A Day for Bones

  Books by Dale E. Lehman

  Howard County Mysteries

  The Fibonacci Murders

  True Death

  Ice on the Bay

  A Day for Bones

  Bernard and Melody Capers

  Weasel Words

  Other Works

  Space Operatic

  The Realm of Tiny Giants

  A Day

  for Bones

  A Howard County Mystery

  Dale E. Lehman

  Chase, Maryland

  A Day for Bones

  Dale E. Lehman

  Copyright © 2022 by Dale E. Lehman

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Cover art by Proi

  https://99designs.com/profiles/proi

  Book design by Dale E. Lehman

  Book set in 11-pt. Calluna

  Chapter headings set in 18-pt. Imprint MT Shadow

  Published by Red Tales, 2022

  Baltimore, Maryland

  United States of America

  https://www.DaleELehman.com

  Trade paperback: 978-1-958906-00-2

  Ebook: 978-1-958906-01-9

  For Bridget, who has some experience with complex family dynamics,

  although not this much.

  Disclaimer

  Howard County, Maryland is real. Some setting elements have been changed to suit the story, while others are complete fabrications. I accept full blame for any errors of fact or procedure in the text but gently remind you that this is, after all, a work of fiction.

  I call on Thee O Fashioner, O Satisfier, O Uprooter! Thou the Sufficing, Thou the Healing, Thou the Abiding, O Thou Abiding One!

  ~ Baha’u’llah, The Long Healing Prayer

  Chapter 1

  Helpless, he watched from his second floor living room window above the bakery. Water surged down Main Street below, hurling branches and wreckage and even cars through the darkness. Mother Nature, the most efficient of brooms in hand, was sweeping the town clean.

  A strange phrase, he thought, sweeping clean. A friend’s grandmother had once spoken in those terms: the 1937 Ohio River flood, she said, had swept their house clean away. But this wasn’t clean. The water raged muddy brown, full of tumbling shapes torn from buildings. Nor did it pass with the quiet swish of a broom over a floor. Its predatory rumble signaled satisfaction as it feasted on its kill.

  What had the flood ripped from his own business two floors below? He could only imagine. The old oak door with its rich red grain highlighted by dark, swirling knots? The glass storefront with its Old English script, smashed into a million lethal shards? Splinters of wooden tables and chairs where once customers gathered for food and companionship? Cakes and cookies and pastries still warm from the oven, dissolved in the night, their commingled aromas diffused on the wind?

  He might have wept had he seen it. Tomorrow he would see and weep. Tonight he could only watch the street boil.

  Behind him, a whisper of movement announced his wife. She came into the living room from the kitchen, dinner over, dishes done, and stood beside him. She took his hand in hers. They watched together, silent, he tall and slim, she short and slim, while water rushed down the street and sirens wailed in the distance and frightened people cried in the terrible night.

  “Will it be okay?” she asked.

  He shook his head, not knowing.

  She squeezed his hand.

  “Yes,” he decided. “This is what insurance is for.”

  “Insurance can’t fix everything, Jim.”

  “No.”

  Denise lifted her round face to him. A lock of her long, dark hair crossed it, and he pushed it back from her hard eyes. “Water is a shovel,” she told him. “It digs up everything.”

  It had crossed his mind, too, this everything of which she spoke, the dangerous secret whose exposure she feared. But a torrent of decades had rushed by. It could hardly matter anymore. The here and now filled his thoughts. Lost business. Lost customers. Lost heritage. His bakery was more than a store. It was four generations of Ferrings. James Ferring IV hoped someday to pass it to James Ferring V, little as his son cared. In time, maybe, James the younger would remember his heritage, and the bakery would be waiting. This wasn’t the first Ellicott City flood, nor would it be the last. They would rebuild, reopen, recover. People always had, always would.

  “Say something.”

  Jim regarded Denise with dull eyes. When she was twenty-seven, she had been the most beautiful woman in the world. Now, at twice that age? He didn’t know. She wasn’t unpleasant to look at, but as she gained in years she’d lost something else. A sparkle had slipped away when he wasn’t looking, leaving her cold, cynical, the self-appointed watchdog of the modest Ferring empire. He took her into his arms and held her close. “I wouldn’t worry about it,” he whispered in her ear.

  Together, they stared into the darkness.

  She watched the water.

  He watched the water.

  “I would,” she said.

  Years later, when his grandchildren Susie and Andrew were old enough to understand the word, Detective Lieutenant Rick Peller would describe the night of Tuesday, May thirtieth as one that should have been euthanized. The flood was bad. What it unearthed was worse. And to add insult to injury, he ended up soaked, bruised, battered, and only by the grace of God alive. He began at the scene of a gun shop burglary.

  The call came as he trundled home in his F150 following a day of senseless if non-lethal violence and its attendant paperwork. Crime never took time off. That day, it had been a drug dealer shot in both kneecaps by a disgruntled client, a knifing at the Columbia Town Center over a botched fast-food order, and a betrayed girlfriend tracking down her ex’s lovers and inflicting heavy damage on their cars with a hammer. Peller was a bit sorry they’d caught her but proud that his team had scored one hundred percent that day. Every perp had been apprehended by the time he left for home.

