The bones at point no po.., p.1
The Bones at Point No Point (A Thomas Austin Crime Thriller Book 1), page 1
THE BONES AT POINT NO POINT
A THOMAS AUSTIN CRIME THRILLER,
BOOK 1
D.D. BLACK
DARKNESS AND LIGHT PUBLISHING
A Note on Setting
Hansville is a real town, Point No Point a real beach with a famous lighthouse. And while many locations in this book are true to life, some details of the setting have been changed.
Only one character in these pages exists in the real world: Thomas Austin’s corgi, Run. Her personality mirrors that of my own corgi, Pearl. Any other resemblances between characters in this book and actual people is purely coincidental. In other words, I made them all up.
Thanks for reading,
D.D. Black
PART 1
THE BONES AND THE BEACH
CHAPTER ONE
Norwegian Point Beach, Hansville, WA
Sarah knew she shouldn’t be here. She’d told Benny she couldn’t come, wouldn’t come. But by his third text, she’d agreed. And now he was the one running late.
She’d been sitting on the massive driftwood log for ten minutes, staring out at the Puget Sound, as a light drizzle began. It was the kind of rain she’d grown up with, the sort she could be out in all day long and never get wet through her thin buffalo plaid fleece. She’d broken up with Benny three or four times now and had assured herself—not to mention her parents—that they would not be getting back together. But Benny had the best weed in Kitsap County—his cousin worked at one of the shops—and after the stress of finals and college applications, she needed to laugh and to green out.
Finally. She smiled when she saw him coming down the beach. He wore a black hoodie and blue jeans, and walked with more swagger than he’d earned. They were never getting back together, she assured herself, but she did like his swagger. It was exaggerated, as though he was doing an impression of someone swaggering. Ironic, which somehow made it endearing.
Maybe she could take him back, just for the Christmas break, which started in a couple weeks. After all, he was a decent guy. He’d never cheated on her when they were together, wasn’t addicted to video games, and he tried his best not to be a jerk. That was more than she could say for most of the teenaged boys she knew.
He caught her eye and flashed a big smile. She smiled back.
She ran her hands over her damp jeans and let out a long breath. “Hey,” she said as he plopped down on the log next to her, stretching his long legs.
“Hey.” His voice was deep and sleepy, like he’d just rolled out of bed, which he probably had.
What the hell was she doing? She’d told herself there was no way they were getting back together and here she was, sitting on the log where they’d first kissed, flashing a newly-tightened-braces smile at him. She should leave.
Then again, the semester was almost over and she’d already finished her big projects and essays. She deserved a break. She was here to get high and stare at the water, maybe have a laugh. That was it.
Sarah jumped down from the log. “You wanna walk?”
“We can blaze one right here.” He glanced up and down the deserted beach.
Everything was shades of gray: the blue-gray water lapping against green-gray beach stones and brown-gray driftwood. Even the sand looked dull and lifeless under the dark gray sky.
“Who the hell comes to the beach on a rainy day the week after Thanksgiving?” He chuckled. “Besides a former couple who are still madly in love and want to smoke a little.”
Sarah slapped his arm, then looked toward the little café and general store, its entryway decorated with faint blue and white Christmas lights. It was the only business in town besides the post office, and there were two cars in the parking lot, and one was Benny’s. In the other direction, there were the abandoned shacks of Norwegian Point.
December in Hansville was a dreary affair, most of the time. She doubted anyone would show up on the beach, but still. “Let’s go to the bluff,” she insisted.
Benny shrugged and followed her down from the log.
They took their usual route, following a mile-long stretch of beach that led past a row of waterfront homes and into the Point No Point park. There were a few cars in the parking lot and a pair of kayakers in blue wetsuits were making their way across the parking lot.
In silence they walked just along the water’s edge and rounded the tip of the peninsula past the lighthouse. The water swayed gently in front of them. On a clear day, she would have been able to see Edmonds and Seattle across the water and all the way to Mount Rainier, hundreds of miles to the southeast.
Sarah nodded toward the trail that led away from the beach, through the marshlands, and up to the bluff.
Benny followed, hands in his pockets. “You think we’ll stay friends when you go away to college?”
“Sure we will,” Sarah said, but she didn’t know if it was true. She didn’t even know where she’d go to college, and they both knew Benny wouldn’t be going at all. Not that he wasn’t smart enough. Just wasn’t for him. At seventeen, he already made twenty bucks an hour doing oil changes and tune-ups for half the people they knew. But it was more than that. An unspoken thing. Benny was the kind of guy who’d never leave Kitsap County.
He caught her eye. “You’re humming that song again.”
“No, I’m not,” she protested.
“I’ve literally been listening to it for like two minutes.”
Had she been? It popped back into her head.
Da-da-dee-da-da-deeeeee-da, Da-da-dee-da-da-deeeeee.
It was an old indie rock song about a girl who was never getting back together with her boyfriend. The first time they’d broken up she’d played it on repeat and they’d laughed about it when they’d gotten back together a few weeks later. Now that they’d broken up three or four times—she’d lost track—it was more than a running joke.
