Page 33 of The Bone Hacker

I was hit with an uninvited barrage of images. Severed limbs. A spider/octopus tattoo. A gunshot wound to the chest. A mangled and decomposing corpse.

“Could the Deniz Been shooting be connected to these deaths?” I asked.

“Unlikely.” Musgrove executed another graceful shrug. “But, again, anything’s possible.”

“Could the TCI shootings be gang related?”

“Galloway, Palke, and Bonner were tourists. Murdering tourists would be atypical of the gang violence we see in Provo.”

“When do you plan to return home?”

“When I’ve completed what I must do here with regard to Deniz Been.”

“In the meantime, these remains are still lying outside exposed to the elements?”

Musgrove nodded. “Every article I read advised against rushing in without proper training and thus destroying possible evidence. If the bodies have been at the site long enough to skeletonize, the experts cautioned, a few days delay won’t hurt.”

What the hell.

I made a decision.

“Fine. I’ll go with you. Please make travel arrangements and let me know.”

“Thank you so much.”

Musgrove leapt to her feet. For a moment I feared she intended to hug me.

“In the meantime, you should meet with the detective handling Mr. Been’s case,” I said.

“My very next stop.” Looping the strap of her satchel back over her shoulder. “Does the bloke speak English?”

“Oh, yeah.”

I scribbled Claudel’s contact info and extended the Post-it to her.

10

WEDNESDAY, JULY10

Our 9:15 a.m. Air Canada flight took off at 10:06. The plane was full, and Musgrove and I were crammed into row twenty-three with a gray-haired woman of substantial girth. I was in the middle seat. The price one pays for last-minute booking.

I’m not one for chatty exchanges at thirty thousand feet. Call me callous, but I’ve no interest in the life stories of people I’ll never see again. Just leave me alone with my book. At the moment, I was enjoying Niall Williams’sThis Is Happiness. Getting a feel for me grannies and grampies on the old sod.

Musgrove, who’d forfeited her aisle seat up front to sit to my left, must have shared my thinking. She spent most of the flight flipping through magazines she’d purchased at an airport kiosk. An eclectic collection.Vanity Fair. Saltwater Sportsman. Simply Knitting.

The woman on my right was hopeless at reading nonverbal clues. Within an hour, I’d learned that her name was Giselle, she was from Boucherville, had six grandchildren, was traveling to TCI to visit two of them—Marlene and Teddy—and that her daughter’s divorce had not gone well.

To avoid a full dissertation on Giselle’s entire family tree, at the first break in the flow, I turned to ask Musgrove about her meeting with Claudel.

“He’s a lovely chap.” Dropping the fishing journal to her lap.

“Luc Claudel? At the SPVM?”

“Yes. He was brilliant.”

“Mmm.”

“I told Luc what I knew about Deniz Been’s background, his family, his juvie record, his wannabe status with the Cay Boys. Luc said he’d discovered that Been had a Quebecoise girlfriend.”

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