Bones Read online

  “Not too many . . . I still can’t believe . . . she was a nice person.”

  “What else can you tell us about her, sir?”

  “Nice,” Huck repeated. “Quiet. Pleasant, she always showed up on time.”

  Moe Reed said, “She got paid well to teach Kelvin.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that.”

  “You don’t sign checks?”

  “I just take care of the house.”

  “Who signs the checks?”

  “Mr. Vander’s accountants.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “They’re in Seattle.”

  Milo said, “You take care of the houses, plural.”

  “Pardon?”

  “There’s also a place on the beach.” Hooking a thumb toward the ocean.

  “Oh, that,” said Huck. “That was Mr. Vander’s house before he got married. He doesn’t use it much.”

  “He keeps a car there.”

  “The old station wagon? Battery’s probably dead.”

  “A pad right on the sand,” said Milo. “Pity not to use it.”

  “Mr. Vander travels extensively,” said Huck.

  “Part of Kelvin’s homeschooling?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Enrichment—seeing the world, learning about other cultures.”

  “Sometimes.” Huck’s brow gleamed as if brushed with egg yolk. “This is really upsetting.”

  “You liked Selena.”

  “Yes, but . . . it’s a matter of someone you know—and then they’re . . .” Huck threw up his hands. “Mr. Vander needs to know about this. Kelvin and Mrs. Vander, too. They’re going to be—where can I reach you?”

  Reed handed over a card.

  Huck mouthed Reed’s name silently.

  Milo said, “We’re trying to locate Selena’s next of kin. Any idea where we can find them?”

  “No, I’m sorry,” said Huck. “Poor Kelvin . . . he’ll need another teacher.”

  We drove back down to PCH, traveled a few minutes to La Costa Beach, where Reed hung a U-turn and parked in front of a cedar plank wall.

  Forty-foot lot, a few paces from the highway. To the right of the wall was a cedar garage. A pedestrian door was dead-bolted. Milo rang the bell. No answer. He left his card wedged under the handle.

  As we returned to the city, Moe Reed said, “What’d you think of Huck?”

  “Different kind of fellow.”

  “He sure sweated a lot. And something else . . . can’t put my finger on it, but . . . like he was too guarded. Am I off here, Lieutenant?”

  “Guy was definitely antsy, kiddo. But that could just be employee nervousness—afraid to upset the boss. Wanna weigh in, Alex?”

  I voiced the nerve damage theory.

  Reed said, “Wearing a hat on a hot day is what caught my eye. There didn’t seem to be much hair under it. Medium-build white guy, he could be the shaved-head dude Luz Ramos saw with Selena.”

  Milo thought about that. Reached for the MDT.

  No criminal record on Travis Huck, and his DMV photo showed him with a full head of curly black hair. The license had been renewed three years ago. He’d listed his address as the house on Calle Maritimo.

  Milo kept typing. The Internet had never met the man. “Shaving his head and being a little off ain’t exactly grounds for a warrant, but let’s keep him in mind.”

  Reed said, “What about that loudmouth from the marsh, Duboff? He’s got a thing for the place like you said, Doctor. Obsessive, even. What if it has some kind of sexual significance for him so he dumps his bodies there?”

  Milo said, “Serial conservationist.”

  I said, “I’d keep him in mind, too, but like you said, Moe, he didn’t try to avoid attention. Just the opposite, he got right in our faces, admitted to being at the marsh right around the time Selena was dumped.”

  “Couldn’t that be reverse psychology?” said Reed. “Or just plain arrogance—thinking he’s smarter than us? Like those idiots who mail messages? Or return to the scene to gloat.”

  “It’s possible.”

  Milo’s fingers were already dancing along the keyboard. “Well, look at this. Mr. Duboff has a record.”

  Silford Duboff had been arrested seven times in ten years, every instance a confrontation at a protest march.

  Anti-globalization ruckus at the Century Plaza, pay raises for hotel housekeepers in San Francisco, sit-in opposing the expansion of the nuclear power plant at San Onofre, resisting coastal development in Oxnard and Ventura. The seventh bust was fighting the billionaires’ grab for the Bird Marsh.

  Six of the arrests were for resisting, but at the anti-globalization fracas he’d been charged with assaulting a police officer, pled to misdemeanor battery, paid a fine. Conviction reversed two years later when an appeals judge hearing a class-action suit ruled LAPD at fault for the near-riot.

  “I remember that one,” said Milo. “Big mess. So the guy likes to sit in the middle of the street and chant. But there’s no serious violence on his sheet. Doesn’t even merit being called a sheet. More like a pillowcase.”

  Reed said, “Anti-globalization attracts anarchists and those types, right? Which brings me back to Huck’s cap. Those guys wear stuff like that. What if Huck and Duboff were protest buds and found out they had a common interest in nastier stuff?”