Benny dropped to his knees in the sand, holding up a stick as a microphone as he belted the chorus.
“The last time I saw your briiiight eyes…
The last time we said gooooood bye.”
He’d been in a mediocre band for a little over a year and had a pretty decent voice for a guy who put in next to no effort.
“Enough,” Sarah said, laughing and pulling him up by his elbow.
They continued up the trail, leaving behind the famous lighthouse and the plaque commemorating the treaty signed by the local tribes and the state government in 1855. Sarah’s own ancestors had signed that treaty, giving up ancestral land to the government and establishing reservations, and it made her feel a little guilty that over a hundred and fifty years later she came to this same beach to goof off.
When they reached the top of the stairs, they sat on a bench that offered a narrow view of the beach through a cutout in the blackberry bushes. Benny pulled a joint out of a little glass vial and held it out, lighter poised in the other hand. “Ladies first.” He held out the joint.
She was about to take it when she saw a figure down on the beach, walking close to the water. “Hold on.” She pointed.
“Dude, she can’t see us from there. Not to mention, weed is legal now.”
“Not for seventeen-year-olds. And if I can see her, then she can see us. And don’t call me dude. I mean, why do boys your age call everyone dude?”
Benny smirked. “Fine, bro.”
Sarah squinted, wondering if it was someone they knew. The woman was slight, with sandy brown hair and a quick, purposeful walk, but she couldn’t make out much about her face. “You recognize her?”
Benny put the joint and lighter on his lap and held his hands in front of his eyes like they were binoculars. “Nope.” He went to light the joint and Sarah swatted his hands down.
“No. She'll smell it. Just wait ’til she goes by.”
They watched in silence as the woman walked along the beach, jutting up from the Sound toward a patch of driftwood about thirty feet from the waterline. “What’s she carrying?” Sarah asked.
“Picnic lunch?”
Benny laughed, but Sarah ignored him. He was always making jokes. Or, trying to.
Moving with purpose, the woman stopped about halfway between the lighthouse and bottom of the trail that led up the bluff. After a quick glance around, she set something on a log. From the bluff, it looked like a green bag.
Next, the woman pulled out her phone and appeared to take a few pictures of the bag. Then she turned around and hurried back to the parking lot near the lighthouse, leaving the bag behind on the log.
“What the hell?” Sarah asked.
Benny seemed unconcerned. “Maybe she’s doin’ one of those online treasure hunts or somethin’? Seen ‘em on Insta.”
Sarah looked at him skeptically. “In Hansville, population, like, two-thousand? In December?”
Benny lit the joint and took a long drag, the sweet smell of high-end marijuana mingling with the moist, salty air. Sarah pulled up the collar on her jacket. Benny offered her the joint and, when she declined, he took another puff and put it out on the bench, then stowed it back in the vial.
“Only one thing to do.” He leapt up and bolted down the stairs toward the beach, flapping his arms like the wings of a bird in flight and belting the breakup song.
“The last time I saw your briiiight eyes
The last time we said gooooood bye.”
Sarah followed, s
Benny skidded to a stop in the sand. Dropping to his knees in front of the bag, he leaned back, wiggling his fingers in a trance-like, prayerful gesture, an impression of the famous Jimi Hendrix moment when he’d lit his guitar on fire and implored the flames to rise. Hendrix was his favorite musician and Benny knew this one always got a laugh out of Sarah. He did it in front of plates of food, especially pizza boxes, and had even done it once when their tenth-grade math teacher placed a midterm test in front of him. Mr. Baker had kicked him out of class, but Sarah found it funny enough to go out with him the next day.
The bag was roughly the size of a plastic grocery bag, but made of green felt in the style of a holiday gift bag. It was decorated with cheesy cutouts of Thanksgiving turkeys and cranberries.
Benny reached for it.
“Don’t touch it!”
He offered a dumb smile. “She clearly meant for us to have whatever is in here.”
Sarah crouched next to him. “Should we look in it? What if it’s a bomb or something?”
“Ahh yes, because terrorists always want to blow up logs on empty beaches on mostly empty peninsulas at the edge of the known world.” He reached for it again. “How could we not look inside?”
She glanced up and down the beach. Not a person in sight. “Why would she just leave it here?”
“The world is a strange place, Sarah.” He looked up at the sky. “Why does anyone do anything?”
“You’re sooooooo high.”
Benny laughed and rolled into a patch of sand, spreading his arms and legs wide and flailing like he was trying to make a snow angel.
Sarah took one more look around her, then reached for the bag.
Bang!
A thunderous pop cut the silence.
Sarah’s shoulders tightened.
Benny sat up, looking in the direction of the parking lot.
“Was that a gunshot?” Sarah asked.
Benny laughed. “Pro’lly a car backfiring.”
She heard the quiet whooshing of a car passing on the road behind them.
“You were so freaked out.” Benny spoke in a high-pitched mimic. “Was that a gunshot?”
“Shut up, asshole.”
He continued rolling in the sand, laughing. “This is some good shit.”
