The Bone Man Read online

  We made a difference, and that compensated for the sorrow we lived with each day.

  Fewer than sixty professional homicide counselors existed in the United States. I’d always been proud to be one of them. At least, I used to be.

  Dr. Veda Barrow, my foster mother, had pulled me into the profession after the murder of my father. She’d been Chief Medical Examiner for Massachusetts longer than I’d run MGAP. Her death rocked my world.

  If I went into The Grief Shop today, I’d see Kranak and Fogarty and Didi and all the others I’d worked with for countless years. I’d brush into old feelings, both good and bad. But that wasn’t it. Not at all. I would come face-to-face with the absence of Veda. The emptiness. Her lack of presence, that was the worst.

  Veda had called Adeline Morgridge “Addy M.” She’d liked her an awful lot. If I thought about it, Addy was a lot like Veda. Even tougher, in fact. No nonsense Addy. Right.

  And I just couldn’t take it.

  I flipped open the phone to tell Gert I wasn’t coming. Except just then the front door buzzed over and over and over. Even on three legs, Penny easily beat me to the door.

  When I looked through the peephole, I saw . . . Damn. “I’m not home!” I shouted through the door.

  “Yeah, you are,” Gert hollered back. “C’mon. This taxi’s meter is workin’ ovahtime. Hurry up.” She crossed her arms and blew an immense purple Bazooka bubble. She popped it. She didn’t smile.

  I swung open the door. “Dammit, Gert!”

  She wagged a finger made more powerful by the fake nail manicured with the stars and strips in honor of 9/11. “You comin’, all right. Yes, you are.”

  “This isn’t defeat,” I shouted as I scrambled for my purse. “Just a minor setback.” I slipped on my sandals and hooked up Penny to her leash. “Let’s go.”

  Gert popped another bubble. And smiled.

  I sat across the desk from Addy Morgridge in the office once occupied by Veda. I’d met Veda here a thousand times. Except for the art Addy had hung on the walls, everything was pretty much the same—carpet, desk, drapes. Yet I was okay with it. Veda didn’t live here, anymore than she lived at the house in Lincoln.

  But she was with me, all right. Every second of every day.

  Addy handed me a mug of coffee. “Smells divine,” I said.

  She smiled, and the warmth reached her soft brown eyes. She had the look of that marvelous actress Alfre Woodard, wise and knowing and rich with history.

  “The coffee is divine,” she said, “because I brew it up myself. No Starbucks for this woman.”

  I chuckled. “Same ol’ Addy. How does it feel?”

  She leaned forward, her tented hands tapping her lips. “Good. It feels damned good. It’s been a long route, Tally.”

  “I know it has, Addy.”

  “Becoming chief means the world to me.”

  I nodded. “I know that, too. Fogarty’s your chief assistant, yes?”

  “He was with Veda. He is with me.” She straightened some papers on her desk, tapped the folders twice. “And that’s why I need you. Here.”

  “Pardon?” I shook my head. “I can’t. Don’t want to.”

  Her lips tightened. “We need balance, Tally. We need your firm, intuitive hand.”

  I laughed as I shook my head. “My dear—”

  The jangling of the phone interrupted us. Addy snatched the phone off its cradle. “Hold my calls, I said.” She listened, nodding, then held up a finger to me. “Put him through.” And to me she mouthed, One sec.

  Her expression hardened to one of fierce annoyance. “I am so sorry, Governor Bowannie, but it is not our fault here at OCME if the Boston Globe calls the skull Anasazi. I know you don’t care for that name. I understand, and I am sorry, but we have no control over what they print. We really do not. Dr. Cravitz will be a few more days at least.”

  More nodding from Addy. Then, “Until then.”

  She placed the phone on the receiver with such feigned gentleness I thought it might explode.

  “That damned skull,” she said.

  Boy, was I interested. I was dying to see what was left of the ancient pot from Chaco Canyon. “I read about it. The one found in the smashed Anasazi pot, yes? The Southwest is a passion of mine, but I’ve never heard of a skull being inside an ancient pot. It’s highly unusual.”

