Bone Dust White

by Karin Salvalaggio

  “Can you imagine the sum total of your life fitting inside one suitcase?”

  “Seems like Leanne was a very lonely woman.”

  “I’ve read the reports from Child Protective Services. I can’t feel sorry for her.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that. I don’t think anyone hangs out in a place like Finley by choice.”

  “It’s Sofia I feel sorry for. The woman seems lost.”

  “There’s a lot of that going around.” He glances over at Macy. “You okay?”

  “By my standards your little love triangle almost looks healthy.”

  “And here I am thinking you’ve got it all figured out.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  He gives her a long look and asks about her situation.

  “No fairy-tale endings, I’m afraid.”

  “You’re having the baby on your own?”

  “I’m afraid I’m as fucked up as you are.”

  “What about the father?”

  “We’re no longer together.”

  “Does he know?”

  “He pretended he didn’t but that’s all changed. We finally had the talk.”

  “And I thought I had an unhealthy relationship with the truth. So you still see him?”

  “Kind of difficult not to. He’s my boss.” The image of Ray’s face squashed up against the Plexiglas at the Helena ice rink has been in her mind all day.

  “The baby’s father is the captain of the state police.”

  “Yep.”

  “Isn’t he married?”

  “Like you’re one to judge.”

  “It just doesn’t seem like something you would get mixed up in.”

  “He was separated when we started seeing each other.” Macy slumps down in the seat and closes her eyes. “I was stupid. I should have waited until he was divorced.”

  “How long were you going out before they got back together?”

  “Nearly two years.”

  “What an asshole.”

  “I don’t blame Ray.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “His oldest daughter has a lot of issues. Anorexia, self-harm, you name it. It was awful for Ray. He blamed himself. One thing led to another and he and Jessica got back together.” Macy turns away and looks out at the view. The sun is just about to slip down behind the ridgeline. She found out she was pregnant the day Ray and Jessica renewed their wedding vows. That same afternoon Macy’s car skidded on a sharp bend and plowed through a railing at high speed.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “It’s okay. It’s good to talk about it. If I bottle it up, I get angry.” She takes a quick look at her cell phone. There hasn’t been any word from Ray all day. “There’s still hope for you though. Hayley could leave her husband.”

  “Probably not. Brian would get custody of the kids.”

  “That doesn’t seem likely.”

  “About ten years ago Brian got busted for dealing drugs and Hayley took the fall. She was using back then but everyone in town knew it was Brian who was the dealer.”

  “So she’s got a record.”

  “And Brian’s got a punching bag.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m not sure there’s much I can do. I know I have to end it with Lexxie, but that’s the easy part.”

  “Not so easy for Lexxie.”

  “She’s gotta know what’s coming.”

  “You keep telling yourself that.”

  Macy’s phone rings. “Hello, Warren,” she says, turning toward the window. She listens for a few seconds and frowns. “Of course he’s going to deny taking the calls, but someone there spoke to Leanne and he’s the one who doesn’t have an alibi.”

  “For a guilty man he’s being unusually cooperative. We’re going through his work diary and seeing if the times you gave us match when he was in the office.”

  “Lean on him a bit more and see what happens.”

  “What about Pamela? She works there too.”

  “Sure, bring her in. Just let me know how it goes,” she says, hanging up.

  *

  As soon as she returns to her hotel room Macy strips off her clothing and climbs into bed. Propped up against the pillows she scrolls through the hundreds of unsent text messages on her phone. They’re all meant for Ray. Since their breakup, they’ve tracked the stages of her grief, their tone altering with her mood—denial to rage to despondency before coming full circle back to denial again. Bargaining hasn’t been possible. Acceptance is out of the question. Before drifting off to sleep, she writes another message to Ray, but this time she hits the Send button.

  I don’t know if I can do this on my own.

  19

  Macy calls Warren into her office. “It seems I owe Toby Larson an apology.”

  Warren shuts the door and takes the seat opposite her. “I wouldn’t worry too much about Toby’s feelings. After all these years being married to Pamela, he’s pretty thick-skinned.”

  “I still feel bad when I get it wrong.”

  “What did you find out?”

  “It turns out Sofia Jankowski answered the incoming call that was placed from Larson’s Used Cars. She remembers it well because it’s the only phone call Leanne received in the two years she lived there.” Macy levels her gaze at Warren. “It was a woman who called. Sofia didn’t get a name but she did describe her as being very rude.”

  “That sounds like Pamela Larson.”

  “We need to bring her back in for questioning. At the very least we’ll charge her with obstruction.”

  “We know she didn’t kill Leanne, so what do you think she’s done?”

  “She may have let the killer know when Leanne was coming to visit Grace.”

  Warren whistles. “Do you really think she’s that cold-blooded? That would make her an accessary to murder.”

  “I agree that it seems a bit extreme given her issues with Leanne date back eleven years, but the facts speak for themselves. After speaking to her sister, Leanne called Toby’s number, but Pamela answered instead. Pamela used the conversation to gain Leanne’s trust. Three days before she was murdered, Pamela called Leanne and let her know the best time to come see Grace. She set Leanne up.”

