The Thirteenth Skull Read online

  "Don't miss The Thirteenth Skull! An engrossing mystery with a breathtaking setting in the Wyoming wilderness, a smart, determined sleuth, and a plot with enough twists and surprises that you'll want to keep reading late into the night." Margaret Coel, NYT Best-selling author.

  "The Thirteenth Skull is another hair-raising tale of murder and suspense that will keep you on the edge of your seat all the way from the mysterious beauty of the Wyoming prairies into the deepest secrets of the ancient Aztecs." -- Marne Davis Kellogg -- best-selling author of the Kick Keswick jewel thief series.

  "Bonnie Ramthun scores yet again, assuring her reputation as a premier thriller writer. The Thirteenth Skull is her best yet, original, riveting, powerful. Readers will race to the heart-wrenching -- and unexpected -- finale." -- Carolyn Hart, Agatha Award winning author of 34 mystery novels.

  "Bonnie Ramthun is like Sherlock Holmes meets the X-Files." -- Robert New, Entertainment Attorney, Century City, California.

  The Thirteenth Skull

  By Bonnie Ramthun

  This novel is a work of fiction. Any reference to historical events; to real people, living or dead; or to real locales are intended only to the give the fiction a sense of authenticity. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.

  The Thirteenth Skull

  Originally published by Loveland Press, 2003

  Rights returned to the author by Loveland Press in 2011.

  All rights reserved by the author.

  Copyright 2011 by Bonnie Ramthun

  Smashwords Edition

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Production credits:

  Edited by: Barbara Teel

  Cover Design, Layout and Production by: Sandi Nelsen

  Dedication:

  This is for my husband, Bill.

  Chapter One

  The Reed Ranch, Wyoming

  “Oh, no,” Eileen Reed said. “We’ve got trouble. The archeologist is here.”

  “The one who thinks her partner was murdered?” Lucy Giometti asked. She rose on her tiptoes to see out the kitchen window. They were both standing at the Reed Ranch’s enormous kitchen sink, up to their thick yellow glove-tops in soapy water. Eileen was washing dishes and Lucy was rinsing. Lucy had pitched in to help Eileen with her mother’s cook pans. Big cook pans, too, for a crew of hunters who were scouting the Reed Ranch and an additional crew of archeologists who were excavating a buffalo jump.

  “I think so,” Eileen said, peering through the kitchen window at the dusty brown truck in the yard. The shadowy figure behind the wheel was looking down, rummaging for gum or cigarettes or perhaps some paperwork. Eileen kept scrubbing the pot that had held gravy. “Which is why mom wanted me up here, me being a cop and all.”

  “A homicide detective,” Lucy said with a little grin. She took the pot from Eileen’s hands and rinsed it. “And me a little nobody friend of yours from back East, and let’s keep it that way.”

  “Of course, Secret Agent Man,” Eileen said from the corner of her mouth, trying to do a Bogart imitation. Lucy Giometti worked for the Central Intelligence Agency and couldn’t tell anyone that she did. Eileen knew, but only because of her own homicide work within the Defense Department. They’d met on a difficult case two years ago and hit it off immediately, two women who hunted bad guys for a living and liked it. Though they couldn’t be more different in temperament and looks, Eileen had found herself with an unexpected best friend.

  When Eileen became engaged she hesitated before asking Lucy Giometti to be her matron of honor. Would Lucy think she was pathetic, asking a friend a continent away to stand up for her, a friend that she saw maybe once a year? Lucy, at her call, had broken into whoops of joy. She’d never been a matron of honor, she confided to Eileen. Always a bridesmaid, and once a bride, but never the one to hold the bouquet while the bride accepted the ring. She was honored. She was thrilled, and she made Eileen laugh with relieved joy.

  The wedding was now four months away and Lucy had come out to help Eileen with finalizing the thousand small details. Lucy had been enchanted with the idea of traveling to the Reed Ranch. She had done the fittings for her matron of honor dress, but she admitted the endless wedding details were wearing her out. Eileen, too, was relieved to be doing something, anything, else. They’d gleefully thrown the color swatches and bouquet pictures back on Eileen’s desk, packed up Hank, Lucy’s little boy, and headed for Wyoming.

