Disembodied Bones (18 page)

Scott said something Leonie couldn’t hear.
Leonie looked away because she wasn’t sure if she wanted to see
condemnation in her friend’s face. Leonie’s eyes scanned the
horizon, looking over the trees in the park, then over the groups
of people waiting there, over the gathered policemen, and skimmed
the contours of the Chautauqua. She hesitated and a sudden frown
marred her features. Her eyes went back to the crowd. For a second
someone there had been staring at her, watching her as if she were
the only thing visible within a thousand miles. Like a bolt of
lightning on a clear day, she had briefly felt the impact of that
bold scrutiny.

It seemed as if half the town’s population
had arrived on the scene. It was a Saturday, after all, and despite
the July heat, nothing better beckoned them to do. The afternoon
sun was beginning to touch the tops of the trees in the west, the
great yellow shape tickled the leaves as it began to drift ever
downward. Leonie’s eyes slowed as she relentlessly searched the
crowd. Old, young, mothers, fathers, all were represented.

Leonie was beginning to think that it was
nothing when she looked past the television crew once and then her
eyes immediately returned to the shaded side of the van. There was
the man she knew as G. Lily. He was leaning against the side of the
van and his height allowed him to look over the heads of a group of
children who were standing in front of him. The news crew was
unloading their cameras and the children were excitedly trying to
ask them questions while they worked. But G. Lily stood still
behind them, only his brown hair and angular face discernible. But
as soon as she recognized him, the glow of his eyes became
apparent.

G. Lily was staring at her. Over two hundred
feet away and she could feel the heated weight of his gaze. Leonie
couldn’t help herself. Her shoulders straightened up and her head
went back as her neck stretched out unconsciously to see him
better. He realized what she was doing and his head jerked in
reaction. It was an involuntary reaction but G. Lily couldn’t
prevent his response. Their eyes were locked on each other and in
spite of the wicked heat Leonie felt a chill run unbridled down her
spine.
There’s something I should know…

The thought plummeted into her mind.
Something about him. Mr. G. Lily. Who are you? You. I need to
know who you are and I’m going to…

“Leonie?” someone else said and she looked
away for a moment.

Scott was standing next to her with a grave
expression. Soundlessly, he had arrived, and she started at his
appearance. His brown eyes studied her. “I need to ask you some
questions.”

When Leonie looked back at the side of the
news van, G. Lily was gone and she couldn’t help wonder if he’d
ever been there at all. With a sigh she let her gaze return to
Scott. “Are you going to accuse me of something else? The bank been
robbed lately, Scott? Someone missing something that they’re sure
only I could have taken? You want to search my house? Sure, why
not? But I’m warning you, Vinegar Tom has been in a bad mood since
the calico down the street got fixed. Not that it matters because
Tom’s neutered, too, but-”

“Shut up,” Scott muttered.

Leonie shut up. Scott didn’t look like
someone who was in a good mood. He looked like he had the same
headache she did, one that pierced the skull like a railroad spike
into hard earth. “Got any aspirin, Scott? I’ve got a headache and I
think Olga might have aggravated that old shoulder thing again.”
She absently reached up to rub her shoulder’s socket.

“Before I was talking to Dacey and Olga I was
talking to some of the other officers.” Scott said it slowly as if
he wanted to be extremely cautious about his meaning. “Before that
I was on the phone to a deputy chief in Shreveport. His name is
Hemstreet. You know him.”

Leonie frowned, vaguely aware that Elan was
inching closer in order to hear the conversation between Scott and
her. “Roosevelt,” she said. “I always wondered if he found his gold
pen.” She paused to consider Scott’s brief confused look. “His aunt
gave it to him. She raised him, you know, and it was a very
sentimental possession to him.” She was perversely enjoying the
annoyed puzzlement in Scott’s eyes, but she explained, “I told him
where it was. He’d lost it in his wife’s car. I never did find out
if he found it. I guess he did though, because he changed his tune
well enough and came to see what the deal was with Monroe
Whitechapel.”

Scott reached up with a lazy hand and
scratched the side of his forehead. Unconsciously he shifted his
large body out of the sun and into the shade. “I remember Monroe
Whitechapel. They say he killed over fifteen kids. They reckon he
did half of ‘em in Mexico, too.”

