Bones (54 page)

"I know, I know--but one guy like that one is enough to make you wary for life. There was a little justice, though--he isn't on the air anymore."

"I'm not surprised. And Camille got what she deserved with him, I'm sure."

"It didn't last, either. She told David that the guy broke up with her when I refused to let him 'cover' our searches. I felt sorry for her, really."

"Did you ever talk to her about it?"

"No. The only time I've seen her since then was when you were there, at the hospital. What would I say? 'You betrayed me'? To her, that would have been something like saying, 'Congratulations.' Besides, I betrayed myself."

"There's only one question left, then," I said. "When are you going to forgive yourself?"

He didn't answer.

** CHAPTER 55

TUESDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 26

Las Piernas

I had gone back to bed and had about an hour's sleep when the phone rang. I looked at the clock. A little before six.

Frank answered the call. "Hi, Pete," he said to his partner, then listened for a while. He sat up and started taking notes. "Okay, I'll be there as soon as I can. Coroner's already been notified? Good . . . yes, I'll see you in a few."

He hung up, stretched, and started getting dressed.

"What's going on?" I asked.

He hesitated, then said, "The skull in the refrigerator? Looks as if he decided to let us have the rest of the body."

I shuddered. "Where?"

"Apparently, he's been keeping it on ice. A group of figure skaters got a rude surprise when they showed up at the local rink for practice this morning."

"He broke into the ice-skating rink?"

"Yep. First officer on the scene said it looks as if the body is frozen solid. No head." He paused in the act of putting on his holster. "Hope it's the one belonging to our skull. He'd probably think it was damned amusing to have more than one out there and mix and match them."

"You should tell Ben. He's been trying to do the identification on the skull. Maybe he'll be able to help out."

Frank didn't want to leave me alone, so he hesitated to ask Ben to go with him. So I promised not to write about events at the skating rink for the Express--whose editor-in-chief I was not much in charity with at the moment--and he decided I could come along and wait within the outer perimeter of the crime scene, where the heaviest level of police protection in Las Piernas would be available to keep his wife safe from Nick Parrish.

If the skating rink hadn't been fairly close to the vet's office, I'm not sure Ben would have followed Frank and me over there that morning. Sometimes, looking back on it, I've wished the two buildings had been farther apart.

There were several black-and-whites parked outside the rink; Frank went in first, while I talked to Ben in the parking lot. A few minutes later, Frank escorted me to what he had decided was a safe place to wait--safe for me, safe for the investigation.

This place turned out to be an overly warm glassed-in waiting area, complete with gas-log fireplace and a snack bar, a place where young skaters' parents and hockey widows might hang out. Personally, that day or any other, I would have preferred a cold, hard bleacher closer to the action. I couldn't see much from where I waited. The gargantuan officer Frank posted at the door didn't improve the view.

I could see that strips of flat carpet--usually used for awards ceremonies, so that nonskating dignitaries can walk out onto the ice--led out to a huddle of men that included Frank, Pete, Carlos Hernandez, and others. I couldn't see the body itself.

Ben was escorted in by a uniformed officer. When he saw where I was being kept, he gave me a little smile and waved.

He managed getting out to the huddle without any problems; the group parted a little, he went down on one knee to take a closer look at the body and suddenly started screaming.

He screamed words, but I'm not sure what they were, because the sound itself triggered a flood of memories, and made me think of him screaming in the mountains as he ran into the meadow--which made me try in vain to get past the behemoth in blue at the waiting area door.

The words didn't matter. I just wanted to get to Ben. Before long, I got my wish--Frank was bringing him into the waiting area. He had stopped screaming; his face was drained of color. Frank asked me for Jo Robinson's number as he set Ben down next to me.

Frank called and left a message with Jo's service. I held on to Ben, who seemed to be in a state of shock.

"What is it?" I asked him. "What's wrong?"

"Camille," he said numbly. "It's Camille. Out there on the ice."

"Who's Camille?" Pete asked, overhearing Ben as he walked into the room.

Ben didn't answer, so I told them that she was Ben's ex-girlfriend. "The woman he was living with until last January."

"Her skull," Ben said miserably, looking down at his hands as if they were foreign objects. "I've been handling her skull!"

Frank and Pete exchanged a look.

"How do you know it's Camille?" I asked.

I didn't think he'd answer; he looked as if he might faint. But he whispered, "Her birthmark. She has an unusual birthmark on her upper thigh."

I could see that Frank and Pete didn't entirely trust Ben's identification of the body, but they spoke consolingly, told him just to wait with me, and brought him a cup of coffee. I understood their doubts; Ben had experienced one loss after another, had spent a nearly sleepless night, and perhaps his reaction to the corpse had been a result of the strain he was under lately.

Frank flipped through his notebook, found Camille's address from his previous visit, and sent a unit to check on her home.

A little later, a uniformed officer leaned his head in the door and said, "They want you out there, Detective Harriman."

Frank glanced at Pete, then they left together.

Frank was back a few minutes later. He beckoned me away from Ben. In a low voice, he said, "Call John and tell him you aren't coming in."

