The Bones Will Speak

by Carrie Stuart Parks

  “Do you have any idea who this Phineas priest is?” he asked.

  “No. Not yet. But I intend to find out—”

  “No. I want you to steer clear of this whole group.” Dave put down his pen. “Go stay with Beth. At least until after the twentieth. I don’t have the manpower to protect you until after this torchlight parade.”

  Her expression said he was wasting his breath. “Right. That’s what I thought. You’re not going to listen to me.” He looked at the foam board again. “At least connect a Montana serial killer, a Phineas Priesthood cell, and a girl killed by a rogue wolf.”

  “We left out that part,” Gwen said. “I don’t know how he did it, but do you know what the Phineas Priesthood calls their strategy?”

  “What?”

  “Lone Wolf.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “HERE.” DAVE GRABBED SOME PAPERS OUT OF his in-box. “Since you’re determined to work on this.” He handed the papers to Gwen. “You asked about the Spokane serial killings when we were at the McCandless farm. They faxed over what they had. Please leave it to me to look into the Phineas Priesthood angle.”

  I took the materials from him and started for the door.

  “I mean it, Gwen. You need to stay clear and stay safe,” Dave called after me.

  Once we reached the sidewalk outside, Beth grabbed my arm. “Are you going to do what Dave said?”

  “Half of it. Stay safe.”

  “Are you sure—”

  “Whose side are you on?”

  “How can you ask me that? I’m your partner, sidekick, Friday to your Robinson Crusoe.”

  I strolled toward my parked car. “Okay, Friday, let’s go to work.”

  Dave leaned back in his chair and studied the display propped against the wall. The murmuring of the dispatch operator into her headphone in the other room and the buzzing florescent light overhead provided background noise. He picked up the phone. “Yeah, FBI? I need to speak to an agent. This is Sheriff Dave Moore.”

  The phone clicked. “How can we help you, Sheriff?”

  “I was wondering if you guys were tracking any Phineas Priesthood activities in this area or know anything about a church called, uh, just a minute . . .” Dave found the brochure. “The American Christian Covenant Church?”

  “We haven’t heard of any Phineas Priesthood members around here. Do you have something for us?”

  “I might.”

  “We’ll have someone contact you in the morning. On that church, I assume you’re calling about their torchlight parade.”

  “You know about it?”

  The agent chuckled. “Yeah. We’ve been keeping an eye on them. We have no creditable threat at this time, but if previous parades are any indication, you’ll need a lot of police presence to keep the peace.”

  “Yeah. I already figured that out. Thanks.” Dave hung up.

  His gaze lingered on the Phineas Priesthood symbol. “What are you planning?”

  “What are you going to do, Gwen?” Beth slipped into the passenger seat.

  “Fit the last pieces of the puzzle together. I still have one more drawing I can finish.” I started the car.

  “The skull Winston found?” Beth asked.

  “Right.”

  We didn’t speak as we drove through wisps of fog floating near the ground, like tattered sails in the still air. The sullen clouds blocked the tops of the mountains and crowded the scenery. Headlights from the few passing cars dimly glowed like jaundiced eyes through the mist.

  “This is interesting.” Beth looked up from the papers in her lap.

  “What is?”

  “The materials Dave handed you. The police reports on the Spokane serial killings.”

  “Would you follow up on it?”

  Beth’s eyes lighted up. “Absolutely. Will we work at your studio? Do I need additional files? Are we going undercover? Do I need a gun?”

  “Yes. Maybe. No. You can borrow mine if you bring your own bullets.”

  “Gwen!” Her face flushed. “Why do you answer me like that? I can’t follow what you’re saying.”

  “I’m teaching you how to ask questions one at a time and wait for the answer. A good interview technique. And besides, I couldn’t resist.”

  We arrived home, unlocked the door, and moved to the studio. Stagnant air greeted us, and I cracked open a window. The room soon filled with the scent of wet grass and flowering bushes.

  Aynslee paused in the doorway.

