Kathy Reichs - Bones Are Forever

Straight ahead was a kitchen. In an alcove I could see a Mac computer, its screen filled with a spreadsheet. Ledgers and printouts filled the countertop to either side. Black loose-leaf binders crammed a shelf above.

I noticed that Ollie was also eyeballing the workstation.

“Doing a little payroll?” he asked.

“I keep the books for a couple of businesses. It’s perfectly legal.”

“That what you tell the neighbors? You’re an accountant?”

“What I tell the neighbors is none of your business.”

“You’ve got skills. Why turn tricks?” Ollie sounded sincerely curious.

“Because I like it.” Defensive. “Now. Are you going to get that bitch out of my house?”

“Tell me why you want her gone.”

“Why? I’ll tell you why. I took her in, and she violated my trust.”

“Aurora Devereaux.”

“Yes. I opened my home. Charged her next to nothing.”

“She’s not paying the rent?”

“It’s not that. I made my rules clear. You live in my house, you’re frickin’ Doris Day. No men. No booze. No drugs.” Forex’s face was going deeper red with every word. “How does she thank me? She gets coked to the eyeballs night after night. Once maybe I can overlook. We all make mistakes. But this little miss is a hard-core junkie. Here, under my roof, she’s shooting up or snorting or tweaking or whatever the hell she does.”

Ollie tried to ask a question, but Forex was rolling.

“I get home from the Cowboy, you know what she’s doing? Sitting bare-ass naked in my backyard.” A palm smacked the blue cotton. “Singing! It’s goddamn two in the morning, and she’s doing strip karaoke outside my house!”

“Singing what?” Ollie asked.

“What?” Exhaustion and frustration were turning Forex’s voice shrill.

“Just wondering about her musical selection.”

Forex’s head thrust forward, causing the tendons in her neck to go taut. “What the flip does it matter?”

“I always do ‘Fat Bottom Girls.’”

Forex threw up both hands. “She fucking hates me!” Hitting hard on the verb and elongating the e .

Ollie didn’t get the reference. “You gotta grow thicker skin, Foxy.”

“Puddle of Mudd,” I said.

Three faces swiveled my way.

“They’re out of Kansas City. The song may actually be titled ‘She Hates Me.’ With the expletive implied.”

“Are you three for real?” Forex dropped her arms. “I’ve got a headcase doing blow au naturel on my lawn, and you morons are playing Name That Tune ?”

I glanced at Ryan. Though he turned away, the ghost of a smile played on his lips.

“Did you ask Devereaux to leave?” Now Ollie was all business.

“Right after I ordered her to cover her puffy white ass. She cussed me out, slammed into her room, and locked the door. That’s why I called you.”

“Is she still in there?”

“The door’s still locked.”

“You don’t have a key?”

“I like my face arranged as it is.”

“OK. Here’s what’s going to happen. While we roust Devereaux, you’re going to disappear. No commentary. No interference. No input of any kind.”

“That ungrateful—”

“We’re outta here.” Ollie turned toward the door.

“OK. OK.” Forex snagged his arm. “Her room’s in back, above the garage.”

“Same crib Annaliese Ruben used?”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. Never a free lunch.” Forex removed a key from an end-table drawer and tossed it to Ollie. “No need to mess the place up. Anything Annaliese left is in a duffel in the closet.”

Forex led us to into the kitchen to a back door that opened onto a small patio overlooking a nicely kept lawn.

“Devereaux own a firearm?” These were the first words Ryan had spoken since entering the house.

“Not that I know of. It’s against my rules. But what the hell? Her Highness ignores them.”

As we filed out, Forex called to our backs, “Watch yourselves. Coming off the junk, she’ll be mean as a snake.”

Cars entered the garage from an alleyway in back, people from a door in the side facing the house. We followed a trail of concrete pavers to the latter.

The door was unlocked, so we went in. The interior smelled of oil, gasoline, and a hint of rotting garbage. A silver Honda Civic occupied most of the space. The usual garden tools, recycling tubs, and rollout trash bins lined the walls. Directly ahead, through a tiny storage room, a set of stairs ascended to a second story. We quietly climbed them. At the top, we assumed our back-to-the-wall formation, then Ollie knuckle-rapped the door.

“Ms. Devereaux?”

No answer.

“Aurora Devereaux.”

“Kiss off.” Muffled and slurry.

“It’s the police. Open up.”

“Go away.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“I’m not dressed.”

“We’ll wait.”

“You want to peep my tits, it’ll cost twenty.”

“Put on some clothes.”

“You got a warrant?”

“I’d like to keep this friendly.”

“If you’ve got no warrant, you can kiss my patootie.”

“Your call. We talk here or downtown.”

“Screw you.”

“Actually, you’re the one who’ll be screwed. I’ve got witnesses say you’ve been turning tricks.”

“Big fucking—”

“—deal,” Ollie finished. “That’s not why we’re here.”

“Yeah? Then how’d I get so lucky?”

“Buddy heard you singing, asked me to drop off a recording contract.”

An object smacked the door, then ricocheted onto the floor. Glass shattered.

Ollie looked at us, one brow cocked. “I’m coming in now,” he said.

“Suit yourself. I’ve got plenty more lamps.”

Ollie inserted and turned the key.

Nothing hit the door. No footsteps pounded the floor.

Turning his body, Ollie palmed the door open and stepped sideways as far as he could. Ryan and I drew farther back against our wall.

Aurora Devereaux sat propped among pillows and a chaos of bedding.

I fought to keep the shock from my face.

DEVEREAUX HAD ASTONISHING BLUE EYES AND BOTTLE-BLOND hair that started low on her forehead. Her dark brows arched high, then plunged to form a hairy patch over the bridge of a nose that was short and ended in upturned nostrils. Her thin lips were parted, revealing wide-spaced and very crooked teeth.

I recognized the combination of traits. Cornelia de Lange Syndrome, or CdLS, a genetic condition caused by a gene alteration on the fifth chromosome.

Inexplicably, I flashed on a name I hadn’t thought of in almost four decades. Born six days apart to women living in Beverly on Chicago’s South Side, Dorothy Herrmann and I were inseparable from the time we could walk until my relocation to North Carolina at age eight. We called each other Rip and Rap. Dorothy peoples all of my earliest childhood memories.

Dorothy’s younger sister, Barbara, had CdLS. In the old snapshots, Barbara is among us neighborhood kids, wearing a Christmas sweater too long for her arms, dressed as Bo Peep for Halloween. Always her face is split by a smile, shame over her odd features and her jack-o’-lantern teeth far in the future.

Except for the bad bleach job and the bad attitude, Barbara Herrmann would have grown to be Aurora Devereaux’s twin. Had she lived.

I was at university when I learned of Barbara’s suicide. Dorothy and I had kept in touch, but caught up in my own self-centered teen world, I’d been oblivious to hints of her sister’s growing depression. Or, wanting life to be rosy, I’d chosen to ignore them. Barbara was happy, always smiling. Nothing was wrong.