The Bone Man

by Vicki Stiefel

  We blew through the front doors, and the minute I inhaled the sea, I calmed. “Zoe’s dangerous. I’m terribly worried about Amélie. If Zoe’s even half right . . .”

  I couldn’t help imagining the fear she must be feeling. How they might abuse her. How they’d kill her, just like they’d killed her mother. And we still didn’t know who they were.

  I didn’t for a minute believe that Zoe’s boyfriend Devlin was in charge of the operation.

  We walked to the beach. That day, it was pristine, with few footprints and no people. The rain had stopped and the sun emerged, but the ocean still roiled with the storm’s energy. I cherished its vastness, that feeling of smallness, much the same as I felt in the desert.

  I sat on the wet sand, legs crossed. The cold seeped into my bottom, and I didn’t care. The cool spray refreshed me, and I felt cleansed, if only for a moment.

  “The ocean always amazes me,” Aric said. “She’s probably dead.”

  “Amélie? I can’t think that way. Not one more corpse. Please. All for some stupid pots.”

  “You should think that way,” he said. “It’s sensible.”

  “Oh, and sensible sure describes me, Aric.”

  He walked to the sea and let it lap the tips of his boots. “Your point of view affects everything.”

  I jumped to my feet. “Well, dammit, Aric. I refuse to believe that girl is dead. So let’s get Hank and haul our asses to Salem and figure things out once and for all.”

  His lips thinned, and he scraped a hand through his clipped black hair. “Yes. It’s time.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  The drive to Salem didn’t take long. We were already on the North Shore, and so we just shot up Route 1A to 107 to 114. Penny and I sat in back, and Penny’s ears stayed at attention the whole time. She knew something was up.

  The men tossed around different ideas about the case, and at some point, Hank made sure we’d have backup at the museum.

  We arrived in front of the mall that housed the museum in less than forty-five minutes.

  The electric feeling in the car gave me goose bumps. Inside the museum was Jerry Devlin, going about his daily work as one of the museum’s Native American curators.

  How could he so betray his profession? His passion? I guessed that Paulie had said it all: money.

  “So what’s our plan?” I said.

  Hank turned to me wearing his Serious Sheriff face.

  “What?” I said.

  “Our plan is, you stay here.”

  “No way.”

  “You must, Tally,” Aric said. “Our worry for you could jeopardize the whole operation. Devlin knows this place in and out. To get him, we must use surprise. You, Penny, do not constitute surprise.”

  “But Aric, Hank . . .”

  “We won’t go in,” Hank said. “Unless you give us your word.”

  I hated this. Hated it. But I looked from Aric’s face to Hank’s and back again. They meant what they said.

  “Fine. I’ll stay here.”

  Hank stabbed a finger at the dashboard. “Right here. In this car. You will not leave it. Deal?”

  How could I make a deal like that? Not to go after Devlin, to sit passively by? That wasn’t me, not at all.

  I sighed. They weren’t kidding.

  We could either drive away and let others handle Devlin. Or I could stay put.

  “Deal.”

  I scooched into the backseat of Hank’s Chrysler and tried to sleep. The rain had started again, playing a melodic tattoo on the metal. I found it soothing. It would lull me to sleep.

  I couldn’t believe this was happening in Salem, of all places. Talk about creepy. Here women had been hanged as witches and a man pressed to death beneath stones. The air was different in Salem. The town thrived on that difference, and its gabled homes and Gothic churches only enhanced that feeling.

  I watched Hank and Aric walk across the street toward the museum, one of the most wonderful in the state. I didn’t like their leaving. Penny didn’t like it, either.

  “Right, Pens?”

  She woofled a sigh.

  I closed my eyes . . . and saw the governor. He wore the sweetest expression of caring and love. I began to cry.

  I sat up, sniffled. I was being stupid.

  I reached into my bag for some tissues. Nothing like getting all maudlin to bring on the waterworks.

  As my hand searched for the tissues, my fingers found cool silk. I pulled whatever it was out. “Look, Pens, Delphine’s gloves.” Good thing I hadn’t brought them with me to New Mexico. They’d have been destroyed. I didn’t remember tucking them into my purse. I was glad I had.

