Bones

“The client being…”

“I need you to be straight with me.”

“I am nothing if not sincere.”

“What you said before-not seeing Travis as the prime evil. Was that utter bullshit?”

“No.”

“I’m serious, Lieutenant. I need your assurance that we’re operating in the same context. Plus, there can be absolutely no heavyhandedness.”

“Heavy as in?”

“SWAT nonsense, property damage, scaring a small child. My pledge in return is full disclosure.”

“Of?”

“I cannot specify at this time.”

Milo blew a smoke ring, then a second that pierced the first.

Debora Wallenburg said, “You need to trust me.”

He rested his head on the back of the seat. “When and where?”

“Those details will follow in due time. May I assume Dr. Delaware will be there?”

“Huck needs mental health consultation?”

“I’d feel better if he’s involved. That okay with you, Doctor?”

I’d never been introduced. “Sure.”

She said, “Mal Worthy and Trish Mantle and Len Krobsky belong to my tennis club.”

Naming three heavy-hitter family lawyers.

“Give my regards.”

“They all like you.” To Milo: “So, we’re on. I’ll call you.” Slow wink. “Or maybe I’ll text.”

CHAPTER 37

Travis Huck trembled.

Veins wormed across his temples, crossed his hairline, invaded the dense black stubble capping his skull. Eyes so deep-set they vanished in all but the strongest light stared at nothing. His cheeks could’ve been hollowed by melon scoops. The sag of his face was a history of its own.

Debora Wallenburg had bought him a brand-new shirt. Sky-blue, crisp cotton, sharp box-creases. He looked like a candidate for parole.

She’d had her desk moved forward several feet, positioned Huck and herself behind the wooden barrier. Mary Cassatt’s mother and baby looked down with jarring serenity. The kind lighting Wallenburg had choreographed failed to calm her client. He rocked in his chair. Sweated.

Maybe he’d fare worse under the fluorescence of a police interview room. Maybe nothing would make a difference.

It was four a.m. Wallenburg’s text message had roused Milo at two fifteen and he’d called me twenty minutes later. A Sahara of silent streets turned the ride to Santa Monica into a motor-sprint. But for a hyphen of amber upper-floor windows, Wallenburg’s office building was a granite spade excavating a starless sky.

As the unmarked pulled near the sub-lot, a mesh partition slid open and a uniformed guard stepped forward.

“I.D. please.”

Milo ’s badge was exactly what the guy expected. “Elevator’s over there, park wherever you like.” Waving at a sea of vacant slots. The only vehicle in sight, a copper-colored Ferrari.

“Her sporty wheels,” said Milo. “Hope it’s not a game.”

From the backseat, Moe Reed squelched a yawn and rubbed his eyes. “I’m ready to play.”

Debora Wallenburg touched Huck’s hand. He slid away from her. She sat up straighter, every silver hair in place, full-tilt makeup, diamonds.

Courtroom confidence wavered only when she glanced at Huck. He remained in his own world, had yet to make eye contact.

Wallenburg said, “Whenever you’re ready, Travis.”

A minute passed. Thirty additional seconds. Moe Reed crossed his legs. As if sparked by the movement, Huck said, “The only person I killed was Jeffrey.”

Wallenburg frowned. “That was an accident, Travis.”

Huck tilted his head away from her, as if offended by the characterization. “I think about Jeffrey a lot. Before I wasn’t able to.”

I said, “Before…”

Huck sucked in breath. “I used to live in a dream-state. Now I’m sober and awake but it’s not always… good.”

“Too many things to think about,” I suggested.

“Bad things, sir.”

“Travis,” said Wallenburg.

Huck shifted and caught a faceful of caressing light. His pupils were dilated, his forehead an oil slick. Some sort of rash had spread around his nostrils, tiny berries sprouting in a pallid field. “Bad dreams fill me. I’m the monster.”

“Travis, you are nothing close to a monster.”

Huck didn’t answer.

“How could you not feel stigmatized, Travis, with people prejudging you all the time?” Pretending to talk to him, but addressing the jury.

“Debora.” His voice lowered to a whisper. “You’re the rare bird who flies freely. I don’t know what I am.”

“What you are is a good person, Travis.”

“The average German.”

“Pardon?”

“Man in the crowd,” said Huck. “Comfortable in his suit and his good shoes, oblivious to the stench.”

“Travis, we need to concentrate on-”

“ Dachau, Debora. Rwanda, Darfur, slave ships, Cambodia, melting deserts. Average man sits in a cafe and eats his cream cakes. He knows which way the wind blows, the stench blows into his nose but he pretends. You choose to fly freely, Debora. The crowd chooses a cage. I chose a cage.”

“Travis, this isn’t an issue of war and-”

Huck swiveled toward her. “It is, Debora. War breathes in all of us. Raid the neighboring pack, raze the village, eat the young. In a good world, to be human is to be un-animal. You made the choice to be human. I-”

“Travis, we’re here for you to tell them what you know-”

“-sniffed the wind and stench blew through my head. I allowed it to happen, Debora.”

Before Wallenburg could retort, I said, “You allowed the murders.”

Huck clapped his hands on the desk, as if bracing for a fall. Long, knobby fingers pressed on leather, slid back, leaving snail-trails of perspiration. He worried his sagging cheek.

Wallenburg said, “Travis, you had absolutely noth-”

“I could’ve stopped it. I don’t deserve to live.” He bared his wrists, ready for shackles. Debora Wallenburg pushed one hand down. Huck grew rigid.

I said, “When did you know?”

“I-there’s no beginning,” said Huck. “It was just in here. Here. Here. Hereherehere.” Slapping his head, his cheek, his chest, his gut. Increasing the force with each blow.

“You sensed violence was coming.”

“Kelvin,” he said. Lowering his head, he mumbled to leather. “I took him on walks. We didn’t talk much, Kelvin’s