’ Parker said, a softening in his tone for the first time. ‘You’ll need to transfer the old bones to my custody for examination, Judge.’ Whit nodded and Parker headed back to the dig, flush with light from the fire trucks.
The diggers worked tenderly, quietly around Patch and Thuy, as though the couple slept and the techs were gentle spirits, come to grant them sweet dreams. Finally they were done. The bodies were lifted out slowly, placed on clean sheets. Whit filled out an authorization for autopsy, had David countersign it. He watched the bodies taken away by the mortuary service for autopsy in nearby Nueces County. The service people carried the bodies carefully on their stretchers. The forensic anthropologists continued their work around the old bones, industrious and steady as ants.
By midnight, Wednesday fading into Thursday, the FA team had put an astonishing assortment of bones – including three human skulls, brown as walnuts – into paper bags. Whit signed over the bones to Parker and the FA team headed to Corpus Christi to sleep and finish their work. Lucy slept upstairs. Whit had showered and lain with her until she dozed off, then come down to Patch Gilbert’s empty den at two a.m., unable to sleep. He watched an old Perry Mason rerun. Perry’s was a perfect world for you, one where justice ticked along sure as clockwork.
Whit let the TV mumble along and sat in front of the bay window. He cracked open the window so he could hear the murmur of St Leo Bay. The night was dark, the moon shy behind clouds, the fireflies glowing and vanishing like candle wick embers, just snuffed out between wet finger and thumb. The fire truck lights still blazed over the now-canopied site, an officer standing watch.
The old house was full of the old man, his laughter, his teasing. On a side table there was a bottle of Glenfiddich that Whit had seen Patch open only last week. He found two shot glasses and picked up the bottle. He poured the shots of fine Scotch, one for him, one for Patch.
He didn’t touch either drink for a long moment, then downed both. The Scotch burned his throat a little, made his eyes water. Closest to tears he would get.
Patch. Thuy. Promise you. Whoever did this won’t walk.
He went to bed, curling next to Lucy, shielding her from the night.
6
‘Patch Gilbert wanted a hundred thousand dollars. Raised real quietly,’ Gooch said. ‘You know how I feel about publicity. I’m not talking to the police, but I’ll tell you about the deal.’
Gooch opened a Shiner Bock. He and Whit watched the noontime sun play along the ripples in the Golden Gulf Marina. The summer live-aboards were gearing up for lunch, the inescapable Jimmy Buffett tunes drifting across the waters, lunchtime beers popping open, hung-over throats clearing and gearing up for another half day of lazy life.
‘Am I supposed to be grateful?’ Whit pulled a soda from the cooler. ‘Goddamn it, Gooch, don’t you do this to me.’ Thursday morning court had been full – traffic and small claims – but Whit was distracted, bug-eyed from lack of sleep and anxious to hear back from Parker on the bones and the Nueces County ME’s office on the autopsies.
‘I don’t know that I was the first or only person Patch approached.’ Gooch leaned back in the lounge chair, took off his T-shirt in the bright sun, closed his eyes. His chest was big and broad, dark with tan but white where the scars lay. One, small and blossom-shaped, looked like a bullet wound, another like a healed slash across his abdomen, another like a long-ago stab in his shoulder. He never talked about the scars.
‘Why would he ask you for a hundred thousand bucks?’
Gooch opened one eye to stare at Whit.
It was strange to have your closest friend stay an enigma. Gooch could stare down hired killers, practice the intricacies of hand-to-hand combat, and make troublesome people disappear into federal custody. He was a fishing guide, captain of a premier boat named Don’t Ask, and yet something far more. He was one of the ugliest men Whit had ever seen, with a face a mother might reluctantly love, but he had charisma that drew certain people like moths to a flame. Gooch had saved Whit’s life several months ago, disposing of drug dealers with all the ease of a priest dealing with tardy schoolgirls. And Gooch had made it clear that explanations as to the how would not be forthcoming. Whit had sensed that Gooch waited then, to see if the friendship would survive, if Whit would respect his obsessive need for privacy. Whit was glad to be alive and pretended like nothing had happened.
‘People consider me resourceful and discreet,’ Gooch said.
‘Ah,’ Whit said. A heavy sailboat crawled into the marina; on it, three women in bikinis turned their faces and flat bellies toward the warm sun. Whit watched them lean against the rails in glorious idleness.
‘So what level of detail you want?' Gooch asked.
‘Go deep.’
‘Fine. Patch was a steady client of mine. Took him and some of his old army friends fishing. He knows I know a lot of people. People with money. So he asked me if I knew of folks who might be interested in a very quiet, private investment. People who could part with a hundred thou and not blink.’
‘Patch could have sold some of his land if he needed money.’
‘Apparently not an option he considered,’ Gooch said. ‘I told him I would need to know more.
