Island of Bones

by P J Parrish

  She was struggling not to cry. But for the life of him Louis couldn’t figure out for whom.

  “Leave me alone,” Diane said. “I just want to be alone.”

  It was the way she said it, forcing out each word like it hurt, that gave him the briefest feeling of pity. How did a human being become so detached, so disconnected?

  He knew he shouldn’t do what he was about to do, but he couldn’t help it.

  “You have a grandfather, you know,” Louis said. “Your mother’s father. He’s still alive.”

  Diane’s eyes widened. “My mother’s father?”

  Louis nodded. “Yeah, he lives over on Pine Island, St. James City. His name is James Reardon.”

  “Does he --?” She stopped.

  “Know about you?” Louis nodded. “He’s old and he’s not well. You should go see him, before it’s too late.”

  Tears fell silently down her face. “I have to go,” she said. She started to shut the door but Louis put up a hand to stop it.

  “Diane,” he said, “just tell me where your father is.”

  The tears had left streaks on her powdered face. “He went back,” she said.

  He let go of the door and she shut it.

  The Deadhead throttled the boat’s motor up and turned his face into the breeze. Louis was sitting in the front, watching the gulls float and dip on the currents. The sky was pearly gray with coming rain and the water was choppy.

  “Hey, man,” the Deadhead called out, “what you wanna go out to that creepo place for?”

  Louis ignored him.

  “I heard there was a cult out there,” the Deadhead yelled over the outboard. “I heard they was eating dogs and cutting off baby heads and all sorts of weird shit, man.” He shook his head. “Probably fried the dogs up and served ’em in that friggin’ restaurant.”

  “Shut up and drive,” Louis said. He had already paid him the hundred bucks he owed him and now twenty more. He didn’t need to listen to his shit.

  The Deadhead was silent the rest of the way, pulling the boat up to the dock about thirty minutes later. There were two police boats there, and several officers were standing in the yard of the restaurant.

  The officer nearest the dock saw the Deadhead coming in and started to wave him off. Louis recognized Jay Strickland, the cop on Sanibel with the Vespa. Louis signaled him, and Strickland motioned the boat in.

  Louis could see the yellow crime scene tape up at the restaurant. It was cut and flapping in the wind so he knew the restaurant had already been cleared.

  Louis picked up the del Bosque Bible and got out, telling the Deadhead to wait for him. Strickland met him in the middle of the dock and walked with him toward the restaurant.

  “This is some case,” Strickland said.

  “Yeah.”

  “They aren’t telling us much, you know,” Strickland went on. “Is it true, about the babies and everything?”

  Louis stopped. He could see the confusion in Strickland’s eyes, and all the questions any normal person, any father, might have about this whole sick thing. But he could also see there was no way in hell it could be explained.

  “I can’t talk about it,” Louis said. “Sorry.”

  Strickland nodded.

  Louis shifted the Bible to his other arm. “You seen Frank Woods around?”

  “He’s inside,” Strickland said. “Chief called and said he could go in the restaurant since the techs were finished with it. I thought it was strange but the chief says technically the island belongs to him now so we can’t keep him out.”

  “Thanks.”

  Louis went inside. It was dim and cool. The chairs were all upended on the tables and there were some cardboard boxes stacked on the floor near the entrance. They were filled with books. Louis looked up at the bar. The Poussin painting was still there.

  “I should take that down.”

  Louis turned to see Frank standing by the kitchen door. He was wearing old khaki shorts and a faded green T-shirt. His right shoulder was wrapped in gauze. He came farther into the room, looking up at the painting.

  “I was about Roberto’s age when I started working in here,” Frank said. “I remember when my uncle Alfonso came home with it. It was right after he came back with his wife. He said he found it in an old store over on Pine Island. No one ever told me what was going on in the painting. I always thought they were just having a party.”

  Frank looked at Louis. “It’s by Poussin. It’s called ‘The Rape of the Sabine Women’."

