Flash and Bones - читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги автора Kathy Reichs (ч. 3)

The old guy said that thing about poisoning the system. Then Cale said something about it being too late. It was going to happen. Then the old guy said something about knowing your place.

Maddy Padgett, face tight with emotion.

Craig Bogan was a racist, a sexist. Cindi Gamble had flash. Again the bones.

Flash and bones.

A photo of a girl with a blond pixie bob and silver loops in her ears.

Craig Bogan in an armchair, stroking a cat.

Bogan said ’sixty-five Petty-blue Mustang.

Not “a Mustang.” Or “a blue Mustang.” A ’sixty-five Petty-blue Mustang.

Ted Raines cringing on a couch.

Every fricking red seed has to be accounted for.

Red beads peeking from the neckline of a jumpsuit.

Galimore talking to a woman in sweaty black spandex. Reta Yountz. A handshake. Yountz’s bracelet jumping like a string of ladybugs doing a conga.

The world slid sideways.

I sucked in my breath.

Was that the message my id had been whispering?

Summoning what little strength I had left, I crawled to the door. Still on hands and knees, I pulled a paper from the back pocket of my jeans and unfolded it on the concrete. In the thin strip of light, I could see the picture and most of the text.

The article was titled “Rosary Pea: Abrus precatorius.” The image showed small red seeds with jet-black spots at one end. The text described them as resembling ladybugs.

In my delirium, atoms collided. Meshed.

Reta Yountz was wearing a bracelet made of rosary pea seeds.

Abrin comes from the rosary pea.

Wayne Gamble was poisoned with abrin.

Maddy Padgett made reference to a contract between Bogan and the Speedway. CB Botanicals. I was in a garden shed.

Padgett described Bogan as a redneck cracker who despised the idea of women and blacks in NASCAR. A man with a wicked temper.

Cindi Gamble was determined to race stock cars. Bogan had watched her race Bandoleros and knew that she could do it.

Nolan’s “old guy” at the Double Shot was Craig Bogan!

Bogan and Lovette weren’t planning a terrorist act. They were arguing about Cindi’s failure to know her place. The system being poisoned wasn’t a water supply. It was Bogan’s twisted vision of NASCAR.

The brutal truth slammed home.

Craig Bogan shot Cindi Gamble to stop her from driving NASCAR. He killed his own son because he and Cale were estranged, and he knew Cale would finger him as a suspect. He murdered Wayne Gamble because Gamble was asking too many questions and prodding the authorities to start a reinvestigation for discovery of new facts.

My vision blurred. My legs trembled.

I reached out to brace myself.

At that precise moment, a bolt slicked sideways.

Grating loudly, the door winged left.

I wobbled but didn’t topple.

A dark figure loomed in front of me, backlit by two powerful beams.

I drew in my arm and shielded my eyes.

Two muddy boots swam into focus.

“Well, well.” Bogan’s tone was bloodless. “Aren’t you the rugged one.”

I sat back on my haunches. Looked up.

Bogan was a black silhouette. One elbow angled out. Something in his hand. “Guess I underestimated you, little lady.”

Bogan shifted. Spread his feet.

Light glinted off a semiautomatic pistol pointed at my head.

Adrenaline-pumped blood made the rounds of my body. I felt a new surge of strength.

“The police are already searching for us.” To my pounding ears my voice sounded slurry.

“Let them search. Where you’re going, no one will find you.”

“We found Cale and Cindi.”

The razor face hardened into cold stone.

“You’ve already killed three people,” I said. “I suppose you don’t care about one more?”

“You forgetting your buddy over there?” Bogan flicked the gun toward Galimore.

I kept my mind pointed at one thought. Stall.

“Takes a special kind of man to shoot his own son.”

Bogan’s fingers tightened on the Glock.

“How’d you rope Winge in? Threaten to fire him? Appeal to his Patriot Posse loyalties?”

“Winge’s a fool.”

“Don’t have Grady to do your dirty work this time? To lie for you? To bury your dead kid and his girlfriend? You know he’ll break and implicate you.”

“Not if he wants to live, he won’t. Besides, it’s only the word of an accused suspect. There’s no evidence connecting me.”

“Good cover. The stranger in the Mustang. How long did you have to coach him to get it right?”

As we sparred, I tried looking past Bogan. The double beams were blinding. Headlights?

I listened for sounds. Heard no engines. No amplified voices. I assumed the race was long since over. Or else we weren’t at the Speedway.

“Your kind just can’t be happy with what you got.” Bogan’s face was pinched with loathing. “Always wanting more.”

“My kind? You mean women?”

I knew I should quit piling on words. Couldn’t stop myself.

“We scare the shit out of you, don’t we, Craig?”

“That’s it. You’re history.”

