Speaking in Bones

  We’ll never know if the ploy would have worked. Before Grandma had time to succumb, wood juddered softly. We all turned.

  A girl stood by one of the hall doors. She was tall, with a linebacker’s build, but a softness to her body that suggested future weight issues. Thick black bangs covered the upper halves of her eyes. I guessed her age at around sixteen.

  “Susan Grace.” Hoke did his sunny priest bit. “How nice. Please join us.”

  The girl held her shoulders hunched, her arms wrapping her ribs. A frozen moment, then, “Why are they here, Grandma?”

  “Do you have homework?” Ignoring her granddaughter’s question.

  “Are they asking about Mason?” Susan Grace’s voice was deep and low, almost masculine.

  “Homework.”

  “Will they find him?”

  “Susan Grace. You know you mustn’t meddle in grown-up matters.”

  “Does anyone even try?”

  “Young lady!” Loud and sharp. “Do not allow yourself to be hostage to Satan.”

  Susan Grace blinked, and her bangs did a round-trip on her lashes. “I have ballet class tonight.”

  “I don’t like you out driving alone in the dark.”

  “Pray to the Lord Jesus for my safe delivery.” Flat.

  Hoke and Grandma twitched in tandem, like puppets whose shoulder strings had been lightly jerked.

  Susan Grace regarded us a very long moment, half eyes utterly devoid of expression. Then she turned and disappeared down the hall.

  The atmosphere in the room was suddenly ice.

  “My, my, my.” Hoke’s chuckle was casual, but edged with something not previously there. “Kids.”

  “I’m sorry, Father.” Grandma kept her gaze on the gnarled old hands tightly clenched in her lap. “She knows better.”

  Ramsey gave me a sideways flick of a glance. His chin lifted ever so slightly. I nodded understanding, ignoring a melancholy pang. Ryan and I had used the same signal dozens of times.

  The deputy and I rose. So did Hoke. Grandma stayed where she was, eyes meeting no others.

  Seconds later Ramsey and I were outside in the late afternoon sun. Inexplicably, I was hearing that warning ping in my head. Not a full-throttle signal of danger, but a subliminal dispatch suggesting alertness.

  “Was the kid being sarcastic?” I asked.

  “A subtle zinger for Grandma? Maybe the priest?”

  I raised my brows.

  Ramsey raised his.

  “Think something’s off?” I asked.

  “Maybe.” Ramsey was again staring at the house.

  “Can’t you get a search warrant? Two. One for here and one for the Teague place?”

  “Based on what?”

  I was about to comment on the inconvenience of the Fourth Amendment. Stopped, realizing how much I’d sound like Slidell.

  —

  I got to Heatherhill just in time for dinner. The menu was loin of lamb, green beans with slivered almonds, parsleyed spring potatoes, pistachio mousse. The food was good on the plate, not just in print.

  Not so for Mama. She was listless and ate practically nothing. I tried to draw her into conversation, got mostly shoulders for my efforts. Even those responses were lame—limp little lifts, more hitches than shrugs.

  Still, Mama’s hair and makeup were flawless, her cashmere jogging suit perfectly matched to her tan Coach sneakers. I vowed to buy a small gift for Goose, already gone when I’d arrived.

  Mama didn’t ask about my work, about the overlooks and the remains that had excited her just a few days earlier. Except for one comment on the state of my nails, she didn’t criticize or critique. Mostly, she spent the time shut away in her own private world of thought.

  Desperate to engage her, I introduced the topic I’d been dodging so diligently. A topic I’d yet to share with her.

  “I have some news, Mama.”

  She gave a curious flick of one perfectly plucked brow.

  “Andrew Ryan has asked me to marry him.”

  That got her full attention. “Your French detective?”

  “French Canadian.”

  “How delightful. When is the wedding?”

  “I haven’t said yes.”

  “Do you love this man?” Asked after a long, scrutinizing look.

  “Yes.”

  “Then why on earth not?”

  “It’s hard to explain.”

  “You can’t keep brooding over Pete’s infidelity.”

