The Bones Will Speak

by Carrie Stuart Parks

  “Yes. Originally given in World War I. Now they’re awarded in law enforcement as a motivation to achieve a specific goal.”

  “And this particular goal was?”

  “Find the remaining member and bring him to justice. There’s a part of this whole thing that’s never been released. After the shootout in Kellogg, we raided the house where the two men had holed up. We found evidence of a carefully crafted plot to derail a train, a train carrying chemicals, on either April 19 or 20.”

  “The nineteenth because it is the anniversary of Waco and Oklahoma City. If caught or killed, they would be placed on the martyr’s honor roll.”

  “Right, and the twentieth would be Hitler’s birthday.”

  “Do you know where this was to have happened?”

  “No. Rail lines in Idaho, Washington, and Montana were marked, but no one line or shipment was identified. Needless to say, such an event could have been catastrophic if the chemical spill were to occur near a major city.” He took back the coin. “We put together a task force to find the author of this plot, the man that got away. There were ten of us. We each got a coin to remind us of the stakes should this sociopath succeed.”

  “Were the task-force members also threatened or killed?”

  “No. Just the initial investigators. He probably held them accountable for the deaths of his co-conspirators. And, since time had passed with nothing to show for it, the task force was dissolved.”

  The clatter of the restaurant receded. The glow of the pendent light above the table illuminated the gold finish on the coin in his hand. “My friend, the one that committed suicide . . . I was there at his funeral.” He took a deep breath. “I got to thinking about the coin. I asked the widow about it. She looked me in the eye and said, ‘My son is dead. My husband is dead. I gave the coin to someone who will find and punish the man responsible.’ ”

  I leaned forward. “Do you know who she gave the coin to?”

  He handed me the coin, then dropped some money on the table to pay for my coffee. “No. Just whatever you do, don’t get caught between the two.”

  I thought about Scott’s warnings all the way home, my brain bouncing over each nugget of information, trying to make sense of it. I checked the rearview mirror often for any signs I was being followed, but the highway was free of traffic.

  Once home, I returned to my foam-core display in the office. The ceiling light was stark, as were the empty walls. I’d hang some paintings once the walls were painted. Picking up a black Sharpie, I drew a timeline across the bottom of the foam core. I really wanted Dave or Beth there to bounce my ideas off of, but it was after midnight, and neither would appreciate a phone call. Arranging the desk chair and folding seat in front of the display, I addressed my imaginary audience. “Serial killers don’t just dive into that career path. They evolve over time. So.”

  I made a mark at the far left side of the line. “Let’s start here. You’re a Phineas priest. You have a boatload of things you hate, and you believe God has given you the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. You bomb the Planned Parenthood building. You even kill a few people. That probably felt really good.”

  “Next.” I made a mark an inch from the first and wrote Identified. “You and your friends are wanted by police and every law-enforcement agency in the Inland Empire. They call me in to draw your buddies’ composites. Your ‘team’ is either arrested or dies. And your grand plans for mass destruction are discovered.”

  I paused and listened for any questions from the empty chairs. Both imaginary friends seemed attentive to my logic. Pulling the challenge coin from my pocket, I taped it on the board. “You also have a team of professionals looking for you. You don’t dare form another Phineas Priesthood cell. You have to go it alone. Lone wolf.”

  I made the next mark on the timeline and scribbled Revenge. “Your original mission was thwarted. It’s payback time.” Another mark and the word Threats. “You decide to go after the people who are rocking your world. The ones directly involved. You threaten the prosecuting attorney, but that didn’t work, did it?” I looked at the drawings of the girls, then the photo of Aynslee. “So you move on to threaten the family. The children. Something no parent can ignore. This works and Scott moves away. A continuance on the trial of your buddy, Jerome.” A mark. Success.

  The chairs remained silent. “Now on to the lead detective, the next one on your list of enemies. I bet you skipped personal threats and went straight to threats against the family. You learned your lesson. But this is a cop. And he was determined to find you.” I tapped the coin.

