Devil Bones (11 page)

Finaly, I jotted comments concerning the body. Naked. Prone, buttocks raised, arms straight at the sides. Decapitation, no blood or bodily fluids at the scene. Head missing.

Incised wounds on chest and bely. Minimal decomp. No aquatic or animal scavenging. Egg masses at neck and anus with internal temperatures of 97 and 98 degrees Fahrenheit, respectively. Unknown cause of death.

It was half past four when I finished. Larabee and Hawkins were leaning on the back of the van, drinking bottled water.

“Thirsty?” Hawkins asked.

I nodded.

Hawkins puled a six-ouncer from a cooler and tossed it to me.

“Thanks.”

We al drank and stared at the lake. Larabee spoke first.

“Slidel’s convinced we got devil worshippers in our midst.”

“Commissioner Lingo wil have a field day.” I couldn’t keep the disdain from my voice.

Hawkins shook his head. “Old Boyce was sounding off less than twenty-four hours after you and Skinny wrapped up in that celar.”

“Don’t you know? Lingo has a hotline to God.”

Larabee snorted.

“Remember that stabbing off Archdale?” Hawkins tipped his bottle in Larabee’s direction. “Lesbian lady took issue with her partner coyoting around? Body bag’s barely zipped and Lingo’s pontificating on the evils of homosexuality.”

“Not a peep last week when that trucker blew his ex-wife’s boyfriend away. That was a righteous heterosexual murder,” Larabee said. “Biblical motive. If I can’t have her, nobody can.”

“If Lingo gets wind of this one, he’l rol it into his current soap opera.” Hawkins tossed his empty bottle onto a Winn-Dixie bag beside the cooler.
“The Devil Goes Down to
Georgia.”

“He’l be dead-ass wrong,” I said.

“You don’t get satanic vibes from this?” Larabee asked.

“From this one, yes. From that celar, no.”

I described what I’d found.

“Don’t sound like Baptists to me,” Hawkins said.

I outlined what I’d told Slidel and Rinaldi about syncretic religions. Santería. Voodoo. Palo Mayombe.

“Who’s into animal sacrifice?”

“Al of them.”

“Satanists?”

“Yes.”

“Where’s your money?” Larabee’s bottle joined Hawkins’s.

“The colored beads, the coins, and the Catholic saint point to Santería. The wooden sticks and the padlocked
nganga
suggest Palo Mayombe.”

“The human remains?”

I raised my hands, frustrated. “Take your pick. Voodoo. Santería. Palo Mayombe. Satanism. But the celar had no inverted pentagrams or crosses, no six-six-six symbols, no black candles or incense. Nothing typical of devil worship.”

“Nothing like this kid here.” Larabee tipped his head toward the lake.

“No.”

“You think there’s a link?”

I pictured the mutilated body lying on the shore.

The cauldron skul and leg bones.

I had no answer.

Wending toward the highway, I passed two cars. One pleased me. The other did not.

The SUV held the search dog promised by Rinaldi. I wished the canine better luck than I’d had in locating the missing head.

The Honda Accord was driven by the same woman I’d seen outside the Greenleaf house Tuesday night. What had the
Observer
photo credit been? Alison Stalings.

“Just friggin’ great.” I palm-smacked the wheel. “Who the hel are you, Alison Stalings?”

Noting her plate number, I wished Radke luck in keeping Stalings far from the body.

My mobile rang as I was merging from the entrance ramp onto I-77. Traffic was heavy, but not yet the bumper-to-bumper crush it would be.

The caler ID showed an unfamiliar number with a 704 area code.

Curious, I clicked on.

“Go Mustangs,” a male voice said.

I was tired, preoccupied, and, to be honest, disappointed the cal was local and therefore not from Ryan. My reply wasn’t overly courteous.

“Who is this?”

The response was the first line of the Myers Park High School fight song.

“Hi, Charlie.”

“Up for that coffee?”

“It’s not a good time.”

“Six o’clock? Seven? Eight? You name it.”

“I’ve been in the field al day. I’m tired and grubby.”

“As I recal, you clean up real good.” An old Southern expression.

I am competitive. Play hard. Work hard. Some people manage to do those things and remain wel-groomed. I’m not among them. Folowing our tennis tournaments, Charlie usualy looked like a
GQ
model. I usualy looked like a badly permed shih tzu.

