Skin and Bone

by TA Moore

  “Rude.” Tancredi tossed her pen back on the desk and looked down at Bon, who was sprawled on the ground across Cloister’s feet. “It’s a perfect likeness.”

  “I’m not sure if I should be offended on her behalf or suggest you go get your eyes checked,” Cloister said. He excavated his boots from under Bon’s stomach and propped his hip on the edge of Tancredi’s desk. There was a chair, but he didn’t want to take the risk. Even with the strongest over-the-counter pain pills he’d been able to grab, he ached dully from his eyebrow to his ass. “Any news from the hospital?”

  “Only that you walked out last night.” Tancredi flopped down in her chair and nervously picked at her nails as she looked up at him. “I was the one who told SA Merlo about what happened. I know you two were… something, but I hope it was okay.”

  Cloister ran his tongue over the inside of his mouth as though he could still taste Javi’s fierce, angry kiss under toothpaste, ibuprofen, and a bottle of acid-green sports drink that boasted it was full of electrolytes. He didn’t know if it had changed anything—Javi might have stayed the night, but he was gone when Cloister woke up—but it had meant something.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. Tancredi bit her lip and raised her eyebrows at him suggestively. He frowned at her. He was friendly with most people at the station—not all, not the guy who shot his kid’s dog or the one whose wife always had some yellow-brown bruise on her—but Tancredi had apparently decided they were actually friends. Cloister had fended off the barbecue invites and after-work beers, but then she made him cupcakes for his birthday, and he gave up. But that didn’t mean he wanted to talk about his sex life with her, certainly not against the backdrop of noise—keyboard clacks, yawns, the mutter of conversation—from the rest of the bullpen. “Don’t make anything of it either. So we still don’t know what happened to Janet?”

  Tancredi accepted the rebuff with good grace. She slouched back in her chair and shook her head. “Not much.” Then she reached out and rifled through the paperwork on the desk in frustration. “Car was a rental. She hired it two days ago in San Diego. No sign of where she went after that, but she put six hundred miles on the car and had a room booked at the Hampton Inn for the next two weeks. No idea why she was in town, though. Maybe her next of kin will be able to help when we find them.”

  “You haven’t found them?”

  Bourneville wriggled over until she could put her head on Cloister’s boot.

  “No. The emergency contact on her paperwork at the car rental gave a Ruth Belford as her emergency contact, but it’s her office number at the—” Tancredi ferreted through her papers for a folded, bright yellow Post-it and consulted it. “—Parsons School of Design. They’re going to get in contact with her. Or try. The secretary said she thought Dr. Belford was on a no-contact weekend with her partner.”

  “Is Janet a student?”

  “That would be too easy. No student called Janet Morrow, and he said the description matched about twenty students he could see through the window. So….”

  She trailed off with a dispirited shrug and unfolded the Post-it to slap it onto the folder. As she looked back up, her attention shifted to a spot behind Cloister, and she sat up straight in her chair. She opened her mouth, lips shaped around the first syllable of a word that never made it out.

  “What the hell are you doing here, Witte?” Frome growled as he stalked over to Tancredi’s desk. He stopped and frowned at them from under the glasses propped up over his eyebrows. “You’re on sick leave. After that stunt you pulled last night, you’re lucky it’s not disciplinary leave.”

  “I don’t like hospitals.”

  Frome curled his lip. “I don’t like bad coffee and stale donuts,” he said, “but I’m a cop, so I deal with it. Go home, Witte. Get some sleep. You look like hell.”

  He tossed some files on Tancredi’s desk. “We’ve had complaints about protesters at the bank getting out of hand. Go check it out. Make sure they know where the line is. Take Ellie.”

  “A woman’s touch?” Tancredi asked, an edge to her voice.

  “Two women,” Frome corrected. “And you’re from here. Ellie married a local boy. It’s mostly locals at the picket. I don’t want them to feel like we’re outsiders brought in on Hartley’s dime.”

  Tancredi still looked annoyed, but she kept it behind pursed lips as she nodded. “Sir.”

