Bones of the Lost: A Temperance Brennan Novel

THE CALLER WAS FEMALE, THE words whispered in accented English. Background noise obliterated much of what she said.

“. . . want to say, but . . . girl that . . . no accident . . .”

The volume kept strengthening then fading, as though the woman had been repeatedly turning her head, sporadically distancing her lips from the receiver. Or maybe signal strength was erratic.

Somehow the voice was familiar. Or maybe it was the tone, the urgency.

Ping.

Was it the same person who’d contacted me from the pay phone at Seneca Square?

I held my breath, eager to catch every word, every nuance.

“. . . Passion Fruit . . . place . . . go . . . not right . . .”

I heard a shout in the background. Someone summoning the woman? Threatening her?

Either way, the call ended with the click of an abrupt hang-up.

I replayed the message again and again, pen poised over paper. I wrote almost nothing.

I receive hundreds of calls, listen to scores of messages, some useful, some crackpot, some the sad ramblings of bereaved next of kin. Over the years I’ve developed an instinct for those to take seriously. This call was among them.

I checked the messaging system information. The call had come into the switchboard the previous Friday, the day after Stallings’s piece ran in the Observer.

I studied the few words I’d scribbled. My gut told me Passion Fruit did not refer to a produce market.

I hit Google. Bingo. The Passion Fruit Club was located on Griffith, along a stretch that catered to adult male tastes.

I picked up the phone and punched Mrs. Flowers’s extension.

“Yes, Dr. Brennan.”

“I got a call last Friday at one thirty-one P.M. It rolled to voicemail. Could you check the log to see if the number was recorded?”

After a few seconds, Mrs. Flowers read off a series of digits that began with 704, the local area code. I ran the number through a 411 reverse-lookup site, but got zip. No name, no address.

I was dialing Slidell when the man himself appeared at my door.

“Yo, doc.” Dropping heavily into the chair opposite my desk, feet out, ankles crossed.

“Detective.”

“How’s it hanging?”

“Did you get my messages?”

Slidell reached out, snatched my tester safety pin from the blotter, and began cleaning a thumbnail. The scritching sound grated like a mosquito whining in the night.

“Didn’t tangle with one of those mean-ass desert wolf spiders, did you?”

“Excuse me?”

“Big as golf balls.” Slidell stopped excavating to splay his fingers. “Legs spread, they’re big as dinner plates. And the little fuckers can jump. Guy told me—”

“Can we discuss my hit-and-run case?”

“Topping my dance card.”

“It is?”

“Found our MP.” More scritching.

“Cheryl Connelly.”

“Ee-yuh. Car went off West Arrowood into a pond in the Moody Lake Office Park. Water barely covered the roof.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” I was. Though I was glad Slidell was now free to focus on my Jane Doe. “Did you get my messages?”

“Seventy-two by my count.”

“You received the DNA reports?”

“The many loves of Juanita Doe.”

“That statement is presumptive and offensive.”

Slidell raised a placating palm. “I’m just saying.”

I leaned down to rub my ankle, which, for some reason, had begun to throb.

“Hurt your foot over there?”

“I’m fine. What do you know about Creach and Majerick?”

Slidell drew two printouts from an inside jacket pocket and tossed them onto my desk. Then he slumped back and reengaged with the thumb.

I unfolded and laid the papers side by side.

Two faces stared up at me. Mug shots in black and white.

CC Creach had close-set eyes above a nose that had clearly taken more than one hit. His lips were thick and hung partially open. A patch of depigmentation trailed from his right temple to his cheek, a pale footprint in a background of dark, acne-pocked skin. Descriptors said Creach was African-American, seventy-four inches tall, one hundred and eighty-nine pounds.

Ray Earl Majerick stared straight into the lens, smug and self-assured. His curly hair, square jaw, and straight nose made him handsome in a nondescript sort of way. But there was a coldness in the pale eyes, a meanness not tempered by the cocky smirk. Descriptors said Majerick was white, seventy inches tall, one hundred and seventy-five pounds.

“You know them?” I asked.

“I know the type.”

“Meaning?”

Slidell leaned forward and jabbed a thumb at Creach. It was bleeding.

“In the way a rat catcher knows his rats. This guy, CJ—”

“CC.”