“Thanks. I think.”

“Katy tels me you like lamb chops.”

The veering segue caught me off guard.

“I—”

“My specialty. How about this? You shower while I hit the Fresh Market. We meet at my place at seven. You relax while I toss a salad and throw chops on the gril.”

Whoa, big fela!

“Katy’s invited, of course. I’l catch her before she leaves here.”

I suspected his co-conspirator was right at his side.

“It’s been a long day,” I said.

“A shower wil make a new woman of you.”

“But the old one wil stil have to work in the morning.” That sounded lame even to me.

“Look. You like lamb chops, I like lamb chops. You don’t feel like cooking. I do.”

He had me there.

“I have to go to the ME office to FedEx some bugs.”

“Dead ant, dead ant.” Sung to the opening bars of
The Pink Panther
theme.

“Mostly flies.” I couldn’t help grinning.

Curtis Mayfield. No lyrics.

“Superfly,”
I guessed.

“Very good,” Charlie said.

“I can’t stay late.”

“I won’t let you.”

A car cut into my lane, forcing me to brake hard. The phone dropped to my lap. Steering one-handed, I groped it back to my ear.

“You stil there?”

“Thought you’d hung up on me,” Charlie said.

Looking back, I probably should have.

My clothes went directly into the laundry. My body went directly into the shower.

Emerging, I found Birdie batting a blowfly around the bathroom floor. Before I could act, he ate it.

“Gross, Bird.”

The cat looked proud. Or smug. Or introspective, pondering the nuances of fly.

Smiling, I spread orange blossom body cream onto my skin.

Charlie was right. I felt rejuvenated. Cheery, even. Going out was a good idea. Making new friends was a healthy move.

A group of memory cels offered a colage of images, fuzzy, like snapshots left out in the rain.

The Skylark.

Charlie in cutoffs. Just cutoffs.

Me in shorts and a tank with bling on the front. A sparkly butterfly. Or was it a bird? Hair doing that layered, flippy seventies thing.

Upholstery stinging my sunburned back.

Maybe this wasn’t such a peachy idea.

Reacquainting with
old
friends, I amended my thinking. Friends. Just friends.

Uh-huh,
the memory cels said.

Moving to the bedroom, I clicked on the news and crossed to the dresser.

“—sorcerers and fornicators and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. Those words of Revelation never sounded more true. Lucifer is right here, at our own city gates.”

I froze, panties half out of the drawer.

12

BOYCE LINGO WAS ON THE STEPS OF THE NEW COURTHOUSE, cameras and mikes aimed at his face. Behind him stood a middle-aged man with buzz-cut hair, Brad Pitt cheeks, and a prominent chin. From the conservative dress, I guessed he was an aide. Navy jacket, white shirt, blue tie, gray pants. He and Lingo looked like fashion clones.

The commissioner was staring straight into the lens.

“Another body was discovered today. Another innocent slaughtered, his head cut off, his flesh desecrated. Why such brutality? To serve Satan. And what do the authorities say? ‘No comment.’”

My fingers curled around the panties.

“They wil not comment on a headless body identified three days ago, a twelve-year-old child dragged from the Catawba River. They wil not comment on a human skul found last Monday in a Third Ward basement.”

I stood rigid.

“No comments, indeed.” Lingo shook his head in theatric dismay. “Why alert the public to the godless depravity invading our city?”

Lingo paused for effect.

“Citizens of Charlotte-Mecklenburg, we must not accept ‘no comment.’ We must demand answers. Swift and forceful action. We must insist that these murderous devil worshippers
not
be alowed to go unpunished.

“Let me share a story. A sad story. A horrifying story. In London, in 2001, a tiny, headless body was found in a river. The child is caled Adam because, to this day, his name is unknown. What
is
known is that little Adam was smuggled to England by human traffickers to serve as a human sacrifice.”

Lingo wagged a finger at the camera.

“We must protect our children. These evildoers must be rooted out. The guilty must be arrested and prosecuted to the ful extent of the law. Satan’s minions must be driven from amongst us. Our city has no room for a Night Stalker. An Andrea Yates. A Columbine. A poor little Adam.”

Birdie was licking orange blossom from my leg. I couldn’t take my eyes from Lingo. Richard Ramirez? Andrea Yates? Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold?