Before I could react, Bogan lunged, yanked me to my feet, and spun me into another chokehold. With a gloating laugh, he jammed the Glock into my ribs.

“Now who’s scared shitless?”

Bogan dragged me toward the lights, gouging the muzzle deeper with every forced step. It was the scene at the haulers’ all over again. Only this time my muscles were mush. I was like a moth flailing at a screen.

Rain was still falling. The ground was slick underfoot.

I heard traffic in the distance but couldn’t lower my eyes to check for landmarks.

We passed the source of the double beams. Headlights shone from a backhoe with enormous front and rear shovels.

Ten yards beyond the backhoe, Bogan halted, shifted the gun to my occiput, and forced my head down.

I blinked into a yawning wound in the earth.

The sinkhole!

The gears of my mind jammed with terror.

“Enjoy eternity in hell.” Bogan’s voice was pure venom.

I felt his body tense. The pistol was no longer jammed against my head. Hands clamped onto my shoulders.

“Kiss my ass!” I screamed, twisting and writhing with adrenaline-stoked terror. “You worthless piece of shit!”

Bogan’s right hand slipped on my wet nylon jacket. Slithered down the sleeve.

I wrenched my upper body sideways.

Bogan squeezed so tight, I thought my bones would shatter.

I cried out in pain.

Sliding the shoulder hand down my other arm, Bogan flexed both knees, lifted, and sailed me out over the edge.

My body flew sideways, then dropped. Time froze as I plummeted into inky blackness.

I hit hard on my right side, against an embankment partway down. The force of the impact sent me pinwheeling farther down, through muck and rubble. In seconds, I hit water.

Putrid liquid closed over me. I drew my knees to my chest and prayed that the pool was shallow.

Using my battered arms, I flayed the water and stopped my forward motion. I stroked my body vertical and extended my legs.

My sneakers touched bottom. I tested.

Terra not so firma. But solid enough so my feet were not sinking.

I stood in stagnant water up to my chest.

I smelled the sour reek of mud and rotten humus, the brown stench of things long dead.

Around me was tomblike darkness. Far above me the sky was a slightly paler black.

I had to get out. But how?

I waded to the point where I thought I’d entered the water. Explored with shaking hands.

The sides of the sinkhole were sharply angled. And slimy with sludge and putrid garbage.

Facing the bank, I lifted a leg that weighed a thousand pounds. Positioned my foot. Stretched my hands high and curled my fingers into claws.

Then I was spent.

My leg crumpled.

I collapsed and lay with my cheek and chest pressed to the mud.

A minute? An hour?

Somewhere, in another universe, an engine sputtered to life.

Gears rattled.

The engine grew louder.

The sinkhole seemed to wink.

I lifted my head.

Twin beams were slicing the darkness overhead.

My brain groped for meaning.

Steel screeched.

The engine churned.

Metal clanked.

I heard rumbling, like potatoes rolling down a chute.

A massive clod of dirt hit my back.

The wind was knocked from me.

As I fought the spasm in my chest, more soil avalanched down from above.

I tucked my head and wrapped my arms around it.

Bogan was filling the sinkhole! The monster was burying me alive!

Get to the far end!

I was dragging myself sideways along the bank when the engine backfired.

Muffled voices drifted down.

Or was I hallucinating?

The backhoe popped again.

Gears rattled.

The engine groaned, then cut off.

A small beam shot down from the lip of the sinkhole. Was joined by another. The small ovals danced the water, the muddy banks, finally settled on me.

“She’s here.”

“Sonofafrigginbitch.”

Slidell’s voice had never sounded so sweet.

I DIDN’T GET THE FULL STORY UNTIL PRESBYTERIAN HOSPITAL cut me loose three days later. By then Mark Martin had beaten twenty-to-one odds to win the Coca-Cola 600. Sandy Stupak had finished at number nineteen.

Completion of the Nationwide race had been postponed Friday night due to rain and the possibility of tornadoes. The following day Joey Frank crossed the line at number twenty-seven.

And the sun finally came out.

Katy had visited my bedside daily. Larabee dropped in. Charlie Hunt. Pete, sans Summer.

Hmm.

The sting on my finger wasn’t from a biting insect. Bogan had hit me with an abrin-coated dart. My mobile rang at the precise moment he aimed his little blow tube at my neck. Either the movement of my hand, the phone, or my jacket sleeve deflected the hit.

Karma? Fate? Blind-ass luck? Whatever. That kind of help is welcome any time.

Here’s a bit of irony. The caller was Summer. Another bout of wedding hysteria had saved my life.

The trace amount of abrin that had penetrated my skin caused vomiting, fever, headache, and disorientation. But I lived.

Galimore had also been poisoned. The prognosis was that, although further hospitalization was required, his recovery would proceed without complications.

