Flash and Bones (5 page)

I tried the online archives of
The Charlotte Observer.
1998.

On September 27 a short article updated the case of a twelve-year-old girl missing for nine months. Nothing on Cindi Gamble.

More lo mein.

Why would the disappearance of a seventeen-year-old kid receive no coverage?

I began checking sites devoted to finding MPs and to securing names for unidentified bodies.

Neither Cindi Gamble nor Cale Lovette was registered on the Doe Network.

I switched to the North American Missing Persons Network.

Nothing.

I was logging on to NamUs.gov when thunder cracked and
lightning streaked big-time. A white blur shot from beneath the sideboard and disappeared through the dining room door.

The kitchen dimmed and rain came down hard. I got up to turn on lights and check windows.

Which didn’t take long.

I live on the grounds of a nineteenth-century manor-turned-condo-complex lying just off the queens University campus. Sharon Hall. A little slice of Dixie. Red brick, white pediment, shutters, and columns.

My little outbuilding is nestled among ancient magnolias. The Annex. Annex to what? No one knows. The two-story structure appears on none of the estate’s original plans. The hall is there. The coach house. The herb and formal gardens. No annex. Clearly an afterthought.

Guesses by family and friends have included smokehouse, hothouse, outhouse, and kiln. I’m not much concerned with the architect’s original purpose. Barely twelve hundred square feet, the Annex suits my needs. Bedroom and bath up. Kitchen, dining room, parlor, and study down.

Finding myself suddenly single over a decade ago, I’d rented the place as a stopgap measure. Contentedness? Laziness? Lack of motivation? All these years down the road, I still call it home.

Hatches battened, I returned to my laptop.

For naught. Like the other sites, NamUs had nothing on Gamble or Lovette.

Frustrated, I gave up and shifted to e-mail.

Forty-seven messages. My eyes went to number twenty-four.

Flashbulb image. Andrew Ryan, Lieutenant-détective, Section des crimes contre la personne, Sûreté du Québec. Tall, lanky, sandy hair, blue eyes.

I am forensic anthropologist for the Bureau du coroner in
la Belle Province
. Same deal as with the MCME. I go to the lab when an anthropology consult is requested. Ryan is a homicide detective with the Quebec provincial police. For years Ryan and I have worked together, with him detecting and me analyzing vics.

From time to time we have also played together. And Ryan plays
very
well with others. Many others, it turned out. Ryan and I hadn’t been an item for almost a year.

Currently, Ryan’s only child, Lily, was in Ontario, enrolled in yet another drug rehab program. Daddy had taken leave to be there with daughter.

I read Ryan’s e-mail.

Though witty and charming, when it comes to correspondence, Monsieur le Détective is not Victor Hugo. He wrote that he and Lily were well. That his short-term rental apartment had crappy pipes. That he would phone.

I responded in kind. No nostalgia, no sentimentality, no personal updates.

After hitting send, I sat a moment, a tiny knot tightening in my gut.

Screw prudence.

I dialed Ryan’s cell. He answered on the second ring.

“Call a plumber.”

“
Merci, madame
. I will give your suggestion serious consideration.”

“How’s Lily?”

“Who knows?” Ryan sighed. “The kid’s saying all the right things, but she’s smart and a champ at working people. What’s new in North Carolina?”

Share? Why not? He was a cop. I could use his input.

I told Ryan about the sandpit and landfill cases. About the landfill’s proximity to the Charlotte Motor Speedway. About my conversation with Wayne Gamble.

“Gamble is jackman on Sandy Stupak’s crew?”

“Yes.”

“The Sprint Cup Series driver?” Finally Ryan sounded a wee bit animated.

“Don’t tell me you’re a NASCAR fan.”

“
Bien sûr, madame
. Well, to be accurate, I’m a Jacques Villeneuve fan. I used to follow Indy and Formula One. When Villeneuve made the switch to NASCAR, I went with him.”

“Who’s Jacques Villeneuve?”

“Seriously?” Ryan’s shock sounded genuine.

“No. I’m testing to see if you’re bullshitting me.”

