“Trevant residence. This is the female butler speaking.”
Thatch’s laugh from the other end of the line made her smile.
“Doesn’t that make you the housekeeper?” he said.
“Of course not. Totally different duties.”
“I’ll never know, that’s for sure. May I come over again? I just thought of something else.”
“Yes, please do.” She decided not to ask about his family emergency or who Christine was, despite her intense curiosity.
“See you in ten,” he told her. “Oh, and I’ll bring some beer, if that’s all right. You won’t need to break out the mead.”
“I’m ready to make up another batch. It has to ferment for three months, you know.”
“I hope to be deep in the Antarctic by then.”
“Coward.”
Thatch arrived and suggested they go out for lunch. They decided on an Italian restaurant but found it filled with tourists.
“There are no tables here, Tosca. Looks like a ferry ride is in order,” he said. “How about we try Ruby’s on the pier?”
She nodded, and they walked along the seafront boardwalk, then down the short gangplank to join others waiting for the incoming boat. After it docked and disgorged bicyclists, skateboarders, a crush of people and cars, Tosca and Thatch boarded. They sat on one of the narrow, weathered benches that ran the length of the ferry. Three vehicles trundled over the boat’s wide planks as the attendant directed them forward and reminded the drivers to turn off their engines. The ferry was backed away from the dock. Thatch took two dollars and paid the attendant. After the brief trip across the channel, the pilot pulled in and docked on the peninsula.
“It’s just a couple of blocks to the pier,” Thatch told Tosca.
“My dear man, I have already been there several times. The pier is, of course, much shorter than most of ours in England,” said Tosca, “but it suffices.”
“Suffices?”
Tosca giggled. “Sorry, I know I can sound a bit pompous.”
Ruby’s, a 1950s-style diner famous for its hamburgers, was situated at the end of the Isabel Island pier. Fishermen leaned over the rails, their poles and drop lines extended into the ocean thirty feet below, hoping to hook mackerel, halibut or sand bass.
Settling into a booth and thanking a waiter for bringing coffee, Tosca leaned toward Thatch expectantly.
“What did your FBI friend tell you?” she said. “Did the lab finish its report? Who’s the victim, Whittaker’s wife? The student? What was the murder method?”
Thatch stretched his legs under the table and smiled at her. “Do you ever ask one question at a time?” he said.
“You’re making small talk while there’s a murderer walking around?”
“Man, I never knew the Brits were prone to such exaggeration. All right, Tosca, I have more details about what I told you before when you insisted on going to that sleazy bar. The FBI confirms that the piece of rock you gave me contains the left hand of a person who died around five years ago. The X-rays show that the fingers are still attached to a good portion of the palm and wrist.”
“I knew it,” said Tosca triumphantly, “but how on earth did his fingers get stuck inside a rock?”
“Remember I told you about the sandstones in the desert? Dan says the FBI confirms what I suspected, but I wanted to be sure before telling you. Didn’t want you to go charging off in all directions.” He smiled to soften the words.
“How considerate of you. Now please, tell me more.”
“It’s not a real rock. It’s a fake. Someone made it and most likely the other one you saw. They are made from cement and mixed with different colored pigments during various stages of hardening to resemble sandstone. That’s why I was suspicious.”
“Yes, I remember now. You told me that sandstone is formed from layers of ancient sand.”
“Right, the kind you find in parts of Death Valley. It takes centuries to erode, unlike the rock from the professor’s yard.”
“Death Valley?” she asked. “That’s the California desert, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but sandstone is mostly found in Anza-Borrego State Park east of San Diego. There are concretions that look like cannonballs, so they wouldn’t have been difficult to simulate. I imagine the hand was completely encased, but then the cement crumbled away, exposing the fingertips.”
“How ingenious.”
He watched Tosca’s blue eyes suddenly come alive with excitement.
“Thatch, let’s dig up Professor Whittaker’s garden and find the rest of the body.” She stood up abruptly.
“Uh, it doesn’t work like that here. You claimed you found this outside his yard on the sidewalk, so anyone could have put it there. The cops would have no cause to question him.” He watched her blush as she fumbled for words.
