Devil Bones (7 page)

I nodded. “Might not be from this burg. What did you learn about the Greenleaf property?”

Rinaldi puled a smal leather-bound notepad from the inside breast pocket of a jacket jarringly different from that of his partner. Navy, double-breasted, very high-end.

A manicured finger flipped a few pages.

“The property changed hands rarely after purchase by a family named Horne in the postwar years, and only among relatives. We’re talking World War Two, here.” Rinaldi looked up from his notes. “We can check older records should circumstances warrant.”

I nodded.

“Roscoe Washington Horne owned the house from 1947 until 1972; Lydia Louise Tilman Horne until 1994; Wanda Bele Sarasota Horne until her death eighteen months ago.”

“Ye old family plantation,” Slidel snorted.

Rinaldi continued from his notes.

“Upon Wanda’s death, the property went to a grandnephew, Kenneth Alois Roseboro.”

“Did Roseboro live in the house?”

“I’m looking into that. Roseboro sold to Poly and Ross Whitner. Both are transplanted New Yorkers. She’s a teacher. He’s an account manager with Bank of America.

Transfer of title took place on September twentieth of this year. The Whitners are currently living in a rental apartment on Scaleybark. It appears that major renovations to the Greenleaf house are planned.” Rinaldi closed and tucked away the tablet.

There was a moment of silence. Slidel broke it.

“We made the papers.”

“I saw the article. Is Stalings a regular at the
Observer
?”

“Not one we know of,” Rinaldi said.

Slidel’s faux Ray-Bans slid into place.

“Shoulda shot that little gal on sight.”

Lunch consisted of a granola bar bolted down with a Diet Coke. After eating, I found Larabee in the main autopsy room cutting on the Dumpster corpse.

I filed him in on my progress and on my conversation with Slidel and Rinaldi. He listened, elbows flexed, bloody hands held away from his body.

I described the brain. He promised to take a look later that day. I was back with the cauldrons by two.

I’d been sifting for twenty minutes when my cel phone sounded. The caler ID showed Katy’s work number.

Degloving one hand, I clicked on.

“Hi, sweetie.”

“Where are you?”

“The ME office.”

“What?”

Lowering my mask, I repeated what I’d said.

“Is it realy Satanists?”

“You saw the paper.”

“Nice pic.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“My guess is fraternity prank. This town’s
waaay
too proper for devil worship. Satanism means eccentricity. Exotica. Nonconformity. That sound like stodgy old Charlotte to you?”

“What’s up?” I asked, recognizing the sound of discontent.

Katy had, this year, completed a bachelor of arts degree in psychology, an accomplishment six long years in the making. In the end, graduation hadn’t been spurred by academic passion, but by threats of parental termination of funding. It was one of the rare issues on which Pete and I had agreed. Six is a wrap, kiddo.

The reason Katy lingered so long an undergrad? Not lack of inteligence. Through five majors, she maintained a grade point average of 3.8.

Nope. It wasn’t due to a shortage of brainpower. My daughter is bright and imaginative. The problem is she’s restless as hel.

“I’m thinking of quitting,” Katy said.

“Uh-huh.”

“This job is dul.”

“You chose to work for the public defender’s office.”

“I thought I’d get to do—” Expeled air. “I don’t know. Interesting stuff. Like you do.”

“I’m sifting dirt.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Sifting dirt is tedious.”

“What dirt?”

“From the cauldrons.”

“Beats sifting papers.”

“Depends on the papers.”

“Finding much?”

“A few things.” No way I’d mention the photo or the brain.

“How many cauldrons?”

“Two.”

“How far along are you?”

“I’m stil on the first.”

“If you’re striking out, switch cauldrons.”

Typical Katy. If bored, move on.

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Jesus, you’re rigid. Why the hel not?”

“Protocol.”

“Switching back and forth won’t change what’s inside.”

I couldn’t disagree with that.

“How’s Bily?” I asked.

“A peckerhead.”

OK.

“Buy you dinner?” I asked.

“Where?”

“Volare at seven.”

“Can I order the sole?”

“Yes.”

“I’l be there. Assuming I haven’t died of boredom.”

I resumed screening.

Snails. Rocks. Puparial cases. Roaches. A dermestid beetle or two. A milipede. That was exciting.

By three I was yawning and my thoughts were wandering.

