“Would you? I can show you later. They’re at the apartment.”
I grab my cup and get up.
“Then let’s go.”
_______________
I look at the pictures first. In one of them a much younger Lissie, maybe sixteen or so, has her arms wrapped around a blonde girl with pigtails sticking out all over her head, wearing some kind of corset. She looks familiar.
“That’s Dani. She had a thing for Gwen Stefani.”
That’s who she reminds me of. I had a thing for Gwen Stefani myself.
“I can see that. How old were you?”
“We were seventeen. The summer before our senior year high school.”
I flip over the next picture. This one is the girl by herself, a little older, sitting by a campfire, a tent and mountains behind her. She has a bandana covering her hair, wearing a big smile, and is holding up a bottle of beer.
“Cibola National Forest. Our last hurrah after I graduated college, just before heading to the police academy.”
“What did you major in?”
“Criminal justice,” she says with a shrug. “My father thought it was a waste of time, neither he nor either of my brothers got their degree before joining the force.”
“So why did you?”
She looks at me with a little smile pulling at the corner of her mouth.
“Because I wanted to prove I could.”
Yeah. Stronger than I am for sure. I lived down to expectations, but Lissie…she exceeded them.
The last picture is the most recent one. Once again with the bandana, twin braids sticking out the side, and all decked out in leathers. The woman is straddling a Harley Softail.
“Don’t know exactly where or when that was taken. She sent it to me not long after she left.”
I can’t tell much from the background. It’s on the side of a road somewhere. Could be anywhere.
Lissie jumps up off the couch when her phone starts ringing in the kitchen. As she answers the call, I reach for the postcards.
The Vegas one was the last one she says she received, so I flip it around to look at the date stamp. September 30, 2012. If I’m not mistaken, that’s around the same time as the Vegas Bikefest, which would make sense, I guess. Fuck, it’s possible we were there at the time. We haven’t made that run to Vegas in recent years, but we used to.
“I have to go.” I turn my head to the kitchen. “It’s the Wildcat Canyon case. Something’s come up. I’m so sorry.”
“That’s fine. Do what you gotta do. I’ve got some reading here and may drop in to see Momma later.”
She walks up to the loveseat and bends over the backrest. I lean my head back and curve my hand around her neck, drawing her close for a kiss.
“I should get changed,” she mumbles against my lips. “I don’t wanna keep them waiting.”
A few minutes later, she’s back for another kiss before she heads for the door.
“See you later.”
“Later, Babe.”
The moment the door shuts behind her, I grab the stack of journal pages she has neatly marked by date in the top right-hand corners. I start with the earliest date, making my way forward in time.
I get to know a little more about Lissie while I’m reading as well. Each page she pulled from her journal has bits and pieces of her life, in addition to Dani’s calls, as well. There are a few entries I could’ve done without; describing a couple of dates she went on. I’m also gaining a little insight in her relationship with her family. Pieces of work her brothers and father are. Belittling her every chance they get.
I’m not gleaning much on Dani, other than she sounds like a wild thing who likes to party hard. So not what I would’ve expected from a best friend to Lissie.
The first time Vegas is mentioned is in a journal entry dated September fourteenth.
Dani says she’s careful, but I don’t know how safe she really is. Sounds like she’s on to guy five by now. Every new guy is the one for her, or so she says. Now she’s going to Vegas, a trip we always wanted to make together, on the back of the next guy’s bike. For however long that lasts. She denies it, but I get the feeling she’s looking for love in her own way. I just hope she finds it.
The next entry is dated September twenty-seventh. Just three days before she sent the card.
I was surprised to hear from Dani so soon. At least she made it to Vegas in one piece, but it doesn’t sound like the guy she went with is working out. But, in true Dani fashion, she’s got her eye on someone new already. I worry about her, but when I told her as much she got pissy. Said something about knowing in her bones he’s a good guy. We’ll see.
I turn over the last page when my phone rings. I look at the screen and quickly answer the call.
“Hello.”
“Mr. Wells?”
“Speaking.”
“This is Janine, I’m Mrs. Wells’s nurse. I think it’s best if you come in.”
CHAPTER 17
Lissie
“SO HOW COME this was started already?”
I look at the community center, which so far is just a concrete slab. Nothing else.
Blackfoot, Benedetti, Gomez, and the project manager from Arches Homes Development are bent over the site plans spread out on the hood of a patrol car.
“That was a miscommunication,” the project manager says. “This whole project has been changed around so much, the contractors don’t know whether they’re coming or going. Heck, I’m the third manager on this project because it’s such a headache.”
My eyes are drawn to the guy pushing around what looks like an oversized lawnmower, but in fact is the ground penetrating radar. A large grid pattern has been marked off on the concrete, stretching about five feet around the perimeter. He’s walking around the slab first, but it’s slow going.
Ramirez comes to stand beside me.
“Sorry to interrupt your day off,” he says. “But I thought you’d wanna be here for this.”
“Absolutely. Appreciate the call. Did I miss anything this morning?”