  “I know,” Louis said. “I also know what it means.”

  Frank looked back at the painting. “Do you see the woman in the middle, the one who is listening to her abductor? She isn’t fighting him at all. She’s going peacefully.”

  “That didn’t make it right,” Louis said.

  Frank let out a breath. “No, of course not. The Romans had a way of idealizing their crimes.”

  Louis watched as Frank went over to a table and took off one of the chairs. He set it upright and sat down. His eyes were traveling slowly over the restaurant.

  “The women weren’t abducted, not like most people might think,” he said.

  Louis came in and set the Bible down on one of the tables. “How was it done?” he asked.

  “When a del Bosque man came of age at eighteen, he was told to go off the island and find his wife. That’s how I met Sophie at the drugstore.”

  Louis thought about the paragraph in Frank’s book about the Asturian rite of passage, how the young men would ride through the village symbolically beating the women.

  “Emilio and I used to take turns going over to Pine Island to get the things we needed, and he was the one who saw her first,” Frank went on. “But I was the one she wanted.”

  Frank was staring at the painting. “He never forgave me when we got married. But Mama told him he had to find his own wife. So he brought Emma back.”

  Frank looked over at Louis. “I know you think it was wrong, that the women were too young, that they didn’t know what they really wanted. But they were happy here. They were loved and taken care of. They didn’t want to leave.”

  “Shelly did,” Louis said.

  Frank shook his head. “Tomas was mean. And he didn’t have the patience to find a woman who wanted to come.”

  “So he abducted Shelly?” Louis asked.

  Frank nodded. “And he raped her.”

  “And then he shot her when she tried to escape,” Louis said.

  Frank nodded again, more slowly. “That’s when I knew things were changing out here. That’s why I came back. I thought I could...” His voice trailed off and he ran a hand over his face. “I don’t know what I thought.”

  Louis came forward to stand in front of Frank. “How in the hell could the women be content when you were killing their children?”

  It had started to rain, drumming softly on the roof and sending a briny breeze through the restaurant. Frank didn’t answer or look at Louis. He was staring out at the open door. Louis knew he wasn’t going to talk. Frank Woods knew the “why” behind all of it, but he would never tell it. He hadn’t told Horton. He wasn’t going to tell now. He would go to his grave protecting his sick, twisted family. Suddenly, Louis just wanted to get out of there.

  “I have something for you,” Louis said. He put the Bible down on the table in front of Frank.

  Frank looked at it. “Where did you get this?”

  “Your mother told me to give it to you.”

  Frank ran his fingers over the worn cover.

  “She told me to tell you something,” Louis said. “It sounded like ut sciat qui esset.”

  Louis waited, but Frank didn’t look up. “Does that mean anything to you?”

  Frank didn’t move.

  “Fuck this,” Louis said and started for the door.

  “So he knows what he is,” Frank said. He looked up at Louis. “Ut sciat qui esset. It means ‘so he knows what he is.’”

  Louis shook his hea
d. “So what the hell are you, Frank?”

  Frank opened the Bible to the frontispiece. He pressed his palm gently down on the family tree.

  “I had a sister,” Frank said. “I was very small when she was born but I remember her. I remember when she was born she had all this beautiful dark curly hair.” Frank didn’t look up. “But there was something wrong with her, her back was twisted. I remember hearing them talk about it, Mama and my two uncles. I stood outside the door one night and listened but I didn’t understand. Then the next day, Taresa was gone. When I asked Mama what happened to her, she told me that Taresa was God’s mistake and He had taken her back.”

  Frank was silent, looking down at the Bible.

  “Ana killed her,” Louis said. “That’s how this all started?”

  Frank looked over at him and nodded. “Later, long after I left here, I figured out that Taresa probably just had a condition called spinal muscular atrophy.”

  “But why the others?” Louis asked.

