Kathy Reichs - Break No Bones

"I am."

"Get some sleep," I said.

After clicking off, I outlined the conversation for Ryan.

"So you and Emma could be three for three on IDs. Cruikshank. Helms. Montague. Know what's called for?"

I shook my head.

"Crab Rangoon."

"Sa-Cha shrimp?"

"Definitely. Shall we offer to feed Clod Clodersocks?"

Orbital roll. "Pete's real name is Janis."

Ryan looked at me.

"Latvian. You sure you don't mind?"

"Wouldn't want an athlete of Janis's stature eating unhealthy fried food."

I called Pete. He was home and hungry.

The idea proved lucrative for Cheng's Asian Garden in Mount Pleasant. Despite my protests, Ryan paid, once again confirming the old adage that women are doomed to perpetual attraction to the same type of man. My current lover and my estranged husband are clones in numerous respects, particularly with regard to picking up the tab. Neither lets me pay. Neither underbuys.

When we arrived at "Sea for Miles," Pete had the kitchen table set, chopsticks and all. Boyd was centered under it. Birdie was observing from the high ground of the refrigerator top.

Pete looked relaxed, his face tanned from hours on the golf course. Ryan and I looked like people who'd spent a long hot day in a Jeep.

"Never know when it could turn chilly," Pete said, nodding fake approval at Ryan's gabardine pants. Though I shot him my usual eye squint warning, I had to agree, wool looked out of place.

"Trip south was spur of the moment. Gotta hit the Gap." Ryan tipped his head at Pete's cargo shorts. "Those are natty."

"Thanks."

"Had some just like that," Ryan said.

Pete started to smile.

"Outgrew them in my teens."

The smile dissolved.

And so on.

As we worked through the shrimp, the Rangoon, and a dozen other selections, I brought Pete up to date on Montague, Helms, and the clinic. He told us he'd arranged for an accountant to help him with the GMC books.

The rest of dinner was a pas de deux of veiled digs. By the time it ended I felt like I'd been in the ring with Ali and Frazier. Nevertheless, when I explained that Ryan and I planned to revisit Cruikshank's belongings, Pete offered to help.

We were clearing the table when my cell rang. It was Emma.

"It's positive. The man on Dewees is Willie Helms."

"Yowza!"

Pete and Ryan both turned, little white cartons in hand.

"So the questions become what happened to Willie Helms, when, and why was he buried out on that island?"

"That's Gullet's department," Emma said.

Closing the cell phone, I told Pete and Ryan about Helms. They both said "yowza."

Ten minutes later it was the sheriff himself.

"Thought I told you not to stir things up at that clinic." As usual, Gullet jumped right in.

"You specified wingtipped cowboys."

"In the context of the girl who run off."

"Helene Flynn vanished. That doesn't mean she's run off."

There was a pause. Then, "Helene Flynn was unstable."

"What?"

"I'm going to discuss this with you once. Then we're going to drop it because that girl's disappearance did not take place within my jurisdiction." Gullet paused again. "When that young lady went missing, her daddy made a life's work of calling my office, demanding an investigation. I talked to Aubrey Herron personally at the time. Before her departure, Helene Flynn had taken to harassing both Marshall and Herron. In the end GMC had to ask her to leave."

"This is the first I've heard of this."

"Herron doesn't like to criticize former members of his flock."

"What was Helene harassing him about?"

"She was convinced Marshall was playing loose with the finances. Herron says he looked into it, found nothing amiss. The young lady just expected too much for the kind of operation his organization could support. Now you forget that clinic. I don't have time to be appeasing irate doctors."

"Marshall called you?"

"Of course he called me. Man was fuming. Said you'd been bullying his staff."

"Our visit hardly constituted bully-"

"And I don't have time to be running herd on you and your boyfriends."

Easy, Brennan. Let it go. This is not the man to argue with.

"I think I've got our two remaining MPs ID'd. The barrel DOA is probably the street woman I phoned you about, Unique Montague. Descriptions I obtained from the dead cat's previous owner and from a priest at St. John the Baptist match the profile I constructed from the bones."

"Miz Rousseau just called with that news."

There was a burst of static. I waited it out. "Unique Montague was a patient at the GMC clinic."

"So are a lot of folks."

"Flynn and Montague had ties to the clinic. Cruikshank was staking it out."

"'Course he was, he was looking for Flynn. And some bag lady dropping in is hardly grounds for a warrant, that being the point of the place. Talk about this other ID Miz Rousseau discussed."

"The man buried on Dewees is our long shot, Willie Helms. Lee Ann Miller found the dentist. Bernie Grimes did the comparison." I told the sheriff about Helms's father and employer. "Hardiston last saw Helms in the fall of 2001."

I braced for another monotone rant. Gullet surprised me.

"One of my deputies found a vagrant thought he'd swapped a few swigs with a Willie Helms."

"Could he describe the guy?"

"The good citizen lacks his full share of neurons. But my deputy managed to get out of him that Helms was a tall twitchy guy with blond hair and a serious love of hootch."

"That fits with the dentist's recollection. When was the man's last encounter with Helms?"

"Gentleman's oddly coherent on that point. Says it was the day the buildings went down."

I thought a moment. "The Twin Towers?"

"Nine-eleven. Says he and Helms watched coverage in some bar down by the port. Claims he never saw Helms again." Gullet cleared his throat. "Listen, nice work on Montague and Helms. Now back off that clinic. No sense rousing the dogs unless we got cause."

"What's cause?"

Long pause.

"Two patients."

"You don't think-"

"These are not suggested guidelines I'm serving up. Back off, Doc. That clinic's not my jurisdiction. I would have to present the evidence to the city police."

"Cruikshank, Helms, and Montague all turned up dead on your patch."

Gullet said nothing. Of course he knew that. Nevertheless, I pressed my point. "You're saying that if I tie another MP to that clinic, your department will interrogate Marshall and his staff? Or bring in the city police to do it?"

"Right now you've got a disgruntled employee who's probably run off, and the gumshoe her daddy hired to find her. That's not enough. You find some other patient's gone missing, you got my attention. And another thing. You've had that gumshoe's laptop long enough. I'll be collecting it first thing Tuesday."

Dial tone.

Pete and Ryan had been listening to my half of the conversation. I provided Gullet's.

"Why's the sheriff so freaked about the clinic?" Pete asked.

"Gullet strikes me as a letter-of-the-law type," Ryan said. "No warrant, no entry. No smoking gun, no warrant."

"Or he's in bed with Herron," I said.

"Maybe GMC's a big contributor to Gullet's campaign chest," Pete said.

Maybe, I thought. Or just a prominent corporate citizen pulling weight.

When the plates had been cleared, I brought Cruikshank's carton to the table and Pete took Helene's file and settled on the couch. As I showed Ryan my spreadsheet, Boyd shifted between the kitchen and the den. Birdie remained on his Sub-Zero mesa.

After adding Unique Montague and Willie Helms to the spreadsheet, I pulled Cruikshank's clientless cases.

"The Helms and Montague files contain only notes," I said.

Ryan glanced through each.

"Others contain only news clippings and notes."