  “And, Deputy? That wasn’t an explanation,” Frome said as he plucked his glasses off his forehead and tucked them into his top pocket. “It was an instruction on how to approach the situation.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She hopped to her feet and grabbed her jacket from the back of her chair. With one hand she flicked her ponytail out over the collar as she edged around Cloister.

  “Don’t get hit by any more cars,” she told him as she headed across the room to Ellie’s desk. “Your nose can’t take it.”

  He gave her a single, sardonic “ha” for that, but it hurt his ribs, which he’d almost forgotten about.

  “Go,” Frome told him. “Home or back to the hospital, just as long as it’s not here.”

  He turned to head back to his office.

  “What are you investigating Janet Morrow’s case as?” Cloister asked.

  Frome stopped, sighed, and turned around. “Right. I’m not. It was misadventure. The girl was lost, drunk, and she probably got scared, fell down, and cracked her head open. It’s sad but not a crime.”

  “That’s bullshit.” Cloister didn’t say it loud. The words were clipped out between his teeth with annoyance. There was still a pause in the general mutter of the office as the other deputies looked up and then quickly back down.

  “You’re on sick leave, but you’re still under my command,” Frome said icily. “Watch your tone, Witte.”

  A wash of disappointed frustration drove Witte to his feet. He knew Frome didn’t want to factor the hit-and-run into the case, but Janet had obviously been attacked. Someone had tried to kill her, had come back to erase the evidence that she’d even been there at all, and the case file was going to say “drunken accident”?

  That wasn’t right.

  “She had no shoes on. Her clothes were half ripped off,” Cloister blurted out angrily. It was always easier to get angry on someone else’s behalf. The tension in the air made Bourneville stand up and lean against his leg, the grumble in her throat more vibration than noise. “Something happened to her, and then it came back to finish the job.”

  Frome looked guilty for a second, but then replaced it with frustrated irritation.

  “Or she fell,” he said as he plucked his glasses off his forehead. “Until I get evidence to the contrary—until I get any evidence—what happened to Janet Morrow was a tragic accident, and you’re on sick leave. So drop it, Witte.”

  He turned and stalked away. Cloister reached down and gave Bourneville’s collar a tug as she huffed after Frome. She was a good dog, the best one he’d ever worked with, but he could feel her sulk. In her worldview Frome didn’t outrank Cloister, not even if Cloister was hurt, and him not knowing that offended her idea of the world.

  The tug on her collar made her subside. She sneezed and sat down to have a scratch, as though that was on her mind all along.

  Frome reached the door to his office and paused. He turned around and pointed his glasses at Cloister across the room.

  “You are a K-9 specialist, and you’re good at it. I’ve got all the detectives I need. So stay in your lane, Deputy.” Everyone glanced up again, and this time the pause was somehow louder. Out of the corner of his eye, Witte could see Dongrey at his desk, fingers hooked and frozen over the keys on his computer. “You can tell your special agent friend that for me too.” Frome looked around at the interested room and scowled blackly. His voice cracked out impatiently, “And the rest of you get back to work. This isn’t a spectator sport.”

  The sound of half a dozen cops pointedly hammering at their keyboards resumed. Frome gave them al
l a disgusted look and slammed the door to his office behind him.

  “Jesus,” Dongrey muttered. “That was harsh. I mean, we all think you’re not a real detective, but we don’t say it out loud.”

  The joke shattered the tension. A few people sniggered, and someone muttered, “Shut up, Dongrey.”

  Cloister gave Dongrey a hard look. “Bourneville’s a better detective than you, Dongrey,” he said.

  The shit-eating grin on Dongrey’s bony, off-kilter face spread. “Never said anything about the dog not being a good detective,” he said. “Just you. She’s shit hot.”

  He cackled to himself as he went back to his report. Cloister let him have it. He levered himself stiffly off Tancredi’s desk and limped through the desks with Bourneville at his heels. A couple of deputies looked sidelong at him, but after a quick glance toward the long windows of Frome’s office, no one said anything.

  Tancredi caught up with him in the parking lot as he opened the door of his car for Bourneville to hop in.

