River Bones (Sara Mason Mysteries Book 1)

by Mary Deal

  Tripp seemed lost in reverie. It wouldn't be healthy to let his mind wander onto things he had done that gave him a feeling of power. Sara remembered the mini-recorder, again feigned being cold, and stuck her hand into her pocket and clicked it on. She glanced over to check on how the coffee was coming along. Nonchalant gestures, all the while, she wondered if she shouldn't sit down to keep her shaking legs from giving out.

  Chapter 61

  “What about right here, between the garage and the back door?” Sara asked, stretching across the blueprints. “Is this a good place for a garden?”

  “The garage blocks the sun,” Tripp said. “Nice and shady in that spot, though. Cool damp dirt, full of earthworms and other hungry things. My daddy and me used to dig up earthworms to go fishing.” He grinned fiendishly and tapped the drawing.

  “Then where would you sugg—?”

  “Ain't that where they found ol' man Talbot?” he asked while watching her reaction. “Ain't that where that workshop stood?”

  “Sure is.”

  “Ground was hard-packed in that spot. I helped those construction guys, I did,” he said, like a proud child. “Helped 'em trench the footings.”

  “I didn't know you helped.”

  “While they were trenching, somebody dug a deep hole just inside that front footing, just to soften the ground so when that old man was planted, all they had to do was scrape back those shiny rocks and clear out the soft dirt underneath.” He smiled, more for himself as he stared into the air. “Someone done backed a truck up to where that floor was gonna be poured. Covered that ol' fool with his fool's gold rocks.”

  “That's what they say.”

  Only the person who committed the heinous act would know about the dirt in one spot having been pre-softened. Or the reason being simply to back up a truck and discard a body right inside the wall closest to the end of the driveway. “So what would that person do with the dirt they took out of the hole?” she asked.

  Tripp shrugged. “Probably used it in some flower beds somewhere.” He shifted in the chair. “I didn't need to drive in tonight, though,” he said as he glanced quickly into her eyes, looked away, and then turned back. “I got these.” He tapped the goggles.

  Everything Tripp said had a double meaning and Sara understood both. She innocently glanced at her watch. Hopefully, every word they spoke was being monitored, but she still felt alone. However did she convince herself she could be as calm as Jessica Fletcher? This was not a TV rehearsal that could be stopped and re-scripted.

  She went to the sink and rinsed her hands and glanced out the kitchen window to the north. The surveillance van would be parked only a quarter mile away behind the façade of eucalyptus trees. She saw nothing. Her reflection against the rain-speckled pane reminded that the darkest shades of the moonless night had overtaken them. She wouldn't be able to see a reflection off the van or windshield unless another vehicle happened by.

  Sara could only hope that officers were already in place around the house instead of waiting until six o'clock. She hadn't had a chance to unlock all the doors for easier access. Though they had keys, having to use them could hinder a quick entry. She just might have to go out into the dark with this man, but not before getting him to admit to something substantial.

  When she turned around, Tripp stared at her with that hard gleam in his eyes, but he did seem less threatening sitting down. She had to keep up the momentum. “Coffee smell is always appetizing.”

  He frowned, glanced at the coffee maker and back to her but said nothing.

  She poured and sat a mug in front of him. She didn't plan to let him come anywhere near her cup. He wrapped his fingers around his mug, and for the first time, Sara paid attention to his huge hands up close. He had fingers strong enough to snap a hyoid bone with or without an accompanying fit of rage. The backs of his fingers and hands were shaved, all the way up under his long sleeved shirt. She had always seen traces of hair on the back of his hands and fingers. Shaving meant no stray hairs would be left behind.

  Sara stepped to the refrigerator and brought out a plastic store-bought platter of walnut brownies. “Want some?”

  “Brownies?” he asked, excited like a good little boy. “For me?”

  She pulled the landscape drawings aside and placed the tray in front of him. Then she saw it. The end of the plastic wrap hung loose. Someone had already eaten a brownie. Tripp had already snooped in her fridge and eaten one. While she changed her clothes?

