Her Perfect Bones

by Ellery A Kane

  “A movie called Chained. It was filmed up at the cabin where we found Shelby but never released.”

  She closed the folder, dashing Will’s hopes. He had to tell her, had to prepare her for the inevitable. That he might break his promise. That Shelby’s murder might go unsolved.

  “I did housework for a guy with his own movie studio.”

  Will’s heartbeat quickened. “You don’t happen to remember his name, do you?”

  “Grimaldi. Grimmy. That was his nickname. I always thought he was an odd duck. Shelby called him Grimy behind his back because he gave her the creeps.”

  “Shelby knew him?”

  Trish shrugged, oblivious to Will’s sudden excitement. The sky had turned blue again. A perfect robin’s egg shade. “She came with me to the house a few times and helped out. Mostly just did her homework in the kitchen. Why?”

  More eager now than ever to face the old man again, Will jumped to his feet the moment Trish realized.

  “Is he a suspect?” she asked.

  Fifty-Seven

  Olivia dressed in a fog. The feeling she’d done something wrong clung to her like sea smoke. After no-showing to her own meeting, phoning in to the MHU had only made it worse. Because Dr. Carrie Stanley had taken the call. The same Dr. Stanley who’d been gunning for the Chief Psychologist job long before Olivia returned to Fog Harbor. I’d be happy to cover for you, Doctor Rockwell. And she did sound happy. Delighted at Olivia’s misery.

  Olivia contemplated staying home wrapped in Deck’s sweatshirt, benching herself on the sofa with bad TV and microwave pizza. But she couldn’t resist the urge to comb through her father’s C-file again. Surely she’d missed something that would explain why the FBI had shown up on her doorstep and deemed her father’s sketchbook worthy of seizure.

  While she downed the last of her orange juice and watched the morning news replay the events she’d lived through last night, she took another look at the drawing of the Double Rock she’d ripped from her father’s sketchbook. Turned it over, held it up to the light, searched for a hidden code in the margin. Nothing there but pencil strokes and bad memories. She felt silly, paranoid even, but she hid it anyway, slipping it in a kitchen drawer, pressed between two placemats.

  But then, she reconsidered. Returning to the cabinet, she retrieved the drawing, folded it, and tucked it into her purse where she could keep a permanent eye on it.

  Before she fired up her mother’s station wagon, Olivia typed a text to Deck.

  Weird morning. I overslept. I blame you and your stupid sweatshirt. Which she had no intention of giving back.

  When he didn’t respond right away, she added: Anything good in the duffel? Then, she tossed her phone in her purse like she didn’t care in the least if he ever responded at all.

  And yet, there she was fishing it out of her bag at the first stop sign. Checking it out of the corner of her eye. Halfway to the prison, she heard it buzz and pulled into the ditch like her life depended on it. She needed to know she could still do some good. That she could solve someone’s case even if it wasn’t her father’s.

  Olivia enlarged the photo Deck had sent her. The unused bus ticket came with a dose of mystery and melancholy. Offering more questions than answers, it struck her as a cruel twist of fate. She sat there for a moment, troubled and annoyed with herself. Deck had written exactly nothing, which disappointed her more than she cared to admit.

  As she unlocked the door to the MHU, Olivia suppressed a groan at her own bad timing. A smug Dr. Stanley waved to her from the officers’ station, while the rest of the staff filed out of the conference room.

  “So glad you’re feeling better, Chief. Hangovers are the worst.”

  “I didn’t—” Olivia bit her tongue. She didn’t have the energy to argue. Instead, she busied herself checking out an alarm and clipping it to her waist. Better than making eye contact with the enemy. “Thanks for filling in for me.”

  Olivia retreated to her office and shut the door. She wasted no time logging in and typing in her father’s inmate number, as familiar to her now as his birthdate. Ever since Martello and Bixby had glided away in their unmarked sedan, she’d been turning a question over and over in her mind like a lucky coin in her pocket.

  Could Dad have been informing for the FBI?

  By the time she’d navigated to the Visiting tab in Martin Reilly’s C-file, she’d all but talked herself out of it. It seemed wild. Far-fetched. Like a plot twist in an overwrought thriller.