  But May thirtieth wasn’t over.

  “What do they want with me?” he demanded of the dispatcher. Even with the current understaffing, routine burglary shouldn’t be a job for an off-the-clock lieutenant.

  “Geri wants you,” the dispatcher said, as though crime scene technician Geri Franklin outranked them all.

  “Why?”

  “That’s above my paygrade, Lieutenant. I just make the calls.”

  “Yeah, sorry, ten-four. On my way.” Peller rerouted himself. He’d been looking forward to phoning his son Jason and the grandkids that evening. It had been a couple weeks since he talked with them, and he was feeling the distance. Fortunately, they lived two time zones west in Denver. With luck, he’d wrap this up quickly and catch them before Belinda tucked the kids in bed.

  His destination was The Lodge, a store west of Ellicott City just off U.S. Route 40. It was hard to miss. A bright green sign upon which a twelve-point buck pranced identified the stand-alone building. A nearly dead light flickered inside the sign, supplying an illusion of movement. Fast food restaurants, a grocery store, and a pet supply store clustered nearby, screened from the gun shop by stands of tall trees. Maybe they were embarrassed to have The Lodge for a neighbor.
It stood alone, like the last kid to be picked for a team.

  He parked and went in, noting in passing the bars on the windows, the deadbolt on the front door, the alarm system controls on the wall inside. The storefront felt surprisingly roomy. The goods were arranged along the walls and windows, leaving the middle open. Glass display cases served as counters on three sides. Racks of guns, hunting bows, and fishing rods lined the walls behind the counters. Apparel and other merchandise hung on clothing racks before the windows.

  The two responding officers huddled over one of the display cases, talking shop with the lone employee on duty. A sleek semi-automatic handgun lay on the counter while the employee pointed out its features with his meaty index finger.

  When Peller entered, the officers snapped to something like attention. The employee tugged his untucked button-down shirt into position over his stocky frame. Heavily bearded, he didn’t look like someone to be messed with, but his expression was that of a child caught stealing cookies.

  Peller introduced himself.

  “Chuck Ferring,” the big man said. “I’m the owner.”

  “What’s the story, Mr. Ferring?”

  Ferring waggled a thumb toward a curtain covering the storeroom door. “Somebody broke in and made off with a dozen or so weapons. Mostly handguns. A couple rifles.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “About an hour ago. I was helping a customer. I heard a noise and went back to check. By the time I got there, they were gone.”

  The senior officer, David Moles by his nametag, south-of-the-border by his face and accent, likewise motioned at the curtain. “The back door was unlocked and a few boxes knocked over. That’s probably what Mr. Ferring heard.”

  Ferring cleared his throat and looked at the gun on the counter.

  Peller could well imagine his embarrassment. Barred windows, deadbolts, alarms, and the burglars just strolled in. “When was that door last used?”

  “Four days ago,” Ferring said, “when we got a delivery.”

  An open and shut case, Peller quipped to himself. They opened the door, took what they wanted, and shut it again. An all-too-common story. Why weren’t people more careful? “What about your customer? Did they hear the noise?”

  Ferring shrugged. “He heard it. I guess he got tired of waiting. He left before I got back.”

  “How long did that take?”

  “About ten minutes. When I realized stuff was missing, I checked over everything.”

  Trampling any evidence. “Did you know the customer?”

  Ferring shook his head.

  Peller figured it better than even odds the customer had been a distraction, allowing the burglars to work unnoticed. He turned to the officers. “So why am I here? Something unusual turn up?”

  Moles made that thumb gesture again. “The tech is working the scene now, sir. And yeah, we found something unusual.” The officers glanced at each other as though sorting out who should spring the surprise on him.

  “Such as?”

  “There’s a note. She’s bagged it for you.”

  After thirty years on the force, little surprised Peller anymore, but sometimes a sight, sound, or comment triggered a disquiet in him. He’d learned to pay attention to that feeling. “What kind of note?”

  “A sort of manifesto. It basically says…” Moles looked at Ferring as though willing him to finish the explanation, but Ferring wasn’t inclined. He gazed out the storefront and chewed his bottom lip.

  “Says what, Officer?”

  “Your people will die. That’s the gist of it. All your people will die.”

  A few heavy drops of rain splattered on the shop window, rapping like a cane against the glass.

  “Are you the only employee here, Mr. Ferring?” Peller asked.

  Miserable, Ferring nodded.

  “Then I guess you’re stuck for a while. Make yourself comfortable. I may need to ask some questions.”

  Not waiting for a reply, he pushed his way into the storeroom. The curtain concealed a door that stood open at the moment. It, too, had a deadbolt on it. All that useless security, Peller thought. A set of well-stocked metal racks surrounded him. Neatly stacked upon them, scores of boxes bore clear labels identifying contents and quantities: rifles here, shotguns there, handguns across the way. Ammunition. Knives. Assorted hunting gear. Outdoor clothing. The place bespoke such organization and care that the unlocked door felt like someone blowing a raspberry at Ferring. Kneeling before the gray metal door, now open, crime scene technician Geri Franklin carefully lifted a fingerprint from the jamb. Rain splashed in the darkness beyond.

