His Garden of Bones

by Vickie McKeehan

  “Interesting. Okay, do you remember if this couple—assuming there was a male waiting somewhere around the apartment building for the female to grab you and bring you out to the car—did they appear to have medical training? Like a nurse, a doctor, or a paramedic might have? After all, she plunged a syringe into your neck with the effectiveness of a pro.”

  Ashley’s brow crinkled in concentration. “Couple? Come to think of it, I only saw the woman that one time. Then the few times I woke up, a man was right there hovering over me. He seemed agitated a lot and a little socially awkward.”

  That detail nagged at Skye. “I see. So you’re saying during your ordeal at the houseboat the only person you saw was the man? What did he look like? Different colored skin from the woman? How tall was he?”

  “Now that I think of the blurry images I have in my head, he was very similar looking to the woman. I remember lifting my head to see if I could get a look at Kiki, and he had the same skin tone as the woman had, and he was about as tall, the same mannerisms.”

  Josh and Skye traded glances.

  “What do you suppose happened to the woman?” Ashley wanted to know. “That has to be important.”

  “If there was a woman,” Skye muttered.

  Josh decided not to go down that road in front of Ashley so he picked up the slack. “Okay, is there anything else you remember at all?”

  “Well, the only thing I know for certain is that Kiki wouldn’t stop crying. She seemed to aggravate the man constantly. Even when the guy did his best to do something for Kiki, like trying to get her to eat, his effort came off mostly clumsy. Kiki wouldn’t have anything to do with him at all. He got angry with her. That’s what I remember the most—Kiki crying and crying, and me, wanting desperately to get to my baby.”

  Josh put forth an idea to Skye. “Maybe he grew frustrated with his inability to take care of Kiki. That’s why he kept Ashley around for twenty plus hours. Even drugged, she might come in handy if he needed her at some point to help him with Kiki.”

  The teen mom swallowed hard, visibly shaken. “Are you saying that eventually he planned to kill me?”

  Skye sucked in a deep breath, let it out to gain a measure of control. In situations like this she’d found honesty was the best path. “Sorry. We didn’t mean to let that slip. But you deserve the ugly truth. We feel pretty sure that was the goal.”

  “It’s okay. Somewhere in the back of my mind I already knew. I’m not going back to the apartment. I’ve decided that Kiki and I are moving in with my parents. At least, until you catch this guy.”

  “I’m sorry,” Skye reiterated. “Monsters have a way of causing us to alter our lives in a way we never intended.”

  “It isn’t your fault. You guys saved us. If you hadn’t showed up when you did…” Ashley’s voice broke.

  “Group hug,” Josh suggested with a laugh. “Just not too tight my ribs still hurt.”

  The three came together, arms wrapped around each other until Ashley felt like letting go.

  Ashley turned to Josh. “When I asked the nurses at the medical center, they told me you were really sick, in a coma. How did you recover so fast? I mean, you look like you’re in pain but you’re out walking around.”

  “Head injuries are a mystery of science,” Josh said with a grin.

  “But after you saved me, when the raindrops woke me up, you looked sick like you had the flu or something. That was before the van hit you.”

  “I must’ve had a mild case and then my flu shot finally kicked in,” he joked.

  For the first time in days, Ashley burst out in a laugh. “You guys are so cool.”

  After that, they left Ashley recovering in Capitol Hill and rode back to downtown tossing ideas back and forth.

  “Let’s go over what we know,” Skye managed. “Ashley never saw the man and woman together. So it’s possible they are one and the same like Emmett suggested.”

  Josh nodded, went on to another question. “Why hold Ashley and Kiki at the houseboat in a place where the neighbors are within a walk to the next dock? Are we supposed to believe our kidnapper just happens to pick Stockman’s houseboat to hole up? Coincidence? Planned? Did he know who lived there beforehand? Had he been there before and knew the place on sight?”

  “That’s bothered me since I walked inside the boat. Let’s say for a minute we believe Stockman’s story and he knows nothing about the kidnapping, that he’s simply an innocent man caught up in something he had no part in. That could mean our guy must’ve encountered some obstacle or problem the night he grabbed Ashley and Kiki, something unexpected, something that convinced him he had to hide out at that spot, at that particular time. After all, the location is less than a mile from Ashley’s apartment.”

  “There’s just one major problem with connecting Stockman to our serial. Harry said he checked out.”

  “Then maybe we get the team to dig deeper. While they’re at it, do a sweep of the neighborhood around Lake Union.”

  “Sounds like a plan. If we have to, we’ll get everyone together and go door to door canvassing the area.”

  “Something else to consider. If this guy is in the habit of holding multiple victims at the same time, like Cannavale alluded to, then he’d need space for that. A houseboat wouldn’t cut it. It’s far too small for that sort of confinement especially with neighbors next door who’d no doubt hear every loud noise or scream.”

  “That means we’re talking about a larger primary location, the main place where he keeps his victims, those trophies he likes to revisit. And that takes money.”

  “It bothers me that we can’t figure out what connection Stockman has to our killer. Because there has to be one.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “What else do you know?”

