Bones (12 page)

The lawyer began emptying the pack out on the bed, which was soon covered with a camp stove, a cooking set, a flashlight, a poncho, a water bottle, matches, a roll of toilet paper, and all sorts of other gear, including an impressive array of clothing. It must have killed him to march around in the mountains with all of that on his back, Frank thought, making an effort to control his amusement.

Newly smiled up from the middle of the mess he had made. He held a pair of jeans in his hands. "Would you mind taking these to the nurses' station and asking them to cut off the bottom half of this pant leg? The left one. Otherwise, I'll never get these on over the cast. I'll start getting dressed while you do that."

Suppressing a desire to tell him what he could do with his pant leg, remembering that he needed the lawyer's help, Frank said, "All right."

"So your friend thinks I'm a tailor," the nurse said, but took the jeans from Frank. She was a young, slender redhead--a woman with an air of self-possession that he thought must serve her well in this job.

"Don't feel so sorry for yourself," he answered, which made her look up at him. "He thinks I'm his chauffeur and valet--but he knows he's not my friend."

She held her head to one side, studying him, and smiled. "No, I don't suppose you are his friend. What puts you in charge of his pants--dare I ask?"

"Just trying to get him out of here. I'm giving him a ride home."

"Thank you! We can't wait for that pain in the ass to leave."

"I can understand that," he said, smiling back at her.

She glanced at his left hand, saw the ring, and went back to cutting the pants.

He did his best to repack the backpack while Newly finished dressing. He had just fit the cookset in when he came across something that, at first glance, he thought was a cellular phone--but he quickly realized it couldn't be.

"Is this a GPS receiver?" he asked.

Newly looked up from his efforts to put a sock on his right foot--although not broken or in a cast, it was badly blistered. Seeing it, Frank didn't feel so bad about fetching the backpack.

"Yes," Newly answered, holding out a hand. "Here--I'll show you how it works."

He spent a few minutes proudly demonstrating the unit, then asked Frank to help him put one of his hiking boots--the only shoes he had with him--on his tender right foot.

The nurse Frank had met earlier brought a wheelchair in and offered to escort them down to the hospital lobby.

"Everybody knows that you don't let patients leave without wheeling them out of here," Newly said.

"Undoubtedly thanks to people in your profession," she said.

He laughed and cheerfully admitted that it just might be so. As she helped Newly out of the bed, Newly put an arm around her shoulder and winked broadly at Frank. Frank ignored it and answered the nurse's question about what he did for a living. This resulted in an animated conversation that lasted until they reached the lobby. He left them to get the car; by the time he brought it around to where they waited, Frank could see that in another few minutes, she might have gladly rolled Newly out into traffic.

Frank had already put the backpack on the backseat, and now he opened the car door as the nurse was bending to lower the wheelchair's footrest. Newly said, "Frank is married to a good-looking brunette, you know. But I'm available!"

"Phil," she said, helping him to stand up, "as surprising as that news is to me, I have to tell you this: There are lots of women who would pursue Frank even though he's married. But even though you're single--well, let's just say, I hope you're rich."

She was moving away before he shouted, "I am!"

She didn't look back.

"Well, how do you like that!" he said, laughing.

He joked about himself when recounting the tale of blistering his feet. "And the worst part," he said, "is the number of lectures I've endured from this foot specialist at the hospital."

He proceeded to give an imitation of the man; it made Frank laugh, and in this good humor he gave in to Newly's request that they stop off at a pharmacy not far from the lawyer's home. Newly insisted on trying to walk into the store on his own.

"Look," he said, "while I'm in there, could you rearrange my pack a little? I left the GPS on top, and I'm afraid it will fall out and break. Cost me about six hundred, you know, so I'd rather not smash it on my driveway."

Frank looked at him sharply, and saw, for the first time that day, the intelligent member of the Bar Association he had met in the courtroom--not the clowning klutz of the past hour or so.

Newly smiled and said, "Play around with the GPS if you like. This may take a while."

He was hobbling into the store before Frank could respond.

Frank knew a clear invitation when he heard one, and hesitated only long enough to try to figure out if Newly was setting him up somehow, or worse, setting the department up for problems by using him in some way. But he couldn't see how Newly could use this against him, and if it meant he'd know where Irene was right now, he'd risk it.

He wasn't going to ignore his instincts; he was going up there. If she didn't need him, fine. She might even be angry with him. At that thought, he smiled to himself. It wouldn't be the first time.

But the next thought sobered him--it was one thing to imagine that he might hike up there for no real reason, that she was fine. It was another to think of her hurt or in danger. If she was in trouble and he stayed home, he'd never forgive himself.

By the time Newly came out, he had written down every set of coordinates that had been stored in the GPS unit's memory during the two days Newly was in the mountains, and the GPS unit had been returned to the backpack.

"Did you get everything you need?" he asked Newly.

"Yes. And you?"

He hesitated, then said, "Yes. Tell me why you're helping me."

"Oh, I could try to make this sound quite innocent, and say I'm returning a kindness; that your wife was very good to me while we were hiking. She even went so far as to doctor my smelly, blistered feet. But it wouldn't be the truth."

