Dead Calm

by Annelise Ryan

  We finished digging up the skeleton and a reasonably large area of the surrounding ground a little after one. At that point, Richmond called it a night, saying that the likelihood of finding any other bodies was negligible at that point. I transported our bones and the piece of fabric we found with it back to the morgue and went about checking it in. There wouldn’t be any autopsy to perform, at least not in the usual sense, and Otto said he would decide how to proceed later in the day after we’d all had a chance to get some sleep.

  I crawled home and entered the house as quietly as I could, not wanting to wake anyone. Everyone was in bed asleep, including Hurley, though I knew from text messages he sent me that Emily had come home around ten, and he had gone back to the station to work on the Lansing-Knowlton case, staying there until well after midnight.

  Though I thought Hurley might be awake by the time I made it upstairs and took a much-needed shower, he was snoring loudly when I emerged from our bathroom. I felt a tinge of relief that I wouldn’t have to spend any time talking to him—precious time that I could spend sleeping instead—and immediately afterward felt a smidgen of resentment that Hurley was getting more sleep than I was. Both of these thoughts triggered a twinge of guilt, but I tossed it aside and was out like a light the second my head hit the pillow.

  “Momma, up!” Matthew commands, reminding me that my brief respite is over. Just to make sure I understand his directions, he peels back one of my eyelids. There is something on his fingers—they are wet—and I pray it isn’t anything too disgusting.

  “Matthew, don’t do that,” I grumble, pushing his hand away.

  I sit myself up and look over at Hurley’s side of the bed. He isn’t there, and I wonder if he’s downstairs or already back at the station. I knew from a quick telephone chat with him before he left the station last night that he and Junior Feller has followed up on all the plates in the Grizzly Motel parking lot—a few of which delivered potential blackmail material if we were the type to do such a thing. They called and interviewed most of the guests who had been there, eventually deciding that whoever had killed the couple had probably escaped through the woods behind the motel as opposed to in a vehicle parked there. Presumably, they didn’t want to risk any witnesses to their departure who might later be able to provide a description of the vehicle or, even worse, a license plate number. It was a smart move, actually, because it left us with very little in the way of leads.

  I crawl out of bed and shuffle into the bathroom to pee. Matthew follows me, and when he sees me sit down on the toilet, he promptly walks up between my knees, pulls down his pull-up, and aims his penis at me.

  “Maffew pee, too,” he says gleefully, and before I can stop him, he proceeds to tinkle all over my thighs.

  I suppose I should be glad he’s grasping the idea of peeing in the toilet, but I’m a little too tired at the moment to see the glass half full. My first instinct is to yell at him, but I manage to swallow the words down just before they leave my lips. In a calm, rational voice that is the exact opposite of the way I feel, I tell him, “Matthew, we don’t share the potty. You have to wait your turn.”

  He pouts at me, clearly annoyed that I haven’t praised the fact that while he didn’t pee in the toilet, he was in the neighborhood and did manage to pee on it. I grab a wad of toilet of paper and wipe the urine off my legs. Then I get up and kick off my pajama bottoms, which were also hit. Matthew needs to work on his aim. He gets so enthralled with the sight and feel of his own penis that he tends to stare at it and not focus on where it’s pointed. I reach over and pull a washcloth off the towel rack and wet it under the faucet so I can wash my legs off. When I’m done, I turn and see that Matthew has done his part in the cleanup. He has kicked off his pull-up, tossed it into the toilet, and unrolled a long length of toilet paper, which he has draped over the toilet, the floor, and his feet.

  “Matthew, honey, no,” I say. I’m hit with an overwhelming urge to cry out of a combination of fatigue and frustration, and I squeeze my eyes closed and count to ten. When I open them again, my son is standing a few feet away, stark naked, sucking on his thumb, watching me with big, loving eyes. Despite my irritation, it makes me smile, and I bend down, scoop him up, and give him a big kiss and hug. The feel of his tiny arms hugging me around my neck makes everything right with the world again, at least for a short while.