“Jacques Villeneuve won the 1995 CART Championship, the 1995 Indianapolis 500, and the 1997 Formula One World Championship,
making him only the third driver after Mario Andretti and Emerson Fittipaldi to accomplish that.”

“What’s CART?”

“Championship Auto Racing Teams. It’s complicated, but it was the name of a governing body for open-wheel cars, the kind that race the Indy. The group doesn’t exist under that name now.”

“But you’re not talking stock cars.”

“Hardly.”

“I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess Villeneuve is Quebecois.”

“Born in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, he still has a home in Montreal. You know the course out on Île Notre-Dame?”

Ryan was referring to a track at Parc Jean-Drapeau on Île Notre-Dame, a man-made island in the Saint Lawrence River. Each year during Grand Prix Week, you could hear the whine of Formula 1 engines even miles away at our lab.

“Yes,” I said.

“Jacques’s father, Gilles, also drove Formula One. He was killed during qualifying for the 1982 Belgian Grand Prix. That year the track on Île Notre-Dame was renamed Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in his honor.”

“It’s a road course, not an oval, right?”

“Yes. The Formula One Canadian Grand Prix is run there. So are the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series, the NASCAR Nationwide series, and a number of other events.”

Grand Prix Week in Montreal is like Race Week in Charlotte. Bucks flow like water, making merchants, restaurateurs, hoteliers, and bar owners giddy with joy.

“You surprise me, Detective. I’d no idea you follow auto racing.”

“I’m a man of many talents, Dr. Brennan. Find us a backseat and I’ll race your—”

“Keep me in the loop on Lily.”

After disconnecting with Ryan, I deleted twelve other e-mails, ignored the rest.

I was considering alternate ways to research Cindi Gamble’s disappearance when the landline rang.

“How you doing, sugar britches?”

Great. My ex-husband. Or almost ex. Though we’d been separated for over a decade, Pete and I had never bothered with paperwork or courts. Weird, since he’s a lawyer.

“Don’t call me that,” I said.

“Sure, butter bean. How’s the Birdcat?”

“Totally freaked by the storm. How’s Boyd?”

Boyd is typically the reason I hear from my ex. If I’m in Charlotte, I take care of the chow when Pete has to travel.

“Unhappy with the current divisive climate in Washington.”

“Is he coming for a visit?”

“No. We’re cool.”

A few months back, almost-fifty Pete had slipped a ring onto the finger of twentysomething-D-cup Summer, creating the need for an unmarital status that was legal and official. Currently, that was the second most frequent reason I heard from Pete.

“I’ve yet to receive papers from your lawyer,” I said. “You need to goose—”

“That’s not why I’m calling.”

I know Janis Petersons like I know the inside of my ear. Twenty years of marriage will do that to people. He sounded tense.

I waited.

“I need a favor,” Pete said.

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s about Summer.”

Warning bells clanged in my brain.

“I want you to talk to her.”

“I don’t even know her, Pete.”

“It’s probably just the wedding. But she seems”—silver-tongued Mr. Petersons searched for a descriptor—“unhappy.”

“Marriage planning is stressful.” True. But if
Bridezilla
held auditions in Charlotte, Summer would be a shoo-in.

“Could you feel her out? See what’s up?”

“Summer and I—”

“It’s important to me, Tempe.”

“I’ll give her a call.”

“It might be better if you invite her to your place. You know. ‘Girls sharing a glass of wine’ kind of thing?”

“Sure.” Masking my horror at the thought. And my annoyance
at Pete’s failure to bear in mind that I’d popped my final cork years ago.

“Who knows, buttercup?” Relief put a bounce in Pete’s tone. “You might find you like her.”

I’d have preferred hemorrhoids to a conversation with Pete’s dimwit fiancée.

T
HAT NIGHT’S STORM MADE THURSDAY’S LOOK LIKE A
Fairyland sprinkle. I awoke to windows papered with soggy magnolia leaves and blossoms.

And a Chet Baker ringtone.

Relocating Birdie to my left side, I picked up my iPhone. Through one half-raised lid, I could see that the caller was Larabee. I clicked on.

“Hello.” I did that thing you do when trying to sound wide awake.