Doctors figured either the abrin was degraded, incorrectly processed, or Bogan had put too little on the dart. Or maybe rain had diluted the toxin before or during delivery. Bottom line: the dosages were too low to be lethal to either of us.

Padgett was right. Bogan had been supplying flowers and greenery to the Speedway for years. After darting us, he’d locked our “bodies” in one of his gardening sheds, waiting for the right moment to dump them.

The sinkhole had been a stroke of luck. Bogan’s offer to deal with the inconvenience had been gratefully accepted by frantic Speedway personnel. He intended to load us onto the backhoe, deposit us thirty-five feet below ground level, then shovel tons of fill over our corpses. Finding me alive had forced him to modify his plan. He’d drop Galimore after he got some dirt over me.

My epiphany in the shed was dead-on. Bogan had killed Cindi and Cale, then threatened Grady Winge with the loss of his job if he didn’t help a fellow posseman dispose of a couple of bodies.

The Gambles and Ethel Bradford would be vindicated. The task force finding was indeed flawed. The couple hadn’t run off to get married or to join an extremist group out West.

Lynn Nolan and Wayne Gamble were also wrong. Cale hadn’t killed Cindi, then gone into hiding for fear of being caught.

Slidell and I had not been any more accurate. Cale wasn’t an FBI informant and hadn’t been murdered by members of the Patriot Posse. Nor had he and Cindi been piped into witness protection.

Eugene Fries’s theory was also off base. Cale hadn’t fled to avoid arrest for a terrorist act.

It was Tuesday, one week after Wayne Gamble’s death. Slidell, Williams, Randall, and I were drinking coffee in my study.

Slidell was being Slidell.

“You clean up pretty good, Doc. Last time I saw you, you looked like something climbed out of an unflushed toilet.”

“Thank you, Detective. And thanks for the flowers. They were very thoughtful.”

“I tried hiring baton twirlers, but everyone was booked.”

“That’s OK. It would have been rather crowded in here.”

It was tight anyway. Skinny was at the desk. The specials were in chairs dragged from the dining room. I was on the sofa, with Birdie curled on my quilt-covered lap.

“Bogan’s going to make it?” I asked.

“Not because I wasn’t aiming. The peckerwood hunkered down in the backhoe just as I fired.”

The pops I’d heard weren’t backfires.

“How did you know I’d gone to the Speedway?”

“A tip from a man of the cloth.”

“Reverend Grace?” Of course. I’d mentioned my whereabouts in our phone conversation.

“Hallelujah, sister.” Slidell waggled splayed fingers.

“Why did you go to the dirt track?”

“I learned that Bogan was supposed to fill the sinkhole. I hauled ass out there, saw the headlights, heard you cursing like a sailor on shore leave.”

“Thank God you finally called Winge’s pastor.”

“Big Guy had nothing to do with it. And I didn’t call Grace. He called me around ten, all in a twist because we’d collared one of his flock. I was still sweating Winge.”

“Grace persuaded him to talk?”

“Yeah. Told him that salvation would be his only if he bore witness to the truth. Or some bullshit like that. According to Winge, Bogan killed the girl and his own kid, then told Winge they’d been agents of an anti-patriot conspiracy and ordered him to bury the bodies, or both his membership in the posse and his job were toast.”

“Two years later, Bogan used the same arguments to force Winge to help dump Eli Hand.”

Williams’s comment was news to me.

“It was like a damn pyramid scheme,” Slidell said. “Danner was squeezing Bogan. Bogan was squeezing Winge.”

“J. D. Danner? The leader of the Patriot Posse?” Clearly I’d missed a lot while incapacitated.

“The head wrangler,” Slidell said.

“After events at the Speedway, the bureau decided it was time to bring in some individuals we’d had under surveillance,” Williams explained.

“Round ’em up.” Slidell circled a finger in the air.

“Danner’s lawyer allowed him to cooperate in exchange for immunity from prosecution. The DA agreed to a deal covering criminal acts prior to 2002.”

“The year the Patriot Posse disbanded.”

“Yes. As you know, Grady Winge is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. And he was still drinking back in ’ninety-eight. Winge let slip to others in the posse that Bogan had killed Cale and Cindi. According to Danner, certain group members used that knowledge to blackmail Bogan.”

“They made him their whore,” Slidell said.

“When Eli Hand died, higher-ups in the posse pressed Bogan into service to dispose of his body,” Williams said. “As with Cindi and Cale, Bogan forced Winge to do the dirty work.”

“Conveniently, at the time they were filling potholes at the Speedway,” Slidell said.

It seemed incredible that a person, even one with Winge’s limited IQ, could be pressured to do such a thing.

“How do you get someone to cram a corpse into a barrel, cover it with asphalt, and haul it to a landfill?” I asked.