My eye fel on the other cauldron.

I’d already shot stils and labeled evidence bags. New ground would perk me up, I told myself. Sharpen my observational skils.

Lame.

Why the hel not?

Better.

After cleaning both the trowel and the screen, I inserted my blade.

And immediately hit pay dirt.

7

NINETY MINUTES LATER THE SMALL CAULDRON SAT EMPTY. A macabre assortment of objects lined the counter behind me.

Twenty-one sticks.

Four strings of beads, one white, two alternating red and black, one alternating black and white.

Seven railroad spikes, four painted black, three painted red.

Avian bones, some chicken, others probably pigeon or dove.

Blood-stained feathers.

Two sawn bones, both from nonhuman limbs. By consulting Gilbert’s
Mammalian Osteology,
I identified one as goat, the other as domestic dog.

Two quarters, four nickels, and one dime. The most recent was stamped 1987.

I felt mild satisfaction. The placement of the coin deep within the fil suggested 1987 as a baseline date for the packing of the cauldron. That date fel within my estimated PMI range for the skul.

Get real, Brennan. The skull could have joined the display long after the cauldron was filled, or have become a skull long before.

Nevertheless, energized, I returned to the large cauldron.

Ever been on a road trip and decided you needed KFC? Passed a milion, but now not a single exit’s offering chicken. You pul off, eat a burger. Within a mile there’s the Colonel smiling from a bilboard.

That’s what I’d done. I’d given up too soon.

On the second trowel dive the large cauldron began to produce. Sticks. Beads. Necklaces. Feathers. Iron objects, including railroad spikes, horseshoes, and the head of a hoe. Pennies, the legible dates ranging from the sixties to the eighties.

I checked the clock. Five fifty-five. Choice. Drive home to shower and blow-dry? Sift on, toilette here, and meet Katy wet-headed?

I resumed digging and screening.

Six ten. My trowel struck something hard. As with the brain matter, I shifted to quarrying with my fingers.

A brown button appeared. I burrowed around it. The button became a mushroom, cap on top, thick-stemmed below. The cap was dimpled by one smal pit.

Uh-oh.

I folowed the stem.

Larabee opened the door, spoke. I answered, not realy listening. He moved in beside me.

The stem angled from a tubular base shooting horizontaly across the cauldron. I dug, estimating length and, as contour emerged, diameter.

Within minutes, I could see that the tube ended in two round prominences, condyles for articulation in a bipedal knee.

“That’s a femur,” Larabee said.

“Yes.” I felt a neural hum of excitement.

“Human?”

“Yes.” I was flipping dirt like a ratter scratching at a burrow.

A second button appeared.

“There’s another underneath.” Larabee continued his play-by-play. “Also lying sideways, head up, but oriented in the opposite direction.”

I glanced at the clock.

Six forty-two.

“Crap.”

“What?”

“I have to meet my daughter in twenty minutes.”

Grabbing my cel, I dialed Katy.

No answer. I tried her mobile. Got voice mail.

“Let this go until morning,” Larabee said. “I’l secure everything.”

“You’re sure?”

“Scram.”

I raced to the locker room.

Fortunately, I didn’t have far to go.

Since high school, Volare has been Katy’s favorite eatery. In those days the restaurant was housed in a Providence Road strip mal, in space that alowed but a dozen tables.

Several years back, the owners relocated to a larger, freestanding building in Elizabeth, the Queen City’s only neighborhood named for a woman. Irony there?

Here’s the scoop. In 1897 Charles B. King picked Charlotte as the site for a smal Lutheran colege, and named the school in honor of his mother-in-law, Anne Elizabeth Watts. Smooth move, Charlie.

In 1915, Elizabeth Colege moved to Virginia. In 1917, a fledgling hospital purchased the property. Almost a century later, the original building is gone, but the Presbyterian Hospital complex occupying the site is massive.

Bottom line. The colege split, but the name stuck. Today, in addition to Presby, Independence Park, and Central Piedmont Community Colege, Elizabeth is home to a hodgepodge of medical offices, cafés, galeries, resale shops, and, of course, churches and tree-shaded old homes.

At 7:10, I puled to the curb on Elizabeth Avenue. Yep. The old gal also scored a street name.

