Page 15 of In the Bones
The place sounded perfect.
“You know what?” I said, my cheeks tight and hot with excitement. “I’m in.”
FOURTEEN
Mac
It was the teeth that did Mac in, a child-like gap between the incisors that gave the skeleton a twee grin. There were parts of the body that looked mummified, the flesh dry as jerky, but most of the soft tissue and hair was gone, leaving the ribs and spine and femurs clean as a Halloween prop. For a few horrifying moments, she’d thought they were dealing with a juvenile. A kid Alana’s age or younger, left to rot under a basement floor.
There were easier ways to hide a body. Dig a hole deep in the woods and let the tree roots bind it like a fly in silk. Slide it into the river, bottomless black on a moonless night. Neither course guaranteed the victim would stay gone, but those methods were far more furtive than this. A critical error had been made by encasing the decedent in a crawlspace, a fatal fact forgotten.
The dead can speak long after they’ve been whittled down to bone.
Mikko Helle’s basement was filling up. The Troop D BCI forensic identification unit was on its way up from Oneida to photograph and bag the body, after which the Troop evidence custodian would transport the evidence to the Albany Crime Lab. In the meantime, Art Daisy was on site, talking to Shana about the victim while she took notes in her little black book. Identifying the skeleton would be the top priority, but Mac knew it could take time.
Shana’s call to Mac had been a courtesy. The sheriff’s office and state police were two separate agencies, though they collaborated when needed. Homicides brought out more manpower, and there had been a number of instances when Mac worked alongside Tim and Shana to apprehend dangerous criminals.This was different, though. Shana had called because of Nicole, and Mac had never felt better about insisting, years ago, that her sister add the state police number to her phone. There was comfort in knowing her friends had been on site to confirm that Nicole was OK.
Her sister maintained that she was fine. Mac suspected that wouldn’t be the case when she heard what they’d found in the basement.
“So this woman sneaks in,” she said, “and in the process of squatting—”
“Phrogging,” said Tim, chasing the word with a shrug. “Shana says it’s a thing.”
“OK then, this woman isphrogging, and she finds a secret room with a body inside?”
“Hard to believe,” Tim admitted. “But yeah, that’s what she claims. We haven’t interviewed her yet, so all we know—if she’s being honest—is that she was here for four days.”
“This is an old farmhouse,” Mac said. “This crawlspace was probably used for cold storage in pre-refrigeration days. A woman her age isn’t likely to know that. Is she?”
“I don’t know,” said Tim, “but she may not have been the first one to find it. Look at these remains. This death didn’t happen four days ago.”
“You’re right about that,” said Art Daisy, looking up. Even in the dusty basement room, crouched over the gruesome remains, the medical examiner with the snow-white hair managed to elicit a supreme sense of calm.
“Decay rates are tricky,” Art explained. “We can make a pretty accurate estimate if we’re dealing with a death that’s a few days old, but the farther we are from the decedent’s demise, the harder it is to gauge.” Art explained that he typically provided a range: less than twenty-four hours, one to two days, less than a week, more than a week, more than a month. “This is definitely more than a month. Way more. Given the conditions down here—warm, dry, no animals to pick the bones clean—the death could have occurred up to a year ago.”
Mac noticed that Shana was gnawing at her bottom lip.“A year,” Shana repeated. “The new owner only moved in this week, right?”
“That’s right,” said Tim. “According to Nicole, he bought the place last summer and just moved in yesterday.”
“It looks like the cause of death is blunt force injury to the head,” said Art. “See this skull fracture? I’ll take a closer look at this mummified skin on the scalp. Might find a remnant laceration, though I wouldn’t put too much stock in that with remains this severely skeletonized.”
“What about gender?” asked Shana. “Any thoughts on that, Art?”
It wouldn’t have been such a big ask had the skeleton been dressed, but someone had stripped it. No ID or clothes of any kind.
“That’s guesswork, I’m afraid,” the ME said. With effort, he braced his gloved hands on his knees and pulled his bent body to standing. “Based on size and the shape of the pelvis, I’m fairly certain these remains belong to a woman. I’ll see if I can find a dental match. With no fingerprints left, our options are limited. Not a lot of circumstantial evidence here to help us out either—unless you know something I don’t?”
Mac understood what Art was getting at: he wanted to know if it was possible that the victim had ties to the house. He looked to Tim, who said, “Nothing yet on the previous owner, but that’s the first order of business. That, and interviewing Mikko Helle.”
“The timeline of this whole thing’s going to be key,” Mac put in. Whoever the body belonged to, they hadn’t closed themselves in the crawlspace to die, not after sustaining a blow to the head. Someone else had accessed the house and located the secret room, sealing them in like a corpse in a crypt.
“That, and reining in the press,” added Shana. “The second it gets out that the bones were found in an ex-NHL player’s basement, all eyes are going to be on this case.”
Mac nodded, but in truth, it was only a matter of time before the crime tape outside drew them out, wide-eyed lemurs skulking at the barrier that separated death from life. The interviews would raise questions and spawn rumors. Strip thetroop of control over the narrative. Staying ahead of this one would be crucial, because a lot of fearful people would be clamoring for an arrest.
Mac would need to consider preparing a statement, and not just to soften the emotional blow. She knew from experience that vague missives about an “ongoing investigation” didn’t fly with residents of small communities that protected their own. She was worried, too, about Bruce Milton. Sure as shit, he’d find a way to spin the discovery as further evidence of Sheriff McIntyre’s failure to keep violent crime in check.
“Mac,” Shana said, catching her eye, “I’ve asked Tim and Val to take Nicole in for questioning. I know that might be weird for you.”
