Disembodied Bones (47 page)

“Uh-huh.”

“She’s blind, so how does she know they’re
from her granddaughter?”

“Good question.” J.C. cogitated loudly. “I
reckon we’ll ask her that.”

“So someone killed the granddaughter because
she’s two months pregnant maybe, dumps her body miles away and
takes away anything that can identify her.” Gideon sank into the
leather chair as the handle rattled once and then twice. “Then he
fakes letters so everyone will think the girl’s away at some
school.”

“Someone Miz Sumetria knows real well. Could
be anyone in her church, on account that’s where she’s at most of
the time,” J.C. mused. “Fuck me. That stupid burglar. He came to
kill that poor little old lady so she wouldn’t be asking where her
granddaughter’s at. I’ll send a patrol car right over. Good work,
there, Scott.” He paused. “You say the case is being done by Dallas
PD?”

“Yeah,” Gideon agreed, trying to make himself
invisible. Someone was talking to someone else outside the door.
The handle stopped rattling and the shadows under the door moved
away.

“And you be in Pegram County?”

“Yeah.”

“So what’s your interest?”

“It’s a funny story, J.C.,” Gideon said.
“Tell you what. You take care of Miz Sumetria and I’ll tell you the
rest of it when she’s all safe and sound.”

“Shore.”

It took Gideon a minute, but he finally gave
the right information to J.C., and got him off the line. Putting
the phone back in its cradle, he sighed raggedly. That was one
thing down. No matter what happened next, the elderly blind woman
with the cherries on her hat would be protected and doubtless the
pastor would be arrested forthwith. They could compare his DNA with
the DNA of the baby in Gwendolyn Parker’s womb and that would be
damning in itself. Maybe he would simply confess and plead to life
in prison, rather than face lethal injection. It didn’t matter now,
except that Gideon had his proof. Leonie wasn’t an elaborate con
artist; she was just as she presented herself.
The real thing.
An honest to God psychic.

That would give Scott Haskell the proof he
needed and he would actually listen to Gideon. They might be able
to locate where Leonie was being held. There would be records and
no matter how clever, men like the one who was executing his
intricate retribution on Leonie, they still left trails. And Gideon
had a handle on some of those trails. He just needed a little more
time.

There were more footsteps in the hallway and
the rattling of a key in the door. Gideon decided that discretion
was the better part of valor and found a hiding place. He gravely
needed that extra time to work on the computer, but if Scott found
him in his office, he surely wouldn’t have it. There was a tiny
bathroom off to one side and he slid inside just as the exterior
door opened.

-

My children dressed in black or white,

Darkness or light might bring me calling.

I am oblivion, an empty void, to some,

And a haven for others.

In peace and war I conquer,

Even the tyrants fear me,

Yet the tortured bless my name.

Unmapped am I,

Uncharted are my waters.

I visit in dreams and reality.

I never make an appointment

But I’m always on time.

Laugh in my face

And I will laugh right back.

What am I?

I am death.

Sunday, July 28th - Monday, July 29th

I have four of these,

With matching extremities.

They can do many things,

And hardly ever bring me pain.

Unless I stick them with a pin,

Or burn them sometimes when…

What is it that I can wiggle at will?

And use in other means still?

“You’re leaving the cement cap off,” Leonie
said. She tried to keep her horror-struck eyes off the life-like
hand she’d just bitten. Her teeth hadn’t even left a lingering
mark. In all these months she hadn’t realized what it was. Elan had
been playing a convoluted game with her in order to appease his
warped sense of retribution. The hand looked as real as the other
one, even the fingers could move sparingly. He could grip things
loosely; with obvious practiced ability, the prosthesis would
appear as genuine as anyone’s normal appendage.

It wasn’t the hand that caused the
threatening sense of revulsion. It was the thought of a child being
trapped in this stinking hole, watching a television that brought
only the best and worst of news, knowing that no one would be
coming for him. But there had still been a meager amount of hope
for a child in the form of a thirteen year old girl, one who had
been able to find another missing child. But she was still the girl
who had never found him.

