Kathy Reichs - Bare Bones

Ryan and I arrived in the lull at shift change. I’d been in good spirits after my shower, a bit down over Tamela’s baby and the privy find, but buoyed by Ryan’s presence. Sad-happy. But crossing the pub courtyard, I felt a gloom settling over me.

I loved having Ryan here, was having a terrific time with him. Why the sadness? No idea. I tried to push the darkness aside.

Most of the regulars had gone, and only a few tables and barstools were occupied. Feeling less sociable by the minute, I led Ryan to the pub’s single booth.

I ordered a cheeseburger and fries. Ryan chose the evening’s special from a handwritten blackboard above the fireplace: barbecue and fries.

Diet Coke for me. Pilsner Urquell for Ryan.

As we waited, Ryan and I rehashed our conversation with Sheila Jansen.

“Who owns the Cessna?” Ryan asked.

“A man named Ricky Don Dorton.”

Ryan’s draft and my Coke arrived. Ryan flashed the waitress a giant Pepsi smile. She beamed him a Jumbo Super Deluxe. My downward spiral gathered speed.

“Any chance I could have my burger medium rare?” I interrupted the dental exchange.

“Sure.” Sister Pepsi turned to Ryan. “You all right with Eastern?”

“Just fine.”

After smiling the waitress back to the kitchen, Ryan turned to me.

“What’s geography got to do with barbecue?”

“The barbecue from down east is made with a vinegar-mustard-based sauce. Western Carolina sauce relies more on the tomato.”

“That reminds me. What’s ‘swite tay’?”

“What?”

“Servers keep offering it to me.”

Swite tay? I rolled the phrase around.

“Sweet tea, Ryan. Iced tea with sugar.”

“Learning a foreign language is a bitch. OK. Back to Mr. Dorton. When we first spoke of him you said the gentleman was saddened by the theft of his aircraft.”

“Devastated.”

“And surprised.”

“Dumbfounded.”

“Who is Ricky Don Dorton?”

The waitress delivered our food. Ryan asked for mayo. We both looked at him.

“For the fries,” he explained.

The waitress turned to me. I shrugged.

When she’d gone, I pounded ketchup onto my fries, transferred the lettuce, pickle, and tomato from the plate to my burger, and added condiments.

“I told you. Dorton owns a couple of strip clubs in Kannapolis, just north of Charlotte.”

I took a bite. The ground beef was somewhere between scorched and vaporized. I took a swig of Coke. It was Coke. Not Diet Coke.

My mood was darkening by the nanosecond.

“The police have been watching Dorton on and off for a few years, but they’ve never been able to nail him with anything.”

The waitress presented Ryan with a tiny corrugated cup of mayonnaise and more teeth than a coping saw.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Anytime,” she said.

I felt my eyes roll toward my frontal lobe.

“They think Mr. Dorton’s lifestyle exceeds his earning power?” Ryan asked, dipping a fry into the mayo.

“Apparently the man’s got a lot of toys.”

“Dorton’s back under surveillance?”

“If Ricky Don so much as spits on a sidewalk, he’s busted.”

I upended the ketchup, pounded, returned the bottle to the table with a loud crack.

We ate in silence for several minutes. Then Ryan’s hand slipped over mine.

“What’s bugging you?”

“Nothing.”

“Tell me.”

I looked up. Deep concern in the cornflower eyes. I looked down.

“It’s nothing.”

“Talk to me, cupcake.”

I knew where this was going and I didn’t like it.

“What is it?” Ryan probed.

Easy one. I didn’t like feeling depressed by my work. I didn’t like feeling cheated because of a postponed vacation. I didn’t like feeling jealous over an innocent flirtation with an anonymous waitress. I didn’t like feeling that I had to answer to my daughter. I didn’t like feeling left out of her life.

I didn’t like feeling I was not in control.

Control. That was always my problem. Tempe had to be in control. That was the sole insight I’d gained from my single experience with analysis.

I didn’t like analysis, didn’t like admitting I needed outside help.

And I didn’t like talking about my feelings. Ever. Not with a psychologist. Not with a priest. Not with Yoda. Not with Ryan. I wanted to slide from the booth and forget this conversation.

As if in betrayal, a lone tear headed south from one eye. Embarrassed, I backhanded my cheek.

“Done?”

I nodded.

Ryan paid the check.

The parking lot held two SUVs and my Mazda. Ryan leaned against the driver’s door, pulled me to him, and tilted my face upward with both hands.

“Talk.”

I tried to lower my chin.

“Let’s jus—”

“Does this have to do with last night?”

“No. Last night was…” My voice trailed off.

“Was what?”

God, I hated this.

“Fine.” Skyrockets and the William Tell Overture.

Ryan ran a thumb under each of my eyes.

“Then why the tears?”

OK, buster. You want feelings?

I took a deep breath and unloaded.

“Some sick son of a bitch torched a newborn. Some other prick’s been slaughtering wildlife like it was mold under the sink. Two guys wasted themselves on a rock face while in the act of boosting the Colombian economy. And some poor bastard got his brains blown out, and his head and hands lobbed into a shithouse.”

My chest gave a series of tiny heaves.

“I don’t know, Ryan. Sometimes I think goodness and charity are racing toward extinction faster than the condor or the black rhino.”

Tears were now flowing.

“Greed and callousness are winning out, Ryan. Love and kindness and human compassion are becoming just a few more entries on the list of endangered species.”

Ryan pulled me close. Wrapping my arms around him, I wept on his chest.

The lovemaking was slower, gentler that night. Cellos and a triangle, not drums and a crash cymbal.

Afterward, Ryan stroked my hair as I lay with my cheek nestled in the hollow beneath his collarbone.

Drifting off, I felt Birdie hop onto the bed and curl behind me. The clock ticked softly. Ryan’s heart thudded with a peaceful, steady rhythm. Though perhaps not happy, I felt secure.

It was the last I’d feel safe for a long, long time.

14

I LOOKED AT THE CLOCK. FOUR TWENTY- THREE. BIRDIE WAS GONE.Ryan was snoring softly beside me.

I’d been dreaming about Tamela Banks. I lay there a minute, trying to reassemble fragmented images.

Gideon Banks. Geneva. Katy. A baby. A pit.

My dreams are usually a piece of cake. My mind takes recent events and weaves them into nocturnal mosaics. No subliminal puzzlers. No Freudian brainteasers.

So what the hell was this dream all about?

Guilt over my failure to return Geneva Banks’s call?

I’d tried.

Twice.

Guilt for not telling my daughter about Ryan?

Katy had met him when she dropped Boyd off.

Met him, yes.

Fear for Tamela? Sadness over her baby?

Then my mind was off and running.

Why was Tamela Banks’s driver’s license at a farm belonging to Sonny Pounder, a man recently busted for dealing drugs? Had Tamela gone there with Darryl Tyree? Did the cocaine belong to Tyree? To Pounder? Why had it been left in the basement?

Where was Tamela?

Where was Darryl Tyree?

A sudden terrible thought.

Could the victim in the privy be Tamela Banks? Had Darryl Tyree killed her out of fear she’d reveal what had happened to the baby? Out of anger that the child wasn’t his?

But that was impossible. The bones in the privy were devoid of flesh. Tamela’s baby was found only a week ago.