Bone Hunter Page 7

  8

  NINA LET GO OF ME AND GLANCED EXCITEDLY ABOUT THE room. “Where is George, anyway?”

  “Um …” Before I could say anything, I heard Ray’s knock at the front door. I hurried to open it, babbling nonsensical things, like “Who could that be at this hour?”

  I yanked the door open but saw no one. I tensed and began to step back, grabbing for the door handle as I went. Then the shadow to the left of the door moved, and Ray stepped toward me, eyes wide with concern. He held his right hand behind his back, no doubt concealing his drawn pistol. He stopped short when he saw Nina.

  I stepped out of his way. “Ray, this is Nina. She’s ah … George’s wife.”

  Ray froze.

  I turned around just in time to see Nina twist her hands up in front of her face like a little girl who didn’t want to be seen by a grown-up she didn’t know. She seemed to shrink several inches, and I began to wonder if she was in fact a child I had mistaken for an adult.

  I reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. She huddled up against me and whispered something I couldn’t quite hear. Playing the adult to her child, I said, “Can you speak a little louder please, Nina?”

  She tugged at my blouse, drawing me toward the kitchen. I signaled Ray to wait where he was and followed her.

  In the kitchen, she whispered loudly enough that I could understand her. “I wasn’t supposed to let him see me.”

  I whispered back, “Who? Ray?”

  Urgent whisper: “Anybody!”

  “But Ray’s okay. He’s my friend.”

  She looked doubtful. “George will be angry.”

  “Don’t worry about—” I stopped myself, remembering that whoever this woman was, she didn’t yet know that George Dishey was dead. Or at least was acting as if she didn’t. So I said, “Listen, Ray’s here to help me with something. He’s a policeman.” I said it in one of those light,. cheery tones that are supposed to convey the thought that everything will, therefore, be okay.

  Nina recoiled in horror. Turned. Headed for the back door like a dart.

  Now it was my turn to grab a handful of her clothing, and I did so with authority. I wasn’t going to let this little act dance in here, turn everything on its ear, and dance out again, at least not without some further explanation. As she continued to pull toward the door, I said, loudly and with as much drama as I could stomach, “You can’t leave! Not after all this time we’ve been kept apart!”

  Nina whirled around in terror, grabbing my blouse again with both of her tiny hands. “But George would never let police in this house! Never! You must make him leave!” It was not an act. She was shaking.

  I wrapped my arms around her, as much to keep her from escaping as to comfort her, and thought to myself, Okay, smart-aleck, now what do you do? Your host has turned up dead, you’ve sliced your thumb halfway off, you’ve made the cops’ ten most wanted list, you’re a nonperson at a conference you thought you were supposed to make a big splashy speech at which, you’ve been shot at, and now you find yourself featured in a bad movie about polygamous marriage. Pretty good for a day’s work. So what do you do for an encore? I squeezed Nina tightly and mumbled something tender, like “There, there, dear,” then added a few non sequiturs, like “We have so much in common” and “We just need to get to know each other a little better.”

  Then it began to dawn on me that this woman and I did, in fact, have something in common. We had George Dishey. A conniving little shit who had clearly lied to me, telling me I was coming to this conference to give an important talk at a symposium that didn’t exist. When had he been planning to tell me his invitation had been a sham? Sometime after he trotted me into the conference as his girlie du jour? Was that the game?

  I wrapped my arms more tightly around this woman who called herself Nina and who said she was George Dishey’s number-two wife. If I could believe that, then it was a good bet that George had lied to her, too. If. “Was George expecting you this evening?” I asked.

  Her voice came faintly, but she answered as if it was perfectly natural to be asked such a question. “Well … yes … not exactly … but this was special.”

  Perhaps George had expected I’d be gone by now. Yes, I decided, that was his plan. I would be furious when I discovered his lie. I would have left by now in a huff. Bring on the next fatted calf.

  Nina whispered urgently, “Heddie, there’s something wrong, isn’t there? Where is George? Why’s this policeman here?”

