The Bone Man by Vicki Stiefel Read Free Book Online Page A

stop shaking. I was crying now, and my tears fell to the floor where her blood was congealing.
    What if Didi’s killer hid behind her desk when I’d entered the room?
    “MGAP,” said the voice. “How can I help you?”
    “Gert,” was all I could say.
    “She’s not here,” the voice said. “Can I help you?”
    I panted, two, three times.
    “Hello?” the voice said again.
    “This is Tally Whyte. Go to the CSS offices. Get some officers over to Dr. Didi’s office.”
    “Tal, this is Donna. We’ve got a bunch of—”
    “Go. Now. Do it.”
    I flipped the phone closed and slid down the door to the floor. A finger of Didi’s blood pooled around my foot, and I wept harder.
    “Tal?” Kranak said.
    I blinked a couple times. The hall was abuzz with forensics, an ME I didn’t recognize, and someone sobbing. I couldn’t see who. Someone, probably Kranak, had plastered crime scene tape across the door to Didi’s office. I looked away and into Kranak’s soft bloodshot eyes the color of charcoal.
    Funny. I felt a burst of happiness at seeing him.
    “Yes,” I said. “Yes. I’m okay. I’ve seen worse. But this is . . . Geesh, poor Didi. Damn!”
    “Yeah,” he said. “I gotta go back in. Gertie’s on her way.”
    I grabbed his sleeve. “Wait. The skull, the reconstruction. Where is it?”
    Even before he shook his head, I knew. I sighed, leaned back against the cinderblock wall, and sucked on the piece of ice Kranak had given me.
    Of course whoever done this had stolen the skull, the potsherds, and Didi’s reconstruction.
    I paced Kranak’s small cubicle, which wasn’t an easy thing to do. I waited and waited, and finally he lumbered in. He slipped off his wrinkled suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves.
    “Better,” he said. He sat on the leather-padded bench that rested against the cubicle wall. He shifted his bulk so the cubicle’s corner embraced him.
    I poured him a cup of tea from his stash and popped my Diet Coke.
    “Anything?” I asked as I handed him the steaming porcelain cup.
    He sipped, nodded, then scraped a hand through his bristly crew cut. “Little. Some trace. Shit. She was a friend.”
    I sat beside him and leaned against his shoulder. “I know.” Her bloody image flashed before my eyes. How long would it take to get rid of that damn picture?
    “Anything at all on the skull? The restoration?”
    His lips thinned. “We think that’s why . . .”
    “Me, too,” I said. “Even so, there was a huge amount of anger in her killing. A lot of passion.”
    He snorted. “Knew you’d say that.”
    “Well, sure. Obvious, isn’t it?”
    “Maybe,” he said. “Yeah. I guess. Or the killer’s trying to make us think that. For all the hell we know, the guy was out for bucks. Big market in those things, ya know.”
    “Reconstructions? No way that . . .”
    “The old skull, Tal.”
    “I can’t believe that. But I guess . . . well, I’d believe anything right about now.” I scraped my fingers through my hair. “So, what do you think ‘
bloodfet
’ means?”
    He took a sip of tea. “Huh?”
    “What do you mean, ‘huh’? The words Didi scrawled in her own blood.”
    “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, Tal.”
    I stood. I didn’t get why he was shining me on. “This isn’t funny, Rob.”
    He slid his teacup onto his desk before he shrugged on his jacket. “Ya got that right, at least.”
    Was I losing my mind?
“C’mon.” I dragged him back to Didi’s bloodstained office. Fewer people. The spatter guys, one of whom was perched on a ladder, were still taking measurements, but Didi’s body was gone. I’d soon be talking to her family. Except . . .
    I shook my head. I couldn’t quite see where she’d been resting. I moved forward, slipped under the tape to get a better look.
    “So?” Kranak said.
    I stared to the right and to the left of markers that indicated where her body had rested. I saw pools of blood congealing on the linoleum, but no words.