Bones of the Lost Page 10

  “Apparently. Whether he bought or earned his way into the partnership remains unclear. What is clear is that, at the time of his death, John-Henry Story was suffering some serious financial reversals.”

  Wasn’t everyone these days? I thought. “Was S&S in trouble?” I asked.

  “No. But Story wanted to infuse more capital for expansion, and he himself had no available cash. In addition to S&S, Story owned a pizza chain and four auto dealerships which were costing him a lot of money.”

  “In the Carolinas?”

  “The pizza parlors are here. The dealerships were located in Texas and Arizona.”

  “Were?”

  “Are you familiar with Saturn?”

  “A different kind of car.” I still remembered the early ads.

  “Pontiac launched the brand in the mid-eighties in response to the success of Japanese imports in the U.S. At first, sales were good.”

  “As I understand it, Saturn never really kept up with R and D.”

  “So I’ve read. In any event, sales declined. In 2010, General Motors discontinued the brand. Many dealers suffered significant financial losses.”

  “John-Henry Story was one of them.”

  “Yes. And the pizza franchise is bleeding money.”

  I leaned back in my chair and considered Dew’s update.

  “Which way do you think it went? Story knew Rockett had money, so he brought him in to shore up the S&S capital reserves? Or Rockett got word S&S wanted cash and seized the opportunity to buy in cheap?”

  “With either scenario, the question remains the source of Mr. Rockett’s cash.”

  “Maybe Rockett worked for Story or for one of the other partners and was paid with a piece of the action.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Does Rockett admit to knowing Story?”

  “I’ve yet to pursue that line of questioning.” Starchy stiff.

  “Have you asked him about his interest in S&S?”

  “I wish to avoid goading Mr. Rockett into seeking legal counsel. At present he thinks his only issue will be a fine for failure to report proper value and provenience of an import entering the country.”

  “Smart. Don’t hit him until you have all the facts.”

  I heard a hitch in Dew’s breathing. “Here’s an interesting fact. The further I delve into the Rockett investigation, the more your name comes up.”

  “My involvement with Rockett’s mummified dogs, with John-Henry Story’s remains, and with the hit-and-run vic who had Story’s airline club card.”

  “Precisely.”

  “What do you make of that, Special Agent Dew?”

  “I am hoping you will give that question some thought.”

  “Likewise.”

  “I look forward to your report on the Peruvian bundles.”

  “Topping my agenda.”

  After disconnecting, I phoned Slidell.

  Voicemail.

  Was the man avoiding me? Refusing to answer when my number came up on his screen?

  Whatever.

  I went to the stinky room and finished viewing the fourth set of mummy X-rays. All dog.

  Relieved that my first impression had been correct, I returned to my desk.

  No message light. No e-mail from Katy or Ryan.

  While composing a report for Dew, my thoughts kept looping to Rockett and Story.

  Had either man met my Jane Doe?

  Frustrated, I saved and minimized the ICE report, logged on to Google, and called up images of John-Henry Story. I’d seen some pictures back when the fire took place, remembered only that the purported victim was unimpressively short.

  Rodent was the first word to coalesce in my mind.

  An Observer photo taken four months before Story’s death showed a short, wiry guy with thinning hair, gaunt cheeks, and dark, beady eyes.

  Rattus rattus.

  Another shot caught Story at a Panthers game. In another he was outside a Consigliore’s pizzeria, waving at the camera.

  I contemplated doing a full search on Story, opted to complete my doggie report.

  Slidell finally called at noon.

  I briefed him on what I’d learned from Dew.

  “Deep dish went deep shit.”

  I ignored that.

  “The hit-and-run vic had Story’s card in her purse. Rockett was a minor partner in Story’s company, S&S.”

  “Where’s a two-bit smuggler get cash for an investment like that?”

  “Alleged smuggler. What I want to know is what’s the link between Story and Rockett? And does one or both of them connect to my Jane Doe?”

  “Soon’s I get this MP—”

  “We need to check out John-Henry’s Tavern, see if Rockett’s been there with Story. Or if either was ever there with my Jane Doe.”