“Bogan told Winge if he refused to dump Hand, he’d make sure Winge took the fall for Cindi and Cale. And he threatened to burn Mama Winge’s place to the ground.”

“It was Bogan who killed Eugene Fries’s dog and torched his house,” I guessed.

Williams nodded. “And it was Bogan who was stalking Wayne Gamble.”

I considered that. “When Gamble first came to see me at the MCME, he offered to locate Cale Lovette’s father and give him a call. He must have done that.”

“Freaked Bogan out.” Slidell was playing with a water globe I keep on my desk, a gift from my nephew Kit.

“Bogan used his usual MO to try to dissuade Gamble from pursuing the reopening of his sister’s case,” Williams said. “But this time intimidation didn’t work.”

I remembered Gamble’s calls to me, the anger and fear in his voice as he talked of his stalker. Again felt the heavy weight of guilt.

“It was Bogan who threatened Galimore,” Williams added. “And you.”

I thought back to the day at CB Botanicals. The greenhouse. Daytona.

“His cat startled me, and I dropped my iPhone. Bogan probably got my number while pretending to clean it. But he was with me when the call came in.”

“When Bogan went to the kitchen for sodas, he phoned an employee, offered fifty dollars, and provided your number and the message to be delivered or left on voice mail.”

The kid on the ladder cleaning the gutters: Bogan’s call must have beeped in while he was listening to music on his cell phone. Fifty bucks? Sure. The kid hit a few keys. Done.

“That a bird?” Slidell was holding the globe up to the light, squinting at the object sealed inside.

“It’s a duck. Please put it down. How did Eli Hand die?”

“Danner claims it was accidental self-poisoning,” Williams said.

“The prick pricked himself.”

I ignored Slidell’s witticism.

“Hand’s skull was fractured.”

“Danner speculates he may have fallen.” Williams shrugged. “No witnesses. We may never learn the truth on that one.”

He cleared his throat and looked straight at me. “The FBI confiscated Hand’s body out of legitimate concern for ricin contamination.”

“And destroyed it for what reason?” I kept my gaze steady on his.

“The cremation was accidental.”

“And stealing our goddamn file? That accidental, too?” The base of the water globe smacked the desktop.

“I have been asked to formally apologize to Dr. Brennan and Dr. Larabee for the destruction of Eli Hand’s remains. Requesting files from the top level of local law enforcement is routine.” Williams coolly flicked a speck from his perfectly creased pants leg even as he directed the same coolness toward us. “The bureau is in possession of information concerning the Loyalty Movement that I am not—”

“Yeah, yeah. At liberty to divulge. You’re bloody James Bond.”

“I can tell you this. Members of the Patriot Posse also blackmailed Bogan into experimenting with abrin.” Williams’s calm was unshakable.

“Why?” I asked.

“In Danner’s words, certain elements were not morally opposed to acts of civil disobedience. Ricin had its drawbacks. They wanted something better.”

“The bastards were thinking of killing people,” I said.

“But not Danner. He’s Peter frickin’ Pan.”

“Wayne Gamble wasn’t paranoid.” I ignored Slidell’s sarcasm. “The FBI did have his family under surveillance back in 1998.”

Williams nodded.

I turned to Slidell. “What about Bogan? Is he talking?”

“Like Danner, he’s looking to cut a deal. Bogan’s got shit to offer, so the DA’s offering zilch.” The chair creaked ominously as Skinny leaned back and stretched his legs. “I’m floating some legal jargon his way. Stuff like ‘lethal injection.’ ‘Shank.’ The ever popular ‘bend over, punk.’ ”

“Is Bogan impressed?”

Slidell laced his fingers behind his head.

“He will be.”

THE NEXT AFTERNOON BIRDIE AND I WERE RELAXING ON THE terrace. I was reading a book on the history of NASCAR. He was batting a mangled cloth mouse around on the brick.

We were both enjoying a Dr. Hook CD. The cat’s favorite. He actually stops to listen when “You Make My Pants Want to Get Up and Dance” plays.

Hearing a car, I glanced to my left.

A blue Taurus was cruising past the manor house on the circle drive.

“Heads up, Bird. Our day is about to be filled with sunshine.”

The cat stayed focused on his burlap rodent.

The Taurus disappeared behind a stand of magnolias, reappeared, and pulled in beside the Annex. Seconds later, Slidell hauled himself out.

I closed my book and watched Skinny trudge up the walk. He really is a very good trudger.

“Glad to see you’re following doctor’s orders.” Sun shot from the lenses of Slidell’s mock Ray-Bans.

“One more day,” I said. “Then back to work.”

“Yep. The lady’s stubborn as belly fat.”

“Is Bogan talking?” I shifted the subject away from my health.

“Like a cockatiel with a crack pipe.”

Slidell’s metaphors truly are something. Or was that a simile?