  Still, she wondered.

  It didn’t take long to scroll through her father’s visiting log, her heart aching when she saw her mother’s name listed, and then, no longer. Since her mother’s death, he’d only had a handful of visits, nearly all from Carmen Sanchez, his state-appointed attorney. But she noticed a strange pattern within the last six months. Additional visits, at least once a month, sometimes more.

  Olivia clicked on the most recent date in February and her mouth went dry.

  Visitor: Theodore Reilly

  Relationship: Brother

  To anyone else it wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow but to Olivia it confirmed her suspicions. Something didn’t add up. Because Uncle Teddy couldn’t have visited her father. Twenty years ago and three sheets to the wind, he’d run his motorcycle straight into the grille of a big rig. He’d made his permanent home in Golden Gate Cemetery ever since.

  “Doctor Rockwell?” Olivia startled at the sound of Sergeant Weber’s voice outside her office door. Brandon Simpkins stood next to her, a broken man.

  She quickly exited her father’s file and motioned them inside, taking a few quiet breaths to calm herself.

  “Simpkins got a death notification this morning. He wants to talk to a psych. Anybody available?”

  Without hesitation, Olivia pointed to the chair opposite her desk. “I am.”

  Brandon dropped into the seat, his fists clenched on his lap. His jaw muscles, tight as barbed wire. She half expected him to sweep his arm across her desk. To body-slam her computer. To punch a hole in the wall. Instead, he sat there, silent and seething.

  “I’m sorry about your loss, Mr. Simpkins. I’m here to listen.”

  “Yesterday the cops show up here asking me questions about this gal I dated like a million years ago. She got pregnant with my kid and disappeared. Next thing I know, some pretty boy detective tells me they found her dead in a barrel. He got his panties all in a wad like I had something to do with it. Then this morning the COs pulled me out of the chow hall, took me down to the chaplain’s office. Ain’t nothing good comes from that. They told me my old lady got shot dead last night. All of a sudden my heart starts racing and I can’t stop thinking it’s my fault. All of this is my goddamn fault.”

  Olivia nodded and waited for him to continue.

  “Drea wouldn’t have been here in this shithole town if it wasn’t for me. Did she call the cops on me? Yeah. Did she blow the whole thing out of proportion? Yeah. I barely hit her. But she didn’t deserve to die like a dog. You know, I’m the one who told her to go to that reporter in the first place. To earn herself a little spendin’ money.”

  With Olivia’s head spinning like a hamster wheel, she decided on a well-timed “Hmm…”

  “I know, right? Fuck my life, excuse my French. Do you ever wish you could just start over?”

  Olivia traveled back to the Double Rock in an instant. Back to the day she’d tipped the first in a line of dominoes by opening the door to Tina Solomon’s murder. If she had a do-over, that’s exactly where she would start. Trouble was, no matter how she’d played it, she had a sinking feeling it would’ve ended the same. With her father six feet under. “Everyone has regrets. And when we lose someone close to us, it’s only natural to feel we let them down. That we’re responsible for the harm that came to them. But that’s a cognitive distortion. It’s not reality.”

  “It sure as hell feels real when you’ve got two cops up in your face, pointing the finger at you for a murder. They’ll p
robably try to pin this shit on me, too.”

  “So what would you have done differently, if you could?” A dangerous question—she was fishing now—but she couldn’t help herself. “Where would you start?”

  “With Shelby. I didn’t help her when she asked. Back then, I didn’t have two dimes to rub together, much less the money for a bus ticket home. Besides, I figured she was playing me for a fool. She’d already up and left with our kid. How was I supposed to know what she got herself mixed up in?”

  Olivia thought of her cell phone, tucked in the glove box of her Buick. The picture Deck had sent via text. “So Shelby wanted to get back together?”

  “Hell if I know. She was crying so hard I could barely understand her. She said there was some guy she was afraid of. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.”

  “Did you tell the police about this? It might be important.”

