Walking the Bones Read online

  “So I heard.”

  He waited for her to continue, but she sipped her coffee and said nothing more.

  “Is that why you like me?” he asked.

  And she said, “Probably. Does that bother you?”

  “No reason it should. Is there?”

  She gave him a curious look then, a curious smile. So he added, “I take it he’s divorced. Nobody ever mentions a wife or family when his name comes up.”

  She held the cup close to her chin, both hands wrapped around it. “He never married.”

  “Marriage is overrated,” he said.

  “This from a man who still—” she began, but then stopped herself. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to go there.”

  He shrugged. Looked out the side window. And saw the dirty brick wall of the convenience store. “Are we thinking of pulling out today?” he asked.

  “Mother asked if we could hang around a while longer. Everybody else is leaving today, and she could use some help closing up the house. She still doesn’t know what she’s going to do with it.”

  “She grew up in that house?”

  Jayme shook her head. “It was Grandma and Granddad’s second home. After they became empty nesters.”

  “So no real emotional connection.”

  “Not without Grandma here.”

  “Did the boys spend summers here too?” he asked.

  “They visited but they never stayed long. Galen and I were here the most, I guess. He was an undergrad at Berea, then went on to UK College of Medicine.”

  “You still stay in touch?”

  “Not like we used to. But yeah, we text, we call each other once in a while.”

  DeMarco nodded. He watched her.

  “I still miss him sometimes,” she said.

  He kept holding his cup even though it was empty now. Finally he set it on the table. He pulled his hands into his lap. Placed them atop his knees. “So no run today?”

  “You can if you want. I mean, you’re already dressed for it. But I feel so depleted. You don’t mind staying on another day or two?”

  “Actually,” he said, “I had an interesting conversation yesterday with the librarian.”

  “I meant to ask you about that.”

  “I was invited to lunch. At least I think that’s what it was.”

  “Aha! Do I have competition from the widow?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Is she rich?”

  “Probably not. Her husband was the chief of police back when the town still had a police department. It was just him and two deputies, as I recall. But that was twenty years ago.”

  “That’s interesting,” DeMarco said. “Seeing as how she also admitted to helping stage my accidental meeting with Hoyle. Any chance she was the one who suggested we jog down Poplar instead of at the high school?”

  Jayme’s eyes widened. “What do you think they’re up to?”

  “It’s got something to do with the old church and those seven skeletons.”

  “Was I invited too?”

  “I don’t think she mentioned it, but you should come anyway. Some trattoria out on the reservoir road, she said.”

  “Zia’s,” Jayme said. “But I’m not going if I wasn’t invited.”

  “You might have been,” DeMarco said. “She probably meant you too.”

  “Who all is supposed to be there?”

  “I’m guessing Hoyle too.”

  “A ménage à trois,” she said.

  “I’m sure. She probably has a thing for fat men.”

  “Well,” Jayme said, and stepped away from the table, carried her coffee cup to the sink. “Have fun.” She turned on the tap and rinsed her cup clean and set it upside down in the adjacent basin. “Be sure to let me know how it works out between you three.”

  “Hey,” he said, and followed her into the bedroom. She dropped the blanket from around her shoulders and headed for the bathroom.

  He caught her at the threshold, came up behind her, and wrapped his arms around her. “Hey,” he said more softly. “Why are you upset?”

  For a few moments her body remained stiff in his arms, but then it relaxed, almost sagging, and she turned and slipped her arms around his waist and leaned into him. “I don’t know what’s going on with me,” she said. “I feel like crying again and I don’t even know why.”

  “It’s been a couple of hard days. You have every right to cry.”

  “I never wanted to be that kind of woman with you.”

  “What kind?”

  “The kind who cries all the time. I’ve always tried to be strong around you. Nobody wants some sobbing, helpless woman to have to deal with.”

  He stroked her hair and kissed her cheek. “There’s nothing wrong with crying,” he said. “It means you feel things. You care. Tears are honest. You don’t need to ever hide anything from me.”

  “Be careful what you ask for,” she mumbled into his neck.