“Why?”

“He’s gambling the DA will go south a bump on the charges.”

I raised spread fingers. And?

“The night they died, Cale told his old man he and Cindi were getting out of Dodge. She had some kind of offer down in Daytona. Bogan flew into a rage. Get this. He’s justifying the shooting, saying he was provoked because a broad was taking his son away from him. The son he hadn’t said ten words to in years.”

“And I suppose Wayne Gamble called him mean names?”

“Eeyuh. Hard to sell temporary insanity on that one. Want to hear a sick sidebar?”

I wiggled my fingers, indicating I did.

“Bogan kept their shoes.”

“What?”

“Before the shooting, he made Cindi and Cale take off their shoes and walk down to the pond.”

“The one by his greenhouse.”

“Yeah. All these years, he kept their shoes in a box in his closet.”

I could think of nothing to say to that.

“Has Bogan said how he murdered Gamble?” I asked.

“He was watching, saw the other mechanic leave the garage. When Gamble bent under the hood, Bogan released some thingamajig that dropped the jack. The engine was cranking full throttle, so when the wheels hit the floor, it was sayonara.”

“Bogan had been poisoning Gamble. Why kill him in the garage?”

“Several triggers. First, Bogan was frustrated because the abrin wasn’t working the way he’d expected. Probably because the dumb shit screwed the stuff up.”

“Or the toxin was old and degraded.”

“Or that. Second, Bogan was getting nervous because Gamble seemed to be making progress. You and Galimore showing up at his greenhouse scared the crap out of him.”

“He didn’t let on.”

“No. But he recognized Galimore, both because of the task force back in ’ninety-eight and from seeing him at the Speedway. He knew who Galimore was, felt things closing in.”

“Why didn’t Galimore recognize Bogan?”

“Bogan got the landscaping contract before Galimore hired on at the Speedway. Since he already had his security clearance and employee ID, the two never intersected. Bogan kept an eye on Galimore but never really entered his orbit. Bogan’s on-site man was Winge.”

“So Galimore had little opportunity and no reason to notice Bogan.”

“Bingo. Third, Gamble had confronted Bogan earlier that day, threatened to clean his clock if he didn’t knock off the bird-dog act. Bottom line, Bogan saw an opportunity at the garage and grabbed it. Figured Gamble’s death would pass as an accident.”

Guilt vied with the anger knotting my gut.

Shoving both aside, I asked another question.

“According to Maddy Padgett, Cale was planning to quit the Patriot Posse. Was that true?”

“Eeyuh. And Cale knew a lot of their dirty little secrets. He and Cindi were crapping their shorts to get out of town. They feared posse hardliners might use muscle to keep them from leaving. Or worse.”

“That’s why she had the locks changed. She was afraid of the posse, not Cale.”

“Bogan also gave it up on Owen Poteat. We were right. He paid Poteat to lie about seeing Cindi and Cale at the Charlotte airport.”

“How did Bogan recruit him?”

“Before he got canned, Poteat sold Bogan a sprinkler system for his greenhouse. One day he was checking out a problem and they got to talking. Poteat needed money. Bogan needed the cops thinking his kid was alive and well and living somewhere with his girlfriend. Bogan undoubtedly gave some innocent-sounding reason for wanting to place the two of them at the airport. Poteat bit.”

Reflections from the magnolias moved in shifting patterns across the dark lenses covering Slidell’s eyes. I suspected his emotions were paralleling mine.

“It’s hard to believe a man could murder two young people, one his own flesh and blood, over an outmoded definition of what a sport should be. But I guess with him, it wasn’t a sport. It was a religion carried to the point of fanaticism.”

“There was a time we lobotomized freaks like him.”

“Those were the days.”

Slidell missed my sarcasm. “Well, that’s last season’s pennant race. Here’s a good one. Bogan’s almost sixty, and the asshole’s never left the Carolinas.”

“I guess stock car racing was all the universe he needed. That and his plants.”

Slidell shook his head.

“I keep seeing Bogan’s den in my mind,” I said. “The place was a shrine to NASCAR. Model cars, auto parts, clothing, signed posters, a zillion framed pictures. Yet not a single snapshot of Cale.”

“Freak,” Slidell repeated.

“Here’s the craziest part. The dumb wang claims to love NASCAR history but knows little of it. Women have been pushing the accelerator since before Bogan was born.”

“Yeah?”

“Sara Christian drove in the inaugural Strictly Stock race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. You know what year that was?”

Slidell shook his head.

“1949. qualified at number thirteen, finished fourteenth in a field of thirty-three.”

“Get out.”

