The staircase had a polished wooden handrail and a faux-leopard runner. Parallel tracks in the nap indicated recent vacuuming. A framed poster for Prince’s 2007 Earth tour at London’s O2 arena decorated the wall beside the risers.

  To the right of the stairs, across a narrow hall, an archway gave onto an expanded space. Through the opening I could see the arm of a sofa beside an overturned end table. Spilling from the table, a broken lamp, a shattered vase, scattered flowers.

  The voices, much louder now, were coming from that room. Sounding affected? Melodramatic?

  Barely breathing, I grabbed an umbrella and crept forward. Flores followed, not exactly on my heels, but close enough.

  At the archway, we both froze.

  Musgrove lay supine on a woven jute rug, face ashen, lips and eyelids violet-blue. From the angle of her head, the striated bruising stark against the softness of her throat, I suspected she’d been strangled, and her neck broken.

  “Oh, Christ,” Flores whispered.

  Fingers shaky, I punched digits on my phone.

  “Nine one one,” a female voice came on. “How may I help you?”

  “I want to report a homicide!” I barked.

  “I’m having trouble understanding you, ma’am. Can you lower the volume on your television?” Barely interested. “And speak more clearly.”

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Flores crossed to a flat screen blaring at a decibel level equal to that on an airport runway. Using a shirt tail, she lifted a remote and hit a button. The actors’ bickering voices went mute.

  I kept talking. “Your SIO has been killed.”

  “Please repeat.” No longer bored. “And provide your location.”

  Death is my business. I see it daily. Yet here I was, acting like a rookie cop at her first murder scene.

  I tried again. Slower.

  “Detective Tiersa Musgrove is dead. I am Dr. Temperance Brennan. I’m at her residence. Dr. Luna Flores is with me.”

  “The superintendent?” the dispatcher asked, leaning into Musgrove’s title. She seemed shaken.

  “Yes.” I provided a more coherent synopsis.

  “Do you need medical attention?”

  “No.” Jesus.

  “Do you need me to stay on the line?”

  “No.”

  “Help is on the way.”

  Dead air.

  Phone pressed to my chest, I breathed deeply, and looked around.

  The room was small and furnished very matchy-matchy. Sofa and side chair. Coffee and end tables. All probably ordered online.

  My eyes drifted to the now silent TV.

  Days of Our Lives. That accounted for the male and female voices we’d heard outside the door. This certainly was a day to remember. Funny where your brain goes in moments of stress.

  My gaze returned to the battered body on the rug.

  I almost wept at the irony of the dispatcher’s words.

  Tiersa Musgrove was beyond whatever help was barreling our way.

  * * *

  The rain had stopped, so Flores and I decided to wait outside. It wasn’t long before we heard the distant whine of sirens, faint at first, earsplitting as cruisers flew around the corner and screamed up Walnut.

  Soon vehicles crammed the street and the oyster shell drive, jammed at random angles, engines running, occupants warily scanning their surroundings. The strobing lights turned the path, the lawn, and the stucco at our backs into a pulsating red and blue tableau.

  The armada included three prowlers, an unmarked Ford Explorer, the now familiar CSU truck, and an ambulance. Given the carnival-parade character of their arrival, I figured the media wouldn’t be far behind.

  I watched a man maneuver from behind the wheel of the Explorer, long, spindly legs preceding the rest of him by several seconds. His pants were orange, maybe meant for golf, his shoes pale suede loafers, minimally size thirteen. No socks.

  When the man’s upper body appeared, it was equally as gangly as his lower limbs. And missing its left arm. His shirt was an eye-blistering white, its long sleeves pressed into creases sharp enough to cut through cheddar. No tie. No blazer.

  The man’s prosthetic hand looked like something designed by the Star Wars special effects team. His hair, curly on top and scalp-buzzed on the sides, was shiny and black. I put his age at a bump south of forty.

  On seeing Spindly Legs, the six cops exited their cruisers. Car doors winging, radios spitting static onto the moist morning air, they stood at relaxed attention, awaiting instruction.

