The Bone Bridge: Chapter 12

John LeRoy Drive, Braintree, MA, November 13th

Dude, I can’t tell you how great it felt to be out of that fucking psycho ward and back on my board. One of the things I learned is that the more I move and the faster I do it, the harder it is for Them to follow me. It was Friday and all the kids were still at school so I decided before my folks could throw me a lame party that would just keep me pinned in our haunted house, to hop back on my board and get some moves in. So far, I hadn’t seen anyone who looked like they didn’t have a pulse.

I did an Ollie just to see if I lost anything and was happy to see that I hadn’t. Then I one-legged my board up the incline and gave myself some rolling space before turning an Ollie into a grind rail. Like so many things in life, it started out alright then I lost my balance and slipped off one side of the rail onto the cement.

This was one of the other reasons why I wanted to come here when no one else was around. After 2 o’clock when all the other kids got here after school, that bogus move was something I wouldn’t have lived down. That’s why I spazzed out when I realized I wasn’t alone. Just as I was getting up, I saw a big dude standing in front of me and I almost thought he was one of Them until I recognized him. It was that cop from Boston and he was holding my skateboard with one hand and reaching out to me with his other. I got up on my own and brushed off my pants.

“You OK, kiddo?”

“Uh, yeah. You’re Mr. Coffey, right?” He laughed.

“Like I haven’t heard that one before.” I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. “I got sick and tired of people calling me Mr. Coffey. That’s why I became a detective. It was easier than becoming Doctor Coffey.”

“Oh, I get it. Heh. So, what can I do for you?”

“Your folks said you’d probably be here. I want to talk to you about something.”

“About what?”

“Your invisible friends. I’m a believer.”


Maybe it was just the natural adolescent instinct to distrust cops but I would think with only one other person in the world who believed he was seeing ghosts, Adam would be more willing to talk to me. What worried me was that, if this Dietrich character ever got wind of him, maybe he’d believe his claims, too, and seek to exploit them. I was mindful of the fact that this whole thing, if it was for real, began with their grandfather’s research back in the 60’s. That plus Laura basically making a living that prevented people from perverting that research and her kid brother seeing swarms of spooks and his connection to one of the families that died at the Sheraton somehow put this family squarely in the middle of our investigation. When you’ve been a cop as long as me, you’re not quite as big a believer in coincidence and serendipity as others.

We sat down on a bench at the skateboard park that perhaps would’ve been better put to use in the Tower of London on account of the hard wood torturing my back. A piece of shrapnel in my lumbar in Kuwait during Desert Storm left me with a nagging back injury that made me an enemy of the sitting position in any chair or even sofa for an extended period of time. Then again, my injured back was a more accurate barometer than anything used by the National Weather Service. Yet I decided to talk to him in an environment in which he’d be the most comfortable, so I and not he would look like the fish out of water. And I couldn’t possibly imagine an environment in which a 48 year-old detective looked more out of place than in a skateboard park with a live-action anime character.

“So why do you of all people believe me?” he asked, tossing his long bangs out of his eyes. I always hated that stupid Emo boy cut. Long in the front, short in the back, it makes the kids who wear it look as if their barber got bored and walked away before they were done. “I mean, it isn’t like cops are known for believing in supernatural shit. You dudes have a hard enough time taking psychics seriously even when they solve crimes for you.”

“Well, kiddo, like in all professions and all walks of life, some people are just more open-minded than others. But I’ll tell you what made a believer out of me…” and I told him about what I saw on the security video. The kid was a little startled to discover that he was videotaped but seemed to be put at ease after a while now that it was documented he wasn’t seeing things.

“Plus, your sister’s been telling me that your house seems to be infested with spirits that only you can see and hear. That it landed you in the hospital again.”

“It’s fucking crazy, dude,” he said, pawing his bangs out of his big green eyes again. “The ones that I think bug me the most these days are the little kids, the ones that died young. I mean, you try ignoring them when they look up at you beggin’ you to help them find their parents and their homes.”

I never stopped to consider the psychological damage, the sheer angst that was added to what was already ordinary teen angst to anyone who saw ghosts as often as he did. Not that anyone should be expected to have off-the-rack empathy for such people.

“Are any of them here with you right now?” He looked around then I looked around, not that I’d see any of them.

“Not at the moment. In fact, I haven’t seen any of them since… last night.”

“Look, I know it’s impossible to listen to all of them when they’re all talking at the same time. But try to remember: Have any of them contacted you about what happened at the Sheraton last Halloween, anyone who’d identified themselves as having been killed there that night?”

