Skin and Bone

by TA Moore

  Probably.

  But that didn’t make him feel any better.

  “Come on,” he said as he leaned back and peeled the hot, heavy dog off him. “Ready to work?”

  Bourneville pricked her ears forward and barked once in sharp agreement. She scrambled gracelessly back through the window and waited for him to get her ready. It took ten minutes to get her out, watered, and fitted in her harness. Everything was harder when you only had one free hand to do it with. Cloister ran his finger under the straps to make sure her hair wasn’t tangled while she fussed and shook her head impatiently.

  Once it was done to his satisfaction, Cloister hooked her lead into place and headed across the parking lot toward the Staff Only signs at far side. Bourneville trotted eagerly at his side, and her shoulder bumped companionably against his leg.

  Police tape was stretched over the entrance to the ramp to bar intruders. It apparently wasn’t enough to deter the irritated man being pushed back under the tape to the right side.

  “I know something happened,” the man huffed furiously. “I saw the whole thing earlier. I was basically a victim myself. Now I’m being treated like a suspect. I want my car, goddammit.”

  Behind the tape, Ellie—Ellie Smith, but there were nine Smiths in the sheriff’s department, not counting clerks and admins—went white and red with anger. Her lips were thin and colorless, red stains bright on her cheekbones and temples.

  “A man blew his brains out,” Cloister interrupted as he stopped at the tape. The man, gray haired and gym fit under his scrubs, spun to glare at him, his mouth half-open. He glanced down at Bourneville, who had sat down neatly at Cloister’s heels, and pressed his lips back together as he thought better of whatever he was going to say. “So you can have your car back once we’ve picked three pounds of gray matter out of the crevices. Usually we’d get it cleaned up, but if you want it that much….”

  Distaste washed over the man’s face, and he stepped back.

  “Fine,” he muttered. “I’ll get an Uber, but I’ll want my car back tomorrow.”

  He pulled his phone out of his pocket as he stalked away, his sour mutters just audible as they trailed behind him.

  “Asshole,” Ellie muttered after him. She put her arm under the tape and lifted it up. “They taken you off desk duty?”

  Cloister ducked under her arm. His bruises were a tight band of pressure around his ribs. They ached as he bent, but not as much as they had before. He was not going to admit that had anything to do with a night spent in a bed rather than on his couch.

  “Not exactly,” he admitted as he straightened up.

  Ellie gave him an exasperated look. “You had to tell me?”

  Bourneville whined as she slunk under the barrier—she didn’t need Ellie’s help—and caught the charnel stink of the place. Her ears went down, and she pushed her way between Cloister’s legs. He reached down to stroke her narrow head, all bone under the fluff of black hair, as she panted nervously.

  “It’s just a look around.” He shrugged when she frowned at him. “Frome didn’t tell me I couldn’t look.”

  Ellie pursed her lips. She looked down at Bourneville.

  “You sure the dog’s up to it?” she asked. “She doesn’t look happy.”

  “Are you?” Cloister asked. “I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t my job. I can still do my job.”

  “I can’t argue with that,” Ellie said. She wiped sweat off her forehead and glanced around as though Frome might jump out from behind a car. “All right, but if you get in trouble for this? I had no idea. You better hurry. The cleanup guys just got here.”

  Cloister nodded and headed down. The smell got stronger as he reached the bottom, where the damp reek of blood mixed with the dustiness of concrete. Galloway’s car was still there, the parking permit for the morgue taped to the window, and the crime scene cleaners’ van was parked crookedly next to it.

  Three men in sturdy white overalls were already at work. Two of them were on their knees, brushes in hand as they scrubbed the concrete, while a third picked gray matter off the car.

  Bourneville growled nervously and pulled on her lead.

  “Stay,” Cloister told her as he pulled her back. He raised his voice slightly, and it sounded like a lot in the empty space. “I need the scene.”

  The man at work on the car sat back on his heels and looked around. Goggles, the lenses blotched with watermarks, covered his eyes, and a hand-sized dust mask was cupped over his mouth and nose.

  “Again?”

