Last Ditch Page 4

  Twelve years later, during my sophomore year at the University of Washington, she had a massive cerebral hemorrhage and died while repotting tuberous begonias. The doctor said she never knew what hit her. If the peaceful expression on her death face was any indication, I suspect he was correct in his assessment

  I never went in there again, and, to my knowledge, neither did my father. Instead, for months afterward, whenever I came by to see the old man, and he wasn't there, which, of course, was most of the time, I'd slip out into the backyard, kick up a few stones and pitch them at the squares of glass, shattering the individual panels one at a time, until the wooden frames stood open and empty, and the native sword fern and bracken began to reclaim the littered ground around the railroad tie foundation. If the old man noticed, he never said a word to me.

  Sometime back in the late eighties, while the place was rented, a freak windstorm tore a limb from the huge oak at the north end of the yard and dropped it onto the side of the little building, crushing half the roof and demolishing the whole south wall. Since then, it had stood as a ruin, a skeletal and deformed reminder of the impermanence of even the most artful joinery.

  Despite its seemingly decrepit state, the remaining structure fought us every step of the way. After failing to push it over by hand, we attached ropes to the upper comers of the nearest remaining wall. George and Norman manned one rope, Harold and I the other. On the count of three we commenced our "dragging stones for the pharaoh" impression. All we lacked was a bald guy with a drum.

  When I'd planned the job, I figured it wouldn't take much to pull the rest of it down. In my mind's eye, I'd imagined the moment when it came clattering to the ground and figured our biggest problem would be keeping out of the way as it fell. It didn't work out that way.

  Instead of collapsing before the might of our combined muscle, the old frame seemed to dig in its heels, to grit its jagged glass teeth, as if somehow determined to resist us for all it was worth. It came down incrementally, inch by stubborn inch, groaning and popping as each handmade joint fought for its integrity, never giving in to gravity, forcing us to pull it all the way .to the ground and then to jump up and down on it as it lay there. I think my mother would have liked that.

  I issued each of the fellas a pair of leather work gloves and a hammer. It took an hour to break the sash into pieces and feed it to the fire and another hour of raking through the debris to fill the wheelbarrow nearly to the top with shards of broken glass and yellowed window putty.

  By three-thirty, all that remained was the raised bed on which the greenhouse had once stood, a twelve-by-twenty-foot altar edged by ancient railroad ties. We were leaning on our rakes and resting on our laurels when Harold pointed to the raised rectangle which had once been the floor of the greenhouse. "How come nothin' grows in there, Leo? You'd think with all the years it would have growed over like the rest of this shit here."

  " 'Cause it's not dirt," I said. "It's cedar sawdust. They wanted to put in a concrete floor, but my mother insisted they fill it up with cedar sawdust. She -said it would be easier on the legs and back and keep the bugs away besides."

  "I remember," George said. "Ralphie got it for her from that old shake mill down by where he worked on the docks. A whole dump-truck load. Got it free, too. Your old man said he'd be damned if he was gonna pay good money for sawdust. Said the next thing you knew, they'd be charging us for bark."

  Harold nudged me with the handle of his rake.

  "Wasn't there some talk of schnapps?"

  "Rebecca's bringing it" I checked my watch. Three-thirty. "She should be along any minute now."

  I thought I may have detected rumblings of mutiny among the troops. I had a few more things I wanted to do, but they were right. It was time to quit. They'd put in a better day's work than I could have hoped for. A day of manual labor and a couple of six-packs each had made them dangerous to themselves and others. They'd had enough.

  Except for Norman. "What are we gonna burn next?" he wanted to know. I didn't like the way he was looking at the rest of us, so I decided to humor him. I pointed to the foundation.

  "The railroad ties," I said. "I've got a little earthmover coming in tomorrow. One of those little Bobcat front-loaders. He's going to spread the sawdust over the rest of the yard and then turn the whole thing over so we can plant grass." I reached up and clapped Norman on the shoulder. "Tell you what, big guy, if you're still rip-roarin' and ready to go, why don't you see if you can pry the ties off the sides."