“Just Stan Woodard throwing a fit. Gomez was digging into the history of the land and discovered Theo Woodard, Stan’s uncle and the founder of Pro Concrete, bought this land in 1992. When Theo died in 2014, his son, John, inherited the company and the land, but sold the property two years later to the developer. Stan came storming into the meeting this morning, flexing his muscle. His cousin probably called him to let him know the FBI had come sniffing.”
“That’s interesting,” I muse. “You think he knows something?”
“Who knows? Woodard is also the kind of guy who would protect the family name at all cost. He wouldn’t even need to know why.”
Blackfoot joins us.
“Did you tell her about the property?”
“He did,” I answer for Ramirez, who the question was directed at. “And thinking about what Doc Carter said about the minimum age of those bones in the pictures, it would mean they ended up in the ground here when the land was still owned by old man Woodard. I’m new in town, but you guys have been around long enough; what do you know about Theo?”
“I don’t know much, other than some of the stories that have been floating around town since Stan got elected,” Tony volunteers.
“Like what?”
“Rumors he was not so much elected as shoehorned into office by some of Theo’s buddies. Other established businesses in town, which would be well-served having someone looking out for their best interests in city hall.”
“The man called himself a patriot, but he was nothing other than a glorified bigot,” Keith contributes. “He—”
“Got something!” The agent pushing the GPR yells, waving Gomez over. The rest of us follow and crowd around the small screen mounted on the push bar of the equipment to get a glimpse.
All I see is a lot of gray with a few distortions.
“Here.” The agent points at what looks like a little ripple. “And here.” He points at another spot on the screen.
/>
I can’t make heads or tails of it, but he apparently can.
“What are we looking at?” Tony asks.
“These could be shallow graves.”
“Graves, as in plural?” I want to know. He turns in my direction and nods somberly.
Jesus.
An hour later a few guys are jackhammering the concrete foundation to manageable chunks to be removed. They’ll have to manually dig through the dirt underneath, so as not to disrupt whatever or whoever is buried below in the shallow graves.
I offered to go grab some coffees and a couple of pizzas in town, since it looks like we’ll be here a while. I tried calling Yuma in the truck, but he wasn’t answering, so I sent a message it would likely be a late night. It’s already late afternoon now and they still have to break ground.
When I get back, I see the crime scene unit got here and is setting up a large tent covering the dig site and installing floodlights. There are a few more patrol cars to keep the curious onlookers at bay, who started showing up a little while ago. Doc Carter is leaning against her van, wearing her signature Doc Martens, and watching the procedures.
Before I can get out of my truck, Ramirez has the passenger door open and starts pulling out the pizza boxes.
“Hey! Leave a pie and a couple of coffees for me,” I grumble, when he threatens to take off with my entire haul.
Grabbing the pizza and the coffees he leaves behind, I walk over to Meredith.
“Looks like you hit the floor running since you got here,” I comment as I hand her a coffee.
“Thanks. Yeah, you’re not kidding. I was told this would be only a moderately busy office. Yet new bodies seem to pop up every week.”
I flip open the box, offer her a slice, and the two of us put a good dent in the pizza while we chat a little, watch, and wait.
It’s dark outside when they uncover the first of the bodies. There’s not much more than a skeleton left, and Meredith jumps into the hole to examine it closer. There’s hardly any smell, and I can handle bones a lot better than I do corpses so I stick close, wanting to hear everything she reports.
“What’ve we got, Doc?” Ramirez asks.
“Light me up here and I’ll tell ya,” she mutters.
Tony walks over and aims a flashlight.
“Female, mostly intact skeleton. Point that light down here, will ya?” She bends over the pelvic bones and Tony crouches beside her. “She delivered a baby at some point. I don’t think she’s been down here any more than eight years, maybe nine, but we’ll need to do some tests to confirm. Can I get a backboard and a couple of body bags down here?”
A couple?
Two hours later, we close the door on the third body in the back of Doc Carter’s van. Three bodies, so far. The only thing we know for sure is all are women.
The hole that was dug up is covered with tarp and will have guards overnight. The crime scene techs should be back tomorrow morning when they have daylight to work by.
“We’re hitting the floor running tomorrow, folks,” Joe Benedetti says. “We need identities on these bodies, and we need to bring in John Woodard. Gomez is going to have a talk with the big guy at Arches Homes at the FBI office in Moab. Everyone get some sleep. We regroup at seven tomorrow.”
The clock in my truck shows ten to eleven, and I pull out my phone to see if I’ve missed any messages.
Nothing.
Yuma
Ouray answers on the third ring as I peel out of the parking lot.
“What’s up?”
“Need you to bring Nosh to the nursing home right now.”
“Momma?”
“It’s not good, brother. Hurry.”
I think it’s best for you to come in. Your mother is not doing well.
I shake my head and forcefully empty my thoughts. It doesn’t stop the massive fist squeezing my chest, though. I’m on automatic pilot as I drive to the nursing home, and park in the first open spot I see out front.
“Excuse me…” I barely slow my stride. “Sir, you can’t park there.”
I look at the gray-haired lady, who is jogging to keep up with me as I aim for the stairwell.
“Don’t care.”