  Spindly Legs crossed to the nearest pair. The three conversed, then he turned and strode in our direction. Behind him, the duo split to talk to the other teams, presumably to share a plan of action.

  Drawing near the stoop, Spindly Legs pulled a badge from his belt and extended it toward us with his prosthetic hand. His skin was caramel, his freckles so dark they stood out like chocolate sprinkles on coffee ice cream.

  “Detective Delroy Monck,” he said. “Division B, Grace Bay Station.”

  Flores and I nodded. The Monk, I thought.

  “Which one’s Brennan?”

  “I am,” I said.

  “You called in the nine one one?” Monck’s voice was that of a well-aged oboe, the shaping of his vowels suggestive of both London and the islands. And a high level of tightly wrapped anger.

  “I did.”

  “What do we have here?” Drawing a pen and notepad from a pocket of the relentlessly crisp shirt.

  “A homicide.”

  “I’ll decide about that.”

  “I know a homicide when I see one.”

  “Do you.” A pause, then, “Did either of you spot anyone else on the premises?”

  I shook my head. So did Flores.

  “Did you search the town house?”

  “The moment we saw Musgrove we called it in.”

  “Did you touch anything?”

  “At the request of the dispatcher, the TV remote. No naked fingers.”

  “Did you manipulate the body—”

  “I know my way around a death scene,” I said, a bit too sharply.

  “Stay here.” Barked with an intensity that startled us both.

  Monck gestured two uniforms into the house. Shortly, they declared the scene clear. Monck gloved his right hand, slipped on shoe covers, and disappeared through the front door.

  Twenty minutes later, Monck reappeared and told CSU to proceed. We all vacated the stoop so the team—neither Stubbs nor Kemp—could pass with their equipment.

  Monck’s next question was directed to me.

  “You’re the forensic anthropologist?”

  “I am.”

  “And you are?” To Flores.

  “Luna Flores.”

  “The forensic engineer?”

  “Yes.” Flores’s icy tone told me she wasn’t digging this guy.

  Holding his cell phone in the prosthetic hand, Monck shifted back to me. “Describe what you saw, what you did. Succinctly. No speculation, just facts. I’m recording.”

  I did as asked. Succinctly. The meeting. Musgrove’s unexplained absence. Flores and I performing a wellness check. The TV voices and the scream. The body on the rug.

  A few beats. Then,

  “You gals were working the dead boaters with Superintendent Musgrove?”

  Gals?

  “Among other things,” I said.

  “The missing tourists.”

  “Yes.”

  “How’s that going?”

  “Detective Monck,” I said, now frosty as Flores. “Ti Musgrove was murdered, probably strangled, probably sometime last night. Your most urgent task right now is to find her killer.”

  Monck slipped his mobile into his pocket. Regarded me for a very long moment.

  “Thank you for that.” Monck swallowed, then his jaw muscles bunched, relaxed. “But I know exactly who killed her.”

  17

  SATURDAY, JULY 13, TO SUNDAY, JULY 14

  WTF?

  Monck knew Musgrove’s killer?!

  As much as I grilled him, the arrogant prick refused to elaborate. While leaving, he actually hit Flores and me with the classic: Don’t plan any trips.

  Dead boaters I hadn’t signed up for. Bug bites up my ying-yang. A murdered colleague. An asshole detective treating me like I wasn’t quite bright.

  And where the flip was Harvey Lindstrom? The elusive pathologist had yet to make an appearance. Not that Doyle and his passengers were my responsibility.

  I’d had it.

  Fearing a brain bleed if I stayed on the island much longer, I went directly from Musgrove’s townhome to the morgue. Iggie was there. And not thrilled to see me.

  “You be workin’ today? In dis place?”

  The craggy face went craggier when I responded in the affirmative. Ignoring the man’s displeasure, I asked that he collect the bones from the cooler.

  Iggie showed me to the sole autopsy room, trudged off with the enthusiasm of a eunuch at an orgy.

  “Thank you,” I said when he returned.

