Chapter 6 #2
I’d seen Boone summon souls back with little more than a handful of charred bits of bone.
I’d also seen him use nothing more than an urn of ashes.
I had no idea what to expect from full, skeletal remains.
Would the skeleton sit up like I’d seen other intact corpses do?
Would there be macabre skeletons dancing and slipping on the linoleum floor?
Would their jaw try and move in an effort to produce sound they no longer needed lungs or vocal cords to produce?
The reality was far tamer. Just like the bits of bones left of Thomas Martin Speedler, the remains rattled, shifting around on their blanket-covered steel table, settling right before Gladys’s soft voice drifted through the air.
A heavy sigh filled the air, and I could almost swear I felt a breeze with it.
“Necromancer,” Gladys accused, but it was done in a gentle tone. “Why have you brought me back?”
I’d seen this song and dance enough to understand that many souls were very well aware of why they’d been returned.
Although many were understandably upset by the circumstances of their demise, most were more than happy to regale Boone with how they’d died.
They were eager for justice. This soul seemed different.
I was reminded of something Boone said last night while we stood over Gladys’s undisturbed grave. This one is different. This one is sad.
Boone shifted closer to the remains, speaking toward them. While I couldn’t see exactly where Gladys’s soul coalesced, it did sound like it was coming from the vicinity of her remains.
“Your body was found in an…unusual location. Detective O’Hare would like to ask you some questions.
Is that okay?” Boone rarely pushed a soul, especially one that was considered a victim.
Boone had informed me more than once that he would not victimize a soul twice.
Once was more than enough. There were a multitude of reasons why I not only loved Erasmus Boone but respected him as well.
I didn’t think I was capable of having one without the other. I simply wasn’t wired that way.
There was a pause before Gladys answered. “If he must.” It wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement, but I’d take it.
Clearing my throat and settling my mind, I asked, “Gladys, do you remember how you died?”
Another pause before she answered, “I couldn’t breathe.” Her answer was given with little emotion attached. There was no panic at the thought of not being able to draw breath.
I shared a knowing look with Captain Cicely. “Was there pressure on your neck?”
“No.”
“Were you in the water? Did you drown?”
“No.”
My eyebrows rose. “Were your mouth and nose covered?” Perhaps she’d been suffocated by a pillow or bag.
I felt Boone shiver beside me. The question was most likely triggering for him considering what he’d been through a few months ago.
The bruises were gone, but one didn’t simply forget attempted murder, especially when you were the victim and someone had cinched a bag over your head with the intention of suffocating you to death.
“Perhaps,” came the lackadaisical response.
“Perhaps.” Boone echoed my disbelief. “Gladys, could you explain why it was you couldn’t breathe?”
“I am uncertain.”
That wasn’t terribly helpful, and yet it seemed to be all we were going to get.
I decided to change tactics. “Do you believe it was intentional?” There was always the remote chance that Gladys hadn’t been murdered.
Perhaps she’d died accidentally, and someone had panicked and buried her.
Of course, that didn’t explain the other five victims…
“Most likely.” Those two words carried more emotion.
“She’s incredibly sad,” Boone supported my earlier thoughts. “Whoever she thinks did this, it’s heartbreaking to her.”
“Do you have any idea who might have done this? Did you see them?” It was worth an ask.
“I did not see them, but…”
The glow coming from Boone’s eyes intensified. “Gladys, I will know if you are lying, and you will not like the results. I can force you to answer Detective O’Hare’s question.”
“You would do that?” Gladys’s soul sounded genuinely shocked and dismayed.
“I would. I would find no joy in it, and if you were the only possible victim, then most likely I wouldn’t press,” Boone answered.
“What do you mean?” I could hear the anxiety in Gladys’s voice. “There are others?”
I picked up the thread. “Five other women were found buried in unmarked graves in the same vicinity as you. While younger, there are enough similarities that we are concerned the same person who harmed you also harmed these other women. If that is the case, they could very well still be out there, harming others. They need to be stopped.”
Boone flinched and sucked in a harsh breath. “Dear Gaia, that thought just gutted her.”
“Gladys, we need—”
“He would not do something like that. I raised a good boy. Edwin wouldn’t harm someone else. His anger was all for me, for the things I did when… Edwin would not do that.” Gladys ended on a sure note, as if she’d convinced herself that her son was capable of murdering her but no one else.
Dr. Stowe was at a nearby desk, furiously typing. “Found him. Edwin Jonathon Clark. Thirty-one. Currently living in Montgomery and works at a car repair shop.”
“He would never harm an innocent.” Gladys defended her son.
“And you weren’t innocent?” I questioned.
“Is any mother truly innocent?” Gladys responded, confusing the hell out of me. Boone glanced up at me, eyebrows high on his head, just as perplexed as me.
Boone was the one that answered. “I doubt any soul is as innocent as we’d like to think, but that hardly means they deserve to die an untimely death. And just for the record, if anyone harmed or even threatened to harm my momma, I’d gut them without a second thought.”
Boone’s love for his mother was a thing of beauty. Their love for each other should be the envy of every parental relationship. Both were just as fiercely protective of the other.
“Then your momma did a much better job than me.” There was so much despair lacing Gladys’s words that I hardly knew what to do with them. “Some sins cannot and should not be forgiven. Necromancer, please release me.”
Boone’s troubled eyes searched mine. The message was clear. He wanted to let this one go, and I couldn’t find it in me to ask him to keep her any longer. “You can bring her back later if needed?” I’m not sure why I asked. I already knew the answer.
“I can.”
“Then let her go for now.”
Relief flooded Boone’s eyes and softened the tight muscles of his jaw. “Gladys Eugenia Clark, I release you. Go in peace.”
Gladys’s trembling bones stilled as her soul returned to somewhere Boone referred to as beyond the veil.
I didn’t miss Boone’s shaking fingers as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a lemon Jolly Rancher.
I’d seen him expend far more energy before needing a pick-me-up.
I suspicioned the quaking wasn’t so much low blood sugar as emotional turmoil.
Bringing back the dead wasn’t everything it was cracked up to be and was about the most unpredictable profession one could choose. Not that Boone had chosen to be a necromancer, but unlike other necromancers, he’d embraced his species instead of shunning it.
I got the feeling Boone was currently questioning those life choices.