  “My hesitation has nothing to do with that.” Deep down knowing that Pete’s betrayal had yet to grant me permission to leave the building. That now and then the pain still came knocking at the door. “Ryan is complicated.”

  Her face didn’t change, but I saw her turn inward to roll that around. Then she took both my hands in hers and said, “Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.”

  “Aristotle.”

  She nodded. “Do you feel such a connection with this man?”

  An icy clamp took hold of my tongue. For the life of me I could think of nothing to say.

  I stayed a couple of hours. We didn’t mention Ryan again. When I left, she absently turned one cheek for a kiss.

  Walking the path to my car, I couldn’t fend off the guilt coming at me on multiple fronts. Mama was on a downswing. I’d largely neglected her of late. Discussion of possible nuptials had done nothing to cheer her.

  Hazel Strike was dead, perhaps because I’d ignored her calls. Ryan was set to decamp, peeved that I’d continued to duck his proposal.

  I was nowhere on Cora Teague or the Brown Mountain bones. So far my actions had generated only vague suspicions, no solid leads. No hundred-watt bulbs lighting up over my head.

  I was so deeply immersed in self-reproach, at first I didn’t hear movement in the darkness behind me. Subtle noises that shouldn’t have been there. Suddenly, I was motionless, breath frozen, straining like some startled woodland creature.

  Yes.

  The airy swish of nylon. The soft crunch of gravel. Abruptly stilled. Far off, the blurry murmur of wind slipping through some secret passage.

  My mouth went dry. My heart pounded my ribs.

  My car was five yards ahead. I fumbled in my shoulder bag. Another harebrained move. Why hadn’t I carried the keys in my hand?

  Because no bogeyman lurked at Heatherhill. But someone or something was stalking me.

  Run! My mind screamed.

  Instead I whipped around.

  Saw a shadowy silhouette in the blackness.

  “Who is it?”

  No response.

  “Who’s there?”

  My adrenals were pumping hard. In the dark, the guy looked huge.

  Still nothing.

  “I’m armed.” Groping for pepper spray years past its shelf life.

  Finally, a flicker of movement. An arm going up? A wink of pale skin.

  “I want to talk to you.” The voice was surprisingly calm.

  “Stay back.” Mine wasn’t.

  Another subtle realignment of the shadows. Then footsteps. Heavy. Determined.

  It was a bad place for an encounter. Hedges lined both sides of the path. The parking lot to my rear was totally deserted. My pursuer blocked a return to River House.

  The footsteps were fast closing in.

  “Stop!” Inside my purse, I popped off the cap and death-gripped the can. If the spray failed, I’d kick the guy’s plums into his brainpan.

  The sheen of black hair. Eyes obscured by overprivileged bangs.

  My finger eased off the nozzle. My pulse dropped a micron.

  “Did you follow me here?”

  Susan Grace nodded, a shadowy shape-change in the gloom.

  “You lied to your grandmother about ballet.”

  “She can confess for both of us.” Deep and low and neutral. And it was impossible to read the expression on her face.

  “Why follow me?”

  “I want to find Mason.”

  “I ha
ve nothing to tell you.”

  “Are any of you really looking for him?”

  “Perhaps Cora and Mason don’t want to be found.”

  “Cora.” Bitter. “My brother would never ever leave without telling me where he was going.”

  “Where do you think he is?”

  She was so close I could hear the hitch in her breathing. I waited, letting her choose her own timing. “I have something to show you.”

  “Are you parked in the lot?” I jabbed a thumb over my shoulder.

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.” Hoping the kid wasn’t slit-my-throat nuts. “Let’s go to my car.”

  Two vehicles hulked dark in the otherwise empty quadrangle. I scanned for signs of a second presence, saw nothing but bushes, trees, and white picket fencing. While unlocking the Mazda, I transferred my iPhone to a jacket pocket for easier access.

  I got in and slid my purse between my belly and the wheel. Susan Grace tossed a backpack to the floor, then dropped onto the passenger side. When she swung her feet in, her knees were high and pressed tight to the dash.

