The Bone House Part 9

He blinked as Lala said his name and heard concern in her voice. He rocked back in his chair and reached for the bag of plantain chips, but it was empty. He forced a smile on to his face. 'Moh-skee-toh,' he said, drawing out her nickname, talking loudly enough to cause others in the department to turn and watch them.

Lala shook her head in disgust, then leaned closer and hissed under her breath, 'Why do you do that?'

'What?'

'Push people away.'

'Is that what I'm doing?' he asked.

'You know d.a.m.n well it is.'

She was right. He'd become an expert at keeping women on the far side of his safety zone. Those he liked, like Lala, were the ones he worked hardest to alienate.

'Fine,' she said, when he didn't reply. 'Be an a.s.s. I don't care.'

Cab wanted to apologize, but he swallowed it down. 'Yes, Glory saw someone she knew,' he said. 'That's the story. Troy thinks she was talking about Mark Bradley, but he's just guessing. Glory didn't say who it was.'

Lala waited before she said anything else. When she spoke again, the softness in her tone was gone, replaced by cool detachment. She'd opened the door; he'd slammed it shut. That was his pattern.

'Do you think Troy is telling the truth?' she asked calmly. 'Did Glory really say anything like that, or is he simply trying to point us toward Bradley?'

Cab shrugged. 'I don't believe Troy is enough of a deep thinker to come up with a plan like that. He says he's certain that Bradley killed her. If he was going to lie, I think he'd just say that Glory said she saw Bradley on Friday night.'

'What about Tresa? Did Glory say anything to her about recognizing someone?'

'Apparently not.'

'Well, Troy backs up what Ronnie Trask told us,' Lala pointed out. 'Glory saw someone she knew, and for some reason she freaked and ran.'

'Too bad, I was hoping Trask made the whole thing up,' Cab said. 'The question is who Glory saw.'

'Could it be Mark Bradley?'

'Sure it could. Troy's guessing, but he may be right. What did you find out about Bradley and the Fischers?'

'I called the sheriff's department in Sturgeon Bay, which is the county seat for Door County,' Lala told him. 'I talked to the sheriff himself, tough old goat named Felix Reich. He said that pretty much everyone in the department believed Bradley was having s.e.x with the girl. That would have been a misdemeanor a.s.sault in Wisconsin given their ages, but Tresa was adamant in denying the affair. No witness, no charges. Even so, Bradley wound up losing his teaching job. Tresa's mother, Delia, kept calling for his head. The district called it budgetary, but no one expected the school to keep him on. He hasn't found another job.'

'So he's got reason to be p.i.s.sed off.'

'Yes, but I'm not seeing any motive for him to kill Glory,' Lala pointed out. 'No one accused them of having an affair.'

'That doesn't mean they weren't.'

'You're pretty cynical, Cab. For what it's worth, the sheriff had some things to tell me about Glory, too.'

Cab raised an eyebrow. 'Such as?'

'She was a troubled kid. Multiple arrests going back several years.' 'Several years? She's only sixteen.'

'Yeah, her first drug possession bust was at age twelve, and it wasn't her last. The local cops think she may have done some selling, too, although she was never actually charged. She was involved in vandalism, shoplifting, breaking and entering. It's not a happy picture.'

'Have there been any problems reported at the hotel this week?'

'The usual minor stuff. Glory's name didn't come up.'

'If we can pin this on someone, the defense is going to say Glory got involved with the local drug scene or hooked up with the wrong crowd.'

'That may be what happened,' Lala told him.

'Yeah, I know. Maybe. Let's keep talking to everyone we can, but put an emphasis on girls who were at the event center on Friday. I want to see if we can find someone who saw Glory before she went running toward Ronnie Trask. I want to know who she recognized.'

'The Bradleys are the only other people in the hotel from Door County,' Lala said.

'I know, but it sounds like Door County is a tourist area in Wisconsin. If Glory saw someone who visited visited the area but doesn't live there, that opens up a lot more possibilities. Particularly with a bunch of college kids staying at the hotel.' the area but doesn't live there, that opens up a lot more possibilities. Particularly with a bunch of college kids staying at the hotel.'

'We're looking for a needle, and the haystack just got a lot bigger,' Lala said.

'There were a lot of people at that compet.i.tion. Someone other than Ronnie Trask is bound to remember a girl running through the hall crying.'

Lala shrugged. 'Teenage girls do that all the time.'

'Yeah? I don't picture you doing that, Mosquito.'

