Disembodied Bones (49 page)

Posting the message at certain bulletin
boards was necessary as well. Gideon did what he needed to do and
then he could only wait for a response. He knew that it wouldn’t be
long in coming.
Hackers live for shit like this. It’s like a
movie, except it’s not.

Gideon checked the clock on Scott’s wall. It
was after five AM. It was early, but it wasn’t too early. He picked
up the phone and dialed information. The operator asked what city
and he said, “Shreveport.”

“Go ahead,” the operator said.

“Hemstreet, R.,” Gideon said, “on Hackamore
Street.”

“That number is restricted,” said the
operator politely.

Gideon smiled and looked at the framed badge
on Scott’s wall. “This is a police emergency. I’m Sheriff Scott
Haskell from Pegram County; I know you can see where the number is
coming from on your screen. You need my badge number?”

“No, sir,” the operator said calmly as if she
had a sheriff with an emergency on her line every day of the week.
“Here’s the number. I can connect you directly, if you want.”

“Give me the number, Operator. I might have
to use it later.” Gideon wrote it down with Scott’s pen and
disconnected. He dialed it and waited for someone to answer.

It rang five times before someone picked up
with a sleepy, “Hemstreet.”

Gideon said, “Roosevelt?”

“Yeah?”

“Rosy, it’s Gideon,”

Sleepy became alarmed. “Gid,” Roosevelt said.
“Tell me you’re calling from jail.”

Gideon glanced around the office. “Yeah, I’m
still at the Pegram County Sheriff’s Department.” It even sounded
convincing.
It’s the truth
, he told himself.
I’m still
here
.

“It’s-” there was a pause-“five fucking
o’clock, Gid. I know good and goddamn well that they don’t let you
make calls at five fucking o’clock in the morning.”

“Special circumstances, Rosy,” Gideon said
with a wince. Roosevelt Hemstreet had become a mentor to Douglas
Trent in the months after being kidnapped by Monroe Whitechapel. He
had become his friend and someone who’d helped a ten year old child
get past the nightmares and the waking fears that had tormented
Doug. Rosy had also helped Gideon’s parents as they struggled to
cope with the changes in their only son’s life. Over the years the
friendship had continued. Lying to the older man didn’t come easy,
so he tried not to do that.

“Tell me you didn’t kidnap Keefe,” Roosevelt
wearily requested. Then he said on the other end, “It’s just
business, Ro. Go back to sleep.”

“I didn’t kidnap Keefe,” Gideon said
obediently. “You already know that.”

“Yeah, I do. But what about the evidence they
got?”

“Circumstantial.” Gideon hesitated. “I don’t
know how to tell you this, Rosy.”

“Go ahead. Tell me. You told me about some of
your hacker shit, and you know I don’t approve of that.”

“Someone wants revenge.”

“Revenge,” Roosevelt echoed dubiously. “For
what?”

“For killing Whitechapel, I guess.” Gideon
considered. “That would be my best guess. This guy’s got it in for
me and for Leonie Simoneaud.”

“I knew when you moved there it was a
mistake,” Roosevelt said.

“You knew Leonie was here when I moved here?”
Gideon was incredulous. “And you didn’t tell me?”

“I thought you knew, Gid. I thought that was
why you went.” Roosevelt’s voice was sad. “You’ve always had a
thing for her.” There was another irritated voice interrupting and
then Roosevelt said to Gideon, “Let me change phones.”

Thirty seconds later, he was on the extension
and Gideon heard his wife hang up the phone in the bedroom.
Roosevelt said, “Okay, someone is framing you.” He sighed. “Do you
know how many times I’ve heard that in my law enforcement career?
Christ, that’s as old as the world’s oldest profession. I think it
was the excuse the first time some guy got caught with someone
doing the world’s oldest profession. ‘She framed me.’ That’s lame,
Gid.”

“I need to know all I can about Monroe
Whitechapel,” Gideon said. “I need to know all the things that
never came out in the paper. I need to know where his skeleton’s
skeletons were buried. We know about the pedophilia and the
murdering and the abuse, but what else is there?”

“Because this thing now,” Roosevelt said.
“It’s linked to Whitechapel somehow?”

“That’s the connection between Leonie and me.
Someone’s throwing riddles at us and taunting us both. Taking a
child who’s related to me and one who’s close to Leonie. Playing
with us. Now he’s got Leonie.”

