Speaking in Bones

“It’s Allan.” The voice was Carolina with an undertone of the Bronx.

Crap. Crap. Crap.

“Hey, Allan.” With an enthusiasm I reserve for slugs in my garden.

“I’m sure you know why I’m calling.”

“I’m working on it.” Untrue. I hated the thought of “it.” Had been avoiding “it” for months.

“Today is March thirtieth.”

“Yes.”

“I’m sure you know what that means.”

My upper and lower molars reached for each other. That was twice. Allan Fink used the phrase repeatedly in each conversation.

“I’m sure I do.” Perky as Tinker Bell’s toes.

“This is serious.”

“Lighten up, Allan. We have more than two weeks until the filing deadline.”

“Tempe.” Faux patient sigh. “I need those materials to calculate the total owed.”

“I’ll get everything to you by Friday.”

“Tomorrow.”

“I’m really slammed at the lab.”

“I’m a tax accountant. This is my slammy season.”

“I understand.”

“I’ve been asking since November.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“You are not my only client.”

In my head I added, “I’m sure you know.” He’d reminded me at least a zillion times.

“Charity donations, business and travel expenses, 1099s for any honoraria or fees I was paid. Anything else?”

Censorious pause, then, “I will resend the list of items I’m lacking.”

“I know I saved the receipts.” Somewhere.

“That would be good.”

“Is it really so important?”

“The IRS tends to believe that it is.”

“I make less than a circus chimp.”

“What do performing primates earn these days?”

“Peanuts.”

“Must irritate the elephants.” Allan hung up.

—

It was past eight by the time I finished. As I rolled Recliner Man back to the cooler, the MCME hummed with that exaggerated quiet unique to buildings abandoned after an all-day buzz.

Based on skeletal and dental indicators, the mummified remains were those of the elderly tenant in question. I found nothing on his bones or X-rays to suggest foul play. The old gent had kicked while OD’ing on The Sopranos or soaps.

Though Larabee might be annoyed with the tardiness of my preliminary report, he’d be pleased with the content. The rest was now his show.

Outside, the air was warm and very damp, the horizon fading from ginger to gray. Serpentine clouds stretched sinewy dark above the telephone wires lining both sides of Queens Road.

Allan’s call had me edgy and cross. The last thing I wanted was to spend the night digging for old restaurant receipts and boarding passes. Every year I vow to be more organized. Every year I fail. Recognizing that the problem was self-created only irritated me further.

I made one stop for takeout sushi and arrived home as dusk was yielding the last of its sway. The manor house looked like a hulking black bunker in the deepening twilight, the magnolias and live oaks like giant sentinels guarding the lawn.

I took the circle drive past Sharon Hall and the coach house to the smallest structure on the grounds. Two stories, five rooms and a bath. The annex, original purpose forever lost to history.

Expecting to be home long before dark, I’d left no lights burning. Every window stared darkly opaque. Though I couldn’t see his furry white face, I knew that through one pane a very hungry cat tracked my approach.

I gathered the sushi, got out, and crossed my patio to the back door. As I jiggled the proper key forward on the overburdened ring, I could hear cars starting up across the way at Myers Park Baptist Church. A dog barking. A siren wailing far off in the distance.

“Hey, Bird.” I thumbed a switch and placed the bag on the counter. Birdie worked figure eights around my ankles. “Sorry, big guy. You must be starving.”

Birdie sat and regarded me with disapproval. I think. Then, catching a whiff of raw tuna, he forgot his grievance and hopped onto the counter.

I filled his bowl, certain he’d ignore the crunchy pellets and focus instead on cadging from me. Then I got a plate and a Diet Coke and settled at the table. Birdie jumped onto the chair beside mine.

“So.” Placing a sliver of hamachi in front of him. “Tell me about your day.”

Birdie scooped the offering with one delicately curled paw, sniffed, then downed it. No comment on his diurnal activities.

“Mine did not go exactly as planned.”

While eating California roll, I described my encounters with Lucky Strike and Recliner Man. Cats don’t care if you talk with your mouth full. A character trait I much admire.

“Got a call from Allan Fink.” I shared my feelings on filing deadlines.

Bird listened, eyes following my chopsticks as I dipped and downed two amago. I gave him an ebi and ate the rice. He did the paw thing and wolfed the shrimp in one gulp.

Admission. Above all others, one issue was making me churlish. Andrew Ryan’s startling proposal.

“What do you think? Should I marry the guy?”

Bird looked at me but offered no input.

“I agree. Later. You up for digging through boxes?”

Same nonresponse.

I climbed the stairs, took a quick shower, and changed into a tee and pajama pants. Then I headed for the attic at the end of the hall.

Here’s my three-step filing system. Which would never be disclosed to Allan Fink. Got a receipt, canceled check, or document that might later be needed? Toss it in a box, date the box, shove the box into the attic at the end of the year.

I found the carton quickly, between a stack of obsolete textbooks and two tennis rackets I would never restring. I hauled it to the dining room, slightly uneasy at its lack of poundage.

Seated at the table, I lifted the lid. I needn’t have worried. The thing was crammed with more paper than a pulp mill generates in a decade. Inwardly groaning, I started unfolding, deciphering, and sorting into piles. Taxi. Hotel. Humane Society. Animals Asia. Trash.