  My gaze drifted back to the line of girls. Striding to my desk, I found Beth’s notes and the police reports. Spokane had faxed photos, but the fax machine turned them into abstract Rorschach tests.

  I found the names of the murdered boys from the report, then went to my studio, plugged them into the computer, and printed the results.

  The boys, like Mattie, Aynslee, and the young women, looked like siblings. I brought the boys’ images to the office and taped them to the wall.

  The victims are different, boys before, now young women, the Dave chair whispered.

  “I see that. I wonder . . .” I retrieved the case information and sat. I quickly found what I was looking for. The boy was shot from some distance away. And he lived near the detective.

  I pointed. “Was this first boy a mistake? Did you think it was the detective’s son?”

  Yes. That’s what happened, the Beth chair murmured.

  “But something else happened.” Standing, I stepped to the timeline and wrote First Victim. “You liked it. You liked the fear everyone felt. But it wasn’t enough. You needed to prolong that fear.” Another mark. Second Victim. Failure. I put a star next to this, opened the closet, and retrieved the top box. Placing it on the desk next to the squirt gun, I quickly rummaged through the contents. I didn’t have that many out-of-state cases and soon found the one from Spokane. A copy of my interview notes refreshed my memory. I taped the interview form to the board. “Victim two was too traumatized to give a description. He’d been driven from his home in Spokane to North Idaho and tortured. He escaped. Turned out he was a cross-country runner.”

  And the killer learned from this, the Dave chair said.

  I nodded. “He learned he liked it even more. He liked hunting, the pursuit, but he needed more control. He’s evolving as a killer. Honing his trade. So now we have victim three.” I marked the timeline and wrote Third Victim, Son. “The intended victim, young . . . a . . .” I reread Beth’s notes. “The boy’s name was Hudson?”

  The notes slipped from my numb fingers. I heard the killer’s creepy, disguised voice from the phone call. “I know you found my blanket . . . the Hudson’s Bay blanket. The cream one with the stripes.”

  I sank into the nearest seat, my heart thundering in my ears. “The killer made a point of telling me the name for that type of blanket.”

  He wants you to be afraid. Terrorized, the Dave chair said softly.

  “And he’s succeeding,” I whispered.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  I DIDN’T FALL ASLEEP UNTIL AFTER THREE, THEN woke up at six. I gave up trying to sleep and wandered from room to room, eventually ending up in Robert’s office. No. My office. Keep saying that. Robert. Just the thought of him made me grind my teeth. He was planning to pick up Aynslee tomorrow. No, today. I moved the case box back to the closet and sat at the desk, rubbing my fingers across the battered oak surface. I’d already tried to convince him that Aynslee was safer with me. That just left catching the killer before Robert showed up. I had maybe six hours. Eight?

  Maybe on television the bad guy was identified and caught in an hour, minus commercials. In reality, I’d have to convince Dave and the Missoula police to allow me to interview Mattie for a composite. If he wasn’t immediately identified, the police would have to release the sketch to the media.

  That would only be the beginning.

  Then hopefully someone would
recognize the image and call law enforcement, then the police would have to gather enough evidence for an arrest.

  Impossible.

  It took years for the Green River Killer to be caught. The same for Ted Bundy. The Zodiac Killer was never identified.

  Jack the Ripper probably died of old age.

  The clock tick, tick, ticked away the morning. I should call Beth and ask that she bring Aynslee home. I wanted to wrap her in my arms, as if that would be enough to shelter her. Picking up the handset, I dialed Beth’s number. It took me a moment to realize there wasn’t a dial tone.

  Terrific. The worst possible time for the phones to go out.

  As I debated jumping in the car and driving over to Beth’s house, she drove up. I opened the kitchen door to let them both in. “I tried calling—”

  “I know. Your phone is out. I called it in, but they said they couldn’t come out until tomorrow, then I got worried about you. I thought we’d drop by before church.”

  When I stepped aside to let Beth and Aynslee enter, I noticed an envelope poking out of the mailbox in the driveway. Odd. It was Sunday. I’d brought in the mail from yesterday.

