Disembodied Bones (31 page)

“Sheriff!” yelled Sue Hewitt from the porch.
“You gotta come see this!”

Scott thanked Roosevelt and promised to keep
him up to date. Roosevelt was trying to tell Scott that Douglas
Trent wasn’t a bad man, that he believed the man he knew and the
boy he’d known wouldn’t repeat what had been done to him, but Scott
cut him off. Roosevelt Hemstreet had a lot of faith in Leonie
Simoneaud as well, and the deputy chief didn’t know what Deacon
Brady had revealed to Scott. Not only had she been wrong but she
had some kind of accomplice, perhaps her old friend, the boy whose
life she’d saved years before, called Deacon to tell him so. It all
stunk, so Scott cut Roosevelt off without compulsion.

When Scott came inside and walked into the
old dining room that had been converted into an office, he saw
exactly what Sue wanted him to see. There was a large desk that
took up most of the room. On top of it were a half dozen computer
monitors. Below the desk were computer towers of all types. Cords
ran in every direction. Scott wasn’t an expert, but it appeared as
though Gideon Lily had every kind of toy available to a man with
his interests.

However, it wasn’t the extensive computer set
up that caught Scott’s eyes. It was the cork that covered the walls
and what was pinned to the cork by the dozens. Articles.
Photographs. News accounts. Maps. Little pins in a half dozen
colors attached them to the cork behind them. Most were on the wall
in front of the desk, where the occupant could see them if he
raised his head. Some were on the walls on the sides.

The dates started twenty years before. It
followed and skipped through the next decade and a half. All
featured Leonie Simoneaud or something that concerned her.
Whitechapel’s case was present, his handsome face stared out at the
sheriff and his deputies. A small inset picture of Leonie, with her
head wrapped in gauze was included. There were many other stories.
The last one was Thursday’s paper with Alexa Harkenrider’s stark
announcement. Next to some of the stories were black and white
photos. Some had been taken from a great distance away, while she
was shopping at the grocery store, or while she was tending her
yard, all obviously Leonie busy with her own life.

“He is
so
infatuated with this
Simoneaud woman,” said Sue, chewing on her gum, snapping it loudly
with tongue and lips.

“Duh,” Ken Ash said. “I don’t get it. She’s
not that cute.”

Scott’s eyes rolled. “Sue, spit out that gum
before you choke on it. Ken, if I read one word about today’s
events in
The Buffalo Creek Press
, I’ll know exactly who was
responsibly and don’t give me that sideways glance, buddy-boy,
because everyone knows who you’re diddling, except maybe your
wife.”

Then Scott turned away and headed outside,
looking for a quiet place to think.

The same deputy by the county car called out.
“Sheriff, another call!”

“Now what?” Scott said. “A blimp exploding?
The Kennedy conspiracy found out in Buffalo Creek four decades
later? Godzilla attacks Dallas?”

•

The man was inordinately pleased with
himself. He had successfully kidnapped two children, even with a
psychic of Leonie Simoneaud’s talents around, and tested her
abilities. He had managed to point local law enforcement in the
direction he’d wanted, marveling at how easily they were
manipulated.

Olga Rojas’s kidnapping had been carefully
planned. Her grandmother picked her up and dropped her off at the
Gingerbread House once a week or two. She often took the child to
McDonalds or some childhood themed restaurant and fed her until the
six year old was close to exploding. Then when Olga returned to her
mother, her mother invariably allowed her to go outside and play in
the city square around the county courthouse. Olga loved to look at
the intricately carved faces on the arches on the four porches. She
was attracted to the courthouse because of its tiny spires and
fairy castle appearance. She was also interested in the renovation.
It was a matter of adjusting the set of circumstances around Leonie
to get the desired effect.

And the results!
Kidnap the child
before Dacey Rojas missed her. Then put the child someplace another
person wouldn’t immediately stumble upon her, and see if Leonie
really was capable of finding her. She had been like a bloodhound,
like an unerring arrow shot from the hand of the most capable
archer, and God, he couldn’t help but admire her.

