Kathy Reichs - Bare Bones

“The passenger was in back.”

“Why was that? No upgrades?”

“There was no right front seat. He flew forward on impact. Why wasn’t he buckled in?”

“Didn’t want to wrinkle his leisure suit?”

I ignored that.

“And where was the right front seat?”

“Blasted out on impact?”

“I didn’t see it among the wreckage.” I spotted the turnoff and made a left. “Neither Jansen nor Gullet mentioned one.”

“Gullet?”

“Davidson PD. The local cop on the scene.”

“Could the seat have been removed for repairs?”

“I suppose that’s a possibility. The plane wasn’t new.”

I described the black gunk. Ryan thought a moment.

“Don’t you people call yourselves tarheels?”

For the rest of the trip I listened only to Public Radio.

When I pulled up at the farm adjoining McCranies’, vehicles clogged one side of the road. This time the assemblage included Tim Larabee’s Land Rover, a police cruiser, the CMPD crime scene truck, and the MCME transport van.

Two kids watched from the opposite shoulder, spindly legs hanging from cutoff jeans, fishing gear strapped to their bikes. Not bad as far as gawkers go. But it was still early, just past eight. Others would arrive once our little army was spotted. Passersby, the neighbors, perhaps the media, all salivating for a glimpse of the misfortune of others.

Larabee was standing on the lawn with Joe Hawkins, two CMPD uniforms, one black, one white, and the pair of crime scene unit techs who’d helped recover the bear bones.

Someone had made a Krispy Kreme run. Everyone but the black cop held a Styrofoam cup and a doughnut.

Boyd leaped up, nearly knocking himself unconscious against the roof when Ryan and I left him in the backseat. Righting himself, he stuck his snout through the six inches of open window and began licking the exterior glass in a circular pattern. His yips followed us to the little circle beside the blacktop.

After introductions, during which I simply identified Ryan as a visiting police colleague from Montreal, Larabee laid out the plan. Officers Salt and Pepper looked hot and bored, seeming curious only about Ryan.

“This property is supposed to be abandoned, but the officers are going to look around to see if they can interest anyone in their warrant.”

Officer Salt shifted his feet, finished the last of his chocolate with sprinkles. Officer Pepper folded his arms across his chest. The muscles looked the size and strength of banyan roots.

“Once the officers give the go-ahead, we’ll cruise the dog around, get his thoughts on the place.”

“His name is Boyd,” I said.

“Boyd sociable?” asked the CSU tech with the granny specs.

“Offer him a doughnut, you’ve got a buddy for life.”

Red sun flashed off a lens as she turned to look at the chow.

“Boyd hits, we dig,” Larabee went on. “We find any human remains our anthropologist here determines to be suspicious, the warrant says we can toss the place. Everyone OK with that?”

Nods all around.

Ten minutes later the cops were back.

“No signs of life in the house. Outbuildings are empty,” said Officer Salt.

“Place has the charm of a hazardous waste dump,” said Officer Pepper. “Watch yourselves.”

“OK,” Larabee said to me. “You three take the western half.” He raised his chin at Hawkins. “We’ll take the east.”

“And we’ll be in Scotland afore ye,” sang Ryan.

Larabee and Hawkins looked at him.

“He’s Canadian,” I said.

“Boyd hits, give a holler,” said Larabee, handing me a radio.

I nodded and went to leash the chow, who was bursting with eagerness to serve.

The farm wasn’t really a farm. My herb garden produces a higher yield of edibles.

The crop here was kudzu.

North Carolina. We’re mountains. We’re beaches. We’re dogwoods, azaleas, and rhododendron.

And we’re up to our asses in kudzu.

Pueraria lobata is native to China and Japan, where it’s used as a source of hay and forage, and for control of soil erosion. In 1876 some horticultural genius decided to bring kudzu to the United States, thinking the vine would make a great ornamental.

The legume took one look at the Southern states and said, “Hot diggity!”

In Charlotte, you can sit on your porch on summer nights and hear the kudzu edge forward. My friend Anne claims she once set out a marker. In twenty-four hours the runners on her banister had advanced two inches.

Kudzu covered the rusted chain-link fence at the back of the property. It slithered along power lines, swallowed trees and bushes, and blanketed the house and its outbuildings.

Boyd didn’t care. He dragged me from vine-draped oak to magnolia to pump house to well, sniffing and wagging as he had at the annex.

Other than the depression left behind by the bear bones, nothing got a rise but the chipmunks and squirrels.

Boyd of the Baskervilles.

By eleven the mosquitoes had drained so much blood I was starting to think “transfusion.” Boyd’s tongue was barely clearing the ground, and Ryan and I had said “fuck” a thousand times each.

Fat, leaden clouds were drifting in overhead and the day was turning dark and sluggish. An anemic little breeze carried the threat of rain.

“This is pointless,” I said, wiping the side of my face on the shoulder of my T-shirt.

Ryan didn’t disagree.

“Except where we went digging for bear by the McCranie hedge, dogbreath hasn’t so much as stiffened a whisker.”

“He liked that sneak swoop-and-sniff of your tush.” Ryan addressed Boyd. “Didn’t think I was watching, did you, Hooch?”

Boyd looked at Ryan, went back to licking a rock.

“Ryan, we need to do something.”

“We are doing something.”

I cocked an eyebrow.

“We’re sweating.”

Katy would have been proud of the eye roll.

“And doing a damn fine job of it, considering this heat.”

“Let’s stroll Boyd past the hedge one more time, remind him what we’re looking for, then make a final sweep and call it a day.”

I put my hand down and Boyd licked it.

“Sounds like a plan,” said Ryan.

I wrapped the leash around my palm and yanked. Boyd looked up and twirled the eyebrow hairs, as though questioning the sanity of another sortie.

“I think he’s getting bored,” Ryan said.

“We’ll find him a squirrel.”

When Ryan and I set off, Boyd fell into step. We were weaving through the outbuildings at the back of the house, when the chow went into his “sniff-squirt-and-cover” routine.

Moseying up to a kudzu-shrouded shack, Boyd snuffled the earth, lifted a leg, took two forward steps, then kicked out with both back feet. Tail wagging, he repeated the maneuver, working his way along the foundation.

Sniff. Lift. Squirt. Step, step. Kick, kick.

Sniff. Lift. Squirt. Step, step. Kick, kick.

“Good rhythm,” said Ryan.

“Pure ballet.”

I was about to tug Boyd from the shed when his muscle tonus changed. His head and ears shot forward and his belly sucked up.

One beat.

Snout to the ground.

Another beat.

Muscles rigid, Boyd inhaled then exhaled through his nostrils, sending dead vegetation spiraling outward.

Then the dog went absolutely, utterly still.

A heartbeat. A lifetime.

Boyd’s ears flattened, his hackles rose, and an eerie sound crawled from his throat, more keening than growl.

The hairs on my neck went vertical. I’d heard it before.

Before I could speak, Boyd exploded. Lips curled, teeth gleaming, the keening gave way to frenzied barking.

“Easy, Boyd!”

The chow lunged forward and backward, delivering his threat from every angle.