She doesn’t follow me up the stairs and I’m sure my truck’ll be towed by the time I get back, but I can’t bring myself to care about that either.
“What happened?” I ask when I walk into her room and find Momma in bed; her face slack but I can hear her breath rasping. The nurse attending to her turns to me.
“Mr. Wells, I’m Janine. We suspect your mother had a massive stroke.”
“Jesus.” I sink down on a chair beside her bed and take her limp hand in mine. “Isn’t there something you can do?”
“Sir, I’m sorry, but your mother has a DNR form in her file,” she says with a sad smile on her face.
I knew that. She’d filled one out last year after she was shot, and it had been cause for an argument when I found out. I’ve wondered many times since then whether she’d been aware her mind was going.
“How long?” I croak.
“No way to tell for sure, but we don’t expect her to last the night. I can tell you she’s not suffering, we made sure of that. Can I get you something?”
I shake my head.
“Can you tell me what happened?” I ask again, but this time it’s barely more than a whisper.
“She was dancing in the common room—she really seemed to love dancing—then she suddenly stopped and crumpled to the floor. We brought her here.”
I drop my forehead to the mattress and I listen to the nurse’s footsteps leaving the room.
Fuck. I’d hoped there would be time…but I guess it was already too late.
I thought she’d have a chance to see me sober—see me change my life around—but she never even recognized me after I came home. She’ll never know now.
A grunt sounds from the door and when I lift my head, I see Nosh sagging against the doorway.
I shoot out of my seat and rush to his side. I wrap an arm around him and help him to the chair I just vacated.
“They think she had a stroke,” I sign, moving to stand on the other side of her bed. He nods and grabs her hand, much like I’d just done.
“Yuma,” Ouray says from behind me, clapping me on the shoulder.
I softly repeat what I know for his benefit.
“The brothers are on their way. Luna and the boy too.”
I nod. For a moment I wish Lissie were here, but that wouldn’t change a thing. Momma would still be dying.
Over the next hour the room fills with bodies. Chairs are brought in, Trunk shows up with trays of coffee, and at some point someone starts telling anecdotes.
“Shit.” Ouray grins at his wife. “Remember the first time Momma tested your abilities in the kitchen?
“How could I forget? She dared me to cook the Brussels sprouts she’d tried to get you to eat for thirty years.” Luna chuckles at the memory. “I’ll never forget her face when you asked for seconds.”
“She never stopped bugging me about wearing a damn helmet,” Wapi shares with a sniffle.
“Did that to me my whole life,” I speak up. “That’s how you knew she cared.”
Nosh, who’d started following the conversation reading lips suddenly signs, “She loved every one of you like her own.”
Collective nods and hums go up around the room.
She did. She may not have been warm and cuddly, but she was the fiercest momma bear to all her cubs. For all the run-ins I’ve had with my mother over the years—and there’ve been plenty—I never once doubted she loved me. She just had an unconventional way of showing it. A tough woman, even hard at times, but always with the best of intentions.
Momma hangs on until the early hours of the morning, when her breathing starts to falter. Pauses between breaths suspend longer and longer, until finally she releases the slightest of puffs and doesn’t inhale again.
She’s gone.
One by one
my brothers, then Luna and Ahiga, and finally Ouray step up to the bed to kiss her goodbye. Then it’s just my father and me. I walk around the bed and when I put my hand on his shoulder, he turns and buries his face in my chest. I awkwardly hug him as his frail shoulders start shaking.
A few minutes later he pulls away and wipes his face with his sleeve. Then he looks up at me.
“I’d like some time alone with her, Son.”
I can’t remember the last time he’s called me that and my throat closes.
“Of course.”
I lean over the bed and press my lips to my mother’s surprisingly smooth forehead, take one last look at her, and leave the room.
Ouray is waiting outside in the hallway and embraces me, his strong arms holding me tight.
That’s when I lose it.
Ouray doesn’t say a word, but when I finally straighten up I notice his eyes aren’t dry either.
“Everyone but Trunk and Paco has gone back to the clubhouse. Paco went to grab us all some coffee and Trunk is down the hall.”
I follow him into the waiting room where we find Trunk talking on his phone.
“Gotta go, Little Mama,” he says when his eyes come to me. “I will.” He tucks the phone in his back pocket and hooks and arm around my neck. “So sorry, man, she was an institution. Jaimie sends her condolences and love.”
“Thanks.”
“Where’s Lissie?” he wants to know.
Guilt immediately surfaces when I think about the message I never answered.
“Haven’t talked to her yet.”
“Brother…” I hear the admonishment in his voice.
“She messaged earlier she’d be working late. She’s probably in bed by now.”
Excuses, I know. Already the woman is like a drug, but I don’t want to be leaning on her like a crutch every time I hit a rough spot like I use to do with Jack Daniels.
“Not smart, my friend,” Trunk observes.
He may well be right, but it’s already too late now.
“I’ll call in a couple of hours when she gets up.”
Paco walks in with a tray of coffee and hands it off to Trunk, before putting his hands on the side of my neck. “Gonna miss that woman hard, brother. Loved Momma like she was my own,” he says gruffly before letting me go.
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