Dead Man's Bones Read online

  I let out my breath. “You know what this means,” I said quietly. “Somebody else was on the scene. Somebody who brought the person there in a vehicle, then left with the light.”

  “And that rock,” McQuaid said. He turned to Brian. “Isn’t it a little unusual to find a large rock lying loose in the interior of one of the limestone caves around here?”

  Brian stared at his father. “Yeah, I guess it is, Dad. I’d have to go back and look, but it may have been the only loose rock in that corridor. And the ceiling was rounded from water action. Now that I think about it, I don’t see how that rock could have fallen from that ceiling.”

  “So somebody carried the rock in from outside,” I hazarded. The same somebody who had driven the vehicle and carried the light.

  Blackie nodded. “It’s a fossiliferous limestone. There are similar chunks lying just outside the cave. In other words, we’re not dealing with a natural rockfall.”

  “Why didn’t I spot that?” Brian muttered, chagrined.

  McQuaid grinned. “Devil’s in the details, kid.”

  “Well,” Blackie said, “given all these questions, you can see why I’m not ready to file this case under ‘Accidental death.’ I want a forensics expert to take a look at those bones and give us an opinion on the cause of death.”

  “A forensics expert,” Brian said in an awed tone. “You mean, I discovered a crime scene? Wait’ll Jake hears about this!” Jake is Brian’s current girlfriend. Her full name is Jacqueline Keene. She’s a cheerful, athletic girl, high-point scorer on the girls basketball team and a champion soccer player. Somehow, “Jake” seems to fit.

  “Brian,” McQuaid said darkly, “this is not a video game.”

  “That’s exactly the point, Dad.” Brian looked gleeful. “This is for real. We’re talking murder here. Which makes it a lot better than a video game. Or a movie, even.”

  I thought of the solitary bones in the cave, and the human body—energetic, adventuresome, full of dreams and longings—that had once encased them, and bit back my reprimand. In a few years, Brian would be mature enough to hear the insensitivity in his response. Until then, admonitions from me would probably have the opposite effect.

  McQuaid must have come to the same conclusion, for he only shook his head. “Who’s doing the forensic work on this one?” he asked, turning back to Blackie. “The Bexar M.E.’s office? Or Travis?” Adams County is a small county, and can’t afford its own medical examiner’s office. Blackie sends his work to either Bexar or Travis County, whichever has the shortest waiting list.

  “Neither,” Blackie replied. “Both are stacked up from here to Christmas, and since this is obviously a cold case, it’ll go to the bottom of the list.” He reached for the curry dish and took a second helping. “On this one, I’m getting some help from CTSU.”

  “Oh, yeah?” McQuaid said, with interest. “Who?”

  “Alana Montoya,” Blackie said.

  “Oh, sure,” Brian said eagerly. “You know, Dad. Alana. The woman who’s working at the cave dig. She’s good.” He grinned. “She’s got a Ph.D. in bones. People call her the bone doc.”

  Blackie nodded. “She’s agreed to do a forensic analysis of the skeleton.” He looked quizzically at McQuaid. “You probably know her, McQuaid. The Anthropology department hired her last year to set up the new forensic anthropology program. Some of the courses must be cross-listed with Criminal Justice.”

  “I’ve met her,” McQuaid said, in a curiously guarded tone. He added, slowly, “In fact, I was on the search committee that hired her.”

  “Then you know that she’s got first-rate credentials.” To me, Blackie said, “Edited a big textbook or something like that. She was on the research staff at Louisiana State University before she came here, in the FACES laboratory—that’s Forensic Anthropology and Computer Enhancement Services,” he added, for Brian’s benefit. “One of the top forensic labs in the country. I figure Alana will get the work done a lot faster than the folks at Bexar or Travis, and cheaper, too.” He grinned. “She’s one smart gal, if you ask me.”

  “Oh, she’s smart enough,” McQuaid said, and pushed his plate away. “And experienced.”

  I looked at McQuaid, hearing something caustic in his tone. Blackie’s head came up. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” McQuaid said, with a quick shrug. “Nothing at all.” He looked at his watch and got up. “Sorry guys, but I’ve got to go, or I’ll be late to class.”

  “There’s dessert,” I said.

