Читать книгу Death Night - Todd Ritter - Страница 11

The sack lay on the floor, smelling of smoke, mildew, and damp earth. Everyone in the gallery stopped what they were doing to gather around it and watch the crime scene techs slowly remove its contents.

The skull came first, leaking chunks of dirt as it was placed on a plastic tarp spread across the floor. A hand was next, the fingers long and tapered. Then a foot, a femur, a rib cage broken into several pieces. Within ten minutes, the sack was empty and the full remains of a human being were scattered across the tarp.

“Why the hell,” Kat said, blinking with disbelief, “was the museum keeping a skeleton under its floor?”

Tony Vasquez, standing beside her, shook his head. “Maybe it was part of their collection.”

“In that condition?” Kat knelt next to the tarp, which in addition to the bones now held a sizable amount of dirt that had fallen off them. A few rocks and leaves were also among the debris, as was the dried and twisted form of a dead worm. “Certainly someone would have at least cleaned the bones. And I doubt they normally keep pieces of their collection in a burlap sack.”

“But what else could it be?”

“I’m more interested in who it could be,” Kat said. “Not to mention how it got here.”

She thought of Oak Knoll Cemetery, the town’s only graveyard. Had a grave there been sitting empty for years, maybe even decades? It was a possibility—worse things had taken place in that cemetery—but she assumed no one from the historical society would resort to robbing graves. Then again, one of them might have resorted to murder. That made digging up a skeleton look like child’s play.

“I’ve got a funny feeling about this,” Tony said.

Kat shot him a look. “Like it’s not a coincidence? Me, too.”

Maybe it was all coincidental. Maybe the fire and Constance’s murder and the words on her hand had nothing to do with a bag of bones under the museum floor. But they couldn’t simply assume that it didn’t. They needed to explore every possibility, especially since this—whatever the hell this was—was just the first.

“We need to find out where those bones came from,” Kat said. “Which means we need to find out who they once belonged to. And in order to do that, we need to find out when and how he died.”

“I know someone who can do that,” Tony said.

“So do I. And I suspect we’re both talking about the same person.”

Kat stepped out the back door of the museum and into the autumn night. The air was chilly, with a slightly bitter sting that told her winter would soon be on its way. At least the cold woke her up a bit. She had no idea when she’d be able to sleep again—an incredibly depressing thought.

Cell phone in hand, she trudged to the rear of the property. A white picket fence about waist high separated it from the yard next door, its gate ajar and swinging lightly. Sensing her presence, a black cat stalking through the grass jumped onto the fence and perched there, staring at her with glinting green eyes. Seeing nothing of interest, it decamped to the neighbor’s yard, leaving Kat alone again to dial her phone.

She shouldn’t have felt bad about calling Nick Donnelly so early in the morning. He would have done the same if the circumstances had been reversed. Still, the panic that tinged his voice when he answered the phone made Kat feel slightly guilty.

“What’s wrong?” Nick asked in that wide-awake way people speak when they are suddenly and soundly roused from sleep. “Is it James?”

“Relax,” Kat said. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“But there’s something going on in town, isn’t there?”

Nick had helped Kat catch the Grim Reaper killer. In turn, she had helped him crack the Olmstead case when it brought him back to Perry Hollow. Kat was now hoping it was again her turn to get assistance.

“Yes,” she said. “There’s been a murder. And an arson. And a lot of stuff I can’t even begin to comprehend right now.”

“Looks like I’ve been away too long.”

“You have.”

Although he lived only forty-five minutes away in Philadelphia, almost two months had passed since she last saw Nick. And Kat missed him. Her son did, too. When you worked that closely with someone, their absence was more palpable when they were gone.

“So why are you calling—” Nick paused as he no doubt checked the clock on his nightstand. “Holy shit, Kat, it’s four-thirty in the morning.”

“I know,” Kat said, her guilt now kicking in at full force. “I’m sorry.”

“Couldn’t it have waited until morning? Real morning. Not whatever the hell schedule you’re on right now.”

It couldn’t, and Kat said as much. She quickly briefed Nick about the fire, the message on Constance’s hand, the bones stashed under the floorboards.

“Damn,” Nick said. “Have you called the state police?”

