Final Grave Page 4

  Vacant lots broke up the rows of houses like missing teeth in a jawbone. “You did a house-to-house?” she asked.

  He thumbed at the last block in the subdivision. “Starting here, ma’am, and on up ahead to Buckner’s place.”

  He nodded in the direction of a showy lodge-pole arch, an entry to a side road. Western-style letters scrawled across a yellow pine placard: Wild Horse Ranch. The dude ranch, or whatever it was, sat a quarter of a mile down a narrow road.

  “Like I said before, nobody saw nothing.”

  Meri Ann slumped against the seat and cracked the window.

  His broad hands gripped the wheel. His focus alternated between the road and a film of dust accumulating on his pristine dashboard. “The dust, ma’am,” he said, politely.

  She closed the window just as the pavement ended.

  The vertical incline grew steeper as the Blazer bounced across packed washboard. She held the door handle to steady herself. Dust billowed behind them, somehow crept in through the windows, seeped through the floorboards and even the closed vents. It settled on everything. She tasted fine grit, felt it coat her throat when she sighed from apprehension.

  A quarter of a mile later the road leveled out, and Mendiola eased off the gas. The sixty-foot neon cross appeared like a giant mast.

  Meri Ann’s hand tightened on the door handle.

  She jumped from the Blazer’s cab the second he shifted into park. She didn’t venture forward, just stood with her knees locked, taking in the arid plateau and the sound of the neon buzz.

  The sense of height dizzied her, yet Table Rock wasn’t a mountain, just a sawed off foothill barely a few hundred feet above Boise’s 2,800-foot base altitude. The plateau was smaller than she’d remembered—nearly the size of a hockey rink and about as flat. A smattering of telephone poles stood like giant, limbless pines strung with wires, everything dwarfed by the neon cross.

  Mendiola joined her.

  She cleared her throat. “Where did you find her?”

  He moved toward the cross’s massive concrete base and stopped about three feet in front of it. A scrap of yellow crime-scene tape clung to a thistle, fluttering in the light wind. Using the pointed toe of his boot, he drew a long line in the dirt. “Right here. It wasn’t a complete skeleton, only the big bones, the ribcage, pelvis, ulna and femur. It wasn’t just a pile of bones, but arranged properly.”

  She turned away, looking at the houses below, wondering if the person who did this lived in one of them. Possibly, but probably not; the possibilities seemed endless. “How long do you think it took him to do that?”

  “I’d say fifteen or twenty minutes, give or take, unless he performed some sort of ritual ceremony. Like I said, ma’am, we don’t know what we’re dealing with.”

  “What condition were the bones? Any shovel cuts or slashes to indicate they’d been buried and dug up? Footprints? Where was my mother’s bracelet?”

  Mendiola bristled. “Whoa. Slow down, would you?”

  She nodded.

  “Whoever did this didn’t fool with the hands and feet. The bones we found were clean with only a trace of flesh. The fabric sat under the pelvis and the bracelet at the lower arm, at the wrist.”

  “And, as I said, we don’t know if it was the killer, or someone who came on the remains by accident and wants to play head games. There’s also the possibility the bracelet and fabric didn’t belong to this corpse.”

  She’d thought about that too, briefly.

  “It’s just a consideration. We’ve got everything out to the state lab in Meridian. You can talk to Joe Uberuaga. He’s the doc in charge of forensics, but I’m not sure he’s done much yet. We got a serious backlog.”

  She recalled Mendiola’s desk that morning. Her mother’s file wasn’t the one on top. She understood about heavy caseloads. Still she felt murder, even one from fifteen years ago, took precedence over a cow case. “Just what have you done?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Look, I understand you’re upset, but I’ve been working my ass off for the last week. Pardon my French.”

  From the look of him, he’d been partying for the last week.

  “Maybe detectives out in Florida are psychic—just pick up a bone, a scrap of fabric, and a bracelet and say, hey I got it. Give or take thirty years, they can zero in on the person’s name, date, and time of death. You guys probably don’t even need a skull or dental records.”

  “On the contrary, we are human.” She grimaced. “Obviously, you are, too.”