He said he’d tell me more if I got an investor or two willing to talk to him. I told him I couldn’t waste the time of wealthy people, that I had to consider these folks were my clients and if this was some half-assed scheme it was going to make me look bad. Shit, maybe he was selling life-size Chia pets, you know?’
‘He gave you no indication why he needed this money?’
‘Just asked me to line up some multimillionaires. Which, frankly, represents a very narrow slice of my client pie.’
‘And you think he approached other people?’
‘He struck me as being in a hurry. I asked why he couldn’t go to a bank; he said he wanted it quiet. But fast. I believe the term he used was “hot and big enough to blow this town off the map”.’
‘So he wanted no attention now, but whatever he was working on would create a great deal of attention later.’
Gooch sipped beer. ‘So there’s your anonymous tip. Was it good for you?’
‘Maybe he was blowing smoke, Gooch. Maybe he owed someone a big chunk of money. Someone decided to collect.’
‘Possibility,’ Gooch said. ‘You knew him better than I did. Was he a gambler?’
‘No. He was always just the nice guy who’d let you swim and fish off his land. I’ve never heard of him having debt problems.’
‘Blackmail?’
‘Patch? He bragged about taking Viagra. He was incapable of being embarrassed.’
‘An old man bragging about medicated hard-ons is one thing,’ Gooch said. ‘Maybe he had a deep dark secret that had finally grabbed him by the throat. Or someone close to him was in trouble and needed the money.’
‘Not Lucy.’
Gooch clicked tongue against teeth, cleared his throat, watched a little red sailboat putter out into the bay.
‘Don’t start dumping on Lucy again,’ Whit said.
‘Lucy is lovely. Charming in a giddy, goofy sort of way. Impeccable ass.’
‘But.’
‘I’m not sure she can read a book, much less a mind on the other end of a phone.’
‘Why can’t you like my girlfriend?’
‘I don’t want to see you conned.’
‘She’s not a con artist.’
‘Yes, telephone psychics are known for their high ethical standards.’
‘You haven’t really gotten to know her.’
‘That’s true. If you’re happy, I’m happy. Fucking deliriously happy.’
Whit stood. ‘I’ve got to get back to the courthouse. I’ll let David know what you said.’
‘But you’ll keep my name out of it?’
‘Yes. I’ll try.’
‘Patch wasn’t a quitter,’ Gooch said. ‘I’d look hard to see if he found that money someplace else.’
‘Found his wallet and her purse.’ David sat in the one straight-back chair in Whit’s small office. It was shortly after one o’clock on Thursday afternoon. ‘Dumped in beneath the bodies. Cash and credit cards gone.’
‘So this was a robbery gone wrong?’
‘Burglary, Judge,’ David said. ‘You know the difference.’
Maybe it was a robbery turned burglary, or the other way around, but Whit decided to be rock-solid polite. Act like a judge for once. Let David be acid; acid was just asshole with a different final syllable. ‘A burglary, then?’
‘Yeah. Tran and Gilbert cut short their stay in Port A, head home two days earlier than expected, catch a perp breaking into the house. Perp kills them both, buries them on a remote stretch of the Point where they’re not likely to be found for a while.’
‘The killer laid Patch’s head open. There’s no sign of that attack having taken place in the house,’ Whit said.
‘Then it didn’t. Maybe they took the old folks from the house, hauled them down into the oaks, killed them there.’
‘They. Sounds like more than one person. And for all this effort they got a little cash and silver? They don’t bother with the electronics?’
‘Look, Your Honor. You spend a little more time in this business, you’ll see things usually aren’t too complicated. Criminals are dumb as stumps. If they were smart they could go be investment bankers. Or judges.’ A hint of amusement surfaced in his tone. ‘Killer or killers got surprised, they kill the old folks, they take off.’
‘Why bury the bodies? Why not just dump them in the bay?’
‘They’d float up faster.’
‘It’s quicker to tie weights to someone’s feet than to dig down deep enough to hit old graves,’ Whit said. He started to mention the anonymous tip from Gooch, but David raised a hand.
‘Listen, Judge. You pretty sure you gonna rule these deaths as homicides?’
‘Of course, yes.’
‘Then that’s all you need to worry about, Your Honor. Anything beyond that, you‘re stepping on my toes. And my toes, they’re real tender. They get hurt real easy. And my feet hurt, I’m in a bad mood. We’re clear?’
‘Yes,’ Whit said. ‘I’m going in to Corpus, to meet with the ME and with Parker and his people around four. They have to sign custody of the old bones back to me. You want to go?’ He’d mention the tip then, let David squirm the whole thirty miles into Corpus. Better than listening to talk radio.
‘Sure. That’s fine. I got a suspect to go question this afternoon.’
‘You do? Who?’