'I was tougher than most,' she replied. After a moment, she added, 'You have a nickname, too, you know.'

'Catch-a-Cab Bolton,' he said, nodding.

'You know about it?'

'Sure. I know about the betting pool, too. When will Cab quit and move on? It's been two years. The welcome mat is wearing thin.'

'It's nothing to be proud of, Cab.'

'Did I say I was?' he asked.

'You never say anything.'

Cab opened his mouth to fire off a sarcastic reply, but for once he let it go. Then he asked, 'So what week do you have in the pool?'

'Next week, actually,' she said, without smiling.

'That soon?'

'I know you better than the others.'

It was as if she'd given him a terminal diagnosis. 'Well, if anyone's going to make money on me, I'd like it to be you.'

Lala didn't answer. Behind Cab's shoulder, someone gestured to her, and she climbed out of the chair and chatted with a uniformed officer in the doorway of the investigation division. When she returned, she was all business again. There wasn't time for anything personal between them, and he wondered if she was relieved by the interruption.

'You've got a visitor in the interview room,' Lala told him.

'Delia Fischer?' Cab asked, checking his watch. 'She's right on time.'

Lala shook her head. 'It's not her. It's Mark Bradley. And his attorney. They want to talk.'

Chapter Eleven.

Hilary Bradley emerged out of the Naples Police headquarters building into the bright suns.h.i.+ne. She slipped sungla.s.ses on to her face. She stopped on the circular brick walkway and hesitated, unsure where to go. Mark was upstairs, and she a.s.sumed the police would interview him for an hour or more. At least he wasn't alone in facing their questions. She liked the attorney they'd hired; he was a bulldog, according to her father. It was the smart thing to do to get help, but she knew Mark was right about perceptions. The police would see him with a lawyer, and one word would jump into their heads.

Guilty.

She'd heard it in her father's voice, too. Her parents had stood behind Mark last year, because Hilary had convinced them he was innocent. Now she'd gone back to the well, and this time, there was an unspoken doubt in their reactions. They didn't know what to believe anymore. They probably wondered what she she believed and whether she was being honest about her suspicions. But they had stayed silent. believed and whether she was being honest about her suspicions. But they had stayed silent.

Hilary stood in front of the pink stone building and saw a police cruiser glide up to the curb twenty feet away. The front pa.s.senger door opened, and she stiffened with dismay as she recognized the woman climbing out.

It was Delia Fischer. Glory and Tresa's mother.

Delia's head swiveled as she looked up at the two-story building, and her eyes were vacant, as if she was lost and overwhelmed. Her stare pa.s.sed over Hilary without recognition, and then, slowly, horribly, it came back and landed on her and froze there. They confronted each other across the sidewalk. Hilary took off her sungla.s.ses and nodded at Delia. There was no point in pretending.

Glory's mother approached without saying a word. She was several inches shorter than Hilary. She looked beaten and exhausted, with deep worry lines furrowed in her brow and around her mouth. Her cheaply colored blond hair was tied in a ponytail. She was rail-thin, a woman in her mid-forties who looked ten years older than she was. She wore spiral earrings made from aluminum cans; that was one of the eBay businesses she used to earn extra money in the off season. If you weren't rich in Door County, you always had something going on the side to make ends meet. Hilary had bought some of Delia's jewelry as a gesture of friends.h.i.+p the previous year, before everything erupted over Tresa.

Despite their history with her, Hilary had never been able to hate Delia. She understood the emotions that drove her. Delia was a single mother struggling with two teenage girls, fiercely proud and protective. Hilary could easily imagine the stunned fury Delia had felt in reading Tresa's diary, believing that her child had been exploited and abused by a man she trusted. All of that anger had landed on Mark's head, regardless of Tresa's denials. If Hilary had been in her shoes, she probably would have done exactly what Delia did - launch a crusade to destroy the man who had stolen her daughter's innocence.

Hilary didn't think that Delia had ever suffered a pang of doubt. She was convinced she was right and would never believe otherwise. In her eyes, Mark was a child molester who deserved the ostracism he'd received. Now, like a bad dream, he was back in her life, violating her family again in an even more terrible way than before.

'Mrs Fischer, I'm so sorry,' Hilary began. 'Mark and I-'

'Don't you dare.'' Delia cut her off in a voice hoa.r.s.e with bitterness. 'Don't you dare defend him. Don't you dare speak his name in front of me.' Delia cut her off in a voice hoa.r.s.e with bitterness. 'Don't you dare defend him. Don't you dare speak his name in front of me.'