  I laid them in my lap. They were beautifully knit, and the colors of the rainbow. I wondered if we’d ever find her remains. I sure hoped when Aric and Hank caught up with Devlin, he told some good tales.

  Penny whined.

  “Huh? What’s up, Pens?”

  She scratched at the window, but I wasn’t getting it.

  “What?”

  She scratched again, an obvious bid to get out of the car. An urgent one.

  I assumed she needed the bathroom. I leashed her up and opened the door.

  She took off, yanking the leash from my hand.

  “Penny!” I shouted.

  The rain was falling faster and thicker, and if she wasn’t black and tan, I wouldn’t have been able to see her. “Penny, dammit!”

  She sat perfectly still at the end of the parking lot, head tilted, waiting. As if she had something to show me. I’d seen it plenty of times, but . . .

  I’d promised Hank I’d stay in the car. But Penny definitely had something to show me.

  Oh, hell, Hank should know me better than that.

  I slipped out of the car with a confidence I was far from feeling. I wore my hat and jacket, and wished I’d brought the Taser. I tucked the gloves in my pocket.

  I crouched in front of Penny. “What is it, girl? Something, eh?”

  She whined and sat in front of me, as if she hadn’t just disobeyed me.

  I picked up her soggy leash. If I were right, she’d take off like a bat. Then I pulled the gloves from my pocket. “Is it this?” I held them out to her.

  She whiffed them once, twice, and off we went.

  Boy, was Penny in a hurry. We flew.

  Across the street, Penny paused by the stately Episcopal church, with its majestic stonework and green window trim, past its pocket-corner graveyards and soaring Gothic dignity. Then we ran again, down the brick sidewalk, past the church hall, and more buildings. Past a parking lot, where we had a gorgeous view of town and beyond.

  “Pens?”

  She trotted on, down the hill to a seedy parking lot and an ancient barn and an abandoned building out of witchy nightmares. She paused on the gravel surface, nose twitching. I tried to catch my breath.

  The old stone building was massive. It took up a city-block corner. It sprawled across acres, and there, on the side of the building, over to the right—geesh—was an old graveyard, the kind out of a Washington Irving horror story. Hard to imagine anything spookier.

  The empty building stopped me short. Penny tugged on the leash. “Stand still. Ruce vzhuru.” Even for Salem, the place was disturbing, with upsetting vibes that seemed to make everything worse. The building was constructed of large, rectangular blocks that appeared to be granite. It must have been flush at one point, since it was trimmed in copper. Two strange cupolas—one pointed, the other with a round adornment—sprouted from the roof, as did numerous brick chimneys. I shielded my eyes trying to read the engraving on the side of the building. I stood on tiptoe. 1884.

  The two-story building was surrounded by heavy wire fencing, atop which were several rows of barbed wire. Dying vines threaded in that inhospitable place, up the fence and around the barbed wire. How unlovely.

  Why had Penny brought me to this empty relic, with its disturbing vibe and blown-out windows?

  The rain was coming faster, th
e wind whipping the drops into a frenzy. This was the last place on earth I wanted to be.

  “Penny, can we go now?”

  She whined. I let her smell the gloves, and . . .

  “Take that dog home!” came an angry voice.

  I turned. A woman bundled like a polar bear was shaking her fist at me.

  “Pardon?”

  “Look at this rain,” she said. “She’ll freeze.”

  This was incredibly annoying. “Her coat is thicker than mine. Excuse me.”

  As I went to walk around the woman, she slammed something hard on my wrist. I reflexively loosened my grip on Penny’s leash, and she trotted away.

  “Dammit!” I raced after my dog, while the woman’s cackling laughter sent a chill down my spine.

  Something was wrong. “Penny!”

  The wind stole my voice, and Penny ran on, alongside the raggedy barn with the collapsing roof and through a hole in the chain-link fence.

  “Penny! Zustan! Don’t do that! Fuj!”

  She wasn’t listening. She was on the scent.

  I looked behind me. The woman wasn’t there. It didn’t matter. I had to get Penny.

  I followed Penny through the hole in the fence, scraping my jacket on the broken steel link.

  It was a lot creepier inside the fence than out.

