Devil Bones (35 page)

Overnight, the weather had turned cold and rainy. For the rest of that day and the next, Ryan and I hunkered down at the Annex. Ryan was moody, quiet. I didn’t press.

Shooting someone is never easy for a cop.

Katy visited on Saturday morning. She’d never heard of the Cheeky Girls. We al laughed. She talked more about law school. It was good.

Alison Stalings caled shortly after noon. I didn’t pick up, but listened as she recorded a message. She’d decided to write about a multiple murder in Raleigh, apologized in case her deception had caused me problems, promised to set the record straight with Tyrel.

Slidel stopped by around four. With him was a very tal woman who almost matched him in weight. Her skin was caramel, her hair black and woven into a single thick braid.

From her posture and bearing I knew she was on the job.

Before Slidel could speak, the woman shot out a hand. “Theresa Madrid. This extraordinarily fortunate detective’s briliant new partner.”

Madrid’s grip could have cracked coconut husks.

“Chief thinks my cultural sensitivities need broadening.” Slidel, out of the side of his mouth.

Madrid clapped Slidel on the back. “Poor Skinny puled a lucky double-L.”

Ryan and I must have looked blank.

“Lesbian Latina.”

“She’s Mexican.” Slidel’s lips did that poochy thing they do.

“Dominican. Skinny thinks every Spanish speaker must be Mexican.”

“Astounding,” Slidel said. “Al those amazingly rich and diverse cultures evolving the same wife-beater shirts and plastic Jesus lawn shit.”

Madrid’s laugh came from somewhere deep in her bely. “Not as astounding as your girlfriend’s mustache.”

Slidel added another puzzle piece. It came from Rinaldi’s son, Tony. His youngest child had Cohen syndrome. Rinaldi was spending al he had on his grandson’s medical fees and on tuition for special schooling. And then some.

When they’d gone, Ryan and I agreed. Slidel and Madrid would get along fine.

Ryan cooked. Chicken fricassee with mushrooms and artichokes.

I worked on a lecture.

Over dinner, and later, we talked.

There had been so many deaths. Cuervo. Klapec. Rinaldi. Finney. Evans. Gunther.

Like poor little Anson Tyler, T-Bird Cuervo had met a violent but accidental end. A man alone in the dark on a railroad track. Perhaps drunk. Perhaps naive about the high-speed technology that had so recently come to his town. Cuervo was a harmless
santero.
Beyond seling a little marijuana, he’d done nothing ilegal, perhaps eased the way for newcomers marginalized like himself by differences in language and culture.

Jimmy Klapec had been driven into the streets by an ignorant and intolerant father. Like Eddie Rinaldi and Glenn Evans, he died because a man went off his meds and lost touch with reality.

Vince Gunther/Vern Ziegler’s life ended why? Because his own brain betrayed him? Because he was evil by nature? Neither Ryan nor I had an answer for that one.

Asa Finney’s death was the most disturbing of al.

“Klapec, senior shot Finney because he was tormented by guilt,” Ryan said.

“No,” I said. “He was driven by fear.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Americans have become a nation afraid.”

“Of?”

“A shooter on a rampage in a school cafeteria. A hijacked plane toppling a high-rise building. A bomb in a train or rental van. A postal delivery carrying anthrax. The power to kil is out there for anyone wiling to use it. Al it takes is access to the Internet or a friendly gun shop.”

Ryan let me go on.

“We fear terrorists, snipers, hurricanes, epidemics. And the worst part is we’ve lost faith in the government’s ability to protect us. We feel powerless and that causes constant anxiety, makes us fear things we don’t understand.”

“Like Wicca.”

“Wicca, Santería, voodooism, Satanism. They’re exotic, unknown. We lump and stereotype them and bar the doors in trepidation.”

“Finney was a witch. Lingo’s rhetoric tapped into that fear.”

“That plus the fact that people have lost confidence in the system on other grounds. Klapec was a sad example. There’s a growing belief that, too often, the guilty go free.”

“The O.J. syndrome.”

I nodded. “A bonehead like Lingo stirs the public into a froth and some citizen vigilante appoints himself judge and jury.”

“And an innocent man dies. At least Finney’s death should put an end to Lingo’s political career.”