“Janet Guthrie participated in both the Indianapolis 500 and NASCAR. In the late seventies she drove in thirty-three cup-level races. At the 1977 Talladega 500, she outqualified the likes of Richard Petty, Johnny Rutherford, David Pearson, Bill Elliott, Neil Bonnett, Buddy Baker, and Ricky Rudd. And not one of them said anything derogatory or resentful, at least not publicly.”

“She win?”

“Turn one, first lap, another car’s driveshaft went through Guthrie’s windshield. After it was replaced, the engine blew.”

“Ouch.”

“Louise Smith. Ethel Mobley. Ann Slaasted. Ann Chester. Ann Bunselmeyer. Patty Moise. Shawna Robinson. Jennifer Jo Cobb. Chrissy Wallace. Danica Patrick. And that’s hardly the full list. Women drivers are still a small minority, but they’ve always been there. And the numbers are growing each year. Did you know that approximately forty percent of NASCAR fans today are female?”

“How’d you get to be such an authority?”

I waggled my book.

“Ain’t that grand.”

“What’s going to happen to Lynn Nolan and Ted Raines?” I asked.

“Shacking up for naughty boom-boom is adultery for him, alienation of affection for her, but those gripes are largely for family courts. No one ever prosecutes.”

“She and lover boy were the unfortunate victims of bad luck and bad timing.”

Neither of us laughed at my joke.

Slidell toed the pansies bordering the brick walk. Suspecting he had more to say, I waited.

On the boom box, Dr. Hook segued into “Freaker’s Ball.”

“What the hell is that?”

“Birdie’s favorite group.”

Slidell shook his head at the puzzle of feline taste, then, “Just FYI. Padgett didn’t tell Galimore about Lovette quitting the Patriot Posse.”

“She didn’t?”

“The guy she talked to was FBI. Retired now. It’s in the file.”

“They finally let you see it?”

“Ain’t the specials special?”

“I’m still not clear on how Galimore ended up in that shed.”

“Bogan saw him poking around Gamble’s trailer before the race Friday night. He told him he’d remembered something that could shed light on what happened back in ’ninety-eight, said Galimore had to go with him to see it. Galimore had no reason to be suspicious, so he went along. In the shed, Bogan nailed him with a dart. The dose was enough to knock Galimore out but not enough to kill him, as Bogan intended.”

“Thanks for letting me know that Padgett’s dark-haired cop wasn’t Galimore.”

“Don’t mean the guy ain’t a douchebag.”

“Galimore is aware he failed a lot of people. Says he was focused on his own problems back then.”

“A cop don’t get that luxury.”

“No. And he’s beating himself up with guilt.”

Slidell didn’t respond.

“I understand how you feel.” I spoke gently. “But it is possible that Galimore has changed.”

A moment passed as Slidell studied the pansies. Then, “I did a little checking. When Galimore got tagged, there was a guy living in his building name of Gordie Lashner. Two months after Gali-more went down, Lashner got popped for dealing smack, ended up doing a fifteen-year swing.”

“You think it was Lashner’s money in Galimore’s storage bin?”

“All I know is Lashner’s a lowlife.”

“You’ll look into it?”

“I ain’t saying I think Galimore was framed.”

“Just the unfortunate victim of bad luck and bad timing.”

Same joke. Same reaction. Not so much as a smile.

Slidell watched a cyclist pedal past Myers Park Baptist across the way. He made no move to leave.

Dr. Hook started singing about Sylvia’s mother.

When Slidell spoke, his words surprised me.

“I took a fern by the hospital.”

“For Galimore?”

“No. For Dr Friggin’ Pepper.”

“That was a very nice gesture,”

I said. “I didn’t visit his bedside or nothing like that.”

“Still, it was a considerate thing to do.”

A beefy finger shot the air. “The fern business stays between you and me.”

I pantomimed a key on my lips.

“Don’t want people thinking I’m going all gooey.”

“Bad for the image.”

Slidell pulled an object from his pocket and tossed it to me.

“Galimore had that sent over to my office. Note said it was something you asked him for. Said he never had a chance to give it to you.”

The object in my lap was a NASCAR cap. On its bill was a signature scrawled in black Magic Marker. Jacques Villeneuve.

A grin tugged the corners of my mouth. Lieutenant-détective Andrew Ryan, quebec cop and Villeneuve groupie, would be thrilled.

“So.” Slidell straightened his phony cool-guy shades. “Erskine Slidell still your favorite badass?”

“Yes, Detective.” My grin widened. “You are still my favorite Charlotte badass.”

FROM THE FORENSIC FILES OF DR. KATHY REICHS

In this bonus Q & A, the scribe behind Tempe Brennan takes questions on NASCAR, extremist groups, Tempe’s love life, and the difference between writing a novel and penning a script for the TV show Bones on FOX.

1. Flash and Bones begins with the discovery of a body in a barrel of asphalt in a dump next to the Charlotte Motor Speedway, and characters from the racing world become implicated in the drama. What drew you to NASCAR as a backdrop? Are you yourself a racing fan?