  “Yeah, well, I spent eight hours a day, in between a few other emergencies, reading through old case files of missing persons.”

  “Thanks for doing your job and I mean that. It’s just, I don’t want this treated like a million other cold cases, shoved in some drawer when the heat dies down.”

  His mouth drew into a tight line, and he eyed her with cool speculation. “I don’t know what you expected to find out here or why exactly you came.”

  Her boss had predicted that she’d step on their toes, and that’s what she’d done. She fixed on Mendiola’s dark eyes. He would not soon forget her. “I came because I had to.”

  “Well, don’t expect it’ll be easy.” He slipped his hands in his pockets. “And I wouldn’t be telling too many people you’re back in town. Wouldn’t discuss the case with anyone. ‘Course that goes without saying. Standard procedure, right?”

  She felt every pressurized inch of Boise’s altitude like an anvil on her chest. “Of course.”

  “We’ll need the DNA samples before we head to the lab in Meridian. We’ll draw your blood there.”

  “Of course,” she said again, realizing she must sound like a recorded message.

  She too put her hands in her pockets; then she sat on the concrete base beneath the cross. Her gaze swept the valley. The Warm Springs golf course spread out to her left in stripes of fading grass. On the other side, the city nestled in a sweep of fall colors. Early French trappers had named it les boises, the woods. Beyond, Boise River meandered easily as it had two hundred years ago, when settlers pulled wagon trains across this stretch of the Oregon Trail. She was a descendant of those pioneers, on a very different journey of discovery.

  She sighed, chewed on her bottom lip which was already cracking from the high-desert air. “You think some religious zealot did this? I mean, the placement beneath the cross resembles a sacrifice at an altar.”

  Mendiola sat down beside her, his eyes like hers were on the valley. “I can’t say. I’ve seen a lot in the last sixteen years, but nothing like this. I’m telling you again, we don’t know who belongs to these bones. Keep that in mind. It may be your mom, maybe not. But whoever set this up had her bracelet and wants us to think it’s her. It’s probably the guy who killed her. And, well, he might be wanting you out here.”

  Mendiola cocked his head in Meri Ann’s direction. “Ever think of that?”

  Chapter Six

  Becky Schuster hemmed and hawed over a stash of aspen tree limbs leaning against a wall in the basement. A dusty window above shed light on their paper-white bark. Her forefinger trailed along one, turned another and so on down the line, trying to decide which one most perfectly matched the limb upstairs. For all she was worth, she felt like Michelangelo selecting marble for his Pieta.

  One of Clint Eastwood’s ex-girlfriends—another demanding blonde according to the grocery store tabloids—had ordered a pair of matched silk ficus trees for her Sun Valley condo. The job, if done right, promised a toehold in the moneyed community, a potential windfall for her and Meg’s business.

  Becky used the aspen limbs as tree trunks, but she had fouled up the previous one, the perfect mate to a pair. Now she had to make do with second best. Made her so damned mad she cursed herself up one side and down the other.

  “Okay, you. You little sumbitc
h.”

  She culled out her choice, measured it to be sure. It was close. As Paw Paw used to say, close enough for government work, but not close enough for her. She sawed an inch and quarter off its ragged base. Sawdust rained onto the floor around her feet, the scent of it woody and fresh. She didn’t sweep it up, just hefted the branch on her shoulder and started upstairs. Her curly hair bounced like bedsprings, tickling her cheek as she jogged toward the music.

  The oldies radio station played the Eagles’, Hotel California. Becky sang along, “. . . such a lovely place. Such a lovely face . . . .”

  She craved noise, action, people, and hated quiet, a quirk she’d lived with since she’d found her mother dead in the bathtub. Meri Ann’s loss drove her the other way. She paddled a kayak, usually alone. She escaped into work, alone, driven to catch predators, anything from a thief to a murderer. She’d told Becky as much.

  The Eagles music pounded from the formal dining room Becky used as a workroom. Its large bay window faced the length of Schuster Lane, a southwest exposure with ample light for her work. A tarp dotted with tools lay in the curve of the bay. The mate to the limb she carried rested against the paneled wall. She stood the new log next to the other, stepped back, pleased at her choice.

