Emily Littlejohn - Inherit the Bones

“I’ll call with any news. You must be exhausted,” she said.

I nodded. It was nearing seven o’clock and I’d been awake since four. Sleep didn’t come easy these days.

It had cooled down outside, and Sam and I drove back to the station in silence, each of us lost in our own thoughts. I pulled the Jeep up close to the front door. He took his time collecting his things and under the Jeep’s dome light, I decided he looked a little worse for the wear.

I told myself it was for his own good: if he wanted to be a cop, he better get used to seeing the terrible stuff. It wasn’t all guts and glory; sometimes, it was just guts.

I’d just started to pull out of the station to make my way home up the canyon, when Sam flagged me down from the front door. I circled back around and rolled down the passenger side window.

“Dr. Hussen’s on the phone, she says it’s urgent.”

That was quick. I parked the Jeep and hurried in.

“Ravi?”

“Gemma, we got the prints back,” she said. Her voice was flat and guarded.

I turned around, facing away from the receptionist. “That was fast, Ravi. How?”

She whispered, “We ran them in the state database first, not the national one. I thought we should start with Colorado, on the slim chance he was a local boy. And I knew the results would come back quicker.”

She paused and then said, “Gemma, it’s Nicky Bellington.”

My ears registered her words but my mind took a minute to catch up.

“Fuck me,” I said.

Behind me, the receptionist giggled. I ignored her and massaged my suddenly pounding temple.

“No kidding,” Ravi whispered back.

The weak light that peeked out from under Chief Angel Chavez’s closed door was a soft and muted yellow. He should have been home, helping his wife Lydia get baths ready and homework assignments finished. She worked long days at social services, only to come home to the four little ones and their needs and demands.

Chavez readily agreed that of the two of them, she had the tougher job.

After I told the chief what I needed to tell him, I knew he wouldn’t be home before midnight. I offered up a quiet apology to Lydia, and knocking softly on the door, pushed it open. The room was dim, the only light from the small Tiffany-style lamp set at the edge of the oak desk.

Chavez sat, his head in his hands, a ledger and a few files spread out in front of him. In brass letters high on the wall behind him, a Latin phrase: Familia Supra Omnia . Those words had been drilled into me since day one: Family above all else. Interpret it how you will; around the station, it referred to the brotherhood of police officers. It meant loyalty, honor, putting the good of the group ahead of yourself. I thought again of Finn’s reckless actions on the home invasion case, actions that betrayed that loyalty, that brotherhood, and felt anger course through my mind. I pushed it to the side; now was not the time.

The chief looked up from his desk and while I can only imagine what expression I wore, it was enough for him to stand and cross the room.

“Gemma? What is it?” he asked.

He stood close, as though he thought I might collapse. I suddenly felt tired and took the chair he offered. It was a beautiful antique chair, the woodwork as delicate as lace, but uncomfortable as hell and immediately I wished I had remained standing.

“Close the door, Chief. And then you better sit down, too.”

I waited until he’d done both and then took a deep breath. I hated what I was about to bring into the room. The chief of police in a small mountain town can be a thankless job, but Chavez was a good leader and more importantly, a good man. Framed newspaper articles and commendations lined the walls of his office. Few were about Chavez himself, not because he’d never been the subject, but because it was more inspiring for him to be reminded of his team’s successes over the years.

I said, “Ravi Hussen ran the prints on Reed Tolliver, the dead clown from the fairgrounds, through the state database. As you know, the database searches for both registered offenders and missing children and adults. She came back with a hit. I asked her to run it again, and her results were the same.”

I held up a hand as he started to speak. “I know, I know… but I wanted to be sure.”

Chavez nodded and sat back. “And?”

I knew whatever happened in the next few hours, days, and weeks would be the direct result of what I was about to tell the chief. And he would never be able to forget this moment, when I opened the floodgates of Hell and let loose the demons.

“Reed Tolliver doesn’t exist,” I said. “The body is Nick Bellington.”

Chavez exhaled noisily. “That’s not funny, Gemma. If this is some kind of sick joke-”

I interrupted him. “It’s not a joke. Not only did I make Ravi run the prints twice, I also had her pull his dental records. He did a summer camp police internship when he was thirteen, in Denver. They took prints as part of the application process, sort of a ‘through the criminal’s eyes’ kind of thing. It’s him, Chief. It’s Nicky.”

Chavez leaned back in his chair, out of the glow of the lamp. Shadows obscured his face but I could imagine the dozens of thoughts that crossed his mind, just as they had crossed mine an hour ago.

“I’m so sorry. I know this can’t be easy.”

He leaned forward and raised a hand, whether to brush away the words or acknowledge them, I wasn’t sure.

“Please, Gemma. We grieved with Terry and Ellen years ago. And ever since Terry won the election, things have been, as you know, a bit strained,” Chavez said. He rubbed his hands over his face and then sat up. “Damn. All right. I want everything. Where are we right now?”

I nodded. The hard words were out. The hard work, on the other hand, was about to begin.

“At this moment, four people know: you, me, Ravi Hussen, and a tech, a young guy named George Aldonado. It has been strongly suggested to George that unless he wants to be charged with interfering in a criminal investigation, he stay quiet for the time being. He’s a good kid, he’ll play ball.”

“What else?”

“Ravi puts the time of death about eleven or noon this morning. The victim bled to death due to his throat being torn open. Ravi’s words, not mine. Chief, you should have seen his face when we got that clown makeup off. He’s covered in piercings and tattoos. And his hair’s been dyed dark, repeatedly. He was unrecognizable as Nicky Bellington, like he was in a disguise, in hiding.”

Angel Chavez stood and jammed his hands into the pockets of his pants. He paced the office, a room small enough to get four strides in before he had to turn around. It was like watching a bear swim laps in a Jacuzzi.

“From here on out, we need to be very careful with the words we use. We don’t know anything except the fact that Nicky was murdered sometime this morning, and that he’d been working at that circus for what? Two years? I don’t want to hear ‘hiding’ or ‘disguise’ again, got it?”

I nodded. And then as gently as I could, I corrected him. “Chief, we have to accept something else as fact. Contrary to all accounts, Nicky Bellington wasn’t killed in that fall three years ago.”

The chief stared at me for a long minute, then groaned and sank back into his chair. “I got another fact for you. I now have to inform the Bellingtons, a couple I’ve known for over twenty years, that their son has died. Again.”

I hated leaving Chavez alone in his office, in a space that seemed too small to contain such fresh grief, but I respected his wish to call the Bellingtons in private. Exhaustion waited patiently behind adrenaline, kindly allowing me to make the winding drive up the canyon safely, only to smack me upside the head as I pulled into our drive. I sat there, in silence, staring at the front of our dark house in a near stupor, until finally Seamus’s barks reached me and propelled me up and out of the car.