  Unfortunately, it doesn’t last long. After I set Matthew down, I look in the mirror and nearly gasp at the sight. My hair, which is currently cut in a short bob—an accommodation that makes the hot summer weather more tolerable—is sticking out from my head like Medusa’s snakes, thanks to the fact that I went to bed with it wet. My eyes have dark circles under them, and my face has given birth to a large, feral zit that is sprouting out from the center of my forehead like a Cyclopean eye.

  I grab a brush from the countertop and try to coerce my hair into something less frightening. There isn’t much I can do with the zit, but I brush my teeth, figuring that taming my fire-breathing-dragon breath will help make me feel more human instead of like a CGI monster in a movie based on some ancient mythology.

  As I bend over to spit in the sink, I hear the toilet flush, and look over to see Matthew holding the handle, staring into the bowl. All of the toilet paper, other than a few remaining soggy pieces that are stuck to the wetter areas of the floor and toilet seat, have been picked up. Matthew has put all of it in the toilet. I quickly realize as I see the swirling mass come to a standstill amid rising water, that all that paper, on top of the pull-up he dropped in there, is too much for the toilet to handle. Water starts to overflow the sides, running onto the floor. I grab for the tank top, take it off, and promptly drop it on my foot.

  I bite back a scream of pain as I reach into the tank and stop the bowl from filling. I mutter several curses under my breath, and Matthew starts to wail. Behind me, I hear feet running up the stairs and down the hall. A moment later, Hurley bursts into the bathroom, looking panicked.

  “What the hell?”

  My foot is throbbing in agony, and it’s a struggle to get any words out between my tightly gritted teeth. “Take him,” I finally say. “Take him now!”

  Hurley looks at my expression and makes a split-second decision. He grabs Matthew into his arms and makes a hasty retreat from the bathroom.

  I sit on top of the dirty clothes hamper and bury my face in my hands. I’m so tired that I seriously consider just crawling out of the flooded bathroom and back into bed. Instead I cry, indulging myself for a good five minutes before the waterworks—mine, anyway—dry up. Then I muster up the dregs of my strength and clean up the bathroom.

  Forty minutes later, I have unclogged the toilet, washed and dried the bathroom floor, showered again, dressed, and put on a minimum of makeup: some eyeliner, a few swaths of mascara, and a swipe of blush on each cheek. I don’t need any lipstick—my lips are already flaming red from chewing on them in an effort to bite back the raging soliloquy that has been on the tip of my tongue the whole time.

  Satisfied that I have done as much as I can, I head downstairs. On my way down the hall, I see that Emily’s bedroom door is closed and feel a pang of envy. Oh, what I would give to be back in the lazy summer days of my teenage years, when I was able to sleep away half the day and my biggest worries were whether or not any of the boys had managed to grow enough to pass me up in height, whether or not I could get tickets to the upcoming Pearl Jam concert, and where I could go to get the Rachel haircut.

  Downstairs, I find Hurley and Matthew in the kitchen eating pancakes. Both of them look up at me with wary expressions as I enter the room, as if they are afraid I might explode any moment. Their wariness irritates me even more than I already am, because I realize their fears may be justified. I need to get a grip . . . and about a week’s worth of sleep.

  I pour a cup of coffee and sit down at the table to Matthew’s left, with Hurley across from me.

  “You okay?” he asks.

  I shake my head, fe
eling the burn of tears behind my eyes. “Something’s got to give, Hurley. I’m so tired.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t know Matthew was awake or I would have come upstairs to get him.” He pauses, sees my look of frustrated irritation, and adds, “We can get through this. Things are a little crazy right now—okay, a lot crazy—but it’s not going to last forever.”

  “At this rate, neither am I,” I say, running a hand through my wet hair. I look over at Matthew, who is dropping syrup-soaked pieces of pancake onto the floor for our dog Hoover to eat. I know the sugary content will give Hoover a case of the squirts, but I’m too exhausted to care. “Izzy has a couple of interviews lined up this morning, and I hope one of them pans out. If they don’t hire a replacement for Hal soon, I’m going to lose it.” I pause. “Not that Hal can ever be replaced.”