  McQuaid dropped a kiss on the top of my head. “Save it for me, babe,” he said. “See you later, Blackie. Brian, don’t forget your homework.” More Dad-speak.

  Chapter Three

  An herbal bath was used in centuries past as an excellent

  preparation for an aphrodisiacal feast of love.

  Erotic oils used in herbal soaps include clary sage, jasmine,

  rose, ylang-ylang, orange blossom, cardamom,

  juniper, sandalwood, vanilla, and patchouli.

  Christian Ratsch

  Plants of Love

  Blackie insisted on helping Brian with the kitchen chores—the rule at our house is that anybody who doesn’t cook is obliged to wash the dishes. I left the two of them to their work and went out to the herb garden behind the house to cut some lavender.

  When we moved here three or so years ago, I didn’t plan to have a large garden. But the herb gardens around the shop are more for display than actual production, and every year, I seem to want more of something—more lavender, more sage, more parsley, more thyme. So the backyard garden has become the place where I grow the herbs I dry to sell in the shop, or package fresh and sell in the produce section at Cavette’s Grocery, the old-fashioned market at the corner of Guadalupe and Green, just a few blocks from the shop. I always smile when I see those neat little raffia-tied cellophane packages of Thyme and Seasons basil and rosemary and marjoram, and think of somebody cooking with them, making soup, maybe, or a salad, or a main dish. Somehow, it’s like spreading the wealth. I’ll never get rich, but I’m doing good work.

  As the evening deepened into dusk and the nighthawks began to dart through the sky, I spent a pleasant half hour gathering lavender, which I would dry for use in potpourri and sachets. The evening was warm, the soft hum of satisfied honeybees vibrated in the air, and the lavender fragrance wrapped itself around me like a perfumed shawl. The scent of lavender is known to relieve stress, calm anxieties, and promote sleep, and in the evenings, when I’m working among the lavenders, I always feel languid and lazy and loose, as if the sweetened air has softened my bones. Tonight, I moved through the garden slowly, forgetting my worries about the business, about McQuaid’s new enterprise and Brian’s caveman, just breathing in the therapeutic scent of lavender.

  I had finished filling my basket and was on my way back to the house, still feeling mellow and calm, when Blackie came down the path toward me.

  “I’m heading home,” he said. “Thanks for the dinner, China.”

  “Oh, you’re welcome,” I replied. He fell into step with me and we went up the path together. “Thanks for giving Brian a hand with the dishes.”

  “He’s a super kid,” Blackie said. “Got a good head on his shoulders.”

  I agreed, and added, “We don’t see enough of you these days, Blackie. Why don’t you and Sheila go out to dinner with us next weekend?” I grinned. “We could do some country dancing. McQuaid and I haven’t been to Pistol Pete’s yet.” Pistol Pete’s is a new dance hall north of town, on the Old San Marcos Road.

  Blackie slowed, stopped, his hands in his pockets. His face was serious and his gray eyes were steady, sober. “You haven’t talked to Sheila in the last couple of weeks?”

  I shook my head. “Nope.” I’d phoned her office to see if she’d be available for lunch, but she’d said she was busy. “Is something wrong?”

  “Well, you might say so,” Blackie replied. His voice grew taut and bitter.
“We’ve called it off. The engagement, I mean.”

  “Again?” I chuckled. “Is this the third time, or the fourth?” I stopped laughing when I saw the way his mouth had tightened at the corners, and my mellow, lavender-flavored mood began to evaporate. “Serious, huh?”

  “Yeah, serious. It’s just not going to happen, China. And the problem isn’t our jobs, either. That’s just an excuse that Sheila finds convenient.”

  Sheila Dawson, Blackie’s fiancée—Smart Cookie, to her friends—has served for the past two years as Pecan Springs’s chief of police, and a darn good one, too, although she has her share of enemies. Their law enforcement work gives Blackie and Sheila a great deal in common, but it’s also been a continual source of friction. For one thing, the sheriff is elected, and Sheila has been concerned that some of her unpopular moves—such as insisting on early retirement for certain older officers who had gotten lazy and complacent—might cause him to lose votes. For another, Blackie worries about Sheila’s safety and is apt to go out looking for her if she doesn’t show up when she’s expected. And both have a tendency to poke their noses into the other’s cases, giving advice where it isn’t necessarily welcome. Altogether, a difficult set of issues to handle.