  The voice was muffled by the mask, but Cloister still recognized it—Hewitt. So did Bourneville. She muttered a growl, a low rattle of noise under her breath, and then dropped her head remorsefully before Cloister could tell her off. A bright amber eye peered up at him sidelong. He nudged her with his knee but let her get away with it.

  “Are you pulling overtime, Hewitt?” he asked.

  Hewitt pushed his goggles onto his forehead and pulled the mask down to dangle around his neck. There were dark circles under his eyes, ground in as though someone had used their thumb, and a crop of acne popped around his nose and chin.

  “It’s a recession, Witte,” he said as he stood up and wiped his hands on his overalls. His fingers left pink stains on the crumpled white legs. “Money doesn’t flow as freely as it used to, and we can’t all have lawyers buying us fancy dinners, can we? Look, hands up. We weren’t meant to start until six, but that’s only another ten minutes. It’s never mattered before if we jump the gun a little.”

  “It matters this time,” Cloister said. The other two men looked up from what they were doing. There was a puddle of frothy pink water around their knees. “Go get a coffee. By the time you’re back, I’ll be done.”

  Hewitt made a face and scratched his jaw. His nails scraped through a working day’s worth of stubble.

  “Come on, Witte,” he said. “Look at it. You think the dog is going to pick up something in this mess? It’s just bleach and soapy water. Just let us get on with this, okay? Some of us guys have families to get home to. You and me, we’re both deputies, right? If I thought there was something here that’d help, I’d be the first to—”

  Cloister narrowed his eyes. “I’m a deputy,” he said. “And I’m not done with this scene. So back off, Hewitt.”

  Hewitt stared at him for a minute. Then he turned his lips down sourly and huffed out a frustrated sigh. “Fuck it,” he said. “Fine. Come on, guys. Give the ‘deputy’ the room. You got five minutes, Witte. Five, then this is ours.”

  He stalked up the ramp toward Ellie, arms crossed and body language sour as he gestured back toward Cloister. The other two men shrugged, got up, and left their brushes on the ground. One stretched, pushed his fists into the small of his back, and gave Cloister a wink.

  “Don’t rush on my account,” he said. “All I’ve got to go home to is a cheese casserole, and that ain’t worth missing out on overtime.”

  His coworker gave him a shove. “You’re going to get in trouble again, smartass,” he muttered. “Boss says we want to get home, we want to get home. Come on.”

  The two men shuffled off out of the way. They loitered near the van. The one who was in no rush to get home pulled off his gloves and got a half-eaten sandwich out of his pocket. Bourneville turned her head to watch him, her ears pricked forward with interest.

  Cloister tugged her lead to get her attention. “Work,” he reminded her.

  The sandwich lost her attention. Bourneville snorted, shook her head until her ears flapped, and gave him an expectant “well, get on with it, then” look.

  “Stay.”

  She looked disappointed as she flopped down, but Cloister didn’t want bleach on her feet or up her nose. He unhooked her lead, tucked the length of canvas into his belt, and left her there as he walked around the car to look for an untainted scent source. The events of the afternoon—based on Javi’s report and Galloway’s witness testimony—played out in his head as he walked the stations fro
m mark to mark.

  Macintosh had grabbed Galloway by her car, shoved the gun into her stomach, and shot her. If he’d had the stomach for it, she’d have been dead already, but he flinched at the last minute, and she’d just have a scar. The only blood there belonged to her.

  A few cars down, the splatter of blood drops on the concrete, smudged and scraped under foot, were probably Javi’s. The thought made Cloister hesitate, his mouth dry with bleak, sudden dread. It felt like a weight, and it was ridiculous. Javi was fine. He’d had eight stitches and an antibiotic shot. Andrew Macintosh might have been ruthless in the courtroom, but when real violence was involved, the only person he was a danger to was himself.

  But it could have been worse, and the sour fear in Cloister’s throat didn’t care that it hadn’t been. It was the same old cold dread that lived in his nightmares, the fear that someone would… just be gone… and Cloister would never know why.

  Cloister scrubbed the back of his hand over his mouth. He had a job to do, he reminded himself roughly, and Javi was fine—not happy, but fine.