  “What can I do to help?” Hurley asks. Even as he says this, he grabs Matthew’s arm just as he is about to drop yet another piece of pancake onto the floor. With a stern look Hurley says, “No, Matthew. I’ve told you before, we don’t feed the dog at the table.”

  Matthew dutifully returns the piece of pancake to his plate, much to Hoover’s drooling disappointment.

  I don’t have an answer to his question, so I simply shake my head and take another sip of coffee.

  “Look,” Hurley says, “why don’t you go on to work, and I’ll take care of getting Matthew ready and off to Dom’s, okay? I have a lot of things on my agenda for today, but nothing with a time frame this morning, so I’m not in any rush.”

  I nod, sipping more coffee.

  “Did you guys determine anything useful about the bones last night?” Hurley asks.

  With a side look at Matthew, who is busy drawing a fingerpaint picture on his plate in a pool of maple syrup, I say, “Based on the size, it’s probably a child. But you already knew that. Otto said the bones appear to be old—we’re talking decades—but he also said that the metals and other stuff in the soil leaching into the bones can make them look old when they’re not. He plans to have a bone specialist from Milwaukee come in today to look at them.”

  “Well, keep me posted on what you find,” he says. “Until we get this thing resolved, our building plans are on hold. What are you going to be doing in the meantime?”

  “Izzy invited me to sit in with him on the interviews, so I need to be there by eight.” I glance at my watch and get out of my chair, chugging one last gulp of coffee as I carry my cup to the sink. “And that means I need to get going. What do you have planned?”

  “I’m going to check in with Jonas and Laura to see if they have come up with anything new on our motel case, and then I’m going to try to track both of our victims’ activities over the past week. The text messages on the burner phones certainly support the affair theory, although there was an odd one on Meredith’s that I found.”

  “Odd how?”

  “It came through on the afternoon of the murders, and it was the last one she received. It said something about meeting under the double arches.”

  “McDonald’s?”

  Hurley looks doubtful. “McDonald’s is typically referred to as the Golden Arches. But I’ll see if I can find any evidence of the two of them being there on that day. I’m hoping Jonas will have some GPS info by now, so I can track all their activities leading up to the Grizzly. And I’ll check with Arnie to see if he has come up with something in the computers, though given his fixation with the ‘alien skeleton’ ”—he makes little air quotes when he says this—“I’m not sure if he’s been as focused on his job as he should be.”

  “Are you going to let the surviving spouses know that it wasn’t a murder-suicide?” I ask, grabbing my purse.

  “Not yet,” Hurley says, his brow furrowing. “I want to do a little more digging first. I’m going to go back out to the motel and search those woods behind it.”

  “I can probably help you,” I tell him. “If no autopsies come in, I should be relatively free. There isn’t much for me to do with the bones we found on our property.”

  “I’d love the company,” he says with a wink.

  I walk over, kiss both him and my son good-bye, and then start for the front door. But I turn back before leaving the kitchen. “What about the Tomas Wyzinski case?” I ask. “Any progress with that?”

  “It’s on a back burner at the moment.” I frown at this, and he gives me an apologetic look. “I’m still working on it,” he says, “but for the moment these other cases need to take precedence.”

  I’m not sure I agree with him, but there’s little I can do about it.

  “You’ve got to stop blaming yourself for Wyzinski,” Hurley says in a soft voice.

  “How can I? It was largely my testimony, my findings that put him away. The idea that he’s sitting there in jail because of me when he is likely innocent is a huge weight on my shoulders.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Hurley insists.

  “I appreciate your sentiment, but you know I bear some of the burden. We both do.”

  “And we’ll get there,” Hurley says. “You have to be patient.”