“Yes,” Elan agreed with her. “I’m leaving the
cap off, otherwise you’d never get out. You don’t have the right
equipment. Perhaps the intelligence.”

“You-” Leonie took a gulping breath- “chewed
through your wrist, and then somehow you managed to get the lid
off?”

There was a minute shift in Elan’s shoulders.
She sensed he wanted to share the story with her, for whatever
perverse reason. He wanted her to know the trials he had undergone
so that she would be properly appreciative or properly
guilt-stricken. Or both. “Whitechapel didn’t really think that the
children he abused could be smart enough to defy him. They couldn’t
be smart enough or they didn’t dare challenge him because they were
intimidated.” His voice lowered into a harsh whisper of noise.
“
He was wrong
.”

Elan stared down at Leonie. “There was a bed
in here with a steel bed frame. I couldn’t pry the hasp loose from
the wall that held the chain that was attached to my handcuffed
wrist. But I could take apart the bed. The screws weren’t tight. As
a matter of fact, I did all of that before I got the handcuffs off
me. Can’t you guess what I did with it, Leonie?”

Leonie stared back into Elan’s paralyzing
eyes. In the dim light they looked like the black pits of the
deepest hell. She found that she couldn’t bring herself to look
away, but at last she tore her gaze away from his terrific stare.
Glancing at the place where the bed would have been, she saw the
silent and still Keefe instead. Covered with a green blanket,
Leonie couldn’t help but wonder what had motivated that simple
gesture. Did it mean that there was something human left in the man
who stood in front of her?

It would have been foolish for her to count
on that, considering the lengths Elan had gone to make Leonie
suffer for her supposed crimes. Nothing could deter him; nothing
would make that innate difference to bring back a spark of
compassion within this dead soul. So she concentrated on what he
was asking. “You made something out of the bed frame,” she said
deliberately. “Something that helped you to escape.”

A smile twisted Elan’s lips. “But what,
Leonie? What could a child do?”

Leonie looked at the area where the cap would
fit and she looked at the edge of the cement cap as it perched on
the corner, suspended by something she couldn’t see. She tried to
mentally imagine what could free a fourteen year old child from
this agonizing prison. He couldn’t have dug his way out. He would
have starved to death before he’d gone a half-dozen feet. He had
water; she glanced at the sink and toilet behind her. Water
wouldn’t have provided a weapon or tool with which to escape.
What could a child do with a bed frame?

The only way out of this place would have
been to lift the cement cap off. Leonie’s mouth opened and then
shut in abrupt realization. Then she said, “A fulcrum. You made a
lever and a fulcrum out of the bed frame and the rest of the bed.
You said the frame was steel. It would be strong enough to support
the weight. All you had to do was construct it. Even a child could
lever the lid up. Then keep moving it to inch the cap until there
was space to escape.”

Elan showed his teeth again in a wretched
imitation of a smile. “Yes. That’s exactly what I did. But after a
few moves the cap tilted and fell half way back in. Crooked, it
allowed me enough space to worm my way out. He’d hidden the opening
in the garage, and concealed his activity by parking an old car on
top of it, but the car had been taken by then, by the estate
lawyers, and they didn’t look twice at what appeared to be a cement
floor with camouflaged inset hooks on four corners. I had bound my
wrist by then, but it was still bleeding. I don’t remember much
then. I found myself in a hospital. They told me I had been
stumbling on the outskirts of Shreveport early one morning, miles
away from his house, three weeks after you rescued Douglas Trent.
The authorities only wanted to know who my parents were, who I was.
I pretended not to remember. They saw the scars on my body, the
malnutrition, the extreme state I was in. They knew I had been
terribly abused. After I healed in the hospital, they placed me in
a foster home and I immediately disappeared. The foster parents
probably didn’t report it for a while because they were anxious to
keep receiving their monthly stipend.”

“You went back for the money,” Leonie
said.