“He used to take children from out of state,
until he saw Douglas Trent,” Leonie said softly. Her eyes had
glazed over with memory or pain, it was difficult to tell which was
affecting her most. “He was a predator. He made a habit of going to
places where children would be. He had orphaned children to his
house. But he’d restrained himself until Douglas.”

“And Hemstreet tells me you knew where
Douglas was and who took him, before the police knew.” Scott still
had that skeptical police officer’s expression on his face, still
trying to find the obvious explanation. If Leonie knew where Olga
was, then Leonie helped to put Olga there and consequently that
meant that Leonie had something to do with Douglas Trent’s
kidnapping. He well-remembered the publicity. The papers had adored
the psychic slant that had been leaked to them. A thirteen year old
psychic from Unknown, Louisiana at the edge of Twilight Lake.

Strange thing, that. Scott had heard that the
people from the lake were as closemouthed as the dead. And
Roosevelt Hemstreet had implied on the phone that it was more than
strange. There were rumors about the Lake People, all kinds of
rumors that involved everything from Wicca to satanic rituals to
Bugs Bunny worshipping Rastafarians. And Hemstreet had ended the
phone call with the adage, “I don’t know about the Rastafarians,
but generally where there’s dogs there’s fleas.”

Leonie said something else and Scott had to
shake himself to bring his mind into the now. He said, “What was
that?”

“I said,
he was missing
.”

“Missing.”

Leonie shrugged. “He was missing. Like Olga.
Like Roosevelt’s gold pen. Figure it out. It only works with things
that are missing.”

“I don’t-”

“Yes,” Leonie cut in. “I know you don’t
understand. Furthermore, you don’t want to understand. I can’t find
them alive or dead. I can only find them if they’re missed. Not if
someone hides something on their person and expects me to identify
and find it.”

Scott’s hand shot up to his breast pocket and
a frown spoiled his face. “How did you-”

Leonie didn’t mind interrupting again.
“You’re hardly the first policeman I’ve talked to. I can’t explain
the gift. I can’t explain why it doesn’t work all the time. The
only thing I can explain is that it only works with things or
people that are missing. Like Olga.” Her voice dropped. Beyond
Scott, she saw that Elan was slowly backing away. He was obviously
hearing things he didn’t want to hear. Information overkill. His
face showed distaste for the subject matter at hand. “I guessed
about your little test. If you talked to Roosevelt he would have
told you about Douglas Trent and you had your own experience about
Jay Harkenrider.”

It didn’t seem possible but Scott’s frown
intensified. “You told Miz Harkenrider you could find her boy.”

“I did find her boy.” Leonie’s face was sad.
“She didn’t want to believe he was dead. You know he’s dead. All of
the other law enforcement there knew it, as well. A pedophile like
Mike Ferris doesn’t take a child, do what he wants, and then puts
the kid back on a playground so he could point him out in a lineup
later.”

“Ferris,” Scott repeated. “I’d forgotten his
name. He’s still in jail for Jay’s kidnapping. The D.A. hoped that
one day they would find enough evidence to convict him of the
murder as well. But Ferris missed an ATM camera across the street
from where he took Jay Harkenrider.”

“Alexa wanted to believe that Jay was alive
and well, and with some other family, oblivious to the hunt for
him.” Leonie took a deep breath. “That way she would never have to
start grieving. She could always have hope.”

“Hope.” Scott echoed her words again. “And
you gave her death, but we didn’t find anything at the bluff.”

Leonie shrugged. “I told you. He’s there.
He’s still there. Waiting for all of us. Disembodied bones. A
spirit waiting to rest. What was your little test, Scott?”

Scott patted his breast pocket absently. “A
credit card from one of the detectives.”

“If he’s not really missing it, then it isn’t
missing, is it?”

“No, I suppose not.” The unsaid part was that
Leonie couldn’t really be tested.

Leonie analyzed the sheriff’s face. He was
struggling with the concept that Leonie could possibly be telling
the truth. Commonsense was fighting a lopsided battle with what-if.
Finally, he said, “If you can do this, then why don’t you find
children regularly? Why don’t you do this all the time?”

