Bones

She shrugged. “Not that I remember.”

“You know, I’ve been meaning to get in touch with you again, anyway,” I said, moving between her and the door. “I thought you might help Ben Sheridan with his dog.”

“The man who lost his leg, you mean?”

“Come on, now, Gillian, you know more about him than just that fact. You had contacted him about your mother’s case.”

“Did I? I contacted so many people. I don’t remember. You said something about helping him with his dog?” she asked uneasily. “What dog?”

“Oh, you know this dog really well — Bingle. He used to be David Niles’s dog.”

She didn’t say anything.

“I saw some interesting videotape this morning. You went out with the SAR group he worked with, right? I saw you on the tapes, talking to David, learning to work with Bingle.”

“Yes,” she said, “I thought maybe if I could learn to work with cadaver dogs, I could go out on searches for my mother.”

“Your dedication to finding her was so inspiring,” I said, and tried a small bluff. “Learning about forensic anthropology, and cadaver dogs, and even talking to Andy Stewart about how botanists can find unmarked graves.”

“Like you said, I wanted to find her.”

“Mmmaaah,” Parrish said again.

“What do you think he’s saying?” I asked.

She shook her head mutely, but those blue eyes were wide, frightened.

“They think he’ll be able to talk again in a few days,” I lied.

“They do?”

“Yes.” Bigger bluff. “A neurologist was just in here, saying he’s improving by the hour. That’s why I’m waiting here. I’ll have a question for him when he can talk.”

“You will?” Gillian asked.

“Yes. About something he said to me not long before he fell. This has been on my mind all morning, and I can’t wait for him to come around so that I can ask him about it.”

“What?”

“You remember that article Frank showed you when we visited you at your apartment?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a great apartment, over a garage. On — what street is it?”

“Loma, near Eighth,” she said, staring at Parrish again.

“I think Ben was over that way, earlier today — a search exercise with Bingle. Anyway, about that underwear story—”

“It was so funny,” she said, giggling a little.

Parrish made a gurgling noise.

“You remember it that well?” I asked.

“Sure. It wasn’t that long.” She recited it almost word for word.

“Amazing. You know, it never ran in the Express.”

“No?”

“No. That’s why I was so surprised when Nick here quoted some of it to me last night. How could he have known what was in that column, if he never saw it?”

Gillian finally looked away from Parrish. “It must have been someone else — that lawyer they were looking for —”

I shook my head. “You, Gillian. You.”

“That’s ridiculous,” she said quickly. “Why would I have anything to do with Nick Parrish?”

“I don’t know the answer to that. But then again, maybe I do. Maybe I should have listened to what Jason said about that, too. That you’re cold. That you genuinely hated your mother.”

She folded her arms and leaned back in her chair. The look in her eyes was one of pure malice. “Nicholas Parrish said this, Jason said that. You say you never showed that article to anyone else, but I don’t believe you.”

“They’ve searched the garage beneath your apartment, Gillian. Frank got a warrant. The dogs were there while you were at work this morning. Even before they went inside, Bingle and Bool and a bloodhound named Beau were alerting to the presence of remains.”

She went back to looking afraid.

“They were right, of course,” I said. “There were remains there. Pieces that match up with the femurs of the woman from Oregon.”