  Warren starts to get up. “It will be interesting to see who else Pamela’s been speaking to. I’ll see about getting a warrant to check her phone records.”

  Macy tips her head toward the door. “I think Grace and her aunt should be waiting out in the reception area. Do you mind sending Grace in?”

  “Not at all.”

  *

  Macy sits across from Grace and watches as she reads over the newspaper clipping that was found among Leanne’s belongings. She notices that Grace’s eyes keep drifting to the license plate number written in the margins.

  Macy points to the margin. “Grace, I need to know if that is your handwriting.”

  “My mother told me never to tell.”

  “That’s because your mother was trying to protect you.”

  “It’s my fault she had to leave town.”

  “You were seven years old at the time. Nothing that happened was your fault. I need you to tell me what these numbers mean. So far we’ve been unable to match them to any vehicle’s registration.” She rolls her chair around the desk so she and Grace can sit facing each other, their knees almost touching, and spends the next half hour telling Grace about the trip she made up to Canada to interview the woman her mother was living with the last few years. “Sofia’s last name is Jankowski, and according to records she arrived in Canada around eleven years ago.”

  “What’s that got to do with me?”

  “It has everything to do with you. Sofia told me what you did for her and her friends.”

  “I swear I didn’t do anything.”

  “Grace, there’s no reason to lie anymore. You’re safe now. Sofia says it was you that rescued her from the container on the back of that truck. She even told me that’s
why she was willing to look after your mom these past couple of years.”

  “It was the same truck as before. I couldn’t let it happen again.”

  “What happened the first time you saw the truck?”

  She stares up at the map on the wall above Macy’s desk. Someone has marked the location of Finley with a thumbtack. If you drew a straight line from Collier it’s not very far at all.

  Macy tries to meet her eyes but Grace won’t let her. “Did you see the girls that we found dead at the rest stop?”

  “No, I never saw them. I heard them though. I thought it was my mother calling for help so I went looking for her. I worried about her all the time.”

  “But it wasn’t your mom.”

  “No, ma’am. The girls were locked up in the container of a truck that was parked away from the others. The one that could speak English was named Katya.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said they were scared and wanted water. I tried to bring them some but a man came out of the diner and chased me into the bushes along the back fence. A coyote bolted and I think he must have figured he’d been chasing it all along because he let me go after that.”

  “Did you tell your mother?”

  “I tried. I went home but Mom was passed out, and later when I checked, the truck was gone.”

  “And then you read about it in the papers?”

  “No, first I saw it on the news, but I figured it was them.” She points to the article. “It even said they found tire tracks from an eighteen-wheeler. My mom told me I wasn’t to go near the trucks again.”

  “So your mother knew about it and did nothing?”

  “She said she’d call the police, but she never did. A few weeks later the truck was parked in the same spot so I broke into the garage and stole some bolt cutters. My mother wasn’t too pleased to find four girls hiding out in our trailer.”

  “No, I imagine she was pretty pissed off.”

  “She understood the trouble we were in. She couldn’t come back for me. She couldn’t be with Toby. I ruined everything.”

  Macy brushes the hair out of Grace’s eyes. “But you saved those girls’ lives. God knows what would have happened to them if you hadn’t come along. I know Sofia is very grateful for what you did.”

  “I may have made a mistake when I wrote down the number,” she says, holding it up and looking at it again. “I didn’t have any paper so I had to memorize it.”

  “But you definitely got it from the truck Katya was in?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I remember trying really hard to get it right.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll figure it out. Do you remember anything else about the truck?”

  “It looked like all the other ones. The only difference was where it was parked.”

  “You said the driver chased you. Do you remember what he looked like?”

  “I only remember that he looked angry.”

  “Grace, you were incredibly brave. You should be very proud of what you did for those girls.”

  “I still get upset about Katya.”

  “Then try to think about Sofia instead.”

  Grace looks up at Macy. “Do you think the man who chased me is the same man who killed my mother?”

  “That’s what we’re hoping to find out.”

  *

  Elizabeth knocks at the door of Macy’s office and waits.

  Macy waves her in and offers her a seat. “I apologize. I would have come by to see you and Grace at home but it wasn’t possible.”

  “That’s fine. I’m happy to help.”

  “I need to ask you again whether you’ve had any contact with Leanne.” Macy slides a piece of paper across the desk. “I have a copy of your sister’s phone bill. Three weeks ago Leanne called the house on Summit Road and spoke to someone for more than ten minutes. I’m guessing it was you that took the call. In your original statement you claimed to have had no contact with Leanne. I’m assuming that you’d like to change your story.”

  “I should have told you about it, but I was worried Grace would find out that I spoke to her mother.”

  “What did your sister want?”

  “She wanted to see Grace and I told her she wasn’t to come near our home.”

  “Did she say anything else?”

  “She said I couldn’t stop her.”

