The Bone Box by Gregg Olsen Read Free Book Online

the grapevine that you’re trying to clear his name.”
    The grapevine on the reservation was more powerful than a satellite receiver. “It isn’t so much that,” Birdy said. “I don’t know what happened, but one thing that troubles me is all the violence against Anna Jo. They called it a rage killing. I don’t know what Tommy would have been so mad about.”
    â€œTrust me,” Carmona said, “he was mad. Do you need me to spell out what he did to her?”
    There was no use suggesting that Tommy wasn’t the killer. The focus had to be on gathering information and understanding. Not promoting something she wasn’t even sure about.
    â€œI guess so,” Birdy said. “What was it?”
    Carmona glanced through the window as a pair of headlights slowly meandered by. “You better go now. Let’s just let sleeping dogs lie,” she said.
    Birdy wasn’t ready. She wanted, needed some answers. “Didn’t he love Anna Jo?”
    â€œHe said he did,” she said, her words emphasizing the word “he” in a strange way. Birdy asked the victim’s mother what she meant.
    â€œLook, I know you have respect for our people,” Carmona said, her voice whistling a little through the gap in her front teeth. “I know you haven’t completely forgotten where you came from, so let’s just leave it at that. Let’s let Anna Jo be. Let her live in our memories as she was—not as you’d have her.”
    Carmona opened the door and held it for Birdy to pass. Birdy put her hand on the doorjamb to buy a moment more of conversation.
    â€œAnna Jo didn’t love Tommy, did she?”
    â€œGood-bye, Dr. Waterman. Let my daughter rest in peace.”

C HAPTER S IX
    It had been a quiet day in the Kitsap County Morgue, which meant it had been a good day. No one who worked there ever cursed their jobs because there was “nothing to do.” An empty chiller meant a day without carrying the hurt of someone else’s loss. A child. A wife. Even a friend. Birdy was in the midst of finishing up a supply order that needed to be filled when she looked up from her desk to see a woman in an orange North Face jacket and black jeans. The color combination was definitely on the Halloween side of the fashion wheel, which might have been intentional. The holiday was only a week away.
    â€œYou don’t remember me, Dr. Waterman,” the woman said, her voice soft and nearly reverential. She was slightly built, with the facial features of a Makah—intense eyes slashed above with eyebrows that never needed any help from Maybelline, and, most strikingly, a pronounced nose.
    Birdy looked her over, racking her brain. Who is this? There was something familiar about her, but Birdy couldn’t come up with a name.
    â€œI’m Iris,” the woman said. “I used to be Iris Bonners. Married to Randall Rostov now.”
    Birdy nodded. “Of course, I remember you,” she said, a little unconvincingly, as she worked hard to reel in some kind of memory. She did recall Randall Rostov; he was the son of the first Makah to run a whale-watching business catering to the tourists from Seattle. If Iris hadn’t said her maiden name, she would never have guessed who she was.
    Iris was Anna Jo Bonners’s little sister. She had been three or four grades behind Birdy in school, a gap of enough measure to ensure that their paths seldom crossed. It didn’t matter how small a school was. And the reservation school was small by any standards. Only eighty students graduated with Birdy—and only three of those went on to college.
    â€œIt’s okay if you don’t,” Iris said, taking off her jacket to reveal a cascade of black hair that had been tucked inside. “I was a lot younger than you.”
    Birdy smiled, a recollection finally coming to her. “I do,” she said. “I actually do. Weren’t you a