  “Don’t I know it, dammit.” She opened a desk drawer and slid out a cigarette and lighter and small plastic ashtray. “You?”

  I shook my head. “I wish.”

  She lit up and inhaled deep and long, then exhaled out her nose. “The whole thing has given us a raft of problems we don’t need. First off, it’s not PC to call them Anasazi, since that name was given to the Old Ones by their enemies, the Navajo. Or so they say. Who knows? I haven’t told the Zuni governor that I’m half Navajo. That would really rip him up.”

  “If he’s a Zuni governor,” I said, “I’m sure he can handle it, Addy. I take it Didi’s working on the reconstruction. Is it done yet? I’d love to see it and the pot.”

  “Let me check with Didi.” Addy shook her head and flicked her ash into the tray. “Everybody’s having a festival with this ancient skull thing. Who owns it? The Smithsonian’s salivating. So are a bunch of other institutions, not to mention the Zuni. The Hopi have gotten into the act, too. And National Geographic. It’s slowing Didi down.”

  I smiled. “Right up your alley, kiddo. Listen, I’ve got to run.”

  She took a drag. “I want a commitment from you, and I want it today.”

  Cripes! She looked like some indignant Afro-Indian princess. OCME didn’t know what it was in for. “Sorry, Addy. It’s a no-go.”

  “Without you, the program dies.”

  “Without me,” I said, “it’ll be just fine. Gert’s amazing.”

  “She is, but she’s lost heart. They all have. They miss you terribly.”

  I tried to shut out the violins. “I’ve had offers from Maine and from New Mexico. Lots of money. Carte blanche. All the bells and whistles. I’ve put them off, too.” I stood to leave. I walked around the desk to give her a hug.

  “I’ll call down,” she said. “See if Didi can see you.”

  “Great.”

  She blew out a stream of smoke and stubbed out the cigarette. “I’ve got some news on your boyfriend. He is your boyfriend, right?”

  That stopped me short. “You mean Hank?”

  She winked. “Don’t count The Grief Shop out, yet. That’s all I’m asking.”

  “What about Hank? C’mon, Addy.”

  “So what do you say?”

  “Okay, fine,” I said. “I won’t close the door on Boston.”

  She stood and hugged me. “Good thing.”

  “You smell like smoke.”

  “Perfume works wonders.”

  “You’re a terrible blackmailer,” I said. “What about Hank?”

  She smiled, and there it was again, that Alfre Woodard look. Whew. I couldn’t help smiling back.

  “Word is,” she said, “might be just a rumor, but they say that your Sheriff Cunningham has taken a position with the AG’s office. State police homicide investigator.”

  “Holy shit.”

  I wanted out, and I wanted out fast. Addy’s buzzer sounded. Perfect timing. I waved “bye” and turned to go.

  “Hold on!” she said. “Hold on, Tally!”

  I sighed. “Sure.”

  While Addy talked into the intercom, I tried to picture what the hell Hank Cunningham was up to. He was the sheriff for Hancock County in Maine, so why rumor said he was taking a job as a state homicide investigator made no sense to me.

  Cripes, Hank and I talked almost every day. What Addy said was crazy.

  She hung up, and I said, “I’ve really gotta race.” As much as I wanted to see the Ancient Ones’ pot, I wanted to find out about Hank more.

  “Of course you do,” Addy said. “But that was Didi. She’d love for you to stop down and see the reconstruction.�
�

  I shook my head. “I know I said . . . but . . . well. I’d better get home.”

  She began walking me to the door. “She’s been working like a dog on this thing. She’s like a proud parent. She’s dying to show it to you. C’mon, girl. No matter what your sweetie’s up to, a few minutes won’t make a difference.”

  Of course, she was right.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I trotted down the stairs, headed for OCME’s “back stage,” which is where Massachusetts’s medical examiners and pathologists do their work. OCME is a state facility. It houses the administrative offices and operations for the Massachusetts medical examiner system. OCME, aka The Grief Shop, was a pretty intense place. I’d been called intense too, which I guess was why I fit in so well.