  “You trust Harry, right? He called last night. We had a long talk about Stockman. Harry didn’t just check the man out nine ways to Sunday. Harry’s convinced the guy is on the up and up. The background revealed Stockman owns a restaurant that specializes in serving organic dishes. The business checked out, too. No links to organized crime or kiddy porn or sex trafficking. That’s the bottom line. Half of Seattle knows Stockman as a legitimate restaurateur, including Travis. In fact, Lena also knows him, vouches for his business acumen, his friendship.”

  “What’s your point? People have alternate egos? If Stockman has different personalities Lena and Travis might not pick up on them. Besides, Harry made a point to let us know Stockman came across a little too laidback about his boat blowing up. According to Harry, Stockman was on the phone to his insurance agent that night, which touched off the initial red flag.”

  “My point is it’s a perfectly normal routine action for a business owner to call the insurance company when he or she has a valid claim. And second, we need to move past Stockman as soon as possible. We waste less time if we eliminate him upfront,” Josh insisted. “Are you forgetting there isn’t a speck of evidence found so far that points to Stockman abducting Ashley and Kiki?”

  “I hate it when you’re so reasonable, especially when all I want to do is grill this restaurant owner guy over a circle of hot coals. Why do you have to be so reasonable all the time anyway?”

  “Because if we go after him aggressively, Stockman will simply lawyer up,” Josh pointed out. “It’s unproductive.”

  “Then tell me this. You know as well as I do, the pathology of a killer stays the same. It almost never changes. Why did this one change his method? Why go after Ashley and Kiki? Why hold them on this houseboat right in the middle of Lake Union at the end of a busy weekend instead of taking them back to his place? It’s not like The Jungle where the first two victims were found and it sure as hell isn’t a shopping center after it’s closed up for the night. Why change his pattern?”

  “All reasonable questions. I think in order to resolve any of them at this point we go back to square one. We meet Stockman face to face, determine for ourselves if he’s legit.”

  She sq
ueezed his hand. “Now see, that’s the guy I know and love.”

  John Stockman turned out to be nothing like Skye expected. The man was in his forties with a receding hairline and a little goatee and looked as though he might have hosted his own cooking show on cable TV.

  “I told the cops everything I know,” Stockman stated. His body language said it all. The man was tired of answering questions. “My attorney says I should just stop cooperating with you guys.”

  “We aren’t cops,” Josh replied.

  “I know who you are. I’ve seen you both on the news before. As a business owner, I’ve even contributed to your foundation.”

  “We thank you for that,” Skye said doing her best to assess the man. He looked harmless enough. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t been involved in some way. “If you’re familiar with the work we do, then you shouldn’t be too surprised by our questions.”

  “Yeah, you do good work. But you’re on the wrong track this time with me. I’m a responsible guy who pays my taxes on time. I’m good to my employees. I visit my mother twice a week and now everyone may stay away from my restaurant because I had the misfortune to have someone illegally enter my second home and blow it up. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

  Josh stared down the owner. “Convince us. You do understand that it looks suspicious that a serial killer picked your houseboat out of all the others to pick from and held two of his victims inside for almost twenty-four hours. You’ve read the papers. You know one was a toddler. We want to know from the source if you might’ve knowingly loaned your place out to a friend or family member and just don’t want to own up to your part in all this.”

  “Which means you’re choosing to cover for someone,” Skye added. “Friends and family tend to do that for one another in a situation like this.”

  “I’m not covering for anyone. Maybe it was someone I had over for dinner. I give lots of parties there. I even rent the place out for weddings, especially in the spring and summer and early fall when the weather’s good.”

  “Could you throw together a list of the people you’ve invited there and get it to us?”

  “You’re kidding? That would take…an enormous amount of time. I don’t know every single person that’s been on my houseboat. Besides, how far would you want me to go back? A year? Two? Five?”

  “I see your point,” Skye finally said. “But I’m curious about one thing. Why wouldn’t you want to do everything you could to help us catch this guy? If you’re so innocent in all this, cooperating would go a long way in my mind that you’re telling the truth.”

  Although the interview lasted several more minutes, the guy continued to stick to the same song and dance—his houseboat had been broken into and taken over by a stranger. Period. End of Stockman’s story.

  With nothing more to go on, they left Stockman a business card with contact info on it, and urged him to put together that guest list from the parties he’d given.

  As they walked back to the car, they kicked around Stockman’s steadfast position trying to find a hole in it...somewhere.

  “It’s so unbelievable though,” Skye asserted when she couldn’t come up with anything else.

  “Which part? The part where our serial deviates from his methodology or the part where Stockman maintains the kidnapper was a stranger. Either way, the facts are this. Our guy obviously rigged the house to explode and then took off.”

  “And then tried to run you over with his truck.”

  “I have the bruises to show for it, too. So have we eliminated Stockman as a suspect yet?” Josh asked when they reached the car.