He’d worn a mask, used gloves, and made sure
he utilized the proper equipment to get the next stage going. Like
all complicated plans, he expected that things might go awry, and
he would have to rethink his plans, re-coordinate his efforts, but
any good strategist would be able to accomplish that. Things that
he might have not thought of could and would happen. The sheriff,
who patently disliked Leonie, could decide that she was guilty by
association, and arrest her without cause. Some idiot who believed
in witchcraft could decide that Leonie was, in fact, one, and
attempt his own rough justice. There were a dozen things that could
and might very well happen that he would have to take in stride and
plan around accordingly.

Keefe Grant had been another story and
another plan altogether. His kidnapping required finessing, a finer
touch, and a bit of drugs to ensure the child remained unconscious.
A very sharp scalpel had provided the sample of blood from the
child to be dribbled upon the riddle and on the backpack. In order
to ensure that he wouldn’t be missed, the man had to watch the
house of his parents and determine the best time. Lacking a
security system in the rural country roads outside of Shreveport,
the Grant house had been remarkably easy to penetrate, and the
child hadn’t even murmured when he’d injected him with the
sedative. A quickly muttered threat had quieted the child while the
sedative flowed through his bloodstream.

Only after midnight, the Grant household had
been deep asleep. The father, Nick Grant, had been snoring like a
freight train, and the mother, Blair, had been silent as she slept
beside her noisy husband. They didn’t even have a dog to warn them
that an intruder was in their midst.

And the man’s only thought was,
Well, this
will teach them. Mind your children.

So began Leonie’s second test. The man knew
about proximity. Using special intelligence equipment he’d
purchased on the black market in the former Soviet Union, he had
spent weeks listening to the people of Twilight Lake. He had
learned what an extraordinary people they were. They talked to each
other verbally more than they would have cared to admit. Their
gifts had limits and distance was one of their imperfections, one
of their most significant failings that he could take advantage of
and use to his benefit. A people with extra sensory powers, they
were also very much human, with all of human’s frailties.

What is it that those people said most
often, like a blessed supplication? “The gift is most powerful
between relatives and close loved ones.”

Leonie was cut off in Buffalo Creek. Besides
her own family thought her the proverbial black sheep, one whose
gift was warped by an experience with a madman and the bullet he’d
shot into her head. Interesting to be sure, but even if she had
lived with the precious family, the man would have found a way to
get to her there. Fortuitously, Buffalo Creek had proved
easier.

The man hung up the phone. It was a payphone
at the back of a gas station. He had spent almost two hours
ensuring that no ATM machines were nearby, nor did any local store
have surveillance cameras that pointed in the direction of the row
of telephones there. He looked slowly around and saw no one was
paying attention to him. A white handkerchief wiped the machine and
handset clean of fingerprints. Then he polished the sides of the
telephone.

If the phone call to the police had been
traced, he would be gone within thirty seconds, and no record would
remain of him. One had to be smarter than the rest, of course, and
the man had known from the moment of his re-birth into the vile
world above, that he was a thousand times more intelligent than
those who surrounded him.

As he got into his truck he mentally went
down his list.
Let’s see. Kidnapped second child. Check. Planted
evidence, including remaining duct tape roll. Check. Tipped off
cops. Check. It’s Miller time.
He smiled broadly.

•

Sue yelled from the barn. “Oh, hey, Sheriff!
Before you go, something else you should see.” She glared at him
from the open barn doors. The gum remark had pissed her off, even
though she knew that it really wasn’t her that Scott was frustrated
with.

When Scott entered the barn, he saw that it
was once used for storing hay and machinery. Over the years it had
become a garage and a workroom for someone who enjoyed woodworking.
Everything had a layer of dust that indicated it hadn’t been
actively used for years, and the place where Gideon Lily regularly
parked his Chevy Tahoe was just a clear spot on the dirt ground.
But Sue was pointing over to a pile of equipment on one side. Lily
had piled some computer equipment out here that he didn’t use. Old
monitors, hard drives, towers, external modems, and other apparatus
sat in a pile that was only slightly less dusty than the rest of
the stuff there.

Sue pointed with a gloved hand. “I think we
need the forensics team again.”