  But Blackie had said that work wasn’t the problem. “If it isn’t your jobs, what is it?” I stopped. “Sorry. I don’t mean to pry. It’s none of my business.”

  Blackie turned, looking out over the garden, so I couldn’t see his face. His shoulders were slumped. “I’m just tired of her shilly-shallying, that’s all.” He sighed heavily. “We’ve been engaged—if that’s what you want to call it—for nearly two years. Two years of nothing but on-again, off-again, will-she, won’t-she.” His voice became rough. “Damn it, if she hasn’t made up her mind by now, she’s not going to. I’m the marrying kind. I’m tired of hanging around, waiting.”

  For Blackie, this was an unusually long speech. The sheriff is not a talkative man, especially when it comes to matters of the heart, and he had taken me by surprise. I said the only thing I could think of.

  “I’m sorry.” It didn’t sound good enough. “I’m really sorry, Blackie,” I amended. “It must hurt like hell.”

  “It does. Sheila’s a great gal. Whoever gets her will be a damn lucky man.” Blackie’s mouth went crooked. “I’ve just got to face up to the fact that it ain’t gonna be me, that’s all.”

  I put my hand on his sleeve, feeling the muscular strength through the sleeve of his shirt. “You okay?”

  He turned. His gray eyes met mine, and I could see the hurt and anger shadowing his glance. “Not yet,” he said, his voice husky. “But I will be. Thanks for asking.” Unexpectedly, he put his arms around me and gave me a quick hug. “It’s nice to see McQuaid so happy, China. You’re good for him. I guess I’ve been hoping that Sheila and I would have something like what you guys have. But it’s over now, and I’ve got to get on with my life.”

  He held me for a moment longer, not speaking, as if he had run out of words, or the words still left in him were too painful to speak.

  Then he dropped his arms, stepped back, and was gone.

  “WELL, it’s a damn shame, if you ask me,” McQuaid said, tossing his shorts into the laundry hamper. It took nearly two years for him to learn that little trick, and I see it as a sign that we’re getting used to living together. He’d probably say the same thing about my remembering to check Big Red Mama’s tire pressure when I fill her up at the gas pump. I’m learning that if you give a little, you get a little.

  “Yeah.” I cinched my white terry robe tighter and began to brush my teeth. “Definitely a shame.”

  McQuaid stepped into the shower and closed the glass door. We were talking about Sheila and Blackie. The sheriff hadn’t told McQuaid, of course—as I said, he doesn’t talk easily about emotional matters. I had been the one to break the news.

  “I don’t want to take sides,” I said, raising my voice, “but I can understand Sheila’s situation.”

  “Sure you can,” McQuaid said, turning up the volume on the shower. The steam began to rise toward the ceiling, and I could see his shadow through the opaque glass. “You can understand Sheila because you had the same problem. On again, off again.” His voice grew muffled and burbly as he stuck his head under the running water. “I don’t blame Blackie for calling it quits.” He shut off the shower, conserving water, and began to shampoo his hair. “What is it with you women? Why can’t you make up your minds?”

  We had arrived at the edge of a difficult terrain, full of booby traps and land mines, and I wasn’t eager to go there. McQuaid had asked me to marry him a couple of years before I actually agreed—and when I did, I couldn’t quite bring myself to believe that I was doing the right thing. It took a lot of anguished soul-searching before I felt even halfway ready.

  Ruby, of course, had made the whole thing into a joke. “Most of my friends have been married and divorced twice in the time it’s taken you to make up your mind, China,” she’d say with a laugh.

  But it wasn’t very funny, after all. When McQuaid was shot, I realized that I cared more for him than for my independence, my self-determination, or even my privacy and personal space. I still sometimes long for the old days, when I was my own boss, when I could close up the shop and go home and have only myself and my own needs to cope with—like those female private eyes in detective novels. Kinsey Millhone, for instance. Kinsey doesn’t have a husband and son to cook for, and when her place gets cluttered, she can pick up her stuff and it stays picked up. Her stuff, not his. She doesn’t rub up against anyone else in her personal space, and all her time is her time.