‘Pick me up around three. We’ll head into Corpus.’ David winked, put on his Stetson, stepped out of Whit’s office, said a hearty hey to Edith Gregory, Whit’s secretary, then headed out down the courthouse hallway with a strut. ‘I’ll tell you about my suspect then if the mood hits me.’
‘Oh, you’re gonna be in the mood,’ said Whit.
Alex Black closed the door to his room at the Sandspot Motel and flicked on the light. With its freeze-your-ass air conditioner and an ongoing next-door groan-a-thon from a couple he dubbed the Honeymooners, this temporary home held few charms. He wanted to leave. He wanted to go to the storage unit and run his hands over the coins, feel the heft of the Devil’s Eye, say a silent fuck you to every archaeologist and bureaucrat who had ever crossed his path. Instead he sat down and called his father on his cell phone.
‘Bert Exton’s room, please.’ He waited for the hospice receptionist to connect him, endured bad muzak for a few moments.
‘H’lo?’ Tired, weak-sounding.
‘Dad. How’s today been?’ Alex said.
‘Only about a three. Yesterday was a nine. Felt great. You shoulda called yesterday.’
‘Well, soon as I finish up this dig, Dad, I’m coming to Miami. See you for a spell.’ And get your poor ass out of that death trap, and we’ll go to Costa Rica. Let you die peaceful under a beautiful sky. Maybe near some ruins. just for old times’ sake, Alex thought. ‘How’s that sound?’
‘That’d be great.’ Weak cough. ‘You liking Michigan?’
‘Sure.’ What Dad didn’t know couldn’t hurt him. Dad thought he was on an Ojibwa artifacts dig. ‘Good place to spend the summer.’
‘Bureaucrats giving you hell?’ A little rally in Bert’s voice.
‘No, sir. No one’s giving me hell.’
‘That’s good. Proud of you, boy.’
What Dad didn’t know. ‘So tomorrow’s gonna be, what, at least a six? You keeping a good attitude?’
‘Screw optimism. Yeah. We’ll aim for a six. You get here, maybe you sneak me in a six-pack, okay?’
‘Sure, Dad.’ He’d sneak in freaking Moet for the old guy. Alex said his good-byes, hung up. He had buyers lined up for the coins – dealing strictly in cash, no questions asked. And he could find a buyer – probably a Colombian trader – for the Devil’s Eye, but a big emerald like that he’d have to move carefully. Even getting it appraised would draw unwanted attention. He could be in Miami in a week, any loose ends wrapped up.
Stoney was the one remaining problem.
He lay back down on the bed and began to imagine various deaths for Stoney Vaughn. Quick ones. You didn’t want to spend any extra time
with Stoney if you could help it.
7
In the clear sunshine of the Gulf of Mexico, the blood and gore painted sparkles across the green waves. Filmy scales glistened like jewel dust. Torn shrimp pinwheeled down from the surface, pink and brown and white, a kaleidoscope of flesh. Slivers of fish guts bobbed, the light shifting their colors from red to green to gray as they sank beneath the water.
‘Beautiful,’ Claudia said.
‘Gross,’ Ben Vaughn said. ‘But I mean that in a real manly way.’
Thursday morning Claudia stood at the open back of Jupiter, a forty-eight-foot luxury craft, fishing rod in hand. She usually preferred fishing on the open deck of a boat, but Jupiter offered the cool shade of the cabin, a cushioned wicker chair, a glass of grapefruit juice at her elbow. She watched a heavy Gulf shrimper chug away from them, its wake now colored with the pool of chum Ben had poured overboard.
Ben hoisted himself up the ladder from the swim platform. He washed his hands of brownish film at the sink. ‘You ready to fish the buffet?’
Claudia smiled. ‘Am I ever.’
‘Sort of glad my brother didn’t tag along.’ Ben sat down next to her, relaxed, grinning. ‘I’m not sure what a third wheel is on a boat.’
‘Sweet of him to let us use the boat.’
‘Stoney’s too busy to play with his toys. I’m glad I’m not. Summer vacation.’ Ben leaned over and kissed her, easy. ‘That’s for luck.’
She cast her line into the spreading heart of gore, nailing its center. He cast after her, his line hitting the edges of the chum smear.
‘You don’t need any coaching.’
‘I just need someone to vouch for my unbelievable fish stories if I end up not catching a thing,’ she said.
‘We each caught a whale, right?’ Ben sipped at his soda.
Claudia watched sleek figures dart and turn beneath the bloody cloud. Within seconds a thick-bodied yellow-fin hit her line. She jerked once, setting the hook, and then let the monofilament line spin out as the yellowfin raced away, revving along for a hundred and fifty feet. The tug and play went on for ten minutes, and soon the strength at the other end of the line faded. Claudia reeled her prize in and carefully held the bullet-shaped yellowfin aloft for inspection.