  He giggled and leaned over the table, ripped the wrapper off, and grabbed one.

  Click-click.

  Tripp's demeanor switched as fast as he could pick a lock or click it closed, keeping the outside out and the inside in. “Did I do good, Mommy?” he asked, sounding like a child. “I dug deep today.”

  Mommy? He was remembering his mother? What exactly had he dug today?

  He held the small cake with both hands and brought it to his mouth with both hands, like a child might, and poked nearly the entire thing inside. He smacked his lips and repeatedly said, “Um-m-m,” and chewed noisily, finishing it off. Then he reached for another like a spoiled child. Or one used to being bribed.

  Sara couldn't help staring. The energy of Tripp's self-absorption filled the room and made her nauseous. Still, she picked up a brownie and bit into it as he watched.

  The only way to get him to talk might be to appeal to both the boy and the man, to try to appease either, as if she understood and also wanted to play. “That hole behind the garage a few weeks ago wasn't deep enough to bury the cat,” she said as she managed a meager smile, treating it as if it were all a joke.

  “Momma always told me to aerate the soil,” he said through a mouthful. “Get it ready for planting.”

  After he had eaten three brownies, he settled back into his chair and sucked on his teeth. His facial expression alone told her that at that moment he had shifted mental gears.

  Click-click.

  The shift proved out when he took a sip of the black coffee and said, “I have a lot of work to do tonight.” The expression in his eyes had changed back to sinister. He leaned on his elbows, as if at a bar, telling tall tales through an alcoholic haze. “But you're awful smart about that hole.”

  “You're real good with gardening and shovels and getting things into the ground, aren't you?”

  “Had me a lot of practice.” His breathing seemed shallow. All the talk about putting things into the ground excited him. “But some things take diggin' real deep.”

  How long could the man in him keep the naughty boy contained? Or was the boy the one who kept the man in check? Sara sensed the two about to join. Explosively.

  Click-click.

  “Momma taught me real good,” Tripper, the boy, said. “But the desert was awful hard.”

  “So that's why you chose softer soils near streams and rivers? That's pretty smart.”

  “You're smart about a lot of things too.” Tripper's attitude was playfully retaliatory.

  “Tell me something,” she said, playing into his twisted rationale. “What made you start on this career, burying bodies? Not everybody chooses to do what you've done.”

  Tripper pulled his chin back. “It might have been my momma. Or maybe it was my daddy.” He seemed confused.

  “Tell me about your daddy. Were you two real close?”

  “Was.” His lower lip protruded. “Till he killed my dog.”

  “Your own father, Tripper?”

  The boy sagged into the chair. “Yeah, I found me a cute little mutt that nobody wanted. My daddy, he always told me what to do because he was sickly and wanted me to carry on after him. He didn't want no dog, said I spent too much time playing with it and not enough working like he taught me.” Tripper began to whine. “My dog bit me once while we were playing. Drew out my blood and my momma said blood shouldn't come out no time. A person could bleed all over the place, and my dog made me bleed. My daddy got mad cause I couldn't get all the stains up. One day I found my
dog dead. My daddy did it.” Tripper clenched and unclenched his fists. For a few seconds, he put his fists to his temples and stared at the tabletop and then looked up even more wild-eyed. “He bashed my dog's head in.”

  Sara gasped. “That was so cruel.”

  “Yeah, it was. So I fooled my daddy,” Tripper said, giggling wickedly. “He was sickly, like I told you. I kept my dead dog till it dried up to skin and bone.” He giggled again. “Had trouble hiding the smell, but I did it.”

  “You kept your dead dog? You loved it that much?”

  “I did. And when my daddy died, I crept into the cemetery after they dug the hole for his coffin to be placed in the next day.” He had hunched over and used his hands to show how he snuck into the cemetery. “I buried my dog in the bottom of that hole, so my daddy could get paid back for what he done.”