  “Why doesn’t Dew haul Rockett in and sweat him?”

  “Other than the mummy bundles, he’s got dick at this point. Dew’s convinced the dogs are just the tip of something big, and doesn’t want to spook Rockett into lawyering up.”

  I heard a phone ring in the background. Voices. A deep sigh.

  “I told you, doc. The chief’s on my ass to find this—”

  “You saying he doesn’t care about the kid in my cooler?”

  “I’m not saying that. Look, I been working the body shops. No one’s seen a vehicle fits our bumper-height estimate with front-end damage.”

  “What about St. Vincent de Paul?”

  “No one at the church ever heard of this kid.”

  “Clinics?”

  “Ditto.”

  “Clothing? Boots?”

  Silence hummed across the line.

  “It’s been two days, Slidell.” He knew as well as I the importance of the first forty-eight.

  “I’m not sure I see the upside of visiting this joint.”

  “At least we’ll be doing something.”

  “Scratching my ass is doing something.”

  “Do you know John-Henry’s Tavern?”

  “Yeah. A real slice of heaven.”

  “We need to check it out.”

  “For what?”

  “For whatever is there.” Slidell’s attitude was cracking my resolve to stay cordial.

  “I’ll hang up now unless you got something else to say.”

  “Never mind,” I snapped. “I’ll go myself.”

  “No you won’t.”

  “Okay. I won’t.”

  “Goddammit.”

  For a full ten seconds, I listened to air whistle in and out of Slidell’s nose.

  “Give me half an hour.”

  SOUTH END, JUST below uptown charlotte, is a mixed hunk of turf with serious ambitions up the social ladder. And climbing fast.

  The neighborhood dates to the 1850s when the construction of a railroad line connected the Queen City to Columbia and Charleston, South Carolina. Over the decades a manufacturing community sprang up along the tracks, fired largely by a booming textile industry.

  Fast-forward to the waning years of the twentieth century. Largely ignored by a town viewing itself as the face of the New South, South End had little to offer beyond abandoned mills, warehouses, and a minor league baseball park. But come the nineties, cagey developers saw dollar signs.

  Today, South End is a mélange of condos, lofts, and renovated industrial leftovers housing restaurants, shops, studios, and a broad spectrum of design-related industries. Want a plumbing fixture, fabric, or upscale lamp? South End is the answer to your needs.

  But traces of the hood’s past remain. The Design Center of the Carolinas, the headquarters for Concentric Marketing, and the Chalmers Memorial Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church breathe the same yuppie air as seedy garages, abandoned factories, weed-covered acreage, and a strip club.

  John-Henry’s Tavern was located not far from the intersection of Winifred and Bland. Flanking it on both sides were lots with entire eco zones thriving in the cracked concrete.

  Opposite was a windowless bunker
covered with graffiti and enclosed in chain-link fencing. A sign warned NO TRESPASSING. Nothing indicated the structure’s name or explained the purpose of its existence. Junk covered a raised platform that might once have been a loading dock. Rusty beer kegs. A table made of slapped-together boards. An old piano with a black skull spray-painted on a silver moon on its upright portion.

  Slidell swung a left into the tavern’s small parking area, which may have been paved. Or not. A coating of dirt and gravel rendered the issue moot.

  “This place saw a lot of action back in the sixties.” Slidell shifted into park and cut the engine.

  “I’d have guessed the twenties.”

  “Beach music, shagging, that kinda shit. For a while the owners brought in truckloads of sand, strung lights in the yard. Young assholes pretended they were at Myrtle Beach grooving to Maurice Williams.” Pronounced Moe-reese.

  “When was that?”

  Slidell slid a toothpick from the right to the left corner of his mouth. “Late seventies.”

  A smile tugged at my lips. “You bust some moves here, detective?”

  Slidell looked at me as though I’d told him the world was made of Gouda.

  What was I thinking? Slidell’s soul probably had liver spots by his sixteenth birthday.

