The Bone Man

by Vicki Stiefel

  His grip loosened, but his scowl deepened. Hank in a beard. He looked great. Different, but great, even if the beard did hide his dimple. I wished he hadn’t seen my affection with Kranak.

  “You’ve got to believe that Kranak and I aren’t a number,” I said. “I guess it’s too much to ask.”

  “Too much.”

  “Carmen called, didn’t she? She told you what ferry I was taking?”

  “Ayuh.”

  Ah, we were in terse Maine-speak. It was colder here in America. I zipped my fuzzy and slipped my pink Boston Red Sox hat on my head. “You should trust me, Hank.”

  He was silent on the crowded bus ride back to the parking lot. I refused to be drawn into his snit, and so I chatted with a neighboring passenger who admired Penny.

  As we disembarked from the bus, Hank didn’t even spare me a glance, but plucked the keys from my hand and beeped open my 4Runner. I tried to open the back, but it was still locked. “Beep it again, dammit.”

  “Thing’s a pain.”

  “So, you could have brought your own car.”

  “I got a ride. Thought we’d drive back together.” He beeped the keylock.

  “It’s still locked, Hank. You’ve got to beep it twice in a row.”

  He stabbed with the remote, as if it were a person he was killing. I heard the click and lifted the back. I flung my rollie into the cargo area, slammed the trunk shut with way too much force, and stomped around to the driver’s side. “I’ll drive.”

  He didn’t move. “Get in.”

  I snorted, walked around, opened the back door and waited while Penny gathered herself and leapt. I slid into the passenger side and grabbed the handle.

  “Where’s Peanut?” I asked, missing Hank’s giant Irish Wolfhound.

  “Not here,” he said, pronouncing “here” like “heah.” I laughed.

  As expected, Hank crept out of the parking lot at the speed of sludge. He paid, and we were on our way back to Boston, which, given his driving style, would take years, if not decades.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Amazing that Hank could move even slower going across the Sagamore Bridge. He knew it drove me batso when he crawled along in the car. The more irritated he was with me, the slower we went. Revenge. That was what this was all about.

  “Nothing happened, Hank.”

  “Yup suh.”

  “You know,” I said, “I’m so frickin’ glad to see you, and all you can do is scowl. Dammit. I was with Kranak because he was investigating a crime scene. Nothing more.”

  He didn’t move.

  “I can’t even see your eyes behind those stupid cop sunglasses.”

  The glasses remained on his face.

  “You drive me crazy.” And he did. But the whole story about why I was on the Vineyard and Izod man and my cut face avalanched out. “Satisfied?”

  He slipped on a Bluetooth earpiece, which I somehow found shocking in my retro fella. He pressed and mumbled something into the earpiece I couldn’t hear, nodded. Then he pushed the off button.

  I waited a good ten minutes while the tarmac of Route 3 plodded by. “C’mon, Hank,” I finally said.

  “It’s your face, Tal.”

  Not a trace of Maine-ese. “I know. It’s a mess.”

  “He cut you.”

  “I had it stitched on the Vineyard. It’ll be fine. I . . .” He hates it. He thinks I’ll look ugly with a scar snaking down my cheek. He . . . Well, I guess I hadn’t thought he’d react that way.

  I peered out the window, saw nothing, felt that hollow place inside.

  A warm hand, more like a bear paw, covered mine. “I don’t give a fuck about your scar, Tal. I’m pissed the fella’s dead, ’cause I want to kill him myself. I’m trying to get a handle on that fury. Y’know?”

  I tried to cry, let out a string of epithets. I leaned closer to Hank—wished the 4Runner had bench seats—kissed his cheek and lay my arm across his belly for the rest of the ride home.

  Nothing was better than making love with Hank Cunningham. He touched my left breast, pinched my nipple lightly. Geesh, I wanted more. “Christmas, Hank.”

  His rumbled chuckle drove me higher, and I rubbed his groin with my pelvis. His hardness made me feel full and wet and electric. I pushed my toes against his, opened, and when he slid inside me, I arched like a quivering bow.

  “Oh, Hank, what you do to me, love.” The scent of him drove me crazier.

  “Let’s ride,” he gasped.