  But those old longings are usually displaced by the rich, real pleasures of my life with McQuaid and Brian. I suspected that Smart Cookie would discover the same satisfactions, if she gave herself half a chance. Work, however exciting, is not the only wonderful thing in the world.

  All that did not make me want to criticize her, though, and especially not to McQuaid. I rinsed my mouth. “Maybe she just doesn’t think it’s the right thing to do.”

  The shower came back on, and McQuaid ran his hands through his hair, vigorously. I could see the shape of his lean body through the translucent glass of the shower door, and the sight of it made me shiver. We’ve been lovers for a long time, but that hasn’t diminished the pleasure I take from his touch or staled the excitement of his body against mine. I can never get enough of him.

  “If that’s it,” he went on, beginning to soap himself, “Sheila oughta tell him so, and stop all this mealymouthed monkey business. How the hell is Blackie supposed to make plans for the future if she keeps stringing him along?”

  McQuaid was speaking out of his own needs. He’s the kind of person who likes to look for answers, likes to make plans, likes to organize the future, likes to leave nothing to chance. He’s good-looking, in a craggy sort of way: dark hair, dark brows, steely blue eyes, a broken nose earned when he threw for extra yardage against Texas A & M on Turkey Day, a zigzag scar across his forehead, relic of a fight with a doper in a parking lot at the Astrodome. But it isn’t just McQuaid’s looks that you notice when you meet him. It’s his commanding presence, his self-confidence, his boldness, his personal authority. He always knows what he wants, what it will cost, and how to go for it. And he has a nice tight butt.

  I could smell the erotic fragrance of ylang-ylang and sandalwood, rising in the steam. I had already taken my shower, but I let my robe slide off my shoulders and slid back the glass door.

  “I can see Blackie’s side of it, too,” I said, stepping into the shower. “You’re right. It isn’t fair. Maybe calling it off is the best thing to do. For both of them.”

  McQuaid looked down at me, smiling. “Hey,” he said. His eyes lightened with pleasure in a way that gives me goose bumps. “You’re naked. Naked wife.”

  “Naked husband.” I put my arms around him. He was slippery with soap, and I moved my hands over his back, his shoulders. The warm water ran o
ver both of us.

  “Mmmm,” I murmured, licking a trail of scented suds from his shoulder. “You taste good. Smell good, too.”

  His voice was husky. “You know where this leads, don’t you?”

  I feigned innocence, about as successfully as Jack the Ripper. “No, where?”

  He chuckled. “Wild, unruly, uncontrollable sex.” He brought his head down and kissed me, hard, his fingers kneading my neck, my shoulders. I arched against him, loving the feel of his hands, his chest, his narrow hips, his thighs, feeling our hearts beginning to pound together.

  “Show me,” I said.

  “You don’t have to ask twice,” he said, reaching over to shut off the water.

  LATER, when we were lying together among the damp, tumbled sheets, he went back to the previous subject.

  “About Blackie and Sheila,” he said. He kissed the tip of my nose. “I guess I just wish they had some of what we’ve got. Remember that Kenny Rogers’ song? ‘I feel sorry for anyone who isn’t me tonight.’”

  “I remember,” I said, and ran the tip of my finger across his dark eyebrow. “Me, too.”

  Chapter Four

  Pumpkins aren’t just for Halloween jack-o’-lanterns or pumpkin pie. In central America, the seeds (pepitas) of this native American herb were used to cool fevers, treat kidney and bladder ailments, and purge intestinal parasites. And recently, scientists have begun to investigate the use of pumpkin seed oil as a treatment for osteoarthritis, or degenerative joint disease. In osteoarthritis, the cartilege breaks down, causing the bones to rub together. Animal studies suggest that adding pumpkin seed to the diet may be as effective in reducing joint inflammation as the use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.

  At the shops, Tuesday got off to a slow start, which gave me time to put out some Halloween decorations. I piled a half-dozen pumpkins beside the front door, making a mental note to ask Brian to carve them into jack-o’-lanterns, hung a few spiderwebs, and put up some autumn wreaths. Before long, it would be time to start thinking about Thanksgiving, and then Christmas. I don’t know what it is about the autumn months, but they seem to fly past faster than I can chase them.