Disembodied Bones (7 page)

It was a dead house. Nothing moved in here.
There was only the chirping peel of an arcade game programmed to
attract their next player. Leonie swallowed her fear and cleared
her throat. “Douglas?”

The sound of her voice made her jump. She was
so accustomed to the other sounds that her voice sounded jarring.
There was an expectation that all the other noises that any house
would make would suddenly cease at her questioning call and the
toys would come to life, turning to look at her, freakish entities
haunted by the misdeeds executed in this house of horrors. She
waited for an answer, any answer, and heard nothing but a whirl and
click of automatons.

Leonie passed through to another room and
found a little theater set up. There were comfortable seats on one
side and a projector on its own little wooden pedestal. Movies
would be played here. She saw that the reels stored next to the
projector were large and wondered if they were the same that movie
theaters used.

The next room made her eyes bulge out in
amazement. Whatever the room had been before it had been ripped
away to leave nothing but a foundation for which a madman obsessed
with children to build upon. Then he had contractors fill it in
with a huge carousel that must have been brought inside in parts.
An elegant series of skylights allowed the room to be as bright as
if it sat outside under a jeweled canopy where children might play
for ever. Mirrored walls reflected back dozens of mythical
creatures that would carry their passengers around and around, but
they were silent and still in an eerily serene setting that seemed
like a place out of time. Unicorns with gilded horns cavorted with
gryphons with jeweled collars. Golden haired mermaids danced with
magical chimeras. A fabulous striped tiger with the tail of a great
reptile chased on the heels of a winged dragon, a spout of gilded
fire forever frozen at his toothed mouth. A centaur reared with
ebony hooves with the face of an angel peering back at Leonie, as
if entreating her to help them to escape their wax-museum-like
prison.

“Douglas?” she called again and was almost
surprised that nothing answered her.

But then she heard something. The quietness
of the house allowed the noise to come through to her. Someone was
there with her.

-

It occurs once in every minute,

Twice in every moment,

And yet never in one hundred thousand years.

What is it?

It is the letter “M.”

If you break me

I do not stop working.

If you touch me

I may be snared.

If you lose me

Nothing in life will ever matter.

What am I?

Monroe Whitechapel parked his van beside his
home and whistled happily. He’d done what he needed to do and only
needed to get the boy. A frown suddenly marred his handsome
features. He slowly unfolded his six feet of length out of the
vehicle and mentally shrugged away the thoughts that so briefly
troubled him.
So what? I’ve done it before. I see something I
want. I take it. I dispose of it. End of story. On to the next
one.

But this time was a little different. Right
from the beginning it had been different.

He slammed the van’s door shut with an irate
curse, throwing back his head, to get the long brown hair out of
his similarly colored eyes.
It’s not different. He’s just a toy.
A toy of which I’m tired. I always get tired of them.

Whitechapel deliberately looked over the
playground, attempting to think of something besides the
inevitable. The hedge animals were starting to get a little
overgrown; little sprouts of green buds were beginning to erode the
clean lines of the bear and the cat’s paws were starting to appear
deformed. He knew he would have to call the yard service. He didn’t
like having strangers on the property, but the house and the
grounds were too substantial to take care of himself. When the yard
service came they worked all day long and Whitechapel made certain
that no evidence of his current proclivities was present. The
shades were drawn. No employee was permitted inside, even to use
the bathroom. They were permitted to use the pool house’s
facilities. When the housekeeper came to clean, she was restricted
to certain rooms and Whitechapel was always present to ensure that
she didn’t wander away from her specified tasks. Since she was
allowed inside the house, he was especially careful on the days she
came. He paid her well and she knew not to ask questions or gossip
about unsubstantiated rumors.

Protect myself. Protect good old Monroe
Whitechapel. Monroe Whitechapel, son of Alfred Whitechapel, both
decent, upstanding citizens.
He grinned and his grin was a
bright flash of white in a tanned face. It was a grin that disarmed
even the most suspicious individuals.
The number one rule. I’m
smarter than any cop and this is my world. All mine. I live here. I
play here. I know every nook and cranny.