“Tony’s here right now.”

“Of course,” Nick said. “So why are you calling me again?”

“Do you remember that forensic anthropologist who helped out with the Olmstead case?”

Nick cleared his throat. “Yes. Lucy Meade.”

“Do you have her phone number?”

Kat assumed he did. She was pretty sure—but not certain—that the two of them had gone out on a date when the case was over. Maybe more. Nick had been oddly reticent on the subject.

“I do,” Nick said, hesitating. “But—”

Kat thought she heard another voice, murmuring something she couldn’t make out. A woman’s voice. Nick whispered something back.

“Oh, my God. Is she there?”

“Yeah.” Nick sighed, knowing he had a lot of explaining to do. “I’m just going to hand her the phone now.”

Kat listened to the sounds of rustling sheets and a creaking bed. There was even a high-pitched giggle when Nick apparently dropped the phone. Finally, she heard the voice of Lucy Meade, forensic anthropologist and Nick’s secret girlfriend.

“Hi, Kat,” Lucy said. “I hear you have a skeleton on your hands.”

“I do. I have no idea how old it is. Or where it came from. Or why it was in our town’s history museum.”

“And this has something to do with a murder?”

“Maybe. I don’t really know.”

But she sensed that the two were related. She had a creeping sensation—like an insect crawling up her neck—that Constance died because of those bones. It was why indentifying who they had belonged to was so important.

“Tell you what,” Lucy said. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. Let’s meet up around six.”

“That would be great. Thank you.” Kat allowed herself a brief sigh of relief. This was one less thing she’d need to worry about. “I’ll have the bones transferred to the morgue and meet you and Nick there.”

Lucy chuckled. “Who said anything about Nick? I’m leaving him at home.”

Kat ended the call, letting out a lengthy yawn as she shoved the phone back into her pocket. There was a lot to be done in the coming hours. Question the other members of the historical society. Look into the pasts of Perry Hollow’s volunteer firefighters. Search Constance’s office. Lieutenant Tony Vasquez would be handling most of it, but Kat wanted to help out as much as she could. Still, she wouldn’t be of much use exhausted. And until she had to meet Lucy, she decided the best course of action would be to go home and get some sleep. It would only be for an hour, but that was better than nothing.

Rounding the building to the front lawn, she saw that things had finally quieted down on the street. The fire trucks were long gone. So was the crowd, which had been shooed away by Carl soon after Constance’s body was found.

Now, only one person remained, an absurdly tall man watching Kat from the sidewalk. She recognized him instantly, just as she had during the fire. Only now she realized he hadn’t been a figment of her imagination or a remnant from a slowly fading dream. Henry Goll really was back in town.

“So it is you.”

“In the flesh,” Henry said.

Kat quickened her pace across the lawn, urged on by his sudden appearance. Getting to know Henry had been the only good thing to come out of the Grim Reaper killings. At first, she hadn’t known what to think of the tall, handsome man with the noticeable scars. He had been aloof. Quiet. Suspicious. Yet he eventually softened, opened up, began to trust her. By the time they had saved each other’s lives, they were friends.

When he vanished soon after, Kat understood his reasons. But it didn’t make her miss him any less.

“How did you know I was here?” she asked.

“I saw you during the fire,” he admitted. “You were a bit preoccupied at the time, so I didn’t say hello.”

“Understood.”

“But when I stepped outside and noticed that there was still police activity going on at the museum, I thought you’d be here.”

“You thought correctly.”

Kat had finally reached the sidewalk. She started to shake Henry’s hand, changed her mind, and went in for a hug. She felt a little foolish as she wrapped her arms around his waist. Still, the hug was as long as it was tight.

“You shouldn’t have left like that,” she said. “You didn’t even say good-bye.”

Henry, stiffened to the point of paralysis by her embrace, cleared his throat. “I sent you a postcard.”

“That’s not a good-bye. That’s an ‘Oh, by the way, I skipped town.’ I never thought I’d see you again.”

“I’m sorry,” Henry said. “It was wrong of me to vanish like that. And it’s good to see you, too.”

Kat took it to mean she should stop hugging him. But when she finally pulled away, she noticed that Henry Goll, the most stoic man she had ever known, was now smiling.