  He walked through the puddle of soapy blood and paused by the car. The solution Hewitt used had started to dry on the paintwork. It was a flaky white scum flecked with the small, hard lumps of matter.

  In the underpass Macintosh had been nearly as tall as Cloister. Maybe as tall, under the nervous hunch and panic. So if he had stood here and shot himself….

  Cloister braced his foot on the running board at the side of the SUV and boosted himself up. Blood and hair splattered the roof, untouched by the cleanup. He looked over at Bourneville and whistled.

  “Bourneville,” he said. She scrambled to her feet and grinned. Cloister snapped his fingers and pointed at the front of the car. “Up.”

  She trotted forward and took a smooth, flowing leap onto the hood of the car. Her nails scraped against the metal as she landed and scrabbled for purchase. Cloistered patted the hood, and she went up the windshield in a quick jump. The roof creaked and groaned under her weight as she landed, but she put her nose down and sniffed across the blood-smeared paintwork.

  The tang of spent cordite made her wrinkle her nose and snort. It always made her sneeze.

  “One minute,” Hewitt yelled.

  Cloister jumped down from the SUV. His feet splashed in the puddle as he walked around to the front of the car and called Bourneville to heel. She backed up to slide awkwardly down the windshield and then twisted around to jump off the car. The bill for the scraped paintwork was going to please Frome when he got it.

  “Bourneville,” Cloister said as he leaned down to clip her lead back on. “Such!”

  The clipped command bounced back from the walls. Bourneville gave him a confused look, her head tilted to one side and then the other as though he’d make sense at the right angle.

  “Such,” Cloister repeated as he wound the lead around his fist. “Go on. Find.”

  It was obvious that Bourneville wasn’t sure what he wanted. The scent was right there on the car and sprayed into the concrete. It was already found. Still, to show she was willing, she got up and started toward the puddle of dead scent that floated on the scuzzy water.

  Cloister blocked her. “No,” he said as he pulled her back, away from the car. “Such, Bourneville.”

  She cast around on the floor until she found the trace of Macintosh left where—based on the scene Cloister had drawn from the reports—he’d scuffled with Javi. A whine squeezed out of Bourneville’s throat as she caught Javi’s scent, and she glanced up at Cloister for reassurance.

  “It’s okay, Bourneville,” Cloister said as he gave her some play on the lead. “Find him. Where’d he go?”

  She dropped her nose to the pavement and followed the scent trail up to the wide puddle of blood where Tancredi had been injured. That made Bourneville whine and pin her ears unhappily as she recognized the scent. She sniffed around the edges of the blood stain and then caught the puddle of Macintosh’s scent next to her.

  It led back down into the garage. This time Cloister blocked her with his knees and pulled her around by the collar. She huffed a deep, frustrated sigh and gave him a reproachful look. What, that look asked, did he even want from her?

  “Your dog looks lost,” Hewitt said. “She need Waze?”

  Ellie laughed and shook her head. “Give it a rest, Tim. You’ve got your cleanup site back. Right, Witte?”

  Cloister almost said no. It would have been petty, but Hewitt had the sort of face you wanted to thwart. Always had.

  “We’re done with it,” he said. “Do what you like. Come on, Bourneville, such.”

  This time it clicked with Bourneville that he wanted to backtrack the trail. She padded up the ramp with purpose, head down so her nose grazed along the concrete. On the way past Hewitt, she lifted her head and turned it to stare at him with suspicious amber eyes. No growl. She knew when she had pushed her luck, but her distrust of him was obvious.

  Cloister wanted to think it was proof that his dog was a good judge of character, but more likely she had picked up on his irritation. That wasn’t good behavior.

  “He was the one I told you about, right?” Hewitt said as Cloister stooped under the tape. There was a smug note in his voice that said he already knew the answer or was pretty sure he did. “The guy who came around the last cleanup, where that woman hurt herself. The one who wanted to know all about her. Bet it was. If you’d listened to me, Deputy, maybe one of our own wouldn’t be in the hospital.”

  This time Ellie didn’t laugh. “Tim,” she warned. “Enough. You were right about Macintosh. We all know that already.”

