Buried (Bone Secrets, #3)(37)

“This was a half-decker?” Mason heard the senator snort and then turn to repeat the question to his brother. Low laughter rumbled in the background.

He’d made the governor laugh. A proud moment.

“Definitely a half-decker. Anyway, the letters came more frequently, and then the phone calls to the office started. His message was always the same. ‘God will punish you.’ Like I said, I don’t remember which issue he believed God had it in for me. I ignored it until the calls started going to the house.”

“Do you know how he got your phone number?”

“No, I never figured that out. But then he started showing up outside the building at work, then at the house. He must have followed me home one night.”

“Shit. No kidding? You called the police, right?”

“Of course. He left by the time they showed up. He never came up to the front door, but I saw him pacing outside the gate. You’ve been to the house; you know the iron gate at the walkway entry to the yard.”

Mason remembered the gate. He’d had to hit a buzzer to get a maid’s attention and then show his badge and ID to the camera before she’d unlock the gate.

“He didn’t ring the buzzer?”

“No. We didn’t have the buzzer and cameras at that time. He could have easily pushed the gate open and walked up to the house, but he didn’t. We added them soon after Daniel vanished.”

“So why do you associate this guy with your son’s disappearance?”

The senator was quiet for a moment. “I guess it’s the timing more than anything. And his phrasing that God will punish me. I don’t know what punishment is stronger than the death of a child.”

Governor Brody spoke low in the background.

“I’m getting to it, Phil,” the senator said. “Detective, this guy was arrested for trespassing at the capitol building, so there is a record of who he is. But after his arrest, I never saw him again. I haven’t contacted Salem police to try to track down the arrest record. I thought I’d run it by you first.”

Mason scribbled in his little flip book. “I’ll look into it. You said this happened within a few months of…of the disappearance date? How close to the date do you think the arrest was?”

“I’m guessing within four weeks.”

Mason wrapped up his power phone call. The senator didn’t have much other information. He scanned his notes from the call, an odd buzzing in his stomach. It wasn’t the buzz he got when he knew he had a hot lead. This was different. This was a dire, impending buzz.

Or maybe his stomach felt that way because he was still outside the medical examiner’s building. And now he was late.

He hustled across the parking lot and through the double doors. The girl at the front desk waved him in. “They were just asking if I’d seen you. They’re in op six!” she hollered after him as he strode down the hall.

“Sorry!”

Mason took off his hat and wiped at the sweat on his temples. The building was icy cool compared to the stiff heat outside. He wrinkled his nose as the smell entered his nostrils. There was no getting away from it. Tonight, he’d have to wash his pants and shirt and take a shower before going to bed. It didn’t matter if he was in the building for thirty minutes or three hours. The scent still clung. Dr. Campbell claimed the building had the best air filtration system available. And he didn’t doubt her. Clearly, nothing had been invented to eliminate the odor of decaying flesh.

He added a medical examiner’s perfect air filter system to his mental list of how to make a million bucks.

Mason paused outside of op six, took a deep breath through his mouth, and pushed the door open with his shoulder. Dr. Victoria Peres and Lacey Campbell were shoulder-to-shoulder, bent over a skull on one of the silver tables, as Dr. Peres pointed at the nasal opening. Dr. Campbell was nodding emphatically, her brows narrowed in concentration.

Scanning the room, Mason took in four other tables with full skeletons. Each arranged as if the person had simply lain down and his flesh had melted away.

How had they separated the skeletons?

The pit had been one giant hole. The bodies tossed in like trash, their bones and flesh commingling over the years.

“Mason. Over here.” Dr. Campbell gestured, her eyes lighting up at the sight of him.

Actually, he figured her eyes were already bright from her fascination with the case. It took a special breed of person to get excited over old bones. Dr. Campbell was one. Dr. Peres was another. They were so deep in bone heaven, they probably hadn’t noticed he was very late.

Dr. Peres nodded at him. “Detective.” She glanced at the clock on the wall.

Scratch that. The forensic anthropologist missed nothing.

He moved closer, his boots sounding too loud on the hard floor. “Morning, doctors.” He stopped next to Dr. Campbell and forced himself to take a good look at the remains. The bones were a muddy brown, not the ivory color he’d expected. He glanced at the other tables. The other skeletons were the same. “Why are they dirty?”

Dr. Peres bristled and Dr. Campbell smiled, putting a calming hand on the other woman’s arm. “They aren’t dirty. They absorbed the color of the dirt they were buried in for twenty years. It’s pretty common. And they’ve been cleaned. There was some tissue still attached in a few places.”