Bone Maker: Will Finch Mystery Thriller Series Book 1 Read online

  CONTENTS

  Front Matter

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

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  Confidential Document

  Enjoy D. F. Bailey’s Other Novels

  Copyright Notice

  A death in the wilderness.

  A woman mourns alone.

  A reporter works a single lead.

  Inspired by true events.

  ※

  ~ Bonus Features ~

  Be sure to review the Bonus Features

  available at the conclusion of Bone Maker.

  CHAPTER ONE

  A whiff of blood in the air.

  The bear rose on his back feet, turned his head upwind and flared his moist nostrils. He needed food — anything to slake the deep hunger that clawed through his empty belly. The forest, thick with fir and cedar trees, surrounded him. In the distance he could see a blur of rocks on the hillside. His ears filled with the sounds of the spring melt rushing down the creek beds and the heavy tree limbs pulling in the wind. He listened for the sound of more gunshots and car engines but they had passed now. Still, he felt a lingering danger. He set his forepaws on the ground and made his way up the slope to the gravel road. He paused and looked along the muddy track and then walked with purpose toward his prey. As he approached, he could make out the scent of several men and their machines. He hesitated and moved forward again, a force of nature.

  Hungry, willful, unrelenting.

  ※

  When Ethan Argyle first caught sight of the bear he assumed it was a boulder that had fallen from somewhere above the ridge onto the gravel road. The bear stood motionless, hunched forward, about a fifty yards up the track from the Mercedes GLK. But since something was obviously amiss with the car — the driver’s window wide open, despite the late morning drizzle — neither Ethan nor his son Ben focussed on the animal. Until it began to move.

  “Look at that, Dad.” Ben pointed toward the bear with his gloved hand. He dug through his pocket for his binoculars. “It’s big enough, but it can’t be a grizzly. Not here.” He pressed the glasses to his eyes, then gasped at the size of the animal gnawing away at something on the roadside. “Have a look,” he whispered and passed the binoculars to his father.

  “It’s not a grizzly.” Ethan focused the lens with the nose screw. “It’s a black bear. He’s feeding on something,” he added but he couldn’t make out what it might be. “No wonder we haven’t come across any deer all day.”

  The father and son worked their way down the hill onto the switchback. There were dozens of dirt roads like this that cut through the forest above the coast, gravel tracks barely wide enough for two cars to squeeze past one another. But today no cars were visible and no trucks could be heard struggling up the long ravine. Nothing except the Mercedes, Ethan whispered to himself. The car looked abandoned; its engine was silent. A spray of mud caked the exterior, a dusty-gray paste that had hardened in the sun and then smudged under the light rain. He figured it had been parked here at least a day, since Saturday, when it had been sunny through the entire afternoon.

  “There’s just something wrong about that open window,” Ben said as they approached the vehicle from the rear and then stopped about five feet away. He eased his rifle into the crook of his elbow and studied the car.

  “Yeah.” Ethan kept an eye on the bear, who seemed oblivious to them as it nuzzled a carcass on the roadside. They stood downwind from the animal and as Ethan sniffed the air he caught a whiff of fresh kill. “He can’t smell us,” he whispered to his son, “but he might hear us. Keep ’er quiet.” He made a downward motion with his left hand and then brought his rifle from his shoulder into his arm. “Let’s look at that window.”

  They walked silently beside the big SUV and peered into the black interior. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the lack of light, and only a few seconds longer for Ethan to make out the pool of blood that soaked the driver’s seat. “Good god!” he moaned, much louder than he wanted. He looked toward the bear to see if he’d startled.

  “Jeez, I think that bear took him.” Ben’s voice was breathless. He wiped a hand over his mouth and angled the barrel of his gun towards the bear. A defensive move, nothing more. He kept his eyes on the bear, sure that it was more important than whatever might remain in the Mercedes.

  “Doesn’t make any sense,” Ethan said and drew a long breath before he forced his head back through the top of the window. He could see the key fob lying in the CD tray. An opened pack of cigarettes, Marlboros, lay above the dash. A half-empty bottle of water stood uncapped in the drink caddy and beyond it a discarded Starbucks cup had spilled across the passenger seat. A rain jacket had been tossed onto the back seat and a duffle bag tucked in the rear footwell. He tried to imagine what could have transpired: a lone driver crossing the switchbacks is confronted by a rogue bear who refuses to yield an inch of the road ahead.

  “He’s starting to move, Dad. He might be onto us.”

  Ethan turned his attention to the scene up the road. The bear now stood upright over his kill with his eyes fixed on Ethan and Ben. Must be six hundred pounds, Ethan murmured to himself. The bear stole a step toward them and paused as if to consider his next move.

  “I might have to take him out, Ben.” His voiced sounded apologetic but firm.

  “Yes sir.” Ben stood behind his father and readied his gun. They’d done this a dozen times before when they were after deer. They hunted the old-fashioned way, with single shot, lever-action Winchester 70 rifles. If one missed his shot, the second fired the insurance round. But Ben never had to make a shot like this. Not with his fingers this damp, his heart pounding.