He fell silent, and Frank wondered if he was going to leave it at that. But then he said, "A policeman comes to my hospital room. A man not connected with the case. He tells me that he is concerned about his wife. I involve him in some foolish business so that I can consider my situation. I have no difficulty believing that he is there for the reason he says he is; he's willing to take on demeaning errands in order to talk to me. He's genuinely worried about her. I'm concerned about her, too."

"Why?" Frank asked. "Has something--"

"Nothing. Nothing to be alarmed over. Not yet."

Frank's hands tightened on the wheel. "Does Parrish have something planned?"

"Undoubtedly." At Frank's look of alarm, Newly quickly added, "I don't know what he has planned, and I don't know if it involves your wife, except--well, no, I don't have any idea of what he has in mind."

"You're his lawyer!"

"Yes, but he doesn't confide in me. Not at all--I'll swear that to you, if you'd like. If I didn't feel certain that he's about to do something that will endanger his chances of avoiding the death penalty, I wouldn't be talking to you right now."

They had reached Newly's street, and the lawyer gave Frank his address. It was all Frank could do to concentrate on the house numbers painted on the curbs. It was an expensive neighborhood. Not many criminal defense lawyers made it this big, he knew. He found Newly's sprawling Spanish-style home. He pulled into the driveway and turned off the engine.

"You think he has some plan for Irene," he said to the lawyer. "You started to say so earlier."

"Nick Parrish . . . studies her. Stares at her."

Frank swore.

"Yes," Newly said. "I agree."

"I need to know--I need to know everything you can tell me about where they were headed. Yes--I wrote down the coordinates. But where were they going from the last position?"

"I don't know."

"Newly--"

"I don't know! Punching me in the nose won't help you."

He relaxed his hands, made himself think. "The ranger who took you out--was he going to rejoin them?"

"Yes."

"How? Did they name a place?"

"No . . ." Newly grew thoughtful. "I was not very clear-headed at the time, but . . . oh! Now I remember! He said something to Andy, the botanist, about leaving trail signs. Does that help?"

"Yes," Frank said, almost laughing with relief. "Let me help you get settled in the house. I have a few more questions."

Newly sighed. "I thought you might. But I demand a price."

"Oh?" Frank said, wary again.

"I cannot tell you how anxious I am to throw these boots away. . . . I don't think I'll recover if I have to keep looking at them. Once we're inside, would you mind dropping them in the trash compactor for me?"

"With pleasure," Frank answered.

** CHAPTER 14

WEDNESDAY NIGHT, MAY 17

Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains

He lay on his back, drawing in one deep breath after another.

He modestly acknowledged to himself that he had failed to envision how magnificent it would be. The excitement of it bordered deliciously on the unbearable. A weaker man would have been forced to seek some kind of release. Not him. No, not him.

Earlier, before they had opened the plastic, he had dared to touch himself, just once, but he knew better than to try that now.

Her death scent was on all of them, but especially on those who had stayed closest to the grave throughout the day. The guards had taken turns, had gone to see her. They couldn't resist, of course. Pilgrims drawn to a holy place, he thought, remembering his delight as each returned, bathed in her incense.

But that little tease had been nothing compared to the moment when they brought her back. The memories of their time together--he had almost grown dizzy under the spell of the recollection.

Sheridan and Niles positively reeked of her, of course. That was delightful. How he envied Sheridan. Yes, it really was something near to jealousy--he had touched her. Thinking of Sheridan's gloved hand on her hand--oh!

He was drawn tight as a bow now, thinking of that, and so he made himself move his thoughts to safer ground.

He thought of Merrick roughing him up. Childish! Nothing could have made him feel better. He'd met Merrick before, in one form or another. Bullies. Schoolyard bullies, like Harvey Heusman in seventh grade. He knew how to handle them. He'd done it before. Harvey had been one of his first victims. He wondered idly whether they had ever found him. It had been many years since he had visited Harvey's grave, and realizing this, he felt a moment's remorse--not for killing Harvey, of course, but for failing to keep his appointed rounds.

Like a favorite story that had been read and re-read again and again, recalling the killing of his childhood enemy had long ago lost its power to excite him, but that did not make him less fond of the memory. Visiting the older burial sites could make him quite nostalgic, and he was not one to ignore them. He was good about paying homage to--well, to himself, really! The thought amused him.

Ah, that little humorous moment was enough to ease the tension a bit.

He returned to his very detailed recollections of this afternoon, about to reach his favorite moment. Yes, here she was, pale and looking a little tired--she didn't sleep well. He would have liked to believe that he caused her late-night restlessness, but on the first evening he had heard the sounds of one of her nightmares, and knew some other terror visited her. That was all right. He'd focus her fear where it belonged, all in due time. For now, it was enough to see the dark circles beneath her blue eyes, her hair falling forward across her face as she looked down for a moment as she walked.

She was coming closer now, closer, and--oh yes! She had the scent. He had breathed in deeply as she walked by him, smelling her scent and the dead woman's scent together, mingled and lovely, lovely, lovely. Thinking of it made him tremble.

Oh, it was so right, so exquisite! Anticipation hummed through him like an electric current. Everything was working so perfectly, and with everything working so perfectly, it was all that he could do to be still, to lie on his back in this tent, simply feeling his own blood moving through his veins, every nerve thrumming with the strength of his desire.