Kathy Reichs - Bare Bones

To cool down I allowed Boyd to sniff the grounds at his pace. The chow trotted from bush to tree to flower bed, perfecting his sniffsquirt-and-cover routine, now and then stopping for more in-depth snuffling and peeing.

In keeping with my new fitness campaign, dinner consisted of a large salad, fresh produce courtesy of Andrew Ryan. Boyd had brown nuggets.

By ten I was starving. I’d just dug yogurt, carrots, and celery from the fridge when the phone rang.

“Still think I’m the most handsome, intelligent, and exciting man on the planet?”

“You’re dazzling, Ryan.”

The sound of his voice perked my spirits. Grinning like a kid, I took a bite of carrot.

“What are you eating?”

“Carrots.”

“Since when do you eat raw veggies?”

“Carrots are good for you.”

“Really?”

“Good for the eyes.”

“If carrots are so good for the eyes, how come I see so many dead rabbits on the road?”

“Is your niece OK?”

“Nothing’s OK. This kid and her mother make the Osbourne family look normal.”

“I’m sorry.”

“But it’s not hopeless. I think they’re listening. Shouldn’t be but a couple more days here. I’ve been thinking of putting in for a third week of vacation.”

“Oh?” My grin now sent sparkles into the air.

Boyd carried a mouthful of nuggets from his bowl and dropped them on my foot.

“I’ve got some unfinished business in Charlotte.”

“Really?” I shook my foot. The slimed-out nuggets slid to the floor. Boyd ate them.

“ Personal business.”

My stomach was too grossed out by the nuggets to flip. But it took notice of the comment.

“How’s Hooch?”

“He’s fine.”

“Any developments on the privy bones?”

I described my sortie to Columbia.

“ ¡Caramba! A road trip with Skinny.”

“The man is a Neanderthal.”

“See any dead rabbits?”

“The anthropology department secretary said Cagle had a visitor she didn’t know, short guy with dark hair. Looper also spotted Cagle with a stranger.”

“Same description?”

“Roughly. Though Looper emphasized the fact that the guy was gorgeous. Saw him as competition.”

“That happens to me a lot.”

“The secretary didn’t indicate Cagle’s visitor was particularly good-looking.”

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

“I think her eye might have picked that up.”

“The doctors are stumped about Cagle’s collapse?”

“Apparently.”

I told Ryan about my conversation with Terry Woolsey, and about the meeting scheduled for the following morning.

“She’s a detective, so I’m sure she’s legit.”

“We’re all sages and saints.”

“I have no idea what she wants.”

“An idea can be a dangerous thing.”

“It’s odd, Ryan.”

“It’s odd.”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“I know what I’d rather do to you.”

A stomach cartwheel.

“Have you received any more threatening e-mails?”

“No.”

“They still got stepped-up patrols past your place?”

“Yes. And past Lija’s town house.”

“Good.”

“I’m starting to think Dorton was behind the whole thing.”

“Why?”

“Ricky Don turns up dead, the e-mails stop.”

“Maybe. Maybe someone took Dorton out.”

“Thanks for the reassurance.”

“I want you to be careful.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.”

“You can be a real pain in the ass, Brennan.”

“I work at it.”

“Hooch getting enough attention?”

“We had a nice, long run this afternoon.”

“It was fifty-two degrees in Halifax today.”

“It was ninety-four degrees in Charlotte today.”

“Miss me, Miz Temperance?”

Here we go.

“Some.”

“Admit it, darlin’. This hombre is your dream come true.”

“You’ve stumbled upon my fantasy, Ryan. Men in chaps.”

“Happy trails.”

After disconnecting, I called Katy.

No answer.

I left a message.

Boyd, Birdie, and I watched the last few innings of a Braves-Cubs game. I finished the carrots, Boyd gnawed a rawhide bone, and Birdie lapped at the yogurt. At some point the two of them switched. Atlanta kicked ass.

Dog, cat, and Miz Temperance were down and out by eleven.

27

CHARLOTTE HAS MANY INSTITUTIONS DEVOTED TO THE PRESERVATIONand veneration of beauty. The Mint Museum of Art. Spirit Square. The McGill Rose Garden. Hooters.

The intersection of Morehead and Clarkson does not make that list. Though just a few blocks from the trendy, yuppie ghetto, this sliver of Third Ward has yet to experience a similar rebirth, and highway over-passes, aging warehouses, cracked pavements, and peeling billboards remain the overriding architectural theme.

No matter. Business booms at the Coffee Cup.

Every morning and noon black and white professionals, government workers, blue-collar laborers, lawyers, judges, bankers, and realtors are packed shoulder to elbow. It ain’t the ambience. It’s the cookin’—down-home food that will warm, then eventually stop your heart.

The Coffee Cup has been owned by a loosely affiliated group of black cooks for decades. Breakfast never changes: eggs, grits, fatback, deep-fried salmon patties, liver mush, and the usual bacon, ham, hot-cakes, and biscuits. At lunch the cooks are a bit more flexible. The day’s menu is posted on two or three blackboards: stew meat, pig’s feet, country steak, ribs, chicken that’s fried, baked, or served with dumplings. Vegetables include collard greens, pinto beans, cabbage, broccoli casserole, squash and onions, creamed potatoes, and black-eyed peas. At lunch there’s corn bread in addition to biscuits.

You’d never catch Jenny Craig or Fergie dining at the Cup.

I arrived at seven-fifty. The lot was overflowing, so I parked on the street.

Worming through those patrons waiting inside the door, I noticed that every table was full. I scanned the counter. Seven men. One woman. Tiny. Short brown hair. Heavy bangs. Fortyish.

I walked over and introduced myself. When Woolsey looked up, two turquoise and silver earrings swayed with the movement.

As we exchanged introductions, a place opened up two stools down. The intervening men shifted over. Patches over their pockets identified them as Gary and Calvin.

Thanking Gary and Calvin, I sat. A black woman moved toward me, pencil poised over pad. Screw the diet. I ordered fried eggs, biscuits, and a salmon patty.

Woolsey’s plate was empty save for a mound of grits topped by a lake of butter the size of Erie.

“Not fond of grits?” I asked.

“I keep trying,” she said.

The waitress returned, poured coffee into a thick white mug, and placed it in front of me. Then she held the pot over Woolsey’s cup, put a hand on one hip, and raised her brows. Woolsey nodded. The coffee flowed.

While I ate, Woolsey provided what background she deemed appropriate. She’d been a detective in Lancaster for seven years, before that, a uniform with the Pensacola, Florida, PD. Moved north for personal reasons. The personal reasons married someone else.

When I’d finished breakfast, we took coffee refills.

“Tell me the whole story,” Woolsey said, without preamble.

Sensing this was a woman who did not fancy equivocation, I did. Woodstove. Bears. Cessna. Privy. Cocaine. Macaw. Missing fish and wildlife service agents. Headless skeleton. Cagle report.

Woolsey alternated between sipping and stirring her coffee. She didn’t speak until I’d finished.

“So you think the skull and hands you found in the Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, privy go with the bones we found at the state park in Lancaster County, South Carolina.”