Page 29 of Making His Bones

“Oh, God.”

“I’m sorry.” I stuck the piece of bone back into the paper towel I’d brought it in, then back into my purse. I had to remember, not everyone was as immune in the face of science as I was. We both turned to face the oncoming path. Gray hugged me to his shoulder, scratching the back of my head, awkwardly the same spot as the piece of occipital bone I had. The sanitation pond level was high, as it was when the psycho had thrown the suitcase in.

Cops tried to say, in retrospect, that Delilah was most likely dead by the time I called 911 at nine o’clock. But I was waiting on a callback from the mother of her friend, where I’d thought she’d gone after the church daycare. Nothing scary had ever, ever happened in that homey little trailer park. No one had even taken a newspaper from a driveway. Kids tossed cigarette butts, that was about it. There was no reason for me to think Delilah wasn’t at Hannah’s house. But the cops sure used it as a “clue” to me being the murderer.

I looked at the spot in the still water where the suitcase had been revealed during the pond drainage. “Her friend’s mother kept saying an Eddie Bauer suitcase was stolen from her driveway.”

“Really? And nobody looked into that?”

“Eh. That woman is slightly unbalanced. She was just looking for attention. But it did kind of shine light on her grandfather—Bud Pitchfork.”

“You’re fucking kidding. Your daughter was friends with Bud Pitchfork’s granddaughter? That’s too fucking coincidental. He could’ve easily stopped by their house, even taken the suitcase. Well, Tobiah is going through records right now, finding all the properties owned by Pitchfork and the church. Tobiah’s talking about flying his gyrocopter over whichever property we think is the most suspicious.”

“He just wants an excuse to ride a gyrocopter.”

“Yeah. And it would draw a lot of attention toward us.”

Breathing deeply, I tore myself away from Gray’s comforting embrace and walked toward the suitcase site. “I have a feeling we should just force the cops to bust the porn op behind the Vinyl Resting Place. I know you guys don’t do that sort of thing in your club.”

“No, we don’t. We take care of things ourselves.”

“But I just can’t stomach the thought of them getting away with that day by day as we figure out who’s sending these kids into the desert to die.”

“Or who killed Delilah.”

I stopped then, not because Gray had stated a painful reality for me, but because we were as close to the suitcase site as we could get. I took out the skull piece, not caring whether it creeped Gray or not, and held it up to the placid water.

I started out in a shaky tone and gained confidence as I went.

“Time does not bring relief; you all have lied

Who told me time would ease me of my pain!

I miss her in the weeping of the rain

I want her at the shrinking of the tide

There are a hundred places where I fear

To go, so with her memory they brim

And entering with relief some quiet place

Where never fell her foot or shone her face

I say, ‘there is no memory of her here!’

And so stand stricken, so remembering her.”

We stood silently side by side. It seemed to me the emotion rose like a swelling tidal wave—that even Gray was tortured with pain. But of all fucking things to happen, my phone rang. I wasn’t about to answer any old call, but I saw it was Booker Maverick. I held up the “just one minute” finger to Gray as I walked off, stuffing the skull back into my purse. What an anticlimax to the profound poem.

“Booker.”

“Elektra,” he said warmly, all chipper and bursting with success, like a good FBI agent.

I really hadn’t thought much about him lately. I knew he had a crush on me—or maybe it was more like a steady pressure. He had never “done it” for me, certainly not in the way Gray did. My qualifications in men were quirky and unpredictable. For instance, I always thought I only adored tall, dark and handsome men. But now I was falling in love—listen to that, “falling in love”—with a tall, sandy and handsome man. And I was pretty sure he wasn’t an alcoholic, or a drug addict, like most or all of the men I’d dated.

“How are things going in Seeker?” Booker asked. “You didn’t say much about that in your email. You’re staying in Pure and Easy? Where Kneecap was arrested?”