Kathy Reichs - Flash and Bones

“There are just a few small points I don’t understand.” Slidell was doing Columbo.

“It’s late. Can’t we do this tomorrow?” The woman was nervous as hell. “I’ll come downtown or whatever you want.”

In the lot below, a car door slammed.

Nolan’s expression morphed to terror.

Footsteps ticked up the treads.

“Don’t come here!” Nolan called out. “Go back!”

Too late.

A man’s head appeared above floor level.

At first I wasn’t sure.

Then I was.

The man froze, then reversed and thundered down the stairs.

Slidell bolted after him.

I could only stare in confusion.

WITH HIS WEAK JAW AND LONG TEST-TUBE NOSE, TED RAINES did in fact resemble a bottlenose dolphin. Adding to the effect, at the moment his forehead and cheeks were shiny and gray.

Raines was slumped across Nolan’s sofa. Slidell stood glaring down at him, face sweaty and flushed. Both men were breathing hard.

Nolan and I were across the room in cheesy Kmart armchairs. She’d thrown a fuzzy blue robe over the naughty lingerie.

“What the fuck are you thinking?” No more Columbo. Slidell was furious.

Raines just kept panting.

“Do you know how many people are looking for you, you dumb shit?”

Raines’s head turtled down between his shoulders.

“Your wife’s got every cop shop in Dixie hunting your bony ass. BOLO dispatches are out in three states.” Slidell was so keyed up, he’d slipped into police code. Be On the LookOut.

“Stop harassing him.”

Slidell swiveled to face Nolan. “You got something to say?”

“Ted’s wife is not a nice person.”

“That so?”

“Ted needed some time out.”

“Time out?”

Slidell closed in on her with two angry strides. Nolan shrank back, as though fearful of a blow.

Across the room, Raines seemed to collapse inward even more.

“Time out? That what you call this?” Slidell flapped an angry arm between Nolan and Raines.

“You’re scaring me.”

“Be scared. Be very scared.”

“We haven’t done anything illegal.”

“Yeah? Well, you and lover boy are about to experience a busload of shit coming down on your heads.”

“We’re in love.”

“That’s so sweet I may puke.”

“It’s true.” Petulant. “Besides, we haven’t hurt anyone. Why are you being so mean?”

“Please don’t blame her.” Raines was still sucking air.

Slidell whipped around. “She thinks I’m mean? I’ll tell you what’s mean, you worthless piece of shit. Disappearing without a bump in your thoughts to enjoy a little poontang with Miss Sex Kitten Slut over here. Letting your wife and kid wonder if you’re dead in a ditch, and letting a hundred police officers spend time searching for you.”

“You can’t talk to us like that.” Nolan’s fingers were twisting her robe sash so tightly the knuckles bulged white.

“Ever hear of alienation of affectation? Maybe we should all query Mrs. Raines. See if she thinks anyone’s been hurt.”

I cringed at Slidell’s mangling of the legal term, but said nothing.

“Ted’s going to ask for a divorce,” Nolan said. “Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”

Raines now looked like jelly on the couch.

“Ted?”

Raines’s gaze remained pointed at his knees. Slidell charged back across the room and jabbed a finger at him.

“While you’re here sharpening your Captain Winkie skills, you don’t give a flying fuck what kind of shitstorm you might be causing?”

Slidell’s face was now the color of claret. I thought it best to lower the intensity.

“Just for the record. How did you two hook up?”

Perhaps seeing it as safer ground than the topic of litigation, Nolan fielded my question.

“Ted’s a research assistant on a project that studies how poisons get blown around by air. The company I work for does sort of the same thing. You know. You were there.”

I nodded.

“Last January CRRI sent me to work the exhibit booth at a conference in Atlanta. Ted was there with his team. We met in the hotel bar.”

“And fell in lust.” Slidell’s voice was thick with disgust.

“It’s more than that.”

“Touching.”

“Where’s your husband?” I asked.

“Afghanistan.”

“We’ll order a medal to hang in your window,” Slidell snarled.

Nolan crossed her arms on her chest and puffed air through her nose, a look of blank insolence on her face.

“OK, lover boy.” Slidell finger-flicked the top of Raines’s head. “Let’s talk poison.”

Raines looked up, features gathered in a look of puzzlement.

“Let me tell you a little story.” Slidell had regained his breath, and his tone was now dangerously calm. “Two bodies turn up at a morgue. One tests positive for ricin. The other’s got abrin on board. As we both know, your average Joe can’t lay his hands on stuff like that.”

Raines’s eyes narrowed in uncertainty. Or perhaps he was considering answers to create the best possible spin.

“Fast-forward. A guy’s in the wind. Gets busted. Turns out this guy has access to abrin and ricin. You see where I’m going, Ted?”

“What are you saying?”

“I hear you’ve got a real interesting part-time job.”

“What does that have—”

“That’s a mighty big coincidence. You working with biotoxins.”

“You’re suggesting I killed someone?”

Slidell just looked at him.

“That’s insane.”

“Is it?”

“Who are these dead people?”

“Eli Hand and Wayne Gamble.”

Beside me, I heard a sharp intake of breath.

“I don’t know either of them. Why would I poison total strangers?”

“You tell me.”

“The substances I work with are strictly controlled. You can’t just waltz out of the lab with a jar in your pocket. Every gram of powder, every fricking red seed has to be accounted for.” Raines’s voice was taking on an edge of alarm. “Call my supervisor.”

“I’ll do that.”

“Do I need a lawyer?”

“Do you?” Slidell asked.

“I didn’t do anything!” Shrill.

“Why are you in Charlotte?”

Raines’s eyes bounced from Slidell to Nolan and back. He answered with a nervous snigger, conspiratorial, guy to guy. “Look, man. I was just getting a little on the side.”

“Bastard!”

I eased Nolan back into her chair.

“Your girlfriend knew Wayne Gamble.” Slidell kept his eyes on Raines as he spoke to Nolan. “Didn’t you, Mrs. Nolan?”

“What?”

“You gonna tell him? Or should I?”

“I knew his sister. Like, centuries ago. Wayne was just a kid.”

“Sweet God in heaven.” Raines flopped back like a rag doll, hands covering his face.

Slidell peeled his glare from Raines and turned it on Nolan. “You aware Gamble’s dead?”

“While Ted was getting a little ….”—she spat the phrase at Raines—“we weren’t exactly keeping up with the news.”

“You don’t look real upset.”

“I haven’t seen Wayne Gamble since he was twelve years old.”

“Tell me what you overheard at the Double Shot.”

Slidell’s change of direction seemed to confuse her.

“I already did.”

“Tell me more.”

“Like what?”

“Describe the guy that was talking to Cale Lovette.”

“Kind of tall and thin. Old.”

“How old?”

Nolan shrugged. “Probably not as old as you. It was hard to tell because he was wearing a hat.”

“What kind of hat?”