  I was running out of time, and I knew it. In the next few minutes, I’d have to tell her what was happening, and she’d know I wasn’t Heddie, and she’d most likely tell me nothing more. I had to frame my questions carefully, neither adding gratuitously to the lie nor tipping her off that I was not the person she thought I was. That was a problem, considering that I had no idea what this Heddie was like, nor where she spent her time, and just then it seemed damned important to know. What if this is her house, and she was just away visiting her mother? No, that can’t be. George told me he was single, or that he was not Mormon, or that—besides, there’s no sign of a woman’s touch in this house! Okay, so maybe George was a polygamist, and his boasting to me was just a charade to cover it, and Heddie lives somewhere else. Then if so, where? My thoughts spun in circles as I tried to sort out the lie from the truth. Dropping into this maze of falsehood myself, I blustered, “Well, um, yes, of course you know I’m not usually here on Sundays. I’m here because, um, George didn’t call me either, see, and he said he would, and I was worried, and so this policeman is a friend, see. He’s a member of my church.”

  I clenched my teeth into a rictus smile, ruing the ease with which my own lies spilled out. I was no more a member of a church than the Easter bunny was a member of Congress. But my mind was in fast-forward gear, trying to jiggle the next move, trying to sound like a Mormon. I tried to remember what Mormons called their jurisdictions. Stakes and wards, that was it. And they called themselves Saints, not Mormons.” I said, “He’s in my same ward. Listen, I’ll just call him in here, and we’ll—”

  “George is missing?” Nina squealed.

  “Well, not exactly. He’s—Ray, can you come in here, please?”

  I had loosened my grasp. Nina sprang from me, yanked open the back door, and was through it as fast as lightning. I scrambled to follow her, but she slammed the door after her, smashing my wounded thumb as oak crashed against oak. I gasped, sucked for air, screamed at the top of my lungs. Ray caught me as I began to fall, holding me up by my shoulders, bracing his feet to take my weight, gathering me into his arms. My back arched as pain shot through my thumb. “Not me!” I gasped. “Get Nina! Out the back!”

  Ray swung me around against the refrigerator, yanked open the door, and dashed into the backyard. As I slid down that hard, cool surface to the floor, I could hear him accelerate through the darkness. The sound of his footfalls faded.

  The pain in my thumb was astonishing. It radiated up my arm, fanned out underneath my armpit, and shot through my back and chest. I arched my back against the refrigerator, eyes closed, forcing myself to think of something nice. A softly flowing creek tumbling over granite boulders in the high Rockies, a flawlessly cast dry fly landing in the broadest pool, the perfect trout rising, the soft caress of the afternoon breeze rising from the meadow. Far away, my thumb throbbed, fell off into a hole, and was swallowed.

  Minutes passed. Distantly, I heard Ray come back to the phone and call for a search. Then he was near me again, his warm breath as sweet as that breeze … . “That’s hurting you,” he said, studying the fresh stain of blood that now drenched the bandage. No dumb questions from my Officer Raymond. Just straight to the point, a statement of the facts.

  “The pain is subsiding. I’m just tired.”

  “I lost her,” he said sadly.

  “I’m not surprised. She probably knows a hundred ways of getting in and out of this house unseen. She’s like a mouse down the hole.”

  Ray sighed. “Right. I di
dn’t hear a car start up, so perhaps she’s still in the area.”

  “She would have parked several blocks away. That is, if she drives. With that getup, she may walk everywhere. Or ride a unicorn.

  “You talk like you know her.”

  Did I? Why did that sound true? Was it just that I understood not wanting to be seen? “She’s a type. You didn’t know George. I didn’t either, really, but he was a taker, you know? He took things from people, and the little mice like Nina would be more than glad to share their cheese. The costume was a little unusual, but only in the present tense.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Fatigue filled my head. “I’m not sure what I mean. But I need some sleep. What time is it, Eleven? Twelve? I’m usually in the sack by ten. And hey, it’s been a day, hasn’t it?” I opened my eyes.

  Ray was hunkered down right next to me, his muscular legs doubled easily into a squat. He was loose; not just strong and athletic but also limber. How I loved men with long, muscular bodies. And just then that body was close to me, very close, and he was looking at me, into me, studying me with an abstraction that made me want to jump in through his blue eyes and fall.