  The archeologists were the main headache to Eileen’s parents, and the reason Eileen and Lucy were in Wyoming. Paul and Tracy Reed had recently turned their cattle ranch into a guided hunting business. Elk, deer, mountain lion, wild turkey and bear were plentiful in the eastern Wyoming Black Hills. The Black Hills National Forest joined their property on the south. Six miles away the enormous stone trunk of Devils Tower created an additional attraction, although both Paul and Tracy had rejected the idea of renaming their ranch something trendy like “Devils Tower Ranch and Hunt Service.” The Reed Ranch it remained, and even with the plain name the Reeds were doing very well.

  In late May Paul started working on the new bunkhouse, a lavish log cabin that would hold rich hunters in near-hotel accommodations. He’d started the first clearing work with his backhoe and braked to a stop within minutes, confused and a little frightened. The dirt under the green grass was packed with bones, so thick and white they looked like outcroppings of chalk. After sitting still for a minute or two, looking at the bones, Paul got off his backhoe and took a look.

  To his relief, he found they were buffalo bones. The bones were packed to a depth of six feet and it was then that Paul realized the bluff above the bones had been the site of a Native American buffalo jump. Six weeks later the Reeds were picking out a new site for their bunkhouse and a crew of archeologists from the University of Wyoming were practically wetting themselves at the foot of the bluff. Now one of the archeologists was missing, some extremely rich hunters were scouting at the ranch, and Tracy Reed had called her daughter for help.

  “So do you think the missing archeologist is dead?” Lucy asked. They’d been roped into cleaning dirty dishes the morning after they arrived, which didn’t bother Eileen. On a ranch, work was whatever needed to be done, right now. Lucy, easygoing and cheerful, pulled on cleaning gloves and set to work.

  “I don’t know. He’s missing, but that doesn’t mean anything. He could be tossing the dice in Las Vegas with a downy thing he picked up at a bar. You know? Missing doesn’t always equal dead.”

  Hank Giometti trotted into the kitchen with a black and white Border collie at his side. He was wearing a bright red T-shirt and shorts. His curly black hair was dusty and his cheeks were flushed. He was grinning. The collie, named Zilla, was panting. They had the same grin.

  Zilla sat down and wagged her tail. She was a champion cattle dog, now a housedog after an accident with a bull. With three legs she was as quick as most other dogs were with four and her passion for herding things never left her. Tracy Reed, Eileen’s mother, had named Zilla after a Hebrew word that meant “protective shade.” Eileen thought Zilla’s name fit her perfectly.

  Lucy, Hank, and Eileen had arrived at the ranch late at night. Hank, when he awoke, fell in love with Zilla at first sight.

  Hank went right to Lucy and threw his chubby arms around her legs. She bent over and planted a kiss on his dusty curls, keeping
her wet gloves in the sink.

  “How are you, baby? Need a diaper change?”

  “No, no, no,” Hank announced. “Blocks!”

  “I had many a wonderful hour with those blocks,” Eileen said with a smile, turning her gaze away from Hank and looking back out the window at the figure who was still sitting in the truck. “My dad made about a million of them for me. I’m glad he kept them around.”

  Hank had spent much of the morning building towers in the living room with Zilla’s attentive help. When they got tall enough, he would knock them over and squeal with delight. Zilla would yip encouragingly. Eileen and Lucy had been listening to the silence, crash, squeal and yipping while they washed dishes.

  “Mommy,” he giggled, clutching Lucy. Zilla wagged her tail.

  “Oh, hey, she’s getting out of the truck,” Eileen said. Lucy stood up on her toes, looking out the window. Hank, apparently satisfied with his mommy visit, left the room with Zilla at his heels. There were more blocks to stack, squeal and yip over.

  “Mom doesn’t like these University ladies. She hasn’t said, but I can tell,” Eileen said. “Not that we’ve had much time to talk, you know.” She scrubbed hard on the next pot.