Half hidden under a black mid-size tower was
a little bit of yellow and blue striped material. Scott frowned
when he saw it and then looked closer, deliberately keeping his
hands at his sides. A tiny bit of what looked like blood showed on
the corner. “What is that?”

“I think it’s a piece of children’s
clothing,” said Sue. “Garanimals jammies. I buy ‘em for my niece
and nephew. But there’s a tag there. If we just pull it out a
little we can see the name that’s written there.”

“Go ahead but be very gentle,” Scott
directed.

Sue carefully reached down and tugged. The
other deputies wandered into the muted barn. Motes of dust floated
on rays of light from the open door. Particles of hay soared in
light gusts of wind caused by shifting people. Silence was a
thunderous roar.

“Grant,” she said positively. “I can’t pull
out anymore without ripping it. The evidence people will need to
take care of it.”

Scott said, “The kid from Shreveport’s name
is Grant. Jesus Christ, he kidnapped his own nephew?” He looked
around. “Keep looking. And call Eddie Rowland. We’re gonna need his
dogs. I want you to call up for volunteers. I guess we’re looking
for a kid now.” He hesitated and stared at the bloody spot on the
edge of the striped pajamas. “Or a corpse.”

Then as Scott’s frown intensified, he
abruptly turned and ran for the nearest county car, only slowing
down to snatch a deputy to take with him.

•

“How in hell do you know that someone’s found
a way to thwart you?”

Leonie snarled and finally twisted her way
out of Gideon AKA Douglas’s inexorable grip. “It’s like one big
mental cement block, stuck in the middle of my head. He’s drugged
the boy; it feels just like it did when you were sleeping. And he
must be far away, because I just can’t quite feel where he is. I
can’t get him, no matter how much I try. It makes my head pound
like a drum!”

Gideon stepped backwards, his face showing
the shock he felt. His hands dropped to his sides. “I thought it
would work if I could just touch you. It seemed to be so much
stronger when I was closer to you. You didn’t know about the young
woman in the morgue. You didn’t get it quite right. I could sense
it, on the cusp of your thoughts, but you didn’t connect all the
dots.”

It was Leonie’s turn to be shocked. “What do
you mean?”

“Jane Doe was moved. Not once but twice. The
man you said killed her, her lover, thought that if her body was
found too close to home, then he would be at risk. So he came back
and moved her again, but this time it was out of the county. I
could see it so clearly, and somehow you couldn’t.”

“Distance,” Leonie murmured. Dazed gold eyes
rose to meet his. “That’s why it was so lingering, so far away.
Like a blurred dream after a foggy night. I couldn’t even get her
name, nor could I get her grandmother’s name.” Her eyes dropped
away. “It was a test I couldn’t pass.”

Gideon hesitated. “I called the detective. I
called him and told him the mistake. I told him what he needed to
know to find the grandmother before the murderer went after her. If
he listened to me, then it won’t be too late.”

“You called the detective in charge of Jane’s
case?” Leonie whispered the words. “God, those people are going to
think you’re a fruitcake and I’m the queen of the fruitcakes.”

“Not if they find out it’s true,” Gideon
protested vehemently.

Leonie shut her eyes for a second. “You’ve
suddenly gotten second sight, Douglas, and you think you’re an
expert.” She slowed her words and said carefully, “People won’t
believe you. It’s some kind of complicated trick to them. You have
some knowledge they don’t have, but it isn’t of the extrasensory
type.”

Gideon glared at her. “It’s Gideon now. I
don’t use Douglas ever.”

“Gideon then,” she said. “And I can’t find an
old woman with cherries on her hat or a little boy who’s been
kidnapped by someone who wants to emulate Monroe Whitechapel. So
what the hell do you want with me?”

Considering her wan expression, Gideon was
taken aback. “Why would anyone want to emulate Monroe
Whitechapel?”

Leonie finally had enough. “That’s not
something I even want to think about, much less understand.”

“He didn’t have anyone. He was a predator, a
monster with the money to back him up.” Gideon couldn’t prevent the
bitterness from souring his tone. He’d never forgiven the man who
still haunted his nighttime visions upon occasion, the one who had
colored his entire life.