  “Feel free to adjust the seat.”

  She did.

  Seconds passed. A full minute. Again, I held my tongue, not wanting to press.

  “My life’s like living the freakin’ Song of Bernadette.” I assumed she meant the Henry King film.

  “I was raised Catholic.” Seeking common ground. “My father loved that movie.”

  “Catholic?” She laughed, a quick angry scrape. “You met my psycho grandmother and her Nazi priest. We’re not just Catholic. We’re über-Catholic. Supercolossal kick-ass-and-take-no-prisoners Catholic.

  “We pray in Latin because English isn’t pious enough. We beg forgiveness on bloody knees because God demands penance for sins we’ve never committed. Sins we’ve never thought of committing. Sins we’ve never even heard of.”

  “Are you talking about Jesus Lord Holiness?”

  “Of course I am. We are the righteous. The devout. We speak in tongues to the Holy Ghost. We shun the unanointed, the unbaptized, the unvirgin, the unclean. Pretty much anyone who isn’t us. And, whoa-ho! If you are one of us and you screw up, watch out. We have ways of punishing the wicked!”

  “Susan Grace—”

  “We follow rules even the pope has kicked to the curb.” Whipping sideways to face me, all round eyes and trembling lips. “We’re so goddamn sanctimonious, we’ve kicked the big guy himself to the curb!”

  She laughed again, that same humorless scratch of breath.

  I’d heard kids vent. Heard them curse a parent, a coach, a teacher who ousted them for wearing a Korn T-shirt to class. This was different. Susan Grace’s intensity suggested a fury that was deep and powerful.

  “I’m sorry.” Lame, but that’s what I said.

  “I don’t need a shoulder to cry on.” Brittle. Now embarrassed by her outburst.

  “What do you need?” I asked softly.

  “I need someone to find my brother.” After backhanding tears from her cheeks, she yanked a zipper on the backpack and pulled something free. “I heard the cop ask Grandma for a photo of Mason.”

  “You have one?”

  “No. But I have this.”

  She shoved the thing toward me. I took it and turned on the overhead light. Which was lousy, but good enough to identify a Black n’ Red personal planner barely holding together at the binding.

  “There’s a picture. Use the ribbon.”

  I lifted the end of the narrow red satin placeholder. It took me to the middle of the journal.

  “Be careful. It’s old.”

  In the murky light I saw what looked like an illustration from an antique medical text. Though black and white, the image had the sepia dream quality characteristic of turn-of-the-century photographs. Yet the detail was clear.

  The subject, a male in his teens, was shown in four views. A full frontal head shot. A close-up of the neck. A close-up of the fingers and toes. A close-up of the mouth, upper lip curled back by a second party to reveal the dentition.

  The man had wispy blond hair and dark crescents below his eyes. Blotches of pigmentation cornered his mouth and formed irregular, netlike patterns on his neck. His fingernails looked brittle and weak. His toenails cut sideways across the ends of the first digits.

  But the subject’s most remarkable feature was his dentition. The incisors, both upper and lower, were reduced in size and flanked by daggerlike canines. On almost every tooth, the enamel was darkly dull in spots.

  At the top right, the collection of photos was identified as “Plate LXXXIV.” At the bottom left was printed: “Copyright, 1905, G. H. Fox.” Centered below the collage were the words “Ectodermal-Dental Syndrome of Unknown Origin.”

  “Who is it?” I asked.

  “When I found the pictures I showed them to Grandpa. He tossed a freaker. Said it was his older brother, Edward, who died a long time ago. Insisted I give him the page and never discuss it with Grandma. Totally off-limits. Like my parents.” Again she swiped at her cheeks, obviously fighting a blitzkrieg of emotions. “I staged my own hissy, so eventually he let me keep it.”

  “Why are you showing this to me?”

  “My brother looks like Edward.”

  Different. Unnatural. Evil made flesh.

  “Do you have the rest of the book?” Careful to mask my revulsion for Grandma’s medieval interpretation of Mason’s peculiarities.

  “No. Just this page. It’s, like, a hundred years old. Someone cut it out and saved it.”