Whitechapel knew what the housekeeper
thought. He could see it in her eyes when she came every Monday.
She saw the toys and the childlike world he’d fashioned inside the
large house and wondered if her employer was mentally retarded. It
was the way she held her head when she spoke to him, deferentially
but mutely questioning his sanity with a roll of her eyes.

Perhaps the housekeeper hadn’t read about
Whitechapel’s activities with local charities, all dealing with
orphans or children’s events. Several times a year he had groups of
kids out on the grounds, sometimes Boy Scouts, other times poor
children from diminished families. The charity organizations
honored him regularly. He had a wall full of framed awards, all
lauding his accomplishments and generous nature. There were even a
few framed newspaper interviews, extolling his benevolence. One
paper had glibly named him ‘The Patron of the Penniless.’

Whitechapel didn’t mind spreading a little of
his wealth around. After all, his father had labored for thirty
years making it and ten minutes losing it in an unfortunate car
accident. The elder Whitechapel had owned several paper mills and
his only son still detested the chemical smell when he passed one
of the plants his father had created.
What can I do?
He
smiled to himself again.
Spend it on children. After all, I love
children.

But there is something I really need to
take care of now
. He went down a mental checklist and ticked it
off with his fingers.
I’ve got the shovel, the plastic wrap, and
duct tape. Need to put on some gloves before I touch anything I’m
leaving behind. Certainly don’t want to leave anything for the
police to find.
He made a curious face.
That is, if they
ever find anything.

He sighed.
Of course they won’t.

Whitechapel turned to his house. “I really
need to get this distasteful business over with. A good riddle is
all that’s necessary to clear the head.” He took a few steps and
said readily, “Riddle around the riddle, riddle around the rock,
rock around the riddle. How many ‘R’s in that?” He snorted, pleased
at the answer. “Not a single one. Not one in the word, ‘that.’”

•

Fairy-tale creatures stared soundlessly at
Leonie, glass eyes echoed the minute moment of the sun’s cascading
light and the sparkling reflection off the dozens of silver-lined
mirrors that ringed the circular room. They were as still as death,
creations made of wood, paint, and elaborate detailed effort of
some anonymous artisan.

Someone else was in the house. She hadn’t
felt it. There was a little noise that came through to her, just a
tickle of sound that wasn’t anything she had heard previously.
Leonie swallowed convulsively. It had to be him-Whitechapel. She
wanted to yell out to Douglas again, but she was sure the other one
would hear her instead and know that she was here.

Leonie took refuge behind a chariot pulled by
two half-horse, half-fish creatures. Their pitch black manes were
made of what looked like real hair to her and their tails glimmered
with a green metallic sheen that showed the intricate detail of the
scales on their curving bodies. She looked at them for a moment and
closed her eyes.

I can’t hide here forever. Douglas needs
me. There’s something about Whitechapel. He’s busy doing something
right now, but he wants to go to Douglas. He wants to…hurt him.
Leonie’s face crumpled in confusion. What Whitechapel wanted to do
to Douglas made her writhe with disgust. She had never even heard
of such a thing. He was a man who was attracted to children,
particularly little boys.

“Eww,” she said before she could help herself
and her eyes fluttered open. Shocked by the noise, she looked
around as if she expected one of the carousel animals to come alive
and berate her for the interruption of silence.
What’s wrong
with that man?

Suddenly Leonie wished for the family. They
supported each other, sometimes ruthlessly. Most of them hadn’t
held it against her that she wasn’t developing her gift in a timely
manner. Some of the younger ones, closer to her age were more prone
to say mean things about it, but when she needed them they would be
here. She needed someone who would defend herself and Douglas. Once
she’d gotten a glimpse of what Whitechapel had in mind, then it was
obvious to her that if ever someone needed protection, it was
Douglas. The policeman hadn’t believed her although she had tried
everything she could think of saying. The little bit about the gold
pen he’d been missing popped into her head like an unwanted mantra.
Like Douglas, she had suddenly been afflicted with all things
missing.