  “I be genuine sorry, ma’am.” As he set down the boxes. “I can’t stay wit’ you today.”

  “Oh?”

  “I be powerful sad. Miz Musgrove, she one fine woman. My mind keep settlin’ on thoughts of her.”

  “Of course,” I said, not surprised that he already knew about the murder of his boss. Musgrove was a cop. All of law enforcement would be in an uproar, slathering to take down the thug who’d killed one of their own.

  “You have all the tools you be wantin’?”

  “Let’s check.”

  The setup was basic but had what I’d need. Except for one thing.

  “I may wish to view items under magnification. Does the morgue have a dissecting scope?”

  “There be one over to the hospital. You want I should call and see if that’s free?”

  “Please,” I said, recalling that Musgrove had told me that.

  Turned out the microscope wouldn’t be available until Lindstrom finished with the boaters. Maybe Monday.

  Crap.

  But the small room did have one perk: a television mounted high in a corner, an old thirteen-inch Sharp at least two feet thick.

  “Does that work?” I asked, pointing at the TV.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  A random fact about me. I like inane dialogue or color commentary playing softly as I grind through butt-in-the-chair tedious tasks. Tax returns. Algebra homework. Ironing. Skull reconstruction. Mindless drivel in the background helps my concentration.

  Devastated over Musgrove’s death, I needed calming more than ever right then.

  When Iggie had gone, I searched for a remote. I know. Call me an optimist.

  Finding none, I dragged a chair close and went at the relic old style. By punching random buttons along the bottom front, I powered the TV on and determined that it received three channels: PTV8, Channel 4 News, and a very snowy station broadcasting a soccer game, probably from Mars.

  Unenthused about local news, perhaps fearing coverage of Musgrove’s death, I chose the sporting event. I’d be focused on the bones, so image clarity was irrelevant.

  I spent the rest of that day and all of the following one—a goddam Sunday—analyzing the remains sniffed out by the olfactorily gifted canine, Thursday. And listening to the play-by-play of match after match.

  For each individual, I determined sex, estimated age, ancestry, and height, and noted medical and dental peculiarities. I took measurements and collected bone and tooth samples for potential DNA testing. You know the drill.

  By Sunday evening I’d determined the following:

  The skeleton from the gully was consistent with the known profile of Ryder Palke.

  The skeleton from the woods was consistent with the known profile of Quentin Bonner.

  Both men had suffered through-and-through gunshot wounds to the chest.

  Both men’s left hands had been removed with a tool of indeterminate type.

  Until I got access to the scope, that’s all I could say.

  MONDAY, JULY 15

  “A detective be coming to see you,” Iggie greeted me when I entered the morgue.

  “Are you feeling better today?” I asked.

  “I t’ink dis old fellow be blue a long, long time. The po-lice gonna catch the man what hurt Miz. Musgrove?”

  “They will.” Then, “What detective?”

  “Folks calls him The Monk. I don’t be doin’ that.”

  “Thanks. Please bring Detective Monck to me when he arrives.”

  Reaching the autopsy room, I phoned the hospital pathology department. A woman answered and I made my request. She told me the scope was still unavailable.

  Damn.

  I’d barely disconnected when Monck appeared, a leather bag clutched in his prosthetic hand. Today the pants were ecru, the shirt coral. Same loafers.

  “Doc,” he said from the doorway. Dark bags scalloped his lower lids. Too little sleep? Too much booze? Torment over the loss of his boss?

  “How may I help you, detective.” Cool but polite.

  “I thought you’d like an update.”

  That surprised me. “I would.”

  “Is there somewhere we can sit?”

  I’d noticed an upholstered grouping in the room next door, a space probably used for notification of next of kin. I led him there.

  I took the chair. Dropping onto the sofa, Monck propped his prosthetic hand on one knee and dug a legal pad from the bag with his other. The real hand was shaking, not a lot, but enough to notice. The skin behind his freckles looked pale as his pants.

  “First off, I apologize for my manners on Saturday. Superintendent Musgrove was a hell of a woman. Her death is hitting me hard.”