  “They attend the same marches, Duboff gets busted, but Huck doesn’t?”

  “Duboff’s an in-your-face guy, no subtlety. Huck’s more the sneaky type. Maybe that’s what I was smelling about him.”

  “An unholy duo,” said Milo. “By day, they agitate for liberation, when the sun goes down they kill women and chop off the hands and toss the bodies in the muck.”

  Reed drove faster. “I guess it is far-fetched.”

  “Kiddo, at this point far-fetched is better than nothing. Sure, look into both of them. You find Señor Huck’s name on the membership rolls of any group Señor Duboff marched with—any link between the two of them, whatsoever—and we’ll go the kill-team route.”

  I said, “A pair of killers would make the dump easier. One guy parks, the other hauls the body. Or they both haul, are able to do it quickly and get out of there.”

  Moe Reed said, “Think I should also talk to Vander’s accountant, find out about the other teachers making house calls?”

  “Someone Selena met on the job did her in?” said Milo.

  “More like someone on the job could tell us more than Huck did. Maybe we didn’t find any evidence of an outside social life in her apartment because being on call for Kelvin Vander stopped her developing outside interests.” Shaking his head. “Fifty grand to teach one kid . . . what if Selena’s involvement with this family is what got her dead?”

  “Selena and three other women with no right hands?”

  Reed didn’t answer. Moments later: “No outside social life but there was that bustier et cetera. Like you said, Loo, maybe she partied somewhere else. And so far, the only place we know she spent time was the Vander house.”

  “Drilling the kid on Bartók,” said Milo, “then sneaking off to the pool house for a quickie with the karate coach.”

  “Or Huck. Or Mr. Vander himself, for that matter.”

  Milo said, “The plumber, the pool boy, the florist, the gardener.”

  Reed kept silent.

  “Sure, call the accountants and get anything you can about the staff. Until we get I.D.’s on the other victims, we’re freeze-dried, anyway.”

  “Fifty grand,” said Reed, “could’ve led to expectations by the boss. Huck says Vander’s out of the country, but the rich don’t do their own dirty work, they hire out.”

  Milo said, “Rich, ergo evil.”

  “I just think those people can get entitled.”

  “To you and me, Moe, fifty K is serious money. Guy like Vander pays more to insure his pots and pans. But sure, go for it, see what you dig up. Also, check in with the anthropologists.”

  “Will do,” said Reed. �
��Thanks, Lieutenant.”

  “For what?”

  “The training.”

  “First of all, we’ve shared enough frustration for you to call me Milo. Second, I’ll send you a bill for the training.” Stretching and laughing. “Fifty K sound reasonable?”

  CHAPTER 8

  Back in his closet-sized office, Milo re-read the e-mail from engrbass345. Booting up his desktop, he plugged in engineer and bass, pulled up lots of hits but nothing that fit.

  “Time to backtrack her e-mail address . . . bingo . . . website of Emily Nicole Green-Bass—looks like she owns a vintage jewelry store in . . . Great Neck, New York . . . here’s a picture of her with shiny stuff. Family resemblance, no?”

  Thin-faced woman in her fifties behind a display of bracelets. Big eyes, pointy cleft chin. Short, white hair brushed forward in uneven bangs.

  Selena Bass, at the middle age she’d never reach.

  “Genetics,” I said.

  “This is gonna be fun.” Taking a deep breath, he picked up the phone.

  He hung up ten minutes later, yawning.

  Nothing casual about the intake of air. Exhausted.

  Emily Green-Bass had screamed, sobbed, hung up. Redialing a minute later, she’d apologized. Cried some more.

  Milo stayed with her, chewing on an unlit panatela. When she grew silent, he began pressing for facts.

  Selena was the only child from her second marriage. The first had produced two sons, one of whom lived in Oakland. Which is where she was now, visiting her brand-new granddaughter.

  “I thought this was the happiest moment of my life,” she said.

  She hadn’t seen Selena in five years. The e-mail was one of a handful exchanged recently.

  Selena getting in touch. Finally.

  Milo asked why it had taken so long and she broke into fresh sobs.

  “I’ll fly down tomorrow.”

  At four p.m. a deputy chief named Henry Weinberg called to find out how the marsh murder investigation was progressing.

  Milo put him on speaker. “So far, nothing plus nothing, sir.”

  “Then it might be time to go to the media, Lieutenant.”

  “I’d rather hold off until the anthropologists have a bone to throw us.”

  Silence on the other end.

  Milo said, “That way—”

  Weinberg said, “I heard you, Lieutenant. Nice pun. We put you in front of the cameras, are you going to do stand-up?”

  “God forbid, sir.”

  “God and the boss, Lieutenant. And don’t ask me which is which. Call those bone pickers now. Make sure they’re hustling.”

  Dr. Hargrove was still at the marsh. Dr. Liz Wilkinson answered the phone.

