Speaking in Bones

That night I attended a Mad Hatter’s party of the macabre.

I was seated at a table stretching as far as I could see in both directions. White linen cloth and napkins. Silver spoons and candlesticks. Porcelain tea service.

Ryan was across from me, wearing a bow tie, tux, and red wool tuque. Beside him was a woman who barely came up to his shoulder. Her hair was a foggy nimbus haloing her head, her features a shadowy landscape lacking in detail or definition. The woman’s body ended at the bottom of a rib cage rippling below a cut-off long-sleeved blue tee.

Behind Ryan and the woman, a huge arched window framed a neon sunset. Garish yellows, oranges, and reds, heaped layer upon layer, supported an ominous black disk floating just above the horizon.

I knew that was wrong. That the sun should be light. I tried to tell Ryan. He kept talking to the woman at his side.

Far down the table to my left, Mama and Larabee were engaged in heated discussion. Larabee was in bloodstained scrubs. Mama had on the black Chanel suit she’d bought for Daddy’s funeral but never worn.

At the far right, Hazel Strike sat alone in jeans and boots, backpack beside her on the snowy linen. The fiery twilight made her topknot look like brassy meringue.

Everyone was holding a tiny china cup. Ryan’s fingers looked huge on the scrolly little handle.

Mama and Larabee grew louder, but I couldn’t make out their words. Recognizing a dangerous note in my mother’s tone, I tried to stand, but found I was glued to my chair.

Drizzle began falling. No one seemed to notice but me.

I looked at Ryan.

“Will you melt?” he asked.

I tried to answer. My lips wouldn’t form words.

“Will you let Cora Teague melt?” Flat.

Still my mouth wouldn’t work.

“Melt.” Larabee, Mama, and Strike chorused in unison. The word reverberated, as though bouncing off the walls of an enormous chamber. I looked around. All three were staring at me.

“Will you let me melt?” Sharp-edged, no echo.

I refocused on Ryan. His eyes were angry blue flames.

“Do I disappear into the black hole?”

Before I could answer, Ryan swirled backward and vanished into the menacing death-disk sun. The woman’s fog-hair swirled, sucked upward by Ryan’s sudden departure. Her face, now revealed, was devoid of flesh, the empty orbits pointed at me in beseeching accusation. A beat, then the woman swooped a path identical to Ryan’s.

Frightened, I whipped my gaze left. Mama and Larabee were gone.

Right. Strike was on her feet, curling knobby fingers inward, telling me to join her.

I turned away. Tried to peer into the wormhole that had swallowed Ryan and the woman. Saw nothing but tomb-like black.

“Ryan!” I screamed.

I awoke, heart racing, skin slick with sweat.

Wildly disoriented, I took a moment to figure out where I was.

The clock said 2:47 A.M.

Birdie was up on all fours, back arched, undoubtedly annoyed that I’d interrupted his sleep. I stroked his head, and he settled at my knee.

I closed my eyes.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Calm.

I repeated the mantra again and again. Of course sleep didn’t come. My mind was obsessed with deconstructing the dream. Which typically does not require Freud. Remarkably uncreative, my subconscious simply reworks its recent intake.

The tux and formal table setting represented Ryan’s desire for a wedding, the tuque his Canadian roots and love of Quebec. His disappearance into the black hole needed no explanation.

The woman beside Ryan was Cora Teague. Ditto for her pleading look and sudden exit into oblivion.

Strike was present, playing herself. She wanted me to look for Teague. Larabee, at the opposite end of the table, would probably be opposed, given what little we knew about Strike or the remains labeled ME229-13.

And Daisy? Easy one. Mama was constantly in my thoughts of late.

The Chanel suit and bloody scrubs? Anyone’s guess.

At my last time check, the orange digits glowed 5:54. The alarm buzzed at 7:00.

—

I was at the MCME by eight, spent two hours pounding coffee and composing a final report on the mummified corpse, an elderly gentleman by the name of Burgess Chamblin. When finished, I pulled the file on ME229-13, walked down the hall, and knocked on Larabee’s door.

“Yo.”

I entered and stood in the middle of the room, unsure whether to proceed or to drop the whole thing. My mind shot dual flashbacks. The face in the dream. The audio.

Larabee was writing at his desk, still wearing civvies. “How’s it going?”

“All roses and sunshine.”

“Good.” Still scribbling. Half listening.

“You saw my prelim on the man in the recliner?”

“I did.” Larabee dotted an i. Maybe a j. Slid a handful of photos into a folder and closed it. “Thanks for hopping right on it.”

“I’ve finished the final.”

He glanced up. “That’s great. Thanks.” When I didn’t leave, “Something on your mind?”

“If you have a minute.”

“Grab a seat.”

I dragged a chair forward and sat.

Larabee leaned back and laced long, bony fingers on his chest. Which looked scrawny and concave under his white polo, the result of an overzealous thirty-year commitment to long-distance running.

“Such a crock. No one checks on Grandpa for almost two years, suddenly the kids are on fire to bury the old man.”

“Money involved?”

“Not really.” Larabee’s forehead, permanently lined from hours spent pounding the pavement, furrowed more deeply. “What’s up?”

“I want you to hear me out on this,” I began.

“Don’t I always?”

I made a face, then continued. “A woman came to see me yesterday. Hazel Strike. Strike believes one of our UIDs is a girl named Cora Teague.” I tapped the folder in my lap.

“That’s terrific. Follow up.”

“It’s not so simple.”

“Go on.”

“The remains consist of a handful of bones found in Burke County in 2013.”

“Why did the case come here?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Can you score DNA?”

“That may be problematical on two levels. First, the bone is badly degraded. Acid soil, animal scavenging—”

“Second?”