  “Do you know who or why?”

  “Probably my grandfather. Here’s what I managed to worm out of him.”

  A short, thoughtful pause.

  “Grandpa was named for Oscar Mason, a photographer back at the turn of the century. Medical stuff mostly, but kind of famous. Grandpa’s family was living in New York then, and they were friends with Mason. Maybe neighbors. Anyway, Oscar Mason noticed something was off with Edward, and asked if he could take pictures of him. Some doctor put the pictures in a book and gave Great-Grandpa a copy as a thank-you.”

  An almost inaudible ting-a-ling. A galaxy away in my memory banks. Oscar Mason? G. H. Fox?

  “Susan Grace, I have to admit, I’m lost.”

  The young woman sat silent. Perhaps regretting her impulse to reach out to me. Perhaps deciding on a line in the sand—what to share, what to hold back.

  Apparently she decided on caution.

  “You need to talk to the Brices.” Voice whispery, eyes cutting left then right to take in the darkness outside our little bubble of light.

  “Who are the Brices?”

  “Cora Teague worked for them as a nanny.”

  “Go on.”

  “They used to be members of Jesus Lord Holiness.”

  “But not any longer?”

  “No.”

  “Why did they leave the church?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “Why did they fire Cora?”

  “I can’t say.”

  “There’s not much I can do with that.”

  Susan Grace leaned toward me, hands clenched on the edge of the center console. “Do you know about Eli?”

  “Eli Teague?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about him?”

  Absolute frozen silence.

  “Susan Grace?”

  “Eli didn’t fall down any stairs.” Hushed, but ardent.

  “What are you suggesting?”

  More silence.

  Wind nudged the car and whistled through the gaps surrounding the windows.

  “Susan Grace, it’s late. I’m going to have to—”

  “The Brice baby died on Cora Teague’s watch.”

  “Died how?” Something cold began congealing in my chest.

  “I don’t know.”

  “That’s why Cora was fired?”

  “That and other things. You need to talk to them. I think they live in Asheville now.”

  “Are you saying Cora
killed Eli and the Brice baby?” Using mind-bending effort to keep my voice steady.

  “My brother is nutso over Cora Teague. He’ll do anything for her. The woman is—” In the oozy light offered by the little overhead box, I could see one lip corner hitch up. “You know what Grandma calls her? A she-devil.”

  “I’m confused. Are you saying Mason might have left with Cora?”

  “Never without telling me.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “It’s like he’s possessed. He loves and hates her at the same time.” It was another nonanswer.

  “But you can’t be certain they aren’t together.”

  “Yes.” Susan Grace’s face went hard. “I can.” The angles and planes shifted as she struggled toward a decision about divulging further or cutting her losses. “Mason and Cora disappeared at the same time. July 2011. That’s true. But I talked to my brother almost every day after he left. And he wasn’t with her.”

  That stunned me. “Where was he?”

  “Johnson City, Tennessee.”

  “Why?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Where did Cora go?”

  “I never found out. And I really tried.”

  “Tried how?”

  “Mason asked me to watch for Cora. To play spy. I was a kid, it seemed like a fun game, Mission: Impossible or something. We were secret agents, but Mason was undercover, so I had to do the snooping and report to him.”

  “But you never saw her.”

  “Maybe once, at a convenience store. But I was in a car. We were going fast and I couldn’t really see the person’s face.”

  “How long did the game go on?”

  “A month, maybe a little longer.”

  “You spoke by mobile?”

  Susan Grace snorted. “God forbid I tread the treacherous landscape of mobile technology. Grandma would have a thrombo. Mason called me on a pay phone outside my school. We had prearranged times. It was all part of the game.”

  “What happened?”

  “In September, he just stopped. For a couple of weeks, I’d wait by the phone. He never called again.”

  “How did he get to Johnson City?”

  “Probably hitchhiked. When Mason put on a cap he looked pretty”—she glanced down at her hands—“normal.”

  “Do you know where Mason was staying?”

  “A motel. That’s all he’d say.”