Bones of the Barbary Coast Read Online Free PDF

find a body, you gotta go through the motions. I called in a crime scene unit, we excavated the rubble, removed the bones. We all knew what we were looking at. Medical examiner signed off on it as accidental and historical death. The ME would have held the bones for the obligatory year and then incinerated them, but I brought them over to Skobold's shop, see if we could find out more about him."
    Cree nodded. The enclosure exhaled a chalky, moist smell. She stepped into the near-darkness, looked around at the rough brick interior, and did her best to shift her sensorum, to listen to the silence and hear what might live within it. But besides the earthy, subterranean chill, the most palpable sensation was Bert's presence—his heavy, inscrutable, dour mood.
    "In my work," she said casually, "we find people are often reluctant to admit they've had an unusual experience that bothers them. They're always very relieved when we tell them it doesn't mean they're crazy or superstitious."
    Uncle Bert chortled. "Cree, kiddo—thanks for the thought, but don't try to finesse me here. I interview and interrogate people myself, that's half of what I do."
    She turned around and shared his smile. "Then you know when somebody's holding back on you. Why bother with this, Uncle Bert? Why call me?"
    He didn't answer. Instead, he came into the chamber and stood with arms crossed, blocking the light from the main room.
    "Lot of questions here. One of my first was, guy's buried in four or five feet of rubble, but the foundation's intact, looks original. Ceiling is intact, floor above that is intact. So where'd the rubble come from?"
    "Good question."
    Bert produced a small flashlight from his pocket and shined it at the ceiling, a solid panel of dark wainscoting. "See the color of the boards nearest the foundation? They're old, but they're a little newer than the others. I figure the quake knocked down stuff from above, a masonry wall or maybe a chimney, it broke through the floor upstairs, half-filled this little room. The owners back then repaired the ceiling and the floor up there, but left the debris where it was. Either didn't know our guy was in here, or didn't want to deal with him. Or didn't want anyone to know about him."
    Cree inspected the circle of light on the ceiling. On the terrace side, the varnish appeared paler, as if newer boards had been woven skillfully back into the darker, older ones.
    "Good point." She smiled again and then prodded: "But you're stalling me."
    He pulled back, affronted. "Whoa, little lady, maybe you better get straight about who's in charge here."
    She wasn't ready for his reaction, his tone, and threw some of it back at him: "Come on, Uncle Bert. Do you want help on this or not?"
    He stood mute, inhaling slowly as if he was inflating, looking furious with her. When he refused to answer, Cree felt her Irish come up, as Pop used to say. She pushed past him, and in the outer room she turned and half-sat on one of the saw-horses. Her heart was thumping, but she crossed her arms and kept a hard and expectant look on her face.
    Bert took his time coming out, but when he did she was relieved to see that little smile orphaned on his cheeks.
    "Ben Black's kid," he said. He shook his head, making a sucking noise through his side teeth. "I was about twice your pop's size, but he was twice as stubborn. Nobody pushed him around. I guess you got the gene."
    The smile was gone by the time he got to her. He put a big hand on her shoulder to urge her along with him.
    At the top of the stairs, Cree turned to watch Bert stump his way up, looking foreshortened as his thick hand clamped the bannister, slid ahead and clamped again, hoisting himself up.
    He puffed into the light and shut the door behind him. "See, way I figure it, there are two ways to retire. Main one is, you're heavy around the middle and you got flat feet you like to put up on your desk. You know your case load'U never resolve anyway, so why bust your ass for