  Fall where? It wasn’t fair. I was just going to have to get laid more often. A little body contact and I was a goner. I was falling for this guy, falling into this guy, and we had met under the very worst of circumstances, just the kind of stressful nonsense that would make me lose my composure like this and give myself away for a dime.

  I studied him in return. He had his hands up to his lips, covering the lower half of his face, giving me nothing to look into but those clear blue eyes as dark as denim. I wanted to lift my hand and touch his cheek, run a finger down the strong bones of his nose. I had to be out of my mind. He probably had a wife and half a dozen kids at home, wondering where he was. Yes, of course. He’s Mormon, isn’t he? He knew The Refiner’s Fire, not your everyday reading matter, and he lives in Salt Lake City, the Mormon stronghold. And if cigarettes or alcohol have ever passed those incredibly healthy lips, I’ll eat his badge.

  The Saints, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I had heard enough of their proselytizing over the years, seen their missionaries, young men in pairs riding bicycles from house to house in their Sunday best, with little name badges saying, “Elder This,” and, “Elder That.” They often seemed sad or lonely, like lost puppies, but they were good soldiers, true to their training. They had an answer for every question, a neat set of beliefs that covered every occasion, a key for every ecclesiastical lock, a hammer to sink every philosophical nail. Like a religion designed by engineers. No ambiguities; in fact, no recognition that ambiguities might exist. Just connect the dots and salvation is thine for the asking. My high school friends had laughed into their sleeves over the LDS articles of faith, howling with mirth at the thought that each “worthy male” would become a “god” in his own “kingdom.” I had suspended judgment as best I could, figuring that the missionaries were meekly presenting canned lines. They had sounded like trained parrots to me, but they were young and I figured that there had to be more to the game somewhere if all those hundreds of thousands of people went along with it. But organized religion wasn’t for me either way you sliced the baloney; when I’d wanted to think deep thoughts I’d always walked a mile from the house and sat on a nice rock.

  Ray as a Mormon missionary. I could see him dressed crisply in that white shirt, those dark slacks and skinny tie, hair buzzed short straight from the barbershop. He’d be hard to resist. Bored housewives would ask him in just for his company, and try to evangelize him in their own ways right back. I looked at his left hand. On the third finger was a plain gold band. I had not thought to look before.

  “I’m tired,” I repeated. “Time for this Cinderella to turn into a pumpkin. Or cupcake. Or whatever she turned into.”

  “Not a mouse,” said Ray, still gazing at me levelly.

  Now, that wasn’t fair, I decided, staring angrily back into his eyes. “No. Certainly not a mouse. You name a good motel, and I’ll find my way there. And I’ll be there in the morning. Ole Emmy won’t mess up your deal with your promotion.”

  “I’ll take you,” he said, tensing.

  “No, you won’t. You have squad cars rolling all around this neighborhood. One of them’s pulling up outside right now. Hear it? You’ve got a job to do. And don’t worry, I’ll go straight to bed and sleep like a log. I’m exhausted. I’ll see you at the conference tomorrow. You’ll know me; I’ll be the one with the big bloody gauze bandage on her left thumb.”

  9

  BUT I DIDN’T SLEEP. OR ONLY FITFULLY. I HAD FOUGHT to stay alert as I had followed Officer Raymond back toward the center of town, taking turns around side streets and through alleys to make certain we weren’t followed. I had ached with fatigue as I leaned on the counter at the Deseret Motel and then staggered up the steps to my second-story room with its lonesome bed, mute TV, and back view over an abandoned lot. I had leaned out that window, making certain there was nothing underneath it that might serve as a ladder, then had double- and triple-checked the lock on my door. My head had buzzed with exhaustion as I peeled off my grass-stained clothes, laid them out on the second bed, slung a T-shirt over my stiffening torso, and lowered myself between the sheets. But as I tried to relax into their plain, virginal whiteness, I had stiffened with fear.

  I hate motels. They are never my friends, and in no way do I ever feel safe in them. Now, add to that the fact that I was in real danger, and the mix spelled wide awake and forget about sleeping. Visions of gunshots blossomed in the darkness, growing ever larger, and nearer, aimed right at me, people running, chasing me, following me in cars.

