Bones (34 page)

Reed said, “Probably another rehab romance.”

Milo said, “RDate-dot-com, there’s a business opportunity for you. Okay, let’s check it out.”

“We’re holding off on the dogs and the anthropologists?”

“Not at all. Call Dr. Wilkinson.” Tiny smile. “While you’re at it, she can also check out the western edge of the marsh.”

Reed’s jaw dropped.

Milo said, “Goes with the job, kiddo.”

“What does?”

“Long periods of futility livened by moments of chagrin.”

Reed made the call as Milo and I waited in the unmarked. As he headed for us, he looked defeated.

Milo said, “Maybe she turned him down for a second date.”

The young detective got in back.

“Everything okay, Moses?”

“Not in, left a message.”

“Something on your mind?”

“Text messaging, I should’ve thought of that.”

“What, ’cause you’re the techno-generation and I’m the poster boy for horse and plow and just gave up on my Betamax?”

“What’s that?”

“A brand of buggy whip.”

A Dodge van sat in the driveway of Wilfred and Anita Loring Brackle Adams’s bungalow. If Wilfred was home, he wasn’t advertising the fact. Anita’s voice was a gritty drill bit that threatened to pierce the locked door from behind.

“You go
away.
”

“Ma’am—”

“I will
not
open my door and you can’t
force
me to open it.”

Fourth time she’d recited the mantra.

Milo said, “We really
can
return with a warrant.”

“Then you’d really better
do
that.”

Milo leaned on the bell. When he stopped, Anita Adams laughed. The sound was rocks in a tumbler.

“You see humor in the situation, ma’am?”

“You’re playing the
bell,
like some sort of
brainwashing
tactic. Why don’t you go get some of that
rap
music and blast it all over the
street.
See how
popular
that makes you with the
neighbors.
’Specially when it turns out you had no good cause to…”

Milo and I returned to the unmarked. Her taunts reached nearly to the curb.

“Sweet lady,” he said. “Gosh, I wish she was
my
mom.”

We sat in the car and watched the little frame house. I drank cold coffee and he swigged Red Bull. Five minutes in, he phoned Moe Reed. Liz Wilkinson and three grad students interning at the bone lab were on their way to the western edge of the marsh. Insufficient daylight prevented a comprehensive search but they’d do a spot examination. Wilkinson suggested a helicopter sweep, and sure, the dogs were fine.

Nothing back on the shoe print.

Milo clicked off just as a car pulled up behind us.

Steel-colored Maybach. Debora Wallenburg got out and looked up and down the street before approaching the unmarked. Aqua Chanel suit, silver hair pulled back severely, lots of diamond glint.

“Tired of the Chevy, Counselor?”

Wallenburg flinched but recovered quickly. “You’re following me. Charming.”

“Have a chat with your elusive client recently?”

Wallenburg laughed. “Here goes the tape loop.”

“What’s funny, Counselor, is your viewing the situation as a yukfest.”

“I view it as theater of the absurd.”

“The way you claim to feel about Huck, I’d expect you to be taking it seriously.”

“Your alleged case.”

“Your client’s demise.”

Wallenburg’s cheek muscles twitched. Courtroom training delayed her response. “What are you talking about?”

“When’s the last time you actually
spoke
to ol’ Travis?”

Wallenburg cocked a hip in a display of mellow. Tension around the eyes blew the performance.

“Just like I thought,” said Milo.

“Is this the moment where your artful goading causes me to blurt out some crucial piece of information, Lieutenant?”

“It’s the moment that I tell you I know Huck didn’t call, you got a text message and assumed. No offense, Counselor, but maybe it’s an age thing. Digital naïveté.”

“You’re mad,” said Wallenburg.

“More like peeved.”

“I meant in the mental illness sense.”

“Insult registered, digested, soon to be excreted.”

“My clients that concern you at this time are Mr. and Mrs. Adams,” she said. “They request that you cease harassing them.”

“Thought you were corporate,” said Milo. “How does that get you to front for a couple of working-class alkies who just happen to know Travis from dry-out camp?”

“Oka-ay,” said Wallenburg. “Now we switch to class warfare and denigration of people with the courage to recover.”

“My dad’s shirt was blue and I’ve known a few tipplers but the issue ain’t politics, it’s murder.”