“The family may be unwilling to provide comparison samples.”

“Why?”

“They don’t believe the kid’s dead.”

Larabee’s brows rose, crimping the furrows.

“They think she took off on her own.”

“So what makes this Strike think our UID is Teague?”

I explained my entry of ME229-13’s identifiers into the NamUs database, then briefed him on websleuthing. On Strike’s visit to Burke County and the disturbing audio. As I spoke, Larabee’s expression morphed from interest to scorn.

“You’re kidding?”

I wagged my head no.

“Fine. Play me this Blair Witch moment.”

“Strike refused to leave the recorder with me.”

“Jesus, Tempe.”

“What was I supposed to do, rip it from her hand?”

Larabee’s phone rang. He ignored it.

“What do you propose?” he asked.

“Perhaps I should go up there. Maybe take Joe, run a cadaver dog through the woods below the overlook.” Joe Hawkins is a death investigator who’s been with the MCME since the Eisenhower years. If any bone remained on that mountain, Joe Hawkins would find it. Or the canine would.

Larabee gave the idea some thought. Then, “You say the remains were already badly damaged when they arrived in 2013. What are the odds more could have survived?”

“It’s possible.”

“Likely?”

I shrugged.

“Who worked the recovery?”

“A Burke County deputy sheriff.”

“Have you talked to him?”

“Her. Opal Ferris. She was unavailable. I left a message.”

“Did the NOK file an MP report?” Larabee used the shorthand for next of kin.

I shook my head.

“Who put Teague up on this CLUES site?”

“There’s no way to know. All posters are allowed to remain anonymous.”

Larabee’s face executed something between a grimace and a scowl. Held the expression several seconds. Then he said what I’d expected.

“I can’t commit funds or personnel to something this thin. Phone back up to Burke County. Talk to Ferris. See where that goes.”

I nodded. Got to my feet and returned to my office.

This time Opal Ferris took my call.

I introduced myself. Ferris remembered me. And the bones. And her trek around the mountain with Mort. She asked if new info had surfaced.

For what seemed the hundredth time I went through the recent time line, focusing on developments unknown to Ferris. Websleuthing. Strike’s NamUs epiphany and visit to Burke County. Cora Teague. The audio.

Ferris listened. I think. There seemed to be a lot going on in the background.

“This key chain thingy was just lying in the dirt?” Ferris’s voice was raspy, maybe from smoking, maybe from vocal cords working on a node.

“So Strike claims.”

“And the family thinks the kid’s run off with some local fella?”

“I’m unsure of his place of residence.”

“But the bottom line is she’s not been reported missing.”

“Except on CLUES.”

“Which any pig nut can access.”

I said nothing.

“Teague have a cellphone?”

“No.”

“Any Internet presence?”

“Not according to Strike.”

“Uh-huh. I’m sorry, Doc. But it don’t sound like you’ve got squat. A few bones in Burke, someone who may or may not be missing in Avery. That someone being eighteen and free to stay gone if she chooses.”

It was hard to argue with that.

“Can you make a couple of calls?” I asked. “See if the mother or one of the sisters is willing to provide a DNA sample?”

I waited. Quite a while. When I was sure Ferris was about to blow me off, she said, “I’ll get back to you.”

—

Ferris didn’t. But an Avery County deputy sheriff named Zeb Ramsey did. At four that afternoon, as I was pulling into my drive.

The mother and both sisters had refused to allow themselves to be swabbed. Though none of them had heard from Cora since 2011, all believed she was alive and doing just fine.

Deputy Ramsey sounded about as fired up about the situation as Ferris had been. Disconnected before I could pose a single question about the Teague family.

First Ryan, now Larabee, Ferris, and Ramsey. The enthusiasm level was sending streaks of tension straight up my back.

I tossed my mobile onto the dash and gave it the finger. In answer, it rang. I snatched it up, thinking Ramsey was calling back.

“Brennan.”

“Sounds like you’re having a real bad day.”

“I’m off duty, Ms. Strike.”

“Mrs.”

I sighed, considered whether to beg off or simply disconnect.

“I won’t chew your ear, just wanted to invite you so’s everything’s on the up and up. I aim to take another pass at that overlook tomorrow.”

“You’re returning to Burke County?”

“Yep.”

“You shouldn’t do that.”

“I don’t, who will?”

“I appreciate what you’ve done. But it’s time to hand the investigation off to professionals.”

“Yeah? They kicked free any leads?”

So far no one I’d contacted gave a rat’s ass. I kept that to myself.

“Well, I have.” Strike allowed a lengthy silence, perhaps to show who was in charge. “Remember the youngest Teague kid? The one I didn’t know what become of?”

“Eli.”

“Little Eli died shortly after his twelfth birthday.”

“Died how?”

“I don’t know. I can’t get access to medical files.”

“Children die. It could mean nothing.”

“Or it could mean something.”

“How did you learn about his death?”

“I have my ways.”

“When are you going?”

“Plan to be there by eight A.M.”

I thought of the reaming I’d get from Larabee. And of the damage Strike might do should additional evidence or remains still lie on that mountain.

Digging a small spiral from my purse. “Give me directions.”

Strike did. I jotted them.

“Do nothing until I arrive,” I said. “And bring the recording.”

“Never hurts to say please.”

The line went dead.

I sat a moment, iPhone warm in my hand. Was Strike onto something? Had one of Teague’s parents harmed Eli? Had one of them killed Cora then tossed her body from the overlook?

Or was I being drawn into a lunacy that existed only in the mind of Hazel Strike?

I didn’t want to go to that mountain.

But something told me that not going would be a big, big mistake.

I made a decision.

Thumbed a button on my mobile and waited.