“What?”

“Rosy, he’s got her, and the sheriff here
only wants to believe what his black and white mind can prove. She
can’t possibly be psychic. She can’t be gone. And there is no
one-armed man eluding Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones.” Gideon
hoped he sounded as deadly serious as he felt. He stopped and
contemplated his left hand’s thumb. It had slowly stopped aching
but the memory of it was enough to make his balls shrivel up into
the size of peas. He could only imagine what was happening with
her.

“Riddles, kidnapping children connected to
you and Leonie, and now Leonie’s gone,” Roosevelt repeated
thoughtfully. “Someone setting you up to take the fall on the two
children’s’ kidnappings, or worse, considering that they haven’t
found Keefe yet.”

“Keefe’s not dead,” Gideon said without
thinking.

“And how would you know that?”

“I…I just know.”

“Huh,” Roosevelt’s voice was skeptical. “I
don’t want to burst your bubble but it’s been days.”

“Keefe is alive. So is Leonie. She’s
suffering but she’s alive.”

“Gid,” Roosevelt said cautiously. “Do you
know what you sound like?”

“I sound like a fruitcake,” Gideon answered.
“Grade-A, primo, top of the heap, crème de la crème fruitcake. Yes,
I’m aware of that. I can’t explain it to you why I know what I
know, except that it’s true, and they need our help. If we don’t
find them quickly, he’s going to kill them. First Keefe to torture
Leonie. Then Leonie just to finish her off.”

Roosevelt was silent for a moment. “All
right. All right. What I know about Monroe Whitechapel is what you
know about him. What’s been in the papers and resurrected every
time Leonie gets her name mentioned on the news is the sum of it
all.” He paused. “But…”

“What?”

“Well, there was this guy,” Roosevelt said.
“An investigative journalist. He started something about
Whitechapel about ten years after he died. Said he knew all kinds
of secrets about the guy he was going to put in a tell-all book.
Interviewed me a few times. Interviewed the chief of police from
back when. Talked to Whitechapel’s housekeeper and his lawyer,
too.”

“He never interviewed me. I never even heard
about him.”

“Your mama thought that you were just getting
past all that. You were in that fancy-pants university back east,
and doing pretty good, until you up and dropped out, that is. She
said she’d get a writ against him if he came within a hundred feet
of you. Sicced a judge on him, too. Not that that bothered the guy.
He was determined to do a book, come hell or high water. The Lake
People out at Unknown had the St. Germaine Parish sheriff throw his
ass off their property, too. He was a real pest.”

“What was his name?”

“I’m looking through my rolodex right now,
Gid.” Roosevelt blew a breath out and Gideon closed his eyes in
impatience. While Gideon waited he checked the bulletin boards and
found nothing yet in way of response to his bounty. He checked his
email and found similar results. It wasn’t long enough yet, plus it
was early on a Monday. Later in the day the lines would begin to
sizzle, but Gideon wasn’t sure if he’d still be here.

“That wasn’t the funny part,” Roosevelt said
with a grunt.

“Roosevelt,” Gideon said warningly.

“Gid, I haven’t forgotten how serious this
is,” Roosevelt said right back. “I’m a little off because it’s the
middle of the fucking night and I’m awake when I should be
asleep.”

“Roosevelt,” Gideon said a little louder.

“This guy,” Gideon heard Roosevelt flapping
the cards in the rolodex, “was like a bulldog. He wouldn’t let go.
I thought the chief was going to shoot him with his own gun. But
then, one day, he got into an accident.”

“An accident?”

“Yeah. An accident.” Roosevelt said it
reflectively. “He got beat up out back of a juke joint. Broke his
legs and his arms. Collarbone too. I think there was a skull
fracture and one of his eyes had been popped out. I didn’t think a
fella could be injured like that and still live. His spleen was
ruptured, too. When he woke up a month later, he said he didn’t
remember what happened, that maybe he got hit by a car, and he left
town. I mean, he left town in his casts, too. He hauled ass like
the devil was biting it.”

“You said he was pretty annoying,” Gideon
said.

“He was one very annoying little peckerwood,
didn’t know how to keep his trap shut. He could have pissed off
Mother Teresa and Gandhi within five minutes of meeting them.”

“So he pissed off the wrong person,” Gideon
added.