  Frank stared out at the open door. “Mama was afraid they would be the same, their bones twisted. She was convinced our blood had become tainted somehow.”

  “Why just the girls then?”

  Frank covered his eyes with his hand.

  “Why?”

  Frank pushed the open Bible across the table. Louis came forward, pulled his reading glasses from his pocket and put them on. His eyes traveling over the names and the lines that linked them. Each del Bosque man was connected to his wife. Each child was connected to his parents.

  He was seeing exactly what was there. Then suddenly he saw what wasn’t there.

  Four lines connected Ana del Bosque’s children to her. The same four lines connected to Mateo del Bosque. There was no line between Ana and Mateo. Mateo wasn’t Ana’s husband, as she had told Horton. He was her brother.

  “Incest?” Louis said. “That’s what this is all about?”

  Frank looked up, wiping his face. “I didn’t know any of this for sure until yesterday.”

  “When you were talking to your mother in Latin,” Louis said. “That’s when she told you?”

  Frank nodded. “I always suspected it. I mean, I didn’t have a father. Mama told us his name was Eli and that he had died and was buried with the rest of the family in the cemetery, but I never saw a marker with that name on it.”

  “So Mateo was your father, too?”

  Frank nodded woodenly. “My grandparents had died, so it was just the three of them living here by then —- Mama, Mateo, and Alfonso. Mateo started raping Mama when she was just fifteen. She gave birth to my brother Edmundo. It didn’t stop, and she had me and Emilio. Mama was twenty-two when Taresa was born. She shot Mateo soon after that.”

  Louis looked down at the Bible. “And Alfonso?”

  “Mama told him the blood had to be purified, that he had to go off the island and bring back a wife. He was the first to do it.”

  Louis was silent, thinking, putting the pieces together. “And the baby girls? They were killed to prevent more incest?”

  Frank hesitated then nodded. “To keep it from happening again.”

  Louis turned away, shaking his head. After a moment, he turned back to Frank. “Did you know about the babies?”

  “No, we were not told until it was necessary. I didn’t find out until Sophie got pregnant,” Frank said. “A few weeks before she was due, Mama came to me and told me she would take care of birthing the baby.”

  Louis didn’t say anything.

  “But I couldn’t stay away,” Frank said, his voice soft. “I snuck out to the birthing house and waited. It took forever. Then I heard a baby cry and Mama came out carrying my daughter. I asked her where she was going and Mama told me the baby had to be given back to God.”

  Frank looked up at Louis. “I couldn’t let it happen. I told Mama we would leave, that I would take my wife and baby to the mainland and live.”

  “She just let you go?”

  Frank nodded. “But I was never to come back. That was our agreement.”

  Louis took off his glasses and put them away. He went slowly to the open door, drawing in a full breath. He remembered the cabin where he had found Angel. It was isolated, away from the family compound, away from the eyes and ears of the other women. Maybe so they could deny it was happening? Ana del Bosque had told Horton that she had smothered the babies.

  But then Louis remembered how Rafael had looked as he led Angel to that cabin. Had it become the man’s responsibility to kill the newborn if it was a girl?

  Louis closed his eyes. Responsibility. Jesus, was that even the right word?

  The rain had stopped and it was quiet for a moment. Louis could see the cops outside in their yellow slickers standing under a tree, laughing as they lit up cigarettes.

  “Why didn’t you tell the police any of this?” Louis asked, turning back to Frank.

  “I wanted only to stop it,” Frank said. “Besides, you have an old woman to put on trial. What more do you want?”

  Louis shook his head.

  “Diane doesn’t know any of this,” Frank said.

  “You need to tell her.”

  Frank shook his head.

  “She has a right to know, Frank.”

  When Frank looked up at him there was a spark of anger in his eyes. “About what? About the incest? About what I carry in my blood, what I have passed on to her? She told me once she never wants to have children. Can you imagine hearing that from your own child, can you imagine how that makes you feel?”