  Lips on mine, pace tormentingly slow, hands pressed to my back, my arms wrapped around his shoulders. We found nirvana again.

  Monday morning, I heard Hank open and close the front door.

  “Did you get the paper?” I said.

  He winked and tossed it on the bed.

  “What are you up for today?” I checked the headlines, then lounged on the bed, scratching Penny’s ears, while he dressed.

  He shot me a long, sexy look and wiggled his eyebrows.

  “Yeah, yeah, big boy. Don’t do that if you can’t play.”

  He laughed. “You’re a ball-buster, Tal.”

  I flipped onto my belly, grinned. “Now you’re hurting my feelings.”

  “Not gonna sell that one,” he said in his best Maine-ese.

  He pulled out the one tie he kept in my closet and knotted it around his neck. What the hell?

  “No, seriously.” I sat up, dragged on the silk Japanese robe he’d given me. “I don’t get this. What’s up?”

  “Just gonna meet with some friends.”

  He walked out of the bedroom, and I trailed after him into the bathroom. He trolled for his razor, couldn’t find it, and poached my pink Venus.

  “That’s for girls,” I said.

  That sideways grin. God, I could melt. “That’s why I like it,” he said. He scraped away everything but his out-of-fashion mustache that I so loved. “The new beard gone?”

  “Ayuh.” He then tugged his short-bristled brush through his hair.

  “Tell me, please,” I said. “I don’t like this.”

  He cupped my chin. “Can’t tell you anything I don’t know. When I do . . .” He moved me away from the door and left.

  Hank was the most open guy I’d ever known. The kindest. The most straightforward. So who was the guy who’d just left my apartment?

  I recalled what Addy had said—the rumor about Hank joining the AG’s office as a homicide detective. He was being awfully secretive.

  I tossed on a pair of jeans and a shirt, leashed up Penny, and followed.

  I shouldn’t follow him. I knew that as I drove down Tremont. Honestly, I felt illicit and guilty. I did it anyway. He was headed for Route 90, and I felt a small burst of satisfaction when he merged onto the Mass Pike. That morning, the Pike wasn’t bad going west, but I didn’t envy those headed east. Traffic was brutal.

  Maybe twenty minutes later, he turned onto Route 9. I knew now where he was going—Massachusetts State Police Headquarters in Framingham.

  I had to see it, though. I couldn’t believe he was having some interview or assignment or something and hadn’t told me.

  I really did wish I still smoked. I hadn’t even eaten that morning. My stomach rumbled. Penny gave me the “look,” which meant I was an irresponsible mom for not feeding her.

  Oh, screw it.

  I took the right and then the U-turn and ended up back on Route 9 going east. Just as I suspected, Hank ended up at Mass. State Police Headquarters. Addy had been right. Although it made no sense. None at all. He had a great job as Hancock County’s sheriff. After all he’d been a detective in New York for years, yet he’d moved back home to Maine to get away from the bile of the city.

  I switched lanes. No point in hanging around. I guessed he tell me at some point. Or not.

  I stroked my bandage. He could have been lying about my sliced cheek, too, and how he felt looking at me. It was pretty creepy looking. Sort of.

  I suddenly felt empty inside.

  Back home, I fed Pe
nny, then took her for a run at the doggie park. She bounded around like the puppy she no longer was. At least I could still thrill someone. She wouldn’t mind my scar. Not one bit.

  I ran home beside Penny, relishing the cool late September air and the blush on the turning leaves. As I rounded the corner to Appleton, I slowed, then stopped.

  A man stood beside my front door facing the street. His hands were clasped behind him, his posture tight and tall, although I wouldn’t call him a tall man, inches-wise. His eyes were closed, his face slack. He stance implied patience and calm, and he seemed out of place in the hustle and bustle of Boston.

  I walked slowly toward my front steps. I thought about what I would say to him, how I would approach him. He could be a friend, an enemy, or something in between.

  A neighbor yelled, “Hi!” and, “That guy’s been there for an hour. I’d call the cops.”

  I thanked him and walked on. When I reached the bottom step, I recognized the stranger. I’d met him days earlier.

  Penny and I eagerly trotted up the cement steps. “Hello, Governor Bowannie,” I said. “How can I help you?”