  The Grief Shop was on Albany Street in a bland, three-story brick building dwarfed by the campuses of Boston City Hospital; Boston University Medical Center; and Boston University Schools of Medicine, Dentistry, and Public Health. OCME was also smack at the crossroads of Boston’s South End and Roxbury neighborhoods.

  Medical pathologists, administrative staff, an elite State Police Crime Scene Services unit, and MGAP inhabited The Grief Shop. The building contained a state-of-theart forensic pathology center, one immense autopsy theater, two cold storage facilities, a trace evidence room, and specialized rooms for family counseling and identifying human remains.

  In addition, OCME had one of the top forensic anthropologists in the country—Dr. Dorothy Cravitz. Addy was right. Of course I had to see Didi’s hard work. She was old and crotchety, and I adored her. The eminent doctor had no kids of her own. Her reconstructions were her children. She was at her happiest when a skull began looking human again.

  And now she had one from A.D. 1100 to work on. Of course she was proud. Honestly, I couldn’t wait to see the reconstruction of an ancient Puebloan ancestor. A couple of my Zuni fetishes were replicas from that era, not to mention that the Old Ones were said to be the ancestors of the Zuni.

  And their pottery? Spectacular was an inadequate word for the beauty they’d imbued in such serviceable vessels. I just wished I hadn’t heard that rumor about Hank’s “adventure” until after I’d seen Didi’s work. Boy, I needed to process Hank’s latest move.

  I walked down OCME’s halls at a fast pace. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that Addy Morgridge was a reincarnation of Veda. Sure Veda had been old, and Addy was only in her fifties. Veda had been Jewish, and Addy sure as hell wasn’t. But I’d never consciously realized how alike they were. Shook me up. That and the “little” tidbit she’d dropped about Hank.

  I sighed. I thought Hank and I had gotten over the hump I’d caused by my ill-conceived romantic foray with CSS sergeant, Rob Kranak. I’d explained to Hank where my feelings had come from—Kranak was my good buddy, and he was there when my need for safety and security in a world falling apart blotted out all else. Hank was in Maine, and Rob was here. Wrong headed, but honest.

  I thought Hank understood. For heavens sake, he was a county sheriff in rural Maine. Okay, so he’d once been an NYPD homicide detective, but that was . . .

  “Hey, Ms. Whyte!”

  I stopped short. A young man in his twenties, fresh-faced and eager with piercing blue eyes, looked across the lobby at me. I had no idea who he was. “Um, hello.”

  His smile was self-effacing. So why didn’t I believe it?

  “I’m Adrian,” he said. “We met at a party. I’m the Harvard grad who’s working in MGAP now. You know, for my doctorate.”

  “Ah, of course.” I held out my hand, and we shook. “Nice to see you. How’s it going?”

  He frowned. “Okay. You’re missed.”

  I smiled. For some reason, the kid was annoying me. “If I know Gert, she’s doing twice the job I ever did.”

  He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Yeah, sure.”

  “Sorry, I’ve got to run.”

  He petted Penny behind the ears and followed me to the reception desk.

  “Hey, Sarge,” I said. “Would you punch me inside?” I’d always known the code. Not anymore.

  “Can I come?”

  I turned. Adrian was still there.

  “Sorry, Adrian,” I said. “No can do. Sarge?”

  The buzzer sounded, and I pulled open the heavy door that led to the autopsy suites.

  I looked back. Adrian stood there, hands on hips, with a petulant frown marring his face.

  Gert had to have her hands full with that one onboard.

  The first thing I noted was the impeccable cleanliness and order where there had been chaos a year earlier when Veda was taken ill. The linoleum floor glistened, and not a single corpse on a steel gurney lay in the hall awaiting autopsy. I looked through the window into the large refrigeration room. The dead were carefully lined up in a rectangle around the four walls, the way Veda had preferred they be arranged.

  All the order was bugging me, too. I sighed. I guess I wasn’t in the mood for exploring, or even for reflection. Emotionally, things were finally easing for me. At last I was settling into a good rhythm. No point in bringing up memories of dead children and murdered loved ones.