  “Witte… Cloister, wait,” she said as she hopped over the last step and onto the concrete. She jogged to him and caught his arm. A frown seamed two wrinkles into the freckled skin between her eyebrows as she eyed the truck. Whatever she’d been about to say was preempted by “Should you really be driving?”

  He shrugged. “I wouldn’t want to try and drive stick, but I got here okay. I’m fine, Tancredi. You don’t need to mother me.”

  She wrinkled her nose and pushed her hair back from her face, blunt fingers busy as she tidied the knots back into her braid. “I barely like mothering my own kid,” she said. “And he’s awesome, so don’t flatter yourself. I just wanted to check that…. Where are you headed?”

  Cloister pushed Bourneville’s head out of the way and climbed into the car. “Hospital,” he said. “It doesn’t sound like Janet’s going to get many visitors.”

  He started the engine. Tancredi took a long step backward, folded her arms, and tucked her fingers unhappily into the fold of her elbows. She shook her head. “Witte, Frome told you to drop it.”

  “Yeah.” Cloister said as braced his cast against the wheel. “I heard.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  CLOISTER LEFT the car windows open. He was confident no one was going to steal it. Bourneville stood in the back seat, her water on the floor next to her, and waited for him to take her with him.

  “I think you’d make people feel better,” Cloister said as he reached in and scratched under her chin. “The authorities disagree. I won’t be long. Stay. Be good.”

  She huffed and lay down. Her tail twitched against the old patched pleather in the hope that it was just a test and he’d change his mind. Instead of her, he grabbed the packet of Tylenol off the front seat and dry-swallowed two of them on the way into the hospital.

  The reception area looked like a spa. It was all white tiles, glass, and walls painted a shade of pink that some consultant had probably said would be soothing. It reminded Cloister of the sickly, sticky antibiotics he used to get as a kid whenever he was sick. There was hardly anyone there—just pockets of people who looked either exhausted, traumatized, or completely confused about where to go.

  Cloister knew. He might do his best to keep himself out of hospitals, but that didn’t mean other people didn’t end up there. One meth dealer who’d sampled some bad product had run straight into a plate-glass window and through it and picked himself up for another lap of the neighborhood. Then there were the hikers he escorted back out of the desert with broken ankles and dry water bottles. He supposed that one day he’d get inured to the place as innocuous visits outweighed old traumas, but not so far.

  He limped down the hall to the ward and stopped one of the nurses.

  “Excuse me. I’m looking for Janet Morrow?” He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and flashed the star. “Deputy Witte.”

  The nurse—Luke Ivan, from his ID tag—checked the badge and then looked Cloister over, from his dog-hair-covered jeans—Bon had been particularly generous today—to the stitched knot on his forehead. Once he’d taken it all in, he raised his eyebrows.

  “I didn’t know the sheriff’s department did dress-down days,” he said skeptically.

  “They don’t,” Cloister admitted. He never was a good liar. “I was the one who found her. I—”

  “Got hit by a car, sneaked out before the doctors had finished with you,” Ivan finished for him. A faint smirk curled his mouth when Cloister gave him a startled look. “Oh, we’ve all heard that story. You just made me twenty dollars by not dying in the night.”

  “You’re welcome?”

  Ivan flashed a thin, dry smile and pointed. “Ms. Morrow is down there. Room 141. Your colleagues are already with her.”

  That was news. Cloister frowned, but before he could ask any questions, Ivan gave him a brisk nod and loped away down the hall to intercept a solemn young doctor in scrubs and redirect him two doors down.

  Cloister had his hand half-lifted to fire off a question to Mel before he remembered he was out of uniform—no radio, no gun, no idea who was in Janet’s room when he knew Frome hadn’t sent anyone.

  “Shit.”

  He broke into a jog as he dodged around the people and equipment in the hallway. An old woman in a dark pink nightgown huffed as he went around her, her softly pleated face furious as she barked “No running in the halls” after him. He threw an apology back to her as he skidded to a stop in front of the door and opened it a crack.