Prior to writing Flash and Bones, I had only passing knowledge of auto racing, having attended one event way back in the gray dawn of history. But almost every Charlottean knows a player in the game—be it a team owner, a mechanic, a sponsor, or a driver. It’s hard not to get caught up in the excitement each May and October when hundreds of thousands converge on our burg for big races. Like Daytona or Darlington, Charlotte is an epicenter for the sport. And, as Tempe explains in the book, stock car racing originated with bootlegging in the Carolina mountains during Prohibition.

I ended up writing NASCAR into the novel because of my longtime friend Barry Byrd, himself a huge racing enthusiast. Each time I began a new Temperance Brennan novel Barry would suggest that NASCAR would provide a rich background for a story. I finally realized he was right. Barry offered to introduce me to Jimmy Johnson and his team, to take me to the track, to include me with the gang attending the All-Star Race and the Coca-Cola 600.

Barry followed through on his promises. I met track owners and managers, sports journalists, pit crew chiefs, and fans who had driven their Winnebagos from Portland, Houston, Teaneck, and Nashville. Thanks to Barry and the Smith family I enjoyed a top to bottom tour of the Charlotte Motor Speedway. My fascination with the adjacent landfill was, I fear, a source of some dismay.

2. Flash and Bones takes place entirely in Tempe Brennan’s hometown of Charlotte. Spider Bones, on the other hand, begins in Montreal, where Tempe occasionally works, then moves to Hawaii. Other books have taken Tempe to Chicago, Israel, and Guatemala. How do you decide where to set your next novel? In what city do you spend most of your own time these days?

Setting is a living, breathing part of each story I write. When Tempe travels, her destination is always a place that I know well, one in which I have plied my trade or spent time doing research.

I work and live in Charlotte, so Tempe does, too. Like her, I am a commuter, shifting regularly from North Carolina to Quebec, where I consult to the Laboratoire de sciences judiciaires et de médecine légale in Montreal. Yep. I have the mother lode of frequent flier miles.

In Spider Bones Tempe heads to Hawaii to pursue a case for JPAC, the Joint Prisoners of War, Missing in Action Accounting Command, the U.S. military facility dedicated to identifying the remains of servicemen and -women who have died far from home. Easy choice. I consulted for this lab for many years.

In Grave Secrets Tempe exhumes a mass grave in Guatemala. In the year 2000 I was invited to do the same by the Guatemalan Foundation for Forensic Anthropology.

In Bones to Ashes a case takes Tempe to Tracadie, New Brunswick. This setting was suggested by an exhumation and analysis I performed for an Arcadian family living in that province.

In 206 Bones Tempe flies to Chicago. Another no-brainer. That’s where I was born.

You get the idea. It’s better to observe firsthand than to make things up.

3. Another dominant theme of Flash and Bones is right-wing extremism, a subject about which you’ve written before. Members of a white supremacist group figure as suspects in the book. How did you become interested in these factions of American society?

Extremist ideas do not offend me. In my view, people are free to believe what they will. Extremism that hurts others offends me greatly.

In Cross Bones I wrote of religious extremism—belief systems that refuse to accept the legitimacy of differing worldviews. In that story events take Tempe to Israel and bring her into contact with fringe groups who use violence to impose their ideologies and customs on others.

Political extremism can be equally dangerous, whether coming from the left or the right. In recent years hatred and intolerance have led to deadly attacks by domestic terrorists in the United States. Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber; Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, the Oklahoma City bombers; Eric Rudolph, the Olympic Park Bomber. Such individuals choose to kill their fellow citizens based on their own warped definitions of morality.

After years on the run, Rudolph was arrested while digging through a Dumpster in western North Carolina, about a four-hour drive from Charlotte. I wondered who else might be hiding in the woods and back roads of my state. In Flash and Bones, I imagine a group of people who come from the extreme mold of Eric Rudolph and his narrow-minded brethren.

Preferring comfort in numbers, some right-wing fanatics form clubs or militias. That’s the case in Flash and Bones. Tempe is drawn into the world of an extremist group and must learn their philosophy and decipher their code of conduct in order to determine their role in a cold case that disturbs her greatly.

4. Over the course of Flash and Bones, Tempe develops a flirtatious relationship with Cotton Galimore, the head of security at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. Her old flame Lieutenant-détective Andrew Ryan and sometime suitor and Charlotte attorney Charlie Hunt only make minor appearances in the story. How do you decide what Tempe’s romantic life is going to be like in each novel? Can you give readers any hints about where it might go in the future? It’s true. Tempe’s love life is in a bit of a muddle. Andrew Ryan is preoccupied with his daughter, Lily, who is in drug rehab. And miles away. Charlie Hunt is absorbed in a complex legal case. Miles away in another sense.