  "And then burn 'em?" he leered.

  "Yeah," I said. "Then you can burn 'em."

  He lit out across the yard just as the back door opened and Rebecca stepped out onto the patio. She'd been home long enough to change into a pair of stonewashed jeans and a gray Husky T-shirt that said WOOOF across the front in big purple letters. She came down the four brick steps and stood by my side. She surveyed the yard.

  "Wow," she said. "You guys have been busy. The place looks great. It looks so much better back here with that eyesore gone."

  Normal returned from the garage with a five-foot metal pry bar which he jammed into the sawdust directly behind the ties.

  George and Harold wandered over to pay their respects. After the standard small talk, they began to shuffle nervously about until George finally took the lead. "Ah, Miss Duvall. You didn't by any chance ... I mean, Leo said you was going to ... I mean ... he said that when you got here . . ."

  Rebecca arched an eyebrow my way. I gave her the nod.

  "It's on the kitchen counter, George," she said.

  "Handy dandy," he said over his shoulder.

  We watched them disappear into the house.

  "Where's Ralph?" she asked.

  "He seemed to think yard work was beneath his dignity. He got all pissed off and left" "Ralph? Really?"

  Before I could reply, a resounding crack split the air and .the entire front wall of the foundation hit the ground with a thump. Norman grinned our way. Five feet of composted sawdust, deep brown, like devil's food cake, stood without support, perfect and molded. Actually more like marble cake, as a thin line of white ran about a third of the way down the center of the pile.

  Norman scooped a tie up under each arm and headed back toward his beloved fire. "Howdy, Miss Duvall," he said on the way by.

  I trotted along after him. "Put them on one at a time, Norman. We don't want the fire getting too big."

  "We don't?" He sounded surprised.

  Technically speaking, burning is illegal within the city limits. All afternoon, I'd been expecting a fire truck to show up. I didn't want to blow it now.

  "No, we don't," I insisted. "One at a time."

  When I turned back, Rebecca was over by the pile, down on one knee, picking at the sawdust with her finger. I moseyed over and stood next to her. She was using her manicured index finger to clear powdery debris out from around the white streak.

  "Cedar sawdust," I said. She ignored me.

  "Leo, go in the garage and get me one of those new paintbrushes we had left over from when we painted the trim in the study."

  "What—" I started.

  "Hurry," she said without looking up.

  "What's the problem?"

  "Will you just get the damn brush," she snapped.

  When I returned, she quickly tore the plastic protector from the brown bristles and started to brush away the loose material along the length of the streak, carefully exposing what appeared to be a long mottled stone of a grayish hue, thinner at the center than at its somewhat bulbous ends.

  Suddenly she got to her feet. Her face was flushed. She took a deep breath. "It's a femur," she said. "A what?"

  "The largest of the leg bones." "From what?"

  She put a hand on my shoulder. I could feel her trembling.

  "No, Leo," she said. "You don't understand. The question is not from what. The question is from who." "Who?"

  She nodded. "It's human."

  Chapter 4

  I Squinted my
eyes, squeezing the distant dots of light into a continuous river of yellow brilliance which flowed along the Interstate like luminous lava. Below the crowded highway, the same bright beams lived secondhand lives on the shimmering surface of Lake Union. Any illusion of tranquillity was short-lived, however, lasting only until a single-engined float plane taxied into view from the north, its red wing lights whirling, its long hollow feet gouging a cold reminder of darkness into the bright skin of the water.

  Rebecca leaned over and kissed me on the ear.

  "You okay?" she asked, rubbing the back of my neck.

  I sighed. "This is embarrassing."

  She patted me on the shoulder. "Believe me, Leo, I know what you mean," she said. "I had to call my own office to send a forensic team."

  I threw an arm across her shoulders and pulled her close to me. We'd been sitting together on the back steps for a couple of hours, twiddling our thumbs, trying to keep out of harm's way.