  “Oh, hi, Lieutenant. We’ve made some progress on Jane Number One. From the nasal bridge, most probably a black female, age estimate between twenty and thirty-five.” She could’ve been describing herself, but there was nothing but science in her voice.

  Milo jotted. “Anything else?”

  “She’s probably had at least one baby and she suffered a fracture of her right femur severe enough to warrant a metal implant. We didn’t find the titanium, but we did find the screw holes. I wouldn’t be surprised if she limped.”

  “Recent fracture?”

  “There’s been substantial bone growth around it. Years, not months, and it happened when she was an adult. The only other interesting finding is a broken hyoid. And, of course, the missing hand.”

  “Strangled.”

  “Most likely. Our guess is she’s been submerged for several months, but that’s all it is: a guess. Eleanor—Dr. Hargrove is still there, working with Lisa—Dr. Chaplin—on the other two sites. But it’s going to take time, too much disarticulation and we don’t want to miss anything. I’m here because Eleanor asked me to write up what we’ve got so far. I’ll e-mail you what I just told you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “One more thing, Lieutenant. Just as I left the marsh, that volunteer—the guy with the beard—showed up again. The officer on guard kept him out and there were some words. I’d like to begin early tomorrow—soon as the sun’s up—and I’ll be alone because Eleanor and Lisa can’t make it until nine. It would be nice to avoid distraction.”

  “I’ll make sure someone’s posted before you arrive.”

  “Thanks. It’s a beautiful place but it can get a little . . . ominous.”

  He logged on to the department’s Missing Persons list, searched for black females in the age range Wilkinson had given him, found five disappearances, the most recent half a year ago. No mention of limps or broken legs, but he printed the data anyway.

  “Time to start looking at other counties. Hopefully she’s not a throwaway no one gave a damn about.”

  Lighting up, he clouded the tiny room with illicit smoke. Coughed and loosened his tie, spit a shred of tobacco at his wastebasket and missed, and grabbed for his keyboard.

  Typing silently and furiously.

  I left without a word.

  Commuter traffic and lane closures for no apparent reason turned the drive home into an ordeal, and by the time I reached Beverly Glen it was nearly six.

  The old bridle path that leads to my house was a sudden infusion of peace. My house, framed by pines and sycamores, was welcome white simplicity.

  I called out Robin’s name, got no answer. Tossed my jacket, grabbed a Grolsch, headed down the kitchen stairs, and walked through the garden past the pond.

  My footsteps caused the koi to storm the edges.

  Twelve adults and five juveniles. Half of the babies had died before reaching an inch, but the survivors were nearly a foot long and perpetually hungry. I tossed pellets, watched placid water churn into a maelstrom as the fish gorged. Enjoying the illusion of omnipotence for a couple of minutes, I continued along the rock pathway to Robin’s studio.

  Sometimes she stays at her workbench until I distract her. This evening the bench was clear and she was sitting on the couch, curling and uncurling her hair with a lazy finger while reading a book about Renaissance lutes.

  Blanche nestled in her lap, bunny-ears drooping, flat face compressed to wrinkled velvet.

  The other female in my life is a twenty-pound vanilla-colored French bulldog with tidy table manners rarely seen in the breed, and a saintly disposition. Some of my patients request her presence during sessions. I’m still trying to figure out what her cut should be.

  She and Robin looked up simultaneously. New Olympic event: synchronized smiling. I kissed Robin’s cheek, pecked the top of Blanche’s knobby head.

  Robin said, “Pooch and girlfriend are on an equal footing?”

  “She pants in appreciation.”

  “She also pees in the bushes.”

  “And the problem is . . .”

  “Oh, don’t tempt me.” We kissed. I sat down next to her. Her skin and hair were fragrant with cedar and Gio.

  Cool fingers rested on the back of my neck. “Have a good day?”

  “Better, now.”

  During the next clinch, Blanche observed, head tilted to one side, ears erect.

  Robin said, “Getting an eyeful, girlfriend?”

  Blanche smiled.

  We cooked up a mushroom-and-cheese omelet and I asked her what she’d been up to.

  “Didn’t do much but loaf around. I might get used to it.”

  A week ago she’d completed a major commission: replicas of four vintage Gibson instruments for a dot-com gazillionaire who’d donated them to charity. She’d been talking about starting a new project but had limited herself to repairs.

  I thought of a still-fragrant, sixty-year-old flamenco guitar brought in for a neck-set. “Finished the Barbero?”

  “Yup, it was simpler than I figured, Paco picked it up a couple of hours ago. You must’ve been really tied up. Service just called, said you hadn’t checked in. Some lawyer wants you for a consult.”

  She told me the name.

  I said, “If he ever pays his bills, he m
ight actually get someone to work for him.”

  I finished my beer, stretched.

  “You look weighed down,” she said.

  “Milo’s burden. I hung around and watched.”