  “You’re pulling me kicking and screaming into that slot, aren’t you? I don’t like it. Fine,” she grumbled, grudgingly giving in. “But I’m withholding total elimination in case we get anything new, which I’m adding to my Christmas wish list.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  For three days, Dillard Barstow had hidden away in his special place. Most of the time, curled up in a ball. He still had a hard time getting the sound of that crying brat out of his head. He cringed whenever he remembered any part of the ordeal. Most of the time he’d spent with the lovely redhead he’d had to keep his hands over his ears. Nothing he’d done to quiet the little girl had helped to shut her up. Not bringing enough of the tranquilizer with him had been sloppy. He wasn’t sure how it had gone so wrong so quickly. But from the moment the child had come awake in the car and started screaming, the whole thing had come undone.

  The squalling infant had caused him to lose control of the situation. It had deteriorated from there.

  Sometime Monday morning he’d realized he should be grateful, grateful he’d looked out the window in time to see the Cree woman and the white wolf sneaking up on him. He attributed that luck to the spell he’d woven to ward off his enemies. He should’ve used his grandmother’s unique talent for curses years earlier to block his adversaries. The fact he’d been able to pick up on vibes had saved him from getting caught.

  Somehow, in spite of the spell, they’d managed to find him, though. He’d never had to bolt out the back door before, never had to go on the run. He’d never escaped with such fanfare or driven a truck into another person before. Now that he’d had time to gather himself, it all had been rather exhilarating.

  Okay, so kidnapping a mother and baby had been the stupidest thing he’d ever done. It’d gotten him out of his rhythm, off his game. Wasn’t that the euphemism the sports jocks used? Whatever they called it, picking a woman with a baby had been a huge misstep. He was ready to admit that now and move on past his failure. Over the years he’d had a few. Each time, he’d found it best not to dwell on those for long.

  Now that he’d pulled himself together he had to get to work. It wouldn’t do to go off the map for much longer without raising suspicions. Besides, he had a delivery to make first.

  And it was a long way over to Bainbridge Island.

  Dillard drove his other vehicle, an inconspicuous white Chevrolet, off the ferry and sailed through downtown Bainbridge past its quaint shops and boutiques.

  The Ander-Cree property spread out along the coastal tidelands, nestled among a thicket of evergreens. He parked the car a mile away in a clearing and followed the same path he’d taken before. When he’d been on the island last time, his panther, Oreias, had led the charge over the land. But for some reason his panther seemed to be fading, getting weaker in his mind. Just as the other voices grew stronger, Oreias appeared thin and frail, even sickly, as if the animal could no longer help him. After all their adventures together had Oreias found a reason to abandon him?

  Without his guide, Dillard trekked over wet ground alone. He maneuvered through tangled brush and scrub, which meant he avoided the busier, better-known hiking trail. Making his way over rough terrain took an extra half hour to reach the woods at the back of the house. But to deliver the package was worth all the effort.

  It took Dillard even longer to set up and stage the scene for the most impact, especially since he had to stay away from the terrace and away from the prying eyes of the recently-installed surveillance cameras. Instead of leaving the package on the patio table, this time he opted for a more subtle approach, choosing the towering birch at the perimeter near the pond to make his statement.

  It was a gift, after all, and one he hated to part with. But sometimes one had to relinquish his treasures for much greater gain.

  By two that afternoon Skye had been able to talk Josh into heading home. They’d arranged to meet the team later at the house to go over strategy.

  Winding through town, Skye chattered away about the progress transforming the motel.

  “While you were in the hospital, Hank checked in with you Monday morning and I took the call. He wanted to reassure us that he had a better handle on things now that Travis found him two reliable carpenters. Their hard work seems to have taken some of the pressure off Hank. Plus, he said that since they were living in the apartment now and out of the car, Alec and Melina
are on the mend.”

  “I admit I was worried about keeping Hank around.”

  She steered the Subaru down the driveway of the farmhouse, hit the remote to the garage door and waited for it to open.

  “I know you were. You had every right to feel that way. But let’s face it, second chances make you feel warm and fuzzy when they work. And giving out second chances this close to Christmas, you get the bonus round.”

  “Is there sex involved with the bonus round?”

  “You bet, when your ribs have completely healed, we move to the double bonus round.”

  “Damn. I knew there’d be a catch. You should probably describe in detail the double bonus round to give me incentive.”

  Skye filled the interior with laughter. “Since you know I’m worth the wait I can do that.”

  She went around to the trunk, grabbed Josh’s bag and helped him out of the front seat. Together they made their way inside the house through the mudroom where she stopped to help him shed his jacket.

  Once in the kitchen, Skye pointed out, “We need to pick out a Christmas tree, one from that lot at the corner of town. They have the most gorgeous noble firs.”

  “Those are your favorite. I invited Hank and Melina to the party we’re having on Christmas Eve.”

  “So did I. Hmm, I wonder if I have to invite Chenoa.”

  Josh grabbed an apple from the bowl on the counter, started munching away. “Probably. You should make a peace offer to Travis tonight when he shows up with the whole gang. Inviting Chenoa to our house means you’re the bigger person.”

  She set the bag down, scooted it out of the way. “I’m already the bigger person. What is she five-two? Anyway, when he drops off Atka later, I’ll make amends. How’s that? But do you ever wonder why it took him two years to tell me about Chenoa? If you ask me, his secrecy is inexcusable. Ever wonder why he keeps things to himself like he does?”

  “I get the sense he’s always been a private person.”