  Penny loped down the hill, and I ran after her. The wind gusted, and the sudden blast of rain blinded me. I couldn’t see Penny. I called again and again, but I didn’t see her anywhere. I tried to find her paw prints, but of course I couldn’t spot them in that terrible rain.

  I ran down the slope, stumbled, caught myself. I ran up to the building. I shivered. There were bars on all the windows. Maybe the place had been an insane asylum.

  Think, think. Why would Penny run there? The gloves, of course. Had to be. Pens was a good cadaver dog. Delphine’s remains?

  I ran from window to window, plowing through increasingly nasty gusts of rain. The storm was a real Nor’easter, the worst kind.

  Bars, bars everywhere. I rounded a corner and . . . there . . . a door, cracked open enough for Penny to slip inside. Could I?

  I reached the door, tried to squeeze inside. No way. I pushed and pushed, and nothing happened. I began to call, then clamped my teeth tight. If the pot thieves were inside, they’d hear me.

  I pressed all my weight against the door, imagined it opening, pushing inward. I pushed and pushed and . . . The door flew open, and I tumbled inside, landing flat on my face on the cold, filthy marble floor.

  A boom.

  The place went dark. Someone clamped my hands together behind my back. Brutal hands yanked me to my feet, and rough arms dragged me up a set of jagged stairs. I couldn’t see a thing—no light whatsoever—and when I struggled, a man’s voice growled in my ear, “Cut it, or we kill the dog.”

  At the top of the stairs, I was hauled down a corridor. Metal clinked, a door opened, and the guy gave me a shove. I flipped around and slammed inside a small room, right into a cinder-block wall. Pain shot through my elbow. The door went snick-snick behind me.

  Hell.

  But it wasn’t all bad. At least, that’s what I told myself. I’d seen his foot. He wore cowboy boots. Dark ones with lightning bolts up the sides. I’d seen boots like that before, on the man who’d tried to kill me at the trading post. Yet another of the National Geographic guys. I should say fake Geographic guys. I doubted homicide was part of their job description.

  What was with the lightning on the boots? What was I missing here?

  Didn’t matter. I looked around and shivered. The room was freezing. I felt all that granite surrounding me and the weight of old, old souls pressing against mine. There was a terrible wrongness to the place. It was suffocating, like a stone squeezing my chest, like that poor old man pressed to death beneath those stones.

  I walked to the window. Pale watery light filtered in from outside the barred, glassed, and wire-meshed window filthy with grime and age. The room—crypt?—couldn’t have been more than six-by-six, and I told myself that now wasn’t the time for claustrophobia. Right. A ceiling light dangled above my head but shed no light because the bulb was broken. Given the stairs I’d been dragged up, I was obviously not on the first floor. I wet my fingers, tried to clear a bit of glass, but failed. The mesh was too tight. My stomach cramped with fear.

  I hunkered down, close to the chipped beige floor tiles. They, too, were grimy with age and coated with dust. So no one had been in this room for a long time. That all meant something. Why couldn’t I put it together?

  I sat in the corner, my back against the chilly wall.

  If Penny were okay, she’d find me. My captor said they had her, but I didn’t believe him. Couldn’t. Yes, Penny would find me. If not . . . I refused to think about it.

  I pictured Aric and Hank. First, they’d be annoyed that I’d waltzed off. Then angry. Then worried. But by then it would be too late. I didn’t see how in hell they’d know where I was. Too bad I hadn’t left any bread crumbs.

  I peered around the cell for spiders, webs, anything that spoke of life. I found nothing. The place was empty and cold, with a horrible absence of life. The tips of my fingers had lost feeling.

  Think, dammit, I yelled at myself. I doubted they intended to kill me, at least not at first. So why lock me up? What did I have, what did I know, what could I do that they wanted?

  I pushed myself up and began to pace. Movement, action, that was the ticket. I breathed in and out, listened for sounds. Other than my breath, all I heard was silence. I paced. Rhythm.

  The boots were the same. I’d recognized four of my assailants, yet I had trouble placing them in my world. Back and forth. Pace. Rhythm.

  A clanking made me stumble. Ignore it. Now was the time I must understand, or I would die. I believed that.