  Brandon’s incredulous look gave her the answer. “Until today, the only person I ever told was Drea. And look where that got her.”

  The images flooded in. Drea’s slack face and the blood pooling beneath her. The bullet holes in the wall, in Drea’s shirt.

  “Last time I talked to Drea…” His voice trailed off and disappeared entirely, even as Olivia leaned forward to hear him better. “Hold up. This is confidential, right?” His urgency startled her.

  Before she could give her standard reply—as long as the information doesn’t pose a threat to the safety and security of the institution or the public—he pressed on. “You’re not gonna tell that asshole detective, are you? He’s a real wise guy. You know the type.”

  Olivia did know the type. Infuriating. Stubborn as an ox. And yet, undeniably kissable. “No. Of course not.”

  “She told me she thought she was being followed.”

  “By who?”

  He shrugged, then chuckled to himself. But it had no mirth beneath it. “This is going to sound real stupid. To tell you the truth, I laughed at her when she told me. I even asked if she’d started getting high again. But now…”

  Olivia stayed as still and quiet as she could, afraid even the slightest movement would spook him from his confession.

  “She found a plastic wrapper on the grass outside her bedroom window. Like someone had been out there long enough to need a snack.”

  “What sort of plastic wrapper?”

  He shook his head, as if he could still hardly believe it. “Gummy fish.”

  Fifty-Eight

  Will checked his phone as he rushed up the cobblestone path toward Knotted Pines Retirement Home, ready to go toe to toe with old man Grimaldi, who’d conveniently forgotten to tell them he’d employed Shelby’s mother as his housekeeper.

  Will’s text to Olivia, marked read, still had no reply. He wondered what she’d meant about his stupid sweatshirt. And how much of a creep it made him that he liked the thought of her sleeping in it. That when she gave it back, he hoped it would smell like her.

  JB waved to him from the porch, where he sat finishing the last of a barbecue sandwich. As Will approached, he caught the distinct odor of cigarette smoke. A quick scan of the porch revealed a paper bag from the Hickory Pit and the yellow butt end of a Marlboro stuck into the soil of a potted geranium.

  “What happened to Saucy Salads? I thought you were on a diet.”

  JB licked a drip of sauce from his thumb, then gestured to the seat beneath him. “Calories consumed in a rocking chair don’t count.”

  “What about Marlboros?”

  JB opened his mouth, thought better of it. Closed it again.

  “I am a detective, remember? And you smell like an ashtray. Did you really think I wouldn’t notice?”

  “A detective, not a bloodhound. I sprayed myself with this.” JB produced a pocket-sized bottle of Zero Smoke.

  “Have you told Tammy you’ve fallen off the wagon?”

  “Are you out of your damn mind? Of course I haven’t told her. It’s a lapse, not a relapse.” JB hoisted himself from the rocking chair and tossed the empty paper bag in the trash.

  “What about my sandwich? A number three on a sourdough roll with a side of coleslaw. Remember?”

  Gritting his teeth, JB hurried inside.

  “You ate my sandwich too? I hate to break it to you, but that’s a full-on relapse, man.”

  “I can’t help it, City Boy. We’ve got a girl in a barrel. Another one shot dead. My nerves are fried. I’m not sleeping well. If you want me to solve this case, I’ve got to be sharp. And believe it or not, this brain runs on carbs and nicotine.”

  “Oh, I believe it.”

  Nurse Thornton waved to them from the desk. “Here to see Grimmy?”

  Will nodded. “But first, do you mind if we ask you a few questions?”

  She motioned them over, whispering conspiratorially. “He’s cheating at cards in the dining hall. He won’t hear a thing.”

  “Does Mr. Grimaldi ever leave the facility?”

  “Not that I’ve seen. We lock the place down at night. Some of our residents have a tendency to wander. And we have the occasional field trip, but like I told you the other day, Grimmy isn’t so keen on the other residents. Unless he’s winning at poker, he prefers to stay to himself.”

  “What about last night?”

  “Last night? We can check the security footage.” Nurse Thornton pointed to a nearby computer screen. After selecting the day and time, the black and white image of the outer doors appeared. She fast-forwarded through six hours of uneventful footage before Will told her to stop. If Grimaldi had left, he hadn’t come through the front or side exits.