“What if I saw it roll out from under his gate?” She sat down again.
“Did you?”
“He grows poppies and hollyhocks in all the wrong places.”
Thatch was silent for a moment. “Did you see this rock outside of his yard?” His tone was firmer.
“His voice got really squeaky when I put him under pressure.”
“Tosca, as far as you are concerned, Professor Whittaker is out of the picture. The police will take it from here. More coffee?” he asked, looking around for their waiter.
“No, thank you. I want to hear more about what your FBI friend told you.”
Thatch related a few more of Delano’s findings, adding, “The sandstones could have been brought here from anywhere. Mexico, maybe.”
“You’re giving me pretty sketchy information,” said Tosca, “but then, this isn’t Scotland Yard. Yes, yes, I concede that Americans are marvelous detectives,” she added hastily at Thatch’s expression, “and your technology is said to be flawless, but let’s face it, the Australians are way ahead of anyone else electronically.”
Wryly acknowledging she was right, although he knew U.S. law enforcement agencies had far more advanced intel equipment and programs than the general public realized, Thatch shrugged and said nothing.
“Sorry,” said Tosca. “I take that back. Please forgive my rudeness. I want to hear more details of the lab report.”
“Sure you’re ready? Some of it’s pretty gruesome.”
“If I’m to be a crime reporter I’d better get used to the nether underpinnings of the criminal mind.”
“Tosca, there you go again. Nether underpinnings? What’s that, a Victorian petticoat?”
“Could be,” she replied, smiling.
“Okay. Well, Dan said that figuring out which species bones are from is sometimes a puzzle because some animal bones, like a bear’s front claws, are similar to those of a human hand. Bones have bumps, ridges and various other characteristics depending on their function in the body and on which species that body belongs to. But DNA solves all that.”
As he spoke Tosca took out a small notebook and pen from her purse and began writing down his words. “So what’s the age of the bones? You said they were from a young person.”
“Most forensic anthropologists can only take a stab at age unless the bones are from a child,” Thatch continued, “because of their predictable growth pattern. Baby teeth, for instance, and ribs where they join the breastbone. These are smooth in young children but become pitted and sharp as we age.”
“Good heavens! You mean to tell me I’ve been walking around with dents in my ribs for years?” Tosca prodded her ribcage. “Who told you all this, your friend Dan?”
“It’s in the report and backed up by one of the top scientists in the field.”
“All right. Go on, is there more?”
Thatch took her through the forensic process that determines stature. “How thick the bones are is a clue, and as for the person’s sex, the lower bone on the side of the thumb, called the radius, can be helpful in distinguishing between male and female.”
“And we have that bone, don’t we?” said Tosca.
“The hand you found was cut off an inch above the wrist, so we have a good partial.”
“You said ‘person.’ Why can’t they tell if it was a male or a female?”
“They probably do know, but they didn’t tell me.”
“Was the lab able to estimate a time of death?”
“They figure five years. Come on, Tosca, that’s enough, isn’t it?”
“Just one more extremely crucial question, then I’ll buy you an ice cream. How did he die?”
Thatch shook his head. “You’re relentless. I have no idea,”
“If we find the other parts of him, would there be any dried blood clinging to the bones?” she said.
“I see your tabloid imagination at work. Blood? Doubtful. Depends where the other parts are buried. If there was moisture around, the corpse would decay due to the bacteria that causes putrefaction in warm, moist environments.” He paused at Tosca’s expression of intense concentration.
“What if it was dry?” she said.
“Look, Tosca, you’re thinking like a forensic pathologist, granted, but this entire matter is in the hands of the police. We’re out of it. Leave it to the experts. Hey, enough talk of death. Let’s get that ice cream.”
They took the ferry back across the bay and walked over to the ice cream stand on the island’s main street. As Tosca was paying, Thatch’s phone rang.
“Andy? Hi, son.” He paused to listen, standing stock still, then said, “When did Christine leave? I’ll be right there.”
He turned to Tosca. “I’m so sorry. Another emergency. I need to take you home.”