Adam just shook his head with a wide-eyed expression of innocent confusion and for a very unmanly second I wanted to reach over and wrap him up in a hug and let him know that he was far from being alone. Mine and Beatrice’s son Chaz would’ve been almost his age if he was… I pinched off that thought as I tried to put my mind back on the job. I knew why my protective instincts would emerge whenever I saw or heard about this kid but I tried to put as much distance between the reasons why and myself as possible.

“The closest I think I’ve come to talking to anyone like that was…” He bit his full lower lip and seemed reluctant to tell me. I tried not to press but I leaned closer to him. “Clarissa’s ghost said something back at the hospital about freeing them. She said, ‘Free us.’ At first I thought she said ‘Frias’, like in a Portuguese name.”

I know it’s a cliché but sometimes shivers do run up spines and this time was no exception. Laura gave me the heads up that this Dietrich asshole may very well be shanghaiing ghosts and using them at places like the Sheraton. If there was some sort of a network in the netherworld, perhaps word got out that someone in our plane of existence was kidnapping the dead. And, for some reason, they’d decided Adam Moss was their savior and that he’d free them.


Just ‘cuz I saw all the Matrix movies and liked them didn’t mean I was buying into this bullshit I was hearing from this cop that I was the One, some real-life Neo.

“Look, it’s just a theory and a wild one, at that, I admit. Maybe you’re not their Moses who’s going to lead them to the Promised Land and it could be they’re seriously misguided.”

“Fuckin’ A,” I said. “I mean, I just turned 18 today and I can’t go one month without winding up at the Principal’s office for fucking up in some way.”

“You’re birthday’s today?”

“Yeah,” I said while looking at my Reeboks. As I rolled my skateboard back and forth, I kinda smiled to myself when I remembered what Clarissa did for me last night. For some reason, I wasn’t scared of her like the Others because I knew that, dead or alive, her heart was a good one and always in the right place. After all, she did promise me she’d pop my cherry. Of course, the circumstances weren’t quite what I had in mind, but…

“Well, happy birthday, kiddo. I guess I should’ve known.”

“You didn’t see the party decorations in the house when you talked to my folks?”

“No, I never got past the front door, actually. I talked to your Dad on the porch.”

“Was my sister home? She’s driving a rented Chevy Cobalt.”

“I didn’t see one in the driveway.”

“Shit, then she doesn’t know you’re talking to me.”

“Why should that matter? The decision is ultimately up to…”

“My folks are hopelessly out of the loop, dude. Besides, I just turned 18 today. You don’t even need their permission to talk to me anymore. I’m no longer a minor.”

“OK, but why should it matter if your big sister knows I’m talking to you?”

“Look, I dunno what she told you back at the police station but she’s plannin’ on hookin’ me up with some dude named Oliver Blood. I’m scared shitless about meeting this guy. He’s her boss, the head honcho at her agency. And I’m not thinking she’s sketched out to get more people involved in this.”

“Why is she setting up a meeting with you and her agency head?”

“I dunno. But I’m gettin’ the feeling she’s not tellin’ me everything, Detective Coffey. She says I can help them but I think she knows something I don’t and is trying to get her agency to protect me.”


Protect and to serve? Possibly. But I also was afraid she was planning on using her kid brother as bait to draw out that Dietrich prick, maybe even to exploit him. If occasionally crossing swords with government spooks in my eight years in the Green Berets had taught me one thing, it’s this: Don’t trust the bastards. In fact, after my experience with intelligence types, I wouldn’t trust them to watch a pile of dog shit. They’ll not only put an American flag on top of it but also try to get their dogs to shit in other peoples’ back yards so they could put Old Glory on top of them, too.

Despite my military and police background, Laura Moss gave me the heebie jeebies and I’m still not even sure what exactly her agency does. Of course, I didn’t share my concerns with the kid so he’d be more freaked out than he already was. I also didn’t want him to distrust his own sister more than he already did. That was my job. Yet, the mere suspicion that she would even consider using her innocent kid brother as bait and to perhaps exploit him for their own ends made my dick burn. Bottom line: When Adam talked to this Oliver Blood character, I wanted to be there in one way or another.

The school buses were circulating throughout Braintree and disgorging kids into the cold. A few hardy souls were making their way toward the skating park and already taking note of me so I decided to wrap it up.

“You know what’s one of the cool things about being a cop, Adam?” I asked as I stood up and arched my aching back.

“What’s that?”

“Wearing a wire.”