Кэти Райх - A Conspiracy of Bones

“I think you do.”

“Have you one shred of evidence to support these ridiculous allegations?”

Slidell glared with such hatred I thought of a gargoyle.

“No, detective,” Body sang out. “And you never will.”

“That’s it. You’re stringing me, and it’s wasting my time. I’m booking every one of you dipshits.”

“For what?” Kimrey asked, equal parts indignation and outrage.

Slidell yanked a plush pink unicorn from his pocket and tossed it at Body. The sight sent Freon out through my veins.

“You get your rocks off on kiddie toys, Nicky boy?” Not bothering to tamp down the savage edge of revulsion. “You like stroking your willy on fuzzy stuffed animals?”

“How dare you!” Cheeks flaming.

“You been doing some grave digging lately? We gonna find some kid in your garden?”

“What the fuck!” Apparently, Kimrey’s vocabulary was less than expansive.

“You’re all going down.” Slidell glowered from one to the next. “Drugs. Fraud. Breaking and entering. Arson. Kidnapping. How does attempted murder sound?”

That’s when things went sideways.

Kimrey shot from his chair and bolted across the room. Being directly in his path, I took the hit. An elbow to the ribs knocked me into the Sony. The screen shattered. Numbed by the blow, I stood gasping, lungs knotted in spasm. In my peripheral vision, Unger sat frozen, paralyzed by indecision.

Not so Body. In the same instant, he pushed to his feet and began skirting the coffee table to slip past Slidell.

“I’m on him!” I croaked, stumble-charging after Kimrey.

Behind me, I heard Slidell lunge. An expulsion of breath as Body was rammed in the chest. Flesh slamming brocade. Bone striking plaster. Splintering ceramics.

Kimrey raced to the entrance and yanked the door wide. It banged the wall hard and ricocheted inward.

At my back, an animal grunt, a wheezing whimper, the snick of handcuffs locking into place. Startled movement, a barked command from Slidell. A high-pitched squeal from Unger. A crash, probably the second lamp joining its colleague.

Reopening the door cost Kimrey precious time. As I dashed outside, he was just reaching his cycle. I closed in and struck, leading with my hips and following through with my shoulders, all my weight and fury behind the attack.

The helmet flew, and the bike toppled. Kimrey face-dived onto the lawn, my body wrapping his like a leech on a frog. Going down, I caught a flash of Spano’s cruiser at the curb. Empty.

Scrabbling to break free, Kimrey elbow-clawed forward while twisting and kicking backward with his fancy boots. I gripped so tightly I felt the strain of his sinewy muscles, the hardness of his bones beneath. Inch by inch, he dragged us across the grass. Arms burning with the effort, I held on, face pressed to his back.

One foot. Two. Kimrey outweighed me by a little, but his desperation was fueling murderous strength. Slowly, my arms slipped downward along the bony spine.

The blistering sunlight, the sweltering humidity, the bucking ride across the scorched grass. The torturous funhouse seemed to go on forever. Then Kimrey’s right shoulder dropped as his arm stretched out. I heard a scrape, his throat sucking air as his upper body twisted.

The impact of the helmet told me what my ears had been trying to explain. Stars exploded in my vision. Pain roared from my forehead down through my vertebrae.

I must have loosened my grasp. Kimrey bounced up as though spring-loaded. I scrambled after, unsteady but dogged.

Kimrey had two options. Crank up the cycle. Run for the trees. The woods would do him little good. He had to rely on his wheels.

He was muscling the bike upright when I leveled him with his own trick. Using all the power I could muster, I swung the helmet by its chin strap and roundhouse-clocked him on the side of the head. He dropped and lay still, stunned but conscious.

I felt blood, hot and thick, trickle down my face.

Through the open door, I heard Slidell barking into his phone.

“Need help here!” I bellowed.

I was about to call out again when Spano rounded the corner of the house, barreling fast. With one efficient move, she rolled Kimrey to his stomach and cuffed his wrists.

“Can you understand my words?” Spano asked.

“Fuck you,” Kimrey replied.

“Are you in need of medical attention?” Less warmly.

“Kiss my ass.”

Disgusted, I turned away. My eyes fell on the open garage door. On the wheelbarrow with its blanket and dirt-crusted spade. I gazed toward the backyard and the woods beyond, overcome with sadness, facing one thought. April Siler could be out there. Other missing kids.

I was backhanding blood and sweat from my face when Slidell appeared in the doorway, an odd look crimping his wildly flushed features. Eyes locking onto mine, he shook his head slowly.

What? I raised both palms.

Slidell crossed to me.

“Just got a call about April Siler.” A deep breath. A pause filled with the confusion of contradictory emotions. “They found her.”

Despite the heat, my body went cold. I must have faltered. Taking one arm, Slidell led me up to the Kmart bench.

“You need water,” he said.

Before I could protest, he hurried into the house. Buying time before having to say the unthinkable?

Minutes passed. My pulse and breathing eased toward normal.

Slidell was crossing the stoop, plastic tumbler in one hand, when a CMPD transport vehicle pulled into the cul-de-sac. Two uniforms got out, one tall, one short. As Tall opened the rear door, Slidell strode to them.

Spano walked Kimrey to the van and helped him climb in. Short disappeared into the house, emerged moments later with a manacled Unger, left eye swelling shut, and added him to the cage.

Torrance was escorting Body across the lawn, hands cuffed behind him, when a burgundy Kia Optima turned into Pine Lily and pulled to a stop behind Unger’s Jag. Everyone present went to DEFCON 1.

The Optima’s passenger door opened, and a girl hopped out. She wore sandals, a yellow dress dotted with smiling suns, silver seahorse earrings. Her hair was black, her lips glossy pink, her eyes cornflower-blue. I put her age at twelve or thirteen.

I looked at Slidell. His attention was laser-focused on the kid.

The girl was beaming, revealing teeth only possible in the very young. Pressed to her chest was a plastic trophy topped with a swimmer poised to go off the block.

The girl began skipping, sunny dress swinging to the rhythm of her gait. As the scene registered, she slowed. The van. The cops. The handcuffed man in urine-stained pants.

The cornflower eyes widened as the day’s joy turned to nightmare. She stopped. The glossy lips trembled. Reshaped to form one word.

“Daddy?”

36

SUNDAY, JULY 15–TUESDAY, JULY 17

I thought and read a lot about the human brain that summer. About the complex three-pound organ containing a hundred billion neurons branching out to more than a hundred trillion synapse points. About the brain’s one hundred thousand miles of blood vessels. Neuroanatomists have named the fissures and sulci and lobes: cerebrum, cerebellum, hypothalamus, medulla oblongata. They’ve dissected the parts, traced the neural pathways, analyzed the electrical and chemical properties. Still, no one fully understands how the sucker works. I was definitely at a loss concerning mine.

The skirmish at Body’s house exists in my memory as a hodgepodge of sensory input. Sight. Sound. Smell. Pain. Lots of pain.

And one crystal-clear snapshot.

A child’s terrified cry. Daddy! Body turning on the beat of that word, a look of devastation on his face. The same look mirrored on hers.

At the station, Body, Unger, and Kimrey were allowed to see that Yates Timmer was also enjoying the hospitality of the CMPD. Each was hosted in a separate interview room. All that day and the next, I observed the questioning, shifting from window to window as Slidell moved up and down the hall.