“Yeah, well, thinking about what you’re
saying, maybe it was just coincidental. Maybe it wasn’t. It might
have been the same wrong person who’s pissed at you and Leonie.
This guy was asking a lot of heavy duty questions about Whitechapel
that maybe someone didn’t want answered. This guy who said he
reputedly had all kinds of secrets about the man that hadn’t been
publicized before. This guy up and left as soon as he could crawl
out of the hospital, and that says a lot about how afraid he was.”
Roosevelt made a noise. “Got you, you sonuvabitch. George P. Ogden.
This number is years old, Gid. Don’t know if that’s going to be a
problem. He was from Florida. Dayton Beach area, I think. Call him.
He knows all about Whitechapel, but it’ll be interesting to see how
much he’ll tell you.”

Gideon took the number down and said,
“Thanks, Rosy.”

“Gid,” Roosevelt said warningly. “Haskell
doesn’t sound like such a bad guy. A little straight laced, but if
he finds out you didn’t do it, then he’ll make sure you’re
cleared.”

“Maybe so, but I can’t wait for him to clear
the smoke by waving his hands around.” Gideon added quickly, “Talk
to you later, Rosy,” and hung up before Roosevelt could say
anything else.

He didn’t waste any time. Dialing the number
with a look at his aching left hand, Gideon waited impatiently for
an answer. On the tenth ring, when he was about to give up when the
line clicked, and an irritated voice said, “If this isn’t Pamela
Anderson or Julia Roberts I don’t want to talk to you.”

Gideon made an instantaneous decision. He was
guessing that George Ogden wouldn’t be the kind to want to speak
with a law enforcement officer. Inside sources would be friends to
Mr. Ogden, but had probably caused him more problems than not. They
would especially be bothersome to him concerning what had happened
to him in a dingy alley in Shreveport while he was trying to work a
lucrative angle. “This is Douglas Trent. Is this George Ogden?”

Silence.

“I need to speak to George Ogden and it’s an
emergency.” Gideon tried again.

“I’m hanging up,” said the prickly voice.
“You ain’t Pamela or Julia and I don’t know any Douglas Trent.”

“A ten year old boy kidnapped by Monroe
Whitechapel twenty years ago. A thirteen year old girl named Leonie
Simoneaud rescued him by using what was called an interesting form
of psychic powers. You were going to do a book about Whitechapel.
But something happened.” Gideon rushed through. Every second that
passed that the man on the other end didn’t hang up only meant that
he had the correct number. “Something that scared you off.”

There was more silence.

“Prove it,” said the voice softly.

“I changed my name when I turned twenty-one.
Bet you know what it is. Do you know why I picked the names I did?”
Gideon almost sighed with relief. He had the right guy. Now all he
had to do was convince George he was serious.

“I know the names and I know why. Do you?”
The barbed voice was patently interested.

“My name is Gideon Lily now. No middle name.
Gideon was one of my middle names on my birth certificate. Lily was
my mother’s maiden name. Is that good enough?”

More silence, then, “I got to get up in ten
minutes anyway to go catch the tide. There’s a marlin out there
with my name on it, so I guess you got about ten minutes to say
what it is that’s bothering you.” There was a slight hesitation.
“And yes, this is George Ogden.”

“I got your number from Roosevelt
Hemstreet.”

“A big black guy from the Shreveport PD,
right?” George snorted. “I thought he would have torn my card in
little pieces.”

“Rosy doesn’t work like that.” Gideon was
gambling. “He thinks that maybe what happened to you is connected
to what’s happening to me now.”

“I heard about that. Some of my buddies like
to keep me up to date.” George’s voice became neutral and almost
disinterested, but Gideon was pretty sure it was a ploy. “That
girl, Leonie, sure likes to have her name in the papers. But hell,
so did I.”

“I need to know who did that to you,” Gideon
said it quickly. “I don’t have a lot of time.”

“Well, I guess not, considering that they
arrested you for kidnapping your nephew and the other little girl.
What, did you get bail?”

“My version of bail, anyway.” Gideon was
getting irritated with George. The man was a master of evasion.
“Someone wants to hurt me. Someone wants to hurt Leonie, too. If I
don’t figure out who, Keefe and Leonie are going to be
murdered.”

“And if you figure out who, then maybe you
might put him away?”

“That’s the plan,” Gideon swore.

“I’m thinking about it.”

-

Tom gave his brother John a box.