Part 8 (1/2)
”Really?” Wayne looked at him.
Derek nodded. ”I can't say for sure until I see the pelvis-the hip cradle is a dead giveaway-but it's either a woman or a very young man. The bones are less heavy than you'd find in a full-grown male skeleton, and they also look shorter. Judging from the length of the femur, the tibia, and fibula, you're looking at someone who was well under six feet in height. Because some people are long-waisted and short-legged, while others are the opposite, it's hard to determine without the entire skeleton, but from what you've got right now, I'd say you're looking at a person who was somewhere around five and a half feet tall at the time of death.” He bit into the pizza again.
”Interesting,” Wayne said. He pulled out his trusty notebook and pencil and made a notation.
Derek swallowed and added, ”Also someone youngish. The bones are brittle now, but there's no evidence of any arthritis or other bone disease prior to death. Also no fractures in what we've found so far.”
”So a young and healthy person, possibly a female, approximately five and a half feet tall. It's not much, but it's something. Anything else?”
Derek indicated Brandon, who cleared his throat. ”We found a couple of little metal thingamajigs-grommets or something-that we think may have come from a pair of jeans.”
”Thingamajigs,” Wayne repeated, straight-faced, his pencil poised. ”That's the technical term, is it? Not much help there, I'm afraid. Everybody in the world wears jeans these days.”
Including the chief of police, when off duty. I've seen him. A quick look around the kitchen showed me that every one of us, except for the two policemen in their uniforms, were dressed in denim, from Derek's comfortably threadbare Levi's to Shannon's seemingly brand-new hip-huggers, which fit her like a second skin.
”Where's Ricky?” Josh said, and it wasn't until then that it occurred to me that Ricky Swanson hadn't been standing here with us, partaking of the pizza and gruesome conversation.
”The last time I saw him, he went into the master bedroom.” I gestured down the hall. ”That's a few minutes ago, though.”
”I'll go,” Paige said quickly as Josh made to push off from the counter where he was leaning. She gave him a pat on the arm on the way past, and he smiled at her. Shannon quirked a brow, and Josh shrugged.
”I went to the newspaper archives while I was out,” I said, wondering what the byplay was all about.
”Yeah?” Wayne turned to me.
”I couldn't find anything about any missing persons any time in the past twenty years, though.”
He shook his head. ”Before Professor Wentworth disappeared this spring, we hadn't lost anybody for a long time. The few people who went missing always turned up within a couple of days. Some of them were dead, but we always found them.”
I nodded, but before I could bring out my other booty-the prom photographs of Derek and Brandon-Paige came trotting into the kitchen again. ”He's locked himself in the bathroom,” she said, her soft, little-girlish voice even softer than usual. ”I don't think he's feeling well. There were . . .” she hesitated delicately, ”noises.”
Wayne hid a grin. ”We should probably get back to work. If you think you've had enough to eat?” He glanced pointedly at Brandon, who was still chewing, but who thought it best to nod.
”See you, Tink.” Derek bent and gave me a quick peck on the lips before he followed the others toward the back door. I watched him walk away then flushed and started transferring slices of pizza into a single box when I caught Shannon's eye. She grinned.
No sooner had the back door closed and the crawls.p.a.ce door creaked open outside, than we heard a door close inside the house, as well. A moment later, Ricky shuffled around the corner and into the kitchen. And although it was difficult to see his face behind all the hair, he did seem a little pale. Shannon and Paige exclaimed when they saw him and started flitting around to see what they could do for him, which must have served to make poor Ricky feel even more uncomfortable and embarra.s.sed.
I turned to Josh. ”I came across your prom photos in the Weekly when I was in town just now.”
”My prom photos?” He reached for the pieces of copy paper I pulled out of my bag and unfolded them while he continued, ”Why would you want to see my prom photos?”
”I wasn't really looking for them. Venetia Rudolph, our next-door neighbor, told us there were squatters in the crawls.p.a.ce two years ago. I was looking for information about that, and then I came across the article about the prom.”