“No problem. I understand. I hope it’s not too serious.”
Thatch didn’t respond and they walked quickly to his car, where he bade her goodbye.
Thatch drove well over the posted speed limit, weaving expertly in and out of traffic as he headed toward the seaside town of San Clemente, not caring if he was pulled over by the highway patrol. Andy’s message had set his heart racing despite the discipline drummed into him during his training as a member of the Secret Service and the many years learning how to remain calm. Because of Christine, his twenty-eight year old daughter, he had come to recognize that personal emergencies demanded far more self-control than those in his former profession, more than he ever imagined existed.
For a long time, ever since the diagnosis, he had deceived himself into believing her condition was curable, that the disease would burn itself out, and she’d be her kind, intelligent, beautiful self again. In the beginning, month after month, he had scoured the country, seeking yet another doctor or chasing a new cure. But after three years of frustration, Thatch had accepted the reality of the paranoid schizophrenia that had first afflicted his daughter in her senior year at college, just months after her mother died. His heartache became a permanent part of his life.
Thatch talked to Christine daily on the phone he’d bought her, which she kept on her bedside table at the group home in which she lived. Once a college tennis champion and an A-student with her future brimming with promise, his daughter now languished in a semi-dark world where hallucinations, fortunately less frequent these days, could make her frantic with worry until she called him and he calmed her down with reassuring, soothing words.
“We’re giving Christine a new medication. It’s quite a break-through,” her doctor had told Thatch two years earlier. The drug quelled much of the paranoia that accompanied her schizophrenia, but the occasional delusion still appeared without warning. She’d call him in a panic, and he’d drop everything to remind her she was simply having a hallucination. He’d talk her through the episode until she could think rationally again.
Thatch was always truthful with her, never flinching from calling the disease by name and telling her what she was hearing at that moment was her mind playing tricks on her.
“But I heard it on the wall,” she’d say. “There’s a microphone in there.”
“Honey, run your fingers over the wall. You’ll see there is no microphone or camera.”
He was relieved that she usually listened to him. Her panic would subside, and she’d end up agreeing she was simply having a hallucination, that the CIA wasn’t after her. In the space of minutes her spirits would change from depressed to upbeat. Thatch could tell by her voice when she was calm, and he’d thankfully finish the call.
This time, though, the situation was more serious. Andy’s message said that Christine was convinced she was being evicted and had packed her belongings. She’d called Andy to come and get her. Thatch had no idea why she’d phoned her brother instead of him. When he drove up, he saw Andy waiting for him, sitting on the porch steps.
“She’s gone.”
Andy’s anguished words hit Thatch like a hammer. “Why didn’t you say so on the phone?”
“Didn’t want you to kill yourself getting here, Dad, but I bet you drove like crazy anyhow.”
Thatch put his arm around Andy’s drooping shoulders and rang the bell of the ornate house where Christine lived with five other patients. A typical Craftsman built in the early 1930s, it sat well back from the quiet residential street, providing privacy behind its stand of ancient live oak trees in the front yard.
Jane Holliday, the supervisor, answered the door and ushered them in. ‘I’m so sorry, Mr. MacAulay. She’s never done this before. We thought she’d just gone out to the corner store. We had no reason to think this time was any different. She didn’t say anything to anyone, and we didn’t actually see her leave. She just called out to us in the office before she left. She’s been doing so well lately.”
Considered trustworthy patients, the six women residents had freedom to shop in the nearby stores, take walks on their own and live as normally as possible despite their disease. They were considered low risk as long as they took their medications every morning and evening, when the nurse dispensed the drugs, and attended the weekly counseling sessions.
Every now and then one or two of the patients would be offered the opportunity to work at a non-stressful job, such as sorting clothes at the Goodwill store. Inevitably, though, after a week or so, they would find it difficult to concentrate. Christine had tried five different jobs, but her lack of focus and recurring hallucinations forced her to quit. The longest she’d held a job was three weeks.
“When did she leave the house?” asked Thatch. They’d walked out to the front gate, anxiously looking up and down the street,