  “You claimed to know the identity of her killer,” I said, arrowing right in.

  “I had to vet you before sharing confidential intel.”

  “Vet me?” Sharper than I intended.

  “Nothing personal.”

  A brittle silence filled the small space. Iggie passed by in the hall pushing a gurney with one squeaky wheel.

  Monck ran the shaky hand over his face. Breathed deeply. His next statement suggested I’d passed muster, whatever that involved.

  “I believe the superintendent’s ex finally killed her.”

  “He was violent?”

  “The prick has a habit of getting tanked and tuning her up.”

  “You have a name?” All I knew was “shithead.”

  “Milo Willis.”

  “Have you proof Willis did it?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Why didn’t Musgrove get a restraining order?”

  “She had one.”

  The anger was as intense as a physical blow.

  “Have you arrested Willis?” Fighting to keep my voice neutral.

  “He’s in the wind. I have people doing door to doors, and I’ve issued a BOLO for all islands. Every cop on the force is busting ass on this. We’ll get the sonofabitch.”

  I circled back to Monck’s opener.

  “And the updates?”

  “Over the weekend I talked to the superintendent’s sister, Raina Ewing. Ewing lives on Grand Turk.”

  “Musgrove planned to visit her after our meeting with Flores.”

  “Ewing says her sister confirmed Friday night that she planned to arrive by two the next day. She never showed up. The pathologist—I forget his name.”

  “Harvey Lindstrom.”

  “Yeah, that’s it. Anyway, Lindstrom began cutting his Ys Saturday, took a break from the boaters to do the superintendent. You’d think he was the goddam pope, all the glad mouthing about being happy to work on Sunday.” Monck swallowed, looking decidedly unwell. “Anyway, Lindstrom confirmed COD was by manual strangulation. He put TOD at sometime between ten p.m. Friday and four a.m Saturday.”

  “Musgrove and I had dinner at Da Conch Shack Friday night. She dropped me off around nine. Willis may have surprised her when she arrived home.”

  “That’s our thinking.”

  “Any signs of forced entry at the town house?” I asked, cursing myself for not noticing.

  “No. But there were indications she put up a good fight.”

  Flash image. An overturned table. A broken vase. Scattered flowers. I felt a tremor in my chest. By sheer willpower I flattened it.

  “What now?” I asked.

  “Now I do what Musgrove would have wanted.”

  “Drop a net on the hand-hacking predator taking out tourists?” I ventured.

  Monck nodded. “And I start by tracking the new MP.”

  “Calvin Cloke?”

  Monck nodded again.

  “What have you learned so far?” I asked, unable to mask my intense curiosity.

  “Cloke is a feeb.”

  “Yes, Detective Musgrove had mentioned it. An FBI agent.”

  “Special agent,” Monck stressed, his voice oozing sarcasm.

  “Doing what?”

  “When I called headquarters in DC, the dude they bounced me to wasn’t exactly forthcoming.”

  “Did Cloke travel to Provo on official business?”

  “They wouldn’t say.”

  “Why was he here?”

  “Are you listening to me?”

  “Fine. What do you have?”

  I watched Monck debate. Discretion versus the possibility of getting my help in finishing what Musgrove had started. The latter won out. Or the anger-fueled grief. Or the hangover. If that’s what it was.

  “Upon landing in Provo, Cloke rented a car, then checked into a condo complex called The Ocean Paradise. Which is neither. The place is a dump and miles from the water.”

  “You’ve interviewed the staff?”

  “The staff consists of the owner and his wife, each with the IQ of a potted fern. Both say they haven’t laid eyes on Cloke since handing him a key.”

  Monck stopped. Again, weighing options?

  “That’s it?” I prompted.

  “When we tossed the unit, I found a crumpled paper in a wastebasket containing a handwritten address and phone number.”

  “You ran them?”

  Monck nodded.

  “And?”

  “They click.” Monck slid the tablet back into his bag. Stood. “I’m heading there now.”