  Outside, the door to the dust-spattered truck finally opened. Out stepped a woman in jeans and a blue work shirt, a woman with a shoulder-length spill of honey blonde hair so thick and shiny it glittered like gold in the sun. She had a face to match the hair, fine-boned and full-lipped. Her eyes were sky blue and she had thick, naturally arched brows that were drawn down in dislike or temper. As she shut the door the rest of her body came into view. She had full, boys-fantasy size breasts, a hand span waist, and lush hips. She was, in short, spectacularly beautiful.

  Eileen looked at Lucy. Lucy looked back at Eileen. Lucy’s gloves were dripping with soapy water and her hair was uncombed. She had a smudge on her little nose and her eyes were still tired from the long drive the day before. Eileen knew she didn’t look any better than Lucy.

  “Let’s kill her,” Lucy suggested solemnly.

  Eileen started snickering. She leaned over the soapsuds and tried to stop, knew that she couldn’t, and leaned back. She roared with laughter, and Lucy laughed, too.

  Suddenly the door to the kitchen burst open and Tracy Reed shot inside, her tall lanky body telegraphing distress.

  “Jorie’s here,” she cried. “She’s back and she’s going to ruin everything.”

  “We know,” Lucy said.

  Eileen snorted and Lucy sniffed hard.

  “What is wrong with you two?” Tracy asked. She looked at them and her face relaxed. “Got the giggles, I see.”

  “I guess so, mom,” Eileen said. She thought about explaining and then didn’t. She’d just start laughing again.

  “Well, get it together,” Tracy said. “If Jorie starts harassing my hunters again I’m going to lose them, I know I am.”

  “Harassing?” Lucy asked. “How’s that?”

  “She’s an anti-hunter, anti-beef, anti-everything type,” Tracy said with an exasperated flapping of her hands. “You know the type. Militant feminist. Human hater. Thinks we should all live in tepees or better yet just die off. Plus she hates Howard Magnus. Hates him.”

  “That’s not good,” Eileen said, stripping off her gloves. She regarded her pruney fingers. “You never got to that part.”

  “You’ve only been here since last night,” Tracy said. “I just got to the point where we have a famous rock musician scouting our business and the three of you were already asleep on the couch.”

  “It was a long drive,” Eileen said meekly.

  “I’m glad you’re here, honey,” Tracy said with one of her lightning changes of expression, smiling at Eileen with a look that lit her face. Eileen grinned. She loved her mom. She reached out and Tracy hugged her.

  “Blocks!” Hank announced again from the doorway, Zilla at his heels.

  “Knock ’em down!” Tracy said without missing a beat, grinning at Hank. She and Hank hit it off within seconds of his arrival. Tracy liked kids.

  “Hello? Hellooo?”

  “That would be Jorie,” Tracy said with a grimace. She let go of Eileen and ran her hands through her flyaway gray hair. “In the kitchen, Jorie,” she called.

  Jorie Rothman walked through the door and Eileen sobered instantly. Perhaps the head archeologist, Dr. McBride, was getting sloppo in some bar in Gillette or whooping it up with whores in Las Vegas, or maybe he really was dead. If he was dead, Eileen was going to have to be very careful not to mess this one up. She didn’t want to let her folks down.

  “Hello,” Jorie said, in a chilly, surprised little voice, looking back and forth between Eileen and Lucy. Jorie was even more stunning close up. She had white, even teeth and flawless skin. She wore no makeup and her long, capable-looking hands were bare, though seamed with dirt. Her nails were chipped and dirty. Her shirt and jeans were reasonably clean but not new.

  “This is my daughter, Eileen,” Tracy said with a satisfied look. “She’s a homicide detective from Colorado Springs. Do you remember, I told you about her? And this is her friend, Lucy Giometti. Lucy is visiting from Virginia.”

  “Hello,” Jorie said. Her full lips tightened just a bit when she looked at Lucy. Eileen smiled inside. Eileen thought of herself as not particularly attractive, but she knew Lucy Giometti was. Lucy was short and perfectly shaped and had masses of curly black hair surrounding a lovely heart-shaped face. She had a triangular little smile that reminded Eileen of a very young Elizabeth Taylor. Lucy was more than a match for the glittery charms of this Jorie woman, even though Lucy had red eyes and a smudge on her nose.