  “Homework,” I said.

  “Oh, Mom—”

  “Don’t ‘oh, Mom’ me. I want it done. Remember, you’re going to a movie with Beth this afternoon.”

  “We’ll make it dinner and a movie,” Beth said. “You’ll dine at my house.”

  “Mom said I could spend the night.”

  “Yes, it’s all worked out,” Beth said. “What’s the movie?”

  “Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2.”

  I tried not to look at my friend. Beth sniffed once, then settled at the computer.

  “This is what I need you to do,” I said. “We’ve linked the Phineas Priesthood to these murders here in Copper Creek.”

  “The symbol and Numbers 25:6. Right.”

  “Now I want you to find a connection between Spokane’s Phineas Priesthood case and here.”

  “That missing fourth member. That makes sense.”

  “Also, see if there’s any link with that old Spokane serial killing and the present murders here.”

  Beth nodded.

  “But before you start your research, could you print out some digitals for me?” I pointed to the images, and Beth soon had them ready. I took the photos of the cranium and mandible and scaled them to the same size. Placing the cranium on my light table, I cut out the mandible and arranged it in the correct location, then placed a piece of velum over the top and taped everything down. Normally I would have prepared for a two-dimensional reconstruction by applying tissue depth markers—erasers from an electric erasing machine cut to precise lengths. They would then be glued to the skull, but I no longer had the skull. Jeannie had whisked it away before I’d had a chance to do anything with it. Now I’d have to rely on the metric ruler I’d placed in the photo and the measurements I’d noted.

  The printer clacked into life and soon churned out a mound of papers.

  “Are you printing out a manuscript?”

  “You did ask for research.” She collected the pile of papers, sat at my desk, and tapped them into an orderly stack. “This all was most interesting.”

  “Yes?”

  Beth pulled her purse closer and rummaged through the depths before tugging out a lavender-and-white cube of Post-it Notes.

  “Beth?”

  She continued to look in her purse, placed it on the floor, then pulled out the top drawer of my desk. “Do you have a highlighter?”

  “On your left.”

  “That’s yellow. Do you have a purple or—”

  “No. I’m waiting.”

  She ruffled through the stack, pausing to apply a lavender tab or highlight a line.

  “I’m growing old here. Could you share your results in my lifetime?”

  “Hmm. Almost done.”

  I gave up and went back to my sketch.

  “Okay, okay, okay.” She again tapped the heap of paper into order. “The only thing everything has in common is you.”

  “Define ‘everything.’ ”

  “First of all, there’s the serial killer here in Copper Creek. You were lured to Mattie Banks and found the grave. You return and find a piece of paper with a Phineas Priesthood symbol under a dead cat. The two events could be unrelated, but Mattie told you the numbers and you found the symbol on the map someone took from your show. I don’t know yet if the church pamphlets and the torchlight parade are part of this or not.”

  “Okay.”

  “You drew three composites on the Phineas Priesthood case in Spokane several years ago, and you tried to draw a composite on th
e Spokane serial killings.”

  “Not so surprising. I work on a lot of cases. Make that past tense.” Opening the book Forensic Guide to Facial Reconstruction, I found the charts for an average weight, European-Caucasian female.

  “There is an interesting connection I didn’t expect to find.” She selected a lavender tab and peered at the page. “The son of the lead detective on the Phineas Priesthood case was a victim of the Spokane serial killer.”

  I paused in my drawing. “That’s what the clerk said on the phone, but I hadn’t really thought about it.” Coincidence? “Remind me, you said I tried to do a composite on the Spokane serial killings.”

  Beth shuffled the papers for a moment. “This report doesn’t say why. Just that you were called in but no composite was drawn.” She marked something with the highlighter.

  The phone rang. “Hello?” I said.

  “Is this Gwen Marcey, the forensic artist?” a male voice asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Ms. Marcey, you don’t know me, but I have some information you need.”

  “Oh? What information?”

  Who is it? Beth mouthed.

  I shrugged at her.