  It was three hours since I'd stuffed the Boys into a cab and sent them on their way, and the backyard looked like an archeological dig. Tommy Matsukawa led a team of three forensic technicians who, one trowel at a time, had removed the sawdust covering the skeleton, sifted the removed material through four successively finer screens and then checked what they had left with a metal detector.

  They'd set up a small bank of halogen lights at either end of the dig and now, when it seemed like they must be just about down to the bones, they brought in a shop vac to suck up the last of the dust. I was feeling about as whiny as the sound of the electric motor.

  It had been hard on Rebecca too, sitting there, not interfering, letting the people who worked for her do then-jobs. To make matters worse, Jeff Byrne, the medical examiner himself, had showed up about a half an hour ago, given us a curt nod and now hovered about the line between the light and the darkness like a vampire. Around here, the ME is an elected official, just another politician. Jeff Byrne hadn't cut into a cadaver in twenty years, but he knew a potential photo op when he saw one. Tommy turned off the vacuum cleaner, and suddenly all was quiet. The machine rattled as he pushed it over toward Mary Kenny, who stood with her hands thrust deep in the pockets of her bright yellow medical examiner's jacket, transfixed, staring off into space.

  "Go through this, will you, please, Mary," he said.

  Mary rolled it over to the side and began to remove the bag from the machine, as the other two technicians set up a thirty-five millimeter camera on a tripod and began taking pictures. I counted the flashes as they moved around the bones. Thirty-two flashes.

  When they'd finished, Jeff Byrne wandered over into the light and stood next to Tommy, looking down. He was a taciturn man of about sixty with a full head of curly hair, once blond, now turned a sour yellow. He wore a spotless gray suit with a burgundy silk tie pulled down and a pair of cordovan loafers. I suspected he'd been on his way to dinner when he got the call. Together, they made a complete circle of the foundation, pausing for a long while at the north end of the skeleton, kneeling, pointing and whispering between themselves and then continuing on around, checking the bones from all angles. When they were back where they began, Tommy shaded his eyes from the harsh light and cried out like a carnival barker.

  "Don't be shy, folks," he called. "Step right up and see the wonder of the ages, Queen Anne Man."

  I stayed put. Rebecca nudged me with her elbow. She knew I didn't trust Tommy. "It's just bones," she said. Yeah, sure.

  Nothing gave Tommy Matsukawa greater pleasure than grossing me out. He'd trained the clerical staff to buzz him whenever I'd stop by the ME's office to see Rebecca. Then he'd come trotting out .of the pathology lab with some rancid piece of festering flesh to wave under my nose.

  Rebecca grabbed my elbow and hauled me to my feet. "Come on," she whispered. Together, we walked down into the yard.

  I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't what I saw. I guess I'd been hoping that the body had been that of some unfortunate tramp, drunk, fallen into a sawdust bin and unknowingly dumped with that long-ago load of cedar bark, something like that. But even an amateur like me could see that there was no way that had happened. These bones were laid out too perfectly for that. These bones hadn't been dumped; they'd been carefully buried.

  I stood down by the feet as Rebecca slowly made her way around the skeleton. She started by pulling a small tape measure from her pocket and measuring the leg bone we'd first uncovered. She walked slowly, pausing again at the north end, pulling her glasses from her shirt pocket arid peering myopically at the top of the skull for a long moment and then moving on, working her way around the edge until she was back by my side. She took ahold of my arm and whispered in my ear.

  "A man," she said. "Six-two or -three. From the crowns on the lower teeth, probably quite affluent. Been in the ground at least twenty years, probably more. It's hard to tell because of what he's been buried in."

  I sensed a hitch in her delivery. "Yeah," I prodded.

  "The left hand is missing."

  I could tell from her eyes that she had more to say. "What else?"

  She took a deep breath and put on her Miss Professional face.

  "Gunshot wound to the back of the head."

