Flash and Bones Read online

“Joe’s out on a call.”

  “He just got back.” Larabee changed the subject. “Have you examined the new sandpit bones?”

  “Everything is consistent with the rest of the skeleton.”

  “Music to my ears.” Larabee chin-cocked the drum. “Let me know how it goes.”

  I was taking photos when Hawkins entered the autopsy room and strode to the gurney.

  Cadaver-thin, with dark circles under puffy lower lids, bushy brows, and dyed black hair combed straight back from his face, Joe Hawkins looks like an older and hairier version of Larabee.

  “How we going to crack this sucker?” Hawkins rapped gnarled knuckles on the drum.

  I explained Plan A.

  Without a word, Hawkins went in search of the necessary tools. I was finishing with overview shots when he returned, dressed in blue surgical scrubs identical to mine.

  Hawkins and I donned goggles, then he inserted a blade, plugged in, and revved the handheld power saw.

  The room filled with the whine of metal on metal and the acrid smell of hot steel. Rust particles arced and dropped to the gurney.

  Five minutes of cutting, then Hawkins laid down the saw and tugged and twisted with his hands. The segment came free.

  More cutting. More tugging.

  Eventually a black lump lay on the gurney, and an exoskeleton of torn metal lay on the floor.

  Joe killed the saw. Raising my goggles to my forehead, I stepped forward.

  The asphalt cast was the exact shape and size of the drum’s interior. Objects grazed its surface, pale and ghostly as morgue flesh.

  The curve of a jaw? The edge of a foot? I couldn’t be sure.

  Hawkins switched to the air hammer and, with some direction from me, began working downward toward the body parts. As cracks formed, I freed chunks of asphalt and placed them on the counter. Later I would examine each and take samples so chemists could determine their elemental composition.

  Maybe useful, maybe not. Better to be safe. One never knew what would later prove significant.

  Slowly, the counter filled.

  One hunk. Three. Nine. Fifteen.

  As the cast shrank, its contour changed. A form took shape, like a figure emerging from a block of marble being sculpted.

  The top of a head. An elbow. The curve of a hip.

  At my signal, Joe set down the chisel. Using hand tools, I went at the remaining asphalt.

  Forty minutes later a naked body lay curled on the stainless steel. The legs were flexed with the thighs tight to the chest. The head was down, the forehead pressed to the upraised knees. The feet pointed in opposite directions, toes spread at impossible angles. One arm L’ed backward. The other stretched high, fingers spread as though clawing for escape.

  A sweet, fetid odor now rode the air. No surprise.

  Though shriveled and discolored, overall, the cadaver was reasonably well preserved.

  But that was changing fast.

  HAWKINS BENT SIDEWAYS AND SQUINTED THROUGH BLACK-framed glasses that had gone in and out of vogue many times since their purchase.

  “Dude’s hanging a full package.”

  I joined him and checked the genitals.

  “Definitely male,” I said. “And adult.”

  I shot close-ups of the outstretched hand, then asked Hawkins to bag it. The fingers first spotted by Jackson were now in pretty bad shape, but those embedded deeper in the asphalt retained significant soft tissue. And nails, under which trace evidence might be found.

  While Hawkins sealed the hands in brown paper sacks, I filled out a case marker and adjusted camera settings. As I moved around the body, shooting from all angles, Hawkins brushed away black crumbs and positioned the card.

  “Looks like this will be one for Doc Larabee.”

  Pathologists work with freshly dead or relatively intact corpses to determine identity, cause of death, and postmortem interval. They cut Y-incisions on torsos and remove skullcaps to extract innards and brains.

  Anthropologists answer the same questions when the flesh is degraded or gone and the skeleton is the only game left. We eyeball, measure, and x-ray bone, and take samples for microscopic, chemical, or DNA analysis.

  Hawkins was guessing that a regular autopsy might be possible.

  “Let’s see how he looks stretched out,” I said.

  Hawkins snugged the gurney to the autopsy table, and together we transferred MCME 227-11 and rolled him to his back. While I pulled on his ankles, Hawkins pushed downward on his legs. It took some effort, but eventually the John Doe lay flat on the stainless steel.

  The man’s face was grotesque, the features distorted by a combination of hot asphalt and subsequent expansion and contraction while in the landfill. His abdomen was green and collapsed due to the action of anaerobic bacteria, the little buggers that start working from their home base in the gut once the heart stops beating.