  She trimmed the extraneous wiry branches with a keyhole saw. Then switched to hand clippers for the fine work.

  The telephone rang and she scanned the room, searching for the phone. Finally, she spotted it on the round oak table, tucked beside an open box of silk ficus leaves.

  She bounded to it. “Hel-loo.”

  “Meri Ann… Meri Ann this is… .”

  “What?” She crossed to the radio, lowered the volume. “Meri Ann’s not here. Can I take a message?” The caller hung up. It was an old phone, a land-line without caller I.D. like some of the newer phones. She wrinkled her nose in annoyance and hung up the phone. “Well, excuse me.”

  It rang, again. Her hand was still on the receiver and she answered with a curt, “Hello.”

  “Hello, yourself,” her friend Renee said. “You crawl out of the wrong side of your cage this morning?”

  “Hey, kid. Didn’t mean to bite. But some woman calling Meri Ann just hung up in my ear. You remember my friend from Florida?”

  “Sure, the cop. She’s a Sagittarius, right?”

  “Sagittarius, I don’t know.” Becky didn’t really buy into horoscopes, though she’d never say a word for fear of offending Renee’s tender heart. Anyway, astrological soothsaying entertained everyone at Chez Jay’s. Nine months ago, Renee predicted Becky would meet her soul mate that Thursday. Lo and behold if Meg hadn’t waltzed into Chez Jay’s fifteen minutes later. Not that Becky believed in magic. But it had happened.

  She moved to a down-filled club chair, facing the bay window. “See, kid, I’m making a delivery in Sun Valley tomorrow. Got to be there by eleven.”

  “You’re due for color and a cut. Hmm. I could move it forward to nine o’clock. That okay?”

  “What about seven?” Becky said with regret for the early hour. She propped her feet on an unopened box of baby rose buds ordered for a wedding five days away. With Meg out of town, she’d have to do the job alone.

  “That’s early,” Renee said, but for you, anything. At least the shop will be empty. We can talk.”

  Becky detected a sad note in Renee’s tone and wondered if it had something to do with the salon’s owner. “Is it about Jason?”

  “How’d you know?”

  “I may not know Gemini from Venus, but I know he’s too old for you and extremely into himself. Not that I don’t adore him.” Becky paused, hoping she hadn’t said too much. “So what’s going on?”

  “His mother is in the hospital. They think she has pneumonia. He’s on everyone’s case for the last two days, treating me like a stranger. Me!”

  Jason ran Chez Jay’s with Bill Gates intensity and Versaci flare. His life was flare, a compulsive collector with an eye for women. He might be a cool guy, but he’d always seemed too sophisticated for Renee. “Maybe it’s not just his mother. Maybe it’s another woman?”

  “For God’s sake, Becky, you’re no comfort.” Renee paused, then said sheepishly, “I did his chart. Mars is in his fifth house, running retrograde.”

  “Well, that explains worlds,” Becky said, tongue in cheek.

  “I’m sick over it, living on cafe lattes, popping antacids. Maybe she’ll die and he’ll snap out of it.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “No, but why does he push me away when we’ve been so close?” Her sigh filled the phone. “So, I’ll see you tomorrow. I’d better get back to work.”

  The instant Becky hung up, the phone rang, again. This caller asked about the apartment for rent. Becky recited her rental pitch. Unfortunately, the guy didn’t want to pay the price. His nasty tone surprised her. He hung up the phone hard.

  “Men,” she said. “What was God thinking?”

  She resumed clipping the aspen branches in the bay window. Her hands flew. Next she’d drill holes for the artificial ficus branches. Afterward, she’d pour the plaster of Paris into the fancy porcelain pots, stick in the tree trunks, and let them set over night. The rest of the job would be done in Sun Valley.

  She built trees, masterpiece trees and took pride in every perfectly placed branch and leaf. She felt capable of anything, even making dinner for picky Meri Ann. No fat. No red meat. No processed foods. No chemicals. No good shit.

