Kathy Reichs - Flash and Bones

My brain reengaged. “At the Charlotte Motor Speedway?”

“Knew you’d ask, so I gave a call out there. The track has some pretty steep banking. What with the sun and cars screaming around the curves, the asphalt can heat up, go liquid, and sink right down. They use Rosphalt to provide better holding power.”

“I’ll be damned. So the asphalt in the barrel probably came from the Speedway.”

“Seems logical to me. The track’s right there.”

“Thanks, Joe.”

I disconnected and told Slidell. “The Rosphalt connects the landfill John Doe to the track.” I was totally pumped.

“Whaddya saying? The victim was killed at the Speedway, stuffed in a barrel, sealed in, and dumped at the landfill?”

“Why not? Thirty-five-gallon oil cans are common at speed-ways.”

While Slidell was gnawing on that theory, my phone sounded again. This time it was Larabee.

“These assholes have gone too far!”

“Which assholes?”

“They won’t get away with this.”

“Get away with what?”

“The goddamn FBI torched our John Doe!”

THE BUZZING IN MY PHONE WAS SO AGITATED THAT SLIDELL kept glancing my way. Again and again I gestured his eyes back to the road.

Peppered with expletives, the story came out.

Through multiple calls, many threats, and the intervention of the chief ME in Chapel Hill, Larabee had finally pried loose information on the whereabouts of MCME 227-11. Since the presence of ricin suggested the possibility of bioterrorism, the landfill John Doe had been confiscated under a provision of the Patriot Act and taken to a lab in Atlanta. There the body had been re-autopsied and new samples collected.

Far from standard protocol but understandable.

Then the bombshell.

Due to an unfortunate combination of circumstances, including a mix-up in paperwork, understaffing, and an error on the part of an inexperienced tech, instead of back to the cooler, the landfill John Doe had accidentally been sent for cremation.

Larabee was livid. Before disconnecting, he threatened complaints to the governor, the Department of Justice, the director of the FBI, the secretary of Homeland Security, the White House, maybe the pope.

I decided it was a bad time to mention the Rosphalt.

As Slidell maneuvered through rush-hour traffic, I told him about the fate of the John Doe.

“That smell right to you?” I asked.

“As right as a barrel of week-old fish.”

Slidell said nothing further until we were parked beside my car at the MCME. Then he grasped the wheel and rotated toward me. “What’s your take, Doc?”

I ticked off points on my fingers.

“A couple vanishes in 1998. Family and associates disagree with a task force finding that the two left voluntarily. The missing couple has ties to and is last seen at a motor speedway. Years later a body turns up in a barrel of asphalt. That barrel is discovered in a landfill adjacent to said speedway, in a sector and layer dating from the late nineties to 2005.”

I moved to my other hand.

“The asphalt in the barrel contains an additive commonly used at speedways. An autopsy finds that the body is contaminated with ricin, a poison once favored by anti-government extremists. The male member of the missing couple belonged to a right-wing militia. When the ricin is reported to the FBI, the body is confiscated and destroyed.”

Slidell was silent for so long, I was certain he was about to blow me off. He didn’t.

“You’re thinking the landfill John Doe is connected to the Gamble-Lovette disappearance?”

I nodded.

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who was the stiff?”

“I don’t know.”

“Lovette?”

“The age indicators are off, but I can’t rule him out.”

“What about this guy Raines from Atlanta?”

“The barrel looked way too old. And the sector it came from doesn’t fit with a recent body dump.”

“But your voice is telling me you can’t rule him out, either.”

“No. I can’t.”

Again Slidell went quiet. Then, “Maybe Cindi Gamble’s baby brother isn’t crackers after all.”

“About a cover-up back in ’ninety-eight?”

Slidell ran a hand over his jaw. Did it again. Then, “Those fucking suits picked the wrong cop to screw with.”

“What do you propose?”

“First off, another heart-to-heart with your NASCAR buddy.”

I was approaching my kitchen door, lugging a Harris Teeter bag, when a silver Rx-8 turned in to the circle drive at Sharon Hall. Thinking it was probably my ex, and not thrilled with the prospect of another go-round concerning Summer, I paused.

The Mazda looped the front of the manor house and headed toward me. As it neared, I could see the driver’s head in silhouette. Oddly pear-shaped, its crown barely cleared the wheel.

Definitely not Pete.

Curious and a little wary, I watched the car pull to the same piece of curb occupied by Williams and Randall on Saturday.

The man who got out had a pompadour that brought his height to maybe five-four. Grecian Formula had turned the do a dead-lemur brown.

The man’s clothes looked expensive. Ice-green silk shirt. Tommy Bahama linen pants. Softer-than-a-newborn’s-bum leather loafers. Armani sunglasses perched on a hawklike nose.

“Good evening, Dr. Brennan.” The man proffered a hand sporting a sapphire the size of Birdie’s paw. “J. D. Danner.”

“Do I know you, sir?”

“Word is you know of me.” Despite the smile, Danner had a hostile, intimidating air.

Ping.

“You were an associate of Cale Lovette. A member of the Patriot Posse.”

“I was commander of the posse, ma’am.”

I adjusted my grip on the groceries.

Danner took a step toward me. “May I help with that?”

“No. Thank you.”

Two palms came up. “Just offering assistance.”

“Do you have information about Cale Lovette or Cindi Gamble?”

“No, ma’am. Nice kids. I hope they found what they were looking for.”

“And what was that?”

“Life. Liberty. Happiness. Isn’t that what we’re all seeking?”

“What can I do for you, Mr. Danner?”

“Get off our backs.”

“Meaning?”

“The Patriot Posse took Cale Lovette under its wing. Provided support. Guidance. A family. When he vanished, we were the first ones in the crosshairs.” Again the insincere smile. “The posse had nothing to do with whatever happened to Lovette and his girlfriend.”

“Why would Lovette need the posse’s support?”

“The kid was floundering. High school dropout. Dead-end job. Estranged father. Loony-tune mother.”

That was the first I’d heard of Lovette’s home life.

“Making him easy prey for your conspiratorial anti-American ideology,” I said.

Danner crossed his arms and spread his feet. Which were small, like the rest of him. An image of Napoleon popped in my brain.

“Back then we were undisciplined, perhaps naive in many ways. But we were far from anti-American.”

“Were?”

“The Patriot Posse disbanded in 2002.”

“What was the group’s purpose?”

“The posse functioned as an unorganized militia.”

Typical right-wing fascist-speak. In federal and state law, the term “unorganized militia” refers to the nominal manpower pool created a century ago when federal law formally abandoned compulsory militia service.

“I prefer the army, navy, air force, and marines,” I said.

“The Patriot Posse was, like other organizations of its kind, equivalent to the statutory militia. It was a legal, constitutional arm of the government. But the posse was not controlled by the government.” A diminutive finger wagged back and forth in the air. “That’s the difference. The posse existed to oppose the government should it become tyrannical.”