“It’s up to each and every one of us to insist that these kilings receive top priority. We must be adamant. We must urge our brothers and sisters in government and law enforcement to don the armor of God and fight the Prince of Darkness. We must join hands and hearts to cleanse our great city and county of this cancer.”

The broadcast cut back to the anchor. He talked of Anton LaVey, founder and high priest of the Church of Satan until his death in 1997, and author of the
Satanic Bible.
A list of Web sites scroled behind him.

Kids and Teens for Satan

Synagogue of Satan

Church of Satan

Superhighway to Hel

Satanic Network

Letters to the Devil

Birdie nudged my leg.

Dropping the undies, I scooped and hugged my cat to my chest, a sense of foreboding rippling through me.

The coverage wrapped up with footage from LaVey’s 1993 documentary,
Speak of the Devil.

The clip had barely ended when my landline rang.

“You talk to Lingo?”

“Of course I didn’t talk to Lingo.” I matched Slidel’s outrage with outrage.

“The pompous old lizard just held a press conference.”

“I caught most of it.”

“Accused the cops of a cover-up. Told Joe Citizen to ready up his noose for lynchings in the name of the Lord. Won’t that just stir up a freakin’ hornets’ nest.”

Though Slidel was exaggerating, in large part, I agreed.

“How’s this asshole get his information?”

“As I was leaving the scene today I saw Alison Stalings driving toward it.”

“The dame what was creeping around on Greenleaf Avenue?”

No one but Slidel had said “dame” since the fifties. On the upside, at least he knew one other French expression besides
ex-cuse-ay-moi.

“Yes,” I said.

“I made a cal. Stalings don’t work for the
Observer.
”

“So why’s she showing up at my scenes?”

“I damn wel intend to find out.”

For a moment, no one spoke. In the background I could hear Slidel’s TV mimicking mine.

“You think Stalings is tipping Lingo?”

“It’s possible.”

“What’s in it for her?”

“The guy’s a grandstander. Maybe she’s a wannabe, or a freelancer seling pics here and there to the press. Maybe she thinks Lingo wil blow the situation into a bigger story than it might otherwise be, score her some fame and fortune.”

I waited while Slidel chewed that over.

“So where’s Stalings get her info?”

“She could have a police scanner.”

“Where’s a little girl like that gonna come up with a police scanner?” Slidel said
police
with a very long
o
and a whole lot of scorn.

“RadioShack.”

“Get out. How’s she gonna know to operate a gizmo like that?”

Slidel’s ignorance of technology always astounded me. I’d heard rumors that Skinny had yet to make the move to touch-tone dialing at home.

“It’s not rocket science. The thing sweeps through a group of frequencies searching for one in use, then stops so you can listen. Like the SCAN button on your car radio.” I couldn’t believe Slidel was hearing this for the first time. “Stalings could have picked up on Rinaldi’s request for a cadaver dog. Or maybe Lingo has a scanner of his own.”

I waited out more mental mastication. Then, “Who’s this Antoine LeVay?” Slidel’s tone had edged down a notch.

“Anton. He founded the Church of Satan.”

“That’s real?”

“Yes.”

“How many members?”

“No one realy knows.”

“Who’s this other kid Lingo’s talking about?”

“Anson Tyler. Lingo’s way off base there. Tyler’s whole upper body was missing, not just his head.”

“Missing where?”

“When a corpse floats, the heavy parts hang down. A human head weighs about four to five kilos.” I stopped. Could Slidel convert metric? “About the same as a roaster chicken. So the head detaches early.”

“That don’t answer my question.”

“The missing parts are wherever the current took them.”

“So you’re saying there’s no link between this Catawba River kid and the kid we found today?”

“I’m saying Anson Tyler lost his head due to natural processes, not intentional decapitation. There wasn’t a single cut mark anywhere on his skeleton.”

“What about the skul in the cauldron?”

“That’s a tougher cal.”

“You find tool marks on that?”

“No.”

“On the leg bones?”

“No.”

“That bit about the kid in London, that true?”

“Yes.”

“Tel me ’bout that.”

“In 2001, the headless, limbless body of a four-to-six-year-old boy was puled from the Thames below the Tower Bridge. The cops named him Adam. The postmortem showed he’d only been in that part of the world a short time.”

“Based on what?”