“It’s ironic,” I said. “The witch and the
santero
were harmless. The colege boy and the commissioner’s assistant led dark double lives.”

“Nothing’s ever what it seems.”

Birdie and I slept upstairs.

Ryan slept on the couch.

39

SUNDAY, I ROSE EARLY AND DROVE RYAN TO CHARLOTTE-DOUGLAS International. Outside the terminal, we hugged. Said good-bye. Didn’t speak of the future.

At eleven I dressed in a dark blue blazer and gray pants. Alen Burkhead met me at the entrance to Elmwood Cemetery. He was holding a key. I was carrying a black canvas bag.

The new coffin was already in place in the tomb. Shiny bronze, a sprightly cradle for a very long slumber.

Burkhead unlocked the casket. I took Susan Redmon’s skul from my bag and nestled it carefuly above her skeleton. Then I positioned the leg bones. Last, I tucked a smal plastic sack under the white velvet pilow. Precipitin testing had shown that the brain was human. Maybe it was Susan’s, maybe it wasn’t. I doubted she’d mind sharing eternity with another displaced soul.

Weaving back through the tombstones, Burkhead told me he’d done some archival research. Susan Redmon had died giving birth. The child survived, a healthy baby boy.

What happened to him? I asked. No idea, Burkhead said.

I felt sadness. Then hope.

In dying, Susan had given life to another being.

My next stop was Carolinas Medical Center. Not the ER, but the maternity center. This time my bag was pink and carried a large fuzzy bear and three tiny sleepers.

The baby was café au lait, with a wrinkled face and wild Don King hair. Takeela had named her Isabela for her maternal great-grandmother.

Takeela remained cool and aloof. But when she gazed at her daughter, I understood why she’d phoned to accept my offer of help. Seeing her baby girl, she’d resolved to reach out. To take a chance for Isabela.

Driving home, I thought about death and birth.

Things end and others begin.

Susan Redmon died, but had a son who lived.

Rinaldi was gone, but Slidel was entering into a new partnership.

Cuervo was dead, but Takeela had a new baby girl.

Pete seemed ended. Was I about to embark on a new beginning? With Charlie? With Ryan? With someone new?

Could Ryan and I go back, start over again?

Could America find a new beginning? Could we return to a time when we al felt safe? Protected? Confident in our values and our purpose? Tolerant of customs and belief systems we didn’t understand?

Charlie?

Ryan?

Mr. Right?

How would my sister, Harry, put it?

No way of knowing which hound wil hunt.

Thanks go to Dr. Richard L. Jantz, statistical guru behind Fordisc 3.0; to Dr. M. Lee Goff, a most excelent bug guy (his real name is Madison); to Dr. Peter Dean, coroner extraordinaire; and to Dr. Wiliam C. Rodriguez, one of the wisest forensic anthropologists in the kingdom. Dr. Leslie Eisenberg, Dr. Norm Sauer, and Dr. Elizabeth Murray also gave input on bone minutiae.

Sergeant Darrel Price, Sergeant Harold (Chuck) Henson, and Detective Christopher Dozier, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, answered cop questions. Mike Warns shared knowledge and opinions on many things. What he didn’t know, he found out.

Dr. Wayne A. Walcott, Senior Associate Provost, UNC-Charlotte, provided information on the availability of scanning electron microscopes on campus. UNCC has five.

Who knew?

I appreciate the continued support of Chancelor Philip L. Dubois of the University of North Carolina–Charlotte.

I am grateful to my family for their patience and understanding, especialy when I am grumpy. Or away. Special thanks must go to my daughter, Kerry, who took time to discuss my book while writing her own. (Yay! First novel:
The Best Day of Someone Else’s Life,
available the spring of 2008!) Extra credit to Paul Reichs for reading and commenting on the manuscript.

Deepest thanks to my awesome agent, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh; to my briliant editors, Nan Graham and Susan Sandon; and to my magnificent publisher, Susan Moldow.

Thanks to Kevin Hanson and Amy Cormier in Canada. I also want to acknowledge al those who work so very hard on my behalf, especialy: Katherine Monaghan, Lauretta Charlton, Anna deVries, Anna Simpson, Claudia Balard, Jessica Almon, Tracy Fisher, and Michele Feehan.

