Murder Bone by Bone by Lora Roberts Read Free Book Online

the gory details of my past had been displayed rather spectacularly over the past year or so, especially among the group of writers that hung out together, I didn’t see why Melanie should have immunity. And since she’d grown up in Palo Alto, I was sure I could find out whatever I wanted to know. Then, next time she looked down her nose at me, I would find comfort in knowing she, too, was only human. Call me petty, but there it is.
    I cut another peanut butter sandwich into fourths. This time I got fancy and cut off the crusts, which no one was eating anyway. Corky left half of his peanut-butter banana on the table. Sam was wearing the peel now. Mick ate steadily through the sandwiches. Moira knuckled her eyes, leaving a smear of peanut butter on her cheek.
    The water boiled, and Melanie poured it into the coffee filter. Drake pushed the kitchen door open, sniffing.
    “Is there coffee?” He gave Melanie a smile, but she tossed her head. She did smile for Richard Grolen, though, who followed Drake through the door and stopped.
    “Unbelievable.” He looked around the kitchen. “It looks just the same. Well, maybe not just the same—new refrigerator, different furniture.”
    Drake gave him a look. “You used to live here, Mr. Grolen?”
    Richard Grolen pulled his head out of the pantry. “Different paint, too. The wainscoting used to be yellow and purple stripes.” He looked at Drake. “No, we—I lived across the street. But I was over here a good deal. Real tight group of people lived on this block, man. You know, Melanie.”
    Melanie squirmed a little. “Well, I was very busy then, Richard.”
    He started to argue. “You lived here for how long? A year?”
    “Richard—”
    He noticed her discomfort. “Right. We had some good times, though.”
    “Bit of a coincidence,” Drake said. His voice was casual, but his eyes were intent. “That you were the one who came to try and haul my bones away.”
    Richard held up his hands. “Now, wait a minute. I haven’t ceded you custody of those bones by any means.”
    Drake regarded him in an unfriendly fashion. “Look, Grolen. This is not an archaeological site. Pack your shovels and find somewhere else to dig.”
    “Now, Detective—” Richard Grolen gave Drake a charming smile.
    Drake didn’t smile back. “According to your own colleague, Ms. Blakely, the bones are very unlikely to be Costanoan or to have any historical significance, Dr. Grolen. What has significance for us is that they appear to have been deliberately placed under the sidewalk, which would limit them to the twentieth century—hardly interesting to archaeologists.”
    Richard Grolen raised an eyebrow. “Not at all. Since we do less digging of ancient ruins now than we used to—”
    “Less?” Claudia interrupted. “Why do you do less digging? Are there fewer ancient sites?”
    “We find new sites constantly,” Richard told her, warming to her interest. “But we know now that our methods of excavating are crude compared with techniques that will be used in the future. So our approach now is to preserve the sites until technology allows us to excavate without destroying what we’re trying to understand.”
    Drake had been fidgeting during this. “At any rate, we don’t want to preserve this site. We just want to get to the bottom of it.”
    Melanie giggled, and the rest of us smiled. “Why don’t you just let Richard’s group dig it up?” she said. “You’re going to dig it up anyway, right? It’ll save city resources to let him.”
    "That’s right,” Richard chimed in eagerly. I spared a thought for those students, presumably left outside while the grownups consulted.
    “I don’t want to wait weeks for you to finish, and I don’t think Bridget would either,” Drake pointed out. “I want that body out of there and evaluated by the coroner’s office so we can determine what we have.”
    "That’s going to be difficult if you just haul the bones out,” Richard said,