Wallenburg didn’t answer.

“Hell,” said Milo, “what’s a few strangled women with their hands hacked off to a courthouse vet like you?”

“That’s repellent.”

“Thing is,” said Milo, “you’re not even doing good lawyering here. I’m not after your client as the prime bad guy. I’m figuring he was used and tossed. It’s in both our interests to get to the real evil.”

Debora Wallenburg shook her head. Diamond earrings swung. “You’re talking nonsense.”

“Then prove it. If Huck’s still respirating, bring him in. He cooperates, everyone stays friendly.”

Wallenburg clicked her tongue. “Hopeless. Stop harassing the Adamses, they’re good people and you’ve got no reason to be bothering them. Last I heard the department’s legal costs had climbed precipitously.”

“A girl named Sue,” said Milo. “What grounds?”

“I’ll think of something.” Wallenburg turned to leave.

“Huck’s a foot soldier, Counselor. I want the officers.”

“You people,” said Wallenburg. “Everything’s war.”

“Or at least armed conflict. Prove Huck’s alive by bringing him in.”

“He’s innocent.”

“You know that because…”

Wallenburg began walking away.

“The key is timing, Deb. Once we get a warrant for this house, there’s no telling.”

“You’re in Fantasyland.
Mile.
Talk about no grounds.”

“Tell that to Judge Stern.”

“Lisa was a classmate of mine.”

“Then you know how she feels about victims’ rights. And how she views attempts by officers of the court to meddle in extracurricular matters.”

Wallenburg ran a manicured finger across her lips. “What a nice man you are.”

She got in the Maybach and sped off.

I said, “When did you call Judge Stern?”

“Must be two years ago,” he said. “Gang shooting, slam dunk, easy paper.”

“The science of war.”

“More like marching in the dark.”

At four forty-seven p.m. an L.A. Unified school bus pulled up to the house. A blond girl in a red T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers got out and headed for the door. Ten or so, slight and stick-limbed, she labored under the weight of a mammoth backpack.

I said, “Baby Brandeen,” more to hear the sound of it than to inform him.

“Makes me misty, lad. They grow up so quickly.”

Before the girl reached the door it opened. A short, heavy, white-haired woman reached out and drew her inside. Instead of closing, she took the time to glare at us. A man materialized behind her, tall, black, bearded. Weary eyes, even at this distance.

Wilfred Adams said something to his wife.

She snapped back, flipped us off, slammed the door.

Milo said, “Maybe Huck
is
alive. She’s sure protecting something.”

His phone rang again. Moe Reed checking in a second time, from the marsh’s western edge. No obvious signs of disturbance, but the same cadaver dog had arrived and was looking “interested.”

“Pretty place,” said Reed. “Got that Garden of Eden thing going on.”

Milo said, “Find me the snake.”

He lit up a cigar, had puffed twice when Debora Wallenburg’s Maybach roared toward us from the north. The car pulled alongside the unmarked. A tinted window lowered silently.

Wallenburg’s hair was loose. She’d refreshed her makeup, but couldn’t hide fatigue.

“You missed me,” said Milo.

“Oh, I pine. Maybe we
can
play nice, but first some ground rules: I know the law allows you to lie like a conniving, sociopathic bastard to a suspect. But I wouldn’t recommend trying it with an attorney of record.”

“The client being…”

“I need you to be straight with me.”

“I am nothing if not sincere.”

“What you said before — not seeing Travis as the prime evil. Was that utter bullshit?”

“No.”

“I’m serious, Lieutenant. I need your assurance that we’re operating in the same context. Plus, there can be absolutely no heavyhandedness.”

“Heavy as in?”

“SWAT nonsense, property damage, scaring a small child. My pledge in return is full disclosure.”

“Of?”

“I cannot specify at this time.”

Milo blew a smoke ring, then a second that pierced the first.

Debora Wallenburg said, “You need to trust me.”

He rested his head on the back of the seat. “When and where?”

“Those details will follow in due time. May I assume Dr. Delaware will be there?”

“Huck needs mental health consultation?”

“I’d feel better if he’s involved. That okay with you, Doctor?”

I’d never been introduced. “Sure.”

She said, “Mal Worthy and Trish Mantle and Len Krobsky belong to my tennis club.”

Naming three heavy-hitter family lawyers.