In addition to the policeman’s gold pen,
there had been Louis’s belt buckle. It was the size of a dessert
plate and hardly something someone could lose so readily. But he’d
been thinking about it, wondering where it was, certain that
someone had swiped it from him. He was going to miss it something
fierce and he had been wishing that he knew where it was.

The location had come to her, like a blinding
sign with great letters upon it. It was behind Louis’s bed, and
purely an accident at that.

The day before, it had been her
maman’s
watch. A simple gold Bulova that her
grandmaman
had given her when she had graduated from high
school, Leonie’s mother had missed it terribly. When it had gone
astray, Babette had searched the house relentlessly. Leonie had
come into the house knowing instantly that her mother was missing
it, and she even knew where the watch was to be located. That
morning her cousin Althea had taken it from the kitchen table.
Babette had left it lying there the night before and four year old
Althea had thought it pretty. Apparently, it had been pretty enough
to take outside and, for some unfathomable reason, bury it in the
dirt. Babette hadn’t missed it until the end of the day because
they had been too busy canning strawberries.

When Leonie presented the dirty watch to
Babette, her mother had been irate and a thinly veiled accusation
had ensued. Babette had accused her daughter of the disappearance,
charging it to a young woman borrowing jewelry from her mother and
not wanting to fess up to the misdeed. Even to the point where a
young woman would make up a story.

Leonie had been shocked silent. She wouldn’t
have thought that her own mother would not believe her and in a fit
of childish anger she didn’t attempt to explain.

When she saw the newspaper on the counter
inside the general store, there was something else that had come to
Leonie. His name was Douglas and his mother was missing him
something fierce as well. She was fraught with anxiety. Her mind
was torturing her with questions of what-if and what-about. She was
determined to blame herself. If something happened to her only son,
then it would be her fault. She hadn’t protected him enough. She
had spent too much time in The Gap shopping for jeans that fit just
right, and they had these adorable angora sweaters that she loved,
even though they made her sneeze. The time had slipped away, but
Douglas had already been taken.

Someone had walked her baby boy out the doors
of the mall while she was shopping.
Oh, God, what will I do?
was Douglas’s mother’s anxiety-filled thought and the one that
washed out all other thoughts in Leonie’s head.

“Oh,
Dieu,
” muttered Leonie. “Please
let me help her.” The utter despair that was filtered to the girl
from the distraught mother was a hundred times worse than the
nagging worry that was pestering Roosevelt Hemstreet over the loss
of a treasured memento from a dead aunt. It was a thousand times
worse than the irksome fretfulness that had concerned Babette about
her watch. It was as if Leonie was suddenly directly connected to
Douglas’s mother and Leonie couldn’t let go. Her mind was linked
like two subway stops by a solitary tunnel and everything was
one-way to Leonie. She couldn’t let it go, she couldn’t make it go
away, she knew that she would have to act on what she was feeling
or suffer the undying penalties of her inaction.

I have to help Douglas.
Leonie gritted
her teeth and silently rose up from her hiding place.
He’s in
this house and I’m going to find him.

Noises of an active person were coming from
the rooms she had already been in, so Leonie headed in the opposite
direction. She moved quietly and began to search the remainder of
the house, all the while trying to keep her ears open to whomever
was moving around.

•

“She wanted the front page of the newspaper,”
Sebastien Benoit told Jacques Simoneaud over the phone.

“The front page?
Pourquoi?
” Jacques
asked curiously. He was on the solitary payphone in the waiting
room of the police station. The mean looking clerk with the white
hair and electric blue eyes had returned and was keeping a cautious
eye on Jacques and Louis. Louis, feeling a lion’s share of the
blame, was trying to make himself invisible and failing
wretchedly.