  “I imagine that didn’t go down well.”

  “We argued. Every last grievance found its voice in the ten minutes we were on the phone. I hadn’t realized I’d been screaming until later.” Elizabeth reaches up and touches her neck. “Can you believe my throat was sore?”

  “I imagine it felt good to get all that off your chest.”

  Elizabeth manages the slightest of smiles, but there are tears in her eyes. She pulls off her glasses and blinks as she cleans them with a tissue. “I should have told Grace. It was wrong of me to lie.”

  “Now, is that all? Are you sure there isn’t something else you want to tell me?”

  Elizabeth opens her cornflower blue eyes wide. “I’m afraid there’s a lot more.”

  “Take your time.”

  “I thought I’d put a bed in Arnold’s office. Grace needed somewhere downstairs where she could rest while she was recuperating, but first I had to clean it out to make space. I’d been avoiding it. There is so much stuff in there. I took hours going through the various boxes and files. A receipt for a meal out at a restaurant would send me back twenty years. I’d remember what I wore, what we ate, how Arnold laughed, how handsome he looked in a suit.” Elizabeth puts a closed fist to her chest and keeps it there. “I found some photos of Grace.”

  “What kind of photos?”

  “They were horrible. I can’t get the images out of my head. They were in an envelope taped to the bottom of a drawer. At first I didn’t know what I was looking at but then it was too late to make everything right again. All those wonderful memories of Arnold flew right from my head.”

  “In these photos, how old was Grace?”

  “I’d say around fourteen. It’s hard to tell.” She clasps a hand to her mouth but her words find their way through the thick mesh of fingers. “My poor baby was naked.”

  Very gently Macy rests a hand on Elizabeth’s forearm. “Please tell me you still have them?”

  Elizabeth stares straight ahead. “I couldn’t deal with what it might mean so I put them back where I found them. I just wanted to pretend for a while that they didn’t exist. I can’t believe I was so stupid.”

  20

  Grace’s aunt leans back on the sofa and tosses her unfinished crossword puzzle to the side. “Where’s he taking you?”

  “The mall and then maybe dinner.” Grace is hoping for dinner but it wasn’t really part of the deal she’d struck during the phone call with Jared. She casts around for her house keys, eventually finding them on the kitchen counter.

  Her aunt reaches for the television remote. “I spoke to Detective Greeley earlier today and she assured me you’d be well cared for. I’m expecting you to be home no later than eight.”

  “I’m eighteen years old now. I think I can stay out past eight.”

  Elizabeth turns on the television and switches the channel to the local news. They’re talking about the weather, but at the bottom of the screen an update runs about Molly Parks and the two other little girls, same as they have been for the past couple of days.

  Her aunt points to the screen. “I don’t think you realize how worried I am about you going out.”

  Grace wishes her aunt wasn’t right. She leans over and kisses her on the forehead. “I promise I’ll be careful.”

  Grace heads outside wearing a red coat and matching galoshes. The hem of a floral dress pokes out from beneath. Her shoulder bag is bulky and bangs against her hip.

  Jared rolls down the window and she skips over to the truck, taking a drag off his cigarette like she’d done before.

  “I’m late,” she says, smiling.

  “And you’r
e smoking again.” He snatches the cigarette from her lips and flicks it into the slush.

  “You’re not exactly taking care of yourself, so why should I?”

  “I’m old and ugly. It doesn’t matter much.”

  “You’re not that old.”

  “I’m too old for you.” He gestures toward the house. “How are you guys settling in?”

  “I hate it here.”

  “What does your aunt think of you coming for a ride with me?”

  Grace looks over her shoulder and squints into the front window where her aunt stands cross-armed and watching. “She’s worried.”

  “I don’t want her getting the wrong impression.”

  Grace runs around the other side of the truck and opens the door. “Then bring me back in one piece.”

  Jared waves at Elizabeth. “Where does she think I’m taking you?”

  “The mall.”

  “But we’re not going to the mall, are we?”

  “The mall in Collier has to be the most pathetic place on earth.”

  He puts his truck in gear. “So where to then?”

  “You know that truck stop south of town on Route 93?”

  “Yeah, I know it. Of all the places in the world, why would you want to go there?”

  “It’s where my mom and I used to live.”

  “My question still stands.”

  “I thought if I went to see the trailer where we lived, it might make it easier to move on.”

  “Fair enough.” He glances over at her. “I want you to tell me if it gets to be too much. Will you promise to do that?”

  “I promise.”

  Grace keeps her eyes low to the horizon as they drive. She can tell Jared is ill at ease. He takes furtive glances out the windows and in the rearview mirror, looking everywhere but at her. Once they’re out on Route 93 his gaze shifts to the front and pretty much stays there. She watches him out of the corner of her eye and memorizes the landscape of his face: the nose that looks like it’s never been broken, the forehead that protrudes a fraction too far, and the sharply angled jawline that’s always locked in a clench.

  She touches his arm to get his attention. “Do you really think you’re too old for me?”