  Now Sara understood. It was Tripper, the child, who killed and who liked to boast. Tripp, the adult, was who kept the lid screwed on, like a spring coiled tight, about to release.

  “How do you figure you paid him back, Tripper?”

  Tripper warmed to the nickname and straightened in his chair and stuck his chin out. “Cause now he has to spend eternity with my dog that he killed.” He threw back his head to laugh, but no sound came out. “Then I took me a rock from the ground by his grave. That hard rock would never die and it reminded me how long my daddy had to spend with my dog.”

  Sara quickly put together the psychology of it all. Surely now, Tripper killed animals to bury with his victims, just as he buried his dog with his father. But how and why did he learn to kill in the first place? She needed to be careful how she phrased things. “It's cruel that your dad killed your pet. So now when people hurt you, you make sure that they spend eternity with an animal. Is that right?”

  He seemed pleased that she understood and looked into her eyes and smiled warmly. “You got that right.”

  “You're one smart young man, aren't you?”

  “Always was. But my momma and daddy couldn't see it.”

  Sara had never been a mom, but one of Tripp's parents should have helped him. “Wasn't your momma there to protect you?”

  “Couldn't have been,” Tripper said. “She already went away.” He smiled again and each time he did, it seemed he expressed a different pleasure with each memory. “Had a rock for her too.”

  Chapter 62

  Hair stood up on the back of Sara's neck. She choked on her coffee and then smiled weakly. “Never could drink real hot coffee,” she said, lying, and setting her cup down. “A rock for your mom? Where did you plant her?”

  Not a sound came from outside and Sara wondered if she had any protection at all.

  Tripper squirmed in his chair. “I started collecting rocks when my momma went away,” he said. “Got lots of em after that.”

  Sara looked sympathetically into his eyes. “Where's Momma planted, Tripper?”

  He thought a moment and couldn't seem to come up with an answer. Then he said, “Well, under one of them boulders, I know that.”

  How many more were under boulders? “Is she nearby, so you can visit her from time to time?”

  Click-click.

  “Visit,” Tripp said, suddenly irritated. “I got them rocks to remember by.” He thought a little longer, and then said, “We're from Arizona.”

  “What makes you think of home, Tripper?” Sara wished to keep the talkative boy present. “Is that where Momma is?”

  “They got nice boulders there. Momma had her own rock collection before that.”

  She had to calm her breath. She coughed, faking a cold coming on. She needed more information. “So your momma is in the shadow box too?”

  “Hell no. My daddy throwed away my collection when he got mad about my dog. Who-e-e! Mad like a hornet,” Tripp said. “Threw away my big rock collection. Part of it was Momma's collection too. Anyway, I just started me a new bunch. Don't have near as many as Momma and I had together.”

  He was Tripp at that moment and he wasn't talking about gardening. “How did your momma turn on you, Tripper?”

  Click-click.

  He pouted. “Like I told you. She used to beat my daddy with them metal ladles and spoons. She promised me she wouldn't do it no more. Time and again she promised.” He sighed, like he was tired. “She always lied to me. I promised to dig all those holes for her plantin' if she would quit hittin' my daddy, but she lied.” He looked into her eyes quickly, again like an animated child telling a ghost story. “One day my daddy said he wished she was dead. I loved my daddy back then and felt sorry for his head being beat on all the time.” He stopped talking, again lost in thought. Then he said, “I kept my momma's rock till my daddy throwed everything away.”

  Tripper responded well to childish things. Sara tried to cajole the boy by leaning sideways and looking at him, then leaning the other way and doing the same, like she was playing. She remembered one particular rock from Tripp's collection, the rock that sparked the connection to all the crimes. “How did Orson Talbot turn on you, Tripper? Did he lie to you?”

  Sara sat down again at the opposite end of the table and glanced into her open pocket to make sure her phone was still on. It was and, hopefully, someone at 911 was listening.

  Click-click.

  “That old man was rich,” Tripp said. “I worked hard for him. He wouldn't give me one tiny gold nugget. He said I'd go sell it and drink in a bar.”