If there are errors in this book, they are my fault. If I have forgotten to thank someone, I apologize.

A CONVERSATION WITH KATHY REICHS

Kathy Reichs talks about her cases, the inspiration for
Devil Bones,
the difference between the real Kathy Reichs and Temperance Brennan, and the television show
Bones.

Q: Is
Devil Bones
based on a real case?

A:
Strange things arrive at my lab. I’ve been asked to examine shrunken heads to determine their authenticity. Often they’re actualy the skuls of birds or dogs.

Sometimes human skuls do show up. Some are painted or decorated. Some show carbonization from candle flames. Some are covered with melted wax, blood, and/or bird feathers.

These skuls turn out to be ritual objects. They’ve graced altars or been used in spels or religious ceremonies. I’ve worked on a number of these cases and, each time, the situation got me thinking about fringe religions, belief systems that mystify or alienate the larger population.

Devil Bones
is based on a mélange of cases over a long period of time, cases that sparked my imagination. Some were my own. Some were described to me by coleagues.

Some were discussed in the forensic literature or in scientific sessions at professional meetings.

Q: How did you go about researching
Devil Bones
?

A:
About twenty years ago, at the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, I heard a paper delivered by a pathologist who worked at the Dade County Medical Examiner’s Office in Miami, Florida. His research focused on a fringe religion known as Santería.

Santería is a syncretic religion resulting from the blending of African religious practices with Catholicism. The movement emerged during the period when slaves were brought to North America and forbidden the right to folow their ancestral beliefs. As a means of survival, the traditional African deities came to be disguised as Catholic saints. I remembered the paper and tracked it down. Then I became curious about other so-caled fringe religions. A McGil University coleague had told me about a graduate student who worked as a cook at a Wiccan summer camp. Initialy through her I began to research Wiccan practice and philosophy.

So the research went from lab to coleagues to literature to practitioners. During that progression I met many fascinating individuals and learned a great deal about religions that hadn’t been on my radar.

Q: How did you choose to write about police officers losing their lives in the line of duty?

A:
Sadly, this part of the novel was inspired by events in my hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina. On April 1, 2007, Police Officer Sean Clark and Police Officer Jeff Shelton responded to a disturbance cal in an East Charlotte housing complex. They had resolved the disturbance and were leaving when they engaged in conversation with a man uninvolved in the incident. As they turned to walk away, the man puled out a gun and shot both officers in the back.

This incident had a huge impact on our community. I was in the early stages of writing
Devil Bones
when this happened and I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I decided to incorporate a police shooting into the story.
Devil Bones
is dedicated to al who have lost their lives protecting the citizens of Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina.

Q: How do you manage to balance your life as a bestselling writer with the demands of your forensic work and now with your work on the Fox series
Bones
?

A:
It takes a good calendar. If I didn’t put everything onto my computer and BlackBerry, I think I’d probably be AWOL for half of the things I’m supposed to do.

It also takes discipline. I work a three-point triangle: Charlotte, North Carolina, where I live and do most writing; Montreal, Quebec, where I do casework for the Laboratoire de sciences judiciaires et de médicine légale (I’m also on the Canadian National Police Services Advisory Board); Los Angeles, California, where
Bones
is filmed (I am also a producer of the show).

Any time I’m not traveling — for book promotion or public speaking, for casework or testimony, for TV production — I write al day. I try to begin by eight in the morning and stay with it until five in the afternoon, or longer. If I’ve got free time, I write.

Q: How has it felt to see your principal character realized in the television series
Bones
? How involved are you in the production of the series?

A:
The only way I can sum up working on the television series
Bones
is to say that it’s been a barrel of fun. Of course, I had some concerns at the outset. What would become of my character? How old would she be? Who would be cast in the role?

I met with Barry Josephson and Hart Hanson, now two of our three executive producers, before any deal was made. Barry and Hart assured me they would keep Tempe a realistic age and keep the science honest. They convinced me that they genuinely desired my input.

I work on each episode, primarily assisting staff writers. They develop each script as an original story. They come to me with questions concerning the science and I offer suggestions. I read each script when it is finished and send my comments to the other producers and the writers.