  “I’m not scared,” he said. “But let’s go back to the librarian for a second. Is she rich or not?”

  She punched her fist into his stomach.

  “Ow!” he said, and covered up for a second punch.

  Instead, she shoved him hard so that he stumbled backward into the bedroom. She smiled, waited just a moment until he recovered and smiled too and moved toward her again. Then she turned and strutted into the bathroom, closed and locked the door.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Jayme’s directions and his cell phone’s GPS app brought him to Zia’s Trattoria at 1:26 p.m. There were six other cars in the gravel lot. He pegged the silver PT Cruiser as the librarian’s ride, and either the Hummer 3 or the vintage Ford Bronco as Hoyle’s. DeMarco backed into the spot nearest the entrance to the highway—an old habit allowing for quick exit and pursuit. Just because he felt naked without it, and because he had learned to always expect the unexpected, he wore his pocket holster and Glock beneath the tail of a light-blue oxford, the sleeves rolled to his elbows.

  The town was ten miles behind him, the reservoir and public recreation area for Lake Frances three miles ahead. Traffic on the highway was sparse. He stood outside Jayme’s mother’s cream-colored Milan, borrowed for the afternoon, and smelled both greenery and marinara sauce in the air. No music came pulsing through the tinted windows of the small brick building, a silence for which he was grateful.

  The door opened onto a tiny lobby and a front desk illuminated by a single small table lamp with a red shade. The cool air brought a sigh of gratitude from DeMarco. Standing behind the desk, a tiny woman in her sixties looked up. “Welcome to Zia’s,” she said.

  He glanced around the small room laid out behind her, all tables empty. At the far side of the room was the bar, where one customer sat watching a baseball game on a small flat-screen mounted above the shelves of liquor, the game’s soundtrack little more than a murmur. The bartender, a young woman in her early twenties, leaned against the bar left of the beer taps, texting and smiling to herself.

  “I guess I’m early,” DeMarco said. “I’m supposed to meet Rosemary Toomey here at one thirty.”

  The woman said, “Follow me, please.”

  In the dimness the curtained doorway to the left of the bar was invisible until a few feet away. It opened onto a much larger room with long tables and a number of booths along the walls. Only one light, a duplicate of the table lamp at the front desk, showed their way to the large half-circle booth where Toomey, Hoyle, and another man sat waiting.

  Only the stranger stood to greet DeMarco. He was a tall African American in a cream-colored suit, the sage-green shirt open at the neck. If not for the wrinkles around the man’s eyes and the close-cropped gray hair, DeMarco would have estimated his age at below fifty. The man’s lean, fit body and perfect posture were that of a man well below his seventy-odd years. His tailored suit and easy
smile suggested an individual comfortable with a public presence.

  “Sergeant DeMarco,” the man said, and held out his hand. “Thank you so much for joining us. I’m David Vicente. And I believe you have already met Mrs. Toomey and Dr. Hoyle.”

  DeMarco took Vicente’s hand and smiled first at the librarian, whose tepid smile struck DeMarco as disapproving, then at Hoyle, who nodded sleepily. To DeMarco’s eyes, Hoyle’s worn black suit was identical to the one he had been wearing two days earlier.

  “Nice to see you again,” he said.

  Vicente motioned at the empty half of the booth. “Please,” he said.

  And now the older woman from the front desk, who had remained motionless and silent throughout the introductions, asked DeMarco, “Would you care for something from the bar, sir?”

  He glanced at the others’ drinks: coffee for Hoyle, water with lemon for Toomey, and either iced tea no lemon or bourbon and water for Vicente. DeMarco’s first thought was that an icy cold beer would be heaven. But he had a promise to keep. “Iced tea will be fine,” he said.

  The woman nodded and turned away and disappeared into the dimness.

  “Is Jayme arriving separately?” the librarian asked.

  “Well,” DeMarco answered, “we weren’t quite sure whether or not she was invited. She didn’t want to intrude.”

  “Of course she was invited,” Toomey said.