“CC, CJ, PJ, BJ, who gives a flying fuck? Creach is your standard low-life dealer. If the turd has two working brain cells, which I doubt, he can’t rub them together to form a thought. But he thinks he’s slick, which will make it easy to run him to ground.”

“Have you talked to his PO?”

“Not the sharpest knife in the drawer. The address she had for Creach was a flophouse off Freedom Drive. She hadn’t seen him in several months.”

“Creach is on parole. Shouldn’t he report in regularly?”

“Yes.”

“She didn’t follow up?”

Slidell shrugged.

“And she’d made no random house calls?”

“The lady said she was real overworked.”

Jesus.

“And the other guy?”

“Ray ‘Magic’ Majerick. Him I do know. Paranoid and mean as a snake, which makes for a dangerous combination.”

“What’s his history?”

“Considers himself a ladies’ man.” The scritching halted momentarily, resumed. “He’s a charmer, all right. Like Charlie Manson, or Al Bundy.”

“Ted.”

“What?”

“Never mind. Go on.”

“Majerick’s jacket’s as thick as a phone book. Starts out tame, but turns ugly real quick. Battery. Assault with a deadly, B and E.”

Slidell stopped to suck blood from his thumb.

“Could you stop that, please?”

Slidell rolled his eyes, but returned the pin to my desk.

“A few years back, Majerick busts into a home in Beverly Woods, slits the screen on a sliding glass door. Woman of the house is there alone, but gets lucky, manages to trip an alarm. We show up, Majerick’s got her hog-tied in the basement. Inside a gym bag we find rope, pliers, and enough knives to start a circus act.”

“Sounds like a torture kit.”

“Ee-yuh. Ole Magic had a nasty little party planned.”

“Why’s he not in jail?”

“Suit got him off on straight B and E.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Asshole argued that word on the street was the house had cash in a safe, said the items in Majerick’s kit were tools of the trade. Turned out there was a safe in a bedroom closet. The jury bought the story. Majerick served a nickel and walked.”

“I assume you’re looking for these two.” I gestured at the printouts.

“Issued BOLOs the minute I got the reports.” Slidell used the cop term for “be on the lookout.” “Checked LSAs, talked to the neighbors. Creach has a couple of sisters, but they knew nothing. Or wouldn’t give it up. Couldn’t find anyone who’d admit to knowing Majerick. These scumbags probably change addresses more often than I change shorts.”

I refused that image entry into my mind.

“So Creach and Majerick are both in the wind.”

“Yeah.” Slidell raised the thumb to his mouth. Saw my face. Dropped the hand to his lap. “But not for long.”

“We may have another lead.”

I hit speakerphone and played the woman’s message. As Slidell listened, I plucked a tissue and swept the bone-tester-turned-manicure-pin into the trash.

When the message ended, Slidell raised a questioning brow.

“I think it’s the same woman who called once before.”

“Think she’s legit?”

“I do.”

Slidell twirled a finger, directing me to play the voicemail again. I did.

When it ended, he said, “Sounds scared shitless.”

“Yes. Can you trace the number?” Sliding him the sequence of digits I’d jotted.

Slidell glanced at the paper, unclipped his mobile, and punched a series of buttons. A voice answered. Slidell asked for an extension. Waited. Another voice answered.

“Slidell here. I need a trace.” The voice said something. “No. I was hoping for next Thanksgiving.”

The voice gave a decidedly clipped reply.

“Yeah? I’ll see you get a medal.

“Moron,” Slidell mouthed to me. I felt sympathy for the person on the other end of the line.

A full minute passed before the voice sounded again.

Slidell gestured for a pen. I handed him one. He shoulder-cupped the mobile as he wrote.

“Mix-coat-all?”

The voice responded.

“Spell it.”

The voice did.

“I owe you one.”

The voice had already gone silent.

“Call came from a Mexican joint off Old Pineville Road. Taqueria Mixed Coat All.”

“Holy shit.”

“Ay, caramba.”

I was so jazzed I didn’t bother to correct his Spanish. Old Pineville. The place my Jane Doe had died.

I yanked my purse from the drawer and shot to my feet.

“Up for a taco, detective?”

“Sí, señorita.”