  “Who comes here now?” I asked.

  “Older assholes.”

  “What’s that?” I tipped my head toward the building across the street.

  “Back in the day it was a mill of some kind. Been abandoned since the fifties. Rumor was the property was going condo. Project went south, I guess. Now the dump’s mostly a pain in the ass ’cause of squatters.”

  For several moments we both evaluated our target.

  Save for a Coors sign glowing in the rain-blurred front window, the small brick bungalow might have been a private home. Iron handrails bordered the two stairs leading up to the stoop. A chimney jutted from the far end, suggesting the presence of a fireplace inside.

  The front door, once red, and the trim, once white, were faded and peeling. I’d been by this old building. When?

  Before Katy had hired on with the Public Defender’s Office she’d briefly tended bar at the Gin Mill, a trendy Irish pub a few blocks over on Tryon. Perhaps I’d taken a wrong turn after dropping her off.

  Slidell’s Taurus shared the parking area with a pickup and five cars whose odometers undoubtedly showed very high numbers.

  I was about to comment when a man in sweats rounded the building and walked with questionable balance to a white Honda Civic. Slidell and I watched him climb in and drive off.

  “Ready?” I asked.

  Taking Slidell’s grunt as affirmative, I stepped out into rain that had dwindled to a slow, steady drizzle. All around me were the sounds of dripping water.

  After heaving himself free, Slidell hiked his pants, checked the back of his waistband, and rolled his shoulders. A glance left, then right, and he strode onto the stoop and through the door. I followed.

  As expected, the tavern’s management invested little in lighting. Or cleaning. The air smelled of stale beer, human sweat, grease, and smoke.

  As my eyes adjusted to the dim, my mind logged details about my surroundings. From the tension in his back, I knew Slidell was also assessing.

  Wooden tables with unmatched chairs filled the space where we stood. A jukebox rested against the wall to their right. A mirror in a heavy gilt frame hung above and beside it. Beyond them straight ahead a bar formed an L, its short side facing the tables.

  I spotted a second entrance far back to the left, opposite the terminus of the L’s long side. At the moment, that door was propped open with a dark shape that looked like a gargoyle or garden troll.

  A series of bulletin boards ran along the wall from the rear entrance to the near end of the bar. Above them were painted the words STORY BOARD. On them were tacked at least a billion photos.

  To our right, an archway gave onto a room holding roughly a dozen more tables, all empty. A narrow corridor led deeper into the house, presumably to toilets and the kitchen.

  A trio in work clothes and steel-tipped boots occupied a four-top in the main seating area. Three hard hats lay at their feet. Three hamburger specials mounded their plates.

  Two men and a woman sat at the bar, backs to the photo gallery, empty stools equidistant between them. The men wore hoodies, jeans, and running shoes. Both had logged enough miles to have shagged at the tavern in its Myrtle Beach days. Both were drinking beer.

  The woman wore black stretch pants and a pink tee that warned, STOP LOOKING AT MY BOOBS. With her fried gray hair and sagging face she looked old enough to have mothered the men. Her glass held something the color of tea, probably bourbon.

  Though the bartender matched Slidell in poundage, his weight was distributed along more orthodox lines. And much more compactly. Maybe five ten on tiptoes, he had rheumy blue eyes and a shaved skull. Tattooed on his forearm was some sort of bird.

  Having memorized the layout, Slidell crossed to the bar.

  “How’s it going?”

  Rheumy eyes continued drying his hands on a rag.

  Slidell made a show of looking around. “I see business is booming.”

  “What’ll you have?”

  Slidell shifted his toothpick. “Little more hospitality?”

  “You’re a cop.”

  “You’re a genius.”

  The three laborers went quiet. The beer drinkers shifted on their stools.

  Boob woman eavesdropped unapologetically.

  “License is in order.” Rheumy eyes hooked a thumb at the wall behind him.

  Slidell placed both palms on the bar, spread his feet, and loomed.

  “How ’bout we start with a name?”

  “How ’bout we start with some ID.”