  Vicente said, “Perhaps you could give her a call.”

  “I could,” DeMarco said, “but I know she plans to spend the day with her mother. Closing up the house and so forth.”

  “Certainly,” Vicente said. “But just for an hour. If her mother could spare her.”

  DeMarco said, “I guess I can try. If you’ll excuse me?”

  He stood and walked halfway across the room. When Jayme answered, he relayed the request for her company.

  “We’re just getting started on the basement,” she said. “I’m already covered with cobwebs.”

  “I get the feeling that your presence is more essential than mine.”

  “So what’s this meeting about?”

  “We haven’t gotten into that yet.”

  “Cullen’s the only one who hasn’t left yet. They need to be at the airport at three.”

  “It’s under fifteen minutes here,” he told her. “Would he mind driving you out?”

  “You really think it’s that important?”

  “I’m more than a little afraid of what the librarian will do to me if you don’t show up.”

  She laughed. “So the romance is over?”

  “Unless you can save it,” he said.

  Back at the table, only Vicente was still smiling when DeMarco returned to his seat. “She’ll be here ASAP,” he told them.

  Vicente said, “I am so looking forward to meeting her.”

  DeMarco was glad to see the tall glass full of ice and tea on its white paper doily. He lifted the glass to his lips and took a drink, but at the first taste opened his eyes wide in surprise.

  This brought a smile from Hoyle. “A common reaction among northerners,” he said. “Our sweet tea is aptly named, is it not? That liquid in your glass is twenty-two percent sugar, more or less.”

  “Twenty-two percent?” said DeMarco. “It makes my teeth hurt just to think about it.”

  Vicente told him, “Some Kentucky bourbon and mint will turn that into a julep.”

  “The question is,” DeMarco answered, “what will it turn me into?”

  Vicente lifted his own glass and tapped it against DeMarco’s. “Welcome, Sergeant,” he said, “to this month’s meeting of the Da Vinci Cave Irregulars.”

  III

  Love distills desire upon the eyes,

  Love brings bewitching grace into the heart

  Of those he would destroy.

  I pray that love may never come to me

  With murderous intent…

  —Euripides

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Jayme arrived to find a display of tarot cards spread in front of the librarian, Hoyle lost in thought, Vicente and DeMarco in conversation. Both DeMarco and Vicente stood as Jayme approached the table, the older man rising to his feet more quickly to extend his hand and provide introductions. Jayme apologized for her attire of shorts, sandals, and a sleeveless T-shirt. “I probably smell like my grandmother’s basement,” she said.

  “You smell like springtime, my dear,” Vicente said. “Please, sit. Would you care for something cold to drink?”

  “Zia is bringing me something, thank you.”

  DeMarco sat and made room for Jayme. Only then did Vicente take his seat.

  Vicente wasted no time returning to the subject at hand. “As I was telling the sergeant, we three call ourselves the Da Vinci Cave Irregulars. We are all that remains of an amateur group of six, formed approximately a dozen years ago by Mrs. Toomey’s husband.”

  “Eleven years and seven months,” Toomey said. “First meeting was held in our living room in December, four months after the department was disbanded due to lack of sufficient funding. Curtis found forced retirement not to his liking.”

  “As have we all,” said Vicente. “Together we possess a wealth of experience and personal contacts that make us well suited, not to mention temperamentally inclined, as researchers on any number of interests.”

  “Including the unsolved murder of seven girls,” Jayme said.

  Vicente nodded. “We’ve assisted local authorities numerous times in the past. Unbeknownst to the public, of course. But this case is special. None of our efforts thus far has borne fruit.”

  Zia appeared silently at Jayme’s shoulder to set a tall glass of water, ice, and a slice of lemon in front of her. After Jayme’s thank-you, Zia disappeared as unobtrusively as she had arrived.

  Jayme said, “So. A librarian, a medical examiner…and you, sir?”

  “Former professor of law at Vanderbilt University,” Vicente said. “Prior to that, state’s attorney general for eight years.”