“Were you sleeping?”

“No. No. What’s up?”

“We didn’t get a chance to talk before you left.”

“I had errands to run.”

“Listen, a guy came to see me yesterday. He’s wondering if the landfill John Doe could be this Ted Raines guy who went missing earlier this week.”

I sat up and stuffed a pillow behind my head. Birdie stretched all four legs and spread his toes.

“I seriously doubt that drum went into the landfill this week. What’s Raines’s story?”

“He’s a thirty-two-year-old white male. Married, one kid. Lives in Atlanta, works for CDC.”

Larabee was referring to the government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“How tall is he?”

“Five-eight.”

Males tend to embellish their actual height, and measurements taken from corpses are often inaccurate. The extra inch wasn’t a problem. Raines fit my profile. But Larabee knew that. So why was he calling?

“Didn’t Mrs. Flowers give you my prelim?” I asked.

“I wanted your take.”

“Given what you say, there’s nothing to exclude him based on physical characteristics.”

Birdie recurled into a very small ball.

“What about PMI?” Larabee wanted to know how long I thought the John Doe had been dead.

“Other than Molene’s speculation that the drum came from a sector of the landfill active during the late nineties, and the fact that the thing is old and rusty, I’ve nothing more to go on. Could be a month. Could be a decade. But I doubt it was less than a week.”

“Do you have a gut?”

“You were right about the asphalt. It created an airtight envelope and kept scavengers away from the body, so the vic is in pretty good shape. But the drum is toast. Given its condition and location, I think the guy was in there a while.”

“He have anything with him? Clothes, personal items, maybe a social security number?”

“Zip.”

“Guess I can rule out natural death.”

“Did Hawkins manage to get prints?” I asked.

“Six. I’ll have them run through AFIS.” The Automated Fingerprint Identification System, a national database.

“Can Raines’s wife get dental records?”

“I wanted to be sure there was a point before asking.”

“Was he a smoker?”

“I’ll find out.”

“You’re doing the autopsy this morning?”

“As soon as I hang up.”

I remembered the man in Larabee’s office the previous afternoon. “Who was the next of kin?”

“Big guy, arms like caissons?”

“Yeah.”

“He wasn’t family. That was Cotton Galimore, head of security for Charlotte Motor Speedway.”

That surprised me. “What’s Galimore’s interest?”

“Damage control.”

“I’m sure you’ll explain that.”

“Think about it. Raines tells his wife he’ll be at events connected with Race Week. He goes missing. A body turns up spitting distance from where two hundred thousand fans will be parking their butts.”

“NASCAR wants to avoid distractions. Especially negative distractions.”

“NASCAR. The Speedway. The Chamber of Commerce. I can’t name the prime mover. But if there’s a chance Raines went to the Speedway and ended up dead, the powers that be want to spin the situation in the best light possible. Galimore was ordered to get the lowdown.”

Birdie got up, arched his back, and began nudging my chin with his head.

“I’ve got to go,” I said.

“One other thing.” I heard paper rustle. “A guy named Wayne Gamble has left four messages for you.”

“Saying what?”

“‘I need to talk to Dr. Brennan.’ Who is he?”

“A member of Sandy Stupak’s pit crew.” I told Larabee about Cindi Gamble and Cale Lovette.

I waited out a pause. Then,

“You think the age is too far off for our John Doe to be Lovette?”

“Probably. But I can’t exclude him.”

“Give Gamble a ring,” Larabee said. “I’m going to need a cold hose for Mrs. Flowers if she keeps taking his calls.”

Larabee read off a number. I wrote it down.

“Phone if you need me.” My tone set a new standard for insincere.

“I’ll do some cutting, see what the John Doe’s got going inside.”

After disconnecting, I threw on jeans and a tee and headed downstairs. Birdie padded behind.

While Mr. Coffee did his thing and Birdie crunched little
brown pellets, I retrieved the paper from the back stoop. Even the
Observer
had gone Race Week–crazy. The front page featured photos of Richard Petty, Junior Johnson, and Dale Earnhardt. Hall of Fame candidates or some such. Full color. Above the fold.