Twenty-Seven Bones

The doctor cleared his throat. Dawson turned, slightly surprised-for a moment there she’d forgotten there was anybody else in the room. “I’ll leave you alone with your fiancee for a moment,” he told Pender, in a hearty doctor’s voice. Then, sotto voce, to Dawson, “Persuade him to let us do the CAT scan-we want to be sure there are no hematomas.”

“Fiancee?” said Pender, when they were alone.

Dawson felt herself blushing. “I had to tell them that so they’d let me ride in the ambulance.”

“Did they catch the Epps?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Apgard?”

“He’s the one who saved Dawn.”

“He’s also the one who had the Epps kill his wife, then he killed Bendt.”

“Are you sure?”

“The damn fools wrote it down.” He raised his head, wincing, looked around wildly. “The manuscript-where’s the manuscript?”

“That must have been what Chief Coffee was reading when he came out of the tunnel. He couldn’t tear his eyes away.”

Pender’s head fell back onto the gurney. “That’s okay, then-it’s all in there. I even dog-eared the pages.”

Dawson bent over him, stroked his brow. “Ed, the doctor wants to take a CAT scan, make sure there’s no…I don’t know, hema something.”

“Subdural hematoma,” said Pender, who’d been down that road before. “Scout, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last couple of years, it’s that you can’t kill a Pender by hitting it over the head.”

Dawson laughed. That was a mistake-it opened the emotional floodgates, and before she knew it she was sobbing, her head resting on Pender’s massive chest while he stroked her hair. “I thought I’d lost you,” she said, when she could speak again. Her head was facing away from him, which made it easier to talk. “I was so scared I made a vow that if you and Dawn got through this, I’d turn myself in.”

“Lewis Apgard, I’m placing you under arrest for the murder of Francis Bendt, and for suborning the murder of Lindsay Hokansson Apgard. Both of which are hanging offenses. And I’m sure we’ll be adding more charges as the investigation progresses. Say, two counts of kidnapping, two counts of attempted murder-I’ll let you know. In the meantime, you have the right to remain silent-anything you say may be taken down and used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney-if you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand these rights?”

“Sure, but-”

“Do you wish to waive them at this time?”

“Chief, this is crazy-the Epps killed Hokey. And Bendt-I saw them Friday night, at their house, when they were supposed to be in Puerto Rico. They must have snuck back or something.”

But having read the dog-eared pages of the Epp manuscript, and never having been much of a proponent of the affective school of interviewing anyway, Julian was in no mood for any of Apgard’s bullshit.

“Stick it where the monkey hid the nuts,” he said as he handcuffed the Baby Guv to the rail of his hospital bed.

Dawson luxuriated in the touch of Pender’s hand on her hair. He had enormous hands, but a surprisingly gentle touch.

“You know, I’ve had two or three concussions tonight, so maybe I’m not thinking too clearly,” he whispered as she raised her head from his chest. “But it seems to me you put yourself in a no-win situation. And you’re not the only one who’s gonna lose. What about the wife and kids of that researcher who died? If I were them, about the last thing I’d want is to have the whole goddamn can of worms opened up again.”

“Horseshit,” said Dawson.

“Granted. But what about me? What about us? You gonna throw that all away for some silly superstition?”

“No,” said Dawson.

“Because if you think…What?”

“I said I made a vow, I didn’t say I was gonna keep it. I just don’t want to bullshit myself as to why.”

“Fair enough,” said Pender. “Now help me get the hell out of here-I hate hospitals.”

“No way,” said Dawson. “You’re here ’til the doctor says you’re okay.”

“Traitor.”

“Only for the best of causes.”

11

And I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

After exploring the cave system all night, chamber after chamber, always descending deeper, never finding an exit, Bennie returned to the Oubliette. When he peered over the rim of the well formation, the laser beam of the helmet lamp turned the maelstrom a few feet below as red as blood.

Bennie switched the helmet lamp to the white beam, shrugged off his knapsack, rummaged through it for his copy of Moby-Dick. He tore off the front cover, folded into a coracle, just as he had done with banana leaves as a boy on Nias, and dropped it down the Oubliette. It hit the water, spun lazily a few times, then darted away, disappearing from sight. Back cover next-it too darted off in the same direction.

Bennie lowered himself over the side. The water was warmer than he would have expected, and the current wasn’t as strong as it looked. Treading water, keeping his helmet lamp dry, he saw how the water swirling up from the Oubliette flowed into a three-foot-wide natural spillway a few feet below the lip of the well to form an underground stream. It wasn’t big-about two feet deep, with another two feet of clearance above the surface of the streaming water-but it was big enough. He switched the beam to laser red and searched the tunnel-there was no sign of the two paper boats he’d sent on ahead of him.

He climbed back up, boosted himself out of the water. He took his blanket roll out of the waterproof stuff bag, transferred the freezer bags full of bones, hands, and money, along with the now coverless copy of Moby-Dick, from the knapsack into the stuff bag, zipped it closed, tightened and knotted the drawstring, then threw the bag over his shoulder. Leaving the rest of his earthly possessions behind in the knapsack, he slipped over the side of the Oubliette and lowered himself carefully into the water again.

He was afraid the weight of the bag was going to drag him down, but he’d captured enough air inside to make it at least partially buoyant. He slung it into the spillway ahead of him, climbed in after it, and tied the end of the drawstring around his ankle.

Then he chanted his favorite prayer-Let he who travels the sea return within a cycle of the moon; let he who travels to the grave be seen no more on earth-and set off on the long, splashing crawl through the darkness, either to the grave or the sea, it didn’t matter which. With his money, his hands, and his father’s eheha, Bennie figured he was covered either way.

12

Seven o’clock Thursday morning. Holly woke up an instant before the alarm and smacked it into preemptive silence. She sensed almost immediately that something was different, something had changed, but it took a few seconds for it to register: no rain. For the first time in three days, there was no steel drum band playing “Yellow Bird” on the roof. She sat up, saw blue sky through the ventilation screen.

Holly rolled up the mosquito net and grabbed her bathrobe off the chair. She was still using a piece of clothesline for a belt. She never had gotten the original belt back-or wanted it.

“Kids!”