  I trotted over and tugged out the envelope. Unmarked.

  I quickly glanced around. No one in sight. I swiftly returned to the house.

  “What?” Beth asked.

  I closed the door and locked it, waited until my daughter had drifted away, then jerked my head toward the studio. Once there, I closed all the blinds.

  “What?” she asked again.

  “This.” I held up the envelope by the edges, grabbed a pair of scissors, and cut open one end, then peeked inside.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  TILTING THE ENVELOPE, I DUMPED THE CONTENTS onto my drafting table. A familiar lock of red hair landed on the surface along with a sheet of paper.

  I ran my tongue over dry lips.

  “What on earth . . .” Beth’s eyes were huge.

  “Aynslee, come in here.” I hid the hair under another piece of paper.

  Aynslee sauntered into the room drinking a Mountain Dew. “Yeah?”

  Beth started to say something, but closed her mouth when I glanced at her with a warning look.

  “Beth said she thought you needed your hair trimmed.” I strolled to her and pulled back her long hair. In the center was a missing chunk.

  I cleared my throat and waited until I could speak. “Hmm. Well, maybe a few split ends.”

  “See? I told you.” Beth’s voice was high and squeaky, but Aynslee didn’t seem to notice.

  “Whatever.” She took a swallow of pop. “When do we pick up Winston?”

  I turned my back so Aynslee couldn’t see my face. “Well, we’ll pick Winston up . . . soon . . . but first we have . . . you and Beth have church. I have to run a few errands.” I picked up a pencil. “Is that what you’re wearing?”

  “Yeah. My other pants are dirty.” She left.

  I sat on the wingback chair before my legs could give way beneath me. “Beth, who was near you at the movies? Did you see anyone you knew? Did anyone come up behind Aynslee?”

  Beth folded into the office chair. “It was dark—”

  “Think!”

  “The-the theatre was crowded—”

  “How about when you were seated?”

  “No one . . . wait.” She looked at me. “Someone, a man I think, sitting in the row behind us got up in the middle of the movie.”

  “Yes?”

  “As he passed us, Aynslee reached for her hair.”

  I rubbed my sweaty hands on my jeans.

  “I didn’t think anything at the time.” Beth swallowed. “The seats are close, and it isn’t uncommon to have your coat or hair accidently caught up.”

  “And you didn’t recognize him?”

  “It was dark!” Beth grabbed a tissue and blew her nose.

  Aynslee appeared at the door with two cups of hot chocolate. “I made some hot chocolate.”

  We took the cups. “Thank you, sweetheart.” I waited impatiently for her to leave.

  The elusive thought that had plagued me since seeing Robert surfaced. “I think I know who it is.”

  “A name?”

  “No. A connection.” I put down the mug of chocolate, stood, and moved to my drafting table.

  Beth followed. “What’s that?” She pointed to the piece of paper included with Aynslee’s lock of hair.

  I found a pair of tweezers and carefully unfolded the note. “Exodus 21:24–25.” I shot Beth a puzzled look.

  Beth returned to the computer and typed a moment. “ ‘Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.’ ”

  “So. It’s started. No longer hints under dead cats. Direct threats.” I tried to give Beth a reassuring smile, but my upper lip seemed frozen.

  “What are we going to do?”

  I found myself pacing around the room like a caged tiger. “I’m not moving away, nor am I going to put my daughter at risk. I need to move forward with my plan.”

  “Are you still going to that Nazi church?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m tired of being reactive, waiting to see what this . . . monster is planning. I’m going to be proactive. Go someplace he’s likely to be. But not like this. The Lone Wolf knows what I look like.” Leaving Beth in the studio, I rummaged through the closet in my bedroom. A box held all the hats and wigs people gave me when I lost my hair from chemo. I found the wig I was looking for. My own hair was short enough that I didn’t need to put on a wig cap. The shoulder length, ash-brown color was wrong for my face and made me look pale and gaunt. I took off my special bra holding my breast prosthesis, then selected the dress I’d found in a secondhand shop three years ago. The dress looked cute in the store and cost three dollars, but hung on me like a sack. I returned to the studio.