  I hooked a sharp left and walked toward Didi Cravitz’s office-lab. The room I remembered was small. Forensic anthro was a late-comer to OCME. Just outside her office door sat a table with one of her earliest reconstructions—a handsome young man whose skeletal remains had been a mystery at OCME for nearly a decade, until Didi came on the scene.

  I knocked, peered inside the darkened office. Didi had no window, and I could only see the clutter in silhouette from the light pouring through the office door.

  “Didi?”

  “In here.”

  “Can I flip on the light?”

  “No!”

  I walked inside the small office. No Didi. “Where the hell are you?”

  “Behind the screen,” came the disembodied voice. “Hang on for a minute, all right?”

  “Sure!” Didi always loved the mysterious. I walked over to her worktable. There were the pot shards, or potsherds, as I’d been taught to call them. Beautiful things, even broken. These were a deep reddish brown with designs in black of mazes and cross-hatchings and spirals. Next to the potsherds, Didi had sketched a diagram of the pot, before it had been broken. Her notes read twelve inches at the base, eighteen inches where it bowed out, and around six inches at the neck. Sort of like a blowup beach ball, round and full.

  The ancient pot had to have been built around the skull. I wondered about its purpose. In all my reading about the Anasazi, I’d never heard of that.

  I slipped on some latex gloves from Didi’s dispenser and touched each of the potsherds. I’d never been to Chaco Canyon, the most revered of the Ancient Ones’ sites, nor had I ever held any Chaco potsherds. So this was a real treat.

  “I’m amazed at how vivid the markings are on the potsherds,” I hollered to Didi.

  “I know,” she said back. “New Mexico’s dry air has really preserved an incredible number of pots and petroglyphs and pictographs. But I’m over the moon about this skull, my dear. She’s precious. Wait until you see this woman!”

  “I can’t wait,” I said. “Hurry up!”

  “Just a few more minutes,” Didi said. “I’ve got to tweak her nose a bit. My calculations tell me it’s off.”

  I lifted the largest potsherd, which was about the size of a deck of cards. From all the pieces on the tray, I saw where Didi got her sketch for the pot. “It’s a shame that the pot’s broken.”

  “But without that, we’d never have found the skull.”

  “True.” The most sacred site of the Anasazi, Chaco was abandoned around A.D. 1200. I’d often wondered why. A legion of others did, too, yet the mystery was yet to be solved. Nowadays, it was believed that the Hopi and Zuni and other modern tribes were their descendents.

  I’d been to the fabulous cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde and others near Sedona, Arizona, but I knew someday I’d see Chaco’s sandstone cl
iffs and ancient city. I wished Hank had more of an interest. Ah, well.

  I lifted another potsherd. A rust hunk of rock sat beneath it. To my eyes, it resembled a primitive fetish carving. Maybe a wolf, maybe a mountain lion. The stone was warm in my hand, like the sun on the desert rock. I turned it over. It was maybe three inches long, an inch high. I didn’t think it was from the Chaco era at all, but much later.

  “Where’s the rock from, Didi?” I said.

  “What rock?”

  “The one that was with the potsherds?” It felt heavy in my hand, too heavy for sandstone. “What’s it made of, do you know?”

  She leaned around the edge of the screen, gray hair askew, clay streaking her face. “What’s with you this morning, twenty questions?”

  I made a goofy face. “Sorry. I’ve been collecting Zuni fetishes for a long time, but this past year, I’ve really gotten into it. This looks like a fetish to me, one that started life as a concretion.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Y’know, a found rock shaped like an animal that the carver enhances. I just wonder where it came from.” I held up the rock.

  “No idea.” She disappeared behind the screen. “It came in with the pot and skull. Come on in.”

  My blood quickened. This was going to be very cool.

  The gray folding screen blended perfectly with the office’s cinderblock walls. I walked around the screen. Didi was in her lab coat, her back to me. Her arms moved in a smooth rhythm, like a symphonic conductor, and her gray hair shot out in all directions, as if following the music of her arms. A narrow beam of light shined on what I guessed was her reconstruction of the ancient skull found in the Anasazi pot.

  “Glad you came!” she barked over her shoulder.

  “So this is the famous American Indian skull that you’re reconstructing.”