  Sun streamed in the leaded glass window beside her. She took a moment and stretched her arms over her head. Her gaze drifted down Shuster Lane. The street was empty except for the Given’s yard, two houses away. A long-haired woman in a tawdry raincoat had stepped from behind a six-foot juniper. She stared at River House. Then, just as quickly, she disappeared behind the shrubbery again.

  Becky didn’t know those neighbors very well, but she knew they wintered in Palm Desert and had already left.

  “No business of mine,” Becky said to the aspen limb. “Anyway, women don’t cause trouble like men. Now do they?” She cranked up the radio’s volume. She couldn’t wait for Meri Ann to get home.

  Chapter Seven

  On their way down Table Rock, Meri Ann paid little heed to the Jeep’s bouncing or the lung-coating dust. Mendiola’s idea that someone might want her back in Boise had started her thinking. Why her? And who? The idea struck her as farfetched as she mulled it over and over.

  Before she knew it, they were back in the city proper.

  Mendiola merged into traffic, heading downtown. “A small sample’s all we need. Like what’s in a hairbrush.”

  “Oh, right,” she said, refocusing on the DNA tests. “It shouldn’t take more than an hour or two to sort through the boxes at my aunt’s.”

  “Take your time. I won’t be back at the office till four.”

  “That late?” She realized his workload hadn’t dried up the minute she’d arrived on the scene. Still, her frustrations mounted. “That won’t give us much time at the lab.”

  “It’ll give us enough for a blood test and to drop off the samples.”

  “It’s just I’d wanted to talk to the doctor in charge of forensics, to see the remains.”

  She suddenly realized he had made an unexpected turn and looped around to Garden City, Boise’s industrial pocket.

  “Aren’t you dropping me at my car?”

  “If you don’t mind, I got a five-minute errand. It’s on the way.”

  She doubted five minutes. She doubted everything about him. “Is this about the case on your desk?”

  He shot her a look somewhere between amusement and irritation. “No, ma’am. But I do have other cases. The one on my desk’s a hay theft and believe it or not, a cow shooting. Needs dealing with, sure. But this right now is a personal errand that can’t wait.
”

  Mendiola turned onto a shabby side street, checking his wristwatch as he rounded the corner. “It’s quarter till noon, so let’s call it a lunch break.” He sounded testy.

  “I’m not accusing you.”

  “Sure you are. But what the hell, switch shoes and I’d accuse you too.” He gave her a sly grin, one that said gotcha.

  He parked in front of an eight-foot chain-link fence, the entrance to a run down auto repair shop. An airbrushed sign the size of a billboard blazoned on the roof: Tony’s Dream Machines, Automotive Restorations. The high-quality artwork reminded her of a painting on the side of a rock bands’ bus, a lofty advertisement for such a scruffy, cement-block garage with only two bays.

  Inside the fence an array of old cars somewhere between heap and vintage gathered dust. Men and cars, she thought, wondering if one belonged to Mendiola.

  The right bay was open and Meri Ann spotted a ‘56 Chevy on a lift, a model her dad had once owned. A slender man somewhere in his thirties stepped from behind the car. To her surprise, he wore a pair of spotless gray slacks and a blue button-down shirt. His thinning light brown hair glistened from hair spray, or whatever he used in his creative comb-over.

  “That’s my nephew, Tony. Mind waiting?”

  She smiled. “No, go ahead.”

  Tony wiped his hands on a dirty pink oil rag as he approached his uncle.

  Mendiola removed a piece of yellow paper from the breast pocket of his wool flannel shirt. It looked like a check. “Here you go, but this is it. The well’s dry.”

  “Thanks, Jack. I mean it.” He hugged Mendiola with the gratitude of a saved man.

  They ambled back to the Blazer, the transaction as brief as promised. Mendiola climbed in and settled himself behind the wheel.

  Tony closed the door for him. “You’ll get it back. I promise.”

  “No problem. Anyway, I know where you hang out.”

  Tony polished the Blazer’s rearview mirror with the rag, as though to hide his self-consciousness. His gaze shifted to Meri Ann, briefly, just long enough for her to see a curious glimmer of recognition in his small pale eyes. “Don’t I know you?”