  “Do you drink a lot?”

  “Used to.” He threw back his shoulders. “But I need my wits about me for the work I do now.”

  He was not drinking anymore in order to keep the lid on the jar from flying off. He was both a boy and a man, the latter remaining strong enough to hide the misdeeds of a very confused child.

  “What about Esmerelda?” Sara asked. “She's always good to you.”

  “Yeah, like my momma.”

  “You know that woman would never harm anyone.”

  Tripp shrugged. “I couldn't hurt her, unless she hurt me first. I was always watching out for that.” He looked at her sideways. “I been watching you too.”

  Sara hoped he couldn't see shock in her reaction. “You watched me, Tripp?” Then acting as if it was all fun, she smiled and asked “When?”

  “I had to know who moved into this house. Had to know if they was gonna destroy my planting.” He straightened his shoulders. “I used to come around this house way in the dark of night, just trying to figure out the best way to handle the situation, if it ever come up.” He looked her straight into the eyes. “You have no idea how many times I been inside your house.”

  Sara thought she might faint. Her suspicions were confirmed. The footsteps, the shovel marks, Tripp made them all! And to think Esmerelda's life had also been in jeopardy all those years.

  Sara acted nicely, trying to seem like one of Tripp's little friends. If he ever had any. “So tell me,” she said, as if enjoying the mystique. She even snickered. “How did you find Orson in Placerville to bring him back and plant him?”

  Tripp chuckled and doubled up a huge fist and pounded it lightly again and again against the edge of the table. “I planted him all right.”

  The wind continued to whip the rain against the windows.

  Sara felt herself slipping deeper into Tripp's insanity. The only thing that kept her holding on was that she knew she was playing a role. “So how'd you pull that off?”

  “Was easy.” He slipped down in his chair and spread his legs under the table. “He wouldn't give me one perty little gold rock. Not one teeny…. I just followed him till he got to his campsite. Took care of him right away. Brought him back and planted him on purpose under those shiny rocks, all in the same night.”

  Sara clasped her hands tight under the table. “Well, you're strong, Tripp. Only a strong person could do that.”

  “That's right. People don't know how strong I am till they make me prove it.”

  “So you took one of Orson's fool's gold rocks for your collection af
ter you planted him, right?”

  “I got me a mighty fine collection. One from every—” Tripp jumped up and knocked over his chair trying to get to the window.

  Sara had heard the noise too. “That must be the other dog,” she said quickly. “I told you it would be back.” She was both relieved to hear the noise, and frightened that Tripp might have recognized what made the sound.

  “Don't open the door,” he said. “I don't want no dog in here.”

  Somehow, Sara had to keep Tripp's mental state from jumping the track, had to keep him from locking up. He needed to admit to much more. “Your history is fascinating,” she said, leaving her chair and up-righting his. “Tell me how you came to have such a huge collection.”

  Tripp looked out the kitchen window. Finally, he turned slowly and came back to the table and sat down, but seemed wary. He sipped his coffee and that helped him relax. His expression changed to that of an old sage preparing to orate the tales of his life experiences. That killer loved his deeds.

  Chapter 63

  “I love your nice rock collection,” Sara said. “Remember when we were in your cabin? You have them all nice in a shadow box.”

  Tripp rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Some of the most important people who turned on me is in there.”

  “How many would you say you've collected?” She took another sip of coffee.

  “Hell, I don't know,” he said, twisting around in the seat and placing an elbow casually on the back of his chair. “I lost track.”

  “Where are they all from? I only saw them a moment, but they were all different types of rocks.” She tried to remember the shadow box and mentally count them.

  “Can't say. I collected everywhere from… from Loomis up north to, maybe, San Jose down south.” He looked at her as if asking a question, waiting for approval or recognition.

  “You really get around,” Sara said. She tried to smile at him like a friend might. But the conversation wasn't saying much. Just for a moment Sara wondered if she would be able to pull off the ruse. “So you've planted people in all those locations?”