Hurrying to the door, I felt a twinge of regret. Sure, it’s now easier to reserve a table at Volare, but the intimacy of the smaler venue is gone. Nevertheless, the food stil rocks.

Katy was at a back table, sipping red wine and talking to a waiter. The guy looked captivated. Nothing new. My daughter has that effect on those who pee standing.

I thought of Pete as I often did when I saw her. With wheat blond hair and jade green eyes, Katy is a genetic ricochet of her father. I am reminded of the resemblance when I see either one.

Katy waved. The waiter yammered on.

“Sorry I’m late.” Sliding into a chair. “No excuse.”

Katy arched one carefuly groomed brow. “Nice ’do.”

I was hearing that a lot lately.

“Who knew the wet look was coming back?”

The waiter asked if I’d like a beverage.

“Perrier with lime. Lots of ice.”

He looked at Katy.

“She’s an alkie.” My daughter has many endearing qualities. Tact is not among them. “But I’l have another Pinot.”

The waiter set off, charged with a papal command.

Katy and I ignored the menus. We already knew everything on them.

“Split a Caesar salad?” I asked.

“Sure.”

“Sole meunière?”

Katy nodded.

“I think I’l go for the veal piccata.”

“You always go for the veal piccata.”

“That’s not true.” It was close.

Katy leaned forward, eyes wide. “So. Voodoo, vampires, or vegan devil worshippers?”

“Nice aliteration. When are we going shopping?”

“Saturday. Don’t ignore my question. The celar?”

“It was used for something” — what? — “ceremonial.”

Two jade eyes roled skyward.

“You know I can’t talk about an ongoing investigation.”

“What? I’m going to cal in a scoop to WSOC?”

“You know why.”

“Jesus, Mom. This dungeon is practicaly in Coop’s backyard.”

Katy was living two blocks from Greenleaf, in the townhouse of a mysteriously absent gentleman named Coop.

“It’s hardly a dungeon. Tel me again. Who is Coop?”

“A guy I dated in colege.”

“And where is Coop?”

“In Haiti. With the Peace Corps. It’s a win-win. I get a break on rent. He gets someone looking after his place.”

The waiter delivered drinks, then stood smiling at Katy, pen and hopes poised.

I recited our order. The waiter left.

“What’s up with Bily?”

Bily Eugene Ringer. The current boyfriend. One in a trail leading back to Katy’s middle school years.

“He’s a dickhead.”

A promotion or demotion from peckerhead? I wasn’t sure.

“Care to be more specific?”

Theatrical sigh. “We’re incompatible.”

“Realy.”

“Rather, he’s
too
compatible.” Katy took a hit of Pinot. “With Sam Adams and Bud. Bily likes to drink beer and watch sports. That’s it. It’s like dating a gourd. You know?”

I made a noncommittal noise.

“We have nothing in common.”

“It took you a year to figure that out?”

“I can’t imagine what we talked about in the beginning.” More Pinot. “I think he’s too old for me.”

Bily was twenty-eight.

Katy’s palm smacked the tabletop. “Which brings us to Dad. Can you believe this shit with Summer? I don’t understand why you’re being so cooperative.”

My estranged husband was almost fifty. We’d lived apart for years, but never divorced. Recently Pete had requested that we file. He wanted to remarry. Summer, his beloved, was twenty-nine.

“The woman squeezes puppy glands for a living.” Katy’s tone redefined the term scornful.

Summer was a veterinary assistant.

“Our marital status is strictly between your father and me.”

“She’s probably sucked his brain right out through his—”

“New topic.”

Katy drew back in her chair. “OK. What’s up with Ryan?”

Mercifuly, our salad arrived. As the waiter ground pepper from a mil the size of my vacuum, I thought about my own on-again off-again, what, boyfriend?

What was Ryan doing now? Was he happily reunited with his long-ago lover? Did they cook together? Window-shop while stroling hand in hand along rue Ste-Catherine?

Listen to music at Hurley’s Irish Pub?

I felt a heaviness in my chest. Ryan was gone from my life. For now. For good? Who knew?

“Hel-o?” Katy’s voice brought me back. “Ryan?”

“He and Lutetia are trying to make it as a couple. To provide stability for Lily.”

“Lutetia is his old girlfriend. Lily is his kid.”

“Yes.”

“The druggie.”

“She’s doing wel in rehab.”

“So you’re just out on your ass.”