Bone Box. Faye Kellerman

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       Chapter Six

      Over the phone line, Rina said, “But I want to come with you.”

      “I’m not staying overnight. I’m talking to the poor woman, then turning around and heading back up to Greenbury with the X-rays.”

      “Just drop me off and I’ll get to Brooklyn. Why waste an opportunity to see the kids?”

      “Lily will probably be asleep by the time you get there.”

      “Maybe they’ll keep her up long enough for me to read her a bedtime story. And don’t you want to hear what I found out about Yvette Jones and Delilah Occum?”

      “They’re not my remains, Rina.”

      “This guy disappeared between the times the two women disappeared. You’re not the least bit curious?”

      “I’m always curious about a missing person, but I can’t see how Delilah Occum or Yvette Jones would have anything to do with my guy.”

      “Who was in the process of becoming a woman when he disappeared, no?”

      Decker paused. “Are you suggesting a serial killer?”

      “I’m just saying until you know who you’re dealing with, doesn’t it pay to consider all possibilities?”

      “Fair enough. I’m leaving the station house in ten minutes. Be ready and I’ll pick you.”

      “I’m ready right now. But while I’m waiting for you, I’ll pack us dinner. That way you won’t have to stop for food.”

      Ten minutes later, Rina slid shotgun into the car with a big brown bag. She turned around. “You okay back there, Tyler? I took your kisay hakoved.”

      “Which means?”

      “Your place of honor.”

      “I’m fine in the back. This way you can deal with his crankiness.”

      “Ah, c’mon,” Decker said. “I’m not even out of the driveway.”

      Rina placed the bag in the unoccupied backseat and turned down the AC. “How about if I tell you my conversation with Tilly Goldstein.”

      McAdams took out his iPad. “I’m ready whenever you are.”

      It didn’t take too long. Afterward Decker said, “Two things come to mind. Who is Hank Carter? And more important, why didn’t the colleges institute the walking-home policy after Yvette disappeared?”

      “Can’t help you with the second question,” McAdams said. “I can look up Hank Carter when I get some Wi-Fi. Unless you want me to use my phone, but it’s always pretty slow when we leave Greenbury. It gets very rural.”

      “Indeed.” Rina gazed out the window at the open road. It was all green and leafy but within a month or two, it would catch fire with the brilliance of autumn. City folk poured into the area to leaf watch.

      From the backseat, McAdams said, “Interesting theory about a serial killer, Rina. All of them in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

      Decker said, “What did you do with the original list of missing women in the area?”

      “It’s on my iPad.”

      “Can you pull it up?”

      “I think it’s in my e-mail, so no. As soon as I get connected, I’ll give it to you.”

      Rina said, “Are you looking for other remains near where you found Pettigrew?”

      “Not actively, no.”

      “Maybe you should.”

      “Not a bad idea,” McAdams said. “We should at least look around before the ground gets frozen over.”

      It was a good point. Decker said, “Maybe I’ll ask Radar about bringing in a cadaver dog, but first let’s identify the body. If it’s Pettigrew, I’d be interested in knowing who he was meeting up with in Greenbury.”

      “And you think the parents would know?”

      “Perhaps his mother might. Usually, kids talk more to their mothers than their fathers.”

      McAdams said, “It’s kind of a toss-up with me. My mother is nice, but she really isn’t listening to what I’m saying. My dad is listening. That’s the problem.”

      Rina smiled. “If this Pettigrew was undergoing hormonal therapy, how could you keep that from your parents?”

      “You could if you were estranged from them,” McAdams said.

      “I suppose, although if he was that in your face when he went off to college, the parents would suspect something, right?”

      Decker said, “They probably knew something but maybe they didn’t know everything. And I’d just like to point out that we’re getting a little fixated on Pettigrew’s sex change. The murder could have nothing to do with Pettigrew, the woman. It’s better if we first find out about Pettigrew, the person.”

      After dropping off Rina at their son and daughter-in-law’s apartment, Decker wended his way through the neighborhoods of lower Brooklyn, relying on navigation because he sure as hell wasn’t familiar with the area. Within ten minutes, he hit the on-ramp to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, better known to natives as the VZ, crossing over the bay until he exited into Staten Island. The Pettigrews lived five minutes from the VZ in a compact, one-story brick house on a block of one-story brick houses. Daylight was almost gone, but there was enough to see the sidewalks lined with old oaks and yellow-tinged leaves although the weather was still hot and muggy. Eastern summers were one of those things that Decker had forgotten about after living in L.A. all those years. Southern California was hot but for the most part dry, and even when people complained it was muggy, it usually wasn’t all that bad.

      After parking curbside, he and McAdams got out, their faces hit by a wave of wet heat as they walked to the front entrance. Someone must have been watching because the door opened before either of them knocked.

      They came face-to-face with a woman in her midfifties: five nine, average build, short brown hair, dark eyes, thin lips, roman nose set into a long face. She wore a long-sleeved black T-shirt, and baggy jeans a tad too short for her height. There were slippers on her feet.

      “Joanne СКАЧАТЬ