  “I heard you retired,” Cloister said as he straightened up. He gave Hewitt the same unfriendly, sidelong look Bourneville had. “You’re not a Marine, Tancredi doesn’t moonlight for a cleaning service, and Galloway’s a sheriff’s department employee too. So two of ours are in the hospital, and neither of them have anything to do with you.”

  “Just sayin’,” Hewitt said. He had a weasel’s grin, smug that he got a rise from Witte. “Good old-fashioned police work is what the sheriff’s department needs, not the FBI sticking their nose in. Back in my day, we had some pride.”

  People made assumptions from Cloister based on his face, from the heavy bone structure and saddle-broken slouch of his nose. The truth was he was born with both those things. “Came out of your mom ass backwards, fists up, and nose broken,” his stepdad used to say. “If you weren’t a Witte, we’d have had to adopt you.” The fact that he looked like a man who liked to fight usually meant he didn’t have to. But it didn’t mean he couldn’t, and Hewitt’s smirk made his fists itch.

  But Bourneville had finally picked up that he wanted to backtrack the trail and leaned her weight into the taut lead as she sniffed the ground. He didn’t want her to lose interest. Besides, the only hand he had free was in a cast, and he didn’t want to have to replace it.

  “Don’t you have work to do?” he said instead.

  “Yeah,” Ellie said as she gave Hewitt a shove and Cloister a wary look. “Get on with it. I’m supposed to be working, remember?”

  Cloister let the lead play out through his hand and stuck to Bourneville’s heels as she followed Macintosh’s scent around the side of the building. The trail stayed close to the wall until it reached a scrubby stand of bushes, a hideout with an empty bottle of cheap booze and a scent pool soaked into the impacted dirt.

  It was a spot that gave Macintosh a good view of the garage. He would have seen Galloway drive in, but he had to know when she would arrive.

  Bourneville sniffed the bottle of liquor, wrinkled her nose, and recoiled with a snort and her ears laid flat. She sniffed around the perimeter of the circle and finally barked again as she scraped her foot against a patch of concrete.

  It was a cigarette butt, smoked down to the filter and tossed to smolder itself out on the ground.

  “That’s a clever girl,” Cloister said. He gave her shoulder a congratulatory thump. “Come on,
Bourneville, let’s find where else he was. Such.”

  Fifteen minutes later and two attempts to turn back on the trail going the “right” way that Cloister had to correct, the trail ended at a grimy doorway in a grimier alley. It was painted with cracked blue paint and locked with a heavy rusted padlock.

  Bourneville pawed at the door and looked around expectantly at Cloister. Doors were his responsibility.

  “Nobody’s there.” Behind Cloister a door creaked, and someone with an English accent spoke.

  Cloister looked around. A skinny dark man stood in the doorway behind him, the heavy metal door braced open with one foot and two oversized garbage bags held in his hands. He pointed with his chin at the door.

  “Some bigwig bought it years back, was going to turn into a fancy club or something,” he said. “Never happened. Now it’s just full of rats and junkies.”

  He set one bag down at his feet and swung the other twice before he tossed it at the dumpster parked next to the building. The bag picked out a perfectly judged arc and dropped down into the dumpster with a clatter and a thump. As the man stooped for the second bag, heavy ponytail of dreads fallen over his shoulder, Cloister walked toward him.

  “You seen anyone around here the last day or so?” he asked.

  The man straightened with a grunt and grimaced as he reached around to rub the small of his back. “Junkies,” he said. “There’s always someone. We see them at night. They panhandle our customers on the way into the restaurant. The boss is always calling the cops, but this is the first time anyone’s come out.”

  He tossed the garbage into the dumpster.

  “Did you see this man?” Cloister pinned Bourneville’s lead under his elbow and clumsily pulled his phone out of his pocket. He fumbled one-handed through to the last picture of Andrew Macintosh, his face framed by the black of a body bag. In death he looked surprisingly peaceful. The only visible sign of his cause of death was a black rimmed hole under his jaw and a faint sag to his face where the bullet had cut through behind it. He still looked obviously dead, and the dreadlocked kitchen worker recoiled.