  Beth glanced up as I entered, then did a double take. “You look awful. Like you’re living without running water.”

  “Dirty?”

  “More like the pregnant-in-summer, barefoot-in-winter, downtrodden wife. It’s perfect. I would never have known you.”

  “Good. I have no illusions of who I’m up against. The northwest is a breeding ground for serial killers and white separatists.” I ticked off on my fingers. “Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer, Robert Yates, Ted Bundy, the Molalla Forest Killer, Dayton Leroy Rogers, and more. On top of that, this area is like a magnet to such groups as the Phineas Priesthood, The Order, Militia of Montana, Posse Comitatus, and the Aryan Nations.”

  “So—”

  “So the man who is after me is both a serial killer and a violent white separatist. He’s the perfect storm.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  AYNSLEE COULDN’T STOP GIGGLING AT MY appearance, and her mirth became contagious. “It’s too bad I’m not still bald,” I said when I could catch my breath. “I could attend church as a skinhead.” That set us off again.

  I knew the laughing was a tension release. I was grateful for it.

  After agreeing to meet at Nora’s Coffee Shop for lunch after church, I made sure Beth and Aynslee were off safely before grabbing my Bible and leaving.

  I stowed my sketching supplies in the car. If needed, I could draw the faces of anyone attending services that looked suspicious.

  The address on the pamphlet turned out to be a small strip mall just off the highway. I’d driven past it a number of times and never noticed the small, hand-lettered sign in the window. A used bookstore and a saddle repair shop bracketed the church. I parked around the side of the building between two oversize pickups. Waiting until a small group of people entered, I slipped in behind them. An undersized lobby held a few chatting teens, but most of the congregation proceeded forward through a double set of open doors to the sanctuary beyond. A rack of pamphlets sat on a small table to my left. I recognized the one I’d received, but decided to wait until later to grab more.

&nbs
p; My attire drew no particular notice. Fashions included jeans, T-shirts, dresses, and a sprinkling of camo. The church bulletin, handed to me by a smiling, plump woman, looked like the bulletin from my own church.

  The room had no windows, with a small, raised stage in the front. Black fabric draped from the ceiling, forming a backdrop for the stage, and a large, hand-carved cross stood behind the podium. An American flag was attached to the wall on my right. I settled in the last row of white plastic lawn chairs nearest the exit.

  The room soon completely filled. I kept my head down, fiddling with my Bible and the bulletin. The worship team entered the stage; three women and a man, each carrying instruments. Four songs, slightly off-key but sung with enthusiasm, followed.

  So far, the American Christian Covenant Church was disappointing. Not a single “Heil Hitler” or cross burning, and the music wasn’t as good as my own church.

  Every chance I got, I checked out the congregation. I didn’t recognize anyone. Paying particular attention to the men, I made sure I could recognize and sketch them later if needed. Finally a distinguished-looking man with blond hair took the podium as the musicians left. “Good morning,” he said.

  “Good morning,” we all replied.

  “A few announcements before we begin. Remember tonight is the torchlight parade.”

  I sat up straighter and pulled a pencil out of my purse.

  “We assemble at seven p.m. in front of the grocery store on Main. It should be . . .” He chuckled. “. . . an interesting night.” The people around me joined in as if all sharing an inside joke.

  I shifted in my chair, then quickly looked down as a hot flash shot up my face.

  “I want to thank the committee who came up with this event. I see some of you here.”

  Some of you here? That means members of the church were missing this service. Could my Lone Wolf be absent? I risked another glance around the room.

  “Turn with me in your Bibles to Numbers 25:6.”

  My suddenly damp fingers stuck to the thin pages.

  “ ‘And, behold,’ ” the pastor read, “ ‘one of the children of Israel came and brought unto his brethren a Midianitish woman in the sight of Moses, and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, who were weeping before the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And when Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose up from among the congregation, and took a javelin in his hand; and he went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly. So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel.’ ” The pastor looked up. “We’ve studied this passage many times.”