Fatal Voyage (30 page)

 Willow Lynette Gist: Daughter of Martha Rose Gist, Cherokee potter.

 Mother of Jeremiah Mitchell. Died of TB, 1930.

 Though he wasn’t in the dream, I made out a slip for Jeremiah
Mitchell.

 African American-Cherokee. Born 1929. Loner. Disappeared last
February.

 Ruby Mccready: Alive and well. Husband Enoch dead, 1986.

 Simon Midkiff: Doctorate from Oxford, 1955. Duke, 1955 to 1961.

 University of Tennessee, 1961 to 1968. Attended Tramper funeral in
1959. Knew Davenport (or was at least at the same funeral). Lied about working for
Department of Cultural Resources.

 When I’d finished I spread the slips on the table and studied them.
Then I began arranging them according to different criteria, starting with gender. The piles were
very lopsided, the smaller containing only Edna Farrell, Willow Lynette Gist, and Ruby Mccready.
I created a slip for Martha Rose Gist. Nothing seemed to connect the women.

 Next I tried race. Charlie Wayne Tramper and the Gist-Mitchell lineage
went into one pile, along with the coyote foot. I began a chart and drew a line between Jeremiah
Mitchell and the foot.

 Age. Again I was struck by the number of old people. Though Henry Arlen
Preston had managed to die in bed, appropriate, perhaps, for a distinguished judge, few others on
the list had had that luxury. Tucker Adams, seventy-two. Charlie Wayne Tramper, seventy-four.
Jeremiah Mitchell, seventy-two. I made out a slip for the missing fisherman, George Adair,
sixty-seven. All were old.

 The window was moving from black to pewter. I decided to sort by birth
dates. Nothing. I tried death dates.

 Judge Henry Arlen Preston passed away in 1943. According to his
tombstone, Tucker Adams also died in 1943. I remembered the feature article on Preston, the brief
inside report on Adams’s disappearance less than a week later. I placed their slips together.

 A.A. Birkby died in 1959. Charlie Wayne Tramper died in 1959. When was
the wreck in which Birkby died? May. The same month Charlie Wayne went missing.

 Oh?

 I paired the slips.

 Edna Farrell died in 1949. Hadn’t someone drowned just the day
before?

 Sheldon Brodie, professor of biology at Appalachian State
University.

 Brodie’s body was found. Farrelps wasn’t.

 I made a slip for Brodie and set it with the one for Edna Farrell.

 I stared at the three sets of paired slips. Was it a pattern? Someone
is killed or dies, within days another death occurs? Were people dying in pairs?

 I started a list of questions.

 Edna Farrell’s age?

 Earlier drowning. Strawberry pie. Age? Date?

 Tucker Adams’s cause of death?

 Jeremiah Mitchell, February. George Adair, September. Others?

 The room was the color of the rising sun, and I could hear bird sounds
through the closed window. A rectangle of light fell across the table, illuminating my questions
and scribbled notes.

 I stared at the paired slips, feeling there was something else.

 Something important. Something my subconscious had not had time to
place in the collage.

 Laslo was devouring biscuits and gravy when I arrived at the Everett
Street Diner. I ordered pecan pancakes, juice, and coffee. While we ate, he told me about the
conference he was going to attend at UNC-Asheville. I told him about Crowe’s inability to
obtain a search warrant.

 “So the good old boys are skeptical,” he said, nodding to the waitress
that he had finished.

 “And girls. The DA is a woman.”

 “Then this may not help.” .

 He pulled a paper from his briefcase and handed it to me. As I read,
the waitress refilled our cups. I looked up when I’d finished.

 “Basically the report agrees with what you told me on Monday at your
lab.”

 “Yes. Except for the part about the caproic and heptanoic acid
concentrations.”

 “The conclusion that they look unusually high.”

 “Yes.”

 “What does that mean?”

 “Elevated levels of the longer-chained VFAs usually mean the corpse has
been exposed to cold, or that it underwent a period of decreased insect and bacterial
activity.”

 “Does that alter your estimate of time since death?”

 “I still think decomposition began in late summer.”

 “Then what’s the significance?”

 “I’m not sure.”

 “Is this a common finding?”

 “Not really.”

 “Great. That will convert the disbelievers.”

 “Maybe this will be more helpful.”

 This time he took a small plastic vial from his briefcase.

 “I found this when filtering the rest of your soil sample.”

