“Could you possibly say that I’m not here?” I asked.

“I could.” Prim.

“I’m a little under the weather today.”

“You look a bit peaked.”

“Perhaps you could suggest that I’ve left early?”

“I suppose you might.”

Grateful, I didn’t ask what she meant.

Returning to the Redmon report proved futile. I couldn’t concentrate sufficiently to string words into meaningful sentences. I needed to stick to tasks that were more concrete. Visual.

For lack of a better idea, I returned to the cooler, withdrew Jimmy Klapec’s vertebrae and the mutilated tissue that had been excised from his chest and belly and set them on the desk beside Susan Redmon’s bones. Then I got out the school portrait of Takeela Freeman and the mug shots of Jimmy Klapec and T-Bird Cuervo and added them to the assemblage.

I was staring at the sad little collection, hoping for some sort of epiphany, when Larabee entered my office without knocking. Crossing to the desk, he loomed over me.

“You look awful.”

“I think I’ve got the flu.”

I could feel Larabee studying my face. “Maybe something you ate.”

“Maybe,” I said.

Larabee knew my history. Knew I was lying. Wanting to hide the guilt and self-loathing, I kept my eyes down.

Larabee continued looming. He was very good at it.

“What’s all this?”

I told him about Susan Redmon.

Larabee picked up the jar and inspected the two hunks of Jimmy Klapec’s carved flesh.

“Slidell’s convinced this all ties together.” I swept a hand over the desk. “Crack this, he says, we’ll crack Rinaldi’s murder.”

“You’re not convinced?”

“He was working the cases.”

“Rinaldi was a cop.”

We both knew what he meant. Disgruntled drug lords. Vengeful inmates. Dissatisfied victims. Most do little beyond fantasizing the settling of perceived scores. A dangerous few take action.

Larabee swapped the excised specimens for the mug shot of T-Bird Cuervo.

“Who’s this guy?”

“Thomas Cuervo, an Ecuadoran santero who rented the Greenleaf property from Kenneth Roseboro. Went by T-Bird.”

“The house with the cauldrons and skulls in the basement?”

I nodded. “Trouble is, Cuervo’s vanished. Either no one knows or no one’s willing to say where he is.”

Larabee studied the mug shot a very long time. Then, “I know exactly where he is.”

24

LARABEE LED ME THROUGH THE COOLER INTO THE FREEZER, TO A gurney rolled to the far back wall. Unzipping the body bag, he revealed a very icy corpse.

“Meet Unknown 358- 08.”

I studied the face. Though blanched, distorted, and badly abraded, there was no question it belonged to T-Bird Cuervo.

“How long has he been in storage?”

Larabee consulted the tag. “August twenty-sixth.”

That definitely put Cuervo in the clear on Klapec and Rinaldi.

“Why didn’t I know this body was back here?”

“He arrived the day you left for Montreal. The case didn’t call for an anthro consult. By the time you returned, I’d put him on ice.”

And I’d had no reason to venture into the freezer.

“He’s your boy, right?”

I nodded, arms hugging my sides in the cold.

“Poor bastard took on a Lynx. Just south of the Bland Street Station.”

Larabee was referring to the brand-new light-rail arm of CATS, the Charlotte Area Transit System. A bit much with the Panthers and Bobcats, I know. But then, mass transit planners aren’t known for their subtlety.

“Cuervo was hit by a train?”

“Crushed his legs and pelvis. He carried no ID, and no one ever claimed him.”

“Did you run prints?” My teeth weren’t chattering, but they were thinking about it.

“Yeah, right. This guy was dragged almost fifty feet. Palms and fingers were raw meat.”

“How did it happen?”

“The driver thought he saw something on the track, threw his emergency brake and blew his horn, but couldn’t stop. Apparently a train going fifty-five miles per hour takes up to six hundred feet to come to a complete halt.”

“Ouch.” I was amazed Cuervo wasn’t in worse shape.

“The cross arms were lowered and the bells and lights were activated before the train approached the station. The driver had also blown his horn.”

“Was the driver tested?” I was amazed I hadn’t heard about this incident.

“Drug and alcohol clean.”

“Cuervo was alive when the train hit him?”

“Definitely.”

“And you had no reason to doubt that his death was an accident?”

“No. And his blood alcohol level was.08. Is the guy legal?”

“Cuervo held both U.S. and Ecuadoran citizenship.”

“Any family here?”

“Apparently not. He lived alone on Greenleaf, operated a shop called La Botánica Buena Salud off South Boulevard. The INS has no permanent address for him either here or in Ecuador.”

“Makes it tough to track next of kin.”

Larabee zipped the bag and we exited to the corridor.

Back in my office, I dialed Slidell.

“I’ll be a sonovabitch.”

“Yeah,” I agreed.

For a full thirty seconds, the only sounds I heard were phones ringing on Slidell’s end of the line.

“This morning I did some canvassing along that road leading to where Klapec was found. You’ll never guess what’s tucked away in those woods.”

“Why don’t you tell me.” Though the freezer had calmed my tremors and settled my stomach, already I was perspiring and my head was starting to rumble. I was not in the mood for Twenty Questions.

“A camp. I’m not talking Camp Sun in the Pines, you know, canoeing and hiking and ‘Kumbaya.’ I’m talking Camp Full Moon. As in witches and warlocks baying at it.”

“Wiccan?”

“Yep. And, according to the neighbors, who ain’t exactly thrilled with all the jujuism in their backyards, things were cooking the night before Klapec turned up.”

I started to ask what that meant, but Slidell kept on talking.

“Drumming, dancing, chanting.”

“The activity could be completely unrelated to Klapec.”

“Right. A friendly little wienie roast. I want to see Cuervo.”

“Come on down.”

Slidell hesitated a beat. Then, “And I want your take on something Eddie wrote.”

I’d barely hung up when my cell phone sounded.

Nine-one-nine area code.

Larke Tyrell.

My fragile gut clenched in anticipation of the upcoming conversation.

I’d just qualified for certification by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology when Tyrell was appointed the state’s chief medical examiner. We met through work I was doing for the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, reassembling and identifying two drug dealers murdered and dismembered by outlaw bikers.

I was one of Tyrell’s first hires as a consulting specialist, and though our relationship was generally congenial, over the years we’d had our differences. As a result, I’d learned that the chief could be cynical and exceedingly dictatorial.

I drank water from the glass at my elbow, then, carefully, clicked on.

“Dr. Brennan.”

“Tempe. Sorry to hear you’re not feeling shipshape.” Born in the lowcountry to a Marine Corps family, then a two-hitch marine himself before med school, Tyrell spoke like a military version of Andy Griffith.

“Thank you.”

“I’m concerned, Tempe.”

“It’s just a flu.”

“About your outburst with Boyce Lingo.”

“I’d like to explain-”

“Mr. Lingo is irate.”

“He’s always irate.”

“Do you have any idea the public image nightmare you’ve created?” Tyrell was fond of the rhetorical question. Assuming this was one, I said nothing.

“This office has an official spokesperson whose responsibility it is to interact with the media. I can’t have my staff airing their personal views on medical examiner cases.”

“Lingo foments fear so he can make himself look like a hero.”

“He’s a county commissioner.”