  The clanking grew louder. Think. Think, Tally, dammit!

  Lightning. On the men’s boots. And where else? A breeze from a crack in the window brushed my face. A collar. A shirt collar.

  The anchor-style guy I now knew to be Devlin had a lightning bolt embroidered on his shirt collar. Two pairs of boots and a collar. Not a coincidence. And there was one more. What? I paced, paced. The clanging grew louder still, yet . . .

  A man formed in my mind, a shadowy one with a predatory disposition. I’d sure met enough of them lately. Anchor man? No, I recalled the lightning bolt on his shirt. It wasn’t he. Then who? Who was I seeing?

  The cell door flew open, and I jumped.

  “Who’s there?” I said.

  “You killed Paulie,” came the whispery voice full of hate.

  I backed up a step, right into the wall. I braced myself. “Why would you think I killed anyone?”

  “You killed him.”

  I caught the glint of something. Gun? Knife? It didn’t matter. I had nowhere to go.

  “You’re wrong.”

  “You’re dead.”

  I dropped to the floor just as something clattered against the wall. Footsteps entered the room, and I rolled. A large, round person was bent over retrieving the big knife that lay on the floor. He was vague, like a shadow, with eyes that burned.

  I leaped on top of him, and he laughed.

  I bit, kicked, tasted blood. A swat across my face snapped back my head. Hands, heavy and tight, squeezed my neck.

  I gasped for air and groped for some place to grab on to. I found a smooshy area and clamped down hard with my fingers and nails, scraping along a surface.

  The floor hit me in the head, and I saw stars while I kicked myself out of his way. I could hardly make out his face, but I saw streaks of red, and I pushed to my knees. His teeth glinted, and he watched me as he reached for the knife.

  With both hands I grabbed for his balls and squeezed down hard.

  Howling!

  I squeezed harder and tighter, and he pushed me away, but I pushed back, using his energy, his force. Then I suddenly released him.

  Wham! His head smacked into the ci
nder-block wall. He slid down it, aware but stunned, and I grabbed his knife, wrapping both palms around the hilt, and I thrust it into him, my back arched, seeking an energy I didn’t feel.

  He screamed, and I fell back. And he collapsed. His head tilted to one side, his eyes were closed, and blood ran from the wound in his side. I gasped for breath. Couldn’t believe I’d gotten the better of him. I sucked in air until the voice in my head shrieked, Run!

  I lurched to my feet. God, it was hard. I couldn’t leave him like this. When he came to, he’d come after me again. I’d only wounded him. I rifled his pockets, pulled out a Zorro poker token. Stupid. Finally, in his shirt pocket, I felt something metal, something like . . . a key. Yes. He had a flashlight, too. I took both of them and crept out of that vile room.

  I locked it behind me, and the satisfying snick told me that for the moment, I was safe.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  In the hall, the howl of the wind sounded like madness. It reminded me of Chaco. Different, but the same.

  I should leave, get Hank and Aric. But I couldn’t leave. Not without Penny.

  Fear seeped into my brain like a poisonous oil. I ached for a courage I wasn’t feeling.

  The corridor was pitch black, but for one greasy window that allowed in a pale light. That was to my advantage. I slipped into a nook in the hall that might have once held a water fountain. I pressed on the flashlight. A halogen with a direct beam. Perfect. I listened for Penny, but heard only silence. I had two choices—I could turn left, down that hall, or go right, deeper into the labyrinth.

  Left . . . it made little sense that anyone would be there. Passing cars might see someone walking in the building. Right it was, and so I went deeper into the bowels of the place that felt like a snake pit.

  I walked quickly, again thankful that Hank had bought me the Merrells. The farther I traveled, the colder it seemed, until, another right and . . . I saw a light down the end of the corridor.

  I realized I was shaking and tried to catch my breath. What a place! High ceilings, cold, damp walls, bars on the windows, stone everywhere. A medieval prison or a madhouse or the catacombs of Moria.

  Get it together. My teeth began to chatter. Those people wanted to kill me or worse, torture me. I’d been lucky to make it this far. How long would my luck hold? Maybe I should run. My soul said: flee.