  Inside, while I made us some coffee, the governor admired the collection of Zuni fetish carvings that sat on my mantel.

  He pointed to a favorite amber bear of mine by a carver name Dee Edaakie.

  “She’s pretty, isn’t she?” I said from the kitchen.

  He laughed. “How do you know she’s a girl?”

  “Just look at her,” I said.

  “You’ve got some fine young carvers here. Dee Edaakie. Alonzo Esalio, Jeff Tsalabutie.” His smile widened. “Even Fred Bowannie, an exceptional carver. Despite the name, we’re no relation.”

  I walked into the living room and handed the governor his mug. I picked up Fred Bowannie’s jasper bear. “He’s wonderful. Look at that sweet face. They all are wonderful. They mean a lot to me.” I slipped Dee’s amber bear into my shirt pocket, just above my heart.

  “Dr. Cravitz told me you were a collector.”

  I shook my head. “A very modest one. It’s partly because I love animals so much. And stones of all kinds. Fetish carving combines both.”

  He nodded toward my desk, where four of my favorite carvings lived.

  “They help you work?” he said.

  “You betcha.”

  “You like the old ones, too.” He held my marble Edna Leki to the light.” “She was amazing, Edna. What a carver. You could really see the spirit in the stone. She learned from the best, her father, Teddy.”

  “I hope to have one of his, someday.”

  He nodded. “It’s good to see something of my home here.”

  “I understand. The feeling of home is important.”

  “Yes. Home.” He ran his hand across his upper chest.

  “Is everything all right?”

  “As much as it can be.”

  “Shall we sit here?” I gestured to the couch.

  He pointed to the partially open French doors. “How about in the sunshine?”

  We sat out back on my tiny deck, Penny lounging between us. The breeze was sweet with the promise of fall, and, as always, I tasted a hint of the sea in the air.

  The metal tray between us held more coffee and cream and sugar.

  “Is it too chilly for you out here?” I said.

  He patted the arm of my tattered wing chair that lived on my deck. “This is good. I’ve been inside too much.”

  I touched his leathered hand with my index finger. “You said you were here for help. What can I do?”

  He again massaged the spot on his chest above his heart. He frowned. “Dr. Cravitz is dead. Executed. I am suspected in doing the deed.”

  I should be afraid. But I wasn’t, not with Penny beside me and the belief that this man wouldn’t kill for a skull, even a sacred one. “From what I’ve heard, yes, you are a suspect in Didi’s homicide.”

  “You don’t fear me?” he said.

  “Should I?”

  He unsnapped his shirt pocket and drew out a pack of generic cigarettes. From his jeans pocket, he pulled out a worn Zippo and flipped it open. His hand shook when he lit the cigarette. “Can’t give them up.”

  “I’m jealous,” I said. “I gave up a pack-a-day habit, and I miss them. Ha! Silliness. As I said, what do you want from me?”

  He inhaled long and deep, then pursed his lips to exhale. The wind stole the smoke, while the familiar smell flip-flopped my stomach. I waited.

  “I am not afraid of being locked up,” he said. “I did not kill the good doctor, and there is no evidence. But I feel bad that she’s dead. She was a dedicated woman who meant well. I do fear that I will never recover the skull.”

  I stroked Penny’s soft fur. “For your people, you mean. For the Zuni.”

  “No, I do not mean that. I believe that the skull is no more Zuni than you are, found in the Old Ones’ pot or not.”

  A leveler. “I agree with you, actually,” I said. “But why? What makes you think that? I’m sorry. I thought you were so sure.”

  “I was.” He flicked his ash over the rail. “Until Dr. Cravitz created that woman from the skull. The doctor was too skilled to make a serious misstep in her reconstruction. That woman was no Zuni. Nor Hopi. Nor even Navajo. I don’t think she’s Indian at all. So who is she? Somebody’s playing some bad game, and because of that, Dr. Cravitz is dead. So, yeah, I want that skull. I want the people who took it, too.”

  I rubbed my hands up and down my thighs. “Well, I have a theory. I think that Didi’s re-creation was of a friend of mine. A modern woman. I don’t know how her skull ended up in an Old Ones’ pot. But that’s what I believe.”