  “Not over the phone.” The man cleared his throat. “I need to meet with you. In person.”

  Yeah. Right, Mr. Serial Killer. I resisted the urge to laugh at him. “You’ll need to tell me what this is in reference to.”

  The man didn’t speak for a few moments. “Did you recently get a subpoena on a case out of Spokane? A case involving the Phineas Priesthood?”

  Goose pimples prickled my neck. “Who is this?”

  “My name is Scott Thomas. I was supposed to prosecute the case.”

  “The clerk I spoke to on the phone mentioned a prosecutor. You’re the one who left town?”

  “Yes.”

  “I did receive a subpoena.”

  He didn’t speak for a moment. “Do you have a child? A daughter?”

  I gripped the phone tighter. “Why?”

  “I heard about the dump site and young girl on television, did some calling around, then drove down from Medicine Hat, Alberta, to talk to you. But not over the phone. Not to sound melodramatic, but you and your daughter are in great danger.”

  I leaned on the desk, my legs suddenly weak. “Why can’t you tell me over the phone?”

  “I need to give you something.”

  “Put it in the mail. Or UPS. Or FedEx.”

  “You wouldn’t get it in time. And time is something we don’t have.”

  “Where and when?”

  “Tonight. Ten thirty. There’s an all-night restaurant north of you on Highway 93. A town called Florence—”

  “I know it.”

  “Country Inn. Make sure you aren’t followed.”

  “How will I know you?”

  “I’ll know you.” The line went dead.

  My hand shook slightly as I hung up. “Could you keep Aynslee a bit longer tomorrow? It could be a late night, but I may get some more answers to our questions.”

  “Sure. And since I won’t see you before church, you be careful at that service tomorrow.”

  “Yeah.” I explained what I had planned for the following day.

  “Are you taking your gun tonight?”

  I made a wry face at her. “My choices are a bit limited right now. I can go into the café with a pink camouflage rifle and be laughed out of the building by the locals, or I can be Barney Fife and take my SIG Sauer with the single bullet.”

  Before Beth could answer, Aynslee entered with a backpack. “Mom, Beth, if we’re going to eat before the movie . . .?”

  I checked my watch. “I didn’t realize it was so late.”

  “I’ve put my notes on your desk,” Beth said.

  “Thanks, Beth.” I trailed after the two and locked the door behind them. The house suddenly felt cold and empty. I retrieved an old, snaggy sweater from my bedroom.

  Returning to my studio, I clicked on the radio for company, then continued to work on the facial reconstruction. Measuring down nine millimeters from the frontozygomatic suture, I placed a dot. A second dot on my paper marked the lacrimal crest. I drew a line between the two points to place the eye, then used a circle template to draw the iris.

  I calculated the upper and lower lip thickness by measuring the teeth, and marked a point between the first premolar-canine junction. Sketching in the wings five millimeters outside of the nasal aperture, I roughed in her nose. Her face took shape under my rapidly moving pencil. A face I knew very well.

  She looked like my daughter.

  “The signature, Dave!”

  Dave held the phone away from his ear to keep from going deaf.

  “There’s absolutely no doubt of it,” Gwen said. “I know his signature.”

  “Whoa, hold on, Gwen. You don’t need to shout. I appreciate yours and Beth’s research, but you’re not becoming a rookie sleuth and trying to solve this on your own. I told you I’d take care of it.” He took a sip of the tea, then quickly spit it into the garbage.

  “But there’s another body that looks like Aynslee. I need to interview Mattie Banks. She’s the key, and I’m the only one who can draw the face of this killer. I just finished sketching the woman in the grave at the McCandless farm—”

  “Wait, stop right there! Who authorized you to reconstruct that face?”

  “Well—”

  “And why are you even thinking about Mattie Banks?”

  “Because—”

  “Both those cases are under Missoula’s jurisdiction for now. Under no circumstances do I want you within a country mile of Mattie or anything to do with the McCandless farm. Do I make myself clear?”

  Click, then a dial tone.

