Bone Box. Faye Kellerman

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СКАЧАТЬ family adventures. Plenty of photos of a long-haired teenager, but as he grew older, the pictures disappeared. Before Decker sat down, he introduced himself and McAdams. Both of them gave the woman their cards. She pointed to the couch. The men sat, but she didn’t. Instead she walked out of the room and came back holding a manila envelope.

      “I had plenty of time to pick up the dental records.” She handed the envelope to Decker. “If they don’t match, could you please get them back to me?”

      “Of course,” Decker said. “Thank you so much. I know this must be hard for you.”

      She let out an exhale. “The local police have a copy so if they come across unknown bones or whatever you call them—remains, I guess—they automatically plug them into their system.” She dropped down into a chair and dry-washed her face. “What makes you think it’s Lawrence?”

      Decker said, “The description we got of your son roughly matches the dimensions of the body that we found.”

      “There are a lot of men who could match my son’s dimensions, Detective.”

      “Of course.”

      “So …” She held up her hands in a shrug. “You must be going on something else.”

      Decker said, “The body had long, dark hair. The coroner also described him as having piano fingers. There were remnants of nail polish on his fingers and toes. We also found an earring. We asked around the colleges and found someone who told us the description might match Lawrence. We don’t have a whole lot to go on and we may be completely wrong. And if we are, I’m sorry to put you through all this. But I’m following the meager leads we have.”

      Joanne nodded. “So you know that Lawrence went to Morse McKinley.”

      “Yes,” Decker said. “He dropped out after his junior year.”

      “Do you know why?”

      “I heard he dropped out to get hormonal treatments.”

      “So you know.” She rolled her eyes. “He went around calling himself Lorraine. The boy always had a flare for the dramatic.”

      “Tell me about him.”

      “I have three children. The first two were just …” She threw up her hands. “Like normal people. Lawrence was the youngest and he was always different. Don’t get me wrong. I loved my son. I won’t exactly say I was supportive of his choices, but I accepted who he was. There are men who are gay. And then there are gay men. Lawrence fit the gay men category. Everything he did revolved around showing the world his sexual identity. And if you didn’t like it, he was right there in your face. I stopped counting how many times I got a call from high school: ‘Don’t worry. No one was hurt, but Lawrence got into an altercation.’”

      “It can get wearisome.”

      “You’ve got that right. Lawrence kept claiming he was being bullied and that he had to defend himself. That was probably true. There were a lot of, you know, regular kids who went to his high school. We have a lot of cops and firemen and just normal guys in the community. I’m sure the school wasn’t big on sensitivity training.”

      “Do you think he was bullied?” McAdams asked.

      “I don’t know. But he certainly didn’t act like a bullied teenager. He wasn’t the least bit withdrawn. He did really well in school. And he had friends, Detectives. Lots of friends. Lawrence could rein in the act if he had to. For instance, he never got into fights with the neighborhood boys. They liked him even though they knew what he was.”

      “The people in college who knew him described Lawrence as very bright and very friendly.”

      “All true.” She looked down. “Lawrence changed drastically after puberty. He became so overt. It was embarrassing at first, but eventually my husband and I got used to it. And, yes, Lawrence was very smart. Everyone knew that. His teachers knew that. They recommended Morse McKinley to him. He was always interested in government and economics.”

      “Morse McKinley would be a good fit then,” McAdams said.

      “We thought it would be a terrific fit. And we hoped that maybe he’d settle down in college with more expected of him. Of course, he just went even more extreme without any family constraints.” A shrug. “I may not have understood my son—he could be challenging—but I loved him.”

      “Of course you did,” Decker said. “When did you find out he was undergoing hormonal therapy?”

      “He told us right away. He announced: ‘I’m dropping out of school to become a woman.’ You know what my husband said?”

      “What?”

      “He said, ‘There aren’t women in college?’” Joanne shook her head. “I think it deflated the shock value that he hoped he’d get. Like I said, I loved my son. I would have loved him as a daughter.” Tears moistened her eyes. “Male or female.” The tears escaped and fell down her cheek. “When he started taking hormones … it seemed to me that he was starting to find peace. He took the test for his stock brokerage license and got a job with a small firm as a woman. He started dressing like a conventional woman—clothes, makeup, the whole bit. So maybe he did find his true self.”

      She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

      “He didn’t come around the house anymore—that was probably for our sake—but he did call. And we had normal conversations. He talked about work instead of his gender. It was refreshing. When he hadn’t called us in over two weeks, I got concerned.”

      “Where was he living, Mrs. Pettigrew?”

      “Joanne. He was living in the city, but I didn’t know where at first. Later on, after he went missing, I found out he was living in the East Village in a very nice studio apartment in a doorman building. So he must have been making money.”

      “You were at his apartment?”

      “Yes. When he stopped calling and wouldn’t answer his cell, I began to get very worried. I called up his work. I didn’t have the number, but I knew the name of the firm. After a couple of tries, I found the right branch. It’s when they told me he hadn’t been at work for the last two weeks. I became … that awful feeling of dread. Like his life on the fringes finally caught up with him.”

      “His life on the fringes?” McAdams asked.

      “Parties, alcohol, drugs, and lots of weirdos.”

      “You think it was someone from his fringy life?”

      “I don’t know. Maybe.”

      “Do you have any names?” Decker asked.

      “Not a one.” She waved it off. “Anyway, I finally got his city address from his work files and I went over to the apartment. At first, the super wouldn’t let me in. But I pleaded, and he finally opened the door.”

      She stared off into space.

      “His apartment was very large—superneat—he was always a neat person. There was no sign of him.”

      “What СКАЧАТЬ