“Of course, I did.” Elan was smug. “I
couldn’t take the chance of someone else finding it. I took enough
and hid the rest somewhere else. Then I burned his house to the
ground. I found gasoline in the garage and I poured it on every
inch of house that I could.” His eyes burned with the memory. “I
hadn’t seen who was truly responsible then. I blamed
him-Whitechapel. So his house would pay. It burned to the ground
and the neighbors didn’t call the fire department for an hour.
There were only bare bones left when the sun came up.”

Bones
. Leonie was reminded of the
first riddle Monroe Whitechapel had taunted his victims with.
Disembodied bones. It seems only fitting that Elan had done what
he had done.

Unwittingly Elan repeated that sentiment. “I
had the right to do it. More so than anyone could ever understand.”
He took a step back from her and Leonie found herself taking a
breath in relief that she hadn’t realized she had been holding.

“And what did you do then?”

“I made a life for myself,” Elan said softly.
“I dreamed about childish revenge and I even tried to forget for
many years. But there was his money. When I turned eighteen I
returned for the lion’s share I hadn’t taken. The grounds were
still empty, the burned remnants of the house still a charred mess
with weeds and shrubs sprouting up everywhere. I brought a shovel
and a flashlight. The neighbors didn’t care. The state was still
arguing about who the land legally belonged to because there
weren’t any obvious heirs. It didn’t matter to me. I had what I
needed. And it occurred to me that I had the means to do anything I
wanted. When I located a finance lawyer to liquefy the stocks,
bearer bonds, and jewels, I discovered that I was much wealthier
that I could have ever imagined. Money, like I’ve said, solves a
lot of problems.” He stopped then and his eyes smoldered as he
looked down at her. “But I think that’s enough of this. You don’t
have a steel bed frame. All you have is handcuffs and a choice. Not
exactly the choice I had, but close enough to make me happy.”

He swiftly turned and hoisted himself out of
the pit. Leonie couldn’t help but notice that that his prosthesis
worked just as well as the real one on the other side. She said the
first thought that came into her mind, “You must have set this up
for years.”

“You have no idea,” his voice floated down to
her. “A decade would be a better frame of reference. Your clock is
ticking, Leonie. Just remember that.”

Then Elan was gone. Leonie and Keefe were
alone. She crawled over to the child and checked his pulse. It was
still strong and even. Whatever drug that Elan had used seemed to
be effective on the child. Hopefully it wasn’t causing any
physiological damage. Leonie rubbed at her temples, ignoring the
rattling of the chains at her wrist. The throbbing at her lobes
remained an irritating presence that loomed over her like an
unwanted suitor. There wouldn’t be any help from any exterior
source like Gideon. It was all up to her.

I am intelligent
, she thought.
Maybe not a genius but smart enough. He wants me to do what he
did in order to get out of this. Think Leonie. How can you get out
of handcuffs?

She systematically checked the contents of
the pit, slowly turning in a circle to make sure she didn’t miss
anything. Then she checked her pockets. Elan had cleaned her out.
He hadn’t left anything to chance.
No fingernail file that would
spring a lock, nor a bobby pin that would save the proverbial day.
As if I would know what to do with it.

One other thing that was missing was a camera
stuck in a corner. Leonie looked into the darkness beyond the
solitary light bulb above her. There might be one there, with which
to watch her futile attempts to free herself from this disastrous
position. After all, was she desperate enough to chew off her
wrist? And did Elan want to miss personally watching that singular
event that would bring him some of the deliverance he so urgently
needed?

Leonie studied the slender bones of her
wrist. She moved the hand cuff toward the end of her hand until it
bumped into a grinding halt at the base of her thumb. She worked it
back and forth, but it wouldn’t come loose. Her hands weren’t small
enough and Elan had tightened the cuff around the wrist as much as
he could. She checked the other cuff as it was attached to the
chain. The links of the chain were thick and unyielding. There
would be no prying them apart. Likewise the chain was attached to
the hasp on the wall.

Had Elan tried his makeshift lever on the
hasp on the wall before he had chewed his wrist apart?
Leonie
took a gulp of breath and decided that he would have done exactly
that, instead of performing what would have been the most revolting
and horridly painful of actions. Given the choice, he wouldn’t have
gnawed his hand off in his frantic bid for freedom.