Ben called to Bingle and remembered to praise him in Spanish, then without needing to step nearer to the bones said to us, “Femurs.”
“Leg bones?” I asked weakly, but I already knew the answer. I suddenly didn’t feel as if I could rely on my own.
43
WEDNESDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 13
Las Piernas
“The bones were those of the receptionist?” Jo Robinson asked during my appointment the next morning.
“It seems likely, but the bones were . . . altered. Parts of her legs are still missing, and these bones weren’t even whole femurs. Someone had cut them. Ben knows someone who specializes in identifying toolmarks on bones who’ll be studying them, but for now, Ben thinks it might have been a power saw. They’re going to run DNA tests to be sure the bones belong to the receptionist. Those tests take a while.”
“You seem quite calm about this now.”
“It’s an act.”
She smiled.
“I guess you knew that.”
She kept smiling, but said, “I’m not a mind reader. So tell me, what’s your real reaction?”
“At first, fear. But now I’m just angry. No, that’s not true. I’m both angry and afraid.”
“What do you suppose he was trying to do?”
“To scare me. To let me know that he knows where I live, to tell me that he’s around. He succeeded — I am afraid. More afraid.”
I considered telling her more, but I wanted to go back to work, and I was convinced she’d never give me the release if I told her everything. If I could go back to work and stay busy, I wouldn’t have so much time to dwell on memories of people in little pieces in a meadow or photographs in graves.
“I think most people would be afraid if they found leg bones in a box on their front porch,” she was saying. “What are you doing in response?”
“Doing?”
“About your personal safety.”
“Oh. That’s the other problem. Frank has worked it out so that I’m never alone. If he can’t be with me, then someone else is. Our friend Jack is in your waiting room as we speak.”
“Does that seem unreasonable under the circumstances?”
“No, but I saw Parrish take out seven men in about three minutes flat, so I’m not comforted, either.”
“Is that what bothers you about it?”
I didn’t have to think long about that question. “No. It bothers me because it’s confining.”
I have to admit that she was very slick. She managed to get me to talk about my fear of confined places, and somehow that led to talking about being in a tent, which led to talking about the expedition and what had happened on it.
Jack had a long wait.
After a while, she asked, “Before you left for this journey, you were uneasy being in the mountains. You struggle with claustrophobia, yet you agreed to be part of a group that would be sleeping inside tents for several days. Detective — Thompson, was it?”
“Yes.”
“Detective Thompson had been unpleasant to you on a number of other occasions, yet you decided to become a member of the expedition he was leading.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t have any say over who would lead it.”
“Why did you agree to go on this journey to the mountains?”
I shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a glutton for punishment.”
She waited.
“I went for work,” I said testily. “It was a good opportunity for the paper.”
She kept waiting.
“My hour was up a long time ago,” I said, picking up my purse.
“Why did you go?” she persisted.
“Julia Sayre!” I snapped.
She didn’t respond.
I set my purse down. “No, not Julia, really. Her daughter, and her husband and son. For years, they’ve wondered what happened to her. I was trying to help them resolve their questions about her disappearance.”
“A good purpose.”
“At a damned high cost.”
“Yes, but you didn’t set that price, did you?”
“No.”
“In fact, it cost you much more than you bargained for.”
I shook my head. “Other people paid much more.”
“What can you do about that?”
“Nothing.”
“Have you talked to any of the families of the men who went up there with you?”
“God, no.” I felt myself color. “No. I feel terrible about that, but when I think of facing those people . . .”
“What will happen?”
“I don’t know. They might ask — just after I came back, Gillian asked about her mother. I couldn’t tell her. I can’t — I can’t talk about what I saw. Not to the families. Not yet.”
She poured a glass of water, gave it to me. She waited for me to calm down a little.
“You talked to Gillian before her mother’s body was released to the family?”
“Yes.”
“But by now, the families have already been through funerals, right?”
I nodded.
“I doubt they’ll have questions of that type, but if they ask,” she said, “and you politely tell them that you’d rather not talk about that just now—?”
“They’ll still be angry, even if the subject never comes up. They must hate me.”
“Because you survived?”
“Yes. And because media attention was probably one of the reasons Parrish killed all of those men. You’re looking at the only reporter that went up there.”
“Did you go up there to glorify Parrish?”
“No. I suppose any attention from the media could be construed as glorifying him, but that wasn’t my plan.”
“So you think the families will be angry with you because he tried to use you for a purpose other than your own?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“People aren’t always reasonable. They’ll see me as a reporter. Some days, I think it would be easier to tell people that I’m an IRS auditor.”
“Do you have any evidence that this particular group of people — the families of the victims — will be unfair to you?”
“No,” I admitted.
“Perhaps you should find out how they feel. Visit one or two of them. You have a little carving to give to Duke’s grandson?”
“Yes,” I said, awash with guilt over not having brought it to Duke’s widow.
As I started to leave Jo Robinson’s office, I said, “I want to go back to work.”
“I think you will be able to do that fairly soon.”
“I mean, this week.”
“Soon,” she said. “Try something entirely new — be patient with yourself.”
She held the power to keep me from my job at the Express for as long as she liked. I was more than a little angry about that, and she undoubtedly read that in my face. She continued to calmly regard me.
I wondered if a woman reporter who had thrown a large object through the glass wall of her editor-in-chief’s office could get a job an another paper. I wondered if I should go back to my friend and former boss at the PR firm I’d left a few years ago to ask if my old job was still open. I knew he’d hire me, but the thought of being forced to write cheerful, upbeat copy for the rest of my life truly depressed me.
Instead, I did my homework assignment.
Two days later, I completed the last of my visits to the widows and families of the officers who had died in the mountains. I was exhausted. No one had asked about remains. None of them had failed to welcome me; all had thanked me for taking the time to come by. There had been plenty of tears at each stop along the way.
Duke’s widow thanked me profusely for the little wooden horse, and would hear no apology for my delay in getting it to her. It was the same with each of them — lots of remembrances, a few regrets, but no recriminations. All anger, all blame was focused on Nicholas Parrish.