Twenty-Seven Bones

13

Forty-five minutes after finding the bodies, Pender called the Chief from his cruiser.

Coffee was furious. It wasn’t that anybody thought Bennie had a chance of getting out of the cave complex alive. Julian had seen the postmortem battering the first two corpses had been subjected to on their way from the Oubliette to the sea. And while they hadn’t found the outlet yet (and wouldn’t until one of their officers rappelled down the cliff on Friday) they knew it had to be pretty high up there-unless Bennie had somehow turned into Spider-Man, even if he’d survived the watery crawl, he would have been facing quite a fall.

But having read the Epp manuscript, Julian was all too aware of how lucky the department had been. If the Oubliette hadn’t communicated with the sea, they’d never have found the first two bodies, never have known they’d had a serial killer on their hands until…Well, until a lot more people had died.

And he didn’t even want to think about what might have happened if it hadn’t been for Pender’s hunch. That was the only good move Julian felt he’d made in the entire investigation-bringing Pender in-and now it was Pender who’d come up with the last remaining piece of the puzzle.

After dispatching Layla and her crime scene van, Julian hurried to his car. He met Henry Hamilton in the lobby, grabbed him by the lapels. “I thought I told you I wanted the cliffs checked out on a regular basis, until further notice.”

“I took cyare of it m’self, Chief,” replied Hamilton, in a wounded tone of voice. “Every day on my way home, I drive by dot way, look over de cliff. What could be more regular?”

“Henry, have I demoted you lately?”

“Not since last wintah, Chief.”

“Good. You’re busted down to uniform, me son-if you can find one to fit dot belly.”

Layla’s van was parked behind Pender’s cruiser. It was just past high tide; the rocks were still wet. Julian took off his shoes and socks, rolled his uniform trousers up to midcalf, and picked his way up the slippery path to the honeycombed ledge.

Layla was still photographing the scene. Julian, Pender, and two uniforms waited until she had finished before separating the bodies and untying the drawstring tied to Bennie’s ankle. Layla handed the bag to Pender. “You do the honors.”

The others gathered round. Pender donned a fresh pair of gloves, unzipped the bag, reached in, pulled out a coverless copy of Moby-Dick, and five plastic freezer bags, four of which contained loose bones, and the fifth, two severed hands. “That’s all there is, there ain’t no more,” he said. “Elvis has left the building.”

He handed the last bag to Julian, who held it out at arm’s length. “Think he made it across the bridge to the other side?” asked Julian, who besides Pender was the only one present to have read the Epp manuscript.

“I hope not,” said Pender. “I hope the son of a bitch is still falling.”