Josh nodded, grinning at the photographs. ”The Weekly does an article about the prom every year. Hey, Shannon, do you ever hear from Alan Whitaker? What's he up to these days?”
”The University of Kentucky,” Shannon said over her shoulder, still busy ministering to Ricky. ”Baseball scholars.h.i.+p.”
”Ri-i-i-ght.” Josh drew the word out, sarcastically. I could tell he didn't really like Alan Whitaker. Josh, while adorable in his lanky, bespectacled, brainy way, didn't quite have the golden-boy appeal of the blonde and athletic pseudo-Norse G.o.d in the photograph. Shannon rolled her eyes but didn't answer. Josh flipped through the stack of other articles while he was at it.
”More prom photos? Who's this? Oh, wait; that's Brandon, isn't it? And she's quite a knockout, isn't she? Wow!”
If he had hoped that Shannon would take an interest and come over to see who he thought was hot, Josh must have been disappointed when she just shook her head sadly, like a mother over the antics of her little boy. Josh's cheeks flushed, but he continued gamely. ”And is this Derek? Whoa! How long ago was this?”
”Seventeen years, give or take,” I said as Shannon abandoned Ricky to lean on Josh's shoulder. He handed the page to her. Paige looked worried, and she kept her hand under Ricky's elbow as they came closer. Just in case he toppled, I guess. Although I don't know what she'd be able to do if he did; he was approximately twice her size.
”Who's this?” Josh asked. I looked back to him and what he was looking at.
”Oh, that's Brian Murphy. The man who used to live in this house. The one who killed his family. That's his wife Peggy, in the bonnet. The Murphys had a son, as well. . . .”
I broke off to watch Ricky turn away with a muttered apology. He blundered toward the front door and almost fell over a big can of s.p.a.ckling paste on the way. The kid really needed a haircut, bad. Paige started after him, her elfin face worried. We heard the front door open and then close behind them both before anyone spoke.
”What's wrong with him?” Josh asked. Shannon shrugged, a tiny wrinkle between her brows.
”I guess maybe he got too close to the pizza?”
We looked at the pizza, a few feet away on the counter. Could be.
”I guess we'd better go, too.” Josh folded the papers again and handed them back to me. ”I'll go tell Dad we're outta here. You'd better try to catch up with them, see what's wrong.”
Shannon nodded, and with a polite good-bye to me, left.
She went out the front door, while Josh undoubtedly sneaked a peek at the excavations in the crawls.p.a.ce while he told his father that the four of them were leaving. I folded the papers back into my bag and finished cleaning up the pizza before I headed out the back door and down to the crawls.p.a.ce, too.
8.
”What now?!”
Wayne turned with a bark when he heard me come through the door, and then he calmed down when he saw me. ”Oh, it's you.”
”Sorry,” I said, straightening up. Unlike the tall chief of police, who had to stand hunched over, with his shoulders curled and his head retracted like a turtle's, I had plenty of headroom downstairs. ”Your son left and took his friends with him.”
Wayne nodded. ”He told me.”
”There's still a crowd outside the crime scene tape, and if it gets any bigger, you'll probably have to call in reinforcements.”
”I'll go out there and keep the peace in a minute. I just hope the newspapers don't get wind of this.”
”I didn't say anything to them,” I said, trying hard not to peer past him to the excavation. It drew me, even as I didn't want to look at it.
”You want to see?” Wayne asked. ”From a safe distance?”
I shook my head. ”I don't think so.”
”You sure?” Derek asked. He was standing with his hands in his pockets, watching, as Brandon labored on his hands and knees in the dirt. ”They're just bones. And it'll probably be the only chance you'll ever have to see a human skeleton in situ.”
”Let's hope.” But I minced closer and glanced into the shallow pit Brandon had excavated, catching a glimpse of the discolored bones of an arm and a leg, before turning away. ”Lovely.”