As my eyes struggled to make out faded credit card numbers and cash register print, my mind veered back to Lucky Strike. To the recording. The girl had seemed terrified, the men horrendously cruel. The voices rang in my head, sharp and jagged as broken glass.

Had the girl on the audio really been Cora Teague? If not Teague, then who? Who had ended up below that Burke County overlook?

I should have confiscated the recorder. Sure, I’d asked and Strike had refused. But I could have been more persuasive if I’d used my wits. Why hadn’t I?

Why hadn’t Opal Ferris returned my call?

Round and round. Guilt. Irritation. Agitation over the prospect of vows.

After an hour, I’d made maybe a two-inch dent in the mountain of paper. And my headache was back with bells. Screw it.

Shifting to the study, I booted my Mac and googled the term “websleuth.” I was astounded at the number of links that came up. Articles. Videos. Sites with names like Websleuths. Official Cold Case Investigations. Justice Quest.

I clicked through page after page, intrigued. At one point Birdie joined me and curled on the desk. His steady purring provided a tranquil backdrop to the staccato clicking of the keys.

There was a similarity from one site to the next. Chat rooms. Forums. Discussion threads following particular cases or lines of inquiry. Unsolved homicides and missing persons seemed to attract the most attention.

The rules varied. Some sites required “verification” of persons claiming to be professionals and having inside information—doctors, journalists, cops, et cetera. Others did not. Some prohibited “inviting”—a request from one poster to another for private contact. Others allowed it.

I scanned an article about Websleuths.com, learned that the site was started in the 1990s as an online forum for discussion of the JonBenét Ramsey murder. That it took credit for uncovering a vital clue in the Casey Anthony case, and for helping solve the murder of Abraham Shakespeare, a Florida laborer killed after a lottery win of $30 million. According to one comment I read, the hosts claimed 67,000 registered members, and up to 30,000 daily hits. No telling if those numbers were true.

I provided the information needed to join and chose a thread at random. The discussion concerned a twenty-nine-year-old hairdresser missing from Lincoln, Nebraska. The MP, Sarah McCall, had left her place of employment the previous January intending to have drinks with friends. Her car was found two days later in a rest area on Interstate 80. No purse. No keys. No sign of McCall.

The number of people tracking the case was truly astonishing. As was the amount of intel they claimed to have gathered. Over the course of two months, websleuthers had found McCall’s Facebook page and online videos, and figured out her various Twitter handles, including @singleandfree, @silverlining, and @curlupanddye. An IT specialist named candotekkie had retrieved thousands of deleted Twitter posts. Other websleuths had waded through the content to sort what was relevant from what was not.

And these guys were thorough. A Websleuths.com member named R.I.P. had mailed a copy of McCall’s missing-person poster to every women’s shelter, hospital, and medical examiner facility in Nebraska. Unfortunately, Sarah McCall had yet to be found.

As I made myself tea, I couldn’t help but think how McCall had unknowingly helped in her own investigation. The woman was a prodigious user of social media. The polar opposite of Cora Teague.

Returning to the keyboard, I linked over to CLUES.net. The site was less user friendly than Websleuths.com, the mark of a creator less skilled in the use of web design templates. But Strike was right. No info was required to become a member.

It took some trolling, but I finally located a forum on Cora Teague. Compared to the other cases I’d perused, there were very few threads and only a handful of participants, most of whom had quickly dropped out.

The first thread was initiated on August 22, 2011, by someone calling him- or herself OMG. The post stated that Cora Teague was missing and in danger due to poor health, and claimed a lack of interest on the part of family and local law enforcement. She or he described Teague as a white female, five feet six inches tall, of slender build, with green eyes and long blond hair.

OMG stated she or he had last seen Teague on July 14, 2011, outside the Teague family home in Avery County, North Carolina. Teague was wearing a long-sleeved blue tee, jeans, a lightweight white jacket, and leather boots. OMG did not describe the circumstances of that sighting, and no detail came out in the brief interchanges that followed.

A websleuth using the name luckyloo joined the thread on February 24, 2012. By that time no one had posted a comment for over six months. I guessed luckyloo was Hazel Strike.

There was some uptick in posting following Strike’s appearance, but eventually the thread was down to two participants. OMG was not one of them. In January 2013, following a two-month silence, Strike asked to meet with OMG. The request was not answered. OMG had long since dropped off the radar.

By nature, I am stubborn. I can’t step back from a problem that I can’t solve.

Sipping my now tepid Earl Grey, I thought about what I’d just read. About Strike’s theory.

About the audio.

I wondered what had made Cora Teague tick. What shadowy illness had driven her back to her parents’ home.

I wondered the identity of OMG. Oh my God? I wondered the reason OMG believed Teague had come to harm.

And, for the hundredth time, I wondered if Teague was alive or dead.

Cora Teague was a mystery I was now burning to crack.

I shifted to NamUs.gov and called up the case file I’d created on the Burke County torso. After entering a description of the key chain recorder and denim belt loop, I logged off and headed up to bed.

Unaware of the deadly spiral I’d kicked into motion.