 The container held a tiny white chip, no larger than a grain of rice. I
unscrewed the cap, slid the object onto my palm, and studied it closely.

 “It’s a fragment of tooth root,” I said.

 “That’s what I thought, so I didn’t treat it with anything, just
brushed off the dirt.”

 “Holy shit.”

 “That’s what I thought.”

 “Did you take a peek under the scope?”

 “Yep.”

 “How does the pulp chamber look?”

 “Chock-full.”

 Laslo and I signed evidence transfer forms and I packed the vial and
report into my briefcase.

 “Could I ask you one last favor?”

 “Absolutely.”

 “If my car is ready, could you help me return the one I’m driving, then
take me to the shop where mine is being fixed?”

 “No problem.”

 When I called P & T an automotive miracle had occurred: The repairs
were complete. Laslo followed me to High Ridge House, delivered me to P & T, then went on to
his conference. After a brief discussion of pumps and hoses with one of the letters, I paid the
bill and slid behind the wheel.

 Before leaving P & T, I turned on my phone, scrolled through my
programmed numbers, and hit “dial.”

 “Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Crime Laboratory.”

 “Ron Gillman, please.”

 “Who’s calling, please?”

 “Tempe Brennan.”

 He came on in seconds.

 “The infamous Dr. Brennan.”

 “You’ve heard.”

 “Oh yes. Will we be printing and booking you here?”

 “Very funny.”

 “I suppose it’s not. I won’t even ask if there’s anything to it. Are
you getting things cleared up?”

 “I’m trying. I may need a favor.”

 “Shoot.”

 “I have a tooth fragment I want profiled for DNA. Then I want that
profile compared to one you’ve done on a bone sample from the Air Trans South crash. Can you do
that?”

 “I don’t see why not.”

 “How soon?”

 “Is this urgent?”

 “Very.”

 “I’ll put it on a fast track. When can you get the new sample to
me?”

 I looked at my watch.

 “Two o’clock.”

 “I’ll call over to the DNA section right now, smooth the way. See you
at two.”

 I turned the key and swung into traffic. There were a couple more
things I needed to do before leaving Bryson City.

 THIS TIME THE LILAC DRAGON WAS BY HERSELF.

 “Just need to check a couple of details on microfilm,” I said, beaming
my most winning smile.

 Her face did a menage a trois of emotions. Surprised. Suspicious.

 Stern.

 “It would be very, very helpful if I could take several reels at a
time.

 You were so kind about that yesterday.“

 Her face softened somewhat. Sighing loudly, she went to the cabinet,
removed six boxes, and placed them on the counter.

 “Thank you so much,” I purred.

 Crossing toward the overflow room, I heard a stool squeak, and knew she
was craning in my direction.

 “Cellular phones are strictly prohibited in the library!” she hissed to
my retreating back.

 Unlike my prior visit, I whipped through the spools, taking notes on
specific items.

 In less than an hour I had what I needed.

 Tommy Albright was not in, but a drawly female voice promised to
deliver my message. The pathologist rang back before I’d hit the outskirts of Bryson City.

 “In 1959 a Cherokee named Charlie Wayne Tramper died in a bear
attack.

 Would a file that old still exist?“

 “Maybe, maybe not. That was before we centralized. What do you need to
know?”

 “You remember the case?” I couldn’t believe it.

 “Hell, yes. I poked through what was left of that ole boy.”

 “Which was?”

 “I’ve seen my share of bear bait, but Tramper was the worst. Those
little bastards tore the bejeezus out of him. Carried his head clean off.”

 “The skull was not recovered?”

 “No.”

 “How did you ID him?”

 “Wife recognized the rifle and clothing.”

 I found the Reverend Luke Bowman gathering fallen branches in his
shadowy front yard. Save for the substitution of a black wind-breaker, he was dressed exactly as
on our previous meetings.

 Bowman watched me pull next to his pickup, added his armful to a pile
beside the drive, and approached my car. We spoke through the open window.

 “Good morning, Miss. Temperance.”

 “Good morning. Beautiful day for yard work.”

 “Yes, ma’am, it is.” Fragments of bark and dry leaves clung to his
jacket.

 “Could I ask you something, Reverend Mr. Bowman?”

 “Of course.”

 “How old was Edna Farrell when she died?”

 “I believe Sister Farrell was just shy of eighty.”

