Bones

A human skull stared back at me.

50

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2:45 A.M.

Las Piernas

I’ve tried, but even now I cannot remember most of what happened in the first few minutes immediately after I saw it. I vaguely recall that at some point Frank held me tightly by the shoulders and shouted at me, angry in his fear for my safety, his terror over imagining what trap I might have sprung by responding so unthinkingly to Parrish’s taunting.

He was right, of course — I never should have touched it.

He tells me I responded to his ranting by calmly saying, “I thought he only cut off her fingers and toes. I didn’t know she was decapitated.”

“He didn’t decapitate her! That’s how we knew her hair and eye color!”

Suddenly unable to stand, I sat down on the porch steps.

He closed the van door, then sat next to me, keeping an arm around me as he called the police. Cody, my cat, came outside and sat on my lap. Deke and Dunk had our feet covered.

To some degree, the arrival of the detectives and the crime scene unit roused me from my cocoon of numbness, so that by the time they left I was feeling more myself. I had told them what I could — that Parrish had probably dialed my number at work, and the call had been forwarded; that the van had been locked; that yes, there were security cameras on the parking lot at the Express, but they were notoriously inadequate.

The officers called the paper, and learned that three weeks earlier, Leonard had dutifully reported that the camera that covers the parking lot had been vandalized. Wrigley’s response had been to post a larger sign that said, PARK AT YOUR OWN RISK. OWNER OF LOT ASSUMES NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR LOSS OR DAMAGE TO VEHICLES OR THEIR CONTENTS. Nor for additions to their contents, evidently.

The next morning — technically, the same morning, but after we had been asleep — we found ourselves a little shy of each other; Frank for losing his temper, me for losing my mind. All the same we never moved far from each other, nor were we out of each other’s sight for more than a few moments at a time. Gradually, feeling safer than I had at three in the morning, I began to relax, we began to talk, and by the end of the day, something like balance returned.

“I wish Rachel were in town,” he said on Saturday night.

He wasn’t longing for another woman — he wanted to hire a bodyguard. His partner’s wife was a retired homicide detective and completely capable of kicking ass if need be. But Rachel’s work as a private eye had taken her out of state that week.

Though there was a patrol car in front of our house, Frank wasn’t just worried about my safety. “I don’t want you to feel scared,” he said. “You should have company.”

I didn’t object, which, as far as he was concerned, was probably the most worrisome thing that had happened that day.

On Sunday morning, I awoke to see him putting on his suit. “Sorry — I was trying to let you get a little more sleep. I have to go in. But Ben’s going to come over with Bingle — okay?”

I told him that I’d enjoy seeing both Ben and his dog.

I thought I was telling him the truth, but while Bingle would have been welcomed to stay, by midday, I was ready to send Ben packing.

It was around one o’clock when I ventured to ask him if he was the one who was trying to make the identification on the skull.

“Yes, I am,” he snapped at me, “and no, I don’t know whose skull it is. I’d rather not guess. Especially not in front of a reporter.”

“Go home,” I said.

“What?”

“Go home. I am barely holding it together here, buster, and you keep making rude remarks. At least two dozen today, and I don’t see any end to the supply you seem to have so handy. So get lost.”

He frowned, and said, “If I’ve offended you, I’m sorry.”

“Thank you very much. Very sincerely said. Good-bye.”

“I’m not leaving.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not. Stop being childish.”

“Get the hell out of here!”

“If it were just for your sake, believe me, I’d go. But I promised Frank I would stay with you.”

“If you don’t get out of here, you won’t have to worry about Parrish killing me. By the end of the day, I’ll want to kill myself!”

“That’s a horrible thing to say!”

“You’re right, it is. And I accept that as the highest plaudit from the Master of Horrible Things to Say! Excuse me while I go to make a note of it in my special Horrible Ben Sheridan Diary! I keep it in our special Make Tribute to Ben Sheridan Shrine Room! Be right back — maybe!”

I stomped off into the bathroom and shut the door with a bang. I locked it and turned around.

Someday, when I am very wealthy, I am going to build a house with a bathroom that will allow a person to have a snit fit in it in true comfort. I wasn’t wealthy that day.

In fact, everywhere I looked, there was some change we had made to accommodate Ben’s disability when he stayed with us. My hands itched to pull it all apart.

I looked in the bathroom cabinet for something that I could break without feeling bad. Nothing. Not even a