Page 63 of Making His Bones

Gray

Tiago’s phone had last pinged around Slide Rock State Park.

Tobiah, working rapidly on his archenemy Wolf Glaser’s computer, had discerned this at ten o’clock in the morning.

We all gazed over his shoulder intently at the map.

Wolf said, “So either he was heading to Flagstaff, or—“

I cut him off. “Seeker.”

Lytton asked, “What would he be doing there? You guys weren’t in trouble there.”

“No,” I said. “We just went there to get some garbage. Nothing happened except Narcissa Whitman, our main suspect now, was drunk and on Ambien and accused me of playing tennis with some pigeons.”

Tobiah shook his head, lips thin. “That stuff’ll do that if you combine it with alcohol. One night I must’ve gone crazy on Amazon, because the next day I received all sorts of shit in the mail.”

“Like what?” asked Wolf, eager for a chance to make fun of Tobiah.

Tobiah forged ahead honestly. “Like a cold brew tea bottle. I only drink soda and coffee. Like a dish drying mat. Why the fuck would I care if my dishes get dry? A pack of serial killer playing cards. Some camouflage tampax.”

I had to take the bait. “Camo tampax?”

“Well, yes. So girls can carry it in their purse and not feel embarrassed.”

“Or guys can carry it and not feel embarrassed,” goofed Wolf.

The whole time, in one of three computers on the desk, Tobiah had been mousing away. “Aha,” he said under his breath. I went to stand behind him, since Wolf and Lytton were too busy laughing like hyenas about tampax.

“Aha what?” I asked.

“I knew it. This Narcissa Whitman chick—“

“Guy,” I said.

“—has had some priors. About six months before Delilah died, she lured away a seven-year-old girl at the mobile home park. The girl’s mother told cops Narcissa took her without her permission. When the cops went to Narcissa’s to get the girl, the mother said she was acting strange. Talk about Ambien. She took the girl to the hospital, where a tox screen found muscle relaxers in her system.”

“By any chance,” I butted in, “does it say which muscle relaxer?”

“Yeah. Flexeril.”

Flexeril. That rang a bell. I briefly turned aside and tapped out a text to Elektra. Was Flexeril one of the drugs we found in Narcissa’s garbage?

But Tobiah wasn’t done with his findings. “In a case a month earlier than that, Narcissa Whitman was accused of giving a Kachina Village man some Xanax without his knowledge. I guess she slipped it into his drink. He got a DUI and put two and two together and accused her.”

Xanax. That was the same drug found in Delilah’s system. “Fuck!” I yelled. “How could no one have made the connection by now?”

“Well,” said Tobiah, “these cop records give witness to the fact that they did suspect Miss Whitman of Delilah’s murder. Of course it looked real weird she reported that suitcase missing, and made that handwritten note to give cops.”

“I’ll fucking say,” said Lytton. “If they left the crime enforcing up to MCs, there wouldn’t be any criminals on the streets.”

“Other than us,” added Wolf.

I pointed out, “But everyone thought the murderer was a man. The DNA recovered off Delilah’s body was from a man.”

Tobiah continued, “But then there’s a disconnect. Everything seems to suddenly have been dropped, even after Elektra was let out of jail. The case went cold after every man in and around Seeker was tested. That seemed to be the defining moment when everyone gave up.”

I said, “Or Bud Pitchfork and Dave DeFreeze put the kibosh on it.” My phone buzzed, and I turned my back on my brothers to read the text.