Enter Cotton Galimore, strong, intelligent, and smoking hot. Sadly, Galimore’s past isn’t exactly spick-and-span. Joe Hawkins distrusts him. Skinny Slidell loathes him. And the guy is cocky as hell.

But the heart wants what the heart wants. Inexplicably, Tempe is drawn to the disgraced ex-cop. Is Galimore really as bad as her colleagues say? Should she steer clear as everyone advises?

Nope. No spoilers here.

5. Flash and Bones, as with all your books, contains unique forensic twists: the body found at the dump is lodged in a barrel of asphalt, which Tempe must painstakingly dismantle. Later, chemical tests at the CDC reveal the presence of a surprising toxin in the remains. What was the inspiration for these forensic discoveries? Have you seen such corpses in your real-life work, or, in writing your novels, do you imagine the strange possibilities of homicides you haven’t yet encountered?

I am like a scavenger, always on the lookout for a snack. But instead of food, it’s criminal twists I’m after. I keep my eyes and ears open for interesting characters, bizarre case elements, and cutting-edge science. A Temperance Brennan plot may derive from any number of sources.

Starting point. I draw ideas from forensic anthropology analyses that I perform myself. My own cases.

Move one circle out. The LSJML (my Montreal gig) is a full-spectrum medico-legal and crime lab. While there I am able to observe what goes on around me, to learn about the newest thing in ballistics, toxicology, pathology, or DNA.

Continue outward. Forensic scientists love to talk to each other about their cases. Colleagues often suggest ideas for Temperance Brennan stories based on investigations in which they have been involved.

Occasionally a plot twist is inspired by a presentation I attend at a professional conference. The annual meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences provides particularly rich fodder. Articles in research journals also get the old brain pumping.

From my own caseload, and then from conversing, listening, watching, and reading, I get what I think of as “nugget” ideas, my core story concepts. Then, for both legal and ethical reasons, I change everything—names, dates, places, personal details. I then play the “what if?” game, and spin the nugget off into multilayered fiction.

6. In addition to writing the Temperance Brennan novels (and now the young adult novels featuring Tempe’s niece), you’ve also written a script for the FOX series Bones, based on your books. How does writing a TV script differ from writing your novels? Is one harder than the other?

I am a producer on Bones. One of many. Just look at our credits. Mainly, I work with the writers, answering questions, providing bone clues, correcting terminology. Over the course of six seasons, I have read more than one hundred and thirty scripts. Though a television script is quite different from a book, there is some commonality.

For me the similarity between a Temperance Brennan novel and a Bones teleplay lies in structure. My books typically have a lot going on—an A story, a B story, maybe even a C. Ditto a Bones episode.

In Flash and Bones Tempe is asked to identify a body found in a barrel. That’s the A story. Simultaneously, she is drawn into the search for a missing teenage couple. The B story. And, all the while, there’s her complicated love life. C story.

In the season five Bones episode that I wrote, “The Witch in the Wardrobe,” two sets of remains are discovered in a burned-out house. The witch in the wardrobe turns out to have been dead for quite some time. A story. The witch under the foundation is identified as a recent homicide victim. B story. Angela and Hodgins go to jail (and love rekindles). C story. The structures are very similar, you see.

On the other hand, a novel and a script differ in many ways. For example, with film or television there’s no need for detailed description of setting or action. Those features are right there in front of your eyes. A screenplay or teleplay is all about dialogue, character, and story line.

Another difference involves the creative experience. When I write a novel, I am the stereotypical loner working at my keyboard in isolation. No one helps me. No one approves or disapproves my work. Not so the television writer.

Once a story idea (kind of like my “nugget” concept) is accepted, the next step is called “breaking the story.” For one to three weeks the entire Bones writing staff brainstorms together, hammering out an outline act by act, scene by scene, working on erasable white boards that cover the walls of the writers’ room. The process is collective, and it is exhilarating.

(The Bones writing team is awesome. Josh Berman, Pat Charles, Carla Kettner, Janet Lin, Dean Lopata, Michael Peterson, Karine Rosenthal, Karyn Usher. Thanks for your patience, guys.)

The completed script outline is then “pitched”—in the case of Bones to Hart Hanson, our genius creator and executive producer.

Once the outline is approved, the writer then “goes to script.” That means back to the lonely keyboard to produce what is called the writer’s draft. That stage takes one to three weeks. Unless the show is behind schedule. In that case, well, good luck.

Then there are rewrites. And more rewrites. Studio draft. Network draft. Production draft.

In the end it is amazing to see your episode actually being shot, with all the actors, the director, the gaffers, the grips, and the best boys. Lights! Camera! Action!

Almost as amazing as seeing your baby on the printed page.