“Give my regards.”

“They all like you.” To Milo: “So, we’re on. I’ll call you.” Slow wink. “Or maybe I’ll text.”

Travis Huck trembled.

Veins wormed across his temples, crossed his hairline, invaded the dense black stubble capping his skull. Eyes so deep-set they vanished in all but the strongest light stared at nothing. His cheeks could’ve been hollowed by melon scoops. The sag of his face was a history of its own.

Debora Wallenburg had bought him a brand-new shirt. Sky-blue, crisp cotton, sharp box-creases. He looked like a candidate for parole.

She’d had her desk moved forward several feet, positioned Huck and herself behind the wooden barrier. Mary Cassatt’s mother and baby looked down with jarring serenity. The kind lighting Wallenburg had choreographed failed to calm her client. He rocked in his chair. Sweated.

Maybe he’d fare worse under the fluorescence of a police interview room. Maybe nothing would make a difference.

It was four a.m. Wallenburg’s text message had roused Milo at two fifteen and he’d called me twenty minutes later. A Sahara of silent streets turned the ride to Santa Monica into a motor-sprint. But for a hyphen of amber upper-floor windows, Wallenburg’s office building was a granite spade excavating a starless sky.

As the unmarked pulled near the sub-lot, a mesh partition slid open and a uniformed guard stepped forward.

“I.D. please.”

Milo’s badge was exactly what the guy expected. “Elevator’s over there, park wherever you like.” Waving at a sea of vacant slots. The only vehicle in sight, a copper-colored Ferrari.

“Her sporty wheels,” said Milo. “Hope it’s not a game.”

From the backseat, Moe Reed squelched a yawn and rubbed his eyes. “I’m ready to play.”

Debora Wallenburg touched Huck’s hand. He slid away from her. She sat up straighter, every silver hair in place, full-tilt makeup, diamonds.

Courtroom confidence wavered only when she glanced at Huck. He remained in his own world, had yet to make eye contact.

Wallenburg said, “Whenever you’re ready, Travis.”

A minute passed. Thirty additional seconds. Moe Reed crossed his legs. As if sparked by the movement, Huck said, “The only person I killed was Jeffrey.”

Wallenburg frowned. “That was an accident, Travis.”

Huck tilted his head away from her, as if offended by the characterization. “I think about Jeffrey a lot. Before I wasn’t able to.”

I said, “Before…”

Huck sucked in breath. “I used to live in a dream-state. Now I’m sober and awake but it’s not always… good.”

“Too many things to think about,” I suggested.

“Bad things, sir.”

“Travis,” said Wallenburg.

Huck shifted and caught a faceful of caressing light. His pupils were dilated, his forehead an oil slick. Some sort of rash had spread around his nostrils, tiny berries sprouting in a pallid field. “Bad dreams fill me. I’m the monster.”

“Travis, you are nothing
close
to a monster.”

Huck didn’t answer.

“How could you
not
feel stigmatized, Travis, with people prejudging you all the time?” Pretending to talk to him, but addressing the jury.

“Debora.” His voice lowered to a whisper. “You’re the rare bird who flies freely. I don’t know
what
I am.”

“What you are is a good person, Travis.”

“The average German.”

“Pardon?”

“Man in the crowd,” said Huck. “Comfortable in his suit and his good shoes, oblivious to the stench.”

“Travis, we need to concentrate on—”

“Dachau, Debora. Rwanda, Darfur, slave ships, Cambodia, melting deserts. Average man sits in a café and eats his cream cakes. He knows which way the wind blows, the stench blows into his nose but he pretends. You choose to fly freely, Debora. The crowd chooses a cage.
I
chose a cage.”

“Travis, this isn’t an issue of war and—”

Huck swiveled toward her. “It is, Debora. War breathes in all of us. Raid the neighboring pack, raze the village, eat the young. In a good world, to be human is to be
un-
animal.
You
made the choice to be human. I—”

“Travis, we’re here for you to tell them what you know—”

“—sniffed the wind and stench blew through my head. I allowed it to happen, Debora.”

Before Wallenburg could retort, I said, “You allowed the murders.”

Huck clapped his hands on the desk, as if bracing for a fall. Long, knobby fingers pressed on leather, slid back, leaving snail-trails of perspiration. He worried his sagging cheek.