"What?"

"Tell him you aren't coming into work."

"Why should I? Do you know how hard it was for me to get the few hours I do have?"

"Tell her," Pete said, walking up to us. "She's too damned stubborn for her own good."

Frank glanced over at Ben, then said, "Parrish left a note for you."

I felt my stomach clench, and my heart began to hammer against my ribs, as if it wanted somebody to let it out. But I looked at Pete's smug face, and suddenly my heart slowed. "Really?" I said. "What did it say?"

Frank's brows drew together. "Irene--"

"What did it say?"

He held out a plastic bag. There was another plastic bag within it; on this one, my name had been neatly written in black felt pen. Within it, a sheet of lined yellow paper from a legal pad contained a short message, written in very precisely printed letters:

No more presents, no more escapes.

You can't hide from me, Irene.

You can't go beyond my reach.

Next time, you're the one who gets iced,

much more slowly than dear Camille.

And Camilles are notorious for dying slowly--

ha! ha! ha!

Please tell Ben Sheridan that I enjoyed her immensely.

He had signed it with a flourish.

"Nothing anonymous about this one, is there?" I said, not as steadily as before.

"He left it under the body," Pete said. "Don't be an idiot, Irene. Stay home."

I glanced up at him.

Frank saw, a little too late, what was inspiring me.

"Irene--" he began.

"It doesn't change anything. I am going to work, Frank."

He started to argue, but I motioned toward Ben and said in a low voice, "For God's sake, we have until ten o'clock tonight to settle this. Let's not make it any worse for Ben by having a fight in here."

"Okay," he said, "okay. But we will talk about this!"

We were interrupted when Frank and Pete were called back out of the room. I could see Frank giving Pete hell as they went to meet the other detectives.

If Parrish's note left any doubts, before long, few people questioned the identity of the body. Signs of a forcible entry through a rear bedroom window were found at Camille's home; through that window, police saw overturned furniture and other indications of a struggle. Once inside, the officers also found a photo of Camille in a bathing suit; the photo showed the birthmark on her thigh.

While all of this was taking place, several of us tried to console Ben, but he barely acknowledged our presence. At a little after eight, the alarm on his watch went off. "Bingle," he said suddenly. "I can't leave him in that cage! I've got to go."

"Let me go with you," I said. "You're not in any shape to drive." Intentionally keeping any tone of challenge out of my voice, I turned to my husband and said, "Is that okay, Frank? I'll wait with him back at the house. If Jo Robinson calls, she can reach us there."

Frank frowned, but perhaps thinking he'd prove to me that he was going to be reasonable, too, gave in. "Okay, but I'm going to ask a unit to follow you--promise me you'll let them keep you in sight. Parrish is obviously focusing on the two of you right now, and I don't think it's wise for you to be alone anywhere."

No argument from me. There were certain givens, after all.

Bingle's exuberance over seeing Ben again went a long way toward breaking the awful spell his owner had been under. Ben thanked the vet, paid the bill, and we were on our way. Except for an occasional attempt on Bingle's part to ride in Ben's lap, the drive back home was uneventful.

Jo Robinson had left a message, and when Ben called her back, he spent a long time talking to her while I went outside with the dogs and Cody. Cody lounged on my lap while Deke and Dunk, apparently fascinated with whatever scents Bingle's coat had picked up from the vet's office, gave the big shepherd a thorough sniffing over.

By the time Frank came back that afternoon, Ben was able to answer his questions fairly calmly. Ben had a few of his own.

"Has anyone called her parents?" he asked.

"We've got someone working on that."

"Why hadn't she been reported missing?"

"She seems to have been at loose ends lately," Frank said, "and the truth is, there doesn't seem to be anyone who had regular contact with her."

"But she worked for an accounting firm--" Ben said.

"She left her job in June; apparently she's been looking for a new one, because on her desk she had mail from several places where she had applied for work. She had been filling in applications and had copies of her resume on her desk."

"Since June?" he asked.

"Yes, we talked to her then."

Ben looked away, frowning. "I had forgotten--you had the ridiculous suspicion that she had tried to rob my house and office."

Frank didn't allow himself to be baited.

After a moment Ben said, "Sorry. Of course you had to question her. And maybe I didn't know her so well after all. I never thought she was thrilled with her work, but I'm surprised to hear she left the accounting firm."

I remembered her visit to the hospital, and Ben's final angry suggestion that she should be the one to think about finding another line of work. I wondered if that encounter had affected her more than any of us could have guessed. Having no desire to cause Ben further pain, I kept these thoughts to myself.

"People at her former office say she quit unexpectedly," Frank said, "but she may have been planning to leave for some time. She seemed prepared to be out of work for a while. She still had quite a bit of money in her savings account."

"She was good with money," Ben said. "Not just frugal, but also good at choosing investments."

"But her mail and newspapers--" I asked.

"The house has a mail slot," Ben said. "The mail would just pile up inside the house. We liked that feature when we used to go camping or traveling. No need to file a hold with the post office."