Considering distance, I realized I couldn’t see the ranger station on my map. I felt a knot tightening in my stomach. Distance. How did Parrish cover that distance?
It was a question I normally would have asked myself months ago, I realized. But for the last few months I had made a conscious effort to avoid all thought, all reference to what had happened during the week of May fourteenth. I helped Ben, I worked long hours, and exercised three large dogs. I did my best to end the day too exhausted to worry or dream. I tried to forget that I had ever boarded that plane.
Oh, it worked like a charm. I saw Nick Parrish leaping out at me everywhere I went. I had horrific nightmares about the meadow. I threw computers through glass walls.
And I didn’t ask questions I should have asked.
So I called Ben Sheridan. When I got him on the line, I asked him for J.C.’s phone number.
“I’ll give it to you,” he said, “but J.C.’s right here.”
“Can I talk to him?”
“Sure.”
I exchanged greetings with J.C., then asked, “How long did it take you to get to the meadow from the ranger station?”
“Driving?”
“You could drive the whole distance?”
“No. I took a dirt road — a mud road, at that point — part of the way, and hiked the rest. Let’s see, I left about an hour after dawn and got to the meadow in the early afternoon. It was foggy when I left; I drove as fast as I dared under those conditions, which was not all that fast.” He paused, then said, “I wasn’t really thinking very clearly that morning, Irene, so it’s hard for me to judge time. It seemed like forever. Once I reached the end of the road, I think I hiked for about four hours, but again, I’m not sure. Why do you ask?”
“I’ve just started wondering about a few things. You and Ben have dinner plans?”
“Not yet.”
“If Ben can stand our company again, why don’t you come over for dinner? I have a theory to talk over with you. Tell Ben to bring Bingle, too.”
They agreed to come over at seven. I called Frank.
“Hi,” he said. “Must be ESP. I just talked to a friend of yours. Gillian Sayre called.”
A wave of guilt hit me. I hadn’t contacted her since the day she came by the Express, asking about her mother’s remains. “Gillian? Why were you talking to her?”
“She was trying to reach you at the paper, but I guess your voice mailbox is full and the Express isn’t telling anyone anything about your leave of absence. She even waited outside the building for you, but when she didn’t see you for a couple of days, she decided to give me a call.”
“Oh.”
“I told her you were just taking a much-needed vacation.”
“Thanks, Frank. I know I should have called her before now, but . . .”
“She wasn’t calling to nag you. She saw the articles about the Jane Doe in the trash bin and was worried about you. And she said she never had a chance to thank you for talking to her on the day after you got back.”
“I’ll call her,” I said again. “I haven’t even tried to get in touch with her or Giles since those first days back.”
Frank knows me too well not to have heard my reluctance. “Take it easy on yourself,” he said. “You’ve had a lot to cope with. This might not be the best time to talk to the Sayres.”
“Maybe you’re right. I just don’t know. I don’t want to cower.”
He laughed. “Like you cowered before Wrigley?”
“Look what that got me.”
“Yeah — a few days off for yourself, instead of running your ass ragged for the paper. Wrigley’s had the work of three reporters out of you lately, and he knows it. By the way — how’d things go with Newly today?”
“Fine,” I said, “which reminds me why I called.” I warned him that I had destroyed his chances of a peaceful evening at home.
“I get the sense that this is a meeting, not a dinner. What’s on the agenda?”
“I think someone helped Parrish, Frank. I’m almost sure of it.”
“So are we. He couldn’t have managed to get out of that area unless someone gave him a ride. Idiotic thing for the driver to do, but that was undoubtedly before Parrish’s name and description were all over the news.”
“No, I don’t mean that a stranger gave him a lift. Why would he plan everything else out and leave something like that to chance?”
There was a silence, then he said, “I’m sure they’ve considered that.”
“I know you aren’t allowed to work on any cases that have even the vaguest connection to me—”
“Which is every case in those two meadows,” he said.
“Yes, but you talk to the other guys, right? The ones who are working on them?”
“As much as possible. To be honest, our resources are strained at the moment. All of Bob Thompson’s cases had to be picked up by other people; since I can’t work on the mountain cases that are connected to Las Piernas — and those are plentiful — guess who gets most of Thompson’s other cases?”
“You.”
“We’re all running around ass-deep in alligators, as Tom Cassidy might say, and I don’t hear as much about the Parrish cases as I’d like to. But let’s talk about your theories tonight — if I can’t get anyone to buy them, Ben might be able to — he’s consulting on some of them.”
So I was able to talk to Frank, Ben, and J.C. that night, which is why I had my husband and two friends with me when I received a gift from my not-so-secret admirer.
42
TUESDAY, LATE AFTERNOON,
SEPTEMBER 12
Las Piernas
In preparation for the evening’s gathering, I drove downtown to a map store. I purchased several topo maps of the area Parrish had used as a burial ground. Coming out of the store, just as I reached the van, I saw the green Honda again. It was speeding away.
I don’t know what made me feel so sure that it was the same car I had seen outside Phil Newly’s house. I couldn’t make out the license plate or clearly see the driver, but as the car turned left onto Elm, a one-way street clogged with traffic, I decided to settle the matter by following him.
I might have lost him already, of course. He could have turned down an alley and doubled back, or reached another intersection and turned, or pulled into a garage and parked.
I had to know. I had to at least try to find that car.
As I drove, I became convinced that I could smell bones; that the scent of bones was somewhere in the van, that if I looked in the rearview mirror I would see skeletons stacked like cordwood behind me, drying marrow their last perfume.
I watched the road, but I broke out in a cold sweat.
Find the Honda. Don’t think about . . . but I smelled bones.
Stop the van. Call Jo Robinson. Tell her to reserve a room with rubber walls for you.
How could there be bones in the van? I asked myself, gripping the wheel. There couldn’t be, could there?
It was possible, an inner voice argued.
I might not have locked the van; in fact, the more I thought about it, the more certain I became that I had not locked the van when I bought the maps, that Parrish had been inside it, that he had put the bones of some of his victims in the van.
Up ahead, I saw a flash of dark green and drove faster.
Bones.
I felt ill. I rolled down all the windows. There was not enough air.
I forced myself to look in the rearview mirror.
I saw the camper fixtures — cabinets, the small sink, stove and refrigerator, a fold-up table and seats that could be made into beds. I stared and stared, but there were no bones.
It was a huge relief and no relief at all.