  Based on the amount of surface decomp, I guessed gray cells and organs might remain.

  “I think you’re right, Joe.”

  I pried loose the hand that had been twisted behind the man’s back. The fingers had shriveled, and the tips had suffered some skin slippage.

  “We might get prints. Try rehydrating for an ink and roll.”

  I was asking Hawkins to plump the fingertips by soaking and then injecting them with embalming fluid. Hopefully, he could obtain ridge detail for submission to national and state databases.

  Hawkins nodded.

  “Let’s get height,” I said.

  Hawkins positioned a measuring rod beside the body, and I read the marker. As I jotted my estimate, he pried open the jaws. After thirty-five years on the job, he needed no direction.

  MCME 227-11 had not been big on oral hygiene. His dentition contained no fillings or restorations. A molar and a premolar were missing on the upper left. Three of the remaining molars had cavities that could have housed small birds. The tongue side of every tooth was stained a deep coffee brown.

  “The wisdom teeth have all erupted, but the first and second molars show very little wear,” I observed aloud.

  “Young fella.”

  Nodding agreement, I added my age estimate to the case form, completing a preliminary biological profile.

  Male. White. Thirty to forty years of age. Five feet seven. Smoker. Dental records unlikely.

  Not much, but a start for the pathologist.

  “Finish with the photos, shoot some full-body and dental X-rays, then put him back in the cooler for Dr. Larabee. And let’s send a sample of asphalt over to the crime lab,” I said.

  I stripped off my mask, apron, and gloves, tossed them in the biohazard pail, then went to update my boss.

  Larabee was in his office, talking to a man with salt-and-pepper hair and an NFL neck. Tan sport jacket, open-collar blue shirt, no tie.

  Seeing that Larabee had a visitor, I started to move on. Blue Shirt’s words caused me to linger. He was asking about MCME 227-11, the John Doe whom Hawkins and I had just examined.

  “—body from the landfill could be Ted Raines, the guy who went missing earlier this week.”

  “The man visiting from Atlanta.”

  “Yeah. He came to make business calls, but mainly for Race Week. Bought tickets for the All-Star Race tomorrow night, the Nationwide and Coca-Cola 600 next weekend. Visited clients, as planned, on Monday. After that he stopped calling home or answering his cell phone. Wife’s gone apeshit. Thinks something bad happened in Charlotte.”

  “We haven’t begun the autopsy.” Larabee sounded anxious to be rid of the guy. “An anthropologist will first assess the condition of the remains.”

  A rubber sole squeaked on the tile behind me. I turned. Hawkins was staring past me toward Larabee’s half-open door, scowling deeply.

  “Next of kin are coming out of the woodwork,” I said, feeling guilty at having been caught eavesdropping.

  Still scowling, Hawkins continued down the hall.

  Allrighty, then.

  I photocopi
ed my case form and gave it to Mrs. Flowers to deliver to Larabee.

  My watch said 1:48 p.m.

  I considered my options. I’d finished with the sandpit bones. The landfill John Doe was now Larabee’s problem. Since I work only when anthropology cases come in, and there was nothing to keep me at the MCME, the afternoon was mine to spend as I chose.

  I chose to placate my cat.

  Birdie was miffed. First I’d dumped him with a neighbor while I was away in Hawaii. Then, his first day home, I’d abandoned him to dig up a sandpit.

  Or maybe it was the thunder rumbling again. Birdie hates storms.

  “Come on out.” I waggled a saucer at floor level. “I’ve got lo mein.”

  Birdie held position, entrenched beneath the sideboard.

  “Fine.” I placed the noodles on the floor. “It’s here when you want it.”

  I pulled a Diet Coke from the fridge, served myself from the little white carton I’d picked up at Baoding, and settled at the kitchen table. Opening my laptop, I Googled the names Cindi Gamble and Cale Lovette.

  The results were useless. Most led to fan sites for Lyle Lovett.

  I tried Cindi Gamble alone. The name generated links to a Face-book page, and to stories about a woman mauled to death by a tiger.

  I paused to consider. And to slurp lo mein.

  Local disappearance. Local paper.

  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.

  THAT NIGHT’S STORM MADE THURSDAY’S LOOK LIKE A Fairyland sprinkle. I awoke to windows papered with soggy magnolia leaves and blossoms.