Kathy Reichs: Bones Are Forever

RYAN HIT THE KIA AS THE DRIVER SLAMMED THE DOOR. Reaching through the open window, Ryan snatched the key from the ignition.

Halfway up the block, I heard “What the fuck?”

Bédard arrived as Ryan badged the guy.

“What the fuck?”

The driver was Anglophone. With a limited vocabulary.

“Move!” Ryan yanked the handle.

“What the—”

“Now!”

Sandaled feet swung out, followed by a beluga body.

As Bédard drew his Glock, Ryan spun Beluga, pushed him to the Kia, kicked his legs wide, and frisked him.

“What? You’re not going to buy me a few drinks first?”

Ryan didn’t laugh at Beluga’s wit.

A rear jeans pocket produced a canvas wallet. Satisfied that his suspect was unarmed, Ryan stepped back and began checking its contents. Bédard stood with his feet spread, gun double-grip pointed at Beluga.

“Turn around, but keep the hands up.”

Beluga did as ordered.

“Ralph Trees?” Ryan looked up from a plastic card I assumed to be a license to its bearer’s face.

Beluga stood in sullen silence, hands above his head. Hair crawled from his armpits down the sides of his rib cage.

“You Ralph Trees?”

Still, Beluga said nothing.

Ryan reached back and unclipped cuffs from his belt.

“What the shit?” Beluga splayed beefy fingers. “OK. OK. But it’s Rocky, not Ralph.”

“What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?”

“You’re a really funny guy, Rocky.”

“How about you tell Dirty Harry over there to ease up on the firepower.”

Ryan nodded to Bédard. The corporal lowered but did not holster his weapon.

Ryan turned back to Trees and waggled the license. Trees mumbled an answer I couldn’t hear.

I walked toward the trio. They paid no attention to me.

Up close, I could see that Trees’s eyes were spiderwebbed with tiny red veins. I guessed his height at six-four, his weight at 350 or more. Tattooed between his lower lip and the top of his beard was an inverted smile composed of teeth. Classy.

“I come to see my lady. Last I checked, that ain’t a crime.”

“Murder is.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?’

“Who’s your girlfriend?”

“She’s not my girlfriend.”

“You’re starting to piss me off, Rocky.”

“Look, I bang her when I’m horny. Don’t mean I send her chocolates on Valentine’s Day.”

Ryan just looked at him.

“Alva Rodriguez.” The bloodshot eyes flicked from Ryan to Bédard and back. “That it? Someone offed Alva?”

“When’s the last time you saw or talked to Ms. Rodriguez?”

“Shit, I don’t know. A couple, three weeks ago.”

“Try a little harder.”

“This is harassment.”

“File a complaint.”

Trees’s gaze shifted to me. “Who’s the chick?”

“You just focus here.”

“This is bullshit.”

“When’s the last time you had contact with Ms. Rodriguez?”

Trees made a show of giving the question some thought. His jittery eyes and sweaty hairline suggested the bravado was an act. “Two weeks Thursday. No, Wednesday. I was just back from a ride out to Calgary.”

“Why Calgary?”

“I do some long-haul driving for my brother-in-law.”

“Where is Ms. Rodriguez now?”

“Man, can I lower my arms?”

“No.”

“How the hell should I know? She don’t check in with me. Like I said, I come by, I get laid, I go about my business.”

“You pay for these little rendezvous?”

“Me? You gotta be kiddin’.” The oily smirk made me crave a very hot shower. “I bring the bitch a bottle, she’s grateful. Ya know what I mean?”

“You also bring her a little toot?”

“I don’t roll with that stuff. Just sauce.”

“You know what, Rocky? I think maybe you’re lying to me. I look at you, I see a guy who enjoys his flake. Maybe a guy who deals. What do you say I toss that funny little car of yours?”

“You can’t do that.”

“What do you think, Corporal Bédard?” Ryan’s eyes remained on Trees. “You think we can do that?”

“We can do that.”

Ryan passed the license to Bédard. “How about you check ole Romeo out, see if he’s got any interesting history.”

Bédard holstered his gun and strode to his cruiser. While he ran Trees’s name through the system, Ryan and I waited in silence. Like many under stress, Trees felt the need to fill it. “Look, I’m telling you what I know. It’s jack shit. Alva and I didn’t spend our time talking.”

“Where does Ms. Rodriguez work?” Ryan asked.

“You’re not listening to me.”

“She have a steady income? A way to pay the rent?”

Trees shrugged—as well as he could with his hands in the air.

“You maybe turn her out, Rocky? Hook her on snow so she’s there when you need a quick jolt? Is that the business you’re talking about? You pimp more women than Rodriguez?”

“No way. I watched out for her. Alva isn’t what you’d call a genius.”

Ryan started firing questions, shifting topics to keep Trees off balance. “You know of her using a name other than Rodriguez?”

Trees shook his head.

“Where did she live before coming here?”

“She’s Mexican, right? Or one of those.”

“Why do you think that?”

“The name. And she had a sort of accent. Not French. I figured it was Mexican. Didn’t matter to me.”

“That’s touching, you being so open-minded and all.”

Trees rolled his eyes skyward. His forearms were now V-ing down, hanging deadweight from his upraised elbows.

“You the baby daddy?”

“What?”

“You help her kill them?”

“Kill what?”

“You crank up some tunes to drown out their crying?”

“Are you out of your fucking mind?”

“Or did she do the babies herself because you gave the word?”

Trees’s eyes bounced from Ryan to me to his car, repeated the circuit. I wondered if he was about to bolt.

“Three, Rocky. Three newborns. Presently on their way to the morgue.”

“You’re freakin’ nuts. Alva wasn’t pregnant. Isn’t pregnant. Where the hell is she?” Trees forgot all about hands-up. Both palms slapped his chest. “What do you want from me?”

“We believe Ms. Rodriguez gave birth early Sunday morning.” Ryan tipped his head toward the three-flat in which we’d spent our day. “We found the baby under the bathroom sink. Two others hidden in the apartment.”

“Jesus freakin’ Christ.” The color drained from Trees’s cheeks, leaving his nose a bright beacon in a field of pitted gray. “I don’t know nothing about Alva being pregnant.”

“How can that be, Rocky? You being her devoted guardian and all.”

“Alva is, you know, heavy. Wears baggy clothes. Looks like a goddamn tent on legs.”

“Don’t worry. DNA will answer all those messy paternity questions. If you’re the daddy, you can buy flowers to lay on their graves.”

“This is fucking horseshit.”

“Where would she go, Rocky?”

“Look, I keep telling you, I don’t know where she come from. I don’t know where she’d go. I just know her to—”

“Yeah. You’re a real romantic. Where did you two meet?”

“At a bar.”

“When?”

“Two, maybe three years ago.”

“Where have you been since Saturday?”

Trees brightened, as though sensing a sliver of hope. “I did a run over to Kamloops. You can ask my brother-in-law.”

“Bet on it.”

“Can I get something out of my car?”

Ryan nodded once. “Don’t pull any cowboy moves.”

Trees reached into the backseat of the Kia, yanked some papers from under an empty KFC bag, and gave them to Ryan. “That top one’s a flyer for my brother-in-law’s company. The green one’s my work order. Check the date. I was in Kamloops.”