Speaking in Bones

While awaiting a callback, I diverted to Heatherhill.

As before, I arrived during supper. To my surprise, Mama’s suite was empty.

Recalling Harry’s words, I doubled back to the dining room. Through the wide arched doorway I spotted Mama at a table for two. Her dinner companion, I assumed Clayton Sinitch, was short and so bald the overheads reflected off his scalp. Round specs, plaid shirt, cardigan, bow tie. I wondered if his look was intentionally retro or just old-guy dorky.

Mama was wearing pearls and a pale gray sweater. Her face was pink with pleasure, perhaps with the wine sparkling red in a goblet by her plate.

As I watched, Sinitch reached out and placed a hand on hers. Mama dipped her chin and glanced up through lowered lashes, a flirtatious mademoiselle.

Something surged in my chest and knocked against my ribs. Anxiety? Love?

Envy?

Unexpected tears burned the backs of my lids.

Behind me, a clock chimed softly. Feeling like a voyeur, I quietly withdrew.

The return call came twenty minutes later as I was clicking my seat belt after a quick stop at a KFC. I checked the screen, then answered.

“Thank you for calling me back so quickly.” Setting the bag on the console and the phone on the dash.

“Quiet night in the rectory.”

Aren’t they all? I wondered.

“How is your mother?”

“You know Daisy.” He did. Father James Morris, Mama’s confessor the on-and-off times she viewed herself as Catholic, still served as pastor of St. Patrick’s in Charlotte. Rector, actually, though I wasn’t totally clear on the distinction. I knew his status was higher than a priest, lower than a bishop.

“I will take that to mean she is well.”

“I’m driving, Father. So I’ve got you on speaker.”

“Conversation won’t be a distraction for you?”

“I’m eager to hear what you’ve learned.”

“Sadly, not much. Because of the hour, all I could do was check the Official Catholic Directory. It’s a publication for clergy that, among other things, lists all parishes and priests.”

“You found him?” The car was a smell-bubble of fried chicken. As we spoke, I dug and scored a drumstick.

“Yes and no. Granger Hoke isn’t currently listed, so I worked my way back through old annual editions. Nothing is ever discarded around here. It took a while, but my perseverance paid off. Granger Hoke was born in St. Paul in 1954.”

“I thought the entire population of Minnesota was Lutheran.”

Morris ignored the quip. Humor had never been his strong suit. Growing up, Harry and I had called him Rigor. Even Gran had joined in the joke at times.

“No, not at all. Minnesota has many Catholic parishes.”

“Garrison Keillor?” I hinted. “Never mind.”

“Hoke was ordained in 1979 after training at Mundelein.”

“Near Chicago.”

“Yes. It’s part of the University of St. Mary of the Lake. Hoke ministered in the Midwest for almost fifteen years—Indiana, Iowa, Illinois—smaller, nonurban parishes from what I can tell. Eventually he was relocated to Watauga County in North Carolina.”

“Then what?”

“After that he disappears.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t wish to speculate. I’ll research further in the morning.” Morris’s voice sounded tighter. I wondered if there was something he wasn’t telling me.

“Thanks, Father. I’m very anxious to learn more.”

As I drove through the darkness, my brain ran an unrelenting quiz-show barrage of questions. Where was Hoke after moving east? Had he left the priesthood? Was he off doing missionary work? Was he too ill to work? Had he been relieved of priestly duties?

Questions. More questions. No answers. But my focus had shifted to Hoke.

—

Overnight, spring took control in Charlotte. No more compromise. Winter, be gone.

As I crossed the patio, the air felt velvety soft on my skin. A million crocuses poked yellow and white from the wet black earth in my garden. The Bradford pear was thick with newborn leaves and blossoms resembling tiny pink embryos.

My moods are strongly influenced by weather. Despite frustration over the Brown Mountain bones, worry for Mama, agony over Ryan, and an early ambush call from Allan Fink the tax tyrant, I felt invigorated. Capable of solving every unanswered riddle. Or maybe it was the coffee.

My optimism was about as long-lived as a virtual particle. Angled in a space in the lot outside the MCME was a familiar Ford Taurus. The car’s exterior gleamed shiny white, as though recently washed and waxed. While passing, I glanced through a side window. The interior was neat, the backseat empty except for a blue canvas athletic bag.

Shocked at the automotive tidiness, I hurried inside, hoping Slidell had come with news about Hazel Strike. When I pushed through the door, Mrs. Flowers waved me over with a birdlike flick of her wrist.

“Detective Slidell is in your office.” Breathless. “I hope that’s okay.”

That was the instant my buoyancy began to erode.

“He’s not here for Dr. Larabee?” I asked.

“No, no. He wants to see you. He was quite insistent, and I didn’t know—”

“It’s fine.” It wasn’t. “How long has he been here?”

“Just a few minutes.”

Hardly breaking stride, I hurried toward the back.

A wall of cologne met me at my office door. Purchased at a drugstore and applied with gusto.

“Morning, Doc.” Slidell didn’t stand, didn’t even straighten in his chair.

“Good morning, Detective.”

I sat, slid my purse into a drawer, laced my fingers on the desktop, and waited.

“Your guy’s out.”

“My guy.” Not following.

“Wendell Clyde.”

“You ran him?”

“All over the map.”

“Does he have a criminal record?”

“Couple drunk and disorderlies, twenty years back. Nothing recent.”

“What do you mean he’s out?”

“He’s a dick and a half, but he ain’t the doer.”

“On Strike.”

“No. On JFK. I’m working some grassy knoll angles in my spare time.”

I bit back a retort and raised my eyebrows.

“First off, did you know Clyde’s about nine foot eleven?”

“Is that relevant?”