Leonie paused before carefully composing her
answer. “It isn’t as easy as that. I guess I’m a flawed psychic. It
doesn’t work every time with every missing child. Sometimes I get
migraines from trying to figure out where a child has gone.” She
wasn’t sure how much information she wanted to share with such a
skeptical man, a man who might very well use the information
against her later. “I’ve thought about it. People have begged me to
find their missing loved ones, from little children to the elderly
with Alzheimer’s. The children are harder. I think there’s an
answer why it doesn’t always work. One is the gunshot wound I
received from Whitechapel all those years ago.” Her fingers touched
her scar. “The bullet’s still in there. Close to some part of the
brain I don’t remember the name of. I get those terrible headaches
and only medication can help me through it. I use a lot of
ibuprofen.”

“What’s the other thing?” Scott could not
resist the question.

“The people who are involved. Even if they
miss their child or their spouse, even if they’re racked with
emotional pain, even if they feel like they can’t exist another
moment in time without seeing their loved ones or knowing where
they’re at. Even if all of those things are true, if that person
doesn’t make some kind of connection to me, then I can’t find that
which is lost. I’m not even sure if that makes sense.” Leonie
spread her hands apart in a placating fashion.

“So, you love Dacey as your friend and your
business partner, then she’s got that connection with you,” Scott
surmised slowly. “As soon as she missed Olga, you were able to
‘know’ where she was. But do you know who took her?”

“It seems to be only the moments where the
emotion is most intense, when someone’s pain seems to overload some
mental circuit that connects to me. When Dacey began to miss Olga,
Olga was tied to a tall tree by a creek and there was a sense of
impending danger. There was a moment where she was thinking about a
powerful man whose face was covered with something, some kind of
mask, perhaps? Nothing more. Nothing less.”

“What about this?” Scott said and pulled a
piece of paper enclosed in a plastic evidence bag out of the other
breast pocket.

Leonie took it as if it were a deadly viper.
She read it once and shivered. Her eyes went up. “I never-” she
whispered and stopped abruptly.

The plastic bag slipped out of her fingers
and Scott bent to catch it. He looked around for a moment. “Your
boyfriend’s gone.”

“Yeah, well. He works for a living. Fairly
conservative business. I don’t think he wants the camera’s eye on
him.” Leonie motioned toward the television crew that was up and
running. An anchorman stood in front of the Chautauqua and was
speaking into his microphone.

“What about the note?” Scott insisted. “What
does it mean?”

Leonie folded her hands together and tried to
concentrate. Who knew about that? I know. All the children that
Whitechapel molested and murdered knew. Douglas Trent knew. No one
else. Douglas hadn’t talked about it, at least not publicly.
Neither had Leonie.
Once Whitechapel was dead, it hadn’t seemed
important
. At last, she answered him, “It’s a riddle,
Scott.”

-

You can see nothing else,

When you look in my face.

I will look you in the eye,

And I will never lie.

What am I?

I am a mirror.

Saturday, July 20th

Listen closely, I’m hard to understand.

I am as elusive as is a handful of sand.

Even if you perceive me, you know me not,

Before you can tell me, what I have forgot.

What am I?

Gideon surreptitiously watched her from a
stand of trees, effectively concealing himself behind a crape
myrtle bush. Behind him there were other people he didn’t know,
taking refuge from the heat of the day, despite the sun’s decline.
The shadows held a welcome respite, both from prying eyes and from
the drenching warmth. They all waited and watched the activity in
Headrick Park. Flashing lights from the fire truck continued to
rotate brilliantly. Police officers in rumpled, sweat stained
uniforms roamed over the property, obviously searching for
evidence. News reporters attempted to cross an invisible barrier in
order to get their stories. A news helicopter circled above them,
trying to get the skinny on what was occurring, its rotors an
endless drone of noise. And she was there. Right in the middle of
it all.

Leonie
. As beautiful as any woman he’d
ever seen. Her hair was a river of black satin. Her eyes were like
burnished gold. And her face, a delicate portrait with her
porcelain skin and red lips. She was Snow White come to life.
Except, of course, for the scar that marred her cheekbone, she was
perfect. Every time he saw her, he couldn’t help but think that of
her. She was a pristine princess, even in dirty coveralls,
perspiring freely in the heat.