Kathy Reichs: Bare Bones

“Actually, I did. That road is a dead end, so it doesn’t get much traffic.” She pointed a finger at the dog, then at the ground. “Gary, get down.”

Gary?

“It was a Ford Explorer, black. Man at the wheel. Not very tall. Good hair. Sunglasses.”

“Black hair?”

“Lots of it.” She giggled. “My husband is bald. Balding, he’d say. I notice hair on men. Anyway, the Explorer was just parked there opposite Mrs. Cobb’s driveway. I didn’t recognize the car, but it had a South Carolina tag.”

The woman called to Gary. Gary dropped to the pavement, hopped back up against my side panel.

“Is Mrs. Cobb doing all right? I try, but I don’t get over to her place very often.”

“I’m sure she’d appreciate company,” I said, my thoughts on a black-haired stranger.

“Yeah.”

Tugging Gary from my door, the woman repositioned her headphones and resumed her jog.

I sat a moment, debating my next move. Talking myself down.

Lancaster and Columbia.

Short with black hair. Good black hair.

That described Wally Cagle’s coffee partner.

That described Palmer Cousins.

That described a million men in America.

Did it describe the Grim Reaper?

What the hell was going on?

Calm down.

I took a deep breath and tried Katy’s cell phone.

No answer. I left a message on her voice mail.

Lancaster and Columbia.

I phoned Lawrence Looper to check on Wally Cagle.

Answering machine. Message.

I phoned Dolores at the USC anthropology department.

Wonderful news. Wally Cagle was coming around. No, he was not yet coherent. No, he’d had no other visitors at the university.

I thanked her and hung up.

What would another trip to Columbia accomplish? Spook Looper? Spook Palmer Cousins? Locate Katy? Thoroughly piss off Katy for trying to locate her? Thoroughly piss off Skinny Slidell?

A trip to Lancaster?

Clover was halfway there.

Wouldn’t piss off Katy.

Skinny would get over it.

Cagle wasn’t coherent yet, anyway.

I headed south on 321, then east on 9, eyes constantly clicking to the rearview mirror. Twice I spotted what I thought were black Explorers. Twice I slowed. Twice the vehicles passed me. Though outwardly composed, the chill stayed with me.

Five miles out of Lancaster, I phoned Terry Woolsey at the sheriff ’s department.

“Detective Woolsey isn’t in today,” a man’s voice said.

“Can I call her at home?”

“Yes, ma’am, you can.”

“But you’re not allowed to give me the number.”

“No, ma’am, I’m not.”

Damn! Why hadn’t I gotten Woolsey’s home number?

I left Woolsey a message.

“How about a number for the county coroner?”

“That I can give you.” He did. “Mr. Park might be in.” He didn’t sound like he believed it. “If not, you could try him at his funeral home.”

I thanked him. Disconnecting, I spotted another black SUV. When I looked up from dialing the coroner’s office, the vehicle was gone. The chill intensified.

The operator was right. Park wasn’t in. I left my fourth message in ten minutes, then stopped at a gas station to ask directions to the funeral home.

The attendant conferred with his teenaged assistant, a lengthy discussion ensued, agreement was finally reached: Follow Highway 9 until it becomes West Meeting Street. Hang a right onto Memorial Park Drive, cross the tracks, hang another right about a quarter mile down, watch for the sign. If you pass the cemetery, you’ve gone too far.

Neither could remember the name of the road on which the funeral home was located.

Who needed Yahoo!? I had my own pair.

But their directions were accurate. Fifteen minutes and two turns later I spotted a wooden sign supported by two white pillars. Embossed white letters announced the Park Funeral Home and listed the services provided.

I turned in and followed a winding drive bordered by azaleas and boxwoods. Rounding my ninth or tenth curve, I spotted a gravel lot and a group of structures. I parked and surveyed the setup.

The Park Funeral Home was not a large operation. Its nerve center was a one-story brick affair with two wings and a central portion that stuck out in front, two sets of triple windows to either side of the main entrance, and a chimney on an asphalt tile roof above.

Behind the main building I could see a small brick chapel with a tiny steeple and double doors. Behind the chapel were two wooden structures, the larger probably a garage, the smaller probably a storage shed.

Ivy and periwinkle covered the ground around and between the buildings, and tangles of morning glories crawled up their foundations. Elms and live oaks kept the entire compound in perpetual shadow.

As I got out, the goose bumps did a curtain call. My mind made an addition to the services listed on the entrance sign. Funerals. Cremation. Grief support. Planning. Perpetual shadow.

Stop the melodrama, Brennan.

Good advice.

Nevertheless, the place creeped me out.

I walked to the large brick building and tried the door. Unlocked.

I let myself into a small foyer. White plastic letters on a gray board indicated the locations of reception, the arrangement room, the pall-bearers’ room, and parlors one and two.

Someone named Eldridge Maples was booked into parlor two.

I hesitated. Was “arrangement room” a euphemism for office? Was “reception” for the living? White plastic arrows indicated that both venues lay straight ahead.

I stepped through the foyer door into an ornately decorated hall with deep lavender carpet and pale rose walls. The doors and wood-work were glossy white, and white faux Corinthian columns, complete with rosettes and volutes at ceiling height, hugged the walls at intervals.

Or were they Doric? Didn’t Corinthian columns have capitals at the top? No, Corinthian columns had rosettes.

Stop!

Queen Anne sofas and love seats filled every inter-columnar space. Beside each, mahogany tables held silk flowers and Kleenex boxes.

Potted palms flanked closed double doors to my right and left. A grandfather clock stood sentry at the far end of the corridor, its slow, steady ticking the only sound in the crushing stillness.

“Hello?” I called out softly.

No one answered. No one appeared.

I tried again, slightly louder.

Gramps tocked on.

“Anyone here?”

It was my morning for ticking clocks.

I was considering “arrangements” versus “reception” when my cell phone shrilled. I jumped and then looked around, hoping my skittishness hadn’t been noticed. Seeing no one, I scurried out to the foyer, and clicked on.

“Yes,” I hissed.

“Yo.”

My eyes did a full orbital roll. Had the man never learned to say “hello”?

“Yes?” I hissed again.

“You in church or something?” Slidell sounded like he was working on one of his ubiquitous Snickers.

“Something.”

“Where the hell are you?”

“At a funeral. Why are you calling?”

There was a pause while Slidell mulled that over.

“Doc Larabee asked me to give you a shout. Said he had feedback from the Questioned Documents section, figured you’d want to know.”

For a moment my mind didn’t link over.

“The note you and Doc found in Aiker’s shorts?”

I didn’t bother to point out the note’s correct provenance.

“Doc said to tell you that you were right about Columbia,” Slidell said.

Irrationally, I turned my back to the hallway entrance, as though dead Mr. Maples might pose an eavesdropping threat.

“The writer of the note was going to Columbia?”

“Looks that way. QD guys used some sort of voodoo light, managed to bring out a few of the missing letters.”