  His eyes welled. “Relieved. I feel relieved.”

  Frank looked away quickly. Louis didn’t know what to say. He started for the door.

  “You won’t tell her, will you?” Frank asked.

  Louis turned back. “No.”

  Frank nodded slowly. “Good. I just want her to be happy and have a normal life. If I stay away from her, she still has a chance.”

  “Where will you go?” Louis asked.

  “My place is here,” Frank said, closing the Bible. “Vulpes pilum mutat, non mores. The wolf changes his skin, not his habits.”

  CHAPTER 51

  When Louis came out of the restaurant, he saw a man coming around the side of the building. He was carrying a large plastic evidence bag, but it was the way that the man was holding it that told Louis what was in it.

  The man was cradling it gently, respectfully.

  Louis watched the man take the bag down to a waiting patrol boat and carefully hand it over to another man. It had begun to rain again, just a light drizzle, and in the flat light the green of the trees and the yellow of the cops’s rain slickers seemed to jump with color.

  Louis watched the men in the patrol boat for a moment, then came down off the porch and headed to the fence.

  He went through the open gate and walked slowly up the path. There was no one in the compound when he got there, but the yellow tape was still draped around the house and cabins. He crossed the compound and headed down the path on the far side, following the path as it sloped downward toward the mangroves.

  Ahead of him, he could hear the thud of shovels against dirt, and a murmur of voices.

  He came to the cemetery and stopped behind the yellow tape. It looked like a small camp. A canvas canopy had been erected over most of the cemetery, with a second smaller one off to one side. There was a portable aluminum table under the small canopy, and a man in a blue windbreaker was bent over some equipment, looking at something with a magnifier.

  There were two men working on the graves. One was digging with a small shovel and pouring small amounts of the dirt onto a screen held by the second man, who then sifted through it. They worked slowly, searching for small bones.

  A flash drew Louis’s attention to his left. Another man in a raincoat was photographing the process and the site.

  Louis heard one of the men say something about a blanket. He looked back to see the man with the small shovel carefully extracting a piece of cloth from the dirt. When he hel
d it in his latex-gloved hand, Louis could see it —- black with mold but with its satin edging still intact.

  The man put the cloth in an evidence bag. Then he carefully reached into the hole and lifted out a tan object, like a tiny bowl. Louis felt a small kick in his heart.

  It was a piece of skull.

  The man put it in an evidence bag. The technician working behind the table stepped away, ducking under the tape. He stopped under an oak tree and lit a cigarette, cupping his hand over the match against the drizzle.

  Louis went over to the aluminum table, stopping outside the tape. He looked down. There were two plastic evidence bags, both about twelve by fifteen inches, sealed and signed. Both bags seemed to be filled with what looked to be just old rags.

  Louis bent closer. Inside one bag, he could see some bones in the cloth. They were stained brown from the tannin that had seeped in from the mangroves.

  Louis reached out and touched one through the plastic.

  Tiny. They were so tiny.

  His throat tightened, and for several seconds, he stood perfectly still, the sound of the rain on the canopy in his ears.

  “Hey, get away from there.”

  Louis drew his hand back and looked up. The man who had stepped out to smoke was staring at him. He tossed down his butt, crushed it out in the mud, and came over.

  “You got any authority to be here?” he asked.

  Louis shook his head.

  “Well, get moving. We’ve got work to do here and you’re in the way.”

  Louis stepped out from under the canopy. He stood there for a moment in the rain. Then he wiped his face with the heel of his hand and went back up the path.

  CHAPTER 52

  Someone was out on the porch, banging on the screen door. Louis dropped his armload of dirty laundry on the bed and started out to the living room. When he saw Pierre standing behind the screen, he tried to duck back in the bedroom before he was seen.

  “Louis!” Pierre called out. “I know you are in there! Let me in!”

  Louis let out a sigh and went and unlatcehd the screen door.