  “Anywhere I shouldn’t step?” Peller asked.

  “You’re good.” Her eyes never left her work.

  The door had both a lock on the knob and a heavy deadbolt. The windowless walls were painted battleship gray. Making a slow circuit of the shelves, he noticed nothing obviously out of place except a single box which had fallen about ten feet from the door. Crumpled along the edge that hit the floor, it hadn’t popped open. Aside from that, he couldn’t have said anything was amiss. The burglars hadn’t trashed the place. They knew what they wanted and where to find it.

  “I’m told the burglar left a note.”

  Franklin stood and hefted a small bag where she kept her tools and collected evidence. She was tall and lean with intense blue eyes. She looked a good five years younger than she really was. Her face should have been in high school, but her focus overmatched the most skilled of surgeons. Peller thought she’d make one hell of a detective if she were so inclined.

  “Here,” she said. “It’s an odd one.” She extracted a plastic bag and handed it to Peller. He tilted the bag to reduce the glare and read.

  Your life will be destroyed. Your means will be taken. Your weapons will turn against you. The wronged will be avenged. The end has begun.

  “Great. Another lunatic loose in Howard County. We’ve had more than our share these past few years.” He handed the note back.

  “Maybe it really is the end times,” Franklin said. She sounded so serious that only those who knew her would know she was kidding. “Or a sick joke. It’s too apocalyptic to be real, don’t you think?” She returned the note to her bag without looking at it.

  Thunder rumbled overhead. The rain transitioned from rattling on the roof to hammering as though trying to break in. It sounded like a thousand empty soda cans bouncing around up there. Peller looked at the ceiling. “Some people thrive on apocalypse. Let me know if anything turns up.”

  “Yep.” Having finished with the door, Franklin closed it to keep the rain out and clanked the deadbolt shut.

  Peller returned to the showroom, where Chuck Ferring and the officers had moved on to the subject of bow hunting. The trio slid into silence at the first glimpse of Peller’s tight-lipped concentration. “You read the note, Mr. Ferring?”

  Ferring nodded.

  “What do you think?”

  “Sounds like someone needs meds.” Ferring appeared to need some himself.

  “Does someone want to hurt you?”

  “No, sir. I just run this little store and try to be a good neighbor.”

  Peller stared at Ferring long enough to make the man uncomfortable but got nothing more. “Whoever did this hates you. Maybe you should tell me who it is, before something ugly happens.”

  Ferring shrugged once more. Despite the rain, the information creek, barely damp to begin with, had run dry.

  Peller tossed a business card on the display case. “If you change your mind, give me a call. Make sure you submit your theft report to ATF tomorrow.”

  Beyond the front window, rain worthy of a tropical storm battered the asphalt. He could have been home by now, chatting with Jason, Susie, and Andrew while the storm raged outside. He could even be having dinner with Joan Churchill if he wan
ted. She’d brave the weather to spend an evening with him, although he wasn’t sure why he thought of her. Introduced through Detective Sergeant Andy Newton’s well-intentioned meddling, he and Churchill had met a few times over the past four months, but only as friends. Peller didn’t want more than that. Some days, today particularly, he didn’t want that much.

  He shunted her to the back of his mind and pulled open the door. A blast of cold wind drove a splatter of rain into his face. “Whoa. Looks like a night for flash flooding,” he told the others. “Be careful going home.”

  Shoulders scrunched, he plunged into the downpour. Five giant steps carried him to his truck. He yanked the door open, dove through, and slammed it behind him. Clothing soaked, he turned the key and watched the windows fog. Once the defroster cleared them, he drove route 40 east and merged south on 29. As soon as he had, the police radio chatter swelled.

  “Ten forty-six, St. Paul and Mulligan’s Hill.”

  “Main Street’s a river. I can’t get there.”

  “Any units on New Cut Road, respond.”

  “Ten fifty-three on New Cut south of College. Big oak. Just missed the houses, thank God.”

  “Can you get through?”

  “Only on foot. It’ll be a soggy hike, but we’ll get there.”

  “Ten forty-six, Main and Church. A woman with two children.”

  Peller could almost hear the terrified screams of the children trapped with their mother in the family car, water surging around them, maybe pushing them down the street toward the Patapsco River. He radioed that he would approach on Old Columbia Pike. Wipers running full steam, he took the exit toward Ellicott City’s historic district as fast as conditions allowed. Likely he could do no good, but they needed police on as many sides as possible. The historic district lay in the bottom of a valley that wound down to the Patapsco. With sprawling development, the valleys and ravines feeding it had become asphalt rivers channeling rainwater inexorably downward. Flash floods could cut off most escape routes in less than a minute and hold the cavalry at bay for an hour.