Emily Littlejohn - Inherit the Bones

Her hands were busying with a thin-bladed knife and a cedar plank heavy with smoked salmon.

“I know most of you have already eaten, but I really don’t know how else to help,” she said without looking up.

“I’m sure the chief and my partner won’t pass up an offer of breakfast, Mrs. Watkins.”

Mrs. Watkins set down her knife. “Call me Hannah, please. If Annika were here, I’d be making pancakes, her favorite. Lord knows where the pancakes go; she’s as thin as a reed. She’ll eat a dozen of ’em in one sitting, covered with syrup and butter, with bacon extra crispy on the side. Ever since she was a little girl, she’s loved her sweets and her salty.”

Her smile dropped and she sniffled. “I shouldn’t tell you this, Detective.”

“What’s that?”

“Annika told me I’m more of a mother to her than Ellen Bellington has ever been,” Mrs. Watkins said, her voice low and proud. She was tall and for the first time, I saw the resemblance between her and Terry and Frank. It was faint, the way it is sometimes between male and female relatives, but it was there nonetheless.

“Nicky and Annika were the best part of my life. All I’ve ever done is try to keep watch over those kids, protect them from all the crap that life can throw at you. Well, I’ve sure done a piss-poor job, haven’t I? One kid dead, one kid kidnapped,” Mrs. Watkins said. “And now Dad’s gone, too.”

“I’m so sorry, Hannah. From what I can tell, you’ve taken care of the entire family.”

With a nod, she thanked me and began spreading cream cheese on toasted bagels. “I always have. My father made it clear, family is the only thing you’ve got at the end of the day. Friends come and go; lovers will leave you in the morning. But family? Family sticks together.”

Her eyes filled with tears and she paused to wipe at them with a paper towel. “Sometimes I feel like this family is cursed. So much death…”

It was the most I’d ever heard the woman say at one time. It was as though her father’s death and Annika’s disappearance had loosened some dam in her. I took a gamble.

“Mrs. Bellington thought you might know where Annika kept an address book? I hate to search her whole room, as I know the FBI will do so later today.”

Ellen Bellington hadn’t said anything of the sort but I thought it worth a try.

Hannah Watkins shook her head. “No, you know kids these days. Everything’s on their phones.”

She gave me a sly look and slid something out of the pocket of her white apron. I couldn’t tell what it was, other than the object was small and dark.

“I should probably have given this to that FBI agent,” the housekeeper said. “But he isn’t a very nice man.”

She slid the shiny, black object across the counter to me and then began arranging the bagels on a tray. She said, “I guess I’ll just have to tell them I don’t remember the last time I saw it. Truth be told, I’m not sure what good it will do you. She’s got another phone, a newer model, that she uses now. This one probably doesn’t have much information on it.”

It was better than nothing.

I whispered a thank-you and left the kitchen, tucking the phone into my purse as I went. In the library, I found Finn still on the couch, awkwardly seated next to Terry Bellington, looking at a photo album that Terry balanced on his lap. Chief Chavez and the fed were looking at something on the desk. Dick Tremble and Ellen Bellington were nowhere to be seen.

I gave Finn a jerk of my head, a “let’s go,” and he half shrugged in response, an “I’m trapped” kind of message.

I was anxious to take a look at Annika’s phone and start calling her friends, maybe even her boyfriend, but I needed Finn’s stronger tech skills to bypass her password. I sighed and sat in one of the wing chairs and crossed my ankles to keep my feet from bouncing.

C’mon, c’mon.

The Peanut did a few flips in my belly and my thoughts drifted away to Brody and Alaska and a parka as pink as Pepto-Bismol.

I half listened as Terry slowly turned the pages, pausing to point to something and murmur a name or a date. I heard him mention Nicky’s name, and Annika’s. At the big desk in the middle of the room, the fed and Pearl Gold continued examining some documents. They were soon joined by the lawyer and Dick Tremble. The lawyer got on the phone and spoke in low tones with the head of some bank.

Someone lit a fire in the fireplace and the room was warm and twice I felt myself drifting off, thinking a nap would be lovely. At some point, I looked up and over at the duo on the couch, just as Terry was turning another page.

I watched as the color fell from Finn’s face.

His eyes first narrowed and then grew as wide and as bright as suns. Slowly he raised them until he was looking right at me, and his mouth fell gently open.

Then Terry was elbowing him, and turning the page, and the color rose back into Finn’s face and then some, until his cheeks were as flushed as roses.

Outside, Finn was cagey. “Meet me in town.”

“What happened back there? What did you see?”

We stood between his car and mine, the midmorning sun laying a blanket of warmth to the world around us. We were the first ones out of the house and it stood over us like a silent glass sentinel, keeping its secrets to itself.

Finn shook his head vigorously. “Not here. Um, the bookstore on Twelfth Ave? There’s a coffee shop.”

“Not the station?”

“No, somewhere more private. The bookstore,” he said again. He slid into the Porsche and gunned the engine and pulled out of the driveway without another word.

The chief and Pearl Gold came out the front door with the FBI agent behind them. He paused and stared in my direction, his eyes obscured by mirrored sunglasses. Then he tipped an imaginary hat at me and pointed a hand in the Range Rover’s direction. Its doors unlocked with a sharp click and the engine started before he was completely in the car.

Nice what federal money could buy.

I headed back into town and found a parking spot a few blocks down from the bookstore. Inside, a few customers strolled the aisles. The coffee shop at the rear of the store was nearly empty. Finn sat at a small table beneath a stained glass window, his head in his hands. A latte sat before him, its foam peaks untouched.

Finn jumped as I approached. I sat down and said, “Spill.”

He looked near tears. “That fucking family, Gemma. I mean, how screwed up can one family be? Is it something in their DNA? Or do they all go crazy because of one another?”

I felt like slapping him but sat on my hands instead. When he was ready, he would talk. Finn pulled the latte toward him, spilling a few drops onto the table. His hands were trembling.

“Hey,” I said, reaching across and taking the cup from him. “Hey, breathe, buddy. That’s it, in and out.”

I breathed with him, keeping my eyes locked on him, until he broke contact. He blushed and the old Finn came back with a vengeance and for the first time in my life, I was glad to see it. “Jesus, Gemma, I’m fine. This isn’t my first rodeo. It’s the fucking grandmother , you know?”

No, I didn’t know.

He continued. “In that book, the photo album, you saw it? It’s right there, plain as the nose on my face. Frank’s wife, Terry’s mother. Nicky’s grandmother. She’s wearing the goddamn necklace.”

“You saw a photograph of Rachel Bellington wearing Rose Noonan’s necklace?”

Finn didn’t respond, just stared glumly across the table. Now I did tap him, gently on his cheek with the back of my hand. “Earth to Finn, come in.”

“Yeah, yeah, I saw a woman wearing the necklace. The same woman Terry Bellington had just pointed out to me as his dear old dead mother.”