Gently, Sarah inched the red drawstring between her fingers. The contents of the bag rattled softly as she tugged it open. At first, she saw only shadow. Then, angling her body so the light filtering through the cloud cover seeped into the bag, she gasped.
“What?” Benny was looking over her shoulder now. “Is it a prize, Christmas come early? Cash? Oh, please tell me it’s cash.”
He whipped out his phone. “Smile.” Before she could object, before she could turn, he snapped a picture.
“You’re a jerk, Benny.” Sarah looked down, shaking the bag slightly. Maybe she hadn’t seen what she thought she’d seen. Maybe they were plastic or something. Maybe they were… She peered inside, opening the bag a little wider.
Bones. A hundred, maybe two hundred. Scattered at random as though fighting for space in the bag. Tiny. Bones.
She rolled down the edges of the cloth, letting more light into the bag, and then she saw it.
A human skull, the tiniest she’d ever seen.
Jumping back, Sarah dropped the bag and let out a scream, causing the birds to rise from the marshland and take flight for safer ground.
CHAPTER TWO
Hansville Café, General Store, and Bait Shop
Three Weeks Later
Hansville was the kind of quiet beach town where Thomas Austin didn’t even bother locking his door. After twenty years in New York City, it was a welcome change.
He was on his third attempt at making the perfect hamburger when his cellphone rang again. He didn’t recognize the number, so he silenced it and turned back to the grill. He flipped the patty, added a slice of pepper jack, and covered it with a lid. The crisp bacon and charred green chiles lay on a plate next to the grill. The bun was in the toaster, almost ready to be spread with the peppered tomato jam he’d spent the weekend perfecting.
“Boss, why don’t you answer your phone?” Andy, his head cook, was doing dishes on the other side of the kitchen, which was, in truth, only about five feet from him. The commercial kitchen in the back of his store was just big enough to service the twelve-seat café, which was empty despite the fact that it was seven in the morning, theoretically the time for the breakfast rush. Slow mornings, he told himself, were perfect for testing new recipes.
Austin shrugged. “If it’s important they’ll call back.”
“Uhh, that’s the third time your phone’s rang in the last five minutes.”
“If it’s important they’ll leave a message.”
Andy laughed.
“Plus,” Austin said, pulling the bun out of the toaster, “the damn calls drop half the time, other times they go straight to voicemail.”
“My girlfriend calls Hansville an Instagram desert, a one-bar backwater.”
Austin looked at him blankly.
“One bar, as in, one bar of reception on the cellphone. And Instagram—”
“I’ve heard of it. I think.” At 43, Austin didn’t feel old, but being around a cook in his mid-twenties made him realize that the world had passed him by in more ways than one.
The store phone rang and Andy hurried to the wall to grab it. “Hansville General Store, Café, and Bait Shop. How can I help you?”
Austin slid a spatula under the burger and placed it on the bun.
He was about to add the toppings when Andy extended the red cordless phone toward him. “Boss, you might want to take this.”
“Who is it?”
“Riley, um, something. Or Reynold? Said he was a Detective with Kitsap County. That was him on the cell. Sounds important.”
Austin traded him the plate for the phone. “You finish this, see how it comes out.” He leaned on the sink and held the phone to his ear. “Thomas Austin.”
“Mr. Austin, this is Ridley Calvin, homicide detective, Kitsap County Sheriff’s Department. You’re a hard man to reach.”
Austin paused. “Thank you.”
“That wasn’t a… um, you’re welcome.”
“Bad joke, Detective Calvin. And please, I go by Austin, not ‘Mr.’ What’s this regarding?” Since leaving the NYPD a year earlier, Austin had gotten a few calls about old cases, but always from former colleagues. Never from a local detective. “One of my old cases, I’m guessing?”
“You guessed right,” Ridley said. “But before I say more, just to confirm, this is Thomas Aaron Austin, retired detective. NYPD from 2002 to 2022?”
“That’s correct.”
Across the cramped kitchen, Andy held up the finished burger proudly and took a huge, dramatic bite. Austin smiled. On their honeymoon, at a little hotel bar in Texas, Austin and his wife had shared the perfect hamburger, and he’d been working for a week to recreate it to add it to his menu.
Detective Calvin continued. “You were the lead investigator on the Lorraine D’Antonia case, aka The Holiday Baby Butcher, correct?”
Austin’s smile dropped. “I was lead detective on the abduction and murder she committed in New York, yes. The Seattle murders and investigation I had nothing to do with.”
“Understood. Before I get into it, may I ask, why New York City to Kitsap County, and why Hansville of all places?”
Austin stared out the little window to the parking lot that ran right up to the beach. The day was sunny and crisp, the kind of day he craved in a winter mostly populated by gray drizzle. “You know about my wife, I assume?”
Austin’s corgi, Run, squeezed herself under the swinging wooden doors that led from the store area into the tiny kitchen. She stared at the grill and sniffed. When no one offered up a treat, she lay in the patch of sun that streamed through the window onto the linoleum floor, taking up about a third of the available floor space.
“Yes,” Ridley said. “That story made the news even out here. And I’m sorry.”