  “This is my son, Hank,” Lucy said. Jorie gave Hank the kind of flickering glance that dismissed him as a human being.

  “Nice to meet you. Are you going to work on this murder case?” Jorie asked, directing her question to Eileen.

  “I’ll go check Hank’s diaper,” Lucy said smoothly, picking him up. He laid his head against her shoulder and smiled at Jorie as Lucy left the room. Zilla ghosted along behind with her quick three-legged gait, wagging her tail.

  “I’m here to help my mom and dad,” Eileen said. “I’m sure you’re very concerned about your friend and I’ll do what I can.”

  “That sounds like bullshit,” Jorie said waspishly. “Same kind of bullshit your dipshit county sheriff tells me every time I talk to him.”

  “Well,” Tracy said with satisfaction, dusting her hands together. “I’ll get back to my work, then. Paul and the hunters will be coming in from the South Ridge this evening and they’re sure to be tired and hungry. Why don’t you two sit in the family room so I can get supper started?”

  “Sure thing, mom,” Eileen said, suppressing a sigh. “This way, Miss Rothman.”

  Eileen glanced at her mother as they left the kitchen. Tracy grinned widely and gave Eileen a little wave that meant She’s all yours now.

  Tracy had decorated the family room in a western style, with leather couches and an enormous elk head over the mantle, softened with shelves of bright books and lamps and a thick wool rug. Tracy had pulled the blinds and curtains open earlier and the room was drenched with light. A few dust motes danced in the air. Outside the window there was a lovely view of her parents’ land as it fell away towards the distant Belle Fourche River. Trees shaded the house and made the grass outside the window look cool and green. Eileen took a calming breath, enjoying the soothing smell of sunwarmed leather and old books.

  “Have a seat,” Eileen suggested. “Tell me everything. I’m the good guy, remember.”

  “Whatever,” Jorie said, looking at the leather couches with disgust.

  “Jorie,” Eileen said, as she took a seat on the leather armchair and deliberately relaxed into it. “Two months ago I testified at the trial of a man who raped and killed a young environmental engineer. The man had been polluting a creek and she found out and he killed her.” There was a lot more to the story than that, of course, but Eileen
was telling what she thought Jorie should hear. Eileen knew that she didn’t look much like a cop. She was never going to scare people with her imposing authority, or cow them into confessing. Jorie’s face reflected what Eileen had seen ever since she became a cop: A look of suppressed or even open contempt. This look was often replaced by one of surprise when the handcuffs went on or when the verdict came back guilty.

  “I caught him, and he’s going to prison. If something happened to your friend, then I’m going to find that out, too.”

  Jorie looked at her for the first time, her eyes so blue Eileen had trouble looking at them. Her thick brows rose a little and for a moment Eileen thought she had her, thought that whatever person lived behind the perfect features would come out and they could connect. Then the brows drew down and Jorie shrugged elaborately.

  “I’ll tell you what I know,” she said.

  Lucy came in from the living room and sat down in the other big armchair.

  “Hank’s back at his blocks,” she said. “Can I listen?”

  “Do you mind?” Eileen asked. Jorie gave Lucy that glare – which looked like jealously, Eileen secretly chortled – and then shrugged again. Jorie liked to shrug, Eileen was finding out. It seemed to be her predominant gesture.

  “My boss is Dr. Jonathan McBride. Was, I think. He’s a professor of Archeology at the University of Wyoming. His specialty is Plains tribal hunting techniques before the Spanish brought the horse to America.”

  “Which means buffalo jumps,” Eileen said, tucking her feet up in her armchair. Jorie remained at the edge of the leather couch, her rounded haunches barely touching the edge. She laced her fingers and settled them on one knee. Lucy crossed her legs and put her elbows on her knees, making herself a collected little package. Sitting that way she didn’t look much bigger than her son.