  “… I’d appreciate a heads-up on the report—” The familiar voice paused and then sharpened as Javi snapped, “Yes, what is it?”

  Cloister pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped into the room. The bed was hidden from view with a sterile blue privacy curtain. It was thin enough that Cloister could see the silhouette of someone on the other side as they moved around the bed. Javi stood in the corner of the room by the one narrow window with a view of the parking lot. When he saw Cloister, he frowned with a flash of irritation that soured his sharp, handsome face.

  “Special Agent Merlo,” Cloister said awkwardly. “I wanted to check on how Janet—Ms. Morrow—was. I didn’t expect there to be anyone else here.”

  It felt awkward, as though he were talking to a stranger and not the man he’d fucked for two months—or even the friend who shook him awake every twenty minutes last night. There were other things Cloister wanted to say to Javi, like thanks for last night, for once he probably hadn’t been fine on his own, and sorry for the fit of temper at the crack of dawn. What the kiss meant. He didn’t know if he wanted to ask that, but he probably needed to.

  Cloister knew how easy it was to convince yourself that a scrap of affection meant something more, that you could thrive on it like a kid with fifty dollars in his pocket and two months until he could enlist, convinced gas station coffee and hot dogs was a healthy diet. People took what they could get and convinced themselves it was all they wanted. It was better to be clear where you stood.

  But this wasn’t the time or place for that conversation. There was a doctor who didn’t need to know their business and a dying girl who made Cloister feel selfish for worrying about himself. So he let the words settle at the bottom of his mind and waited for Javi to say something.

  After a second, Javi tucked his phone into his jacket pocket and stepped away from the window.

  “I needed to talk to Dr. Galloway about another case,” he said with a nod toward the bed. “Since she was here, I thought I’d follow up on Ms. Morrow’s case. Lieutenant Frome doesn’t think this is anything to do with the cartels, but I want to make sure. If they’re targeting local police, that’s an escalation that needs to be addressed.”

  It was always hard to read Javi. His thoughts were discreetly tucked behind that stern, handsome face. He liked to be in control, even in bed… even in Cloister. Still, he didn’t sound as though unsaid words were trapped in his chest. Maybe they weren’t. He might just be focused on what happened to Janet, not dis
tracted by anything else. Cloister shifted his weight and scratched the bit of wrist he could reach under his cast.

  “As far as Tancredi can tell, Janet’s not from around here,” he said as he shoved his own feelings out of the way until later. Once he did, the words came easier as he followed Javi’s lead. Most of the time, they didn’t work well together—Cloister still had a disciplinary on his record from the time he tried to punch Javi through a wall—but sometimes the way they clashed worked. “She flew in from New York a few days ago.”

  “Why?”

  Cloister shrugged. “No idea,” he said. “We still haven’t found her next of kin, and the only contact she left is out of touch for the weekend. We’ve got her name, but other than that, she might as well be a ghost.”

  The screen rolled back from the bed, and Galloway stepped out from behind it. She snapped off her latex gloves, rolled them up, and tossed them into the plastic bin in the corner of the room. She made the shot and then gave Cloister a critical once-over.

  “What happened to you?”

  “I got hit by a car.”

  “Fine,” Galloway said. She pushed her glasses up onto her forehead, her limp blonde hair tangled around the legs, and rubbed the dents they’d left in her nose. “Don’t tell me, then.”

  Cloister started to explain but decided it didn’t matter as Galloway turned back to the bed. She pulled the wrinkled sheet back down over Janet’s skinny, bruised legs.

  “I still have privileges here. It only makes sense to maintain them, but it’s been a while since I had to conduct an examination on someone who’s warm,” she said as she smoothed the sheet down flat. “Or who’d care if someone saw them naked. It’s disconcerting.”

  She started to bag and label the samples she’d laid out on the table by bed. She worked quickly with her square, blunt fingers as she talked, on autopilot at this part of the job.

  “I’ll have to send the samples off to the lab before I can tell you anything in detail,” she said. “And obviously my physical examination was considerably less thorough than usual. A living victim can tell you what happened, a dead victim can tell me what happened, but this leaves us all in the dark.”