  “Let me help you,” I say, giving him a pleading look. “You’ve been keeping this thing to yourself for the past few weeks. Two heads are better than one.”

  “You just finished telling me how overwhelmed you are with the stuff you already have on your plate. Let’s get these current cases settled, and then we’ll take another look at things, okay?”

  I give him an exasperated look. “Are you reining me in on this case because of my father?”

  His eyes dart toward Matthew, and I know he’s about to lie to me. “No,” he says. “I’m worried about the level of danger involved. Clearly the people behind this thing have no compunctions about murdering to protect their dirty little secrets. I don’t want our names to end up on that list.”

  “And my father?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “Whether or not you want to meet and talk with him is up to you. That’s a personal thing.”

  I sense the last part of his comment is a subtle reminder to me that I can talk to my father about our personal relationship, but not the case. “I haven’t seen or heard from him in weeks, not since we interviewed him down at the station,” I tell him. “I’m not even sure he’s still in the area.”

  I head for the front door but hesitate before opening it, something I do every time now. The memories of the night when both Alison and Prince were shot and killed in our front yard are still fresh and painful. I brace myself for a moment, and then open the door.

  There are no bodies, no dark SUVs cruising by, no bullets raining down on me. It’s a gloriously sunny, clear morning, and it feels like the stifling heat and humidity have taken a holiday. I take this meteorological bellwether as a harbinger of good things to come. And then I look down at my feet.

  The Sorenson paper is on the front stoop. It’s not a big paper—about twelve pages folded in half. The headline side is facing down, but on the lower half of the page I see a picture that I recognize immediately. It’s a shot of our property and the dig site. I pick up the paper and unfold it.

  Blazing across the top of the front page is this headline: ALIEN SKELETON UNEARTHED ON NEARBY FARM? Below that is a picture of the skull.

  I fold the paper back up and tuck it under my arm. I’m going to need more coffee, I decide, because I suspect it’s going to be a very long, very trying day.

  CHAPTER 16

  The office is a zoo. There are TV vans parked around the block and a throng of people milling outside the front door. I use my key card to gain entrance to the underground parking garage beneath the office and manage to get inside without being waylaid.

  Upstairs, I find Otto in the library along with Arnie. They are munching on pastries that I suspect Otto picked up from the local bakery. One of my favorite things about having Otto on board is his compulsive need to bribe his fellow workers with sweets. After greeting both of them, I quickly scan the bakery box, grab a
cheese-filled Danish, and then head for the coffeepot.

  “It’s crazy out there,” Otto says. “I really didn’t think this thing would attract this much attention.”

  Arnie looks askance. “Why wouldn’t it? It’s a historic find, proof that there were aliens here at one time, perhaps even now.”

  Otto gives Arnie a look of patient tolerance. “It is not an alien,” he says. “My guess is it’s a child who had some sort of genetic problems involving craniofacial deformities.”

  “I don’t know,” Arnie says, shaking his head and pursing his lips. “It bears a strong resemblance to the bones they found in Atacama.”

  “Those bones were only six inches long,” Otto says.

  I have no idea what they’re talking about, so I settle in at my desk, wake up my computer, and do a Google search for Atacama. My page instantly fills with articles and pictures of the tiny, mummified bones that were unearthed in this desert climate.

  “The skull of the Atacama skeleton is more elongated than ours,” I say, looking at the pictures.

  “That’s because the bones were mummified and the desiccation torqued the bones out of shape,” Arnie says, walking over and looking at my screen. “Check out the Starchild skeleton.”

  I do another Google search, and find more articles and pictures purporting the discovery of an alien, or rather a human-alien hybrid.

  “It looks like the skull of a child who suffered from hydrocephalus,” says Otto, who has also approached my desk and is now peering over my shoulder. “Nothing more.”

  I click on an article and scan the text. “It says here they tested the bones for DNA and concluded it was human,” I say.

  “Poppycock,” Arnie says. “They only tested for mitochondrial DNA, which comes from the mother. The father might not have been of human origin.”