  “Yes,” the governor said. “Well, it’s a crazier theory than mine, even.”

  “Which is?”

  “That her head was witched in there.”

  “Switched in there? How?”

  He chuckled softly. “Not switched, Tally Whyte. Witched.”

  Not what I’d been expecting. “Ah. You’re a shaman. Am I right?”

  He laughed harder, put his cigarette out on the bottom of his boot, and slipped the butt into his shirt pocket. “I’m not sure what you Anglos call it, what I am.”

  I almost told him about events on the Vineyard, but held my tongue. I trusted him, but I’d done that before with disastrous results. His chocolate eyes said “truth,” and his body language conveyed relaxation, not guilt. Yet for once I resisted my innards and didn’t spew forth all that I knew.

  “And you want me to . . . ?” I said.

  He waved his hand. “In a minute. You want something from me, yes?”

  “How did you . . . Whatever.” I leaned forward. “Yes, I do. I’d like you to tell me about the blood fetish.”

  His head snapped around, and his eyes blazed. “That’s deep, my dear. Deep. I can’t help you. I can’t talk about it. Or even name it.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “They’re much the same. You should talk to my son.”

  “And how would I do that?”

  His eyes warmed and his leathery face folded into a smile of such quiet joy I wished to reach out and hold him and feel that warmth, that love of life. I reached into my shirt pocket and pulled out my amber bear. “Please take her.”

  He looked from the bear to me, and his long brown fingers slipped Dee’s bear from my palm. He pulled out a pouch from beneath his shirt—his medicine pouch—widened the mouth and placed Dee’s bear inside.

  “That is a great gift.” He slid the pouch back beneath his shirt.

  “She’s a sweet bear.”

  “Yes. I’ve seen you and, now, your home. You are in tune with the Indian as much as any white can be. You have authority, presence.”

  His flattery made me uncomfortable. I respected his slow pace, but he wasn’t being completely forthright with me.

  “You won’t tell me, will you?” I said. “About the fetish.”

  “It’s not part of my story. Aric, on the other han
d . . .” He inhaled smoke from his cigarette, and his lungs expanded. “Good. It’s good.”

  “It will kill you.”

  His ironic smile gave me pause. I wondered . . . “So . . . what can I do for you?”

  “I want you to come with me to recover the skull.”

  I laughed, all nerves. “Come with you where?”

  He nodded. “To Zuniland.”

  Zuniland. I’d been there once, years earlier, and I’d loved it. I always felt at home out west. Yet . . . “I can’t, Governor. I have things here. Obligations. This should be left to the authorities.”

  He stood and leaned on the balcony’s railing. His eyes narrowed, and everything about him said he desperately missed his home, his mountain—Corn Mountain—and the sun above the mesa. His place.

  “Governor?” I said finally.

  He straightened his spine. “The authorities, as you call them, are your authorities. Not mine. They know less than nothing. They have not seen the face of the woman. She is pleading for help.”

  “The reconstruction?” Pleading for help. Maybe that’s what I’d been feeling for days, Delphine’s plea.

  “Not that, ma’am,” he said. “Dr. Cravitz. Her face. I shall never forget. She is not resting yet. Not yet.”

  He stood and drew a card and a pouch, much like his medicine pouch, from his jeans pocket. “Here is where I’m staying. I wrote my cell phone number on back. I leave tomorrow. Please call me.”

  His card read Professor Ben Bowannie, with numerous initials after his name, and followed by Archeology Department, University of New Mexico.

  “You are full of surprises, Professor,” I said.

  He grinned. “I try to keep the young ones hopping.”

  “I’ll call either way. But please don’t count on me.”

  “One more thing.” He held up the pouch. “This, too. It’s for you.”

  “Really?” I took the pouch from the governor. It was soft and warm, perhaps made of deerskin. I looked at him with questions. “Governor?”

  “Just open it.”

  I widened the neck and spilled what was in the pouch into my palm. I gasped, smiled. “The red rock from the Old Ones’ pot! I just assumed the thieves had taken that, too.”

  He nodded. “The doctor told me how much you admired it.” His lips curled into a grin. “I thought you would like it.”