 “Do you remember a man named Tucker Adams?”

 His eyes narrowed, and the tip of his tongue slid across his upper
lip.

 “Adams was elderly, died in 1943,” I prompted.

 The tongue disappeared and a gnarled finger sighted on me. “I surely
do. I was ten years old when that old fellow wandered off from his farm. I helped search for
him. Brother Adams was blind and half deaf, so the whole community pitched in.”

 “How did Adams die?”

 “Everyone assumed he just died in the woods. We never found him.”

 “But his grave is in the cemetery on Schoolhouse Hill.”

 “No one’s buried there. Sister Adams put the headstone up a couple
years after her husband went missing.”

 “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.”

 “I see the boys got your car to running.”

 “Yes.”

 “Hope they didn’t charge too much.”

 “No, sir. It seemed fair.”

 I pulled into the sheriff’s department lot directly behind Lucy
Crowe.

 She parked her cruiser, then waited with hands on hips as I turned off
the engine and retrieved my briefcase. Her face looked drawn and cheerless.

 “Rough morning?”

 “Some morons stole a golf cart from the country club, left it a mile up
Conleys Creek Road. Two seven-year-olds found the thing and ran it into a tree. One’s got a
broken collarbone, the other a concussion.”

 “Teenagers?”

 “Probably.”

 We spoke as we walked.

 “Anything new on the Hobbs murder?”

 “One of my deputies was working security Sunday morning. He remembers
seeing Hobbs enter the morgue around eight, remembers you. The computer shows she checked the
foot out at nine-fifteen, back in at two.”

 “She kept it that long after talking to me?”

 “Apparently.”

 We climbed the steps and were buzzed through the outside door, then
again through a barred prison gate. I followed Crowe down a corridor and across an outer workroom
to her office.

 “Hobbs signed out of the morgue at three-ten. A guy from Bryson City PD
was working the afternoon shift. He doesn’t recall seeing her leave.”

 “What about the surveillance camera?”

 “This is beautiful.”

 Crowe undipped a radio from her belt, placed it on a cabinet, and
dropped into her chair. I took one of those opposite the desk.

 “The thing went out around two Sunday afternoon, stayed down until
eleven Monday morning.”

 “Did anyone see Primrose after she left the morgue?”

 “Nope.”

 “Did you discover anything in her room?”

 “The lady was fond of Post-its. Phone numbers. Times. Names. Lots of
notes, mostly work-related.”

 “Primrose was always losing her glasses, wore them on a cord around her
neck. She worried about being forgetful.” I felt a cold spot in my chest. “Any clue about her
destination Sunday afternoon?”

 “Not a word.”

 A deputy entered and placed a paper on the sheriff’s desk. She glanced
at it briefly, back to me.

 “I see your wheels are running again.”

 My Mazda was the talk of Swain County.

 “I’m heading down to Charlotte, but I want to show you a couple of
things before I go.”

 I handed her the purloined photo of the Tramper funeral.

 “Recognize anyone?”

 “I’ll be god damned. Parker Davenport, our venerable lieutenant
governor. The little twerp looks like he’s fifteen.” She returned the print. “What’s the
significance?”

 “I’m not sure.”

 Next, I handed her Laslo’s report, waited while she read.

 “So the DA was right.”

 “Or I was right.”

 “Oh?”

 “How about this scenario? Jeremiah Mitchell died after leaving the
Mighty High Tap last February. His body was stored in a freezer or refrigerator, removed, then
placed outside later.”

 “Why?” She tried to keep the skepticism out of her voice.

 I withdrew the notes I’d taken at the library, took a deep breath, and
began.

 “Henry Arlen Preston died here in 1943. Three days later a farmer named
Tucker Adams disappeared. He was seventy-two. Adams’s body was never found.”

 “What does that have to d ”

 I held up a hand.

 “In 1949 a biology professor named Sheldon Brodie drowned in the
Tuckasegee River. A day later Edna Farrell disappeared. She was around eighty. Her body was never
found.”

 Crowe picked up a pen, placed the tip on the blotter, and slid it end
over end through her fingers.

 “In 1959 Alien Birkby was killed in an automobile accident on Highway
19. Two days after the wreck Charlie Wayne Tramper disappeared. Tramper was seventy-four. His
body was recovered, but it was badly mangled, the head missing. The ID was strictly
circumstantial.”