  The bear lurched another step forward, then charged. Ethan had to shoot before he was fully prepared. Still, when he fired, he thought he’d hit squarely in the bear’s torso. The bear bobbed and weaved, paused to sneer with a look of puzzlement and then staggered forward again. A second later Ben fired his rifle. The bear roared and wheeled away as its front paw dissolved into a red pulp. It clambered into the scrub brush at the edge of the road, moaning loud wails that filled the depth of the ravine below.

  “Damn. Now we have to go after it,” Ethan murmured and fixed his jaw with a weary determination. “It’s my fault, son,” he said to dispel any misgivings the boy might have. He set their pace toward the bloody, abandoned carcass sprawled next to the weed-infested shrubs beside the road.

  As they neared the corpse they staggered backward in an uneven motion that forced Ben to miss a step and move behind his father. The cadaver lay on its back, the chest cavity ripped open. Nothing of the man’s throat — or his face — remained. Already the corpse was abuzz with flies.

  “My god,” Ben whimpered. He sunk to his knees and began to vomit onto the gravel.

  “Give me your phone,” Ethan said as he turned away from the mess that lay at their feet. “We’ve got to call the sheriff.” As he punched 911 into the keypad, he prayed for a miracle. But he knew they were off the cellphone grid and they had little hope of co
nnecting with anyone. They’d have to hike over to the switchback above the Lewis and Clark River where he’d parked the four-by-four, then drive down toward Astoria before they could make a cellphone connection.

  He pulled his son by the forearm and braced him against his side. “Come on, it won’t take us more than an hour,” he said with forced certainty as he directed them back toward the ridge under Saddle Mountain.

  Above them he saw two hawks surfing the aerial drafts in wide, easy circles. Somewhere below he could hear the bear crash through the bush, dashing loose rocks down the ravine into the rushing creek. Jesus, he moaned to himself and set his jaw once more. What kind of mess have we stumbled into this time?

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Well, well, well. Will Finch — welcome back!” Wally Gimbel’s wide face emerged from his office doorway when he saw Finch walk toward his cubicle at the far end of the writers’ pool. Gimbel held his landline phone in one hand, the mouthpiece covered with a thumb.

  “Good to see you,” Will replied with a nod. Gimbel’s face looked puffy and more inflamed than Finch remembered, but the voice retained the same edge of authority.

  “Take a minute to dust off your keyboard,” Wally whispered with a hint of fondness, an affection that he hoped the other reporters would not hear. “Then get back here in ten minutes.” He winked and for a moment Finch imagined Wally was glad to see him again. “And bring Fiona Page with you,” he added and turned his attention back to his phone call.

  Finch continued down the aisle through the narrow labyrinth of walled pods known as “the bog” by the staff writers who complained that despite their urbane surroundings, they worked in a swamp seething with leeches and snakes. Most of them ticked away solemnly at their keyboards, a few others spoke in low tones to the digital images on their screens. The reporters had quickly learned the optimal volume to employ during Skype calls: a narrow spectrum between barely audible, and a murmur which could not be heard in the adjacent pods.

  No one made eye contact with Finch until he reached Fiona Page’s station. “Will!” Surprised, she pulled the earbuds from under her hair and leaned back in her chair. “Welcome back,” she said and wheeled her chair to one side and waved Finch toward the guest chair.

  “Thanks.” He forced a smile and dropped onto the padded seat. Settled below the five-foot wall baffle, he was now invisible to everyone else in the bog. Hiding in the trenches, he thought. A good place to spend his first few minutes back on the front line.

  “I didn’t realize you were coming back this week.” She pulled a length of hair over her shoulder and tipped her head to one side. “Sorry to hear the news.” She frowned and looked away. Then she smiled a genuine good-to-see-you grin that flecked the dimples in her cheeks.

  “Back at it,” he said halting a little, unsure how much she knew about his situation. About Bethany and Buddy. And everything that happened after that. He forced himself to focus on the job. “So did you pick up the threads on the Whitelaw trial?”

  “You bet.” She opened a file on her screen and tilted it in case he wanted to have a look at her notes. “Not much to report over the last month, but I can send this to you if you want.” Her tone was back-to-business.

  He was silently thankful to her for immediately forcing him back into the game. Into the chase where they hunted and pecked out their daily nourishment from the world of politics, fame, sex, money, and crime — and the attempt to make sense of it all.

  “Sure. Forward it, but only if Wally wants me back on the story.” Finch nodded toward the managing editor’s office. “By the way, he wants to see us both in five minutes in the boardroom.”

  The boardroom doubled as the staff meeting room at the SF eXpress, the internet division of the San Francisco Post. Willie Parson, the Post’s CEO (and with his brother, co-owner of Parson Media) explained that the “e” denoted “electronic” and the “X” meant there would be no press machines cranking out actual papers. And no more press union, machine operators, typesetters, bundlers, truckers or paper carriers.