“It is when you’re wrestling the baboon into a backseat. I nearly—”

“The average baboon weighs fifty pounds.” Juvenile. And slightly inaccurate. But I wasn’t discussing species variation with Skinny.

Slidell pulled a paper from his jacket and tossed it onto the blotter. I unfolded it and studied the image, probably taken with a phone and printed on a computer.

The subject was seated in one of the small interview rooms at the Law Enforcement Center. I recognized the faux wood table and gray metal chair, the mauve patchwork carpeting and off-tone upper wall.

Slidell hadn’t exaggerated. But Wendell Clyde wasn’t just tall. He looked like an Easter Island head with arms and legs. His deep-set orbits were hooded by slashing brows and separated by a jack-o’-lantern nose.

“You interviewed Clyde?”

“No. I read his mind. Which ain’t impressive.”

“Your point?”

“Some guys you get the feeling there’s more than meets the eye? This prick, what meets the eye’s more than he’s got.”

“Meaning?”

“Low on charm, high on T.” Slidell’s shorthand for testosterone.

“Clyde was aggressive?”

“He had his moment.”

“Until you snapped him with a wet towel.”

“Something like that.”

“What’s his story?”

“He’s an honest plasterer, searches for dead people as a hobby.”

“What did he say about Hazel Strike?”

“He didn’t send the lady birthday cards.”

“Was he willing to take a polygraph?”

“Eager as a beagle on bacon. But it don’t matter. Clyde alibis out.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

“Tell me.” Deflated. The mood collapse was now total.

“Clyde claims he was at the Selwyn Avenue Pub from seven P.M. Saturday until one A.M. Sunday. Says a lot of people saw him there.”

“That doesn’t clear him. He could have—”

“You want to talk or listen?”

My molars clamped tight.

“He claims he was being interviewed for a piece on websleuthing. A blogger from Dubuque named Dennis Aslanian.”

Slidell paused, maybe daring me to interrupt. I didn’t.

“From the pub, Clyde went with Aslanian to a couple more bars, eventually to the guy’s room at a Motel 6 by the coliseum. The star-crossed lovers stayed together until Aslanian left Charlotte early Monday morning.”

Slidell was right. If Hazel Strike died on Sunday, and Aslanian backed Clyde’s story, Clyde couldn’t have killed her.

“You’ve talked to Aslanian?”

“There’s an idea.”

I took a deep breath. Got a noseful of Stetson or Brut.

“I’ve left messages with Aslanian advising a timely reply. Today, I’ll swing by the Motel 6, the pub when it opens, float Clyde’s mug.”

“Where is he now?”

“Had to cut him loose.”

“Do you still believe there’s a serial killer targeting elderly women in Charlotte?”

“I do.”

“So Clyde’s not topping your list.”

“Not even close.”

“Why are you telling me, not Larabee?”

Slidell didn’t move or say anything for a long moment. Then, “Brief me on this Brown Mountain thing.”

“I don’t know that Brown Mountain is really a factor.”

“Yeah yeah yeah.” He actually snapped his fingers.

I told him about the remains, including the printless fingertips and the head in the bucket, about Mason Gulley and his NFJ syndrome, about Granger Hoke and the Jesus Lord Holiness church, about Cora Teague and the innocent dead that seemed to litter her path, about the alcoholic coroner, Fenton Ogilvie, about Terrence O’Tool and his inept diagnosis.

When finished, I stared at Slidell. He stared back at me. A full minute passed.

Sometimes Skinny surprises me. He did so now.

“You think it ain’t epilepsy? That maybe this kid’s crazy?”

“ ‘Crazy’ is not a medical term.”

“That maybe she’s goofy as a guppy and killed her brother, the baby, and the pooch? That maybe someone’s covering for her?” The bags under Slidell’s eyes twitched as another theory darted into his brain. “Or maybe someone snuffed her?”

“Who?”

“You said the father’s a hot wire.”

“He’s tightly wrapped. But kill his own daughter?”

“Maybe some kind of honor thing. Or maybe one of Hoke’s wingnut Jesus freaks did it.”

“Why?”

“Murder draws eyes. Maybe they saw the kid as a threat to their nasty little secrets.”

“Maybe they killed Mason Gulley.” On impulse, I swiveled my chair, grabbed Ramsey’s envelope, and slapped a photo onto the blotter. “That’s Cora Teague. Somehow I don’t see a teenage girl dismembering a body and distributing pieces from assorted overlooks. Also, the voice recorder isn’t consistent with the girl as killer.” Slidell was voicing the same suspicions I’d been refusing to accept.

Slidell eyed the snapshot, opened his mouth, closed it. Another long moment passed before he tried again.

“Hazel Strike was the one first poked a stick down the hole?”

“She was,” I said.

“She went to Avery?”

“Yes. She searched an overlook and I know that she talked to Cora’s parents. And that she called Cora’s school and the hospital where Eli died. I think she was up there again the Saturday she phoned me.” The day before she was killed.

“She was.”

“Seriously?”

“I checked Strike’s cellphone records. Jesus Christ, you’d think I was asking for a tap on Obama’s private line.”

“And?”

“She hardly uses the thing, but they got a couple pings early that morning. Towers put her on I-40, probably heading for Avery. After that the thing’s either shut off or the battery dies.”

“Have you found the phone?”

“No.”

“Any progress on her laptop?”

“I got a message from IT asking for a callback. Why is it those geeks always sound like they just swallowed a gerbil?”

Taking the question as rhetorical, I offered no theory.

Again, Slidell’s lips parted. I’ll never know what he intended to say. When the landline shrilled, he inhaled deeply and dropped his eyes to his hands.

The call was coming from the CMPD crime lab.

It was the start of a cascade that would end with horrific results.