  I flicked on the bedside lamp and tried reading for a while. I had swiped the copy of The Refines’s Fire from George’s house with this thought in mind: If I found I couldn’t sleep, it would surely knock me out again. But it didn’t. This time, it drew me in, because I wanted to know what Ray believed, wanted to know how he could believe it. My life until then had been predicated around discarding beliefs, pulling out the opportunistic weeds that seemed to grow up wherever human longing for meaning and answers met the inadequacies of human experience and reasoning, hoping that a glimmering of truth might thrive in the space left. That was why geology had drawn me. Science was based on the search for truths, or at least for the facts from which a hypothesis might be built, and hypotheses were built for one thing only: to be tested and discarded if proven wrong, eliminating possibilities, illuminating probabilities.

  I read for close to three hours, and discovered two things, both of which I found disturbing: First, the author presented evidence that suggested the founder of the Mormon Church (Joseph Smith) had been a conjurer, a money digger, and a “bogus maker”—in modern terms, a con artist. Nowhere in the text did the author presume to state whether or not Smith was conscious of his purported capacity for fabrication, or whether or not he believed everything he said. In unpleasant ways, Smith began to remind me of George Dishey in his rather charismatic ability to draw people to places he wanted them to go, leading his faithful from New York to Illinois, and attempting to lead some other men’s wives to bed, with lines like “I have been looking upon you with favor for some time” and “Please be my spiritual wife.” What had George said to me? “Your speech will be one of the jewels of the conference, a source of new angles, new inspiration for a hidebound profession.” And I’d bought it. Geeyak. But George was also a Ph.D., and widely published, a huge presence within the profession of paleontology. Which was he, saint or sinner?

  Second (and this was tougher for me), I had to conclude that whatever else Joseph Smith had been, he had also been inspired, and adept at matters of the psyche and perhaps the soul that I preferred not to contemplate. I prized my own ability to embrace ambiguities, but the idea of a flawed human with godly powers of transcendence left me scared and angry, and stoked my insomnia worse than a strong cup of coffee. Was this corruption of power, or a
case of evolution from the profane to the profound? Part of me wanted to believe that George had used occult powers to lure me into his web of deception; that way, I could look upon myself as a victim and wouldn’t have to admit my half of the mistake. Disgusted with myself, I threw down the book and turned on the TV and watched infomercials until I was at last exhausted enough to sleep, however fitfully.

  At 7:00 A.M., I awoke to the sound of footsteps on the balcony outside my window. I threw off my covers and phoned Sergeant Ortega, reporting on the previous evening’s fun and games. He was suitably and sympathetically horrified, but obnoxiously surprised to hear that I had actually left the scene and not tried to spend the night in George Dishey’s house. When we were done chatting, I showered and wrestled my hair into some semblance of order, then picked out a knit blouse that didn’t need ironing. For the lower half of my body, I chose blue jeans. To hell with trying to look upwardly mobile I decided; no one at the conference cared anyway. A geologist is still a geologist, even if you scrub her and drape her in silk. For my feet, I pulled out my old roping boots—lipstick red but comfortably faded with years of use—and slid on a belt with a Navajo silver buckle just for panache. Big bad world, here I come. I checked to make certain that this time I had my keys, opened the door, stepped out onto the balcony walkway, and nearly tripped over Officer Raymond.

  He was sitting in a chair about a foot to the left of my doorway, with his feet up on the railing. “Good morning,” he said. “Sleep well?”

  I had to grab my chin up off the walkway before I could even begin to think about answering his question. After just staring stupidly at him for a while, I said, “You been here all night?”

  He shook his head and smiled smugly. “No, just got here a few minutes ago. An officer named Minton was here, though.”

  I could feel my face flushing. I wanted to say, And here I had thought you were beginning to trust me, but I kept my mouth shut. Damned fool Em, I told myself, here you go again having fantasies about a man. You think he’s sitting here because he can’t get enough of your perfume? He’s bucking for a promotion! “Breakfast,” I growled, and stomped ahead of him down the stairs.