  Like everyone else at the eXpress, Finch had quickly accepted Wally Gimbel’s invitation to help him establish the digital version of the Post. If Finch had rejected Wally’s offer he would have enjoyed a direct exit onto the street with a week’s pay for every year of service in the old newsroom. Six years in his case. Three for Fiona. Dozens of reporters, many with more seniority, weren’t offered any opportunities within the paper — print or internet. And when the cuts hit they came fast and hard. No good-bye parties, no chance to see the old news hounds off to another, better life. As far as management was concerned, the shame of teetering bankruptcy outweighed any loyalty to dismissed veterans.

  “He’ll want you back on the story,” she said with certainty. “Did you hear what happened this weekend?”

  He nodded no.

  Before she could fill him in, her phone buzzed. She picked up her handset, listened a moment and said, “Okay, Wally.”

  “That was less than ten minutes,” Finch grumbled as he followed her toward the boardroom. He hadn’t even seen his old pod, let alone dusted off the keyboard.

  ※

  From the look in Gimbel’s eyes, Finch figured a new crisis had hit. Something lower on the Richter scale than presidential assassination or global financial collapse, more likely another horrible mass shooting, or perhaps the long-anticipated closure of the newspaper.

  “What’s up?” he asked and leaned against the doorframe as Gimbel eased into a swivel chair at the head of the massive oak table. If needed, the boardroom could accommodate the entire digital-edition staff, stringers and freelancers. Roughly twenty people, ten sitting around the table (snatched by Gimbel from his old editorial office downstairs), with latecomers allotted to standing room only. Fiona stood beside Finch and then sat next to her boss.

  “Close the door.” Gimbel rolled his lower lip under his teeth and tapped a finger on his tablet screen. “You read the news feed this morning?”

  Fiona shrugged with a sense of resignation. “Yeah … it’s hard to believe.”

  Finch raised his hands. “No time, Wally. Haven’t even set eyes on my desk yet.” He shrugged, a plea for a time out, and then realized he wasn’t part of the game. I need to suit up and join the team, he told himself and walked behind Gimbel and sat on his left. They hunched together in the windowless room and stared at the list of links on the tablet screen.

  Gimbel looked into Finch’s eyes. He wanted to test the reaction, witness the surprise voltage on his face. “Ray Toeplitz is dead.”

  “Ray Toeplitz?” Finch glanced away. “Dead?”

  Gimbel tapped his finger on the computer screen. A window popped open revealing the headline: Key Witness Dies Tragically. Below the text stood a picture of Toeplitz’s worried face as he exited the front doors of the Hall of Justice two months earlier.

  “It gets weirder than you think,” Fiona said and let this idea sink in before continuing. “Did you hear that crazy story on Sunday? About a black bear dragging some guy from his Mercedes in the backwoods in Oregon — and eating him alive?” She paused to see if this registered, examined Finch with a hint of absolution, knowing that if he’d skipped the news over the past month it was understandable. Everyone understood.

  In fact, Finch had purposely ignored all the news — TV, radio, papers, the web. He ignored her questions and set his eyes on Gimbel. “So what’s the connection?”

  Wally clicked on another link and the article about the rogue bear flashed onto the screen. “Toeplitz.”

  “Oh my god.” Finch brushed a hand over his mouth and quickly scanned the story. When he finished, he tipped back in his chair and gazed at the ceiling. Toeplitz: the genius with a PhD in Finance Mathematics. In his early twenties he’d made his mark on Wall Street, engineering complex hedge fund strategies that funneled millions into traders’ bank accounts. Ten years ago he’d been hired by Whitelaw, Whitelaw & Joss and then promoted to the position of Chief Financial Offi
cer.

  But was Toeplitz a player in the Mt. Gox bitcoin scam in Japan? Maybe. And was he part of the financial manipulations that defrauded investors of over four hundred and fifty million dollars? Possibly. Although he vehemently protested his innocence, as a member of his company’s Board of Directors, Toeplitz was arrested and accused of fraud in a trial which everyone assumed would last at least six months. The tabloids called it “The Battle for Bitcoin.”

  But recently Toeplitz experienced a moral epiphany, or more likely, Finch assumed, he’d negotiated a compelling plea bargain with the District Attorney. Whatever his motivation, Toeplitz said he possessed records pointing to a massive fraud perpetrated by the senator’s step-brother, Dean Whitelaw. And so Toeplitz decided to take the stand as a prosecution witness against Senator Franklin Whitelaw’s investment house.

  The senator himself claimed prosecutorial immunity because all his business affairs were held in a blind-trust, which he referred to as a “Chinese Wall.” Another racist gaff from the politician who’d built a populist reputation on similar foot-in-mouth blunders. Republicans loved him. Democrats laughed. Five times he’d been elected and sent to Washington.

  And now came this latest episode in the most bizarre corporate saga that Finch had ever covered. Somewhere in a remote coastal forest, Raymond Toeplitz had been devoured by a bear.

  Finch turned his attention back to Wally. “So there is a natural justice, after all.”

  “Mmm.” Wally pressed his lips together and shrugged doubtfully. “I hope not, especially if we can squeeze new juice from this story. With the executive team in Parson Media threatening to roll the print edition of the Post back to three days a week, it would be helpful if your tale of Toeplitz and the bear could draw in a few more readers. Just to keep their office doors open another week or two.” He pointed toward the floor, to the offices one story below.