  “Alright. We’ll talk with Mr. Grimaldi now.”

  “Should I tell him you’ll wait for him in his room?”

  JB and Will locked eyes. “Absolutely.”

  They hoofed it down the hall, hoping to have a few moments alone before Grimaldi returned. To spot something useful in plain view. No warrant required.

  Grimaldi’s bed had been neatly made. The curtains pulled wide, letting in the sun. JB perused the old man’s sparse closet, while Will beelined straight for the nightstand, where he’d spotted a row of greeting cards propped during their last visit.

  Will peered down at the signatures inside. Every last one—Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine’s, Easter—signed exactly the same. Your loving daughter, Caroline. He felt a pang, thinking of his own father, who’d preferred to display the bullet he’d removed from his vest after he’d been shot at by a bank robber high on cocaine. Cops couldn’t afford to be sentimental.

  Will examined the other items on the nightstand. An old man’s starter kit complete with a pair of reading glasses, a tube of arthritis cream, and a copy of the Fog Harbor Gazette, folded to the crossword puzzle.

  “So, how do you want to play this?” he asked JB.

  “Classic pimple approach.”

  Will snorted. “Funny, I don’t remember hearing about that one in the academy.”

  “They can’t teach that kind of wisdom, partner. You learn it on the streets. It means we give him a little squeeze and see what pops out.” JB stepped inside Grimaldi’s bathroom and opened the small cabinet above his sink. He grimaced at a pair of dentures on the top shelf.

  “I’m gonna pretend you didn’t say that out loud.”

  “Pretend away, grasshopper.”

  While JB took his position on the sofa, Will’s phone buzzed—unknown number—startling him as if he’d just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Will Decker, Homicide.”

  “Hey, Deck. It’s Olivia. Are you busy?”

  “Uh, kind of. We’re about to reinterview Grimaldi. What’s up?”

  “Oh. Sorry. It’s probably nothing. It can wait.” She took a breath. “I’m not even sure I should be telling you.”

  Will signaled to JB before he retreated to Grimaldi’s bathroom and closed the door. “I’m listening.”

  In the hallway, Will heard Grimaldi approach with Nurse Thornton, pleading his case about his card game w
innings—a bag of Swedish fish. He locked eyes with JB, marveling at their luck.

  “You’re pre-diabetic, Grimmy. You can’t eat those.”

  “I’m eighty goddamn years old. That’s old enough to make my own decisions.”

  Grimaldi burst through the door with a red fish poised above his mouth. He dropped it in, smacked his lips.

  Nurse Thornton sighed. “At least put your teeth in first.”

  He grinned, his gums on full display. If Grimaldi was at all surprised to see a familiar pair of detectives waiting in his room, he didn’t show it.

  “You two bring my movie back? I’ve been itchin’ to see the end of it.” Grimaldi popped in his dentures and promptly put them to use, beheading a green fish.

  “Don’t you remember how it ends?” Will would never forget it. Voyeur-like, the camera had panned to the kitchen window. To the Unfaithful Husband digging a hole in the backyard at the Vengeful Wife’s direction, while the Tortured Lover wailed on in the background. In the final shot, the sharp end of the shovel stabbed into the soft earth.

  With Nurse Thornton’s help, Grimaldi lowered himself into bed and shimmied beneath the covers. “Brilliant, wasn’t it? That last scene really gets my juices going.”

  JB raised his eyebrows, twisted his mouth. “I’ll bet it does.”

  Will couldn’t bring himself to make small talk. After his meeting with Shelby’s mother, the questions burned inside him like hot coals. “Did you make any more movies with Victoria Ratcliffe?”

  “Hmm. Can’t say I did. She didn’t last long in the movie business. She found her true calling.”

  “And what was that?”

  “Motherhood, I suppose.”

  “She told us you liked trashy women.”

  Grimaldi threw back his head, his jaw opening wide with laughter. The remnants of the green fish stuck to his dentures. “Who doesn’t?”