'Mrs Fischer, please. I understand your grief.'

Delia's cheeks flushed. 'You don't know the first thing about my grief, so don't pretend that you do. Everyone says how smart and attractive you are, and all I see is a woman who's a fool. You're married to a monster, and you won't admit it to yourself. Maybe if you'd opened your eyes last year, my daughter would still be alive.'

'Mark didn't do this,' Hilary told her, but she knew her words were useless, and she almost regretted saying them.

Delia flinched, as if she might slap Hilary's face, but then she closed her eyes and breathed heavily. When she opened her eyes again, Hilary felt a wave of violence breaching the small s.p.a.ce between them. The policeman coughed, like a gentle warning to draw their attention, but Delia ignored him.

'I almost feel sorry for you,' Delia said, 'trying to convince yourself that he's not evil. But then I think, you must know, and you just don't care. Because you're not not a fool, are you? You really are as smart as everyone says. So I guess you've just decided you'll protect him regardless of what he's done.' a fool, are you? You really are as smart as everyone says. So I guess you've just decided you'll protect him regardless of what he's done.'

Hilary noticed that other people coming and going from the police building had begun to stop and watch them. She felt a burn of embarra.s.sment. It was familiar; she'd learned to expect stares from strangers. She knew that Delia was las.h.i.+ng out in pain and desperation, and she knew that there was no way for her to bridge the divide between them. If anyone could comfort Delia, it wasn't her. Her presence just made it worse.

'I should go,' Hilary told her. 'You may not believe me, and it doesn't matter, but I'm very sorry about Glory. You're right, I can't understand your grief. I can't imagine losing your daughter. It may mean nothing coming from me, but I'm hurting for you. I really am.'

Delia's face was impa.s.sive. Hilary hadn't expected to reach her. The policeman approached Delia and touched her elbow in order to guide her toward the door of the building. Delia allowed herself to be led, but she pulled away abruptly and jabbed a finger at Hilary's face.

'Do you have any idea what he took from me?' she shouted. 'Glory was my baby! I almost lost her once, and I thought I got a second chance. But now I've lost her all over again because of you and your husband. He took her away from me. It wasn't enough what he did to Tresa. He had to go after my baby, too.'

Hilary said nothing. She stood there and let the woman vent her despair.

'Mrs Fischer,' the policeman murmured. 'Let's go inside.'

'Well, you know what?' Delia continued, screaming at Hilary now.

'He's not going to get away with it! I promise you that. Not again. This time I'm going to make sure he pays for what he did to us!'

Troy Geier sat on a concrete bench in the lobby of the police building. His back was slumped as he leaned forward, and his hands dangled between his thick thighs. Tresa sat next to him, as straight as a board. They both watched the altercation outside between Delia Fischer and Hilary Bradley, and the noise of Delia's screaming cut through the gla.s.s windows, clear and shrill.

Tresa didn't look at Troy. 'You told my mom, didn't you? You told her you thought that Mark did this.'

'What the h.e.l.l was I supposed to say?' he muttered.

'You b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Mark would never hurt Glory.'

Troy blew out his breath in a disgusted sigh. 's.h.i.+t, Tresa, listen to yourself. You're more concerned with your teacher boyfriend than you are with your sister. Glory's dead, and you're still protecting him. What do you think? He's going to leave his wife for you?'

'You don't know anything,' Tresa snapped.

'No? Who the h.e.l.l else do you think did this?'

'It wasn't Mark.'

Troy shook his head. 'You're actually jealous, aren't you? Jesus. The f.u.c.king pervert was stalking Glory, and all you can think about is yourself.'

'You have no idea what you're talking about. There was nothing between Mark and Glory.'

'Oh, come on, Bradley obviously had a hard-on for her, the son of a b.i.t.c.h.'

Tresa shoved him, which was like pus.h.i.+ng against the trunk of a tree. 'Shut up, Troy, just shut your mouth. You think Glory was so sweet? Do you have any idea how many boys she slept with?'

'Don't talk like that!'

'What, I'm supposed to pretend she was a princess because she's dead? Sorry, I won't do that. She probably came on to some biker on the beach, or she tried to buy drugs from the wrong person. Wake up, Troy. Glory used you like she used everyone.'

'I loved her,' Troy murmured.

'I loved her too, but she got a free pa.s.s for everything. Mom's probably out there right now wis.h.i.+ng it was me that died.'

'That's crazy.'

'Yeah? For the last six years, I've been invisible. Everything's been about Glory. Ever since the fire.'