  Dave dry-washed his face, stood, and moved to the display. He removed the original sketch of the Jane Doe from the cow pasture, slipped it into a large envelope, and wrote Craig’s name on it. Craig could work on the girl’s identity. After looking up the number, he dialed Jeannie. The call went to voice mail. He left a message to call him.

  Tugging out the duty roster, he checked to see who he had to work the torchlight parade. The answer was grim. He didn’t have a spare officer to keep an eye on Gwen. He’d have to convince her to find a safe place to stay until Monday. Otherwise, she was on her own.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  AFTER COPYING THE RECONSTRUCTION, I TUGGED another piece of foam core from the closet, took it to my office, and taped up the sketch. I added duplicates of the other drawings across the top of the board, a photo of Aynslee, then sat at my desk. I’d attached my county map to the display I’d given Dave, but I might have a second one. Tapping a pencil against the drafting table, I searched my brain.

  I’d used a county map when I did the art show.

  Returning to the studio, I moved to the center of the room and stared at the bookshelves against the wall. Below were cupboards containing art supplies.

  Map. Flat. With miscellaneous papers? I opened a cupboard and pulled out a black zippered portfolio underneath a stack of cut mats. A map was in the second divider. I took it to the office, opened it, and taped it to the foam core.

  Someone knocked at the front door.

  I jumped, knocking a tray of drawing tools off the desk and to the floor. Doggone it! I’d just shattered the graphite in every pencil. Leaving the mess, I charged to the door and peeked out.

  Robert.

  The hot flash shot up my neck and onto my face. I leaned against the wall until it passed.

  Robert knocked again, harder.

  I fluffed my short hair, then yanked open the door. Robert froze, arm still raised to knock again. “Well. Hi. I wasn’t sure you heard me.”

  He looked good. He’d had his hair styled, and his shoulders looked fuller, as if he’d been working out. His nails were professionally trimmed, and he smelled of expensive cigar.

  I put my hands behind my back. “Come in.”

  Robert sauntered to the center of the room and sl
owly turned in a circle, staring as if he’d never seen the furnishings before. Aynslee’d left a half-filled glass of soda on the rustic end table. The sofa, a massive leather monstrosity Robert fell in love with years ago, showed stains where I’d dropped a glass of red wine last year. My torn gray sweatshirt draped over an antique Eastlake chair, and muddy shoes peered from under the battered cedar chest that served as a coffee table. “What do you want, Robert?” My voice sounded strained. “Are you back for the last of your stuff?”

  “No, I got it all last time. Besides, the access door to the attic is broken.”

  I strolled to the hall and looked up at the ceiling. “Nice to tell me this now. Were you going to fix it?”

  “No. It’s not my problem.”

  “So how will I get the Christmas ornaments—”

  “I’m not here about the attic or ornaments. We need to talk.”

  “Aren’t we doing that now?”

  “You know why I’m here.”

  “No.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Don’t play stupid. You’re far more clever than that.”

  I tapped my head. “Maybe it’s my chemo brain.”

  “Gwen—”

  “You know, you wrote about it in your tell-all book. Damaged goods. Isn’t that what you called me?”

  “Can you just put all that behind you and move on?”

  “I have moved on.”

  Robert ran a hand through his hair. “I didn’t come here to argue.”

  “Good, then get to the point. I have work to do.”

  Robert held up a Missoula newspaper. “I saw the photo of the girl Winston found. She looks like Aynslee. A lot.”

  A hot flash burned across my face. I waited until I could speak in a normal voice. “She has a slight resemblance to our daughter. So?”

  He ignored me and moved to the studio, stopping dead when he saw the original photograph of the girl in the cow pasture still on the light table. His face blanched. “So.” He cleared his throat. “Another one.”

  “That’s a case I’m working on and none of your business.”

  Robert spun on me. “None of my business? There’s a serial killer murdering less than half a mile from our home, and his choice of victims looks like my daughter.” His voice rose. “Where is she?”