  Slidell badged him.

  Rheumy eyes slid a glance at the shield and looked up at Slidell.

  “Name? Or am I starting out with questions too high up the grid?”

  “Sam.”

  Slidell raised both brows in a go-on expression.

  “Sam Poland.”

  “How long you been working here, Sam?”

  “What’s this about?”

  “Whadja do, Sam? Jump some girl’s bones?” Boob woman guffawed at her own wit, then knocked back a slug of her drink.

  “Zip it, Linda.” Poland gestured Slidell down the bar, closer to where I’d paused. “Who’s the chick?” Nodding at me.

  “Lady Gaga. We’re getting an act together.”

  Poland’s jaw muscles bulged, but he said nothing.

  “So, Sam. How long you been working at the country club here?”

  “Twelve years.”

  “Tell me about Dominick Rockett.”

  Poland studied the rag in his hands. Up close, I could see they were red and splotchy. I suspected eczema.

  “I’m talking to you, dickwad.”

  “This is harassment.”

  “Rockett drink here?”

  Poland shrugged.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “A customer looks old enough, I don’t ask for ID.”

  “Guy’s face looks like he washed it with a blowtorch. That help?”

  “I might’ve seen someone like that.”

  “Sitting with John-Henry Story?”

  “Who?”

  “You know, Sam. I’m starting to think you’re trying to waste my time. People waste my time, they piss me off.”

  “Sorry I can’t help.”

  “You saying you never heard of John-Henry Story?”

  Poland shrugged again.

  Moving with astonishing speed for a man of his bulk, Slidell reached out, finger-wrapped Poland’s neck, and brought him forehead to forehead.

  Around us the room went totally still.

  “I find that odd, Sam. Being Story’s the man used to cut your checks.”

  Poland struggled to free his head. Slidell held him like a vise.

  “I
can walk out to my car and run your name through every system in the city, the county, the state, and the universe. You got an outstanding warrant? Unpaid taxes? Late child-support payment? One single slip, your dick is mine.”

  Slidell’s words sent droplets of saliva onto Poland’s face. They glistened blue and green in neon oozing from signage behind the bar.

  Even Linda had nothing to say.

  Thinking Poland might speak more freely with me out of earshot, and wanting to avoid spittle, I moved toward the bulletin boards and feigned interest in the photos.

  The collection looked as if it stretched back beyond the Nixon years. Some snapshots had old-fashioned scallopy edges. Some were standard drugstore-issue prints. Some were Polaroids not holding up well.

  I fingered through the layers, digging out an image here and there.

  A creased black-and-white showed an old Chevy coupe with whitewall tires, its fedoraed driver arm-draping the door. A color print featured a kid in a boater with an LBJ hatband. Another captured a Kodak moment inspired by four bare buttocks.

  Dozens of pictures dated to the tavern’s Myrtle Beach days. In shot after shot couples danced under looping strands of lights, gathered at tables, or mugged at the lens in shoulder-to-shoulder camaraderie.

  There were shots of New Year’s Eve celebrations, balloons festooning the fireplace, ceiling, and walls. Of diners in shorts and sundresses dappled by sunlight at patio tables. Of drunks in green hats, shamrocks, and beads.

  Men in coveralls. Women in stilettos and spandex. Couples snugged together like spoons. Businessmen in suits. Twenty-and thirtysomethings in full-body Nike or Adidas. Athletic teams in uniform. Quartets and sextets of college students.

  Over the years the fashions and hairstyles changed. Long bangs. Wild perms. Shaved heads. Pierced noses and lips. It was like sifting through layers at an archaeology dig.

  Behind me, Slidell continued hammering at Poland. The beer drinkers and Linda remained silent. The workers had resumed conversing in low tones.

  As I moved from board to board, I wondered how the collection had come to be.

  Whatever its history, the allure had faded in recent years. Few images looked like products of the digital age.

  I was at the end of the last board when I spotted Story. Or was it?

  Moving discreetly, I pried the tack loose with a thumbnail and studied the photo.