  "You can tell all that from walking around a pile of bones?"

  She nodded. " 'Fraid so."

  "She's the best," Tommy piped in.

  She took me by the arm and led me over to the skeleton. She pointed down at the nearest leg. "You can tell from the length of the leg bone how tall a person was ..." She waffled her free hand. "Within an inch or so," she said. We took two steps before she stopped again.

  "The pelvis. It's a man. No question. Any first-year med student ..." she began.

  I was feeling numb by the time she pulled me up toward the head. She dropped her eyes to the skull and then looked over at Tommy.

  "May I?" she said.

  Tommy reached into the pocket of his jacket and produced a pair of rubber gloves. "Sure," he said. "Here." He passed her the gloves. "We're gonna tag and box it next anyway."

  Rebecca took the gloves and worked them on with expert ease. I don't know why, but when she reached down for the skull, I turned my head away, as if I didn't want this gaunt stranger to see my face. When I looked back, Rebecca held the skull in both hands. She looked up and spoke to Tommy.

  "You won't believe the condition of the bone," she said.

  "Solid?" he asked.

  She nodded. "Not a mark on it." She looked back at the rest of the bones. "Must have been the sawdust medium. No worms, no bugs, no boring insects. Nothing but microorganisms. It's perfect"

  Tommy Matsukawa agreed. "If it was complete you could use it as is, for a college lab skeleton. Amazing."

  Byrne spoke for the first time since he'd arrived.

  "I'm going to have to call SPD now," he said, pulling up his tie and smoothing the .sides of his hair with his palms. I watched as he walked to the far end of the yard and pulled a cellular phone from the inside pocket of his suit coat

  Rebecca turned the bottom of the skull my way. There was no denying the jagged hole, three-quarters of an inch across, at the base of the skull.

  "Entrance wound," she said.

  She gently turned the skull over and, using her gloved index finger, brushed away the thin layer of dust which clung stubbornly to the top of the cranium. She brought the skull toward her face as if to sniff it but instead pursed her lips and blew away the remaining dust revealing an unbroken expanse of smooth bone. "No exit wound," she announced. Tommy stepped over and leaned in. "I told you she was the best," he said. He reached down onto the grass at his feet and produced a fine wire screen in a wooden frame. "Shake it out in here," he said."

  I winced when Rebecca poked a gloved finger into the empty eye socket She worked the packed sawdust loose around the front of the skull until the material suddenly dropped down into the screen in a damp clump. Tommy leaned in close as she used her palm to spread the sawdust over the face of the scree
n.

  Tommy's eyes widened as he reached down into the screen and plucked something from the morass. He held it between the thumb and index finger of his right hand and blew away the remaining dust.

  "Voila," he enthused. "Thirty-caliber."

  "Thirty-two," Rebecca said.

  Tommy shook his head and curled an eyebrow. "Lunch?"

  "You're on," she said.

  He produced a small glass vial and dropped the slug in with a click. "So much for cause of death," he said.

  I demonstrated my unusually keen perception of the obvious.

  "One shot to the back of the head," I said.

  Tommy nodded. "You see 'em like this when they lay down on the floor and the perp puts the gun right up to the back of the head. It's the pro approach because it virtually eliminates blood spatter."

  "An assassination," I said.

  He tried to lighten things up. "Either that or the guy was murdered by a midget"

  My smile must have been less than convincing. His eyes got big and he quickly stepped back out of arm's reach. Rebecca scowled and wagged a finger at me. After I nodded grudgingly, she bent at the waist and put the skull back where she'd found it and then straightened up. She looked deep into my eyes, sort of like when she wants something she knows I'm not going to want to give.

  "Might not be the worst idea in the world to call Jed now," she said. "Just to be safe."

  I shook my head. "Remember ... he took Sarah to Paris for a second honeymoon," I said.

  "That's right. Maybe we should call his service to see who's covering for him?"

  "Let's hang tight and see what happens," I said.