  “Very impressive,” Jayme said. “So impressive, in fact, that I have to wonder what makes you interested in a couple of itinerant state troopers.”

  “For one thing,” Vicente said, “youth and its mobility.”

  “‘If youth knew,’” said Hoyle, quoting Henri Estienne. “‘If age could.’”

  DeMarco said, “It’s been quite a while since I’ve thought of myself as young.”

  “We also value your training,” Vicente told them. “And your relative anonymity in the community. We’ve been aware of both of you for quite a while.”

  He smiled at Jayme. “Through your grandmother, of course. She was very much looking forward to your visit next month. As were we. My condolences for your loss. Aberdeen is less for her absence, but greater for the years she spent among us.”

  “My grandmother was involved with your group?”

  “She and a few select other individuals have honored us with their trust over the years.”

  “I’m not sure I understand,” DeMarco said. “You’ve been planning this meeting for a while? Just because we have law enforcement experience? There’s no one local could help you out with this?”

  Vicente held his smile for a moment, then turned to Mrs. Toomey. She looked first at DeMarco, then at Jayme.

  “The clippings you sent about the Huston family. She shared them with us. We were all very impressed.”

  Vicente said, “‘Dogged,’ the reporter wrote. ‘The dogged Sergeant DeMarco.’”

  DeMarco frowned. “Most people back home pronounce that word with one syllable.”

  “And we just thought,” Toomey added, “considering the difficulties you were having in your relationship, the work might help you to…”

  Her words trailed off when DeMarco turned his gaze on Jayme.

 
She laid a hand atop his thigh. To him she said, “Grandma and I talked every week or so. And I talked to my mother. And I’m sure they shared things with each other. I just never imagined it would go beyond them. I promise you I didn’t.”

  DeMarco was leaning forward now, squinting into the darkness between Vicente’s and Toomey’s shoulders. “So she enlisted you people in some kind of matchmaking conspiracy?”

  He turned his chin just slightly to the right, but still did not meet Jayme’s eyes. “Were you in on this?”

  “No!” Jayme said. “I told her what you’ve been going through. What you’ve been dealing with. She thought that maybe if we stayed with her awhile, here in this quiet little town…”

  “The subterfuge was all ours,” Vicente said. “We’ve been stymied by this case for too long. We’ve tried everything we can think of, including”—he paused to consider his words—“forms of surveillance that were as ineffective as they were inappropriate. So when we saw the opportunity to bring in two new sets of eyes, two well-trained, insightful professionals committed to the ideals of justice…”

  “Two troopers from Pennsylvania,” DeMarco said. “What could we possibly see or know that you haven’t? Who all has worked this case? The sheriff’s department and state police, certainly. Probably the FBI as well. It’s crazy to think we could find anything new. We’ll be treading over old ground.”

  “Yet the case intrigues you,” Hoyle said.

  DeMarco placed his hand atop Jayme’s, lifted hers off his thigh, and turned his body toward her. “I think we need to go now.”

  Toomey picked up one of the tarot cards and held it in front of him. “This is your future,” she told him. “Solitude. But it isn’t fixed. It depends on the choices you make.”

  He said, “I didn’t come here to have my fortune told.”

  She laid that card down and picked up another. “This is your current life. Somebody is trying to get your attention.”

  He looked away from the card. “Jayme,” he said evenly. “We’re leaving.”

  As she started to slide from the booth, Hoyle spoke again, his voice slow and hypnotic, echoing slightly in the otherwise empty room. “When Da Vinci was a young man, before his talent was fully evident, he discovered a cave somewhere in the Tuscan hills. It was, he wrote, a vast and mysterious cave that seemed to draw him in. He was terrified that it held some monstrous beast that would tear him apart, but sensed also that it held magnificent secrets. All that is known of his experience inside the cave is that he soon afterward blossomed as an artist and thinker of staggering talent. Some suspect he was transformed by whatever he encountered in that cave. Many of his paintings, for example, when looked at through his mirror-image technique, bear striking resemblances and similarities to those of cave art discovered in southern France in 1994—art said to be some thirty thousand years old.”